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aoitrinity · 4 years ago

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The “Me Too”

DISCLAIMER: I am about to put forth further speculation about a major Destiel-related event from this season, specifically the confession scene in 15x18. This is 100% pure speculation and I do not claim to have any insider knowledge AT ALL. If you are not in a place to read such things, please go take care of yourself instead of reading this. Do not cause yourself any additional pain.

If you are here to be an asshole and call me delusional...uh...I mean, go for it, but like I really don’t get what that’s doing to make your life better? If shitting on people’s desire for understanding a TV show brings you joy then uh...that says more about you than it does about me?

With that out of the way...read below the cut for my theory about the “me too” line.

I know I just unloaded my theory about the finale on all of you the other day, and that I should probably give you all a break in between my bouts of theory-dumping, but I had to get this out here tonight.

If you somehow haven’t seen it yet these last few (painfully exhausting) days, there is a rumor going around of a cut in episode 15x18 of a specific line--a “me too” that Jensen supposedly recorded during the 15x18 sequence, which would have given us all textual validation not only that Cas is in love with Dean, but that Dean is in love with Cas. Various people have been trying to confirm or deny this rumor since it surfaced. We all figured it would have happened during the final scene, with Dean crying, alone. It would have been there in place of the crying, and we hypothesized that Jensen had to dub it over with AMR of his sobs. It was an interesting thought, but we had no real proof it ever happened. I, for my part, started to assume it was entirely false.

But then tonight, on the Latin American CW, we apparently discovered that in the Spanish-language dub of 15x18, they had taken Dean’s last line to Cas, “Don’t do this Cas,” and dubbed it as “yo a ti”--translated to “me too,” seemingly confirming to us that the line did exist!

I watched the clip of the dub excitedly, hoping for some secret new shot that we had been robbed of in the original episode, but the “me too” was simply dubbed over Dean’s line of “Don’t do this Cas,” which is definitely something Dean very clearly said in the original recording. That wasn’t a dub, Jensen said that line.

So what gives? Where the heck did the “me too” come from?

Well, as apparently I am wont to do recently...I talked @winchester-reload‘s ear off and was eventually hit with a stroke of realization.

I don’t think the “me too” went in the crying scene. I think Dean said it to Cas’s face, and we were robbed of it.

Before I go any further, I want to again remind you that this is PURE SPECULATION. PLEASE JUDGE FOR YOURSELF AND ALWAYS BE SKEPTICAL.

So.

The original end of the scene runs as follows:

Dean: Why does this sound like a goodbye?

Cas: Because it is. I love you.

Dean: Don’t do this, Cas.

*a longing exchange of looks, with Cas smiling through his tears even more broadly than he was earlier*

*the Empty appears and Dean starts to panic*

Cas: Goodbye Dean.

*Cas throws Dean out the way, smiles at him one last time, and is taken*

Now that always struck me as a sort of weird exchange because...I mean, Dean can tell Cas not to “do this,” but whatever he was going to do that would get his ass taken by the Empty, he had clearly already done. But I originally handwaved it as Dean begging Cas not to go and leave him again by dying, even though it was too late, because I was too entranced with the beauty of the scene and of the performances to imagine anything otherwise.

However, after this Spanish-language dub story broke this evening, I started to wonder if the exchange had initially gone a little bit differently.

What if the “don’t do this, Cas” was pulled from earlier in the scene?

I would have originally imagined that it actually went between the “Because it is” and the “I love you,” but in the leaked shots of script we got a few days ago, there doesn’t seem to be any line there--Cas goes straight from his “because it is” to the “I love you.” Thus I conclude one of two things: either the line it was adlibbed or added by Jensen on the spot, between the “because it is” and the “I love you,” or it was dialogue that originally came earlier in the scene.

Either way, what matters is that I think that line, “Don’t do this, Cas,” was moved to after Cas’s “I love you” in the final cut and replaced the “me too.” I think the initial episode probably followed the Latin American dub instead, and went like this (with the one line inserted where I feel it best fits, though again, it could have come from earlier):

Dean: Why does this sound like a goodbye?

Cas: Because it is.

(Dean: Don’t do this, Cas)

Cas: I love you.

Dean: ...me too.

*a longing exchange of looks, with Cas smiling through his tears even more broadly than he was earlier*

*the Empty appears and Dean starts to panic*

Cas: Goodbye Dean.

*Cas throws Dean out the way, smiles at him one last time, and is taken*

Well.

Doesn’t that all hit a bit differently now? Doesn’t it now make sense why, after Dean’s line, Cas starts smiling more broadly than he was during the entire rest of the scene? Doesn’t it make sense now that when Dean turns to look back at the Empty emerging, there are way more tears in his eyes than there were in the prior shot? Doesn’t Dean’s body language line up better between shots if we read it this way? Doesn’t it make Cas’s sacrifice hurt both more and less at the same time, because he could go to the Empty knowing he was loved in return? That he had the one thing he wanted most?

To me, at least, it does.

Unfortunately, I think that, similar to what I speculate happened with the finale...they were told by the network that they had to cut Dean’s reciprocation because the CW panicked about coming off as too gay at the last moment. You can read all about that in my other post.

Anyway, here’s more food for thought. Remember @oceaxe-ifdawn’s post about how she had spoken with a cast member about how the script for the finale was being frantically rewritten in March, the weekend after they finished shooting for 15x18? Why would they suddenly have to start tossing out their own ending in MARCH? TWO WEEKS before they were supposed to start filming the finale?

What if it was because that was the moment when the network started to pivot? If their contacts on set told them how very beautifully homosexually gay the scene was, and that was the moment that the CW decided that they couldn’t risk losing a very specific (conservative, heterosexual) part of their fanbase and needed to start toning down the gay before it got out of hand? And since they couldn’t obviously go back and reshoot anything for 15x18, given everyone then immediately went into quarantine for COVID, they had to remove Dean’s reciprocation from the script and replace it with another, earlier shot, that could have FEASIBLY gone in its place. But they couldn’t take Cas’s confession because it was entirely necessary to the whole plot of the season (and that, I think, was a fucking genius move by the writers to at least get us this much--god bless you, Bobo).

And this way, the CW could actually have their cake and eat it too--they could claim they were still being accepting of queer people (look, we let Cas confess his affection for Dean!) while avoiding the potential loss of their favorite cishet male audience (whom they really want to transition to Walker after all of this is over because MONEY) that they might suffer if that audience discovered that one of their two “traditionally masculine” lead characters was in love with another man this whole time.

The only reason they didn’t carry it all off is that, when they needed to send the script over to the Spanish-language dubbers for recording, there was some sort of screw-up. They somehow forgot to have the dialogue swapped out back in March and the lines were never replaced in the dub script.

And that is how we got the “me too” line from Dean in Latin America tonight, a line that we had heard rumors existed, but had no actual evidence of... until now.

I’m sorry to have pulled you guys into this theory with me, but... It just lines up too perfectly. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, yes, but sometimes that cigar is actually a dick. A big, beautiful, gay dick that your stupid homophobic TV network executives are censoring because they are afraid of the reactions of their more conservative viewership.

On the plus side, I think that this more than ever confirms that Destiel is and was always canon. Textually. Reciprocally. 110%.

And the CW fucking robbed us of it.

#supernatural season 15 #spn finale #destiel #destielgate #speculation #fuck the cw #trust the story #we were robbed #i hate that I keep having to sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist in order to make sense of what happened #god forbid they had just KEPT TO THE FUCKING PLAN THE WRITERS HAD SO BEAUTIFULLY SCRIPTED #that would have made too much fucking sense #and been too beautiful #and too perfect #no #we had to have some fucking executive fuckery #i hate it here

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darklingichor · 4 years ago

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The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton *Major Spoilers*

I did not plan to revisit this one because I still have it mostly memorized from when I read it over and over as a teenager.

I loved this book so much, even though my life was worlds away from Ponyboy's, I related to him.

This is probably the most influential book I've ever read. I found out it was written when S.E. Hinton was a teen and I thought "Maybe I can do it too."

I soon found that I was far too sensitive to let people read what I wrote, I couldn't get around the idea of pouring part of myself into something and having someone tell me it sucks.

Now, I realize that's pretty rich considering this blog, but I couldn't do it as a kid and even now it feels a little like saying "please judge my spleen for your liking. If it is found lacking, by all means throw it in the shredder. Fear not, I will feel every cut."

This is why very few people have ever read my fiction.

That's also why, with a couple of exceptions I try to be very respectful of every book I read.

Anyway, what made me return to The Outsiders was that I discovered that there was a 50th anniversary edition. This hardcover has extras, my finger was hitting buy before I even registered it.

So, reread it for the first time in a long time.

I sank into the sweet nostalgia of the story. Reading this book is like sliding on a well worn pair of jeans. This book introduced me to Robert Frost.

I taught myself to type using the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" because I had it memorized and would never get tired of it.

I still love the friendships and family bonds presented in the story. I still got a knot in my throat when Johnny died and Dally lost everything. I cried when Ponyboy found Johnny's letter. By God, but I still love this book.

I did notice that some things hit differently now than they did even when I read it once in my 20's.

The first thing I noticed is akin to when you watch The Little Mermaid as an adult and Arial says that she's sixteen and not a kid

and you laugh out loud because, girl, you are a zygote, shush!

When Cherry says to Ponyboy, she could fall in love with Dallas Winston so she hopes she never sees him m again. When I was a kid reading this,familar with The Breakfast Club, Grease, etc, this seemed like a natural statement.

Now? My first thought was "Oh honey, you're more screwed up than I remembered." Because from their first interaction, Cherry would fall in love with a catcalling construction worker.

Ponyboy says that Dallas said something "Really filthy". In the movie, he asks Cherry howhe was suppose to know if her hair was really red, like her eyebrows were. A roundabout way of asking if the carpet matches the drapes. Bad enough and in the context of the 1960's that might have been dirty enough to be censored from the orginal manuscript, but I always imagined it was worse than that.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, after all, Dally wasn't so much a step up or down from Bob, as a step to the side.

Honestly when I was fourteen and reading this for the first time, I didn't think much of Cherry, I thought she was fake, and very stupid. She was older than me, but I knew it was massively fucked up not to admit she dated a bad guy.

I see her as sad now, and she's a much darker character She's painted as someone with integrity, someone with principles.

She wouldn't take a Coke from Dally.

She tells Bob that it's her or the booze.

Won't take a pop from a hood, threatens to break it off with her boyfriend if he continues to drink. Okay, understandable.

Realize he beat the tar out of, and pschologically scarred a kid for kicks?

He was sweet sometimes.

What?

He was something special.

She says to the kid he and his friends attempted to murder.

"He wasn't just any boy."

Right you are, Cherry. Incidentally, did you have any pets disappear while you dated him?

She's a mixed up girl.

I had many a head cannon for the characters in this book when I first read it.

I thought Ponyboy would grow up to be a writer, Darryl would open his own roofing business, Soda and Steve would work for him while fixing cars on the side. Two-Bit would work with them when he felt like it, or he would end up hitching to California to be a stand-up comic.

I thought Cherry would end up married to someone who worked for her father, who I imagined was a lawyer.

After this read through? I adjusted that future.

We met Randy again in That was Then, This Is Now. He's a hippie, which makes perfect sense. I see Cherry running off to Haight Ashbury. I don't get farther than losing sight of her red hair on a crowded, sunny sidewalk, but I get the same spooky vibe I always got after reading Rumble Fish.

Something else that hit differently, the relationships between the boys.

It hit differently for me because I know now why I love it so much.

I remember being in a major reading slump before I picked up this book. See, I couldn't get into the books that were marketed to me. I wasn't in to RL Stine, except for the history of Fear Street books. I couldn't get into Christopher Pike at all.

I was reading mysteries and westerns, but I really wanted something that had people my age in it that wasn't a romance or sick lit. I'd read enough of those, and I thought that if I read one more book where boy meets girl then one of them croaks I would scream.

So I went to my mom's bookshelf, and found her copy.

I really loved that the real connections that are focused on, are between friends and family. These connections were not treated as being less than a romantic relationship. In fact, just the opposite, the gang see each other as their cement relationships. Soda and his girlfriend Sandy break up, he's hurt and it adds to an already rough time, but it is not a focus.

I suppose it could be argued that the reason for the lack of focus on romance has to do with the fact that Pony states that he's not thinking of it yet. But seeing how all of the gang look out for each other from Darryl keeping the Curtis's door unlocked in case one of the boys needed a place to crash, to everyone looking out for Johnny, to Johnny staying with Pony when he was upset after his fight with Darry, and looking out for him when they were in hiding, to Dallas helping them find a place to go after Bob was killed, to Pony sticking by Johnny after the killing, to Two-Bit sticking up for Johnny when his mother came to the hospital and how broken up he was when Ponyboy got sick, and finally how one of Johnny's last acts was to write Ponyboy a letter that he hoped would help both Pony and Dallas.

These are not friendships that end when everyone starts dating.

This seems like a "duh" statement, but you have to think, so many things show friendships as training wheels. Something you use until you reach the next level and find a romantic partner. And, maybe this was just my small town, but that was very much the way things went around me, it was expected.

It was great to read a book about kids around my age who didn't see friendships as inferior to romantic relationships.

Now, knowing that I'm Aro Ace, I think I liked it because it spoke to what I thought was important without making it seem like something I needed to grow out of.

The extras were cool, letters between the author and the editors when the book was in the works, letters from the actors who played Pony, Johnny, Soda, Dallas, and Randy.

It was interesting to read the actors' feelings about characters they played so early in their careers. I was half hoping Matt Dillon would apologize for choking on, and embodying that gigantic piece of ham during the death scene, but one can't get everything in life.

I could read the other SE Hinton books, and talk about the connections between them, but I will likely skip That was Then, This is Now and Rumble Fish.

See, I didn't like That Was Then This Is Now very much when I first read it. A big reason? I didn't like Bryon. There was just something about the character that rubbed me the wrong way.

He's... I don't know... he's like Two-Bit without the charm. Plus, Ponyboy is featured, but Bryon hates him. It seems out of jelousy because of all the stuff that had happened in The Outsiders. And he hates him even more *because* he's quiet about it. I get distancing the last book from the next and that was an effective way of doing it, but when I was younger it just made me not like the character all the more.

I've read it a few times since I was younger, wondering if it would improve as I aged. It didn't.

Bryon is still mostly unlikeable. Plus, I grew up in the Frying an Egg, Diving into an Empty Swimming Pool, DARE, era of drug awareness. The whole book felt like a PG-13 version of The Buttercream Gang. Now that I have sufficiently aged myself...

Rumble Fish, I loved, but like I said, it's an unsettling story and one that left me oddly unsatisfied.

I really enjoyed the next two, Tex and Taming the Star Runner so I may revisit those.

#books #book #s.e. hinton #the outsiders #spoilers #revisit 5 #Book blogging 2021 #revisit

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loominggaia · 4 years ago

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“Okay New York Anon here. I’m really sorry about this chapter and regret writing it, the way i did. Thinking about it post production I’m realizing I made it come off as transphobic and tasteless. Angry guy was supposed to be a parody of the stereotypical sjw you’d see in a cringe comp violently going off on people for accidentally being mis gendered. Sorry if this train wreak of a chapter offends anyone.”

Anon, I’m so honored that you would spend the time to write fanfiction about my series. Not everyone is a perfect writer (I’m sure not), and personally I don’t believe that every piece of writing has to “set a good example” when it comes to politics and morality. The Looming Gaia series is for ages 18+, not preschoolers. I think adults have the mental capacity to differentiate between right and wrong and form their own opinions when they’re reading something (at least I hope they do), so I’m going to go ahead and post your story.

But I also care about my followers’ well-beings, so I’m going to compromise and: 1) Put this chapter under a cut so they don’t have to see it if they don’t want to. 2) Put a content warning ahead of it so they can decide if it’s worth the risk.

If anyone proceeds from here and gets offended, that’s 100% their own fault. I care a lot about writing an inclusive series that doesn’t alienate anyone based on race, gender, sexuality, and so on. At the same time, I’m hugely against censorship, so I always welcome fan content even if it’s off-color or I don’t personally agree with what it’s trying to say (barring anything illegal or blatantly hateful towards any group; i.e. glorification of pedophilia or abuse, calls to real-world violence, supporting real-world hate groups, etc. I will never accept that kind of content. If anyone comes in here praising nazi ideaologies or calling for action against LGBT folks, they can fuck right off.)

Readers, you’ve been thoroughly warned.

You can read the other parts here.

CONTENT WARNINGS: This fan content contains scenes of captivity, mental hospitals, depictions of violence, off-color depiction of a transgender individual, and (censored) racial slurs. While reading this, I personally didn’t get the impression that Anon meant any harm. It comes off as goofy, edgy, over-the-top satire to me, like something you’d see in an episode of South Park. Use your best judgement and proceed at your own risk.

(content under cut)

The crew had squatted in an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city that night. They already knew that only humans existed in this world and the reaction that lady had to seeing Elska only compounded the need for stealth. Their only plan right now being find Evan and get back to Gaia. That morning the crew split up, Alaine and Lukus where to continue searching for Evan, Issac and Jeimos where to go shopping, Elska would search the outskirts out of sight and Zeffer would search at night.

Evan was not mad at doctors for keeping him hear. He knew they where just doing their jobs and where concerned for him, since magic, elves and werewolves where fictional to them he understood he looked like a crazy person to them. That didn’t take away from how annoying it was to be trapped here in this stupid hospital. Knowing his crew was out their somewhere he knew he needed to leave and contact them somehow, he needed a escape plan.

He had two plans so far, plan A was to butter up the therapist into letting him go. Behave himself, take his meds, admit Gaia’s not real and say he’s feeling better. Hoping that upon seeing this drastic improvement the therapist will approve his release and he can finally go out and find his friends. Plan B was in case plan A failed. He would bust himself out of here and go on the run. He really didn’t want to hurt anybody, just slip out unnoticed, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy.

Issac and Jeimos wandered around the city streets aimlessly in absolute awe of the sights and sounds all around them. Jeimos was getting more unnerved by not being capable of feeling any magic in their surroundings and was starting to wonder if it was just all the iron nearby or something more? Not being able to read any of the signs around them made trying to find a store to stock up on supplies difficult. Finding a food place with golden arch’s they go their as their first stop.

The pair enter this strange restaurant, the place smelling of grease and fry oil. Theirs quite the line so they just wait, taking a look around and absorbing the experience. They see a lot of interesting people and things from pictures of a clown holding a burger, groups of people on strange devices and messy families eating, an extremely obese man the two mistook for a troll horking down a massive pile of greasy food. Kids running in and out of a indoor jungle gym. This place had it all.

They waited their turn almost at the register, waiting behind a mother and her kids who kept changing her order every three seconds and trying to corral her kids. The cashier, a young man around issacs age but with a tired, dead look in his eyes that made him look as if he’s seen a war zone rang the lady up and ushers our pair to the register, asking in a flat, apathetic voice what they would like to order. Neither of them can read the electronic menu so using the numbers and pictures they order

The disgruntled cashier rang them up, totaling their order up to over $55! Him not being pleased by Jeimos’s constant questions and issac playfully asking for a kids toy. They try to pay, placing some gold coins on the counter. The cashier just looks at the coins then back to them, and, in an even more annoyed voice, told them they only take usd, not foreign currency. Telling them they can either pay in cash or card or just leave, the line was building up behind them and getting restless.

Jeimos trying to salvage this, nervously ask if theirs anything they can work out. Not wanting to have wasted their time. The cashier breaths deeply, saying he’ll get the manager, leaving the counter behind. The people in line are angrily starting at the two, Issac having a ball and Jeimos being highly uncomfortable with all the staring and swearing from them. The cashier returns with a fat, sleezy looking middle age man, presumably the manager. Him asking what’s going on here?

The cashier explains the situation in his most annoyed, apathetic tone with the manager glancing over the two. He repeats what the cashier told them, they only take usd and if they can’t pay then just leave, their clogging up the line. Jeimos try’s to explain this is all they have and is about to give up when Issac speaks up and tells them the coins are solid gold. That catch’s the managers attention, who in a greedy smile picks up the coins to check, seeing yes, their real gold!!!

His greedy smile grows wider and he tells them they can understand work something out! Snatching up the gold coins and apologizing for the inconvenience, talking about his no good employees and starts berating the cashier right in front of them for being “rude and unhelpful” to such fine paying customers! The cashier takes one look at his boss, takes off his hat and apron shoving them into his bosses hands and just says, completely monotone “I quit” and walks out without a second glance.

Meanwhile, Lukus and Alaine where walking down the streets through the massive crowds looking for any sign of Evan. Despite trying to keep a low profile they where gathering a lot of attention, walking through down town in medieval armor and brandishing weapons tends to do that. While walking outside a storefront Alaines eyes are caught by a beautiful blue dress, he being mesmerized by. “Nice cosplay” she hears suddenly from behind, Turing around to see a short, well dressed women behind her.

Alaine jut awkwardly thanks her for the compliment. The women also compliments Alaines scales, believing them to be a make up design for whatever cosplay she’s doing. The women introduces herself as Kimi and ask if she was looking at that dress in the window. Alaine answers yes and now both are both gawking at and gushing over the dresses beauty. Kimi complaining about the ludicrously high price tag but before their conversation can continue Lukus calls back to her, wondering where she is?

Alaine snaps back on into mission mode as Lukus returns. She apologizes to Kimi for leaving and tells her their looking for someone, asking if she’s seen a large blonde man with a metal leg. She says no but wishes them luck on trying to find their friend. The two head off once again search the city streets for Evan and once again have no luck, it didn’t help that a lot of people where stopping them, asking for photos of their “costumes” and asking what characters their dressed as?

After hours of searching and coming up empty handed both where rather hungry. Stopping at a cafe looking place to grab a quick bite. The place smelled of coffee and a sign outside had a picture of a twin tailed mermaid on a green background. As they where waiting in line observing all the weird people around them they saw a familiar face ahead of them, Kimi. She had a coffee in her hands and was thanking the barista but didn’t see them. Neither did she see the weird guy she bumped into.

The guy she bumped into looked ridiculous to Alaine and Lukus, having fluorescent pink cloths, big goofy glasses and a oversized beanie I’ve this colorful hair. The guy yelled at her to watch where she’s going, she apologized but then she said sir. The pair could already sense this guy would be trouble as the moment kimi said “sir” it looked as if the weird guys was about to explode. SIR!!! He screamed, grabbing everyone’s attention, his face beat red and eyes bulging in rage!

To say he exploded on Kimi would be an understatement, he started loudly screaming at her “ did you just misgender me”!!! The screaming got even louder as he started listing off a bunch of gibberish and loudly insulting her, calling her sexist, anti-lgbt, telling to kill herself and die in a hole. His screaming getting more incoherent and seemed to be literally frothing at the mouth. Kimi was just backing away, scared and trying to apologize but the guy just kept screaming over her plea’s.

(Feel like I need to put a trigger warning for this one so here it is. Trigger warning for Lukus and Alaine getting in a fight with ‘that kind’ of trans guy, the kind responsible for all the negative stereotypes about the trans community. And Issac being called a racial slur. You have been warned.)

Alaine and Lukus stepped in to stop this dude from hurting Kimi. He seriously looked like he was about ready to punch her. They stepped in and tried to diffuse the situation, putting themselves between kimi and the angry man. They try to explain to him that how could she have known he wasn’t cis, that’s it’s an honest mistake and to let it slide. That only seemed to pissed him off more as he threw a drink in Alaines face and shoved Lukus in anger, wrong move.

Just as Lukus was winding up a punch Alaine beat him to it, knocking the asshole clean to the floor in a single strike. He went down like a sack of potato’s and was laying out cold. The three just left, taking Kimi and leaving. Alaine was fuming but if she where calmer she would have noticed it was water he threw at her, and would have also noticed she didn’t flop to the floor in her aquatic form, she was too pissed off the notices.

Kimi thanks them for saving her from that crazy guy and try’s frantically to explains to them she’s pro-lgbt, always try’s to respect peoples pronouns and is actually a lesbian herself. They cut her off, she didn’t need to explain herself to them. On the flip side Jeimos and Issac are carrying back their huge bags of fast food back to the groups hideout waiting to hear any news. Issac see’s a downed old man and the street and rushed to help him.

Just as Issac was reaching out to help him the old man swats him away, screaming at him. “Keep your hands off me you filthy N@$$#r”! Heads turn and people stop dead in their tracks in pure shock at what they just heard. Issac and Jeimos had no idea what that weird word meant but it guessing by the crowds reaction, it was really bad. The old man gets himself up and goes off on a racist rant, accusing Issac of trying to steal from him, calling all his “kind” low-life scum and just screams at him.

First of all Anon, your depiction of working at a fast food place is a whole-ass mood and I felt it lol. I’m interested to see what role this character Kimi plays! Maybe she has ties to the hospital? Seeing the crew clash with real-world culture is very interesting. I’m enjoying their adventure so far. TO BE CONTINUED…?

#fanfic #looming gaia

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tripstaysnoided · 4 years ago

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Flow Just Like Water

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Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

#state of the uwunion #long post

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years ago

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05. The Rich Kids

AU Grace and Simon story. Takes place in the instance that they never got on the train, but crossed paths and became friends. Generally, these could be standalone, but this one will be sequential for the next chapter whenever I get around to posting it. 3359 Words and I will be making a masterlist when I get a chance. Previous

Simon handled the essay for his scholarship exactly how he thought he might. He was NOT okay, but he got the job done. He started with an introduction about why he wasn’t even sure of why he would be accepted into an institution like this school when his life was so ripe with problems, and honestly admitted that he was telling them all of this “for a girl.” He described the way that he met Grace and how important her friendship and being close to her was to him. He used that as a segway of WHY he needed a close friend, being brutally honest about the things that were happening in his life when they met and the things that he had gone through since. He put heavy emphasis on his relationship with his mother and how HE was now caring for her, even though he could see in her eyes that she didn’t care for him, at all.

He wanted to learn from somewhere that could help him to be great. He felt like a jack of all trades, but in a kingdom of shit. He wondered if he could get away with saying shit. He went back and edited it to censor it, but to make it known that she still meant shit. He ended it out with how he didn’t seriously expect them to pick him, even with his GPA being what it was and him having skills in these areas. “But, I have to be able to let my only friend in a lonely world know that I did what I could to stay beside her. This is my best.”

Whenever he submitted it, he spent the next couple of days holed up in his room. He needed recovery time and worked on setting up a scene for his portfolio. His portfolio was turning into something he really loved. He had written pieces - generally inspired by Grace, some artwork of her in various forms, photos of his best figures and the scenes that he would put them in, and other photos from him trying his hand in photography.

He made money by doing people’s homework assignments, and charged more for special projects. But, everybody in school knew that if you wanted a quality A+ project in a hurry, Sci Fi Si was the guy to go to. He wasn’t even teased as much as he used to be. Emphasis on “as much.” And his former bullies? They were terrified to cross him again… or rather, to cross Grace. Simon kept photos of her and the two of them together as a little reminder for that group and as his daily dosage of serotonin while he was stuck at school all day without access to her.

He still was considered a nerd, had a crappy home life that made intrapersonal relationships difficult and unhealthy, meaning he wasn’t great with people and only knew the right things to say for short periods of time, and he was pretty broody and sarcastic. A lot of people didn’t like that. He definitely talked to most people like they were stupid. (Most people were) and he was pretty unapologetic in his convictions. He was like the poster boy of “If you think you’re better than everyone was a person.” He credited Grace for that, to be honest. Whenever you have somebody like that in your world and they’re not only interested in who you are but they like who you are, the rest of these peasants could suck a toe.

Plus, he was smarter than all of them. He had written several books, though unpublished were absolutely splendid, in his opinion, and not just for his age, but period.

Oh yeah - he was cocky.

That was another thing people hated about him.

But, people didn’t matter to him. He did have a secret soft spot for kids, but the ones in his neighborhood avoided him and he’d even heard the rumors that whenever he was younger he killed his kid sister. It hurt at first. It sent him into a crying rage in which he destroyed everything in his path up until the moment his mother emerged from the bathroom to “smack some sense into him.” He avoided children after that. They made him uncomfortable. He wanted the world to be a safe place for them and wanted to protect them, but he didn’t think he was cut out for stuff like that, so steering clear of them was probably best. Besides, they were just… so weak. They were frail. You had to start toughening them up way too young in order for them to be great and he just couldn’t imagine having to be that for anybody. He couldn’t do it for his sister. If she were stronger, maybe she… He programmed himself not to think about her.

Now Grace, she was great with kids, but she wasn’t super fond of them. Like, yeah, she liked to see their smiling faces and generally was able to make them smile, but she wasn’t in a rush to meet any or have any, despite the fact that her dad made her take a course to learn about sexual reproduction and teen pregnancies before letting her go to school. She was horrified to learn about that entire process, especially considering that it had not once even CROSSED her mind!

She saw two married people who had a child every day and their life was nothing she wanted to work towards and certainly nothing she wanted to accidentally catch herself up in.

If she ever did anything like that… She’d have to go through so much getting to know and getting used to someone and that sounded like way too much work, considering she already knew somebody. She knew Simon and that by itself was a lot. Having a best friend was both everything amazing and very exhausting. Her mother told her that whenever she got ready to get married, to make sure she married her best friend, and her father had quickly interjected and corrected the woman by saying to make sure that she married somebody “equal” to her… She had a feeling from both of their moods that neither of them were that for the other. But, no worries there, because she was NEVER getting married.

She was going to dance FOR FUN, maybe open a dance school, or some kind of school, and read books in her free time and go on adventures with Simon that they currently were too stifled to go on. She was gonna be with her best friend for the rest of her life, but not in the unfortunate situation that she saw in her parents. And she knew that Simon would agree to that, because he said that they were a team.

Simon set up the camera that he wasn’t actually supposed to touch, because it was his fathers and while he was away, Simon wasn’t supposed to go into the garage, but he was away and it would be months before they would see him again. That was what he was doing when he heard the notification on his computer. He presumed it was something that Grace sent him, so he rushed to check, and it wasn’t. It was the Dean… setting up an appointment… because he was accepted… He hurried to get that squared away and then called Grace to let her know.

“Yayyy! Another adventure together! I KNEW you could do it, Simon!” She cheered.

“I couldn’t have done it without your idea,” he said.

He didn’t add, “Even if it ripped my heart out to do it that way,” and she didn’t hear it in his silence; because she replied, “I think you’ve known me long enough to know that I’ve never been wrong, ever in my life, and if I have - It. Didn’t. Happen.” He laughed a little bit. “Look forward to more outstanding quotes on a daily basis, when we’re seeing each other AT SCHOOL!” She was SO excited. She had put together as many acceptable options that fell within the dress code of the uniform but also with a little of her own flair, and she worked on getting her schedule filled. Simon had to do all of that whenever he went in. because he admitted that he didn’t really know what to do and so the administration helped him out with it.

Simon would make the trek to Grace’s every morning and ride to the school with her in the car. Four years after meeting her, he still knew her drivers better than her parents, because they either were never around or he wasn’t over when they were. She still hadn’t seen his mother at all outside of photos and every time she saw his father (a whopping 3 times in the past 4 years), he looked different. A few more tattoos, a little more or less hair on his head or face. It was still just Grace and Simon by the time they got to the academy.

The first week of school was extremely different for both of them for different reasons...

Grace found that people were apparently “naturally drawn” to her, and in an effort to not let them down, she became very popular, very quickly. She made sure that whenever she saw Simon, she made room for him though. She’d call his name and wave him over. He hated groups of people, but she had been surrounded by them since Day 1, so he had to tolerate them.

Sometimes, if he looked like he wasn’t okay, or if they talked about a current issue he was having on the ride over, she’d tell the others, “I’ll have to get with you all later. Today is a Simon day.” It always made him feel good. Warm inside and cozy and a little fluttery… Stuff that he became severely aware of. She caused reactions in him that he hadn’t previously experienced. He always thought that she was pretty and out together nicely and smelled really pleasant, but like, now…

Not just his brain but other parts were starting to respond to those characteristics. And, he became dangerously aware that a lot of the other boys noticed her like that too. Know who didn’t seem aware? About any of it?? Grace.

Whenever the Fall Festival rolled around, she was the girl that everybody wanted to take to the dance, even upperclassmen. She was the girl that the girls wondered about what kind of dress she’d wear. She was the girl that the dance teacher asked if she wanted to open up the dance with a waltz. “I don’t know how to waltz,” she had said. After all of her years of dance, the teacher was stunned. She wanted to teach her before the dance. She said that she had the perfect partner to pair her with. “Oh, no no no no… I only have one person that I would be dance partners with,” she’d said.

Simon wasn’t keen on being dragged into this, BUT it did mean that some other guy wasn’t going to be dancing with her… for now. Who knew WHO would ask her to dance at the actual dance, which he tried to convince her would be boring and that they should skip it.

She would have loved to just go to the pumpkin patch after school, pick a few pumpkins to carve and make treats and cozy up with him for a movie night… but, she had to go to this dance! There was a lot of pressure on her to go and she was fueled by pressure and the stress of letting people down. So, the compromise here was that Simon could skip it if he wanted to, and they’d do the pumpkin patch thing the next day. “Even though I’d much rather you come to the dance with me,” she said, with a pouting face.

And everything inside of him turned into mush. Before he could think, he’d said, “Okay,” and couldn’t take it back, because her entire face lit up and she threw her tender arms around his neck, her soft hair was against his cheek and her body was pressed too close to his. He could inhale the flowers and cupcake scents of her beauty supplies and lip gloss, and everything was warm. Too warm. Hot even. He squirmed out of her arms and said, “Yeah, yeah,” ignoring her confused face about him pulling away. It didn’t last long anyway. She credited his mood to hating stuff like school dances and moved on with life. He overheard her telling people, “Sorry, I’m going with Simon to the dance, but if I get a chance and your date doesn’t mind, I’ll save one dance, just for you.” He actually heard her say that three times before she was too far away for him to hear her anymore.

She was always doing that. Just telling the other kids whatever she thought that they wanted to hear. He figured it was because she couldn’t tell her parents “no” and so she was just used to reflexively saying whatever kept the peace. He was like that once. But now, the last thing he did was care about what either of his parents had to say. He was never home anyway. He was always with Grace, either stashed in her room, or somewhere in town enjoying life and causing mischief. Since school started, she hadn’t been able to get out as much. She would complain about homework, which she hardly had the attention span for and Simon would simply do hers to get it done, but now that she was in school, her parents would set up social arrangements for her and other well to do kids (mostly to rub elbows or have pissing contests with their parents).

But… he had a date with Grace, and his dad was at home on leave, so he didn’t have to worry too much about having to be at home. He did have to worry about formal wear, though. He groaned as he headed for class, taking out his phone to try to see where he might find an affordable formal and how much hustling he’d have to do to obtain it.

One thing that Simon hated about the academy that was different about his last school was that the bullies here were far more sinister and also more protected. If he got into a fight at public school, there might be a suspension and maybe some penalty for disrupting class or something.

If he got into a fight here, the zero tolerance violence policy would get him kicked out… and yet, and yet, and yet… that did not happen with those rich boys whose parents paid for wings of the building, and had statues, or replaced team equipment… the kinds of boys that resented him for being so close to Grace, and let him know that he didn’t belong there, every single day. The kinds of boys with the most powerful commodity in the world - money.

The first week of school, someone had asked him what his father did. He answered honestly, “He’s in the military.”

“Is he high ranking?”

“No. He served for a while, got out, but reenlisted a few years ago.”

“What about your mother?”

He answered less honestly, but close enough, “She’s a housewife.”

“How did they afford to send you here?” Just… right out of the gate, huh?

“I have a scholarship.”

“For which organization?”

“It’s an art scholarship. The Kissington one.”

“Oh.” the ‘Oh’ was enough for him to realize that it wasn’t a good one. But, they added, for good measure, “You’re poor.” And technically… his family wasn’t really POOR. They never were short for the bills, like some of the kids he knew. There was usually food, if he made a trip to the grocer. His mom was able to stay at home, not working, receive medication, and they had a cat. So, he wasn’t rich, at all, but he wouldn’t have considered himself poor, either.

But here, anybody who wasn’t wealthy was poor. Sure, the Laurents could afford their bills, but he was never able to do anything extra if he didn’t find odd jobs. Meanwhile, Grace sometimes couldn’t see him for a few days because her parents were hosting a politician or a royal, or she had to go overseas for a few weeks, or she just really wanted to do a spa day weekend and he simply couldn’t come along because it cost too much.

There was a group of kids that had let him know that they were “on his level.” But, he didn’t spend a lot of time around them, because he was here for Grace and he had Grace, but he was aware that everybody wanted her too. The difference was he was certain that she was just a status symbol to these people, but she was his friend.

The teachers didn’t like him very much either. They seemed to always be suspicious of him and he couldn’t tell if it was his imagination that they weren’t as lineate about objective answers as they were with some of the other kids. He knew that he was smarter than a lot of the kids who did better than him. He KNEW he was. School was less of a hell hole whenever he would worry that he might have to fight for his life. There was something so much more unnerving about fighting something that wasn’t physical, and having the disadvantage, because he simply couldn’t add up to his peers in a lot of these people’s eyes. He knew that he was more evolved than them, but all they could see was money, and he just wasn’t made up of it like these kids.

Whenever they left school, Grace would brag about all of the compliments that she got and go on about how awesome school is and wonder how it was for him. “Are you happy?” he’d ask.

“Yeah!” She’d said.

“School is great. I mean… you’re there. That makes it the best place” She’d look at him for a moment, like she didn’t know if she believed him, her eyes sad and suspicious, but she’d smile and change to subject to something that they both loved. It was true in a way. Whenever she was there, he forgot about his problems and just soaked her in and her followers were even nice to him in those moments. A few of the girls even admitted (or maybe lied) that he was cute. But, they weren’t together the entire time and most of the time, he was miserable. But… if she was happy… I mean, that’s why you came here, Simon, he’d remind himself. Maybe it would simply take a moment for things to become normal.

And a few months later, after he agreed to go to a school dance with her, he knew that whatever their normal was, they weren’t in it… or it had changed. He didn’t know for sure which one, but he knew that at the moment, he wasn’t enjoying it. The snide kids. The sneaky boys. The snobby girls. The suspicious staff. He was becoming increasingly angry, and wasn’t sure if Grace was still enough to quell that. She had so much more going on than him, these days. Maybe, she didn’t need him here at all, and she just didn’t know until now. Maybe the fact that SHE had a lot of money and HE didn’t, made him anxious. He couldn’t catch up, and even though they still had their inside jokes about being “the apex” like when they were kids… he felt like she was the apex, and he would have to work extremely hard to ever truly be powerful. He would have to do more to get and have money. Being intellectually and physically superior didn’t matter if there were enemies in place who could affect your personal trajectory!

This became clearest whenever the Fall Festival came around and he finally was able to actually meet the infamous Mrs. Monroe.

#infinity train #infinity train fanfiction #Nesha Fanfiction #AU Infinity Train #fics #If They Didn't Get on the Train #The Rich Kids

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lonbergwrites · 5 years ago

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The Gross, The Bad, and The Unforgivable

A review of Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Let me start off by saying that this book has an instance of what clearly seems like sexual assault, wrapped up in a gloss of romance. Skip down to the “The Unforgivable” section for that information.

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Normally, I don’t rate and review any books that I read for fear of poisoning the memory well. Normally, I wouldn’t rate and review a romance novel in particular, because it isn’t a genre with which I have much experience, nor is it one I have much love for. But the title and the fact that it showed up on a list of good romance novels for men from a source I trust made me pick it up in the first place. I’ve been trying to get deeper into the Writing Community online, and so many writers there are romance authors – and romance is such a popular genre generally – that I wanted to familiarize myself with the genre as I work on my own writing...

I’m making an exception to rating and reviewing this book because there were some truly, deeply problematic things going on here, on top of the bad/schlocky writing, and the gross descriptions so prevalent in my mind’s limited knowledge of what’s bad in the romance genre. So, in the following review I’m going to justify my one star rating of this book by describing The Gross [broadly, the terribly stomach-turning descriptions, characters, and plot points in this book], The Bad [the technical problems – especially in the plot], and The Unforgivable [the glossed-over sexual assault].

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The Gross:

I’m going to jump right in on the most obvious issue I have with (my own idea of) romance novels: the sex scenes. But this isn’t going to be what you think it is; I am not a prude. Nothing turns my stomach faster than euphemistic language about body parts. “Her sex” is bad enough. This book also talked about running his fingers along “her slit.” But the description that almost made me hurl was “her pink bits.” Nope. Vomit. Say vulva. There is nothing gross about that word. A good sex scene is hard to write, and you don’t need to go full-on erotica (though honestly, I think hardcore erotica is far more enjoyable to read, more real, and sexier than the euphemistic stuff), but why have a very descriptive scene only to censor over the words everybody is paying their good money to read? Pick a lane. Give me actual adult sexual content, or have everything fade to black. Please?

I looked at a bunch of the reviews of this book, astounded as I was that it was so highly rated. Where language was used as a fault, the line “my vagina senses are tingling” was often cited. Cited as gross and crass. Sorry, this was a line I found truly funny and endearing, used as it was by a female character who was grossed out by the villain of the story, a serial sexual predator. To me, it was a great Spiderman reference, and an honest thing for a woman to say. I’ve heard such comments from female friends before. Seeing this comment from the romance reading community really saddens me, because not liking an honest use of body parts, but championing “pink parts” is only fueling the female body shaming that is so prevalent in our society.

“Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a happy ever after to start” is the line that ends the bulk of the novel, before the epilogue. Once you’ve scraped the vomit out of your mouth, there’s also the ending of the epilogue, where after the main character “proposes” off-handedly on the couch, they have sex, and then he asks her if that was a yes, and she confirms it, the narration says, “after she said yes he did things that made her say it a whole bunch of times naked.” Then they fist-bumped. End of novel. Yeah… Did I mention they’d only known each other for a little more than six months at this point? Yea, I think that’s kind of fast…

But romance novels are stereotypically bad in this department according to me, who knows little to nothing about them. What other gross stuff happened in this book? Let’s start with the male lead, Mack, who winks at everything in a skirt. There are paragraphs where he literally winks at the woman he’s talking to three times within said paragraph. She’s always super charmed. This is supposed to be endearing behavior. Then there are a whole chapter where the sex the characters are having is compared to the national anthem – wanting to sing it, wanting to wave a flag, saluting this with that appendage. Barf barf barf.

I could go on, but this book isn’t for me, really. I’ll just close with a line I really did like from the book: “Smells like a camel exhibit in here.” This line is said by the bros when they come in to rescue Mack from his depression on losing the girl, and they find him in squalor. This book could broadly be described as smelling like a camel exhibit.

The Bad:

The biggest plot error I found in this book happened near the end. A group of the team is running to meet the “inside guy” who will distribute the dossier on the villain to the press as they march in to his book launch. They get there to find their inside guy knocked out, and another security guy holding the dossiers they were literally carrying to the meeting (he knocked him out to take them away, even though he didn’t know what was in them – not to mention that they weren’t actually there in the first place). Terrible editing!

There are other things – characters switching their mind on something deeply held from paragraph to paragraph, a convoluted plan to expose the sexual predator at his own event, and thinking that’s the only way to take the guy down, when in real life a reporter will take information at any time, not just when tricked into it. But it is the real lack of understanding of the human character that really bugged me.

The secret that Mack is carrying with him is that his father was abusive and murdered somebody, and is in jail. Mack changed his name out of embarrassment, and lies and tells people his father is dead. He is made into the villain towards the end of the book, because he “lied” to Liv, his love interest, about this. They had known each other for some time longer than a week and shorter than a month. They were not dating (she was adamant about that), and had slept together just twice. But he was a liar now, because he had a “secret identity” and lied about his father. People just accepted that that was a terrible thing to do. No! If that’s your past, it is yours, and you don’t owe that information to anybody that early in a relationship. Sure, you need to own up to it before you talk marriage, but not before you’ve started dating. This doesn’t have anything to do with his character, but his father’s. Shaming him for “not being honest” and having him have to come to terms with it, and be open about it publically, is just *not* something that he has to do. Weird morality here. I know it was stretched to add drama, but I think it does a disservice to his great trauma in life.

I don’t believe a group of people should take matters into their own hands to investigate a person on sexual harassment on behalf of other women. I don’t think they need to use their friend’s van (literally an FBI-style surveillance van that nobody seems to think it is weird that a friend just has – a van that never plays an important role except that it doesn’t drive fast). I also don’t think a former cop is going to play along in a game of entrapment with a bunch of youngsters out for the thrill of taking down a celebrity chef. I especially don’t think people are going to trust the “inside guy” who is the security guard for the big bad. There is absolutely nothing that any characters do (aside from taping the bad guy) that moves the plot forward. It is all them falling into luck or information that others provide. Everything happens to them. This is just not the makings of a well-written book.

The characters were also so bland and uniform, with the exception of “The Russian” who was all caricature and comic relief, and whose lactose intolerance goes into play when they almost got caught because of the smell of his fart while they were hiding. Hilarious? No. So juvenile. And also, it was from vegan cheese, which the author says “is still cheese” and thus causes him the same problem as cheese. Speaking as a chef, that’s not how lactose intolerance works.

And, can I quickly gripe about the fact that the tech whiz who can break into a computer in 2 minutes, take out the contents of said computer in 30 seconds, breaks down all the banking info in an hour to tie the sexual predator to dozens of victims financially, also says he will be unable to edit a video (literally cut it off at all), in the hour they have during a drive, so by showing the big bad to be the big bad, they will also expose Mack’s terrible history and show him too to be a liar? Remember, this is literally exposing that his dad was a bad guy… again, not seeing the problem for Mack (as if that would kill his reputation)… but also: press stop on the tape? In an hour I, a complete novice, could learn to edit video enough to be able to stop a video when I wanted it to stop. The drama was unnecessary, and the mechanism to achieve it is so utterly stupid.

I also don’t love the fact that it takes a group of men to save women who were the victims of sexual assault. I also don’t love the message that women have to be a certain way when it comes to coming forward (even though they try to say otherwise, it was very moralistic against anybody being quiet). I very much don’t love the fact that they called the sexual predator – who honestly had unwanted, forced sexual relations with many women – a mere “sexual harasser.”

The Unforgiveable:

Let’s talk about consent. The second time the main characters have sex, Liv expressly says ‘hey, I haven’t given you consent to have sex again.’ He then says that fingering her isn’t sex. Then proceeds to finger her. Then grabs her, carries her to a bed insider her own house, and then has sex with her. Without actually obtaining consent. This isn’t even an instance of tacit consent, because both parties are acting in a certain way and advancing the same act. She literally denied him consent by saying he didn’t have it, and that was never cleared up. Even if she never said no again, that’s pretty terrible for him to just assume.

Also: this happened immediately after he just shows up at her house. They had had sex once. She said she’d call after 3 days. He comes over after two, not calling specifically because he said that she’d have probably said no to his coming over. It was dark, she thought he was an intruder. She hit him with a shoe. She has to apologize to him for hitting him, and clean him up. Hey. In my mind, this dude is a psycho at this point. If you don’t buy into the 3 days before a call, fine. But then you pick up the phone. Don’t just show up at a near-stranger’s house. Don’t do it at night. Don’t sneak up the stairs. And don’t get mad when she’d mad because you acted like a psycho. And then most certainly, listen to her when she says that you don’t have consent to have sex with her again, and go on fingering her immediately thereafter.

This book is bad on a lot of levels, but the sexual assault scene tarted up to look romantic just made me seethe inside, especially because this whole book attempted to be a “bros don’t let bros sexually assault women” morality tale.

Rating: 1 very dim star of 5

#book review #am reading #amreadingromance #bad books #author

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epitheterasedgen · 5 years ago

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Redwood Run: Thoughts

I have a LOT of thoughts on Redwood Run as an arc. While it did make the show more interesting and expand upon the world of Epithet Erased, compared to the Museum arc, I strongly feel that there’s a clear discrepancy between the two. So, without further ado, here’s my personal list of the top pros and cons of Redwood Run! (Warning: LONG POST)

Things I LOVED about the Redwood Run arc:

How strong each character was in their personality and inner alignment. Percy is lawful good, and you can DEPEND on her to always follow through with that. She’ll follow her duty to the law until the end, even when it means putting away Ramsey at the end of the arc (someone she’s grown a friendship with). Likewise, Ramsey is a true neutral through and through: he’ll do whatever is best for HIS safety, HIS well-being, and he’ll switch to whatever side of the law will help him do that. Zora, I think, is lawful evil: even her motivation still seems to imply that she wants to be a villain and do villainous things… she just wants the playing field to be equal. And when she breaks her own rules, she shows remorse and calls the battle a draw, rather than going for an easy win. Even Howey Honeyglow is a lawful neutral, with his sole motivation and personality trait being WORK. He doesn’t care if you’re a villain or a cop, you’d better darn well DO YOUR JOB-- and just like the primary characters, it’s his steadfast dedication of staying true to himself that makes him likable.

The foreshadowing. Okay, some of it (like Percy’s explanation of eraser cuffs and Ramsey writing a note to himself) was pretty obvious, but Ramsey’s initial plan of “Zora can’t get me if I’m already locked up” is itself foreshadowing to what will happen to him at the end of the arc!

The worldbuilding. Even if there are quite a few plot holes in regards to how Eraser Cuffs™ work (wouldn’t Mera have been confused if she forgot her own epithet? Why does Ramsey remember Percy’s, and in that case, can’t criminals just remind each other of their epithets? Why does Percy know that building two or three towers will knock her out, when supposedly she doesn’t remember anything about her powers?), I still love that we get to see more of the world these characters live in.

The peril. I thought it’d be hard to live up to the Museum Arc’s level of intensity without sacrificing originality, but the writing does a pretty good job of this, albeit by laying down some rules that may or may not make total sense in the context of the Museum Arc. (For instance, the fact that guns only deal minor impact damage-- this helps explain away a lot of the initial danger of the Bonzai Blasters, and also makes Zora a uniquely strong/scary character in that her guns can ACTUALLY kill people.)

The set-up of the rest of the story. While I thought Episode 4 had a much better conclusion than 7, I can’t deny that the end of 7 made me really want to see where the rest of the story goes... And that’s the main purpose of a season finale, isn’t it? Good job, Jello. I’m now literally taking on a freelance webpage design job so that I can afford VRV using your link.

Things I DIDN’T love about the Redwood Run arc:

The side villains. I have to admit, Bugsy and Arnold, as well as all their minions, kind of disappointed me. It’s just a personal preference, but none of their jokes hit quite like I think they were supposed to, and I found myself waiting for their bits to be over whenever they showed up onscreen. Unlike the Museum Arc, where I was deeply invested in every character presented (except the other kids and Molly’s dad, who you’re SUPPOSED to loathe), a lot of the side characters just fell flat. The bartender wasn’t really funny either (although the cat was), and the only tertiary character I really liked was Howey Honeyglow-- although he wasn’t perfect either, for the purposes of something I’ll talk about last.

The epithets. There’s something called “the promise of the premise,” which consists of the gimmicks that make a show unique before you get into the characters, plot, ect. Basically, it’s the fun, gimmicky hook that makes people want to watch the show in the first place. Sadly, it’s a common phenomenon that after the first season (or arc, in this case), shows quickly lose sight of their own premise under the weight of all the OTHER stuff they’re excited to show off. For Epithet Erased, the gimmick is (obviously) the existence of “epithets:” words tied to a person’s soul that give them powers. The thing is, while there are plenty of inscribed characters in the show, only one of them actually takes advantage of the promise of the premise: Molly. Why? Because what separates an ~inscribed~ from any other show’s superheroes is that their powers are derived from the word itself… giving opportunities for a set of powers based on a word with multiple meanings. Molly’s epithet is “dumb,” which can mean simple (hushabye), stupid (dumb hypnosis), or quiet (silence bubble). Unfortunately, no other characters take advantage of their epithets in this way, and since Molly isn’t in Redwood Run, the “promise of the premise” kind of dies out, making epithets no different than Marvel superpowers or Quirks from Boku No Hero Academia.

The swearing. I know a lot of people will roll their eyes at me for this, but hear me out. The reason that swearing is effective in episode 4 of the Museum Arc was because you aren’t expecting it. The show is almost entirely clean up until that point, so when Mera swears, you’re startled, and it effectively emphasizes her pain. (The only weak swearing before this, if you even count it, is when Giovanni lectures Molly in episode 2-- also a very emotional moment.) Likewise, when Percy steps up with her REAL-***, ******* SWORD, it’s hysterical, because you’re so used to the vibe of a children’s cartoon that it completely throws you to hear a “real” weapon being spoken about in a “real” manner. (Plus there’s the added bonus that it’s Percy, which becomes funnier the more you get to know her.) That’s, like, level 99 humor right there. But then Redwood Run comes along, and… it’s not SUPER often, but characters swear in non-funny, and non-emotional scenes all the time, and you get pretty numb. I think the same effect of the Museum Arc is intended when Zora harshly swears (and is either cut off or censored) during the final battle, but it didn’t work on me. By then I’d heard so much casual swearing, I fully expected it. (And I usually like the gag where it cuts from a character just before they swear, but again, it’s not funny when you see it coming.) Not to mention the fact that I got my little cousin into the show after watching the Museum Arc and dubbing it safe for her age range (she’s a mature kid, been through a lot, reminds me of Molly), but then felt really awkward when we started watching Redwood Run and the swearing was just… there. For no reason. (I know a lot of people don’t care about this, but for the record, she didn’t like it either. Personality-wise, I relate a lot to Percy and my cousin takes after me, so it just made the whole show less enjoyable for us overall.)

All in all, Redwood Run is still an objectively good (and enjoyable!) arc, with the solid writing, characters, and dialogue outweighing the negatives. But I’m picky about what I invest my time into, and if I’d seen Redwood Run before the museum arc… well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have stuck around long enough to be signing up for VRV.

#this is probably the most controversial thing I'll ever post but keep in mind it's all personal opinion #epithet erased #tw: long post #long post tw #redwood run #non-gen #show analysis

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megacross-ground-zero-rated-r · 5 years ago

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Major spoilers for Chapter Seven of the sequel book Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit, minor spoilers for other chapters.

I’m a bit over a hundred pages in and so far Eddie’s an asshole. Not grumpy, not a sourpuss, but a genuinely unpleasant person. There’s another, later scene that illustrates his thoughtlessness specifically towards Roger that prompted this rant, which I’m not going into here because I may do a mini-fic rewrite.

I can look past wanting to shoot Roger for breaking into his place again, because he has a history of doing that- It might be the one thing all versions of Roger from Censored, Framed, and Plugged have done aside from vehemently deny Jessica of any wrongdoing- And it almost got Eddie killed last time.

What I can’t look past is threatening to shoot Roger for a genuine show of affection. Page 89.

***

“Calm down. Tell it straight and simple.”

He stood up and strolled the knolls of my Posturepedic. ((Positive point: Continues the trait of Roger pacing while he explains stuff.)) “I was on the Radio tonight. With Edward R. Murrow. He asked me terribly hard questions, one after another, but I handled them bippety boppety boop.’

“I know. I heard.”

He stopped short. His hangnail eyebrows boomeranged to the top of his forehead. “You gave up Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy for me?”

“Sure. It wasn’t even a contest.” I never bought the notion of a ventriloquist on the radio. Who’s to say he’s not moving his lips?

Roger’s pencil-lead mouth squiggled itself into a goofy grin. His yellow hands moved up and out. I sniffed a bunny hug aborning. I reached for my gat. I would have used it too, I swear. Except the rabbit, in a rare display of good judgment, cocked his noggin, rotated his mitts around to palms out, and backed off. Though his inky-dinky grin still split open his face like the snaky residue of a shaky-handed shave.

***

And in the next paragraph his internal narration says this, referring to the clouds of onomatopoeia word balloons that float from ToonTown:

His onomatopoetic exclamation drifted out the open window. Another senseless expression of violence polluting the landscape.

Oh, really.

This wouldn't be so bad if the backup gun Eddie has in this scene was the only factor at play. But earlier Eddie borrowed a gun from the Director who gave him the case, Selznick, didn't know it was loaded with Dip-tipped bullets, and got into a fight that resulted in the death of a Toon actor named Enigman. An attacker that Enigman apparently thought was on his side got behind Eddie in a dark room, grabbed the gun, and made Eddie shoot. Positive: That was a curveball I didn’t see coming, I liked it the first time I read it.

There was no, oh, God, what have I done moment by the way, no why didn’t I check the rounds, why was an unguarded display gun loaded in the first place. There was evidence that Enigman was potentially involved in harming one of Eddie’s relatives and he withheld information about that unless Eddie took him off the suspect list, but the initial crime being investigated was only stealing a trinket from Selznick.

Eddie was threatening to kill him but c’mon, he can’t be that hotheaded. If the other attacker hadn’t shown up I doubt he would’ve gone through with it. Selznick knows he borrowed the gun, and as he said, paraphrased from Page 68, your neighbors for two blocks either direction will hear the shot. Coming from a purely practical standpoint Enigman is the only lead Eddie has on his relative. There’s evidence in the room that Eddie could use if he gets it to the right people.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been an emotional reaction to it lining up and feeling the kick of the recoil, even if he really meant to kill Enigman and really had no reaction to his death losing control of a deadly weapon should’ve rattled him. Especially significant if Enigman is only the second Toon he’s ever killed. The Roger Rabbit frame-up and presumably Doom’s death were stated to have happened by now. Grabbing for the backup gun he didn’t remember the gory scene he left Enigman at, take even a moment to say, oh, shit, maybe I shouldn’t be waving this thing around. Roger doesn’t know about the Dip-tipped bullet incident. If he did he’d have a very different reaction to Eddie going for his holster.

On the one hand, he said only time will tell on the subject of if he gets his sense of humor back in Framed’s resolution, so this book could be if he didn’t actually change that much. I would guess the opinion of casual fans of the movie is assuming that he underwent a total transformation overnight, which I don’t want to encourage, either.

I feel it should be something he wants and works towards rather than getting dragged into one case by an outside force and having that be it. By all means, make him earn his happy ending with more than a few days work, but if any movie-canon character should grow as a person and get that it should be Eddie.

I would very much like to see significant consequences to his hostility and apparent hypocrisy over violence, but I have a feeling I won’t. Hell, keep his inner monologue bitter and snarkier than what he actually says, have him pick and choose the moments he expresses his true thoughts. When he wants to get through to someone he’s sympathetic to or call out someone he’s not, or a stressor pushes him past caring who he hurts. Have characters react accordingly: He’s still got that ten-ton swing even if he pulls some punches nowadays. He’s got the wit and the venom to cut your facade to ribbons. Don’t do something stupid and give him the chance. Make him try and fail at relating to / consoling his clients rather than still writing it off as wishy-washy nonsense.

That's the potential to be a multi-leveled character who’s relatable to those struggling with loss and depression. As he is now the peaks and valleys to his emotional state don’t seem to have much affect on his words, actions, or descriptions showcasing his worldview in a given chapter, he apparently only has one setting, cynic who bad-mouths 85% of the stuff he runs into on a given day. I could be wrong on that though, I’ll come back and admit if I’m oversimplifying.

Time will tell where these traits go, I hope something more nuanced comes of it. I’ll admit that time period has to do with it, writers and readers are pretty tired of cynical protagonists now.

I’m still interested in his relationship with his family, the short scene with Heddy was great, I want to see if he lightens up or Roger expresses some displeasure about the way he’s acting. I admire that he’s getting a response from me even if it’s negative.

#who p-p-p-plugged roger rabbit #who framed roger rabbit #swearing #long post #spoilers #sequel books #eddie valiant #fic research #I'm mad being he's doing the *I don't care about shit liking stuff is for losers and all hope is damned from the start* routine #I'm so sick of it. Make! Your Protagonist! Care! About! Things! And! Like! Other! People! For fuck's sake.#again time period means my market is over-saturated with that archetype but still #the movie just wouldn't be the same without Eddie's emotions.grounding it in reality so yeah I am gonna hold onto this point

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tazzmanien · 6 years ago

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The Untamed review

You’ve probably read a review beginning like this a 100 times before. And still I have to say it: I have never taken the time to review a single drama, because I’m lazy like that. But I think it’s time to do it for this masterpiece! And sorry for the length, I got carried away.

Yes, I have read the novel and yes, I surely do not like adaptations, as they never seem to be able to capture the essence of the canon story. So my hopes were low. If you add up the fact that this is a BL story and it had to be censored, to be able to see the light of the day in China, you would probably be less inclined to watch it. But, hear me out, this drama is worth every of the 2250 minutes of your life! They have captured the overall “look” and feel of the canon story in such a stunning way, that even if they would have discarded the canon story completely, this would have ended being a beautiful drama anyways.

Acting:

Starting from the cast, each one of them was beautiful and fit the characters they played. Most of the cast was young and yet they truly did a great job. I will be honest with you, most of Asian dramas don’t do it for me in the department of acting, as they tend to over-act, but this one was actually really good even for my picky nature. They clearly took the time to understand each character deeply and to portray them in such an accurate manner, that I didn’t know was possible. In certain aspects they even added depth to some characters that we haven’t experienced in the novel, which was heartwarming (such as Wen Qing, Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian for example). Even the synchronization didn’t take away any quality, in fact it might have even given the whole drama more sense of uniformity. Oh, and they kept so many of the original dialogs and monologs, that I actually had the novel open to compare all the time!

Set, music etc.:

The landscapes, sets, lighting, compositions, costumes, makeup, sound and choreography were all so gorgeous and well thought through, that those alone are reasons the watch it. Whoever was responsible for the camera work I love you! The way they visualized the mystical aspects of the story were entertaining and appealing (I loved the black fog and the sound that the Stygian Tiger Seal made). The martial art styles fit each character well and yet appeared as though celestial beings were dancing (I’m looking at you Xiao Xingchen and Lan Wangji). And don’t let me start talking about the music. The music will haunt you in your dreams, especially Wuji (you will know what I mean when you see the ending).

Story – incl. comparison to canon:

Lets talk about the story. The novel on its own created such an amazing new fictional world with various types of characters, that it would have been difficult to create a bad adaptation, the film makers would have had to be very lazy to ruin this. So, no surprise here, that they managed to show this divine world and vibrant interactions between colorful characters. Still, I know many do not achieve this and therefore I really want to say thank you to everyone involved who made it possible.

Besides censoring the BL part, they have managed to keep almost every single other aspect of the story. Sometimes they went into such detail, that they caught me off guard and I only managed to close my mouth after several minutes. One could see and feel the love, friendship, family, hardship, envy, revenge, madness, intrigue, strength, political issues, betrayal, hurt, rage, stupidity… And in all honesty it was made in such a way, that even if you want our main heroes to fall in love, you can even see this part in the story. It is up to you, how you interpret their interactions. I know sometimes it sounds like a cheap excuse to says such things, but really it did not feel cheap here at all!

Of course there were other changes to the story (compared to other adaptations very few in my opinion), which were very understandable in fact. Listen, not everything written and seen in our imagination does work well in a live action. It can look weird or unnecessary prolong a story and bore the viewers. So, for example, the fact that they have not chased corpse body parts, but followed a sword spirit had little to no negative effect on the story really. Changing the last fight, actually made it more enjoyable, as the novel repeated some parts too often and was kind of dragging. Changing the temporal sequences was indeed necessary to keep new viewer interested and avoid confusion. Also adding some scenes that were not in the novel, only gave more depth to some characters and made everything more understandable and heart wrenching in the end. And last but not least, yes they cut the steamy parts, but hey we got the chickens! (Yeah my priorities are sometimes weird like that.)

Conclusion:

Looking from a general viewers perspective this was an amazing and entertaining drama.

Looking from a canon fan viewers perspective this was the best adaptation we could have hoped for (within the boundaries there are due to censorship and filmmaking abilities).

Rewatch Value:

I’m gonna start it today, so a big YES!

BTW if you watch the drama with subs, then you should definitely watch the ending on Tencent, as in the WeTV app they have changed a tiny aspect, which can make less of an impact on you (in my opinion).

EDIT: They changed the WeTV app ending back to the original. So it’s the same as Tencent now. Please ignore the last paragraph and enjoy the ride.

#the untamed spoilers #the untamed #mo dao zu shi

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incorrectstarcoquotes · 5 years ago

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D+ Rewatch: Mewberty/Pixtopia

I finally watched The Mandolorian. I’m all caught up. Baby Yoda and all that.

In other news, here on tumblr and over on reddit, more people are watching and really loving Star vs. They also have issues with season four but overall the experience is positive. Let’s hope more people keep getting on the Disney + to check out our favorite show.

Mewberty

My god this episode is creepier than I remember. It has a real creature feature vibe to it.

Again more Oskar because, dammit, we got Jon Heder and we’re going to use him! Does anyone else think that it’s really creepy that all his songs are about his mom?

I still think the animation in this part is a little off. Like they used most of the budget for the chase scene and decided to cut corners here.

The only reason Ferg is so good at Spanish is because the teacher has big tits. Or at least I think she does. The art direction makes it hard to tell.

How did THIS make it pass the censors? Star is getting so horny right now. What? She is!

I’m really glad they gave Janna more to do. I was so goddamn sick and tired of house key jokes from the fandom. It was so stupid and they did it for months. All she did was steal other character’s house keys. Tom’s, Star’s, Moon’s, Ludo’s. It wasn’t funny then. It’s not funny now. It wasn’t even that funny here. It’s one of those things that just pisses me off when someone else who is not the original tries to do something, like when other people try to say, “Screw you guys, I’m going home,” in the Cartman voice. You’re not Cartman. You can’t sound like him. This also applies to “Why so serious?” You know the one. Ugh.

Heartbroken Marco. More evidence that he’s always had a thing for Star.

That’s also creepy. Like a jump scare.

Pixtopia

I’m sorry, guys. I’m trying to watch this episode but all I can think of is how much the svtfoe didn’t like Alfonso and Ferguson. If you don’t know the story, in one of the original ideas for svtfoe, Star and Marco were supposed to be more lonely characters who found each other. That was changed early, but after a while Disney XD noticed that Marco only still hung out with girls. His circle of friends ended up being Star, Janna and Jackie. Disney XD told the crew to give Marco male friends, so by network mandate, Alfonso and Ferguson were included.

They were only there because they had to be and Nefcy had no idea what to do with them. After a while, she just ignored them. That’s why you didn’t see them in season two and why they only made one appearance in season three and season four.

But Incorrect Star Quotes guy you d-bag, you’re probably thinking to yourself, what makes you so sure that the svtfoe crew didn’t like Alfonso and Ferguson, you dick? Because outside of the main show, Star doesn’t like Alfonso and Ferguson. A couple of years ago the original storyboards for Pixtopia and Blood Moon Ball (titled “Demon Prom” at the time) made their way to the interwebs and they were not flattering to anyone not named Star and/or Marco. Just take a look for yourselves:

Star could not hide her disdain for Marco’s “friends” even if she totally has a crush on him. You can see the entire PDF if you look hard enough, but you can tell she can only tolerate them for so very little.

Star’s disdain for Alfonso and Ferguson would eventually make there way to the official canon thanks to the Star Vs comics. You know, that thing everyone promoted but no one ever heard of apparently? According to the Star Vs comics (which you can’t buy anymore), Star thinks they’re weird and stopped bringing them along on magical adventures on purpose.

Now that I got that bullshit out of my brain, the actual episode.

I’m really not surprised by this. Marco may be the “safe kid” but he’s still just a kid.

Marco Diaz - Only Child. I mean, it’s funny now...

“Sure.” You’ll regret that decision soon enough Star.

Why did they stop doing this? They only did it twice with “Marco’s Super Awesome Nachos” and “Marco’s Emergency Cash Stash.”

You ever noticed that God always punishes Marco for trying to look cool in front of a girl?

Star’s disdain is leaking. I guess Disney XD didn’t catch that one.

That chainsaw bit made me laugh.

Damn, this episode is suggestive.

Alfonso was missing for several episodes after that, so I just assumed that they really did just leave him there.

This episode is good. Has some good laugh and sneaks a few suggestive jokes in. Really fun and a great addition to season one.

On to the next one.

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #disney plus #rewatch #starco

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bomberqueen17 · 5 years ago

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mosylu replied to your post “supercut me”

Yeah, I had to keep it to one episode a night because the gore and the slicing of heads and whatnot was Too Much. Also I didn't like Man of Steel as a movie, but I liked HC in it, he was doing a job of work. And I second the Man from UNCLE as a delightful diversion.

From this, I can pretty well guess that he Worked Very Hard in the Superman role. That seems to be his thing, Really Showing Up for whatever it is. It’s endearing. And it goes really well with Geralt’s world-weary cynical taciturn facade that trips all over itself the very instant a person is in Some Kind oF trOuble and he has to HELP. He’s seen it all before, you know, he’s so neutral, he’s-- wait, that grown-ass man who should be able to fend for himself is going to get himself killed! Time to Throw Myself Into It And Get Beat Up And Probably Run Out Of Town!

I’m really not good at binge-watching things, see below for my experience with in fact Man from UNCLE in the midst of a binge. But yes even thus, I don’t think I could handle very much of this in a row. I get it, I get what they’re doing with the slicing and the mutilations and the body horror and whatnot but oh GOd

Actually I’ve sort of been surprised by the tits-- like, there have been some sexy tits now and then but actually mostly the tits have been sort of reasonable?? Like ok it makes some sense for this woman to be naked right now, that is just her body and we’re not particularly lingering on it. What I also thought was quite funny specifically in whatever episode it was that I just watched was to juxtapose Geralt being completely unmoved by the orgy of writhing flesh, with him pretending to make much of spying on Yennefer in the bath when it was funny and flirty. Like, I actually thought that was a good line to illustrate, that he’s only being a lech when it’s funny and the woman arguably has agency about it.

I dunno, I could see people reacting either way to it, but that’s how it struck me.

salamanderinspace replied to your post “supercut me”

ive been watch in small doses because i just keep being like... "ugh, this is so violent, this is so macho"

i watch with my husband in the room - when he's making lunch or whatever - and he's like - is there dialogue in this show??? it's just sound effects for solid minutes

Yeah, it’s kind of. It’s a lot. It’s definitely not my usual style. There’s so many wet squelching noises and whatever foley they do for the noise of “blade cutting flesh” that sounds nothing like it (listen I eviscerate things for a living, I know fine well what noise it makes and it is Not That, but it’s probably really good that they’re not more accurate).

I do feel kind of amusingly free about it, though-- I’m dragging Dude into watching it with me and openly just saying “I want to watch this whole thing so I can really appreciate the fic because I can smell from here that this is going to have awesome fanfic.”

And i’m not wrong, so far, though I’ve only barely dipped my toes in because honestly with a cast that size and that many years of lore you’re going to miss out on most of it if you just try to dive in.

s-leary reblogged your post and added:

I would like your version extremely, yes, thank you.

The only other thing I have enjoyed Cavill in half this much was The Man from U.N.C.L.E., in which he played another wryly funny character.

I SAW THAT MOVIE! I completely forgot that I saw that movie because I watched it as part of an enormous binge on the flight from Istanbul to Toronto, and I watched, like... ten movies straight, starting with the hour and a half we spent on the runway with no ventilation, I just plugged in and went for it, and consequently I do not remember Man From U.N.C.L.E. except that it was funny and I quite liked Alicia Vikander and then I got distracted by my own stupidity in watching Atomic Blonde in the censored-for-Turkish-Airlines cut, which was, like. bonehead move, there; they left all the fight scenes and mutilations but cut Sofia Boutella’s love scene with Charlize Theron, of course they did. Doh.

So yes, overall this series is... not my ideal entertainment, but worth the price of admission for the bits I like, so far.

#mosylu #salamanderinspace #s-leary #The Witcher

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4x0hxnxroll · 5 years ago

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— BASICS : EMILY DAVIS.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE TALL / SHORT / AVERAGE ? : Emily is on the shorter end of the spectrum. Without shoes, she stands at a measly 5′1″. Depending on stilettos/boots she can range anywhere from 5′1″ - 5′6″.

▸ ARE THEY OKAY WITH THEIR HEIGHT ? : Absolutely NOT. When she was younger, (Age 5-9), Emily dreamed of being a model when she grew up. A lot of her time as a child was spent shopping with her mother. Playing dress-up. Studying expensive brands/labels/designers. & Watching America's Next Top Model. (& Canada's Next Top Model). Her mother is young, & pretty, & skinny, & TALL, & blonde. (Albeit bottle blonde). She was everything Emily aspired to be when she got older. Around age 13 she realized just how ILLOGICAL & IDEALISTIC that dream was.

▸ WHAT’S THEIR HAIR LIKE ? : Short/Medium length. Black. Thin. Super soft. Naturally straight, but she still straightens it. Professionally cut.

▸ DO THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HAIR / GROOMING ? : YES 100% --- Almost every waking moment of the day for Emily is spent worrying about her physical appearance. She has a morning routine that involves a LONG shower/bath, thoroughly brushing her teeth & using whitening strips, & then a MINIMUM of 2 hours on hair & makeup. Her nighttime routine includes a skin-care face mask, preparing her outfit for the next day, removing her makeup, touching up her nails, & brushing her teeth again. She also gets manicures biweekly & a Brazilian wax every month.

▸ DOES YOUR MUSE CARE ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE / WHAT OTHERS THINK ? : Her appearance is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to her. Followed closely by her grades/intelligence. & The only thing that makes it higher on the list, IS how much she CARES about what others think of her looks --- It requires a lot more EFFORT to keep up. Intelligence comes EASIER for her. Girl has a near-genius level IQ. & Her father’s vigorous (& brutal) study-sessions have kept her on top of her game. Also helps that most of her friends are IDIOTS (In her opinion) & she’s never met someone smarter than her. She’s met hundreds of people prettier than her. (Again in her opinion) & She genuinely finds herself UNATTRACTIVE.

— PREFERENCES.

INDOORS OR OUTDOORS ? ▸ Indoors. Air-conditioned. With electricity. & No bugs. Or creepy critters of any kind. Emily doesn’t like nature. & She’s disgusted by bugs --- So better be prepared for a lot of complaining if you wanna go camping with her or some shit lol.

RAIN OR SUNSHINE ? ▸ Sunshine. California is her favorite place in the world.

FOREST OR BEACH ? ▸ Beach. She doesn’t usually swim, though. Just lazes around & sunbathes.

PRECIOUS METALS OR GEMS ? ▸ Gems. Bigger/more expensive, the better.

FLOWERS OR PERFUMES ? ▸ Perfume. CHANEL.

PERSONALITY OR APPEARANCE ? ▸ Personality. Especially Post;Game. She’s done with friendships based in shallowness. That said, she’ll ALWAYS appreciate (& envy) a physically attractive human.

BEING ALONE OR BEING IN A CROWD ? ▸ Depends on the day & the crowd. Pre;Game - Crowds. Post;Game - Alone.

ORDER OR ANARCHY ? ▸ Order.

PAINFUL TRUTHS OR WHITE LIES ? ▸ Painful Truths. Don’t lie to her. Period.

SCIENCE OR MAGIC ? ▸ Science. (She doesn’t believe in magic & thinks it’s stupid).

PEACE OR CONFLICT ? ▸ Peace. (Conflict does follow her though, considering her personality).

NIGHT OR DAY ? ▸ Night.

DUSK OR DAWN ? ▸ Dawn. lol.

WARMTH OR COLD ? ▸ Warmth.

MANY ACQUAINTANCES OR A FEW CLOSE FRIENDS ? ▸ Pre;Game - Many Acquaintances. Post;Game - She just wants ONE real friend/Significant other tbh. She’s pretty sick of people.

READING OR PLAYING A GAME ? Reading.

— QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSE’S BAD HABITS ? : That’s gonna be a long list lol. I’d say her WORST habit is projection & displaced aggression. Other bad habits include; Drinking, swearing, no censor/ability to lie for other people’s sake, complaining, whining, being materialistic, selfish, avoiding food/skipping meals out of fear she will get fat, scratching her arms, emotional shopping, craving validation, obsessively checking her phone, talking to herself, setting impossible expectations for herself & others, compulsively checking her makeup/clothes, interrupting people, running on empty, & probably a lot more tbh.

▸ HAS YOUR MUSE LOST ANYONE CLOSE TO THEM ? HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THEM ? : I usually default to Emily being sole-survivor of Until Dawn, so she loses EVERYONE in that case. However, regardless of if everyone survives, or not, she loses Hannah & Beth & comes out of the events of Blackwood Mountain ALONE. She has severe PTSD from it & a lot of emotional baggage. Though, she thinks it is illogical & a waste of time to dwell on it. (Her father’s words) & So she spends most of her time trying to bury & suppress it.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME FOND MEMORIES YOUR MUSE HAS ? : Honestly? She doesn’t have a lot of fond memories. Most of her best times in life have been tainted by BETRAYAL. A lot of her funnest moments in High School involved Mike or Jess & well, yeah. & Anything with her mother before the age of 12 has been tarnished by how the woman started treating her after those years. Most of her best “memories” would be THINGS she bought probably. (Or things bought for her).

▸ IS IT EASY FOR YOUR MUSE TO KILL ? : No. It’s not necessarily a moral dilemma for her, but she would prefer to keep people alive at all costs. Depending on situation she could be swayed if they were A THREAT. But, she’d still usually prefer to just capture/tie up someone/turn them into the police > murder. (If possible). That said, if she’s been PERSONALLY BETRAYED by the individual, she will HAPPILY leave them to die/put them in harms way > herself at least.

▸ WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOUR MUSE BREAKS DOWN ? : Pure unadulterated RAGE. She won’t physically attack someone, unless they are to blame & approach her, then she will slap them silly. (Via Ashley in the bite scene). But she WILL become hostile & pick them apart. Usually, when it gets this bad, Emily just tries to TAKE SPACE for herself & AVOID PEOPLE. For the sake of everyone. If she’s in a relationship with someone & gets emotional, she’ll lock herself in the bathroom & sit in the corner of the shower & just CRY under the water. (She also does this at home when her dad makes her feel worthless). It would take someone she is VERY COMFORTABLE WITH/TRUSTS to cry in front of them, or allow them to comfort her.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE CAPABLE OF TRUSTING SOMEONE WITH THEIR LIFE ? : She’ll usually require proof. Even if she says she trusts someone with her life. Especially Post;Game since Matt left her to die & Mike almost killed her. (For my Emily). She’d want to see ACTION. Not just WORDS.

▸ WHAT’S YOUR MUSE LIKE WHEN THEY’RE IN LOVE ? : Canonically, I don’t think Emily has ever been in TRUE LOVE. Though, she thinks her relationship with Michael was love. That said, she’s EMOTIONALLY INEPT. & While she craves affection, she’s also very guarded & scared of it. I think at first she’d probably try to buy them lots of stuff & hope that it showed how much she cared. She’d also take interest in their THINGS. Say, if they had a favorite band, she’d buy them VIP tickets to see them/meet them. (Even if she hates their music). Eventually, she’d grow to feel comfortable with cuddling/hand-holding etc. But it would TAKE TIME.

TAGGED BY : @judesowndaughter (Thanks! :)) Really loved reading yours <3)

TAGGING : Just steal it y’all.

#≠≠EMILY INTROSPECTION≠≠ Emily Is Always Right -- Nothing Else Matters #Headcanons #long tw

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pellicano-sanguino · 5 years ago

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The Long Carmilla Post 2 - Return of the Long Post about the Queen of Lesbian Vampires

When Tumblr tightened its policy about censoring nudity, they targeted a long post I'd made about Carmilla, since I showed photos of Ingrid Pitt and Yutte Stensgaard with their bare breasts in it. I have now censored the post, edited it and added a little. Carmilla is my favourite vampire of all time, and I have a long history with her different incarnations, so I wanted to bring the Long Carmilla Post back.

When I first posted the Long Carmilla Post, I had just seen the movie made by the Carmilla webseries folks. The sudden fame of the webseries surprised me. I can't help but think, that there must be a lot of new Carmilla fans, who instantly think of Natasha Negovanlis when they hear that name. If this series had been around when I was a teen, damn, would I have loved it! I would have been obsessed with it. But it was not, and I can't really become as obsessed with it now as the new fans do. Because when I hear the name Carmilla, several different faces appear in my imagination. I have already been obsessed with Carmilla from a rather young age, and while I love the webseries and this movie, for me it's just one of Carmilla's newer incarnations, not her default form.

I don't want to sound like a hipster (”I liked Carmilla before the webseries made her cool!”), I just thought that as a lesbian vampire lover I should make a post about my favourite vampire, and the history I have with the character.

There are some images of blood under the cut.

When I was younger, there really wasn't any lesbian litterature around (well, there probably was but I didn't know what books to search). I had a habit of switching genders in the books I read, making everyone female so I could get the girl romances I craved for, but this always felt forced and not ”real.” I read lots of vampire stories, because I've always loved that genre, but it was very much dominated by stories of male vampires. When I read Dracula, it had a short introduction speech that talked about the history of modern vampire stories, and it mentioned Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla.

Tracking the novella down was a bit hard, considering that back then I didn't have internet and so could only read books that I found in the library and bookstores. Fortunately the translation of Carmilla was included in one horror anthology that our library had. I managed to get my hands on it, and this cover illustration was the first ”face” of Carmilla that I knew.

I can't really put a finger on why I became so obsessed with this story. It's not that great of a novella. A very basic old-timey vampire story about a monster who threatens the life of the protagonist, who is saved when the monster's true nature is revealed, after which it is hunted down and destroyed. And the lesbian subtext is very, very subtle. There was just something very mysterious and fascinating about Carmilla. She is still among the few vampires who actually frighten me. Though Le Fanu's story isn't very scary by modern standards, Laura's nightmare scenes somehow got under my skin. There's something very creepy in the way vampires in older stories used to steal blood from their victims while they were sleeping. The idea, that there exists a predator who instead of straight up attacking its prey, approaces it by a cover of flawless mimicry, is horrifying. You are being slowly eaten alive and you're not even aware of it happening, or that it's your charming friend doing it to you.

I started having dreams about Carmilla. The first ones were nightmares, but even if they were scary, they didn't make me anxious, just excited. I was scared of Carmilla, but I wanted to see her, I wanted to hear her voice. It was as if I had fallen under her spell, much like Laura, but unlike Laura, I was aware of her true nature. I knew what she wanted, I knew that in my dreams, her kisses would lead to bites. But to a young lesbian who loved vampire stories, those kisses were worth losing a few drops of blood in the dream kingdom. She was one of ”my people.” She was not a genderswapped male hero, she was ”real.” She genuinely loved women and blood, and I loved her.

Halloween isn't really celebrated where I live, but one October a friend of mine decided that she'd hold a Halloween party (which became a yearly tradition for us for many years to come). She invited a group of her friends to watch horror movies at her house, and everyone should wear a costume. There was no competition what I would go as. I had a light blue dress that I decorated with blood stains, and over it I wore a dark gray cape, on which I had painted purple flower patterns to make it resemble the coat Carmilla wears on the cover illustration. It must be almost twenty years old, but I still have that cape.

Little Pellicano as Carmilla. I think I must have been 13 or 14 when this party was held.

Then I saw my first Carmilla movie. A Hammer film called Vampire Lovers.

This is a very silly movie. Very cheesy. But young Pellicano loved it. I can still quote many of the scenes from memory. The movie follows LeFanu's novella rather loosely, but I think it's one of the most faithful adaptations. It included the basic ”plot” that Carmilla uses to get close to her victims, has the nightmares (including Carmilla's monstrous cat form), keeps the plot point that she must form her new names anagrammically and makes her killer be a man who lost his daughter to the vampire. So far I think it's the only movie version that includes the scene where Carmilla sees the funeral procession of a girl she killed and loses it completely. I've always found that scene interesting, many claim that her fit of anxiety is caused by hearing the chanting (being unholy creature who's weak to christian things) but I think it's more than that. Either she has horrifying flashbacks to her own funerals (waking to vampirism and having to claw her way out of her own grave, that would scar me for sure) or she is genuinely sorry for killing the girl and terrified of having to face the truth that her love will always end in death.

youtube

I want to interpret Carmilla as a vampire who really loves her victims, not as playthings but as real lovers. But she wasn't a reluctant vampire either, she embraced the monstrous side of herself. It was natural to her, and so it was inevitable that the women she loved would eventually die. Maybe she preferred to ignore this knowledge in the daytime, and when she was forced to see what her night time activities had resulted in, the fit of anxiety happened.

A bit off topic, but one scene from the novella that I've never seen make it into a movie, is when a wandering salesman offers his dentistry services to Carmilla, offering to file down her fangs, which sends Carmilla into a fit of rage. I don't know, I always thought that scene pretty funny. Poor guy, offering to de-fang a vampire and getting a HOW DARE YOU rant in response.

So, the next ”face” of Carmilla was obviously Ingrid Pitt. While this movie wasn't particularly explicit (all the sex happens off screen), the lesbian subtext was much less subtle, which pleased young Pellicano. And then there was the infamous bathing scene (would show pics, but gotta censor for Tumblr. You can easily find them by image googling.).

When I was younger, I suffered from being underweight for a long time (had always been a small girl). Seeing Ingrid Pitt's figure motivated me to try to gain weight. She was so beautifully soft and curved, not just her chest, but her shoulders and legs and everything just looked so smooth and nice, while I had thin, pointy, stick-like limbs with sharp edges and none of that lovely roundness. I know teens should not look at celebrities and actresses as body models, but I think having Ingrid Pitt's shape as body goal was healthy for me. I never reached that goal, of course, but I did eventually reach normal weight limits (50kg, the weight needed for blood donors).

That friend of mine, who hosted Halloween parties, watched the movie with me and knew that I was obsessed with Carmilla. One day she got me a fake gold necklace with a red plastic gem on it, shaped like a blood drop. I don't know where she got this trinket from, but it was similar to the pendant Carmilla wears in the movie, and even if it was just cheap junk, I treasured it. And totally wore it during the next Halloween party, going as Carmilla like I always did. I've lost the gold chain, but I still have the gem.

Also still have the VHS. I don't know why I've kept it, I have no VHS player anymore.

Before I move on from Ingrid Pitt, I’d like to mention a pet peeve of mine. Ingrid Pitt has done two vampire roles (three if Elisabeth Bathory from Countess Dracula is counted). The more famous role is obviously Carmilla, it’s probably her most famous role ever, period. Her other vampire role is Carla Lynde from House that Dripped Blood. Now, the thing that annoys me is that article writers tend to always mix these two up. Whenever they write something about Carmilla or female vampires in general, they always mention Ingrid Pitt’s role as Carmilla in Vampire Lovers, but they always use the same damn stupid promo photo that is from House that Dripped Blood. That’s lazy research! Do they just image google “Ingrid Pitt vampire” and fail to check if the photo they use is actually from the movie they’re talking about?! The roles don’t even look identical, Carmilla’s a brunette while Carla Lynde is blonde, Vampire Lovers is set in 1800s, House that Dripped Blood is set in 20th century. The worst one was when the museum in my home city had a vampire themed exhibition and even they used the wrong photo for Vampire Lovers. If a museum can’t get their facts straight, that’s just sad.

Here is an example of my pet peeve in action, an article about vampire movies, using the wrong fucking photo for Vampire Lovers. And yes, I know why they like using this particular photo (”höhöhöö boobs, I’m so mature”). But that just makes me more angry when they do it.

Hammer made a sequel to Vampire Lovers called Lust for a Vampire. It was... disappointing. It introduced a male love interest for Carmilla, which in my opinion was complete bullshit. If you want to make a story about a female vampire who falls in love with a human boy, by all means make it, but don't call it Carmilla, call it something else. That being said, there were a good amount of lesbian action going on as well (this time Carmilla plotted her way into an all girls' school...) and if there's one thing Hammer rarely fails at delivering, it's the bucketloads of unconvincing bright red fake blood. I skipped the icky het sex, but always enjoyed this scene:

Yeah, Yutte Stensgaard was the third ”face” of Carmilla. When I think of that name, this blood-covered, sleepy-looking vampire maiden is among the images that instantly pop into my mind.

The third Carmilla movie I saw was titled just Carmilla and starred Meg Tilly.

This was clearly a cheaper (maybe made for TV) adaptation. Meg Tilly didn't leave as big an impression as Ingrid Pitt and Yutte Stensgaard did. But I do remember one line from the movie clearly. When Marie (the southerner ”Laura” of this version) asks about Carmilla's past, Carmilla brushes it aside by saying ”That was another lifetime. I'm much happier now.” I adopted this phrase into use. Whenever people are unknowingly asking about a painful thing from my past that I don't want to talk about, I will say it to let them know that nothing good comes from digging old wounds that have already scarred. That was another lifetime. I'm much happier now.

I do remember that Meg Tilly's Carmilla was the movie with the ”awkward floaty blood drinking pose.”

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't look comfortable. Or functional.

Then the big day came – my family got a computer that could access internet. It was an awful piece of junk that could barely be used for writing emails and visiting messageboards. It wouldn't play videos, loading images took forever and big pictures often made it freeze. However, I had access to the internet now. The first word I ever googled was obviously ”carmilla.” Among the sites I found back then, was one about a German play, starring a woman called Ulrike Schneidewind.

The site had big, beautiful promo photos of the play. They took forever to load, but I returned to watch them often. There was something captivating in Ulrike Schneidewind's look for Carmilla. I'm not usually a fan of vampires with the white face+red lipstick+loads of mascara-look, but hers was beautiful, like a painting, like a creature that really wasn't human.

I don’t know if they used fake blood in the actual play or if it was only for these promo photos, but it looks incredibly pretty and surprisingly convincing.

I have no idea what this demon looking thing is supposed to be - Carmilla’s monstrous cat form maybe?

Ulrike Schneidewind became the next ”face” of Carmilla, even though I have never seen her act. All I've seen are these promo photos of the play (I have heard her speak. There's a couple minutes long news clip on Youtube about a vampire lifestyler event she attended). Supposedly there exists a VHS of the Carmilla play they performed on a Romanian tour, but they must have only made a handful of those, since I've never seen it on sale anywhere. I check the German eBay every now and then in faint hopes of finding a copy but I've come to accept that I'll probably never see this show. But still, Ulrike Schneidewind's look left an impression on my mind.

Around those times I started to draw comics in which my self-insert character shared a house with six vampire roommates (Carmilla, who owned the house, Brunhilda from Wake Not the Dead, Teresa from Last Lords of Gardonal, Ruthven, Dracula and Francis Varney) and an OC named Charity (Brunhilda's donor and girlfriend). I mostly pulled the designs for my vampires out of thin air, really (well, Dracula was as he was descrided in the novel, with fuzzy moustache and bushy eyebrows) but Carmilla's design was based on Ulrike Schneidewind's look, with blue veins shining through the white skin and lots of dark makeup and black hair.

Sad part is that it's been over ten years and my drawing skills have not improved at all. This is not ”art” this is doodles. But drawing these was super fun back then, so I shouldn't feel ashamed of them now, I think.

Besides these comics, I wrote some fanfics too. But I'm very glad I never put those anywhere public, because damn, they are embarrassing to read now. It's because my fanfics were actually serious business, full of drama and sturm und drang, and they turned out rather cheesy. Also full of, ahem, erotic content written by someone who had no personal experience on the subject yet. The comics on the other hand were just made for shits and giggles, and I think they've survived the test of time better (by which I mean, that I have actually shown my comics to other people, because occasionally I think I made a fun one, while I've never shown my fics to anyone and have already burned the worst ones.).

When the wonderland of internet was opened to me, I gained access to all the books in the world. I was no longer restricted by what our library and book stores had, I could buy stuff that wasn't published here. So obviously I got a copy of Kyle Marffin's Carmilla sequel. It's not a very good book. Quite silly, childish and badly written (men really shouldn't write about lesbians, they know nothing about them and enjoying an erotic scene becomes rather hard when you imagine some gross het dude writing it while drooling on his keyboard). But it was the first time I read a rather explicit lesbian sex scene, and that got me very excited, because finally all the subtext was thrown to garbage. Here it was, black on white, proof that Carmilla was into girls, not just their blood but their bodies as well. My late discovery of lesbian erotica may seem weird now, when anyone can gain access to mountains of lesbian smut in the internet, but back when I lived with my parents I never dared to look up smut on the home computer, in fear that they'd find out. Until I moved out, my only access to lesbian erotica was books, and Carmilla's Return was the first one I got.

Rant time: I might also add, that annoyingly enough I had been encountering explicit het sex scenes in books, movies and TV years before. And while I never intentionally searched naughty stuff on the net, I had bumped into het porn there accidentally as well. I wonder if heteros understand how freaking frustrating this kind of thing was. Their smut was all over the place, in every book, every film and all around the net, pretty much rubbed to my face, while MY stuff was so obscure I didn't even know where to look for it. And then they had the nerve to claim that we are ”flaunting it” and ”making it all about ourselves” whenever there was a gay sidecharacter somewhere. Grr. Grrr. Rant over.

I bumped into some incarnations of Carmilla later too, but none left an impression on my mind like these early ones did. The worst Carmilla I ever saw was the main villain in Lesbian Vampire Killers. That movie is easily the worst vampire movie I have ever seen (maybe even the worst movie I've seen, period), it's an ”erotic horror comedy” that is neither sexy, scary or funny. It is nice that when they were thinking of a character to star in a movie about lesbian vampires, they chose Carmilla. But the movie is such utter garbage, I'd rather they'd left my favourite vampire out of it. Save your money and sanity - don't watch this movie. It's bad.

I feel like a lot of time people want to take Carmilla's name and make a whole new character with it (like Reimi Urara's character in Vampire Succession, who is named Carmilla but isn't even a vampire at all). These ”Carmilla in name only” kind of characters don't count, and frankly speaking I'm not that fond of them. I guess it is nice that people want to pay respect to the legendary vampire by naming a character after her, but my opinion still is that if you don't want to tell the story of a lesbian vampire, call your character something else. If you take away either of Carmilla's two passions; that of women or that of blood, the character loses her trademark characteristics and stops being ”real.” You don't make a Godzilla movie where the king of the monsters isn't allowed to have his trademark atomic breath, and you don't make a Carmilla who doesn't love women and blood.

Now that I have said that, you probably guess my opinion about the (*spoilers*) ending of the webseries's third season. Yeah, I wasn't a fan of humanizing Carmilla. So, I went to see the movie with rather low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. This movie is more Carmilla than all of the webseries's seasons together.

But let's speak about the webseries first. I was very positively surprised by it. One day I ended up googling Carmilla again (was probably looking for fanfics) and discovered this little gem. It had very little to do with Le Fanu's original, but what it decided to change was so good that I didn't care. And it had still lots of little nods to the novella. Carmilla's anagrammical names, the nightmares, they freaking included Laura's governesses De Lafontaine and Perrodon (I would totally watch a spin-off that just follows the adventures of Laf and Perry) and there's even a scene where Carmilla is watching over sleeping Laura, looking a bit similar to a famous illustration of the novella. Also, the theme song ”Love will have it's sacrifices”, is a direct quote, from a scene where Carmilla is describing to Laura the night when the curse of vampirism was passed on to her (of course, she doesn't out right say it, but the reader knows what she's talking about).

”--- I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here," she touched her breast, "and never was the same since."

"Were you near dying?"

"Yes, very--a cruel love--strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.---”

I'm not going to say the webseries doesn't have its flaws, a little lazy writing here and there, plot holes and inconsistent characters occasionally (I feel sorry for Danny. She just can't win.). But it was incredibly entertaining, it made me laugh and it made me care about what happens to everyone. And like probably a lot of the fans, I adored the fact that they didn't dance around the lesbian thing. When Laura understands that Carmilla's advances weren't blood-related, her reaction isn't any dumb ”But we're both girls, how can this be?!” Whoever understood to make Laura gay too was a genius. When she gets all flattered and blushing after learning that a beautiful girl finds her attractive, it's such a relatable feeling. It's the lesbian romance I so wanted as a teen! Not stories of a predatory lesbian seducing dumb clueless het girls to the dark side, but girls experiencing all the usual things female leads in romantic stories do, only with another girl as their love interest.

The first season of the webseries is my favourite. The second was pretty good, too. Third, in my opinion, a bit unnecessary (here I think you could see the writing starting to slip). Then came the movie.

They could have completely abandoned the vampire theme and proceeded with the heroes' further adventures. But they didn't and thank goodness for it. They return to draw inspiration from the original source; the novella. We have nightmares, and I admit they actually made me uneasy, reminding me of that creepy feel Laura's dream scenes gave me in the novella. The image of Carmilla laying down in a coffin filled with blood is also from the story. There's a scene where Carmilla is forced to reveal her vampiric nature, and it really reminds me of the scene where it happens in the book.

And they freaking quote it, probably being the first adaptation ever to use straight quotes from the book. ”Die together so they can live together”-speech isn't quite right word-to-word, I think, but still, it's an identifiable quote. I used to be able to quote the ”You are mine, you shall be mine”-speech in English, Swedish and German, but have now forgotten most versions (yeah, I read Carmilla in several languages when I was younger. I was freaking obsessed with the story). I still think it's the most memorable quote from the novella. Also, the book-reading scene with ”Girls are caterpillars who undergo several larval stages before becoming butterflies”-speech is also from the novella. I think the only famous quote missing in this movie is the ”I've never been in love and never shall unless it should be with you”-speech.

As a fan of the ”old” Carmilla I adore how they pay homage to the origin respectfully, while still making their very own story. Again, teenaged Pellicano would have been all over this stuff. But I had to make my lesbian vampire stories from other versions, and while those also have their flaws, I adore them just as much. I am just happy that Carmilla lives on, not forgotten and left in the shadow of the countless more famous male vampires (seriously, where the fuck are all the female vampires? Ones that are actually main characters in their story and pass the freaking vampiric Bechdel test?)

Carmilla lives on, indeed. She has made a new comeback in Netflix's Castlevania series. I watched the first season and liked it quite a bit. It was a bit too gorey for my personal taste, but that wasn’t a dealbreaker. I liked the art style and was interested to see where they take the story. When I heard rumours that the second season would have a character named Carmilla, my reaction was pretty much “Carmilla is part of the Castlevania franchise?! Why did no one tell me this before?!”

Of course I’m always eager to see new adaptations of my favourite vampire. So, I did some research to know which games she appears in, made some popcorn and sat down to watch some Let’s Play videos (I’m not a gamer and don’t own game consoles so the only way I get to experience videogames is through Let’s Plays in Youtube.). But I ended up rather disappointed. Carmilla in the Castlevania games is cartoonishly silly at best, downright insulting to the original at worst.

So, after seeing how poorly the games treated my favourite vampire, I looked forward to the second season of the Netflix series with mixed feelings. I was hopeful, thinking that they can't go anywhere but up from here. And I was pleasantly surprised. The character design made her a bit silly looking with eeeevil face and her body language is very femme fatale-ish (I don’t really see the appeal of the femme fatale trope, but then again, it’s usually written for male audience), but they didn't put her in an ugly, revealing costume and the camera focused on her face instead of her breasts.

It's disappointing that she isn't a lesbian in this one (she makes one joke that hints she might be into girls too, but because Dracula's war council is mostly one big sausage fest, we don't see her interact with other females much).

I am so, so happy that the makers of the show understood that Carmilla is not some boot-licking notice-me-senpai Dracula fangirl (an aspect of her I loathed in the games). The only reasons for a lesbian vampire to ally with a male one are if they have a common goal (such as defending themselves against vampire hunters) or if she has no other choice. Netflix Carmilla is the latter. Dracula is a powerful, dangerous monster, who is also very much insane and therefore unpredictable. When he summons Carmilla to join his senseless crusade against humankind, Carmilla can't afford to refuse and take the chance of the mad vampire king killing her for disobedience and making a warning example of her. She has to go to war she herself deems pointless (well, Godbrand had a point in his ”If vampires kill all the humans, what will the vampires eat?”-speech.). So she begins to plot to prevent the genocide (she actually wants humankind to keep existing as opposed to wiping them from the face of the Earth, remind me again why she is the one every fan hates while they love Dracula the Kill All Humans-madman? Oh right, she assaults one of the male fan favourite characters on screen and is therefore deemed much more evil than Dracula who slaughters countless innocent humans offscreen without mercy. Got it.).

I love that she uses cunning instead of seduction when putting her plot to gain freedom from Dracula's servitude in action. Admittedly, some of the scenes where she's manipulating Hector seem a bit seductive-ish, but are still nothing compared to the ”Oh great master let me lick the blood off your sword!”-bullshit from the games. Also, was I the only one who could see right through her mindgames? Every time she complimented some man, I was shaking my head ”Lady, even blind Reetta can see that you are full of shit.” So it really surprised me when Hector fell for it. How do you fall for such an obvious trap?

I like that Carmilla's reasons for her schemes are reasonable and based on common sense and war strategy rather than just being evil for the sake of being evil. That being said, the scene where she beats Hector felt unnecessary, the man was tied up and would have gone with her even without getting his ass handed to him, because he's a prisoner and has no choice. I understand that it's an important scene symbolically, tying back to the scene where the animal-loving Hector compares vampires to cats, to which Isaac points out that cats play cruelly with their prey. It's a turning point for Hector, who abandoned humanity and tried to find a new family among monsters only to realize that they are, well, monsters. What did you expect voting for Leopards Eating Peoples' Faces Party would bring to you? Anyway, I understand that the scene is important to the plot and character growth, but I can't help but feel that making Carmilla assault a fan favourite character so brutally was the writers way of making sure the audience hates her. I have a feeling that they want to be sure the audience hates her, because they have something disgusting in mind for her for the third season.

I already talked about this in my ”If you have to kill female vampires on screen, please don't make it look like a rape”-post. I am worried what they are going to do with Carmilla. She's obviously going to get killed, but I hope they allow her to go down with dignity. Lords of Shadows 2 already gave us a really disgusting, rapey killing scene (I’ve only seen one killing scene with an even clearer “lesbianism can be cured by rape”-theme, in Lesbian Vampire Killers where Carmilla is impaled by a dick-shaped sword), we do not need another. I don't want Hector or Isaac or Dracula impaling her body slowly and looking downward at her in disgust as she painfully dies. Yes, Dracula will be coming back, it's Castlevania after all. I'm also worried of the possibility that instead of killing her, they make Dracula force her back into his servitude, which would also be super gross.

I am happy that the character of Carmilla lives on, that new fans get to experience her with these new incarnations, but whenever a new Carmilla surfaces, I am also a bit worried at how they are going to handle her character this time. I will have to wait and see how the third season of Castlevania ends, until then it is useless to speculate.

#carmilla #vampire #vampire lovers #lust for a vampire #ingrid pitt #yutte stensgaard #ulrike schneidewind #natasha negovanlis #meg tilly

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steve0discusses · 6 years ago

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Yugioh S3 Ep 31: Joey’s Dead (Again)

Ah, it is 5 billion degrees and working has been pretty much impossible, so, lets turn on Netflix and...

Thanks, Netflix.

Anyways, time to go see Joey get destroyed by a bird. On screen. This traumatic as hell kid’s show.

Now, usually this kid’s show is very...kid’s show in quality. The animation has exactly what it needs for most children and teens to feel satisfied--and that’s absolutely fine. You don’t have to make everything look like My Hero Academia, youknow? They were not looking for an award.

But this episode, the one where Joey freakin dies, they decided to bring out their A team. This is the best looking episode of Yugioh that I’ve seen so far, and it was freakin shocking how much better the quality was. Like, I dunno what weird blood sacrifice they did to make this episode looks so freakin good, but kudos to them, everything is more fluid, the shots are composed in a really interesting way, and for once, they actually spend the time to let these characters...react to stuff.

The big twist in Yugioh, at least for me, is when it randomly decides to be quality. It doesn’t happen all (most of) the time, but occasionally, Yugioh will just take a quality swing at me and it’s like “the hell was THAT?” Not that this episode is the best animated episode of anything ever made, it still doesn’t hold a candle to shows that are made in order to be beautiful--but for Yugioh, who’s purpose was never to be pretty (point of fact, Bakura’s hair) and who’s main purpose is to sell freakin playing cards...this is a damn pretty episode.

They just loved Joey that much I guess.

Anyway, onward for what is also the most melodramatic episode of Yugioh I’ve seen. This episode is kind of a gem. I cannot believe I just watched an episode on this show about cards where 3/4 of it was just so many boys full on ugly sobbing into their friend’s comatose body.

(read more under the cut)

Serenity, this small dot in the next cap here, has only made it to.....this part of the island. She has to now run up like 2 miles of tower. Just remember this fact for later.

Yo so...this is a stupid adult question but like who is paying for the healthcare on all these kids in this tourney? Is it just Kaiba? Is Kaiba footing the bill? I mean, it’s a kid’s show so we’ll pretend that hospitals are free (and in Japan it’s like Universal but kinda inbetween, so I’ve heard, so this would be less of a deal) but as an adult American every time they’re in a hospital scene I’m just imagining how crazy that GoFundMe campaign page would look like.

But, as Serenity starts climbing up this monalith, on the roof of said tower, Joey is at max anime. For the first time ever, his hair is drawn as like separate hairs and not as just some weird backwards anteater tail he wears on his head. And youknow what? Joey has a hellton of hair. Your hair has to be realllly long and full to do an anteater and I don’t give him enough credit.

And so after all that, Joey’s like...still up.

(I mean this is as far as I know, I don’t have Jump Force)

Remember how Yugi stood in front of one single fireball so that Joey wouldn’t take one for Mai? Now that we’ve seen how Joey was still standing after bird fire tornado--he...probably would’ve been fine with the fireball. Just conjecture, but I feel like Joey, despite not having any connection to a millennium item, is some sort of escaped X-men.

And then, like everyone on this show is wont to do, he just randomly hallucinates Yugi. What’s great about this episode is that Joey will hallucinate Yugi not once, but twice. (which will come later)

Also, this “Oh yeaaaaaahhhhh” was a super fluid animation that I might just lift because it was so freakin wild. Like it was kind of terrifying how fluid it was. In anime they tend to freelance out different clips to different animators, so they aren’t really all working in the same studio (which is why often anime will have reallllly nice animation in some parts, and then less in others, while in US studios where everyone works on everything, there’s less of that) But whoever got the Joey saying “Oh yeaaaaaaahhhh” scene must’ve been like “this is it, this is my big break” and spent like half a day making it as fluid as they could compared to everything else going on.

They also had enough time for Yugi to partially disrobe for some reason. I guess it looked cool.

Please contrast the twinkly lights and the shimmer sound effect with what follows it:

It’s at this point that Seto Kaiba actually starts to doubt this whole tourney, but not for the reason a normal person would doubt a tourney that has had several apocalypses and mass-murderers involved in it.

Kaiba was Extremely Upset about this revelation.

Anyway, Since Joey is still standing, he pulls a card, realizes it can kill Marik, slaps it on the duel disk, the monster shows up on the field, and--Kaiba either has the fastest elevator in the world, or Serenity runs a 3 minute mile because, guess who made it to the top of this tower of Babel?

That’s right, supportive Sister, here to walk Joey through the hard arduous task of basically pressing “enter” on your keyboard.

RIP again, Joey, RIP again. I mean it’s hard to get too wrapped up in it because I know he already died...this morning...like two hours ago. Like basically he got turned into stone for a bit, and then after coming back to life, took a nap on the blimpjet and then arrived at this island to die yet again. Joey Wheeler has just had such a very intense couple of days and desperately needs a nap.

But, game wise, Joey played a monster, it was on the field--what else would he have done with it???

But because he didn’t say a word loud enough for other people to hear, this didn’t count???

This game is so weird about what rules it decides are binding and which are loosey goosey. There’s absolutely no time limit, you can strap the other person to a weird wall device and throw fireballs at their face, you can sap their life energy with weird fiber optic cables, but if you don’t say the word “Attack” although the monster card is in Attack position--it doesn’t count? There’s nothing else on the field to hit but Marik himself. There’s literally nothing else Joey would have done with that card. He totally won this match but whatever, it’s Yugioh.

And lets give it up for the one and only adult in the room, everybody. Good Job, Roland. Good freakin job.

I get that he’s a butler/pilot/card referee/bodyguard, but who else is freakin there to parent any of these teens? Ishizu? Is that all we have left?

Sorry, I’ve thought more about Roland and his mysterious dodgy character than the people who made this show.

Anyway, it’s at this point that Mokuba decided to climb stuff.

Again, this episode has so many weird animation details that say a lot about the characters--and I’m just not used to this much love and care.

So another wild thing about this episode--I didn’t realize that Joey was even Shadow Realmed when I watched it through. This episode is super vague when it comes to Joey. Everyone is mourning as if he had died, and so for me, the first time watcher (as well as my Bro who saw it once when he was 13), I just assumed this is because they finally got a completely different but very good animation team on this episode. I just figured this was someone high up saying “maybe you should have the characters realistically react to at least a single death on this show where 183 people have died”

But, turns out this is actually a translation error. Because, in the Japanese version, Joey just freakin stopped breathing or something? In the English version that we’re watching, Joey is just in a coma, and it’s a rather pleasant coma (yet still my definition of a death). But, the reason everyone is reacting like...how they should have reacted the previous 182 times, is because Joey was actually legally dead.

Something they censored out to keep the show mystifyingly Y-7 although...I think I’ve said this a million times, but don’t give this show to your 7 year old. Going off of what my Nephews and Nieces like, Yugioh is a pretty far cry from PJ Masks and Monster High.

Anyway, the show goes totally all out, and everyone does a 150% more than what is ever necessary grief cry, and I think the best cry goes to Tristan although Yugi attempted really hard to steal the gold. Thing about Yugi’s grieving is that he was going more for quantity over quality, but they did a really brutal close zoom on Tristan going through the stages of Grief (mostly anger) and it was like...unexpected for a Yugioh episode y’all. I’ve never seen Tristan go that hard...ever. Tristan is usually kind of tertiary but he just came out of nowhere to scream directly at my face and I was not expecting it.

And this episode does something that I like, although it was kind of unusual for Pharaoh and Yugi--and it shows us how they react in a completely opposite way to the same traumatic event. They’ll both get around to crying but Pharaoh will take his time.

Also, we’ve seen indication of Pharaoh’s inward grief before - and it’s something they usually say but don’t show - but this is the first time they’ve actually showed that Pharaoh tends to bottle everything deep, deep down. He’s got maybe a lot of feelings about being a ghost who doesn’t have a body or a history or...anything, and him bottling up Yugi (since Yugi isn’t going to come out for the rest of this episode) is sort of a proof that he’s used to bottling everything.

Cuz outwardly, he’s just like this (and kudos to the art team for leaving a spot where Yugi’s spirit is currently crying over the corpse/coma victim)

And then meanwhile, Kaiba just has no idea what planet he’s even on. Remember that in the Japanese version, Joey freakin died in Seto’s own tournament. This would be a PR disaster, but does Kaiba...know?

(Yes, I keep a draft file that is just every single death so I can keep track of them, and this is the 4th time that Joey has died)

Then this doctor shows up, which is surprising, because I figured Marik knocked this guy out and stuffed him in a broom closet last season. But nah, it’s the same doctor, he’s back. This poor doctor who keeps having to tend Shadow Realm patients while every single person on this blimp is in the same little hospital room with him, just breathing down his neck.

Speaking of, if this doctor has been here this entire time, then why did Serenity just stay directly by Mai’s side?

They have a doctor.

Anyway, originally I thought I’d make this two parts but like...nah, we’ll just have a really long post.

Lets see how Joey’s Shadow Realm is (which, again, it is super unclear if he is or isn’t, and from when I polled you guys it looked like it was sort of like a “don’t think about it” situation of whether this is a dream of Joey’s, or the Shadow Verse)

I’ve made the joke before that you can tell it’s a dream when they’re at school but...we’re back at school. It’s the only time we see Joey in his school uniform.

Thirsty preteens rejoice, they finally removed Joey from his baggy pajama shirt that he’s been stuck in for 2 seasons. Like, do you think when Kaiba was looking at public schools, he saw that this school had not only crazy card people, but also freakin nuts shoulder pads and he just slammed that “enroll” button?

So...does Yugi KNOW that everyone else dreams about him on a regular basis? Like, does he KNOW? I figure Yugi just has sort of a weird tick related to the puzzle that makes it so people are seeing him, but Yugi has no idea that he’s got an inception method ability, right?

And especially since this is kind of a magic-onset dream, and Yugi really wants to save Joey, it sort of almost looks like Yugi is doing this maybe latently through the puzzle? But...probably not. I don’t really know what’s happening here, other than Joey’s just gonna go peace out and play this confusing card game for eternity.

That would be my Shadow Realm.

Back at our homeslice, Blimpjet, Seto has sent his little brother to deliver all of the bad news for him, knowing that Mokuba is too cute for anyone to do anything about it.

And so Mokuba decides to radio a helicopter to save him because he’s a Kaiba and doesn’t realize that planes/boats exist. Good to see that Mokuba has finally decided to embrace his job as Battle City Commissioner and figure out a solution to transporting/hiding all these bodies.

Honestly, I’m just shook that this blimpjet is not a blimpjetboat.

Bro told me that in the Japanese version, Tristan just straight up punches Joey right near this scene, and like...that’s probably true. Bro has a lot of spicy headcanons but I can see this show doing that. (bro note: that might have been an earlier Joey coma).

Knowing that, it makes this kind of more funny because Yugi is so absorbed in The Crying that I guess he didn’t notice that whole thing go down with Tristan.

I guess they wanted a throwback to S1, but this episode is so extra that Yugi very nearly stops playing cards. Nearly. He’s still gonna play cards, but I guess as a symbol to show that he’s starting to give into just not playing this game anymore, Pharaoh actually takes this weird contraption off his arm.

To do so he has to like remove the battery or something. I didn't even realize what he was doing because it was so un-intuitive, but you have to pull out this 4 inch battery from the back in order to remove the disk.

Can you imagine!???? Can you imagine wearing this thing in real life and shoving a 4 inch 2 lb battery in and out of this hulking thing every time you had to use the toilet?

Which...I guess they haven’t been, right? Like I shouldn’t go down that avenue but like...they haven’t been, right? There are just so many germs on this disk.

And so Pharaoh decides it’s finally time to lose it, maybe because Yugi wants to give up cards, or maybe because there’s no one else around so it’s finally fine for him to shed a masculine tear or two, but it took him I want to say like 20 more minutes than Yugi to finally react to all this.

And then this happens?

Anyway, remember Ishizu’s Millennium Necklace (not to be confused with the Millennium Puzzle with is also a Necklace, which Yugi also has, but he only wears one, because he just doesn’t feel like wearing 2 chokers at once, I guess)

Apparently the reason that Yugi was given the necklace was to get this one vision of the future. Get ready for it, the entire fate of the world rested on Pharaoh getting this one vision.

Yes, the answer was indeed, cards.

On the other end of the blimpjet, Mokuba I guess got tired of Roland’s poor radio skills and has decided to use the radio himself while Roland kind of just stands there and waves his arms around.

Straight up, does Mokuba have a Ham license? Are the Kaiba’s Hams? So like, Bro and I made Ham radio parts as a part time out of college and while I don’t have a license, it just really intrigues me that these boys do and I really wonder if they ever check into the emergency net and do Ham contesting when they aren’t throwing cards around. Ham people are like...really into their rigs so if you had Kaiba money, your rig would reach the curvature of the Earth.

Also, I kinda just assumed that they’re still in Japan, since Japan has a lot of islands connected to it, and the Kaiba Island does look man-made, but...is it not? Why place this factory in the middle of nowhere if you aren’t actually building a merc-for-hire program like Metal Gear? Like I know we just talked about how Gozobura Kaiba was basically Big Boss, but like...was this island made by Master Miller? Why is it in the middle of the ocean???

Big Boss had a reason to build in the sea, because he didn’t actually align with a country, so he had to be in international waters, but Gozobura Kaiba’s company is Japanese, so why go through all the trouble of--whatever I shouldn’t think about it.

So yeah, they’re too far away to radio to Japan although...that doesn’t make sense to me since why would you build a manufacturing plant so far away from your biggest buyer? But plot. Plot reasons, it had to happen this way.

And then this scene happened and it was...SO MUCH.

THIS WAS SO MUCH.

THIS SCENE WAS JUST SO FREAKIN AWKWARD.

Like it may not come through with the caps but this scene was made up to be extremely serious. The music was swelling, Pharaoh was pausing by Joey’s bedside as if to give a speech. The writers were expecting tears to come out of my face when Pharaoh did..........this

Wʜᴏ ᴡʀᴏᴛᴇ ᴛʜɪs.

Y’all I was DYING.

I had to stop the episode and just like...recover. We had to rewind so I could watch this scene twice. I could not stop laughing at the idea that the writers were like “lets take this very serious and heavy content and then make it super emotional and meaningful by SLAPPING A DUEL DISK ON IT.”

And what makes this scene even better is that like--barely anyone said ANYTHING after Pharaoh did this. He waltzed in there, did this insane thing, and then just waltzed out as if this was completely normal.

What the hell!?!?

And so while I am kind of reeling from Pharaoh just slapping a duel disk onto Joey like it’s a badge of honor and Joey was shot in the line of duty, suddenly--out of nowhere--Tea felt like reminding us that many episodes ago it was super hinted that these two might actually be approaching a relationship.

And so Tea decides to beg Yugi to stop and stay behind as if she’s a wife watching her husband like march off to the front lines or something. It was so melodramatic and just came out of NO WHERE.

Thankfully, as is this show’s custom, every time it looks like this ship might happen, every other available boy on the show must appear out of nowhere to cockblock the situation.

This episode is a lot of watching Pharaoh try his best to navigate a bunch of very delicate and intense social situations and he does so with the elegance and sensitivity of a bologna sandwich.

This shot of Kaiba on top of the tower ps was so freakin rediculous. This show just knows what it is and goes for it. Completely unashamed. I think that’s what I like most about anime--it has absolutely no shame to just be...waaaay too much.

...why THIS episode? Who was it that worked overtime for months and months just to make this one Yugioh episode look so shiny and nice?

And so the episode ends there, and probably all the character development we’ll have for the rest of the season. I cannot believe they gave me that much content in one episode. Damn.

I’m assuming next episode will be entirely cards and I’ll have like 5 caps of content.

Anyway if you just got here, this is a handy link to read these from the beginning.

#Yugioh #yu gi oh #S3 ep 31 #joey wheeler #yugi muto #tea gardner #duke devlin #seto kaiba #mokuba #marik ishtar #Joey gets killed by a God Bird #And then everybody cries

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