#the music and fiction and media we like and defend does tell other people meaningful shit about us

[slickshoesareyoucrazy]

The Fictional Men We Crush On

This actually isn't a post about the men I make up or the fictional characters that remind me of J. I've written plenty of shit about that before. It's clear I have a 'type.' (Tall, quiet nerd. Bonus if he wears glasses. Double bonus if he's got dominant traits. For the maybe 2 of you who didn't already know that, and/or forgot, and/or don't find it painfully obvious). We all know I love Egon Spengler and Chris Stevens and Dwayne Wayne and George Bailey and Ned the Piemaker. Like...there it is.

And it's not a Celebrity Hit List post either (everybody probably also knows I have a monster crush on Ben Folds and Hozier because I mean...tall quiet nerds who PLAY INSTRUMENTS with gorgeous hands and sing about love and at least sometimes wear glasses...like it's kinda not fair if you wanna be real about shit here). There are fictional characters I dig a lot but don't particularly care for the actors who play them at all (lookin' at you Andy Dwyer from Parks and Rec). And vice versa (I hear that kid who played Joffrey in Game of Thrones is actually a sweetie pie and a half).

This is a half-silly (but half-not silly) post about how the fictional men my man-loving friends crush on should clue me in on who THEY (my man-loving friends) are. Because as I sit here on the exercise bike counting minutes until I can get off and go back to housework that's less sweaty, I'm thinking about who the man-lovers in my life like or have liked. A lot of them like Gomez Addams. And Captain Von Trapp from The Sound of Music. And Wayne from Letterkenny. And there's Team Michael versus Team Rafael for Jane the Virgin fans. And of course, Mr. Darcy. All good choices, I'd say, even though they aren't my choices. And I have a couple friends who are 'villain' girls who like Killmonger from Black Panther (I get it in that case; truly). I can be friends with a lot of people who don't share my tastes. In fact, I have an amateur, untested theory that men-loving people (and probably also women-and nonbinary-loving people) make easier friends with people who don't share exactly the same taste in attraction. All my best man-loving friends do not share my type, but they understand it. That's cool. I understand why most of my friends like most of the people they like (any gender; fictional and non-fictional). But I guess I got to thinking about one person who was recently in my life because Pretty in Pink by The Psychedelic Furs came up on my shuffle here on the bike and how her taste in fictional men should have been a tip off to me that she wasn't really my kinda person.

Let me explain that a bit (or try at least). This woman said she'd always had a crush on Steph, the James Spader character in John Hughes' classic 80s film, Pretty in Pink. James Spader is probably an alright guy in real life (I don't know though), and I have some submissive friends who liked him in Secretary (I've still never seen it), and he's certainly a handsome man (or he can be one and was one in the 80s). But dude, that character is a first class piece of shit. An arrogant, elitist, sexist douchebag by any measure. He is the villain of the piece and he doesn't have a righteous cause or a tragic past like Killmonger; he's just a shitbag. I mean, my favorite line in the film, delivered with quiet but cutting ire by Andrew McCarthy's dreamy but unfortunately named hero character, Blaine is, "She thinks you're shit. And deep down, you know she's right." She went on to swoon over and defend a lot of other seriously flawed and disturbing men, both real and imaginary to me throughout the course of our interactions (I can't call it a friendship anymore)...Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (rapist; at least he had some redeemable traits sometimes but still...I liked Giles and Wesley and Oz; I guess I'm just not a vampire girl), Viggo Mortenson's Walker from the film A Walk on the Moon (he's not really a bad guy, but he tries to break up a marriage and family where the husband is a definitive GOOD guy...Liev Schreiber, another one of my swoony celebs because he reminds me of J and wow his character was the dreamy one for me in that movie), musicians with well established histories of abusing women and/or anti-Semitism. She just went to bat pretty regularly for people, both real and not real, who were at least unjustifiable in the bad shit they did, if not wholly irredeemable. And looking back, it's not surprising she did, because I think those are characters she might see herself in.

Anyway, if you're reading this and you're like, 'But I like this one villain in this one show...' and it turns out that character has this giant growth arc (Petra in Jane the Virgin; Nathaniel in Crazy Ex Girlfriend; I'm sure there are countless other examples), or really you just like the actor (Adam Driver, Jamie Dornan, and on and on and on...), that's not the same as waxing poetic about fucking Steph from Pretty in Pink. And if you ALSO like heroes sometimes? Even really imperfect or unconventional ones? Yeah. Egon Spengler, remember? They're not STEPH from Pretty in Pink. :-P

OK bike time and rant over. I'm probably gonna go watch Pretty in Pink while I finish housework now. (Blaine and Duckie forever. Steph can go kick rocks).

[girl4music]

I was tagged by @cylonalyna to answer 15 questions about myself and to tag 15 people to answer them, too. So here we go... 

Are you named after someone? No, but I have a few nicknames. My favourite one is the one I was called by bullies. Pippi Longstocking. Obviously, they called me that to make me feel bad. Jokes on them, though, because I actually liked that nickname. I took it on because... First of all, I love the character, Pippi Longstocking. Second of all, I look like her in that I have ginger hair, gangly legs, and I wear long odd socks. Third of all, my personality is much like the character. I am protective/defendant when I see someone being bullied or abused. I’m independent and unusually optimistic. I don’t care what anyone thinks or says about me negatively. I absolutely hate social conventions. And I am a self-proclaimed rebel of the system. I guess I took on the ‘Fat Amy’ thing the character, Fat Amy, does in the Pitch Perfect films before she even existed.

When was the last time you cried? Haven’t got a clue. I don’t cry very often.

Do you have kids? No, and I’m not interested in having any in the future. I might feel differently at some point, but for the time-being, I don’t want kids.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? No, I just act like a complete twat for no reason.

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Their eyes. I am a firm believer in the eyes being the windows to the soul. You can fake any other feature on your face to hide your thoughts and feelings, but the eyes tell no lies. 

What’s your eye colour? Blue. I have my grandmother’s eyes instead of my parents’ eyes, which are both brown. My grandmother died 8 years ago. On her death bed I sung a song, that I wrote for her, to her. It’s called ‘Blue Eyes’, and it’s all about how much me and my grandmother have in common. It still holds sentimental significance to me to this day. It’s a very meaningful song for me.

Scary movies or happy endings? A scary movie with a happy ending.

Any special talents? I am psychic. I have the psychic abilities of Clairsentience and Claircognizance. I’ve written about ‘The Clair’s’ elsewhere on my Tumblr before, so I won’t go into detail with what they are and what they do here. Basically, you can receive intuitive information through the 5 physical senses. It is more commonly known as extra-sensory perception or ESP for short. 

Where were you born? United Kingdom.

What are your hobbies? Singing and listening to music. Writing and communicating on social media. Light reading. I’m an information buff and a versatile person so I like a variety of topics. I enjoy self-educating on whatever I’m passionate about in the moment. Often it is stuff I already know but want validation on to see if I’m correct or not about it. It’s part of my Claircognizance.

Do you have any pets? I have a dog named Taffy. He got his name because his coat is the colour of the soft and chewy toffee-coloured candy. He is a pedigree cross-breed of a golden retriever and a labrador. He is a pain in the ass and the most mischievous dog on the planet due to being poorly house-trained as a puppy by his original owners. But I love him. He makes me smile and laugh.

How tall are you? 6ft.

What sports do you play/have you played? I used to play badminton and netball in school but I haven’t done anything athletic since, apart from light working out. I’m not into sports. I don’t even watch the FIFA World Cup on TV.

Favorite subject at school? Because I love all types of information, it changed every year. Music, English (creative writing and literature), history (Ancient Greece and Egypt), and Science (biology mostly, and physics if I agreed with it.)

Dream job? Being a singer in a band touring the world and releasing our own written material. I used to be in a band but had to call it off due to financial reasons. Other than that, I’d love to be a historian, archaeologist or etymologist studying, discovering and translating Ancient Grecian and Egyptian scriptures. While we’re on the topic of this and since this is the last question, can I do a cheeky plug? I have written an original historical fanfiction story that crosses over between the Universes of the TV show, ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and ‘The Mummy’ movie franchise. It's genre is drama/action/adventure with a fair bit of romance. It is both fiction and non-fiction, as it heavily ties in with the events of World War II, and all characters are to be thought of as historical figures. You can find it on my Wattpad titled: ‘A Descendant's Destiny’. It only has 11 chapters but I’m very proud of it, and I would love for you guys to read it.

Well that’s it! I tag @danielleitloudernow, @princessofamphipolis, @jgateskings, @gabbyamazonqueen, @warriorbard-always, @geekwithoutafandom, @wonderfulmagicalworld, @thewarriorprincessxena, @sapphic-princess-xena, @femslashash, @znarls, @lucyllawless, @xenagabby17, @warriorprincess-amazonqueen, @mcbrilliant

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight - Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Star Wars… what a series. Since the late 70s, this series has been influencing and shaping the very face of science fiction. Do you know how many movies, video games, comics, and more owe a huge debt of gratitude to this franchise? A fuckton. And be it their best or their worse, the Star Wars movies always give you something interesting to talk about.

Tonight we’re at their worst. Main series-wise, anyway.

Yes, I’m going to be go over all seven main series Star Wars movies this week, and what better place to start than the most controversial, the most despised, most reviled film in the franchise… The Phantom Menace. So many people call it one of the absolute worst films of all time and a childhood raping moment of epic proportions, and these people are stupid and I hate them. Is this movie good? No. Not really. But is this seriously some sort of unholy affront to God Himself? Hell, I probably think its bad for totally different reasons than most people as is, but the sheer level of hate this movie gets is just… astounding. It kind of reminds me of the shitsotrm surrounding The Emoji Movie, where people act like this one mediocre movie is the end of cinema itself. So as much as I’m going to give this movie shit, I’m gonna defend it too, because  lord knows this movie gets more shit than it deserves.

So, what’s the story? Well, instead of telling you myself, take a few minutes out of your time and let tonight’s special musical guest Weird Al explain the plot for you! Take it away, Al!

Let me just get this out of the way first: Jar Jar Binks. He’s a dumb character. Yeah, such a bold, shocking statement there, huh? Well, I’m going to say this: as dumb as he is, he’s not even cclose to being the worst character in cinematic history. He’s not Ludlow from Pixels or the titular character of Lucy or that bitchy obnoxious old neighbor lady from Rosemary’s Baby that some people treat like one of cinema’s greatest villains… he’s just an obnoxious kiddy comic relief character with a dumb voice. He’s the Scrappy-Doo of cinema, the character who, yeah, is annoying and dumb, but has such an overblown hatedom its not even funny. Much like Scrappy, he was also utilized much better in other media, such as in the Clone Wars TV series, where his kindness is played up as well as the fact everyone around him is annoyed by his klutziness. Funny what some better writers can do, eh George?

Before I move on, I need to address the elephant in the room, that elephant being ‘Jar Jar is a racist caricature of black people/Watto is an antisemitic caricature/the Trade Federation are Japanese caricatures.’ Look, if you see Jar Jar up on that screen, see how he looks and acts, and think to yourself “Huh… that’s a black person alright,” I just… I don’t even know what to say to that. Same if you look at Watto and see a Jew; what is it that makes you thinks he’s a Jew? What about this nasty space fly screams “Jew” to you? Is it the big nose you goddamn NATIONAL SOCIALIST? Like who the fuck actually believes this shit? Some people wanna convince you this is the sci-fi version of The Birth of a Nation, but no, it’s just people with deep-rooted prejudices seeing shit where there isn’t any, as per usual.

You know what IS offensive, though? The writing. The writing here is absolutely atrocious. It’s not like A New Hope was much better in the dialogue department, but in that movie there was at least a plot you could give a shit about. Here… not so much. In fact, that’s the true flaw of this film, and the thing that ultimately leads me to calling this a bad film: in the grand scheme of things, nothing that happens in this movie ultimately effects the overall saga in any meaningful way. Sure, we see where Anakin came from, but that’s about it. There’s not really anything interesting or insightful to be gleaned from this tale, which leads it to feel like the world’s most pointless spinoff movie. There’s a reason that there’s an entire suggested viewing process for the franchise that recommends you skip this movie; nothing in this movie isn’t explained better in another film. It’s just a bunch of shit you can’t bring yourself to care about onscreen the whole time, that ultimately adds nothing but annoyance and plot holes to the overarching mythos of the franchise.

So I’ve harped on this movie a lot… it must truly be devoid of value. Well hold your tauntauns there, sonny! This movie didn’t end up on Empire’s list of the 500 greatest films of all time for no reason! There really is a lot to admire here, despite the overall package being somewhat subpar. First and foremost, we have Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jin. Sure, I could nitpick this and say how Qui-Gon’s existence can open up plot holes or whatever, but… it’s Liam Neeson as a Jedi. I don’t fucking care about any lore shit, this is motherfucking Liam “Taken” Neeson swinging a lightsaber around! Even better than that, though, is Ewan McGregor beginning his take on Obi Wan and, I’m gonna be honest… he does a damn good job. While here he’s still young and learning, he’s still every bit as awesome as he’ll grow to be someday. We’ve also got the kickass track “Duel of Fates,” one of the best pieces of music in the franchise, we’ve got that pretty cool pod racing sequence, we have the awesome droidekas and the pretty cool droids, we have Darth Maul, who is easily one of the coolest and most badass characters in the franchise, what with his dual-bladed lightsaber and the fact he looks like the devil and who has a final battle that easily makes up for a good chunk of the earlier problems of the film… there really is plenty of stuff to enjoy here. The ultimate flaw of the arguments against this movie is that people act like there is absolutely nothing of value in this film. There is, and plenty of it, it just doesn’t in the end save this from being a hot, pointless mess of a movie.

Also, I’m sure you were expecting me to trash on Jake Lloyd’s performance. Well, I’m not going to do that. What kind of fuck trashes a kid’s performance for not being as good as James Earl Jones? Like fuck, you’d think people expected an Academy Award winner performance from the poor kid.

So yeah… this one’s bad. But I’d honestly say it leans more to the “So bad it’s good” side at worst. Like I said, there’s plenty of good stuff in here, if you can stomach the cringey dialogue and Jar Jar. Watching it with the mindset that it’s a spinoff and not necessary to really get the bigger picture of the franchise can kinda help, but in the end, this one is pretty easy to just skip. At the very least, I kind of admire George Lucas for doing something so wildly new and different with the series, even if it ended up being kinda bad. It’s not like he just blatantly retreaded A New Hope and tried to convince everyone it was the Big New Thing, this is most certainly an earnest film, one that showcases his true artistic vision for the series. It’s just a pretty dumb vision, is all.

Really, if you want a rewarding experience, just spend the six minutes watching Weird Al’s “The Saga Begins” and skip right to episode two; you’ll have a much better Star Wars experience that way.