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joneswuzhere · 3 years ago

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hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality

5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:

- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on

- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable

- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there

- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat

- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol

- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift

- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.

- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?

- i have arrived at the point

- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky

- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’

- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth

- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner

- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note

- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there

- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward

- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?

- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out

- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself

- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)

- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent

- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king

- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon

- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’

- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train

- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment

- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump

- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time. and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.

- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??

- however,,,

- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)

- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.

- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show

- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go

#accompanying image has no meaningful organization it's just there to make me look insane. enjoy #riverdale speculation #filmref #but books #adhd has me like. this is Not the post i've been trying to write for weeks but my brain gave me no choice

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hp-fanfic-archive · 4 years ago

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an introductory rec list (that no one asked for) to some of my favorite ships: wolfstar [1/10]

First fic I read for the pairing: Where Rain And Smoke Mingle by smallestbird [1k,T] It doesn't matter if they've disowned you, they're still your family. It doesn't matter how often you walk away, it still hurts. [it’s a bit dreary, but the writing style is so nice and i’m a big sucker for hurt/comfort]

Fic that really sold me on the pairing: Of Brothers and Boyfriends by Amuly [38k,E] There’s no summary on the fic, but, essentially, Remus and Sirius’s secret relationship gets found out and things get… complicated. (warning for homophobia) [My note on my ao3 bookmark pretty much sums up how I feel about this fic: Honestly one of my favorites (and one of the stories that really got me hooked on Wolfstar tbh) and I've read it at least eight times. However, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the homophobic James Potter (even though he does come around).]

Absolute favorite fic(s) for the pairing: Text Talk by merlywhirls [141k,Not Rated] Sirius is in boarding school, Remus is in hospital, and they don't know each other until Sirius texts the wrong number. (warnings for homophobia, mentions of abuse, and homophobic language) [One of the earlier fics I read and it’s always just been one of my favorites, even though it’s been 3 years since I read it for the first time.] Harry Potter and the Live Laugh Love Sign in the Basement by loudestfandomsoftheworld [24k,T] Harry spends his summer with his fugitive godfather and his former professor who is a jobless werewolf. It's probably the best summer he's ever had. [The humor, the characterizations, their relationships, it’s all so fucking perfect!!] Go East [+Podfic] by xinasvoice [84k,E] Remus has been running for a long time. Eventually, he runs into a strange castle built by a wizard and his young apprentice. The longer he stays, the more secrets he uncovers...and the less he wants to leave. This is a novel-length adventure story that loosely follows the plot of Howl's Moving Castle. It does not require knowledge of the HMC book or movie to enjoy it. [it made me laugh, it made me cry, and it’s plot is based on one of my all time favorite movies? 11/10] Of Queries and Quarantines by MoonCat457 [51k,E] LUPIN.RJ: James, WHY? POTTER.JF: Because you’re the one currently doing the job, so it makes sense that you’d be the one to train the person hired to take your place. LUPIN.RJ: No, I mean why is Monty hiring a new editor in the middle of a fucking pandemic? POTTER.JF: An old friend of mine is in a tough spot and needs a job, so of course, dad is helping him out. - - - - OR A story set in the middle of the pandemic in which Sirius is hired at the Potter’s publishing company and Remus is responsible for training him. Lots of texting, lots of video calls, lots of mutual pining, and a lot of really bad literature quotes. [i’ve largely avoided quarantine au fics, but sometimes they’re so well-written and hilarious and also a texting fic and i accidentally fall in love with them, so here we are.]

Most recent fic I’ve read for the pairing: There Is No Man, However Wise by enigmaticblue [87k,T] It’s 1988, Sirius has Harry, and possession is nine-tenths of the law. [i adore a good raising harry au and i also adore the premise of the series this is in and i also adore the writing story and characterizations. 10/10]

Favorite AU(s) I’ve read for the pairing: High School AU: Likewise Variable by ssstrychnine [28k,T] James has plans, Peter is the nurse, Sirius keeps fake blood up his sleeves, and Remus just tries to stay alive. [i first read this fic in 2017 and it still lives rent free in my mind. it’s hilarious, a perfect characterization of the marauders (even tho it’s a muggle modern high school au) and adding shakespeare? just icing on the fucking cake. it’s excellent.] University AU: Wannabe Your Lover by Maraudererasmut & shadow_prince [15k,M] Somewhere in America, Fall of 1997 - Returning to University, James refused to room with Sirius in the wake of The Great Cheez-it Battle of '96. They must adjust to living with someone new, Mr. Potter worried they'd both get scurvy, James unsuccessfully continued trying to court one Lily Evans, Snape got what was coming to him, and Sirius was the most confused of them all. [this is the university experience we all wish we had, lowkey. aside from the hilarity that comes from having the marauders in a fic, it’s just cute and well-written and i love it (and southern remus??? it’s everything i never knew i needed.] Alternate Sorting AU (Slytherin Remus): Half Agony, Half Hope by Barry_Manilows_Wardrobe [21k,E] A tale wherein Sirius Black loses 750 House Points for Gryffindor. But it’s totally worth it. [listen, if, before i read this fic, you asked me if remus could’ve been a slytherin, my answer would have been “perhaps but probably not.” now, however, yeah. 100%. it’s hilarious, it’s novel (which i love to see), but it’s still the same remus and sirius and it’s excellent.] Haunted House AU: Another Day in the Sun by REwrites [19k,T] Is it haunted? I suppose that depends on who is telling the story. [really really excellent and a little haunting (pun entirely intended). it’s romantic and sweet and a little bittersweet but i adore it.]

WIP(s) I really love for the pairing: We Were Infinite by WolfstarPups90 [336k,E] “The Marauders aren’t something that will just go away once we graduate.” James continued, taking a more serious tone and addressing not only Remus, but the fear that they all had found recently in the back of their minds about what may become of them outside the walls of Hogwarts. “We’re a family. We’ve proven that again and again, haven’t we? We’re forever. Unstoppable. We’re infinite.” The full story of The Marauders from September 1st 1971 - October 31st 1981. (Heavily centered around Wolfstar and Jily in later chapter) [the first WIP i ever read (usually i stick to completed works, but this was being pretty regularly updated when i started reading it and also it’s fucking iconic so what can i say?)] Of Leaves and Stars by irrationalmoony & LadyAmina [273k,T] Almost a year out of Hogwarts, Lily finally manages to convince Sirius and James to get more acquainted with muggle technology and buy phones. Sirius, of course, texts the wrong number. [everyone is queer! (as they well should be). also: is it complete? no. has that stopped me from reading it twice? also no.]

Favorite Series for the pairing: TransVerse by picascribit [30k,E,2 works] Canon-divergent AU in which Remus is a transgender boy instead of being a werewolf. (warnings for underage, transphobia, internalized transphobia, bullying, self-harm) [i am a trans remus stan and this series is iconic, but also heed the tags kids.]

Longest fic I’ve read for the pairing: Once in a Blue Moon by FullMoonDreams [408k,M] In a world where Remus never received his Hogwarts invitation and Sirius wasn't accepted by the Gryffindors the two lonely boys become friends. A story beginning in their first year, and continuing right through Hogwarts and beyond. RLSB. [this fic emotionally ruined me,,, but like,,, in a good way, you know? i will probably never reread it because i cried for hours the first time, but the plot does live rent free in my mind (and i do have a playlist of songs that remind me of it).]

Fic(s) with some of my favorite tropes: Matchmaking: Pining, Parchment, Plotting, and Pranks by KayBee1762 [12k,T] “Idea parchment,” James said. He unfolded it and smoothed it out. “You want to get them together, right? That’s why you came to me?” “Yeah,” Lily huffed, which was ridiculous because he was right, that’s why she came to him. But it was supposed to be her idea, because she wanted to help her dear friend Remus, not James or Sirius. But it was so nice to be able to talk about this with someone, and James looked so pleased and excited. “Good,” James said. “Good, because they need to get together, they would be so happy and so good together, and Sirius will stop sighing like a lovesick puppy and just snog him instead.” In which Lily considers changing Houses, James blushes a lot, Sirius is his usual dramatic self, Remus mopes, and Peter knew everything all along. [the marauders (especially james and lily) trying to play matchmaker is one of my favorite instances of the classic matchmaking trope.] Road Trips + Bed Sharing: Of Comets and Counter-Examples by Woldy [5k,T] If the past is a foreign country, can travel help to resolve a troubled history? Dumbledore assigns Remus and Sirius a mission to explore three European cities, or perhaps to find each other. [a lovely tale of travel, reunions, comfort, friendship, and self-rediscovery. plus, travel, bed sharing, and friends to lovers??? yeah] Matchmaking (again): In The Middle by Blossomwitch [3k,Not Rated] James is the natural confidant of both Remus and Sirius. When they both swear him to secrecy on the same topic, James is stuck watching his friends pine for each other without being able to say a word to bring them together. A lesser man might shrink from the challenge of finding a way to break his promise without breaking his promise, but not James Potter! [i already did a matchmaking trope fic i know but what can i say other than the trope fucking slaps and so does this fic.]

#wolfstar #remus/sirius #sirius/remus #wolfstar fic rec #wolfstar fic rec list #intro to my fav ships rec list #hp fic rec #hp fic rec list #queue is for quibbler

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lucyreviewcy · 4 years ago

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The Three Three Musketeers (or Where The F*ck Did All The Stupid Hats Go)

I read The Three Musketeers and then I watched the 1973, 1993 and 2011 adaptations. Which one wins tho?

Adaptation is a fascinating concept, especially of texts which are frequently adapted or parodied. After I rewatched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice I was reminded how weirdly divisive the two dominant adaptations of that book are. A lot of people consider the 2005 to be an inferior betrayal of the 1990s BBC version. I actually prefer the 2005 because I think Matthew McFadyen’s Mr Darcy is a wonderfully complex character. McFadyen imbues Darcy with social awkwardness and anxiety, which Lizzie misinterprets as his pride. To overcome the “Lizzie doesn’t fancy him ‘til she sees his house” debate, director Joe Wright includes a moment where Lizzie glimpses Darcy alone with his sister. He’s comfortable, his body language is completely different, and he’s smiling broadly. That moment really sold me on the entire film because it made Darcy a full character and was a really simple addition that rounded out the story. I still like the 90s version but for me, it’s the 2005 that takes first place. (Although an honourable mention for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because it is an excellent romp.)

Look: adaptation is always a complicated topic. You can’t untangle one adaptation from another, because it’s pretty rare that somebody adapting a classic text like Pride and Prejudice or The Three Musketeers is not already familiar with existing adaptations. The most recent adaptation of any classic text is not simply an adaptation of that text, but the next step in a flow chart that includes all the previous adaptations and the cultural context of the newly created product. These three adaptations of Dumas’ 1844 novel are all texturally and stylistically very different, and two of them diverge significantly from the original text. What I found truly fascinating was what all of them had in common, and what each new era (these were made at around 20 year intervals) decides to add or remove. What do all these movies agree are the essential parts of the story, and what are some adaptations more squeamish about including from Dumas’ original narrative?

Before we dive in, no I have not seen every single adaptation of the story, that would be a dissertation level of research and I do actually have things to do right now (although, I will admit...not many.) I’m looking at these three Hollywood adaptations because they all had star studded casts (for the era they were made in), they’re all English language, and (crucially) they were all easily available on the internet for me to stream.

What are the essential ingredients of a Three Musketeers adaptation?

Firstly, there should be at least three musketeers. Secondly, D’Artagnan (Michael York 1973, Chris O’Donnell 1993, Logan Lerman 2011) should be a young upstart who is introduced part way through a sword fight. He should also have silly hair. He is also consistently introduced to the musketeers in all three films by challenging them each individually to duels at noon, one o’clock and two o’clock.

The films all maintained some elements of the original “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, and featured the Queen, Milady and Constance. The characterisation of these three varied a lot.

Our villains in each case are invariably the Cardinal, his pal Rochefort (who always has an eyepatch, although this trope is not in the book and is actually attributable to the way Christopher Lee is styled in the 1973 film), and Milady de Winter. Satisfyingly, at least two of the villains usually wear red because they’re bad. Red is for bad.

All three are very swashbuckling in tone, have elements of physical comedy, and two of them include one of the three valet characters Dumas wrote into the original story, Planchet (1973 Roy Kinnear, 2011 James “ugh why” Corden). They also all bear the generic markings of the movies made during the same era, our 70s D’Artagnan feels like a prototype Luke Skywalker. The 90s version features a random martial arts performer. The 2011 version has CGI and James Corden in equal measure (read: far too much of both.)

What are the big differences?

I’m going to divide this category into three main segments: character, story and style. My own three musketeers, the three musketeers of movie making.

Character

D’Artagnan

D’artagnan in the book comes across as a pretty comical figure. He’s nineteen and there’s something satisfying about how similar Dumas’ caricature of a nineteen year old is to a modern character of the same age. He’s overconfident, has a simplistic but concrete set of morals, and falls in love with every woman he sees. If D’Artagnan were a 2021 character, he’d really hate The Last Jedi, is what I’m saying. He’d definitely have a tumblr blog, probably a lot like this one, but perhaps a scooch more earnest. He really loved The Lighthouse but he can’t explain why. Isn’t it nice to know that awkward nineteen year olds have been pretty much the same for the last three hundred years at least?

In all three films he’s kind of irritating, but at least in the 1973 this feels deliberate. This version has a certain “Carry On Musketeering” quality to it and D’Artagnan is your pantomime principal, he’s extremely naïve and he takes himself very seriously. This is the closest D’Artagnan to the book, and the 1973 is, in general, the film which adheres most faithfully to that source material.

The 1993, which is (spoiler alert) my least favourite adaptation, has Chris O’Donnell as the least likeable D’Artagnan I’ve come across. I’ve only seen O’Donnell in one other thing, the Al Pacino movie Scent of a Woman. He’s bearable in that because he’s opposite Al Pacino, and so his wide-eyed innocence makes sense as a contrast to Pacino’s aged hoo-ah cynicism. Rather than being introduced in a practice sword fight with his father, as in the other two films, D’Artagnan is fighting the brother of an ex-lover. This captures the problem with the film in general: this adaptation wants D’Artagnan to be cool. He is not. The comedy of the 1973, and indeed the book, comes from D’Artagnan being deeply uncool, and from his blind idolisation of the deeply flawed Musketeers who actually are cool, but not necessarily heroic, or even good people. Their moral greyness contrasts with D’Artagnan’s defined sense of right and wrong, but he still considers them to be role models and heroes.

2011′s version also suffers from “Cool D’Artagnan” syndrome, with the added annoyance of that most Marvel of tropes: the quip. One of the real issues with this film is that the dialogue has a lot of forced quippery that doesn’t quite land, and the editing slows the pace of the entire film. D’Artagnan’s first interaction with Constance is a bad attempt at wit which Constance points out isn’t very funny. The problem is that Constance has no personality so there’s no real indication that she’s in any position to judge his level of wit. She’s just vague, blonde and there: three characteristics which describe an entire pantheon of badly written female characters throughout the ages. Cool D’Artagnan also means that Constance should be additionally cool, because in the book, Constance is older than, smarter than and over-all more in charge than D’Artagnan.

Female Characters

Let’s go into this with an open mind that understands all these films were made in the sociological context of their decade. The 1973 version would absolutely not be made in the same way now. Constance is a clumsy cartoon character who is forever falling over and accidentally sticking her breasts out. This is not the character from the books, but does at least leave an impression on the viewer one way or another.

In contrast, the 1993 has a Constance so forgettable I literally cannot picture her. I think she holds D’Artagnan’s hand at the end. That’s all I can say on the subject.

The 2011 has Gabriella Wilde in the role, and absolutely wastes her. Anyone who’s seen her in Poldark knows that she can do sharp-tongued beautiful wit-princess with ease. It’s the writing of this film that lets her down, in general, that’s the problem with it. The storyline and design are great, but the actual dialogue lacks the pace and bite that a quip-ridden star vehicle needs. This Constance is given simultaneously more and less to do than the Constance of the original book, who demonstrates at every turn the superiority of her intellect over D’Artagnan, but doesn’t get to pretend to be a Musketeer and whip her hat off to show her flowing golden hair like she does in the 2011.

The best character, for my money, in The Three Musketeers is Milady de Winter. Even Dumas got so obsessed with her that there are full chapters of the book written from pretty much her perspective. In the book, she’s described as a terrifying genius with powers of persuasion so potent that any jailor she speaks to must be instantly replaced. My favourite Milady is absolutely Faye Dunaway from 1973. She’s ferocious and beautiful and ruthless, but potentially looks even better because the portrayals in the other films are so very bad.

The 1993 version has your typical blonde 90s baddie woman (Rebecca De Mornay), she wouldn’t look out of place as a scary girlfriend in an episode of Friends or Frasier. 2011 boasts Milla Jovovich who presents us a much more physical version of the character, even doing an awkwardly shoe-horned anachronistic hall of lasers a la Entrapment except instead of lasers its really thin pieces of glass? The “yeah but it looks cool” attitude to anachronism in this film is what makes it fun, and Jovovich’s Milady isn’t awful, she’s just let down by a plot point that she shares with 1993 Milady. Both these adaptations get really hooked on the fact that Athos used to be married to Milady at one time (conveniently leaving out the less justifiable character point that Athos TRIED TO HANG HER when he found out she had been branded as a thief - doesn’t wash so well with the modern audiences, I think.) Rather than hating/fearing Milady, the two modern adaptations suggest that Athos is still in love with her and pines for her. This detracts from Athos’ character just as much as it detracts from Milady’s. Interestingly, and I don’t know where this came from (if it was in the book I definitely missed it), both films feature a confrontation between the two where Athos points a gun at Milady but she pre-empts him by throwing herself off a cliff (or in the 2011, an air-ship.) I think both these versions were concerned that Milady was an anti-feminist character because she’s so wantonly evil, but I disagree. Equality means it is absolutely possible for Milady to be thoroughly evil and hated by the musketeers just as much as they hate Rochefort and the Cardinal. If you want to sort out the gender issues with this story, round Constance out and give her proper dialogue, don’t make Milady go weak at the knees because of whiny Athos (both Athos characters are exceedingly whiny, 1973 Athos is just...mashed).

The Musketeers

These guys are pretty important to get right in a film called The Three Musketeers. They have to be flawed, funny but kind of cool. Richard Chamberlain is an absolute dish in the 1973 version, capturing all those qualities in one. Is it clear which version is my favourite yet?

Athos is played variously by a totally hammered Oliver Reed (1973), a ginger-bearded Kiefer Sutherland (1993) and a badly bewigged Matthew McFadyen (2011). They all have in common the role of being the most level-headed character, but the focus on the relationship between Athos and Milady in the 93 and 11 editions undermines this a lot. Athos should be cool and aloof, instead of mooning over Milady the entire time. The 2011 gives Athos some painfully “edgy” lines like “I believe in this (points at wine) this (flicks coin) and this (stabs coin with knife.)...” which McFadyen ( once oh so perfect as Mr Darcy) doesn’t quite pull off.

Porthos seems to be the musketeer who is the most different between interpretations. A foppish dandy in the 1973, a pirate (!?!) in the 1993, and then just...large in 2011. I think the mistake made in the 2011 is that large alone does not a personality make. There are hints at Porthos’ characterisation from the book: his dependence on rich women for money and his love of fine clothing, but these are only included as part of his introduction and never crop up again through the rest of the film. Pirate Porthos in 1993 is... you know what, fine, you guys were clearly throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck.

Aramis is our dishy Richard Chamberlain in 1973, followed by womanising Charlie Sheen in 1993 and then strikingly suave Luke Evans in 2011. I actually didn’t mind Luke Evans’ interpretation, his dialogue is forgettable but his sleek charm stuck in my head. For some reason, this version has Aramis working as a parking attendant for horses, it worked for me as a fun A Knight’s Tale-esque bit of anachronistic character development. Charlie Sheen has never managed to appear likable or attractive to me and so his role in the 1993 falls flat. In fact, in that edition there’s not much distinction between the musketeers as characters and they’re all just very 90s and American. As anyone who’s read this blog before will expect, I think Keanu Reeves as Aramis would have really upped this film’s game. In fact, Keanu Reeves as Aramis, Brad Pitt as Athos and Will Smith as Porthos could have been the ultimate 90s adaptation, throw in DiCaprio as D’Artagnan and Roger Allam as the Cardinal and I’m fully sold.

The King and Queen

All three films try and do the “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, but only the 1973 actually includes the Queen’s affair with Buckingham. The queen, played by Geraldine Chaplin, is a tragic romantic figure (she doesn’t have a tonne to do besides being wistful and sighing over Lord Buckingham). The king is played as a frivolous idiot by Jean-Pierre Cassel (voice dubbed by Richard Briers). He doesn’t really think of the queen as a person, more as a possession that he doesn’t want Buckingham to have.

In the 1993 version, Buckingham doesn’t really feature, and it’s the queen’s refusal to get off with the Cardinal that prompts his fury at her. The book does touch on the Cardinal’s desire for the queen, but it’s placed front and centre in 1993. This is definitely the boobsiest version, with quite a lot of corsetry on show and a cardinal who hits on literally all the women. The king is shown as a stroppy teenage boy under the thumb of the cardinal, who just wants to ask the queen to the dance but doesn’t have the nerve. The king is, essentially, a Fall Out Boy lyric.

The 2011 also seems to be really squeamish about the idea of the queen having an extramarital affair. It paints Buckingham (played with excellent wig and aplomb by Orlando Bloom) as a stylish villain, who’s advances the queen has rejected. Like the 1993 version, the King is a feckless youth rendered speechless by the presence of his wife. Both these versions want the King and Queen to be happy together, while the 1973 doesn’t give a fuck.

The Cardinal and his Cronies

The cardinal is kind of universally an evil creepy guy. One of the characters from the 1973 version who actually left the least impression on me, played by Charlton Heston. I think he’s overshadowed in my recollection by cartoonishly evil Christopher Lee as Rochefort. Lee’s Rochefort is dark, mysterious and wonderfully bad, and so influential that all other incarnations’ design is based on him. The 1993 version had truly over the top Michael Wincott as a character I could honestly refer to as Darth Rochefort from the way he’s framed, while 2011 boasts a chronically underused Mads Mikkelsen in the role.

Cardinal-wise, 1993 was my favourite with Tim Curry in all his ecclesiastical splendour. It was disappointing that everything about this film, including the Cardinal’s sexual harassment of every single female character, really didn’t work for me. Tim Curry is a natural choice for this role and gives it his campy all.

2011 has not one but two trendy bond villain actors, with Mikkelsen working alongside Christoph Waltz who was...just kind of fine. I was really excited when he appeared but he didn’t really push the character far enough and left me cold.

Story

The story is where the different adaptations diverge most completely. 1973 follows the plot of the novel, D’Artagnan comes to Paris, befriends the Musketeers and becomes embroiled in a plot by the Cardinal to expose the Queen’s affair with Buckingham through the theft of two diamond studs. D’Artagnan, aided partially by the musketeers, must travel to London to retrieve the set of twelve studs gifted by the King to the Queen, and by the Queen to Buckingham. He does so, the plot is foiled, he’s made into a musketeer! Hurrah, tankards all round.

The 1993 version drops D’Artagnan into the story just as the Cardinal has disbanded the Musketeers. I found the plot of this one really hard to follow and I think at some point D’Artagnan ended up in the Bastille? There was this whole plot point about how Rochefort had killed D’Artagnan’s father. In the original, and in the 1973 version, D’Artagnan’s entire beef with Rochefort is rooted in a joke Rochefort makes about D’Artagnan’s horse. I guess for the producers of this one, a horse insult is not enough motivation for a lifelong grudge. That is really the problem with the entire film, it forgets that the story as told by Dumas is set in a world where men duel over such petty things as “criticising one’s horse”, “blocking one’s journey down a staircase” and “accusing one of having dropped a lady’s handkerchief.” The colour palette and styling are very 90s “fun fun fun”, but the portrayal of the cardinal and the endless angst about D’Artagnan’s father really dampen the mood.

The 2011 version, this is where the shit really hits the fan. We meet our musketeers as they collaborate with Milady to steal the blueprints for a flying ship (it’s like a piratecore zeppelin). Milady betrays them and gives the plans to Buckingham, they all become jaded and unemployed. D’Artagnan arrives on the scene (his American accent explained by the fact that he’s from a different part of France) and befriends the Musketeers. The cardinal tries to frame the queen for infidelity by having Milady steal her diamonds to hide them in Buckingham’s safe at the tower of London. Something something Constance, something something help me D’Artagnan you’re my only hope. MASSIVE AIRSHIP BATTLE. The king and queen have a dance. James Corden cracks wise.

It seems like as time has passed, producers, writers and directors have felt compelled to embellish the story. I think, specifically in the case of the two later versions, this is because they wanted the films to resemble the big successes of the period. Everybody knows no Disney hero can be in possession of both parents, so D’Artagnan is out to avenge his father like Simba or Luke Skywalker. In the 2011 version, the plot is overblown and overcomplicated in what seems like an attempt to replicate the success of both the Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises. Remember the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? No, me neither.

Style

The style of these films grows increasingly wild along with the plots as time passes. The 1973 features a lot of slapstick comedy, some of which really made me cackle, and some of which was cringeworthily sexist (Constance’s boobs through the window of a litter.) That’s the 70s though! I love The Godfather but Diane Keaton’s character is unbelivably dull and annoying. Star Wars features a pretty good female character but she does end up in that bikini. The 70s seems to be a time of movies that were great except for their occasional headlong dive into misogyny. That doesn’t mean the entire movie is bad, it just means it’s suffering from the consequences of being made in the 70s. There were other consequences of this, I doubt many modern productions could get away with physically injuring so many of it’s cast members. From a glance down the IMDB trivia page, this film yielded a higher casualties to cast ratio than the My Chemical Romance Famous Last Words music video, and that’s a hard figure to top.

The 1993 version is a Disney feature and suffers from having a thin sheen (not Charlie in this instance) of “Disney Original Movie” pasted over every scene. It looks like The Parent Trap might be filming in the adjacent studio a lot of the time. The vibrancy of the colours makes the costumes look unrealistic, while the blandness of the female characters means this movie ends up a bit of a bland bro-fest. Also occasionally the sexual and violent moments really jar with the overall tone making it an uneven watch. One minute it’s Charlie Sheen cracking jokes about trying to get off with someone’s wife, the next minute you see Milady throw herself off a cliff and land on the rocks. Weird choices all round.

The 2011 version, as I’ve already mentioned, was trying to borrow its style from the success of Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean, with a little Ocean’s 11 thrown in. The soundtrack flips between not quite a Hans Zimmer score and not quite that other Hans Zimmer score, and after the success of Stardust it ends with a Take That song (for it to match up to the story it should have been Take That feat. Harry styles imho). Visually, there’s some fantastic travel by mapping going on, there’s far too much CGI (one of my friends pointed out that the canal in Venice seemed to be full of Flubber). Everyone is dressed in black leather, and there are not enough big hats at all. One of the best things about Musketeers films is that they’re an excuse for ridiculous hats, and in a film with a quite frankly insane visual style, I’m surprised the hats didn’t make it through. The cast, unfortunately, really lack chemistry which means the humorous dialogue is either stilted or James Corden, and the editing is just very strange. It’s one of those films that feels about as disjointed as an early morning dream, the one where you dream you’ve woken up, gotten dressed and fed the cat, but you actually are still in bed.

Conclusion

Adaptations focus on different things depending on the context they were created in. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice is deliberately “grittier” than its 1990s predecessor, at a stage when “grit” was everywhere (The Bourne Identity, Spooks, Constantine). The Musketeers adaptations demonstrate exactly the same thing: what people wanted in the 70s was bawdy comedy and slapstick with a likeable idiot hero, the 90s clearly called for... Charlie Sheen and bright colours, and the 2010s just want too much of everything and a soundtrack with lots of banging and crashing. The more modern adaptations simplified the female characters (although the 1973 version definitely is guilty of oversimplifying Constance) while over-complicating the plot. There’s a lot of embellishment going on in the 2011 version that suggests the film wasn’t very sure of itself, it pulls its plot punches while simultaneously blindly flailing its stylistic fists.

The film that works the best for me will always be the 1973 because it’s pretty straight down the line. Musketeers are good, Milady is evil, falling over is funny and the King’s an idiot. The later adaptations seem to be trying to fix problems with the story that the 1973 version just lets fly. The overcorrection of Milady and the under characterisation of Constance is the perfect example of this. If you want your Musketeers adaptation to be more feminist, don’t weaken Milady, strengthen Constance. Sometimes a competent female character is all that we need. A Constance who is like Florence Cassel from Death in Paradise or Ahn Young-yi from Misaeng could really pack a punch.

I adored the energy of the 2011 adaptation, I loved how madcap it was, I loved how it threw historical accuracy to the wind. I thought the king was adorable, and I really enjoyed seeing Orlando Bloom hamming it up as Buckingham. I was genuinely sad that the sequel the ending sets up for never came, because once they got out of the sticky dialogue and into the explosions, the film was great fun. It was a beautiful disaster that never quite came together, but I really enjoyed watching it. I love films that have a sense of wild chaos, some more successful examples are The Devil’s Advocate, Blow Dry and Lego Batman. I think the spirit of going all out on everything can sometimes result in the best cinematic experience, it’s just a shame the script wasn’t really up to muster for 2011 Musketeers.

I’m excited to see what the next big budget Musketeers adaptation brings, even if I’m going to have to wait another ten years to see it. I hope it’s directed by Chad Stahelski, that’d really float my boat (through the sky, like a zeppelin.)

#ThreeMusketeers #Three Musketeers #Adaptation #Movies #Film #The Three Musketeers

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ink-flavored · 5 years ago

Text

Writeblr Q+A

Tagged by @silver-wields-a-pen !! Thank you <3

Rules: Fill it out, post your answers, and tag some pals.

1. When did you first learn you enjoyed writing?

Well, I’ve known I enjoyed reading pretty much ever since I could comprehend words. Before I even really knew what I was doing, I would tell myself and my younger sister stories, and write down my day in a journal to have stories to read later.

My first experience with creative writing was in middle school, when we were asked to write poems every day for our poetry unit. That’s when I remember actually enjoying the act of writing for writing’s sake, but you could count my 6 year old ramblings too, if you wanted!

2. Tell us about the first project you ever wrote.

The first one I remember, not sure if it was actually the first one I ever wrote, was about a girl who had a wereworlf-esque ability to turn into a dragon. It was pretty much my dream. It still is.

3. How does your favorite media shape who you are as a writer?

To this day, my favorite book series -- The Inheritance Cycle -- has influenced the way I write magic systems, telepathic connections, my penchant for fantasy, and is absolutely where my love of dragons came from. I’m not sure where I would be without The Inheritance Cycle, truly.

But it’s not the only one! Reading House of Leaves was a fascinating dive into a genre I don’t normally read, and it really showed me that horror wasn’t just about gore and monsters (which is why I normally stay away). Playing the Dragon Age games showed me just how much you can do with characters. Probably some more I can’t think of have influenced me as well.

4. What's something you've wanted to write, but aren't sure you could? (A tv show, a genre, a style, a time period, a video game, etc)

I’d like to finish��the game I started writing, one day. Maybe write some more.

I’ve dipped my toes into horror a little bit, but I know I’m not at all experienced enough to write a narrative in the genre. The problem is that I’m a giant wimp who doesn’t like being scared and also I’m squeamish. So that rules out a giant chunk of horror content for me to study lol

5. What is the thing that keeps you from writing the most?

Myself, for sure. Whether it be writer’s block, getting stuck in the fine details that don’t matter, or simply not having a plot to go with the story I want to write the most.

That, and having to work a nine-to-five. I suffer at the hands of capitalism.

6. How do you deal with an inner editor?

I don’t, really? I’m one of those people who’s half-editing as they write, though I’ve been trying to curb it lately. I’ve gotten over myself recently, not really caring what any of it says until I actually have to be editing. I just focus on having fun!

7. How long have you been writing?

Uhhhh... good question.

For Real Actually, probably since that middle school English class from earlier. Maybe “officially” the next year, but definitely around that time is when I decided I really loved writing and wanted to do it for a living.

8. What is your general writing process? Do you write chronologically? Do you do a lot of planning?

Pfft. Process, that’s cute.

I kinda do whatever? Stories come to me in all manners and in all forms -- just aesthetics, just a plot, just a character, just a single scene or line of poetry. I do as much planning as my brain allows, but I do like to have a skeleton outline of the main story beats before I actually sit down to start writing anything.

I absolutely love world-building tho. I do that so much.

9. Assign a scent to your writing style.

Oh, but that depends so much on WHAT I’m writing!!!!

But if I must choose... a scented candle in an abandoned house, covered in dust and falling to ruin. Comfort in a place where comfort should not be.

10. One book you hope everyone reads?

Lately, I’ve been re-discovering Eavan Boland’s poetry, and I’m currently reading her most recent collection. I’d recommend anyone who wants to write poetry -- or even just likes poetry! -- to read anything by her.

11. What is it about your least favorite genre that makes it your least favorite--and how might you change that to better appeal to you?

You know how they say hate and love are two sides of the same coin? There’s a difference between a genre boring me and a genre inspiring enough passion to incite hatred. That difference, reader, is wanting it to be better.

I used to think horror was the worst genre on the planet (anxiety and panic disorder notwithstanding) even though a lot of the genre has things I should like -- putting characters through trials to reveal their true selves, stories that make you think about yourself and the world, all that stuff. I hated it because, from what I saw in popular media, it focused too much on gore and was more concerned with being a scary story than an interesting story -- which has its merits! It just wasn’t what I was looking for.

Stuff like House of Leaves and Welcome to Night Vale really showed me exactly the kind of horror I like. Which is, little to no gore and scares that settle deep. There is so much about both that I think about to this day, episodes I haven’t listened to in months or years. House of Leaves is a story about the protagonist descending to madness and you get to watch it in real time -- knowing it could easily be you. I like horror that reminds us we’re all human, and that being a human is very, very scary on its own.

So, more horror needs to be like that.

12. Design a "collector's edition" for your first novel. Include items that might be of interest to your audience.

MAP. BIG HUUUUGE MAP. I love maps. It’s gotta have a big map poster in FULL COLOR, BABEY!!!!

13. If one thing was real from your project, what would you want it to be?

Dragons. You have no idea how much I want dragons to be real.

14. What's something you always include in your work? Do you have any other Easter eggs?

I like magic, I like dragons, and both of those show up an uncanny number of times in what I write.

15. What is your favorite passage from your own work?

Jeez, that’s a tough one. I write so much stuff! But something I am very proud of is from a flash fiction called One Minute:

You cannot move, or the minute will reset. If you move, you will have to keep sitting. You will have to start over. The creature will surely kill you. If you move. The minute. Will. Reset. If you move. You. Will. Die.

It has been forty-five seconds.

You can’t see the creature, but you know that it’s big. It blocks the light behind you, casting a massive, dark, endless shadow. It is darker than a shadow should be. Darker than the night sky. Darker than the blackness behind your eyes.

You pray to God. You pray to any God.

It has been forty-nine seconds.

I like to read it out loud!! It sounds nice to say imo

Aaaaand, that’ll be it!

Tagging (no pressure!): @royalbounties @rrrawrf-writes @rainy-rose @blueinkblot @sunrisecitrusuniverse @tenacious-scripturient and anyone else who wants to do this!! Consider yourselves tagged!

#annika talks #ask game #long post

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simptasia · 4 years ago

Note

for the ask thingy 1) fandom: futurama? (i recently watched the first episode bc i faintly remember u talking abt it - should i keep watching?) but if u dont wanna get into it or my mind was playing tricks on me we can always go for the classic lost :D 2) ship: kateclaire? i miss the GIRLS 3) character: daniel faraday (disclaimer as always u dont have to do all u can pick n choose :D)

thank you thank you thank you!

also i ADORE futurama, it’s one of my fave cartoons, yes keep watching! it’s so funny, i love the characters, it has great (and silly) sci fi concepts, and happens to have just really great tear inducing episodes/moments. so yes!! watch it!!

not just you, everybody, please watch futurama

annnnyways

Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Futurama

Favorite character: Fry. Bender is without a doubt the funniest character but Fry is my fave. He’s so endearingly stupid and I love how nice he is. He could have been the bland straight man protag for wackier personalities to play off but he’s a huge goofus. And he’s a trekkie! And neurodivergent! And pansexual! He’s a good boy, love that Fry

Least Favorite character: I’ve never really thought about it, like as far as I recall, I don’t remember anybody showing up and I’m like “oh geez this guy”. Oh wait. Fry’s ex girlfriend Michelle is a bitch but she’s meant to be. But like, she’s not even a funny bitch. Like Mom or Zapp.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Fry/Leela (this is a ship I’ve had since i was a kid, an original flavour OTP right there, I loooove Fry/Leela), Fry/Bender, Fry/Leela/Bender, Amy/Kif, Bender/Amy

Character I find most attractive: Leela. Even when I was a kid I found her attractive. Hot + the Matt Groening style doesn’t normally go together very well (even he’s admitted this) but it just works with Leela. Amy is cute too! And Fry is cute but that’s mainly his personality (and fan-art) doing that. I also happen to enjoy purple and orange a lot so Leela and Fry are inherently nice for me to look at. Yeah, Futurama pulls off attractive women better than The Simpsons does. (diff times, diff genres...)

Character I would marry: Aww, Fry

Character I would be best friends with: Oh, all of them really (tho Zoidberg’s smell could be a problem). Especially Fry, Leela & Bender

A random thought: Now I’m wondering if there’s a Futurama style Create A Character thing online, I’ll look later. Also, I know Jurassic Bark makes everybody cry but I just wanna say it made 10 year old me sob and I didn’t cry at fictional things as a kid. Like, very very rarely. Me being a big cryer kicked in later. So that’s a helluva thing. Power of dogs

An unpopular opinion: I don’t know... oh a lot of people don’t like the later seasons but I really like them! There’s some stinkers here and there (attack of the killer app and the butterjunk effect come to mind) but overall it’s still Futurama goodness. Oh and The Beast With The Billion Backs gives me a bad feeling in my tummy because it has this “polyamory is gross and creepy” vibe to it. Whether it’s intended or not, it just makes me uncomfortable. Other than that, it’s a good movie. Fry saying “Robots don’t go to heaven” makes me tear up.

My Canon OTP: Fry and Leela, number one cartoon OTP!!!

My Non-canon OTP: Fry and Bender, babey!!!

Most Badass Character: Well, Leela, obviously

Most Epic Villain: Hmm... I looked up “Futurama Villians” and Bender is on the list jajafklafkjs I love that. I wouldn’t call anybody epic, tho Mom is pretty powerful and malevolent. I’ll pick my fave villain: The Robot Devil

Pairing I am not a fan of: Zapp gets nothing, good day sir! I don’t know any ships I’m like Against tho. Some I’m squicked by, like involving The Professor or Zoidberg but like that shit is for laughs anyways

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): They picked the ball up later on but Hermes was a flat character for a while there. And remember how they forgot Amy is smart for like,,, ages. Again they fixed this later. It’s sometime I appreciate about the later seasons, they gave more focus for characters who were less explored in the original run (this show has like 4 finales, to be clear)

Favourite Friendship: Fry & Bender is Iconic and I adore them

Character I most identify with: Fry. Brainweird trekkie who loves TV/movies and has feminist tendencies. Love him

Character I wish I could be: I mean, if I had to... Bender? I mean, if I had to live in the super dangerous world of Futurama, I’d like to be a robot. Plus Fry and Leela’s lives are pretty sad :(

You gave me the option of LOST as well, so I’m doing that too

Favorite character: Hurley is my favourite. Indeed he’s one of my fave characters in fiction in general. (Daniel is just who I talk about the Most)

Least Favorite character: [insert abusive parent here], tho Anthony Cooper and Roger Linus are on top of the loathing pile. And y’all know I hate Christian Shephard so much. Keamy is also utter scum.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): This fluctuates so much but at this point who would I be fooling if I didn’t put Dan/Char first. Yes, I know there are bigger meals available, I’ll still lick the chocolate flakes off the floor. Anyways. Daniel/Charlotte, Daniel/Charlotte/Miles, Kate/Claire. After this point I wobble all over the place... because I ship so much. And it depends on my mood. Sometimes I’m just really in a Desmond/Charlie mood, other times i’m uwu for Jack/Kate. And so on. Just, take my top three. Tho honorable mentions to Sayid/Shannon and Miles/Richard, I’m very fond of them. And Desmond and Penny! Jin & Sun and aaahhh!! Basically most things canon and a shitton of noncanon. You guys know what I’m like with shipping and LOST!!! I’m posting the chart

Character I find most attractive: Bruh, this show is a bi & pan dream. I’m not good at picking favourites but Desmond, Charlie, Ana lucia, Charlotte are really “holy fuck” hot to me. And Sayid. And Miles. And Kate. Aahhh!! I’ll just end up listing almost everybody. If I had to pick one (1) LOST character to deem the Hottest, I’d pick Desmond. He makes my eyes glaze over. Desmond transcends all sexuality. Desmond is a living romance novel love interest. Desmond’s body is shown off a LOT... also he’s scottish. But man, I came to LOST because of one crush and left with at least 20 more. It’s a great investment!

Character I would marry: Sayid. He would make a wonderful husband. Just,,, just such a loving, gentle, respectful person........ and you KNOW he’s good with his hands. Daniel is a close second for much the same reasons, actually

Character I would be best friends with: HURLEY!!!!

A random thought: “Random Thoughts About LOST” could be a title for my blog, buddy. All the men are subs. There ya go.

An unpopular opinion: Oof, here we go. I love Jack Shephard! Though I have noticed we’ve gotten to a point where liking Jack isn’t a ridiculous concept in this fandom anymore. I don’t find myself defending myself/him as much as I used to. Also Hurley/Libby was really really cute. Yeah, I know she wasn’t around much before she died, I still believe in their love. Oh wait I forgot the big one: I fucking ADORE the LOST finale. It’s one of my favourite episodes and it’s not only not a bad finale, it’s an amazing finale, one of the best I’ve seen. It’s great television. The problems people have with it have never made sense to me, I personally love it!

My Canon OTP: Daniel/Charlotte (they count, they’re not an Official Couple but they’re in love! they count amongst the lost romances!)

My Non-canon OTP: Kate/Claire (i sometimes forget it isn’t canon because holy GOSH does this fire have a lot of fuel)

Most Badass Character: Sayid can fuck you up. That ankle thing

Most Epic Villain: Uhhh, Ben was a villain for a bit there

Pairing I am not a fan of: Kate/Sawyer springs to mind for being a very popular ship that I’m just not into. Like, it’s okay, they’re just better for each other as friends

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Michael, Walt and Sayid due to poor and/or racist writing. Libby, Charlotte, Miles just for missed opportunities. Actually I don’t think they screwed up Miles, he was mostly great, just he could have been used more. Like his powers, or delving into his trauma, his budding friendships with other people. it ticks me off that Miles doesn’t get given Reactions to Char & Dan’s deaths. The Science Team in general were underused and they barely felt like a Team. Anyways Michael Dawson deserved better. Season 2 just fucked up a lot of characters but it really did not treat Michael with respect. I can’t even explain how it’s bad, it just is.

Favourite Friendship: Everybody/Vincent. Hehehe, actually, here's what comes to mind, can’t pick a fave: Hurley/Charlie, Hurley/Everyone Kate/Every Woman She Meets, Jack/Claire is cute when it happens. Jin/Michael was A+. Thinking about it, I like every friendship in this show. Does Ben/Locke count? Are they friends? Well, their scenes are enthralling so there's that. I also appreciate all the lady friendships on this show. And with people who didn’t start as friends, so with everybody it had to grow in front of us and that’s nice.

Character I most identify with: Hurley, Jack, Daniel, Kate and Claire all hit. But Hurley the most, absolutely. Also I find Jack endearing because his emotional instability reminds me of my own.

Character I wish I could be: Claire. Not much would change but I’d get to fuck Charlie and Kate

Send me a ship and I will tell you:

Kate/Claire

When I started shipping them: I literally don’t remember anymore

My thoughts: The last third of Kate’s character arc (of not running anymore, of being responsible, etc) is dedicated to Claire. Kate went back to that island for Claire, not Jack or Sawyer. Kate and Claire remembered together and it was played with as much emotional resonance as the Charlie/Claire and Jack/Kate soulmate scenes. These two are gonna raise sons together. Restless, passionate!!! Honestly, these two make so much sense and get so many Moments, I forget this isn’t canon. Their actresses have amazing chemistry and just. Gosh, I love them

What makes me happy about them: They would be so good for each other! They’ll take care of each other and support each other and give each other kisses, etc. Also also I love their height difference. Oh, I enjoy the contrast of Kate who is more experienced and badass, and Claire who I feel is more naive and is very very sweet & sunshiney. (don’t take me for thinking Kate ain’t sweet and Claire can’t go off, though). I also enjoy how Kate legit looks/holds herself butcher whenever Claire is around

What makes me sad about them: Mr. LOST writers, how comes you had no canon bi people in ur show? Come back here, I’m talking to you-

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: where fic

Things I look for in fanfic: [looks around] h-hewwoo? ladies falling in love and fucking?? pwease?? i’m a fan of mutual pining. i like the idea of claire not realising she’s bi until kate makes her feel things and claire confessing her feelings to kate in a big ol’ cute ramble and then they kiiiisss, and then they fuuuuck. spare fuck, ma’am? femslash is very underdone in fandoms and lost is an old fandom so [pleading emoji]

My wishlist: oh i think i just made it. just content for kate/claire in general is a lovely thing. and makes me progressively stronger

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Jack for Kate, Charlie for Claire. Obviously

My happily ever after for them: Oh, I think I’ve made that clear. But overall? They’re married (emotionally, not legally. because Kate isn’t into that for personal reasons), they have two sons Aaron and David. Kate is a professional photographer, Claire does illustrations for children’s books. They have a nice house, they have lotsa friends, they are content

Give me a character & I will tell you:

Daniel Faraday

How I feel about this character: [mildly] Oh, I like him........ HOW DO YA THINK I FEEL ABOUT DANIEL FARADAY?? I’ve only gushed about him, analysed his character back to front, and frequently highlight his scenes and such for like a bagillion years now. But I do admit, I am just too subtle. It’s a real problem I have. ;) Anyways, that aside. Like they didn’t utilise his character as much as they should’ve/could’ve and he’s still perfect. With just 23 episodes (which makes me salty that Char is so underdeveloped in 20 episodes.) The writing is great, like in just The Variable they get a TON about Daniel across. Tho, we all know what really makes Daniel so great, the reason everybody loves him so much, is Jeremy Davies’ performance. Just. So good. I love Daniel, I adore Daniel. He’s that The Smart Guy science nerd archetype but he turns out to be way more than that too. He’s soft spoken and polite but with subtle hints of sass and bitterness for some extra flavour. I love how tactile he is and his constant hand gestures, it’s just great to watch this guy talk. And his life and backstory is very sad, like he has one of the most tragic backstories/storylines in LOST and thats. saying a lot. And I love good angst. I mean, I love LOST, so of course I do. But yeah, summing up: he’s cute, he’s smart, he’s a little funny, he’s tragic, he’s gentle and he just,,, wants to love and to make music. And he gets to have the life he deserves by the end!! Oh and the inherent value of a canonically neurodivergent character being well written, getting a good storyline and shown as being liked and loved, is just very precious to me

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Charlotte, Miles, Desmond, Charlie and Theresa (last one by way of canon and I’ve certainly put way more thought into it than the writers did. she’s part of his life so I won’t ignore her). Wow, five people. I’ve made Daniel the demisexual equivalent of a slut. [snorts]

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: Daniel and Penny getting to be brother and sisterly in limbo is such a cute thought, I love it. I also pay extra attention to Daniel and Richard scenes because of my theory. There’s also hintettes of a Daniel & Kate friendship in canon, it’s not much but I like it. I think if Dan lived he could have made easy friends with most of the characters but as it is, he really doesn’t get to interact with many people. He’s a rather insular character

My unpopular opinion about this character: i’ve picked up that some people think he doesn’t get jokes or that he’s naive. and i personally give him some naivety here and there due to a lack of experience but i also think he’s quick learner and he can be pretty adaptable

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: i really like how daniel’s story is already (thus my brain instantly jumps to dan/char kiss!!!) tho it does feel a bit like theres pieces missing. this would be due to that lovely writer’s strike that happened around seasons 4 and 5. there was meant to be more sci team content but then that happened. sigh. still, gaps and loose threads in the story isn’t a story breaker for daniel specifically. and i don’t mind things being left in implication or to the imagination. i don’t need to see everything. if it was handled badly with dan, i’d be annoyed, but it wasn’t. so... dan/char kiss!!!

Favorite friendship for this character: it occurs to me that the people dan is friends with,, are people i ship him with. hey, it doesn’t cancel each other out: char and miles. also we don’t get much, or we get nothing but the implication of dan’s friendships with frank and naomi is also cute. also also daniel and desmond aren’t exactly friends (it’s weird, they meet a few times and it Means A lot) but the des and dan running thing is a fave

My crossover ship: i don’t really think of it like that...

#lost #lost headcanons #agardenintheshire #OOOF this is a lot #im not complaining #that just took longer than i thought #thank you lisa!!!#i enjoyed that

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coffeeandcalligraphy · 5 years ago

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Moth Work Intro + False Idol | Writing Update

Hey People of Earth!

Today I thought I’d do a writing update on a project I’ve mentioned a lot in my vlogs but haven’t mentioned as of yet on here! This is a personal ‘passion project’ that I’ve been picking away at since January and have recently taken on as my transition project from Rewired to my next book.

So yee! MOTH WORK (or ‘boys on a boat’ for those who keep up with the vlogs lols) has been my current project for the last few weeks since finishing REWIRED. I didn’t really mean to expand it as much as I have as it simply started off as a spinoff story of my boys Lonan and Harrison which I write every few months when I’m having a breakdown and need something to cheer me up. :-)

I’ve mentioned a few of these stories in the past (like Fishbowl and Mandarin), though this story is a bit different, as I’ve expanded it quite a lot more than I intended to! If you aren’t super caught up with Rewired, I’d definitely scroll through a few of my last updates so this one will make more sense!

What’s it about?

Moth Work is a FOSTERED spinoff story following Lonan and Harrison (dumb+dumber) at the peak of their relationship. I *was saying* that the plot went loosely as follows: after finding a photograph of a woman in Lonan’s father’s dark room, they set out to find her, HOWEVER, because I never stick to plans, I have yet to follow through with this main plot thread, lol. Vaguely, I’d just say the most important part of this story is their relationship at its most fragile because who is plot I don’t know her.

Moth Work follows the events after REWIRED, and is a bit of a bridge between it and the next book. This makes it kind of hard to explain because a) it’s in a different POV, and b) context, but hopefully that makes sense! In essence: Lonan + Harrison’s relationship is big sad and Harrison tries to make it less big sad and it gets even more big sad.

I’ll share a very quick profile of both of the boys so there’s some context for the following excerpts I’ll share!

Harrison

My boy

Generally very outgoing, tho around Lonan this fizzles. Only wants the best for Lonan despite their history. He’s the ‘main’ narrator of the piece (third limited to him though I’m guilty of head hopping lol), so the work has a softer tone than I’m used to. Though Harrison tries to be a Macho Man, around Lonan he’s most himself--mellow, a lil stupidly romantic, and vulnerable.

Lonan

My problematic son/probably should be cancelled

The “issue” in the relationship loool. He’s emotionally immature and lacks accountability, but because of his past, lacks the ability to recognize these faults and work on them. Because of this, he’s fundamentally stayed the same for the last few works he’s been in (if not gotten worse). Lonan requires a lot of emotional assistance, though he isn’t self-aware enough to recognize this. This is often the cause of much conflict.

Conception:

Like I mentioned, I often write short spinoff stories following these boys because it’s a safe happy place for when I’m feeling stressed. This is basically how this piece started, though I’ve continued it for different reasons which I’ll get into. I don’t remember how the first scene was brainstormed, but I do know when I started writing this a few months ago, I wanted it to be a lot longer than my previous stories--a place where I could just dump my writing, even when it wasn’t good. I think I did this to cope with the stress of my writing class honestly, lol, I think I needed a break from ‘serious’ writing AKA a place I could just goof off and have some fun.

The writing bit:

Writing this story has been a bit inconsistent. I’ve been drafting it in little pieces since the beginning of the year, and only recently picked it up as more of a ‘full-time’ work. This is subject to change depending on whether or not I get more of book 7 done. I’ve gone from writing 20 words a day to 0 to 1000--there’s really no consistency with the drafting process here.

I have recently decided that I’ll most likely expand this into either a novella or novel itself because there is literally so much tea left to explore and it’s surpassed 10k words. Drafting Moth Work has been so helpful in easing me back into the world of FOSTERED and piecing together the huge time gap from the end of book 6 to the start of book 7. I’ve been a bit anxious to really dive into book 7 for the fear of the unknown, so inching myself closer to that timeline through this project has been very helpful!

The editing bit:

I recently did an edit around the line level for this entire piece (it’s about 12k words right now) because a) it really needed it b) I was losing steam/starting to get embarrassed and c) I needed a refresher of what had happened because je suis tres forgetful. This edit made me feel so much better about the project. It initially started off as a work where the writing didn’t actually matter and this mentality was working until I got so embarrassed of the prose I found it difficult to read through old scenes to refresh myself and thus couldn’t productively draft.

This project isn’t written exactly in my usual style--it’s pretty stripped back and actually reminds me a lot of how my style would’ve been in book 3 had I been a better writer four years ago lol. I think the looser style works for the voice/the story itself but I def wouldn’t categorize this as litfic (what I usually write). Although the prose isn’t very complex, it took me a really long time to get comfortable enough to edit?? But once I got into the rhythm of it a few days ago, I completed the edit fairly quickly, and I’m 100% feeling better about the project overall! Though the prose is still not my top priority I’m not as embarrassed of it currently lols.

I also divided the project into chapters because it was getting pretty long to just be one mass of text. I currently have 3 chapters. This update will cover chapter 1.

Playlist:

Yo this is literally the best part of writing this project, lol, I get to listen to so much different music?? I’ve made a comprehensive playlist for this story with a character by character breakdown (if anyone wants to see that/highlights, let me know!). This playlist pulls from every song from my library, so we span genres and artists like crazy. Nothing But Thieves has been the primary artist for this story (specifically their self-titled album). These songs (all NBT oop) are the most relevant if you want to get the general tone lol (anything with a star has explicitly inspired the project):

Excuse Me*

Honey Whiskey*

Tempt You (Evocatio)*

If I Get High (II)

Gods

Lover, Please Stay*

I Was Just A Kid*

Get Better

Hell, Yeah*

Afterlife

Reset Me

Particles

Sorry

Number 13

Excerpts:

I don’t have *many* because prose hasn’t really been a top priority for this project, but I’ll try to include at least one per scene.

This is one of the opening paragraphs from chapter one which I’ve titled ‘False Idol’. In short, the chapter follows the boys first attempting to destroy the dark room and then getting distracted and eventually not pulling through after Harrison finds a picture of Ominous Lady.

The chapter’s chronology is wild so we can break it up as follows:

Scene A

The boys enter the dark room with the intention of burning it down

Harrison reaches for his lighter and drops it which prompts him to find the photograph of Ominous Lady

Him and Lonan mildly argue about Ominous Lady until Lonan takes it too seriously and throws a tantrum :-DD

Scene B

Not really a full scene, just a bridge between scene A and C.

Harrison has been waiting for Lonan to return to their campsite for the entire day and he decides to at the very last moment

“hey so i’m unable to apologize for anything but also! cigarette! let’s share it! lungs!”

Scene C

The boys exercising their canoeing skills

This leads us to our first “beat”.

Lonan interrupts Harrison’s peaceful evening by having a mild crisis

This takes place right after the events of Lolita, Lolita (chapter 16 of REWIRED). We then jump back to the fictive present.

This alternates like 5 more times lol then the chapter is done!

The following excerpt describes their entry into the dark room. Don’t know how smart it is to be smoking in a room full of highly flammable material but we out here.

I don’t think she’s particularly special but I also don’t hate her so!! hoping an aesthetic photo will make it read better :’)) I ! don’t ! think ! it does ! but !

Harrison shoulders the door first, traps it open with the clip of his boot. Dust and streaks of light rake behind him as he pushes through cardboard boxes, mountains of photo paper on the ground. Lonan follows silently, still wearing Harrison’s jacket. Trails of smoke from his cigarette catch in the negatives hanging by the clothespins, chemical peel between the layers of ink. In one hand he tends to his cigarette, and in the next, lugs in the canister of gasoline they found in the cabin’s cellar. As Harrison fumbles for his flashlight, Lonan sets it down by the table so it sloshes like the Pacific.

This is a bit of when Harrison finds the photograph of Ominous Lady:

He turns the photograph over, and shines the flashlight on it. It’s scratched and developed wrong, little bits of orange obscuring the woman’s face, but it’s very much a woman. A dark bob and bangs in her eyes, jewelry hanging from her septum. Sunshades enough to reflect the European street behind her. The discreet jet of ink on her skin, blues and greens peeking out from under her sleeve. Izzy, he recognizes. Lonan’s mother.

Nudging Lonan with an elbow, “I didn’t know your mom has tattoos.”

Lonan takes the photograph cautiously, holding it by the corners like it’ll burn him. His brow trembles, but it takes him only seconds to say, “That’s not my mom.” He takes the flashlight from Harrison and examines it closer, fingers nimble and tracing the edges. In the grey light of the dark room, he looks nullified. Just a monochromatic hum of chromosomes and skin.

that’s not my MOM

After the boys find the photograph, Lonan gets triggered at Harrison’s suggestion to find the woman (he presumes her to be someone involved with his father) and promptly has a tantrum and exits. This leads us into the next scene where the boys! actually! get! on! boat! In this scene Lonan tries to say sorry for his tantrum by offering Harrison a cigarette (lol) and because Harrison is hopelessly romantic and also hopelessly dumb, says yeeeees sir! They go for a canoe ride on the water. Thought it was going to be sweet, ended up being a shitstorm but!

This paragraph is kind of toast but:

The canoe isn’t hard to get into the water. After a few nudges from the dock into the slow dip of tide, it stabilizes easily. Harrison is convinced it will capsize but Lonan knows it won’t. They take one ore each, and ignore the life jackets at the back of the shed.

The moon is large and mesmerizing. As Harrison and Lonan take turns pushing the canoe into the water, mast first, then its entire belly, it colours them silver. Lonan’s protected the cigarette in the pocket of his shirt. Harrison stares at its faint outline stretched under the fabric. Lonan steps into the canoe first, rocking with the current, and extends a hand for Harrison. He pulls him in and they row until the cabin is the size of a fingernail, the wave steady and dense. Each cut of the paddle feels like plunging a scalpel into flesh and Harrison watches Lonan do it easily. In the distance, the cabin doesn’t look so menacing. Reeve has left the lamp on by the loft, and it glimmers back like an eyeball, effervescent and tiny. Nothing but a reflective penny in the distance.

Here’s some Harrison being lame:

The water laps at the base of the canoe, and Ris reaches over and touches it like it’s holy. He makes the sign of the cross and it feels perverse, cold water dripping from forehead to chin.

For a while it’s quiet. Just the distant hum of crickets, the slash of the paddle, and the off-chance flash of something in the distance; an animal, a flashlight. Ris tries not to think about Lonan’s dad, like a dead man slithering through the water, following their boat. He picks at a saltine, sucks it between his tongue meditatively. Against the sky, Lonan is backlit and lovely and flecks of his hair peek up from around the jacket’s collar. Harrison wonders if as a child, everyone said he looked just like his father.

On top of lacking accountability, Lonan is also a professional canoeist so he takes over while Harrison eats saltines and reminisces about an encounter they had weeks prior. This leads into the solid chunk of backstory that I weirdly jump in an out of for the entire chapter. :)

Backstory consists of drunk Lonan having a crisis while Harrison tries to have a peaceful evening of taping up his drawings to his bedroom ceiling. The following excerpt describes the moment right after Lonan enters the room.

Harrison’s lips secured around his cigarette, his hand mid-air with packing tape and line drawings of the moon. A tinny country song dribbled through the radio. The minute-meal he’d heat up in the microwave lying forgotten and cold on his desk. Harrison set the pile of drawings down and turned off the music.

“Emily left?” Lonan asked. He kept his face upward, stared clumsily at the ceiling. Harrison watched his eyes trace the new drawings, following the uncalculated pattern.

This paragraph is made up of 5 similes and this is the only reason I’m sharing it :)))):

Lonan has stopped paddling. The canoe sits in the middle of the lake, lifeless, like a bone in the water. He’s turned so Harrison can see him in profile, and Ris can’t tell if it’s relieving or worrying to see his face. Lonan’s jaw is taut, like there are words he wants to say there but can’t. Filling up the hollow bone. He blinks slowly, like he’s trying to re-centre himself, his chest quivering with breaths meant to steady him. The water laps at the base of the canoe, whirling. Dark hair tangles down his cheeks like the fingers of a poltergeist.

I think that’s a pretty good way to end this post lol! How many similes have you put in one paragraph? What’s your record lol this is probably mine!

Hope y’all enjoy the intro to MOTH WORK. I have two other chapters already written which I’ll update on in a separate post! For now I hope you like this more laid back project, let me know what you think!

---Rachel

#writing #writingupdates #writeblr #amwriting #writerblr #fostered #mothwork

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syncogon · 5 years ago

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qzgs prequel movie pv3 thoughts

i swear this is the best pv yet like damn. the music? incredible. legitimately gave me chills

(more commentary from before)

as always, big fan of the scenery in this movie

cute!! also interesting that they’re using a different voice for him vs yx, though i suppose that makes sense

if anyone else watches the promised neverland, his face here gave me big ray vibes, esp when he was admitting to ------

“clup jia shi” up there in upper left corner. why couldn’t they have translated to Excellent Era like they did for Royal Style?? gah that’s gonna bother me so much

nice writing. nice highlighting that famous-ass quote

HAHAHA are the sponsors in this movie just the movie producers lol

wxf spokesperson!! i love it. also, knowing basically nothing about these characters, assuming nothing in the movie goes against it, i am ready to help push wxf/xm and qtr/yx2, let’s goooo

and the girl kinda looks like tr from the back haha

i know we’ll prob get very little of royal style aside from ll and gmy (which, by the way, i can’t wait to see what they’re doing with them as a duo, hahaha, they’re really taking bb’s mistake and running with it, very interested to see their characters. gmy seems to lowkey remind me of a prince of tennis character but idk who, he just seems like he’d fit in that universe)

my breath actually stopped at this. like, damn.

will accept novel inconsistencies if they look cool! like this!!

yx2... my boi... it’s really nice to hear these chars’ voices since we haven’t really gotten them talking yet (aside from that one thing they released for yx’s bday)

v curious who this is! though it’s almost certainly xmk so i guess im not that curious lol

angry boi. (diff scene from the last one though, even though the cut makes it seem like it’s the same scene)

i love this! natural interpersonal intrateam drama! we get very little of that in novel, happy comes together shockingly well, so im really excited to see ee overcoming differences and struggles and really coming together into a cohesive unit. (and knowing that this cohesive unit goes on to create a dynasty... :’) )

yx2 looks so much shorter than wxf in this shot, even though we know and have seen above the opposite is true, so i wonder if he’s just like 80% slouched under that table hahaha

so nice to see them in casual outfits tho!

scythe fights are so. cool! big fan of the arcing slashes

yx: :3

yx: >:/

called it!! called it, folks. our friend swoksaar is online.

indeed, shameless grizzled old wei chen controlled a pretty boy account back in the day. wonder if we’ll get to see 20 yr old wc?

wxf turning to look at yx! (i wonder why they didn’t put captain/vc next to each other tho)

gotta say, royal style’s black w/ gold is nice

intense stare!

i like this shot, w the ee ppl small and under the scythe. v well framed!

eyes look strangely dull hm

need me a pocket yx of confidence

(...why is he taking off the mask rn tho?)

i hope that’s my qi guard. we’re getting so little of wxf/qi breaker in these pvs even compared to the other og ee and it’s making me worried

what kinda thumbs up was that?

also the animation in that shot was super smooth, almost like cgi

super super cool shot!!

:’)

are those gauntlets she’s putting on or smth? so cool tho

im ready to love this girl cmon don’t let me down

i want to know about this universe’s gmy!!

yx’s torso looks weirdly long haha

fingers crossed for some solid char dev

:’) so pretty

looks like he has a beard in this shot

(took me a sec to realize he was pointing his staff and not like... holding his forearm to the air or smth lol)

qtr/yx2 coordination!!!!! it’s so pretty (kinda looks like transmutation circle lol)

(i think tumblr is killing the quality of these images argh)

CHILLS.

HIS EYEBROWS LOL

stole live action yx oal’s mask huh

thats like enough hair to clog a drain wtf

so beautiful?? what is. he asking yx2 milk dad for?? watch him be asking him not to heal him and then he dies

(quiet sobbing) show his full face let us. hear him you cowards...

evil annih is SO pretty in this shot!! smq would be happy :’)

it’s the same shot that was in the other pv, but no green this time. hm...

will not screenshot all of them but but oal silhouetted against the explosion is super pretty

they both look like “ugh here we go again”

...hm if they end this match on yx vs ll+gmy i will be kind of sad ngl “win together” my butt (wheres wxf...)

this is an extraordinarily memeable image, i need to save it

SO cool

super saiyan oal! seventh rank battle spirit! wheres the fanart

beautiful dragon!!

and that’s a wrap folks. we are just under 2 weeks away, let’s gooooo

(wonder if we’ll get one final pv? :0)

#quan zhi gao shou #qzgs #qzgs movie #for the glory #the king's avatar #qzgs commentary #mine

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twistednuns · 5 years ago

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February 2020

I managed to use my iPad as a second monitor for my computer. So tech savvy. Yay me!

Joking about developing a sex-based cardio programme with Manu. Powerfucking! Might help against aggression as well.

A late night phone call with Tom. Not saying much.

Making a huge pot of my grandmother’s signature veggie stew.

More Bon Appétit test kitchen videos. Chris recreating tacos. Claire making Ben&Jerry’s. Priya making her mum’s Indian curries.

Writing a letter to Lena. Drawing upside down bats (which makes them look like they’re having a wicked dance-off). Just the act of writing. I thoroughly enjoy looking at my handwriting.

Using the Salted Coconut handscrub by Lush. Especially now that I wash my hands so often when we’re working with clay at school. I feel like the peeling triggers some pressure points on my palms.

That Saturday productivity high. Cooking and preparing heaps of stuff, cleaning the windows, doing laundry.

Painting my nails like an expressionist artist.

Some portrait studies. Accidentally drawing Sirius Black.

Being really motivated to improve my Spanish. Working with Lorena, the Duolingo app and even starting my own grammar/vocabulary book.

This ultra quirky ASMR video. Also: watching videos with Erin an her boyfriend Chris. It’s amazing how well they work together. How you can almost feel their connection, how similar they are.

Carrot cake oats.

Seeing the The Darkness live again, this time with Margit. Justin’s outfit and personality, singing along, especially to Time of my Life, the band’s traditional first song after the show.

Meeting Chris. Having a Bramblette cocktail at Pusser’s. I like that place. Feels very old-timey with a rowing boat right under the ceiling. We made out in front of a tiger slide in a toy store window on our way to the next bar.

Peeling fresh carrots.

Pickling onions and making kimchi. My fermentation game is strong these days!

Looking through Dominik’s sketchbook. I loved the tree whose bark resembled a mole burrow with its underground tunnel system.

The flu. Yes, really. Fewer pupils at school. Quiet times. I’m actually surprisingly healthy. I’d guess my probiotics must play a role here… Who knows.

More sourdough experiments. Writing about it (DELICACY - a haiku. Oven-warm sourdough / salted butter, alpine cheese / and a strawberry).

Finding a really interesting list of SanFran hippie era book recommendations at the end of Robin Sloan’s Ajax Penumbra: 1969. In the mood to read Maya Angelou, Tom Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan.

Even more beautiful books: I really enjoyed Die weiße Stadt by Karolina Ramqvist, a feminist author from Sweden, and the graphic novel version of To Kill a Mockingbird. But two books that literally (well, figuratively obviously) blew my mind were Circe by Madeline Miller (mythology, loneliness, animals and plants, magic and monsters, some desperate kind of feminism, independence and strength) and Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (magical realms, university setting, psychological depth, unexpected twists and turns). I haven’t read anything comparable in a very long time and I desperately hope that there’s more to come from these authors.

A beach collecting all the world’s single socks in The Magicians. Oh and of course seeing them break the moon. What a sight. The show is super confusing, obnoxious and absolutely fabulous at the same time. Best example: the Freaky Friday szene in which Margo and Eliot switch bodies. I love how the actors took on each other’s speech patterns and behaviour.

A new addition to my colour vocabular: celadon (a greyish green; there is a type of ceramics you’ll only see in this colour which is not surprising since the shade provides such an interesting contrast to the the earthy, rusty orange of burnt clay.)

Manu telling me that he had rarely seen people with more joy in their eyes than me (“Ich habe schon Freude in deinen Augen gesehen! So ein Leuchten kann man nicht simulieren.”) after complaining about being bored and lifeless. / Making curry with or, well, for him the other night. Drinking Liqueur 43 with cinnamon and milk. Playing the Jackbox party games for which you can use your phone as a controller.

Finding myself in a well-known sitation from the past. Lying in Frank’s bed in the early morning hours, not that tired yet, when he starts talking about his life and his depression. In English, obviously, because that’s our emotional filter. Relating, since I feel quite similar. Coming up with a suggestion for a reciprocal support system. Let’s see what we can do for each other.

Looking at travel photographs. The sea, the cenotes. Longing to go back to Mexico or Australia. Diving. Taking it all in.

Dreaming of my grandmother talking about her biggest regrets in life. Weirdly she was in a little bundle under a coffee table, much like Voldemort in the last Harry Potter movie.

My weird, weird brain. How both pleasure and pain enhance my sense of smell and increase my brain activity, almost causing hallucinations and fixations on ideas. Like geometric shapes in gloomy off-colours and a beige silicon-like surface the other night. All I could think of was a benchscraper.

Blue eyeliner.

Brainstorming three-letter-words with Frank since I’m thinking of getting personalised Nike Blazers. Sad cat. Yes but. Dat ass. Why tho.

Flying squirrels. Watching them wobble through the air. How they look like cute exhibitionist when they’re extending their limbs and thus stretching their, well, let’s just call it wings.

The fact that red cabbage has an intricate pattern like brain convolutions when you cut it open.

Talking to Sonja for the first time in over two years. What a strange person. Interesting, too. At least in homeopathic doses.

Ripe strawberries and nectarines. Oh my god. I love fruit.

Meeting Eve at Pub Quiz. She identifies as female, loves swing dance, used to be an animator and I love her style. Also, I realised that really like Betty. And Dennis wasn’t mean to me for once. I love my nerd friends <3 And I learned that Starbucks was named after the first mate in Moby Dick! Also, coincidentally they asked a question about the city where To Kill a Mockingbird takes place (Maycombe, Alabama) after I had read it the week before.

Inviting Lorena to the Botanical Gardens. I always feel very happy and very much myself when I’m there. I sometimes wish I was a gardener. Lorena was late so I walked along the Spring Path outside and it might have been the first time I’ve seen a brussels sprouts plant. Inside I learned lots of Spanish words and marveled at the incredible butterflies. The huge yellow one right behind the entrance was my favourite. Its delicate feelers were fascinating.

Washing my hands at the Keg’s bathroom. Looking into the mirror. Suddenly thinking of the perfect karaoke song… Rescue Me by Bell Book and Candle! I kept singing it for days on repeat. My neighbour must hate me (nothing new here) especially since my voice is too low for the chorus.

It isn’t hard to see how such attachment patterns can undermine mental health. Both anxious and avoidant coping have been linked to a heightened risk of anxiety, depression, loneliness, eating and conduct disorders, alcohol dependence, substance abuse and hostility. The way to treat these problems, say attachment theorists, is in and through a new relationship. On this view, the good therapist becomes a temporary attachment figure, assuming the functions of a nurturing mother, repairing lost trust, restoring security, and instilling two of the key skills engendered by a normal childhood: the regulation of emotions and a healthy intimacy. // An interesting article on attachment styles and why theraphy works; it makes me want to learn more about attachment theory. This School of Life video is a nice addition as well.

That dream. About a book shop modeled after my picture of Penumbra’s 24-hour bookstore. There was an old man in a very narrow but high-ceilinged room full of books. There was no light source except for moonlight or some street lights. There were loads of stairs, very steep, leading to the back of the house. Upstairs the man would set out cat food and on the rooftop there was an old sailing boat. One day the man decided to open the door to the roof and let visitors see the ship, much like a museum; perhaps to attract customers. However, in the next night a cat-shaped ghost appeared who reminded me quite a lot of Kot Behemoth character in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. The ghost was not amused about the old man’s decision and took away his key, a big golden one adorned with a red ribbon.

Toasted sesame makes pretty much every dish so much better.

Watching High Fidelity with gorgeous Zoe Kravitz (I adore her effortless style and her outfits), getting in the mood for making a playlist and listening to more music in general. There are all these great songs out there I forgot about.

Remembering the xkcd storm chaser comics.

Making a wicked good batch of Pho for Tom.

Spending a nice evening with Alex at Shamrock. Singing along to American Boy by Estelle. Confirming the hypothesis that the nerdy, quiet ones usually have a freak streak. That moment in the morning. Eye contact and kegel exercises.

Karaoke with Margit and Betty. Meeting Manu’s doppelganger. Same type, looks, voice. Eerie.

Making a BA Gourmet Makes meme for Steffen after he had passed his law examps. Strangely Gaby kinda looked like him after I was done with it.

Saturday morning in bed. Reading comics and graphic novels. Fresh bedclothes, surrounded by books. Since it was February 29 I thought about leap years and asked a few friends what their inner seven-year-old would have done that day (based on the thought experiment that your birthday was on February 29 and you’d age in 4-year-steps which would divide your age by 4 obviously).

I came up with: visiting grandma / eating Cini-Minis / falling asleep with my face buried in a cat / beating my neighbour Anna at Memory / drawing while listening to a Bibi Blocksberg cassette.

Alex said he’d have been outside all day, building a snow igloo. Not noticing his mum telling him to come to dinner. If the weather had been bad he would have played with his dinosaur collection. His inner 7-year-old was a hopeless dreamer who got agitated whenever his parents had a fight. Who came home late from school every day because he forgot about time when he was talking to his friend next to a hedge with thorns that looked like tiny airplanes.

Lena said she would have been outside all day long, playing in the mud with the neighbours’ kids. Of course.

#things i love #present perfect #personal #february 2020 #february #2020

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almarchive · 6 years ago

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hello, its nora n this is the ethereal but spoiled alma olive putnam. she goes by all 3 names cos she’s pretentious as fuck. raised in a farmhouse in vermont, never really had to work for anything in her life and doesn’t want to. studying class civ cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into lockwood. loves the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages. i might forget tho so pls message me x

application template.

( elle fanning / cis-female ) haven’t seen ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM around in a while. the ELLE FANNING lookalike has been known to be TENACIOUS & MAGNETIC, but SHE can also be FANCIFUL & DOUBLE-CROSSING. The 20 year old is a SOPHOMORE majoring in CLASSICS. I believe they’re living in FIDELIS but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( nora. 23. gmt. she/her. )

aesthetics.

a red beret nestled on top of bright platimum locks, neck scarves tied around your throat the way they do it in french new wave films, running barefoot through the woods in feckless hedonism, china dolls with porcelain faces lined against the walls of your room, the mona lisa smile, knee-socks tugged over the hockey grazes on your knees, a forged botticelli drying on your easel, ophelia floating in the middle of a lake.

connection to tatiana & did they choose her name during the watershed?

alma saw her as academic competition and a threat to her de jure throne. in freshman year, tatiana got the role alma auditioned for in a university production. she’s disliked her ever since. alma abslutely chose tatiana’s name, and she’d do it again without hesitating. [that vine voice] I WON’T HESITATE, BITCH

the short form.

— born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immigrant and worked on a plantation, made his way up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.

— both her parents had large personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit wise beyond her years. — very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french. — studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin. — isn’t a foward-planner, however. alma prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night. — pretentious motherfucker. loves poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very intelligent and beautiful and knows both of those facts. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. petty and vindictive — just wants to be loved by all. a party girl ; doesn’t rlly enjoy it, jst feels she should enjoy it. — tries to be an enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women desirable and interesting and cool. — obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning. — her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee-high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramophone because “the sound quality is better” kfdsjj.

plots.

here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:

study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library

if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends – probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !

people who live on the same floor and only know each other from brief interactions in the lift or the canteen

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !

hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!

fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning

i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties

people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse

people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all

full biography.

alma olive putnam.

intro.

the girl is a knife. razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. you’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “mama, when will i be a queen?” as soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.

biography.

if you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? in the beginning, you never knew hunger. twins, born under the same star, you first, him second – a nuclear family. never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. white-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. the townhouse in vermont and the summer house in lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.

at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.

your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather wolfgang hildegarde a german immigrant, great-grandmother maura lisbon a prairie girl. they fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the indians, vacations to calcutta, your father todd putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. he worked hard so that you’d never have to. your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? that blood money had no business raising a child. you look far back enough, edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a civil war to silence, and i think you’ll find that all money is blood money.

language was never fickle on your tongue, french dinner time talk by the time you were out of your hush puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. you learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. by eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to english boarding school.

fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. you were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. tell us what it’s like in the states, alma. they’d coo, enamoured by your hollywood drawl. does your father own a gun? you hardly knew. barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. when you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.

the road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to small-town fame. bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. but there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. hockey helped. there was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. sweat. stiff knuckles. feet pounding the earth. the smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “slipped, sorry.” hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. on the pitch, you feel alive.

#water:intro #i promise i didn't rip this character out of dare me or the secret history

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alucior · 6 years ago

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11 Questions Meme!

thanks, @menzosarres for tagging me in this I had far to much fun.

Rules: Answer 11 questions, write 11 of your own, tag 11 people

1. Gimme the best and worst anagrams of your name (or url) that you (or an anagram generator) can come up with.

Uhm, the best and worst anagrams of Fjodor? Let me pull up a generator and see what happens I guess. So, what was spit out of the magical world of just generating all the possibilities and then selecting the ones that make sense we have on the ��good’ side; dj roof and on the ‘bad’ side food jr. Idk, there aren’t a lot of anagrams you can make with like six letters.

2. What’s your preferred Note material? Like, are you an index card-er, a note-pad-er, a sticky-note-purist? Give me details. If you’re a stickier, do you like the ones that peel up all in one direction, the accordion ones, the weird re-stick-ables?

All notes that I take are done on note-pads, which while a bit big to carry around everywhere is actually handy to do a decent write out on, or to use as a doodle place. Peeps might say that you can there is a thing as too much space, I disagree. If there was an easy way to carry around an A3 notepad I would be doing that.

3. What’s the most pretentions book you’ve read and actually enjoyed?

I want to say that I have finished this book but really it is just a long story that keeps going on and on and on. The book is called until I find you and it’s about a boy that grows up during the duration of the novel from like 3? To adulthood. He and his mother first travel around the world to provide people tattoos for money, eventually, he grows up and becomes an somewhat famous actor. And stuff goes on and on and on. I like the writing that John Irving did in this book but I have no real intentions of finishing it. It’s a great read with many good words and fun lines but I just can’t finish it.

4. Could you turn the last dream you had into a nightmare just by changing one or two details?

Yes.

5. If you spell your middle name backwards, what does it remind you of?

It reminds me of the news and journalism. How it is supposed to be unbiased except for the facts that are stated, but that might be just me.

6. If you had the power to instantly teleport to a place, but only one place, what place would you pick? ((Careful! Are you going to accidentally (or intentionally) strand yourself there? How good are you at that google maps game where you walk to the nearest airport, really? Flip side, if you pick home, what happens if you move out? Whose Living Room Is This Now Anyway? Is this even a useful power for you?))

So, the problem here is that we can only teleport to a single place in the universe, we can do that as many times as we like but it will always be that single place. There are a couple of problems with the single place statement.

First of all, if we pick a place and it is stuck there like in a bedroom the point isn’t really stuck. That point is moving at 460 meters per second around the earths axis and while we could say fine we are gonna let it rotate we need to remeber that the planet is also moving 29 722 meters per second around the sun. So so far we have a point that is moving at occasional speeds of over 30000 meters per second.

I don’t know about you menzo but that doesn’t really sound like a single point. If we were to bring the speed of the sun around the galactic centre into this we would suddenly be talking about speeds of over 230 000 meters per seocnd.

So quick recap, the earth rotates at 460 meters per second, the planet goes around the sun at 29 722 meters per second and the sun is hurtling through space at a breathtaking 230 000 meters per second.

So If someone were to pick a place and teleport there at that instance they would be fine. But if they wait for about a minute or two that point they were looking to teleport to would be in space, killing them instantly.

So no, it’s not useful

7. What’s your preferred sleeping weather? Give me a good old summer storm, I sleep outside during those months in the lounge we have in our garden. And they sound of rain on that roof and the wind blowing around. It is the single best weather to sleep in (even tho during one of those nights I yelled at Thor and he kinda started throwing all the storm in my direction).

8. If you were unexpectedly nominated to run for president as a last-ditch effort to save your country from absolute tyranny, which fandom or other tumblr activity would be the most likely to come back and haunt you?

Flashbacks to frozen fandom.

Yeah, there was a period of time that I used to be very, very deep in that fandom. Well in a subpart of that fandom, can’t say I ever regret the time I spend there, all the content I consumed was enjoyed and I stand by that.

9. Have you ever seen a totally normal object out in the world that has really stuck in your mind?

An open window.

10. In what circumstances would you willingly give up your full name to the fey?

While I’m unsure that I will ever give the fey my full name, I feel that the trade of a full name for a full name is something to be considered.

11. And lastly, as I always do, Buzzfeed Quiz Style: If You Were An Obnoxious Song Sang On Children’s Playgrounds Everywhere, Which One Would You Be And Why? (Including a link to a youtube clip I will definitely regret clicking because it will be stuck in my head all day is highly recommended. This is Buzzfeed Quiz Style, after all.)

Enjoy, and why? It’s something that plays on repeat in my head for far too long every single day more or less.

what object do you lose the most but always find again

strangest place you have visited twice.

does a tree falling in an empty forest make sound?

how well do you know the book that is currently closest to you.

why do you like to read?

got a favourite star?

how long has it been since you last finished a book and what was it?

in five years will you still be sleeping on the same matrass?

top or bottom?

who do you yell about when you see their picture

if you see a product that is labelled with the wrong price, will you let the store know or will you use the misplaced discount?

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porcelainghosts · 7 years ago

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OOC QUESTIONS ;

RULES: Answer the questions you’ve been given, then write your own and tag 11 people.

1) Sum up the aesthetic of your blog/muse(s) in five words or less.

off the top of my head... eun-bi: dancing, gold, obsidian, fish, red. eun-ji: dusty rose, diamonds, pearls, paint stained fingers, sleepy cuddles kimi: cats, aliens, pizza, star gazing, holograph noey: dogs, bruises, bloodied knuckles, the smell of gun powder, empty streets in the dead of night

2) What are some short-term and/or long-term goals you’ve managed to fulfill ?

hmmm... i’m lame and nothing much comes to mind. one long term goal i’ve fulfilled that i’m pretty proud of was raising my gpa and pulling myself out of academic suspension completely in one semester at my old college bc i was a dumb ass when i was younger and skipped class a lot bc of my MDD. i busted ass and it really paid off~ i’m usually extremely lazy when it comes to studying, but nope. not this time lol. a short term goal... uhhh the most recent was knocking down my drafts from 50+ to about 25. HAHA WOW I AM SO LAME.

3) Do you have any particulars about the way you dress ? If so, what are they ?

ehhh not really, i wear whatever, altho i tend to steer clear of things i consider tacky... would love to some day dress to my aesthetic but I’M TOO SELF CONSCIOUS.

4) Has your writing style / muse preference / portrayal changed since the last part of your life ( ex: if you’re in college, since you first started high school ) ?

whale, my writing style has for sure changed since high school and when i first started college. D: i look back on my old work and weep bc i used to write so wonderfully lmao idk what happened. muse preference hasn’t really changed -- i’ve always favored ocs over canon characters and female ocs over male ocs. altho there was a period in my life where i, like, roleplayed nothing but male canon characters lol.

5) Are you the type to make muse aesthetic boards and playlists ? If not, what’s the ‘fanciest’ thing you do for your muse(s) ?

HELL YES I AM. i love making aesthetics and graphics and playlists for my ocs. IDK WHY, EITHER, I JUST DO. i guess because it’s a lot of fun and also i loooove finding songs that remind me of my muses or ships. i also think it’s interesting to have a visual medium of my muse’s taste and aesthetic and stuff... i used to have a ton of playlists back on my old laptop for older ocs of mine, but they’ve since disappeared since my hard drive crashed and i was unable to salvage anything except what was on my flash drive.

6) If you’re a multi-muse blog, are there any muses that you favor that others don’t seem to gravitate to ? If you’re a single-muse blog, is there a genre of plot you love seeing your muse in but don’t get much of ?

eun-biiiii. i love writing her, but most ppl wanna interact with ji or kimi, which is cool bc i understand. they’re easier to interact with. and although noey is still new to this blog, i have a feeling people won’t really gravitate towards her, either. nbd tho bc i have ppl who do love interacting with eun-bi and noey so ; u;

7) You can only eat ONE type of cuisine ( Thai, Indian, Italian, etc. ) for a week. Which is it ?

chinese, hands down. i can live off of chinese food tbh.

8) What are some of your writing habits ?

run on sentences, writing novel length replies when i told myself i wouldn’t, hella introspection, and furiously using synonyms for certain words i’ve already used in the same paragraph lollll.

9) What’s the closest thing to you that’s the color green ?

my eyes B] and if that doesn’t count, then my foam mattress topper...

10) Do you have any general advice you tend to give out a lot ?

hmmm idk... rp wise i tend to say something along the lines of: ‘write for yourself and write what you like’. irl it’s usually something like ‘it’s okay to be feeling (whatever emotion the person i’m currently talking to is experiencing)’. esp with the kids i nanny, i always try to validate their emotions, even if they’re perplexing as hell lmao.

11) What’s something you dislike about your corner of the rpc ? Something you like about it ?

i don’t really have many gripes in my little rpc corner bc the ppl i follow are pretty cool. in general, i hate the male over female bias and favoritism.... that’ll always get my goat, by golly. what i like is how awesome and accepting all of my mutuals are and how they are actuallY INTERESTED IN MY GIRLS AAAAAA.

Tagged by: @carnivorarium ( thank u bb ! ) Tagging: @soulmauled // @jvdicatum // @askharukakujo // @obdurcte // @catastrophicur // @necrophagic // @loyaltywritten // @waywcrdsouls // @dancersofdestiny // @cothurnal // @kreasura and if you see this and want to do it, pretend i tagged you~

Questions:

1. what is your favorite thing to write when it comes to rping ?

2. what do you struggle with the most when it comes to rping ?

3. do you remember the first character you ever rped ? if so, who were they ?

4. if there was one thing you could change about your writing, what would it be and why ?

5. what personality type do you favor the most when it comes to characters you rp ?

6. what do you do to help yourself get over writers block ?

7. who is an author you look up to the most and who inspires you when it comes to your writing ? if you do not have a favorite author, is there another roleplayer who inspires you ?

8. do you rp characters who are similar to you in personality or complete opposites ?

9. what is your biggest pet peeve rp-wise ?

10. what is one of the best experiences you’ve had in the rpc ?

11. what advice would you give to mutuals who are afraid or too shy to reach out to you ?

#❛ MESSAGES FROM THE VOID ❜ ( ooc. )#all my questions are rp oriented oops

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bettsfic · 7 years ago

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Do you ever deal with having too many ideas? I come up with a story, completely plot it out, outline it, establish my characters, and next thing I know I’m coming up with a completely different story line that I feel like I have to flesh out. I feel like I’m constantly hopping around, back and forth, between a million different stories and getting very little actually finished. Do you have any advice on maintaining focus?

god for real tho. i met with my thesis advisor a few weeks ago, and i had to sheepishly tell her how many projects i was tackling, to which she said, “well it’s better to have too many ideas than too few.”

(and then at the end of the meeting, she told me to send her everything i had so far, and i was like, “you mean short stories,” and she said, “no, everything.” i told her that would be about 300 pages, and she insisted that was fine.)

and wow, that made me feel so much better. in my head it’s like. something to be ashamed of, writing too much and too quickly and having too many ideas and scattered attention. but in the grand scheme of things, we’re in the minority. a lot of writers have trouble getting anything down. a lot of writers only get a good idea once in a long time. so i try to be grateful of the constant buzz of ideas, because there might come a day when it stops.

i read something yesterday that was a reminder of the old adage, the only way to become a writer is to treat it like a job. ass in chair, two hours a day or more.

and oh boy, thinking about writing the same way i think about my bullshit 9 to 5 really brings the muses out!! tbh i think the idea of Forcing Yourself to Write Things is very much a privileged notion and a skewed perspective. the people who are saying this are already successful, and they want to portray their work as if it were some immense burdensome struggle, like you too can have all this if you make yourself suffer.

moreover, i just? don’t? want? to see? writing? that way? as some kind of productive output, like i’m a machine. like my creativity is a factory for churning out media to be consumed en masse. so i think the idea of focus and diligence is all bullshit. writing is absolutely a discipline, but it is not factory labor. you do not have to clock in, work on your designated project, and clock out. maybe that works for some people, but it doesn’t for me.

that said, not being able to finish things is totally frustrating and disheartening, because it feels like you have no control at all, jesus-take-the-wheel style. so i’ve tricked myself into a few workarounds so that i get shit accomplished.

i let myself write whatever is in my head. i do not deny myself anything. if a scene or piece of dialogue comes up, i stop what i’m doing and write it down, because ignoring it feels like being given a gift that you decline. it feels rude. but here’s the crux: if this happens, i don’t force myself to finish whatever story that scene belonged in. sometimes it’s ok to just write the scene and do something else. sometimes it’s ok to let that one scene take you to the next and let the story consume you, and put everything else to the side for a bit. but the point is: write it down. no matter what. give in to the ideas that come to you.

don’t feel bad about giving up on a story. a lack of focus is a consequence of expectations, and i think most expectations--for yourself and for others--are stupid. they put people in unasked for boxes and lead to disappointment. so i don’t feel bad about myself for giving up on a story just because i expect myself to complete shit. sometimes the story just isn’t good enough, or it’s not ready to be written yet. giving up on stories that lose my attention without beating myself up makes focusing on the more worthwhile projects that much easier. this may seem counterintuitive, but i swear, the second i took the pressure off myself to follow through, the easier it became to follow through. it took the obligation out of it. i could say to the story, “i could give up on you if i wanted, you know. you’d gather dust in this folder for eternity, unfinished.” and sometimes the story would be like, “yea ok,” but sometimes it goes, “NOOOO just one more scene. one more scene pls.” and i end up finishing it, because i give myself permission to quit.

i limit the scope of the project. i try to write the first scene of every story idea i have, and sometimes i write more, sometimes i finish the story, and sometimes i give up on it. but i need to write the first scene to figure out how long the thing is going to realistically be. if i think it’s a short story, but i come up with enough content that it’s going to be a novel, i either:

table it for a time when i have the patience and focus to work on a longer project

ask myself, “how can i reel this in?” and pare down the plot until it’s a totally manageable length and something i can get finished in a week or two. because once a short story is down, you have a completed work, and if you want to expand it later when you have time, it’s still there for potential revision.

practice writing short stories over allowing them to greedily take up more space than you intend. this really helps with focus. it’s like building muscle. keep things concise and short and finish them quickly and move on, and then you learn how your writing pace really feels when it’s in check. you know how it feels when something is complete. you know how it feels when something isn’t worth pursuing. you learn how much effort to put into it. your stories may ask for a lot of attention from you, they might beg you to expand and become complicated and overlong, but you don’t have to give in to them. it is better to complete a short story and move on so you have a completed draft to work from later than it is to start a novel and abandon it.

notecards! buy some notecards and write all your scene ideas down in summary on them, then organize by project and keep in a little box. you might neglect some, you might pick up others later, but the point is that all your ideas are put in a readily accessible place.

and lastly, prioritize using the snowball method. make a list of all the stuff you’re working on and order it by whatever will take the least amount of work to complete first. finish that item, and then go to the next, until your To Be Written list is pared down and you can re-focus your efforts. if you get to an item and think “this isn’t worth finishing” move on to the next.

thanks for the question! hope this helps!!

#writing advice #dow17 #Anonymous

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books-on-the-brain · 7 years ago

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So I used to read a whole bunch, but then I took a small break so that I could have an actual social life. Now I'm trying to get back into it but I've tried to... I just can't get into it. Do you have any suggestions of what I could do to get back into wanting to read more?

bI relate to this SO. MUCH. It’s always hard to find a good reading/life balance, since reading can often be a very isolating activity. It’s also really difficult around this time of year for younger readers, too, since a lot of us are getting back into the swing of it with school and such and find that we have much less time to be reading what we want. So without further ado…

How I cure “reader’s block”/being in a book rut!!!

1) First of all, there’s literally no shame in reading something because it’s short and you know you can get through it, or reading something you might consider a “beach read.” If it’s less daunting for you to pick up a 70-page romance novella than Tolstoy that is perfectly!!! okay!!! What matters is that you’re still reading and it’s making you happy, not that you have gained all the answers to the universe by reading a dry and endless classic.

2) Another good option is to reread something you know you really love/want to revisit. I find it’s typically easier to read something for the second or third time and if it’s been a while, then you’ll still be surprised by little things here and there and get the warm nostalgia fuzzies. For me, one of my old favorites to revisit is Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I always read it at the beginning of the summer when I’m switching from all academic reading to personal reading (f i n a l l y) because I’m familiar enough with the story that it goes pretty quickly, but I still really love it.

3) In a similar vein, I find it really fun when I don’t want to sit down and read seriously to go back to some of my old favorites from childhood! For example, I loved the Deltora books by Emily Rodda when I was a kid and had some fun the other day going back through some of them and reminiscing. It has the potential to remind you of your love for stories and also in my case, it reminded my why I fell in love with fantasy at a young age and why I’m still so passionate about it! Reading children’s/middle grade/YA books is always acceptable and so much fun at any age.

4) This Barnes and Noble Reader article also suggests reading about books if you can’t actually read a book. As they explain it, find book blogs (like those on tumblr!) that speak to your interests and get you excited about picking up books. Other people’s enthusiasm goes a long way in encouraging you to also pick up a book to read!

5) If you can, find other avid readers and friends who you feel comfortable sitting in silence with! One of my favorite memories ever is sitting on my friend’s back porch and trading the books of the KARE First Love manga series back and forth. We played peaceful music in the background and so we were spending time as friends AND getting reading done. This lead us to discuss our favorite scenes and how we felt about certain translations (literally just because we like how to guy asked the main girl out in the online scantalation better than the printed book rip). But we ended up really getting into this series that in all honesty is kind of silly (despite the soft spot I have in my heart for it) and we joke about it all the time. Reading and socializing in one!

6) And speaking of manga…it’s always a great bridge for getting back into reading when it’s been a while, as are graphic novels! If you haven’t ever tried manga or graphic novels and don’t think it’s your rap at least give them a chance! I thought I hated them until I read Fullmetal Alchemist and fell in l o v e! You’re getting a story and doing some reading, but the pictures really help to ease you in so that you’re not necessarily devoting the same attention that you would be with a novel that’s just pages of text. As such, each volume is pretty quick depending on how long you linger on the drawings. If you already do love manga/graphic novels, then try picking up a new series you’ve been interesting in or rereading a series you already know you like!

Here are some graphic novel recommendations!

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (a story that does a fun take on the idea of the “bad guy” - it actually gave me way more feels than expected, and I loved the art style)

The new Ms. Marvel series written by G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by Adrian Alphona (so do not confuse this with the old Ms. Marvel, this one is better in my opinion because our hero is your average teenage Muslim girl living in Jersey City and it’s refreshing, amazing, adds diversity to the typically white/male dominated world of superheroes, and I am unabashedly in love with one of the main characters, Bruno)

Umbrella Academy written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Ba (this does another more twisted/dark take on the idea of the superhero story, if that’s something more up your alley. It’s the first book of a series I’ve really been loving lately, plus I trust Gerard Way’s taste in comics unequivocally and he wrote it so that’s a yes in my book!)

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (the intertwining stories of an American-Chinese boy trying to figure out his place in the world and the Monkey King of Chinese fable)

I did not include a special section for manga recommendations because most of what I read is probably not the sort of stuff to dive into after having reader’s block. Overall, the realm of shoujo might be a good place to look (things like Skip Beat!, Blue Spring Ride, Fruits Basket, and Kimi ni Todoke. Ouran High School Host Club and Dengeki Daisy were ones I really enjoyed too.)I also recently read Orange which is a fairly short series and easy to read - I loved it but major depression/suicide/mental illness tws there.In terms of shonen, Hunter x Hunter would be a good one because not only is it amazing, but it’s broken up into shorter yet very distinct story arcs which I feel would be easier if you’re trying to get back into reading. If someone has some more recs tho, please add!

7) Another variation of manga/graphic novels is online webtoons, which are basically digitized comics. I have recently discovered them and think they’re the best. things. ever. If you’re like me and you have a horrible habit of lying in bed scrolling absently through your phone before going to bed and after waking up, this might be good for you. I have slowly been replacing my mindless Facebook scrolling with scrolling through webtoons, which has been so amazing for my mental health! My favorite app is literally just called Webtoon or maybe Line Webtoon (the icon in the app store is a green speech bubble that says “Webtoon”).

For most webtoons, chapters are generally pretty short so it doesn’t take a lot of focus but once again, you’re still reading, and you’re still getting a good story, all while laying fetal position like you might while scrolling through Facebook or texting people before bed. Not to mention you’re supporting amazingly talented artists/individuals who are oftentimes not published and doing this for fun or with the hopes of eventually being published, so you can say you followed them from the start! Also since they update only a few times a week, it gives you something to look forward to on random days.

Here are my favorite story-oriented webtoons currently:

Assassin Roommate by Monica Gallagher. Super cute and quirky romance with a great female lead, also really great in terms of body diversity, and LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON I LOOK FORWARD TO TUESDAYS, THE DREADFUL DAY AFTER MONDAY

My Dear Cold-Blooded King by limelight. Just started this but it seems pretty cool??? The author has paired up with a musician so all the chapters have music which is lit af if I do say so myself

Silk and Briar by paragoing-paragon. I think this is on hiatus but it’s shaping up to be a brilliantly-constructed fantasy story with some crazy twists and turns

instantmiso’s stuff is also really popular (Where Tangents Meet and Siren’s Lament). It’s not as much up my alley as it is pretty fluffy romance and I’m not crazy about the writing, but she is an incredibly talented artist and has great music with her chapters. Her stuff is super good for an easy read without a ton of brain power/commitment, but I say that with immense respect for her talent and abilities!

Cheese in the Trap by soonkki. This was also made into a K-Drama so I read the series and threw a little watch-party with some of my friends from my Korean class! Super good series and another great way to enjoy reading AND be social!

Here are the webtoons that are more “Sunday newspaper funnies” style, where each chapter is a mini story:

Bluechair by Shen (this is WILDLY popular and I totally see why!!! These are hilarious and have cheered me up on many a rough night!!!)

Sapphie: The One-Eyed Cat by joho (feel-good, cute comic about cats that’s also pretty funny. I shamelessly read like a hundred chapters in one sitting.)

If none of this is appealing to you, there is always the audio option! If the actual act of your eyes scanning the page is difficult because you can’t focus on anything, there are a lot of options in this realm!

8) Local libraries usually have an audiobook section that is deeply neglected, but holds some secret treasures! Whenever I go on roadtrips, I always pick up two or three before I head out. They’re also perfect for when you do mindless tasks like sorting/folding laundry, walking a dog if you have one, waiting in long lines, or on your commute to and from school or work or any other similar activities.

What’s cool is you can search for audiobooks based both on books you actually want to read, and whoever is narrating it. I know Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz had a super popular audiobook because Lin Manuel Miranda narrated it. If you want to pay, Audible is one of the most popular paid platforms for audiobooks. I haven’t personally used it, but it seems to be quite successful. One way or another, audiobooks are a good way to get back into reading without having to budget extra time to sit down with a book.

9) Podcasts can also help if you haven’t already explored those and are open to! Not all podcasts are TED talks, or political debates, or generally academic, or whatever they are stereotyped as. There are a ton that feel just like audiobooks, or at the very least like a play without any visuals. There’s a script and there’s a story and I know it’s helped me ease back into a mindset that preps me for reading because much like audiobooks you can listen to them all the time (I do so while cooking dinner and walking to classes) and it helps your mind switch from reality to the world of a story with relative ease if that makes sense. I’m pretty new to podcasts myself so don’t have a ton to recommend, but here’s what I’ve been enjoying….

Podcasts to look into:

Anything written by Mac Rogers. That includes The Message, Afterlife, and Steal the Stars. Personally, I like Steal the Stars and The Message more that Afterlife. They’re all sci-fi stories that are generally told from one perspective but you get to know amazing characters and I was not expecting the twists and turns. And Steal the Stars is still coming out so jump on the bandwagon now lol

The Adventure Zone from Justin, Travis and Griffin McElroy at My Brother, My Brother and Me (another podcast which I have not listened to). The Adventure Zone is actually them playing Dungeons and Dragons, but they’re funny as all get out (the last place I lived had a communal kitchen for dozens of people and I was always laughing like and idiot while listening to this and making dinner and I’m pretty sure everyone thought I was nuts). Eventually the Dungeon Master gets super into the story telling and they script some of it with cool music. It’s really amazing and has a nice balance between story/characters but also the element of “real people” as they’re a bunch of brothers and they’re dad all just having fun. It’s a good bridge to getting back into reading.

Welcome to Nightvale is always a classic. It’s a bit trippy for me but tons of people enjoy it. The same team also produced a podcast called Alice Isn’t Dead. I honestly know nothing about it but one of my friends always raves about it, so it has his vote!

10) And okay so here’s my last suggestion. It might feel like a bit of a cop-out because I guess it kind of is, but it often works for me. So here it is. Sometimes it just helps to sit down and remember why you like to read in the first place. The fact that you’re actively trying to get back into it isn’t meaningless. It’s a very willful decision. So what is driving you? Maybe it’s because…

reading is an escape or a way for you to cope with difficult things in your life. This can be anything from mental illness, to school/work stress, to relationship dissatisfaction, difficult family or economic situations. Maybe you just are bored of our planet earth. Sometimes you might just need to be transported into another world for whatever reason and that is totally okay.

or reading inspires you to live your best life. Maybe there’s some character in a book you love that you look up to and aspire to be. Remember that passion you had when you were first getting to know that character, and that sense of being understood or finding a role model. Maybe you want to go on an adventure as wild as that character went on and that’s your idea of living your best life. Whatever the reason is, this sort of inspiration is a powerful emotion that books make us feel and sometimes that’s also a good reason to reread a book that’s inspired you.

and I don’t know, maybe you’re a writer yourself and you draw inspiration from reading in that sense. The more you read, the more you learn about what sort of writing you like and don’t like, and you grow stronger in your craft. Good readers help make good writers (but also don’t take that to mean that if you happen to be a writer and you’ve been in a book rut for a long time that you own skills are waning. we all get in book ruts and that’s okay. maybe it’s time to seek out a new source of inspiration in a different genre or new writer)

or perhaps you simply love stories. Maybe you breathe stories like other people breathe air and you can’t imagine that side of you not existing. If you’re one of these people, that makes reader’s block twice as hard. But that doesn’t mean that if you’re not turning pages that you’re not absorbing stories. Take it slowly and ease back into it with things I already mentioned like podcasts and webtoons.

One way or another, you’ll find your way back. Maybe this post will spark something. Maybe it won’t, and it will take another few months for you to really feel gungho about reading again. That’s all okay. Take your time. Enjoy being with friends and other activities. Do what’s healthiest and what works best for you. And eventually you’ll get back to reading a ton. However it happens, I wish you the best of luck!

#ask #asks #amazingdanseptiplier #bookworm #book worm #reading #books #booklr #recommendations #book recs #readers block #advice #literature #podcasts #manga #graphic novels #audio books #my post #mine

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