#this is a long a.. quote but it doesn’t really work without context

[dreamings-free]

“So studying drums is not for everyone [..] but for me when I was young that’s what I needed to do because I kinda.. I could play loud rock drums and that was it. And I needed to learn other skills, be it arranging, scoring strings, production.. just touch and grace on the drum kit, so you’re not just playing like crazy loud all the time. Turns out I ended up playing pretty crazy loud on this latest gig but you know.. it’s fine. Being a hired gun and a session drummer and an MD [..] it’s all about playing for the song, playing for what the song needs.. just keeping your head down, I think. There’s a lot to be said for that and knowing when to kinda sit up and play something of interest and when not to. And usually it’s 'don’t.', you know, certainly in the pop world. As I said before I’m playing with a guy called Louis - playing with Louis Tomlinson - and it’s quite a fun gig at the moment because it’s.. to be honest, it’s not that. It’s kinda some pretty bold drumming and it’s kinda like a sort of rock band, not too dissimilar to something like this, something like Biffy [Clyro] or Foo Fighters or something like that.. it’s been really good, to kinda go full circle with it all, you know.”

— Steve Durham talking about being Louis’ drummer and musical director.

Big Fat Five podcast 10/5/24

[budd-ie]

(BOOK 7/8 SPOILERS AHEAD)

Back at the end of this post I said that Mu Qing's mindset reminded me a lot of Jun Wu but didn't have any insight for why at the time. I think I figured it out now though!

To establish some context, this post explains what Mu Qing and Xie Lian's answers to the riddle reveal about them as opposites, which I believe is relevant to understand for this explanation. In short though, we know this:

Mu Qing is someone who is willing to make realistic cost-benefit moral choices for what he believes is the greater good.

Xie Lian is Not willing to make cost-benefit choices and will always try to idealistically achieve the greatest good for everyone.

Jun Wu, the crown prince of Wuyong, once wanted to save everyone, make no sacrifices to the volcano, and find that third path to victory. Unfortunately, this path crumbled beneath his feet, and in the end he gave in to choosing one path—making the sacrifices. On the first side of this, he desperately tried to find that other cup of water, and when he found none, he inevitably chose who to give it to. From this perspective, he sees Xie Lian’s moral dilemma of choosing the greatest good over his own wellbeing and wants to find Xie Lian’s breaking point. Bitterly, he wants to know if his aspiration really is impossible and if all good in the world really must die eventually, as he’s observed. Clearly, it’s impossible to give up so much of yourself without losing yourself eventually.

On the other side of this he sees Mu Qing, who isn’t afraid of the cost-benefit decision and is not only willing but conditioned to chase the greater good like jun wu did. Mu Qing is a very important character because his position compared to Xie Lian makes him the perfect manipulation target for Jun Wu. He already understands cost-benefit and holds previous grudges, so all that’s left is to further incite that hatred inside him use him for all he’s worth.

But…

Mu Qing refuses.

He refuses to be incited, he refuses to hurt no matter what kind of negative emotions have been festering all these centuries, and suffers the extreme punishment of banishment for it. Why doesn’t this incitement work? While he may be petty and spiteful, he’s never actually been malicious. Mu Qing’s resolve is extremely significant, because this is the event that sets in stone that Jun Wu is wrong. Suddenly this quote from Yin Yu becomes less incidental and much more thematically significant:

“I only wanted to hate him. I never wanted to hurt him”

Mu Qing may have held a lot of ill regards, but he himself even said he never wanted to hurt Xie Lian all those years ago on the cultivation grounds. Was he still in the wrong? Sure, the outcome was still negative, but he learned a real lesson about the two of them that day and absolutely regretted what he did. Isn’t that what matters most? All these negative emotions don’t need permanent dire consequences, and it’s okay to learn and grow after adversity, not only admitting mistakes, but accepting realities, perspectives, and choosing to move forward too. On top of that, the emotions both Yin Yu and Mu Qing felt were never even true hatred, just years of pent up frustration mixed with misunderstanding. As easy as it would be if the world was so black and white, that really just isn’t the case.

And so, all these centuries later, despite it all, Feng Xin and Mu Qing still choose to support Xie Lian. Not his highness the crown prince of Xianle, not the flower crown martial god, not the prince who pleased the gods, but Xie Lian himself. He still believed in them, and they believe in him, too. Jun Wu believed that betrayal is inevitable, but he didn’t understand that this doesn’t eliminate reconciliation. That’s why Mei Nianqing chooses to stay this time. His spirits were crushed back then, but his affection never wavered, and regret formed in the cracks, so he wants to try again. You don't have to, but as long as you want to, you’re allowed to try again.

[mousmoula]

20, 27, + 29 for the ao3 ask thing! <3

thank youuu! <3

20 - which work of yours have you reread the most?

ooooh fun question, out of my published works it's definitely one eyed bastard (i'm that proud of it LMAO), but the real answer is probably one of my 15k words, amazingly self-indulgent wips that haven't seen the light of day (yet)

27 - what do you listen to while writing?

20% of the time i look for/make a playlist with the right vibes (e.g. the fhq i'm currently writing takes place in a forest so i just looped a hozier/lorde/florence playlist the entire time), the other 80% unfortunately i either listen to really bad wap mash-ups on youtube or 2000-2010s pop because my inspiration spurts need a LOT of energy in order to produce something 😭 very occasionally i go for gaming soundtracks (prison labor from persona 5 1h loop my beloved where would i be without you)

29 - favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

happy to announce i had a lot to say here LMAO

i could quote half of (interlude) here because the prose in that fic is just incomparable to everything else i've ever written like i just cannot top the writing of that fic ever. one of my favourite parts:

It was affliction of the cruellest kind, depriving himself of the gentleness that such a person was both able and willing to offer.

but there's also the ending of the first iwaoi fic i wrote which isn't anything special but for some reason lives rent-free in my head anyway:

“I’ll make you proud,” he whispers.

And Iwaizumi doesn’t think he needs to say this out loud, but he does anyway.

“You already have.”

(i just think it encapsulates their dynamic pretty well)

and now a couple of lines from my wips! out of context hq university au:

“Tell him he looks like someone who knows how to use a washing machine. I’m kind of disappointed that he doesn’t.”

and this from YET another iwaoi fic (fwb this time because i live and breathe for that trope) which i'm just really fond of for some reason:

“Would it be weird if I kissed you again?” Iwaizumi asks.

(Definitely still very drunk. He can’t imagine himself being this bold sober.)

Oikawa exhales, tension suddenly dissolving. “No clue. Maybe it is. I don’t really care. Kiss me all you want.”

that's all 😁 i've written a LOT this year, and i wouldn't say much of it has been quotable (mainly because i've been experimenting and i don't even know what i'm writing half the time) but i've enjoyed the process of writing a lot more than i have in a long time so!! cheers and here's to more

[chaztalk]

It’s ironic how angry people get about Harmony because it doesn’t “match with canon?”

The most popular trending ship, Dramione, is the most HARDEST to believe and you really have to write a strong, forgiving fic to convince me that this ship would work. This ship definitely doesn’t match in canon.

Shipping used to be fun without having to justify oneself. What is happening? Let people enjoy what they like 😭

I’m definitely not having a go at you. Just the party poopers that ruin happiness for everyone else.

Yep. I was just in a debate with someone a few days ago where they wanted physical evidence (quotes from the book) to prove the potential romantic feelings Harry and Hermione share but they are A-ok with how Ron and Hermione were written with just some cheap context even tho they aren’t that greatly written imo.

But fear not, that long ass ask was from years ago. I was just attempting to clean up my index box, and I just decided the reply to it because it was comical how long it was. Hate on Harmony is not as popular as you think as long as you’re not on Reddit, Quora, and maybe twitter (which is basically just Romione shippers and Dramione shippers fighting almost every day lol). But most days of Harmony hate are over.

[babyspacebatclone]

I can’t believe it.

I can’t believe it.

I found it.

I found the fucking ABA textbook.

I found the thing that convinced me as a psychology undergrad that ABA was insane.

I can’t….

I can’t.

You don’t understand.

I’d almost convinced myself I was crazy, that I’d exaggerated this after a decade

But it exists, it was real.

This really was in the first fucking chapter. Of a book. Published in 2013.

This.

(This becomes a ramble, and not a cute raccoon version. Let’s add a cut for sanity.)

Edit: Let’s also move things around so this is discussable.

Please bear with me - this experience hurt me.

Context: Here is the Amazon ratings for this textbook:

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Reviews talk about its breezy, conversational nature, and how simply it breaks down behavioral principles.

This is true, and when I first encountered the book (then the 6th edition) in 2012 I was stymied.

The behavioral stuff made sense, and I could see the applications.

But the tone….. From that first chapter bashing Freud in the 2010s as though that were evidence about the efficacy of ABA, the philosophy of the textbook felt - arrogant, egotistical, dismissive of any other viewpoint in a way that was anathema to my personal therapy philosophy.

Then I realized the author had been 75 as I was reading it, and just chalked it up to him fighting a decades long fight he didn’t realize had been over - the need for scientific rigor in psychology - for decades.

Which made me confused as to why it was still being used without comment on the author’s… underlying batshitness, but I again chalked that up to the fact the grad assistant had to take over the course a third of the way through.

I just double checked, and the 3 ABA courses I took had been mandatory for my degree and not just recommended electives after the first because wow this fucking shit.

Anyway, my second of the ABA courses had been taught by an adjunct (someone who works in the field and teaches applicable courses), and made sense.

There was still some “everything’s programmed responses to external input” vibes, but that’s behaviorism and it felt more like a different philosophy I could respect but choose a different branch instead of a…. absolute that viewed me as an inferior being if I didn’t submit to their regal superiority.

In conclusion, I think the cognitive motivational theorists do psychology a service by raising the issue of avoidance contingencies in human affairs, but I think they get it almost completely wrong in stressing the suppressive effects of passive avoidance or punishment contingencies and generally ignoring the beneficial effects of active avoidance. In addition, I think they do our field a service by formally raising the issue of intrinsic reinforcers in human affairs, but again I think they get it almost completely wrong in suggesting that intrinsic reinforcers are all we need.

At the end of my rants, I like to add: Of course, this is only my opinion; and I could be wrong, but probably not. [emphasis added]

That is the actual fucking close of an actual fucking article Malott wrote in the early 2000s slamming on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

My mild misgiving about misunderstanding the intention of the textbook and the author???

Thrown out the fucking window in my third (and I repeat require course for my degree).

Which was taught by an equality elderly good personal friend of the author.

…

I have more I could add.

But I shall end this here.

This author is still treated as a member in good standing in respected ABA organizations.

After…. this bullshit just four years after the 7th edition of this “wonderful” textbook was published.

OG post below, only read the quoted section if you want to laugh, it’s fucking mid and doesn’t express why this individual is a piece of shit who should never have been allowed to fucking influence anyone, let alone be responsible for Autistic children, let alone teach people to fucking hate anyone not “perfectly logical” like oh so holy and superior them.

[begin quoted section]

WHY JUST A BEHAVIORAL VIEW?

Sid’s Seminar

MAX: I’ve been reading ahead, and it looks as if this book deals mainly with behavior analysis. It doesn’t say much about other approaches to psychology. Why not psychoanalysis, Freud, Piaget, information processing, cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology?

JOE: What do you expect? The title of the book is Principles of Behavior.

TOM: That may be the title of the book, but shouldn’t we be getting a broader view of the various psychological theories in this class?

SID: An interesting point. Psychology sure isn’t short on theories. We have Freud, Jung, Piaget, cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology, gestalt psychology...

JOE: The people in California produce a new pop theory almost every week.

SID: Here’s what I’ve found in teaching this course. I tried to cover all the theories, but the students were shortchanged. They didn’t learn enough about any one theory to really understand it, let alone make use of it. At best, they learned a few clichés they could use in making small talk. They didn’t appreciate or understand the theories. They gained no solid knowledge. They learned no useful skills. On the other hand, when I devote a whole course to a single approach, the students understand and appreciate that approach—both its strengths and its weaknesses.

TOM: OK, but why behavior analysis? Why not Freud?

SID: Because I’m a professional behavior analyst. Behavior analysis is what I teach best. However, I used to assign a chapter on Freud that I was excited about but my students couldn’t get into Freud. (To see the Freud chapter, go to DickMalott.com.)

JOE: Also, behavior analysis has more scientific data supporting it and can be applied to more areas than any other approach.

SUE: Professor Harper said if you want to study Freud, you have to go to the English department. He said almost no major psychology department in North America takes Freud too seriously any more.

SID: Here’s one more reason I concentrate on behavior analysis, rather than an eclectic approach. With a bachelor’s degree in general psych, there’s almost no job you can get using what you’ve learned about psychology. But, if you’ve had some training in behavior analysis, like what you’ll get in this course, you can get a job as soon as you graduate, using applied behavior analysis, if you’re willing to go where the jobs are; and they’re all around the country and starting to be all around the world. Most of these bachelor’s jobs involve working with children classified as autistic, people classified as mentally impaired, and people with brain injuries. (To find more about behavior-analysis job opportunities, go to DickMalott.com.) And we’ll study more about working with these clients throughout this course.

[end quoted section, available here to read in the context of the chapter it appeared in, the link is “POB Chapter 1”]

The entire. Fucking. Book. Was written with that insufferable ego.

This was my textbook for a 400 level course.

It counted as a prereq for the Masters levels.

Written by a man who…

…..

Wait one second, I just opened the author’s Wikipedia page and…

….

Fuck.

Did not know that.

If you don’t know this place:

There have been repeated attempts to shut down the [Judge Rotenberg] center by autism rights advocates, disability rights advocates, and human rights advocates. Other notable people who have opposed the center include Ari Ne'eman, Shain Neumeier and Lydia Brown. Organizations that oppose the center include the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Disability Rights International, and Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth.

……….

I’m going to go chug some Diet Dr. Pepper, since I don’t drink alcohol because of the medication I take.

[bookofmirth]

hi, it’s the hofas/gun control anon here! thank you for such a well thought out answer :) and i’m sorry my response is so long!

first, i do agree with how nesta and az’s different opinions do match up with their experiences, so that does put their conversation into more context. i definitely agree with what you said about how the conversation kind of just blinked and moved on immediately - but i feel like this is a problem in a lot of sjm’s books, where she’ll bring up a complicated political issue that has interesting implications in her fantasy world, but then just move on immediately without actually wanting to delve into the hard, uncomfortable parts of it.

while i agree that it probably wasn’t meant to show sjm’s gun views herself, and i firmly subscribe to the belief that depiction doesn’t equal endorsement and authors should be able to examine the nuance of lots of different social issues and perspectives without readers conflating it with the author’s own opinions, i do think this scene does exemplify a major fault in her writing in that all of the complicated topics surrounding oppression and sexism and all the isms in her stories are tackled in a moderate, “safe” way. so i completely agree with everything you said about respectability politics! as a side note, i’m currently reading babel: or the necessity of violence by rf kuang which has this quote that i really liked: “This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”

so like, while yes, i don’t think it would be fair to try to determine sjm’s exact views on gun control laws from her fictional characters’ discussion of it, i do feel that it’s representative of the very white feminist-esque views that she perpetuates through her writing, rather than delving more into the dynamics of structural inequality and taking an intersectional perspective. i do think how an author chooses to write about social issues can be indicative of their own personal views, rather than what words are actually on the page. and what gets me is that the potential is there!! like she creates such complex, rich worlds with such unique characters, but i feel like sometimes she just glosses over the harder stuff. i am very curious how she will decide to resolve the illyrian plot - i am truly hoping she doesn’t take a white savior approach with feyre or nesta, or just having devlon killed off, as it wouldn’t actually fix the sexism ingrained in their cultural norms. 

i wonder if sjm writing in this way (like respectability politics) has taken a turn for the worse since throne of glass? i def agree with everything you said about bryce and cc, but i feel like it was the opposite with aelin. like aelin was never opposed to using violence in order to fight back against oppression, esp coming from her own background as a slave. i haven’t read tog in a while so maybe nostalgia is blinding me and it had the same issues, but idk. 

i’d love to know your thoughts! I

Hello! Here is the original post for anyone confused.

i do think this scene does exemplify a major fault in her writing in that all of the complicated topics surrounding oppression and sexism and all the isms in her stories are tackled in a moderate, “safe” way.

I totally agree with this. I think that she does sometimes lean into more complicated topics, but that would mess with the HEAs she wants to write, at the end of the day. And she seems to be working through some difficult topics in her writing, but then... idk, gets bored with it? Which really highlights her privilege, to me, because she can think about these things, but never too deeply, not if she doesn't feel like it. I don't wanna get too much into her personal life or politics but CC as a whole has really made me wonder about her!!! I have some big questions, but it's not my place and I don't think it's very respectful, so I'll just leave that there. Like if she came out publicly posting a "Blue Lives Matter" graphic then I'd get into it, but she's private and I respect that.

That quote from Babel is *chef's kiss*, perfect. That's exactly what I was alluding to and a big problem that I had with hoeab. That I was waiting to get addressed in hosab. And then was waiting to see if it ever got resolved in hofas. Surprise! No. Nope. We're just going to go with this cognitive dissonance around people's actions and beliefs and just... hail Bryce as a hero, I guess. Even though she truly doesn't give a fuck unless she gets pulled kicking and screaming into giving a fuck. (I'm sorry my anti Bryce just spilled out, my cup is too full of it.)

I was talking to @gimme-mor about the series the other day and she had some great thoughts about why Bryce may have been so dismissive of other people's struggles (ones that she, I thought, should have empathized with) but I'll see if she wants to add on or make a post about it. :) I'll just say that her original idea that would have explained Bryce's attitude, in her opinion, did not pan out.

Sometimes, I think we are in love with the potential of sjm books, more than the actual payoff. They hit the right beats just enough and with just enough oomph that there is something there. Or maybe that's not totally fair because I do give some of her books 5 stars still, after multiple rereads. But she doesn't always follow through to the same extent that she did in HoF or acomaf! But I do wonder if we think about all of these issues far, far more than she is.

i wonder if sjm writing in this way (like respectability politics) has taken a turn for the worse since throne of glass?

I was actually saying something similar to this to someone the other day. Because yes, these are different stories, and different characters, but you have to wonder, with a different political climate than existed in 2012 or whatever, or whenever she was a teenager in the early 2000s, how much that influenced her views and the way that she wanted to write these kinds of stories. Again, it could be that she is just writing a different kind of story! That she wanted to explore different kinds of characters. But Bryce being a discount, knock-off version of Aelin doesn't make that seem likely. IDK!

[martianbugsbunny]

MartianBugsBunny Reviews: The Music of Wish

I'v been working on this for the past week or so and I have now seen the movie...eight times I think? Four on one Sunday and four on the next lmao

Let’s get the basics out of the way first! Overall, a lot of these songs were mediocre but probably would’ve been things I’d sing in the shower ad nauseam if it weren’t for one or two really horrible lines. That’s kind of the overall theme of the music from Wish, to be honest. I liked the music/tunes of most of these, though. I also noticed that the lyrics have this weird dichotomy of “let’s rhyme these things even if it doesn’t make sense” and “let’s just not care about the rhymes,” both of which were kind of off-putting to me.

I think the voices they got to sing this stuff were MEGA wasted. Ariana DeBose has the most heavenly voice; her higher register has a gorgeous sound. Chris Pine is better at singing than I would've expected. Both of them are good at those subtle shifts in pitch (I think it's called melisma? but don't quote me on that) that I can and will go nuts over. They deserved better material to work with. Now onto the specifics! I’m gonna rank each song out of ten (totally arbitrary lol) and ramble about why for a while. It's not too long, so if you have a little time on yours hands, read on and enjoy!

Welcome To Rosas 5/10 Not bad. It terms of tune, it has some decent flavor, but the lyrics are pretty forgettable. I think using a song to set up the concepts that they did was a good idea, like the first song in Encanto, but I just don't like it much. I think part of that is the informal tone??? like when Asha says "so like, we have this king" or "I'm totally kidding" or "oh hey, did I mention," that kinda gets on my nerves. and yes, I'm well aware that's a little hypocritical bc The Family Madrigal did some of the same things, but WTR isn't super strong to begin with so I instantly become more annoyed at the little details. Also, Asha's literally being a tour guide for the kingdom and that's not professional imo.

At All Costs …… I’m not scoring this one. I don’t know how to. I’m addicted to the chorus, that’s the first thing I’ll say; I watched Wish four times on the first day I watched it, and that was the first part I started singing along with. The harmonies get into my gut. But honestly, in terms of context, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The lyrics sound like they should be directed at a person, not inanimate objects, which takes me out of the moment when I’m watching the movie. Some parts are a little clumsy, but if I’m viewing it as a love song it’s stunning, and DeBose and Pine's voices are heavenly together. I will say that subjectively, it's my favorite song in the soundtrack, I fell for it so hard and fast. <3

This Wish 7/10 In terms of Disney “I Want” songs this is at the bottom of the rankings, let’s be real. I like the sound of it, especially the non-syllabic vocalizations at the end of the chorus, but a lot of the lyrics just do not hit. Now, I will say that I saw a lot of people ragging on “to have something more for us than this,” and that’s actually one of my favorite parts of the song. It captures that feeling of longing for more without knowing exactly what that means or how to phrase it out loud so neatly. On the other hand, I definitely agree with the critiques of “throwing caution to every warning sign,” that’s one of my least favorite lyrics in the whole movie.

You’re A Star 6/10 Oddly, this one was less horrible than I expected. It delivered absolutely nothing, don’t get me wrong. It tried to tackle the idea of people and stars being made out of the same stuff and basically living as different notes in the same symphony and failed spectacularly. The big question “have you ever wondered why you look up at the sky for answers?” was one of my favorite lyrics in the entire soundtrack and there was NO payoff. (Plus, if I mixed up “elegant” and “eloquent” in a multi-million dollar movie I would never be able to look myself in the face again.) The entire second half of the song was pure lyrical garbage. But I like the tune and the animals are pretty cute, and despite being relatively hollow I found myself enjoying this one.

This Is The Thanks I Get 7/10 I’ve already said this but I’m gonna repeat myself: tonally this song was all wrong. 0/10 for that if I’m being perfectly honest. Something more along the lines of Hellfire or Be Prepared would’ve hit a lot harder—more sinister, more in line with the descent-into-madness thing that was occurring in the plot, would’ve improved this section of the soundtrack SO MUCH. With that complaint out of the way, the song we got was fine. Some of the lines were either poorly-written or repetitive, but as a whole I kind of enjoy it and would definitely dance around amateurishly in my room to it. It’s just too silly.

Knowing What We Know Now 1/10 This was my least favorite song in the entire movie. I just hate it. The lyrics are so sloppy.

This Wish (Reprise) 7/10 Honestly I think I liked this part better than the original song. Asha starting by herself and gradually being joined by her friends and the entire city was incredibly moving, and I might go so far as to say that this was the most powerful moment of the movie. I also enjoyed the twists on the original lyrics, particularly “we’re past dipping our toes in, we know it’s do or die, it’s sink or swim.�� That part just felt really well done.

[unseelie-robynx]

Cult AU Snippet

So this is a snippet from my Curse AU (breakdown can be found HERE) placed somewhere midway through Xiaotian’s backslid into his cult upbringing, where he still doesn’t believe that what the cult wants is good, but he doesn’t not believe that either. This snippet is about the gang finally starting to learn what’s actually going on with the cult, (courtesy of a certain pair of demon brothers), beyond just the basic ‘there’s a creepy demon worshiping cult that wants to maybe destroy the celestial realm but also maybe destroy Yama / we know they think there’s some king that supposed to do all of this and-slash make things quote-unquote ‘better’ by taking over’.

It is under read more because long, please enjoy.

(No real warnings apply I don’t think, beyond mentioning a cult)

Xiaotia- MK was twitching. He was trying really hard not to be, but he was. He’d had to shove his hand behind his back, to hide the fact they were shaking, and it was taking more self control than Xaio- MK knew he had to keep from just throwing the demon twins out of Pigsy’s shop altogether.

Because that would be suspicious. In like, the worst ways.

So instead, he was stuck, listening to the twins spill information they had NO BUSINESS KNOWING and he was going to have to tell Shifu about- no. No he wasn’t involved with them anymore. He was MK, was the Monkey Kid, and he didn’t know anything about anything Yin and Jin might be babbling on about. He didn’t.

And man did the two of them have a lot of things to go on about. It was like they’d never had a good meal in their lives with how savagely they were tearing apart the noodles Pigsy had given them, and while their manners were atrocious and Xiaotian ignored the suspiciously familiar voice in the back of his mind that was wrinkling its nose as said behavior they were appreciative, and dumping out a lot of information between bites.

“So like, I really don’t see how you don’t know this-“ Jin said around a mouthful of noodles.

“-like *really* don’t see how you didn’t know.” Yin added around his own.

“I mean, honestly-“

“-considerin’ the subject matter-“

“-the fact that you don’t-“

“-almost seems like-“

“-could be an oversight on their part. But then again-“

“-might be a reason, you know? Don’t want you findin’ out before the ‘end game’ or whatever. Although-“

“-how that would work-“

“-considerin’ how said ‘end game’ is supposed to go-“

“-kinda goes back to that oversight on their part thing, ya know?”

At least Xiaoti- MK, wasn’t the only one getting annoyed. He could see Xiaojiao’s eyebrow starting to twitch, and honestly the fact that Red Son hadn’t flipped his top yet was a minor miracle. Maybe, if he was lucky, one of them would get fed up first and throw the twins out preferably before they spilled anything that was actually important or made sense without preexisting context that the others didn’t have, so that MK didn’t have to be the one to break character and do it.

But of course, Xiaotian was never lucky.

But… was that true? He’d been lucky that Shifu found him, had taken him in and raised him and given him a home and the truth but- NO. Because… because it wasn’t… it was a c-… was a… that. His friends all said so, MONKEY KING, said so. So it… it was and he was right to try and get away but then Shifu reminded him that Monkey King couldn’t really… that he… Xiaojiao’s sword came down in a streak of lighting, halting right above Pigsy’s counter (which was good because he would have killed her, resurrected her, and then killed her again if she’d actually broken it). It was enough to both snap MK out of his thoughts, and shut the twins right up, and the both swallowed HARD before turning in jerky unison to stare at the glaring (and glowing) girl.

“So since Pigsy was kind enough to convince me to not chop you into little pieces despite you trying to break in and steal his stuff, why don’t you get to the POINT, m’kay?” Xiaojiao hummed out, tone entirely too cheery for the murderous expression on her face.

The demon twins both swallowed in unison, turning to look at each other and doing that silent ‘twin communication’ thing with their eyes before turning to the group and moving in eerie synch to point… at Monkey King.

Shit.

(He should have taken the opportunity to throw them both out the door when he had the chance)

There was a bit of confusion as everyone looked between the pointing demon brothers and Monkey King and back again, which was only compounded when Monkey King himself raised a confused finger, pointing at his chest as if to confirm ‘Me?’, while still looking just as lost as everyone else about what was going on and what Yin and Jin were talking about. And this was bad, this was really bad Monkey King couldn’t know. It’s not like he didn’t know but THEY couldn’t know that he knew and they were watching (because they always were) and if Monkey King ‘found out’ they would know that he knew and probably do something even worse than what they already had and!

 “Yah um, we’re going to need a bit more than that, actually.” Mr. Tang’s voice cut in his voice was so similar but so wrong and even after all these years Xiaot- MK had still never fully gotten used to it, gotten over the way the similarity felt so wrong.

MK knew he needed to do… something, but he didn’t know what and the more he panicked the less chance he had to do anything, just like now because the twins were speaking again and-

 “Well it’s obvious, aint it Yin?”

“Totally obvious Jin.”

“I mean, It’s not like they even tried that hard, what with the name and all.”

“Nope, didn’t try hard at ALL Jin.”

“Great King-“

“-Great Sage-“

“-Equaling Heaven-“

“Uniting Heaven and Earth?”

“Use the same kanji and everythin’-“

“-really aren’t trying all that hard to disguise it.”

“Plus I mean, with all their ’natural order was disrupted’-“

“-’the new age where the heavens are PROPERLY overthrown’ and all that-“

“-makes it hard not to reference what they’re takin’ ‘bout, you know?”

“Not that WE want anything to do with any of that.”

“Oh absolutely not. We done saw what it was like the first time-“

“-and if they’re planning on any sorta carnage like the last time, Whoooooh boy.”

“Nope”

“Nu-uh.”

“Not happenin’.”

“No offense-“

“Mr. Great Sage-“

“-but you was terrifyin’ back than-“

“-not that you aint now-“

“-oh no, you’re still plenty terrifyin’ now-“

“but like, you get it, yah? There’s like-“

“-levels of terifyin’ and you used to be on a whole different one.”

“And not that the Celestials are all that great-“

“- I mean we definitely jumped ship soon as we got a good chance-“

“But like if that’s the kinda thing these guys are seein’ as the ‘ideal’-“

“-that just gonna be like, slaughter for most people.”

“You understand?”

 There was silence around the room for a few long moments as everyone sort of… digested what the twins had said. Everyone but him. Finally though, Xiaojiao broke the silence.

“Wait. So you’re saying that the creepy doomsday demon cult, and their whole ‘evil demon king to destroy the three realms’ and all of that, that they’re talking about Monkey King?”

The disbelief and incredulability in her voice was blatant, but not in a way that she disbelieved the twins, oh no. That would be to easy and nothing in Xiaoti- MK’s life could ever be EASY. Instead it was disbelief at the quote unquote ‘stupidity’ of this ‘cult’.

And a part of him rankled at that tone. What did she know after all? Nothing. Nothing true, anyways, nothing important. She didn’t understand, had never been shown how things would be better, why they would be better. She only knew the painful reality they were stuck with, and the layers upon layers upon layers of masks that Sun Wukong was compelled by enchantment and self-preservation to wear. She’d never learned the truth of who the Great Sage truly was. (But Xiaotian had. And he’d learned it sitting in the lap and by the side of one who had managed to catch glimpses of the truth for himself)

“So, um, gonna have to actually agree with the twins on this one.” Monkey King pipped in rubbing at the back of his neck. “Never thought I’d say that one.” He added in a softer tone before continuing. “Just, I feel like if I’m supposed to be like… important, to this cult, they probably should have like, you know, told me, or something. I mean, I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to be this ‘Great King’ of theirs if I, you know, don’t know I’m supposed to be doin’ the job and all that.”

It was clear that Monkey King was trying to be funny, to play the whole thing off. To distract the celestial realm, to not let his watchers know that he already knew.

But it was also clear that it… wasn’t working. All that well.

This whole thing was making Monkey King anxious, and it showed.

And Monkey King being anxious was making him anxious, because what terrible thing was going to happen to his mentor (slash kinda father figure but he was really trying not to think too hard about that right now) because of this? What ‘punishment’ would the celestials come up with simply for the crime of other people knowing the truth and wanting to see justice done?

Not that, that he thought it was justice, or anything. Because he… he didn’t. But he also knew that what the celestials did certainly wasn’t justice, and Monkey King didn’t deserve any of what they would probably end up doing to him because of this.

“So wait,” MK finally found his voice to cut in. “Do you guys like actually know that it’s Monkey King, or do you just think that it’s Monkey King based off stuff you’ve heard?” (Please let it be the latter, please let it be the latter)

“Oh no, it aint speculation-“ Yin quickly pipped up to defend his honor, or something.

“Not at all!” Jin agreed.

“What do you take us for?”

“Charlatans?”

“You think we’d just go ‘round,”

“Givin’ out fake information like that?”

The twins were giving their own incredulous looks, while everyone else in the room suddenly had something else to look at.

“Well we aint!” Jin declared, evidently incensed by the unspoken accusations.

“We most certainly aint!” Yin agreed right on cue.

“We’ll have you know that we got his bona fide information the hard way!”

“That’s right! And it was a real mess of a situation believe you us!”

“Why when that Monk came in I thought for sure we was-“

 CrAsH

 MK had never been more grateful for a demon attack on the city in his life.

[whitecatlegend]

Chapter 79 (Cannot waste time)

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Master post

“Work myself to the death” - lit. “fail to finish the quest before dying”. The context here is that Chen Shi tries to quote a line from a famous poem about Zhuge Liang The Prime of Shu by Du Fu, but only remembers mismatched words, and Li Bing recognizes the poem and says the line properly. I couldn’t really come up with anything similar in English and I’m over here trying to do localization or whatever, so I just went with a relatively common idiom...

“I opened this mountain...” it’s mostly known as a quote from the XVII century book Romance of Sui and Tang. These lines are said by a famous double axe-wielding general of late Sui-early Tang dynasties, Cheng Yaojin. He wasn’t actually a bandit of any kind, but at some point (in chapter 30 - that’s mostly a note to myself because it took me a long time to find the exact quote) he ambushes some people escorting a load of silver, starts a fight and robs them. Cheng Yaojin died a little before Wu Zetian’s rule, but from what I could gather, the rhyme, as well as the following lines: “if you dare refuse - a knife for each, [kill everyone] without bothering to bury” is generally used as something bandits say in literature, at least I’ve seen several texts with the same lines. I think the part about a knife is the only one that doesn’t appear in the book (at least I didn’t manage to find it, but it’s quite possible that things vary from edition to edition. It is a pretty old book).

Cheng Yaojin sounds pretty badass, if I’m honest, though sometimes it’s more a matter of luck than skill. In folklore he is often depicted as a somewhat inept warrior who manages to appear in the right place at the right time to save everyone. Still, even if it was out of a lack of knowledge about fighting on horseback and sheer recklessness, him swinging two axes while charging at his opponent (armed with a spear) and managing to cut the top of his helmet off makes for a pretty cool image.

[the1975attheirverybest]

oml people are really losing it today, huh?? Matty has been talking about this show FOREVER. there are hundreds of quotes and whole interviews of him explaining what he’s doing/ what his motivations are etc. Are people being ignorant/ daft on purpose? How could anyone think he’s just being an idiot/ doesn’t think about or plan what he’s doing?? He’s CLEARLY making a show about cancel culture/ fake woke virtue signaling on social media/ discussing how none of this is actually serving us… This man is incredibly smart. I’m really starting to get offended/ embarrassed by people claiming otherwise…

Idk, man? Anon is entitled to their opinion. They’re being respectful about it (aside from the claim that he and Lucy aren’t friends or whatever). So, even though I think it’s kind of weird to say that Matty would do this as a silly little joke, like if people wanna think that, that’s their choice.

But yeah, in my opinion, it kinda sucks that after all that he has done, the pains he has taken to set the context up for us, people think he’s just thoughtless. As if Matty has even been known to make any moves regarding his work or persona without putting in effort. Even before this show, like his albums make so many self-reflexive references and he always talks about how fans do deep dives and he loves it. And if people think that he’d just say whatever, especially controversial stuff, without thinking kinda makes me sad. But, like I said, that’s their opinion and they’re allowed to have it as long as everyone’s being chill.

[kittttycakes]

Writer Q&A

What is your absolute all-time favorite idea you’ve ever had?

Honestly? It’s the WIP I’m working on right now, as heart for heart for loving me. I have never been as jazzed about a piece of writing as I am about this one, and I’ve never been as consistent about writing as I have been with this.

In terms of original work, someday I will write the sapphic monster(?) romance of my dreams. I’m still working out the exact plot, but there’s some characters rattling around up there!

Is there a question you’ve been asked in the past that really stands out to you, and you still think about sometimes?

It’s not so much a specific question as it is a series of them, because without @just-french-me-up, I wouldn’t have fleshed out Grace as much as I have and I wouldn’t know nearly as much about her as I do! Talking about our OCs together and the plot of our WIPs has made me a better plotter, a better planner, and a better writer.

What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

I love the feeling when the words just flow and you feel like you’re tapped into some kind of creative battery that feels like it could go on forever. It just feels right, like all the pieces in my brain have clicked into place, and nothing can beat that.

Editing, my beloathed. How can I still have tiny mis-typed word errors that I didn’t catch in a chapter that’s been up for months?

What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

I want to read a very specific thing, and to make it happen, I have to write it, which is very fun! But also sometimes frustrating. I think it’s mainly that I have this picture in my head that I want to contextualize with writing, and if I don’t get it out on the page, it’s going to haunt me. I write like I’m performing an exorcism on my own brain.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?

Make shitty pots. There was a post that floats around sometimes about just making something, even if it’s “bad,” even if it’s not what you envisioned in your head. The act of making (writing) is enough, even if it’s not perfect. Gently smothering the perfectionist in my head is a work in progress, but it’s worth it.

What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

That it’s all right if it’s not perfect. That some words on the page are better than no words on the page. This ties directly to my above answer, but it really is the best thing I’ve ever started to internalize.

What is your favorite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

I, shamefully, don’t have a lot of complete work (we’re going to change that)! But for now, the heartbeat fic is my favorite but I did for Promptober 2022.

What is your favorite out-of-the-box quote?

Maybe not too out of the box, but “Life is too short and love is too long.” from Tamsyn Muir’s Nona the Ninth has haunted me since I first read it, both in context and out of it. What else can you say? Life IS too short, and love IS too long.

Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

She hasn’t been debuted and probably won’t for awhile, but let me tease Edie here. Edie is a grifter and a bit of a conwoman and her first thought has always, historically, been for herself. She’s a bit vain and somewhat self-centered and she’s my horrible gremlin daughter who I love very much. I think the main problem I have with her mindset is that she feels like she’s very removed from other people, and so she doesn’t care about who she hurts (until she does), which is just such a foreign concept to me. I do, however, agree on her stance on eating the rich (in her case…literally).

If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

I think younger me would be very surprised that we’ve managed to write 150k without quitting, and also how queer most of our writing tends to be! She was in the closet, and I’m bringing her out and letting her be free with every queer woman I write.

Tagged by @romanceandshenanigans! I am so horribly late with this because my brain is absolute mush, but if you’re a writer and you see this, please consider this your personal, no pressure invitation from me to answer these questions!

[sleepyfoxbooks]

Good Omens

By Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

A little note beforehand:

@neil-gaiman has been my favorite author since I read The Graveyard Book as a kid. Reading Good Omens as an adult really made the whole experience feel like it was coming full circle. Twice now, he has inspired my reading hyper-fixation. So, thank you for giving your work to the world.

I finished this book before I started this blog, but I felt it deserves to be here. I almost immediately let my coworker borrow it so I can’t give direct quotes and page numbers.

Onto the review!

⚠️Warning! Contains spoilers for Season One of the show and the book! ⚠️

Overall this book is amazing! There were so many times I found myself smiling like an idiot in the airport reading this story. Reading lines in the book at are used verbatim in the show made me feel like I was in on some little secret. I’m gonna get into more detail, separated by the three storylines.

Adam Young & Them

So in the book, there is a long running joke that Elvis Presley isn’t dead and works at a little burger joint in Des Moines. Death even says during his run in the trivia game that he never touched Elvis. I found this absolutely hilarious and sometimes wished the line was in the show. It made me kinda happy to read about a fat Elvis just lovin’ life flippin’ burgers.

Now Greasy Johnson isn’t in the show at all. He’s apparently the extra baby from the Chattering Order that was adopted (Which was kinda relieving). So in the book Johnson is the leader of the rival gang of children to The Them. I loved this motif in the book, comparing the childhood scuffles between the two groups of kids to the war of heaven and hell. It gave a level of pettiness to the armageddon debacle. Having Adam explain to his friends the never ending struggle between Them and Greasy Johnson in equivalence to the literal world-ending war that is heaven and hell was kinda brilliant. I understand this part of the story not being in the show, but at the same time I think the added complexity of the rival gang would’ve been interesting to see on screen.

Ok in the book, we get a lot more of Dog’s thoughts, and they’re kinda adorable. Dog just loves being a dog! And I love reading about it. By the time armageddon is at their doorstep, he doesn’t want it either. Dog’s whole journey kinda added this extra layer of charm to the story.

The Witchfinder & The Witch

I love the descriptions for this storyline. Pulsfier and Anathema have such wonderful and dare I say accurate descriptions of their characters in the book. If you read this book in 1990 when it came out, you could picture these two perfectly.

During the scene where Anathema meets Crowley and Aziraphale via car crash Anathema has the best thought. She’s at fist kinda wary of these two strange men in the dark, but when Crowley calls Aziraphale “angel” she’s immediately like “oh! They’re gay!🏳️‍🌈”. Of course this book did come out in the 90’s so she didn’t say that explicitly.

An added difference between the show and the book that was for the better, was changing Madam Tracy’s spirit guide. In the book her spirit guide is Geronimo, an indigenous American man. I definitely think Geronimo was written with some stereotypes but I can’t comment too much on that. Colleen (the spirit guide in Good Omens the show), was definitely a better addition for the series.

Crowley & Aziraphale

They’re so in love, and no one can tell me otherwise. Just reading it without the context of the show, they so love each other.

In the show, we get a scene of Crowley pushing Aziraphale into a wall at the old Satanic Nunnery. That little moment doesn’t happen in the book.

A lot of the ending in the season was much more bulked out. For example, the series adds the entire Crowley and Aziraphale swapping bodies to trick their respective bosses. I actually love this addition though. This ending made their story arc feel so much more complete.

I think that’s all I’ve got for now! Please recommend more books!

[sepublic]

         “Besides, who would you be without me, Prime?”

         “...Time to find out.”

         Out of context, this sounds exactly like some sort of abuser leveraging, exaggerating, their importance to their victim, gloating power and importance over them, in order to reel them back in. And finally, a victim, after years of being terrified, not just of their abuser but even moreso of what they’d be without them, of the uncertainty of independence and having nobody familiar to count on… As someone held back by the constant reminder of the good their relationship had, clinging onto it even as the bad continues to drown it out;

         Well, it’s time to move on. Time to find out.

         Now, the context of this quote is a scene that is… Understandably criticized, and Dark of the Moon is certainly no pinnacle of writing. I mean, the original ending had Optimus and Megatron agree to that truce, hence why Optimus’ reaction feels a little dissonant; This was supposed to be a redemption for Megatron of sorts, or at least the beginning of one, and atonement.

         Ordinarily I’d rewrite things so Megatron’s proposal is sincere and Optimus accepts; Thing is, we have Age of Extinction and The Last Knight to go through in the Nizziverse, and Megatron/Galvatron’s actions there really make no sense if just beforehand, he sincerely expressed a desire to give up conquest and warfare. Or at the very least, it’s not narratively satisfying.

         So alas, I have to go with Dark of the Moon’s canon ending, so the rest of the story makes sense; That said, I do consider it a major moment in Megatron’s arc, representing a huge shift as he becomes a lot less rageful and just more. Tired. As we see him in The Last Knight. Which then leads to his official redemption in whatever saga acts as the cancelled ‘sixth film’, in response to Unicron. Losing Optimus for real this time is kind of a wake up call he can’t ignore, he has to cope with the fact that he burned that bridge and truly sacrificed his brother for this cause, maybe sunk-cost fallacy doesn’t work...

         I honestly want to keep this exchange, just rewrite a lot of the context and buildup leading up to it, so we don’t have bloody war criminal Bayverse Optimus. I want this moment to be Optimus finally cutting himself loose, letting go of this toxic relationship; Because deep down, just as Megatron longed for a nostalgic past, so too did Optimus long for his old brotherhood with Megatron.

         And I think that hope, that desperation, clouded Optimus’ judgment a bit; Because yes, it’s not wrong to want to rekindle a friendship, to see a loved one become better. But at the same time, it made Optimus hesitate when Megatron committed horrible atrocities, it kept him from making the final push necessary for the greater good. I don’t think victims of Megatron’s genocides would be all too sympathetic if Optimus failed to make the final blow because he hoped there was still good in his friend and the capacity to change.

         Optimus, he’s just… Given Megatron one too many chances. And Megatron refuses to change, has in fact responded as if HE’s the one under attack, and in turn externalized his rage towards the Autobots and the organics he blames for turning his brother against him. It’s very immature and disregards Optimus’ agency and choice, turning him into some sentimental wimp with very little backbone, easily swayed, just needs to be kept to the right path. And it’s grossly possessive of Optimus, too.

         When Optimus says “You’ll never stop at one”, it’s a callback. In its colonization, Cybertron didn’t always destroy civilizations, just worlds with life, but none of it sapient. Contrary to how some Decepticons might frame the past, back in the day, even during the age of the Functionists, most Cybertronians saw the destruction of other races as a bit distasteful. Of course, they’d still go through with it, but it was an unfortunate necessity, and people preferred if they plundered an uninhabited world instead.

         Megatron was on that same fence, that so-so opinion of, WELL, this isn’t ideal and it’s honestly messed up. And under different circumstances, he easily could’ve worked with those feelings to decide, no, I shouldn’t be sacrificing other civilizations for my own. But as I said, Megatron felt betrayed and reactionary to Optimus’ opposition, and that incentivized him to double down when he otherwise wouldn’t have; And so he ended up fully embracing a hatred for organics for what they took from him, for the problems they and sentimentality have caused.

         It was a gradual change. Megatron often made promises he didn’t keep, that they just needed this one last civilization to die, and then they’d stop. Or they’d make contact with another race and yeah they’d take a little, but not this much! We just need a bit of your energy and resources for ourselves, we’ll pay you back later! Or at least stop taking. And Optimus, blinded by his sentimentality for Megatron, he ignored the obvious warning signs. He wanted to believe that this was the last transgression and that Megatron meant it.

         But then he found out; How this allegedly uninhabited colony DID have a civilization, a primitive one. But undeniably a culture of people. And Megatron claimed they were never there, that this planet they were harvesting was a relatively ethical option. And besides, they NEED more Energon right now; Once they address this vacancy, then they can stop conquest and move onto sustainable resources. It’s just this once. Is the future of our race not worth one single life?

         It’s a tragedy because you love a person. And they love you back. But if they REALLY loved you back, if they really respected and cared about you as a person and not a thing that brings them happiness, they’d have listened. They’d have respected and taken into account what you said, and how their bloodshed was destroying those with equally-meaningful relationships as the one they shared with you. And they just refuse to open their eyes and see, to empathize. It’s twisted and awful and you can understand why Optimus doesn’t want to accept it, but eventually he has to.

         Megatron frames his rescue of Optimus as something to lord over him; He saved Optimus, Prime MUST repay the favor by submitting, by helping him fix Cybertron. But in the end, Optimus’ motivations are more than that; They’re about the greater good, about the ‘lesser’ peoples that the Cybertronian Empire overlooks, because only the Transformers matter. Megatron saves Optimus not to end the war, but moreso as a side-effect of his revenge on Sentinel, and anyhow as a ploy to leverage power because he’s ‘owed’ something now.

         Megatron has constantly tortured Optimus with this reminder that they’re brothers and that matters above all else. That they fought together, that Optimus wouldn’t have defeated the Functionists without him. But in the end, that’s the past, and as important as it is… They can’t cling onto that, times have changed. And Optimus can’t agree to a ‘truce’, especially when this ‘truce’ is Megatron offering amnesty to the Autobots, in exchange for… The Autobots basically surrender and agree to help the Decepticons with anything. Megatron’s offer is both sincere but also not; He wants Optimus back, but he isn’t interested in any actual compromise. And so he raises Optimus’ hopes one last time by saving his life, just to crush them by revealing it was never to change, but to just double-down on what HE wanted.

         And that’s the last straw. The last chance. And Optimus finally lets go, for the sake of himself and so many others who have died because of Megatron, who doesn’t actually plan to stop. And so when Megatron, betrayed, tries to remind Optimus that they were brothers once… It may seem cold to an outsider, but Optimus rebuking him is totally justified. He’s no longer under Megatron’s hold and guilt-tripping, because if Megatron really wanted to remain brothers, he’d have stopped. But he’s made it clear time and time again that he chooses Cybertron and destruction over his brother, so Optimus will also choose his beliefs over Megatron, too. Megatron just isn’t interested in meeting him in good faith, why waste himself in trying to give what won’t be reciprocated?

        Megatron is still confused and even heartbroken when Optimus rejects his ‘offer’ at the end of Dark of the Moon; He saved his life! But it was never about how Megatron treated Optimus, it was about how he treated other races. And thus he still misses the point… But not the point of Optimus’ axe, at least. Make no mistake, it still breaks Optimus’ heart too to see a glimmer of hope for his old friend, only to realize he misinterpreted it, and that he really has to go through with this (he hesitates before he replies, eyes conflicted before becoming resolute).

         But when so many others have died and will continue to... He has no choice, and the justified, righteous rage towards Megatron for still clinging onto his genocide is cathartically allowed to take over. Optimus allows himself to be mad in an ugly way towards his abuser as he deserves, like so many victims, without having to worry about being the ‘bad guy’ here. There’s a relief for him that it’s over; Maybe not Megatron himself as he finds out next film, but the attachment and hope that kept betraying him like Megatron did.

         And Megatron had the same misguided hope for Optimus, too, that kept him from finishing him off (because the lives of other races weren’t at stake to HIM, so it’s easier to treat this like a game and decision to put off); And it’s only when he finally lets go and accepts the consequences of his mistakes to fix them that he can redeem himself, and acknowledge and apologize for how much he hurt Optimus, unconditionally with NO expectation for forgiveness or a return to the past.

[hale-of-stiles-heart]

the Monster (2016) thoughts

okay I’m gonna go ahead and just put this under a cut because i know it’s gonna be long because I’m gonna ramble and don’t wanna spoil anything in case anyone decides to give this movie a chance! I am going to tag @roughentumble for inspiring this watch

so just right off the bat, i think it was a bit of overkill having the movie open with both a quote and a voiceover about monsters, like pick one or the other because it immediately came across as very heavy handed and yes i know this is a petty complaint

the opening with Lizzy going around cleaning up after her mom was very !!!!! especially when it’s revealed a bit later that she’s going to live with her dad so this is like. the last day she’s with her mom and she’s still cleaning up after her

i do think the opening set the tone for the movie, establishes the theme of their shitty relationship very well and it didn’t drag like some openings do

the mom was immediately unlikeable and she just does not go up from there which is fine if the movie didn’t like. keep trying to make her sympathetic bc no.

very on brand for the mom to be so snippy and short and dismissive with Lizzy, absolutely infuriating to watch but realistic

there was a lot of realistic snipping and just mean comments from the mom, telling Lizzy she’s too old for her stuffed animal and then passive aggressively and inexplicably going “you’re too old for a lot of things” without expanding or giving any other context for was just annoying

the whole thing with the watch seemed like such an attempt to make the mom sympathetic but it just didn’t. because why the fuck would it???

I do also think some of the dialogue choices are very weird, like they speak in a way that’s often very stilted but only in certain parts, it was just weird and would every so often hit the ear very weird

so i’m not a huge fan of all the flashbacks, like yes some were good and established important things but i also feel like they were thrown in to pad the runtime and were placed at really awkward points sometimes, they ended up more distracting and more interesting than the actual plot which is a weird combination but yeah

like cutting to the mom and daughter huddling together right after a flashback of the mom hitting her did nothing but make me want the mom to die sooner

anyway! one of the most glaring things in this movie is how fucking STUPID everyone is in it!

they get in an accident and hit a wolf so obviously the thing to do while injured is leave the car, go up to the wolf, and fucking touch it and when you find a huge fucking tooth buried in the side of the thing, start talking about how the wolf must’ve been fighting something when your daughter is clearly already scared

at one point, i think after the wolf’s body disappears and the tow truck driver is there being vaguely menacing, the mom even goes “are you scared?” like fucking obviously she is!

the tow truck driver is an idiot, he immediately shows up just to do his job wrong and be a bit creepy, taking their stuff and putting it in his truck but telling them to stay in their own car while he “does some work before we can go” which is absolute bullshit that’s not how that works!

then the mom sends the little girl out to fetch their phone from the tow truck only to find it locked and wander into the woods where she finds the half eaten body of the wolf

her mom is stupidly unconcerned and gets snippy with her daughter like??? ma’am you have already pulled a giant tooth out of the wolf, established the wolf was probably running from something and that’s why it was in the road, but you’re not concerned by something EATING it???

and i won’t lie, i do think there is some good tension in the movie! i was tensing, waiting for something to happen!

the way the monster behaves is so annoying and stupid and doesn’t help it be any scarier. it lurks behind Lizzy in the woods then rips off the driver’s arm and throws it on the hood of the car, lets the driver get away, only to squeeze under his truck and drag him under to kill him

it avoids bright light but comes right up to their car to break through the window and pull the mom out

dumbest fucking EMTs ever. they get on the scene to find the mom bleeding in the road with both her and her daughter telling them there’s something that just attacked her and instead of immediately getting her in the ambulance and booking it to the hospital, they ask her questions before even getting her on the gurney and then one of them looks around outside and calls in animal control like????

then, the other EMT goes looking for her, he disappears and she comes back in all freaked out like WHO TF TRAINE Y’ALL

again, the monster that avoids bright lights, comes up to the vehicle with both bright headlights and emergency lights going to directly attack the windshield

the windshield the EMT immediately KICKS OUT???

like lady something just tossed a body on the windshield why the fuck would you get rid of the glass separating you from what’s outside????

the monster then CHASES DOWN the speeding ambulance and rams it off the road making it insanely fast and strong and yet still fucking stupid and a terrible predator because there’s no way it actually ate both EMTs within that time

i will say the flashback with the mom’s boyfriend was genuinely tense, that shot with him glaring at Lizzy, only one eye visible, between the crack in her sheet tent was probably the scariest shot in the movie because i was terrified he was gonna hurt her

the mom figures out she’s bleeding internally and immediately considers it a death sentence which like. not entirely unreasonable but it seems like she gave up pretty fast.

anyway! her dumb plan fails and she gets fucked up by the monster and yet the movie continues

definitely some ending fatigue. they should’ve just had Lizzy set the monster on fire when it was attacking her mom, then after it died she could’ve had her moment with her mom, then left to find the road

also? maybe nitpicky but I hate that she used her toy as bait, like it was smart and a cool detail but i don’t like that it called back to her mom saying she was too old for it

the facedown with the monster when it just didn’t attack her head-on when she didn’t have a light ready was so stupid, just to give her the chance to go “I’m not scared of you anymore!”

they really included one last jump scare just for Lizzy to unconvincingly beat it to death with a stick. like they really should’ve just had it die from the burning alive thing. a few knocks to the head was just dumb.

i do think it was very funny that at the end of the movie when she emerges from the woods, she’s not on the road, she’s in a field. like babygirl you could not have been THAT far from the road, i know this is nitpicky but it stuck out to me

that last flashback made me so mad. jumping from Lizzy clearly wanting to be away from her mom to going “i just want you” felt like such a cop out and an attempt to inject sympathy where it wasn’t warranted or deserved

oh! almost forgot! the creature design! yay practical costumes but the design made no sense to me. the body shape with the weird almost hunched shoulders and the shape of the mouth were just weird and the shiny almost tarry looking body? it was like a lovechild between the monsters from Feast and Venom, which theoretically could work! just not in this movie

also? i kept feeling like the sounds of the monster did not match up with the look, then when it was on fire I distinctively recognized a squealing pig sound effect like wow.

LIZZY’S ACTRESS!!!!! this girl can ACT! oh my god she’s definitely one of the best child actors i’ve ever seen and it’s so sad it was wasted on this movie

overall, the movie wasn’t terrible! there was some nice tension and the creature had potential but the characters were so stupid to an unrealistic level and one of the main characters was so shitty i actively wanted her dead for the whole runtime

if you wanna make a mother sacrificing herself for her child impactful, don’t make her abusive and shitty! like sure a strained relationship is one thing but this woman literally hit her child, verbally abused her, exposed her to dangerous abusive people, and used her as a maid and punching bag

also? RIP wolf, you were the only character who didn’t do anything infuriatingly stupid

[undead-catjust-reading]

Fandom

Watched a Simpsons analysis video, and something at the end really struck a chord with me.

“[The showrunners] were describing how it’s always the troublesome episodes that end up getting the most time and energy put into them. Trying to quote-unquote ‘fix them.’ They’re the episodes the writers work hardest at, whether it’s in the rewrite process or the edit. I think sometimes in fandom, we look at a bad episode, or a baffling decision, and say, ‘Oh, the writers didn’t care to fix it! They just kinda gave up and shoved it out there.’ … I think there are so many situations like [this episode] where there are logical problems with the script, then the episode comes in too long, with animation errors, and the show runner gets backed into a corner. The nature of animation makes it difficult to go backwards once the train has left the station. …. I think [this episode] is a good example of how issues can snowball around on in the process, how a questionable plot point s often the result of making the best of a bad situation.”

— TheRealJims, YouTuber

To put this into context and to untrim the trimmed quote, TheRealJims is a YouTuber who reviews episodes of the Simpsons, the Simpsons as a whole, and specific seasons of the show. (He’s up to season 16 on reviewing specific seasons.) The quote I provided was from a YouTube video about the Simpsons Season 11 episode Kill the Alligator and Run. But without the context, it can be used for a lot of fandom spaces. He even says “in fandom” in the quote provided.

Now, there are bad episodes, episodes we as a group in the fandom dislike. (At least the majority, or a significant number of the group do.) TheRealJims even says that he doesn’t think Kill the Alligator and Run is a good episode later on. But I think his analysis on fandom and his quote is a good thing to share.

Here is the video below. The quote starts at 13:30 if you only want to watch that, but I recommend watching the video if you’re into the Simpsons or have ever wondered why the writers didn’t trim x plot point.

Probably good to add the point that fiction and analysis and fiction analysis is inherently subjective as well, so I don’t know if you agree. But I hope I gave you a good video to watch and a good quote to ponder.

[grumpyoldsnake]

Liveblog: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

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Context: I caught bits and pieces of several scattered episodes of the Netflix Witcher series while at my parent’s place, and have had my curiosity piqued!

Further context: I don’t actually know anything about storytelling techniques. High school English classes were a long time ago, hah. But… I am currently actively trying to learn via observation. So! A lot of my comments are going to be on that topic: what I’m seeing, why I think it’s been done that way, how well I think it’s working, etc.

Disclaimer: My thoughts might be scrambled, names might be misspelled, and most quotes will be paraphrased. I’m reading via audiobook at work, and only stopping to jot down what ideas I remember after I’ve already read large sections. And some of these thoughts are just writing style and craft thoughts, no chronology to be had.

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So! Okay! Starting off with unnecessary murder! Always endears one to a protagonist, let me tell you /s

Setting that aside, I do appreciate that Geralt’s already a bit more talkative than what I recall of the show

Sapkowski really likes ‘no words were necessary’ and ‘gave a look’ and other such unspoken communication, doesn’t he?

Which, y’know, I do like its use in some sections — for myself I find it almost impossible not to respond (or to write a character responding) to statements or questions, so I think it’s a powerful character note to just have someone. Flat out not reply to something. xD And I’m going to try to remember it, now that I’ve had my attention called to that gut instinct of mine.

Other sections it feels more like the author being unwilling to say or commit to something, though, or occasionally like the author expects something to be clear without being outright stated when—for me at least—it definitely isn’t.

Like look. Nonverbal communication works because there are nonverbal things to observe. It does not work if there isn’t even a narrative description of said nonverbal details. 😂

(Mind you I can’t read nonverbal communication to save my life half the time even when there *is* something to observe…)

Other writing thing of note is the occasional use of dialogue to imply/narrate action that’s going on, without any further belaboring of it in the actual narration.

That I rather like. Reminds me a bit of western style comics where character statements are providing half the context, because the illustrations can’t cover it all efficiently enough. Might experiment a bit with it myself, see if it streamlines my writing any!

The third-ish sentence after Dandelion is introduced being Geralt calling him his friend is a massive contrast to what I recall of the show. 😂

It’s another thing I like though. Aside from the random fucking murder at the beginning of the book, I do think I’m finding this characterization more interesting than show!Geralt. (Jury’s out on ‘likable,’ mind. 😝) Both crankier / more vicious and more demonstrative / more personable, somehow. Feels more rounded?

Don’t quote me on that though. Again. I’ve watched like 3-4 episodes, and not in order at that. Not sure why I keep wanting to make comparisons to begin with tbh, I don’t actually know what I’m talking about slskjfhf

Case in point though — an entire? Fucking chapter? That’s literally just Geralt talking? To a stylistic degree, there isn’t even any narration? “I need to talk to someone” and then he does, wtf is Netflix doing

Admittedly he’s doing it to someone who he knows for a fact will never pass what he’s saying on to anyone else but like. Still.

…Geralt is a dork. Jaskier is a dork. They are both such fucking dysfunctional dorks. (Context: catfishing.)

Ffff holy fuck Jaskier is in bad shape. Oof.

…Geralt is furthermore a self-righteous philosophical sap. Who likes making speeches. (Context: half this book, when he isn’t keeping silent or ‘smiling nastily’. Or uh. Murdering people.)

PFFT I spoke too soon. Yennefer seems to share that thought

“The witcher didn’t like to do anything needlessly” (paraphrased, again, reading an audiobook) — Geralt. Geralt. Why did you kill those jerks at the start of the book, Geralt. (I’m saying ‘Geralt’ but what I actually mean is ‘why did you write this that way, Sapkowski’ >_>;)

Poor Dandelion is so concerned and upset ffff

…I am too aroace-spec for this bullshit 😂

Like is it weird that I would find sheer stubborn desire not to let Yennefer get herself killed more understandable and believable in isolation than I do when it’s tied up with attraction as it has been?

In isolation I’d just nod along but as it is I am banging my head against the wall with frustration slsjfhf

THIS WOMAN HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT CALLOUS TO YOU why do you like her. Like. Again. Yes I understand wanting to save her, but why do you LIKE her good GRIEF

…okay the very last bit of it is incredibly fucking sweet though.

I mean look at this: “And they were considerate and very thorough. They were caring and tender, and though neigher of them knew what caring and tenderness were, they succeeded—because they very much wanted to, and they were in no hurry whatsoever.”

Tell me that isn’t the sweetest damn way to describe some sex

Ohh. And. Also worth mentioning, Yennefer apparently heard the wish? And liked it / found it touching? Huh. For some reason I feel like that was handled very differently in the show, though I can’t recall the specifics.

Anyway I comprehend the whole interwoven destinies necessary result of the wish, but I am not successfully guessing what the actual wish was. Wonder if we’ll ever be explicitly told?

…that uh. That sure is an ominous ending, goodness. Nenneke is so worried and upset, I think that’s the bit that struck me hardest.

I didn’t mention it earlier but I do really enjoy the sections with Nenneke just in general. Their dynamic is really fun :)

Speaking of those sections — climate change! Except not that! Good times. Makes me think of our ozone layer and the potential impacts if it were lost.

And speaking of ominous things — “it’s already too late” or something along those lines with regards to the changing sunlight. Ahah. Good times. Slow natural… well, again, change. Apocalypse, for some species. Curious to see just how many species that will be.

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Well! I have a few gripes, but overall I did enjoy it enough to be interested in reading the next book! Curiosity is still a bigger factor than actual investment, currently…? But interest is interest, ahah.