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tommock · 6 months ago

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I DNF'd Mistorn: Here's Why

Disclaimer: You asked for this. Let me start there. Don't get mad at me, Mistborn lover. If you clicked on this link, and that means you are taking the dagger into your own hand. The wound is self-inflicted!

I did not finish Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I know, I know, its actually called The Final Empire. The name Mistborn has stuck with so many readers for a reason, so I'll continue to use it as a shorthand. The book didn't work for me, but I think WHY it didn't work for me might be interesting to read about, especially for fellow authors.

If you have read and enjoyed the Mistborn books, or any work by Brandon Sanderson, I'm delighted. I want to applaud any work of fiction that brings people joy (so long as it or its author is not reprehensible in some way (he said, covering his ass)). I don't want you to think this is me taking shots at you or at Sanderson. I'm just talking about a work of fiction and what it did to my brain.

Believe me when I tell you I have no delusions about being some high-handed minister of good taste. You should see some of the anime I watch to destress at the end of a long day trying to be a self-published author, editor, and, well, just an ordinary semi-functioning human being.

I've read many, many books and loved them, only to come back to them later and find they were … less deserving of my matured tastes. Sometimes books meet us at the right time. If Mistborn was, or is, one such book for you, I would be a jerk and a fool if I tried to tell you that you were wrong for liking it. That isn't what this is. But, if you're at all curious why I didn't like it the way you did, here are my thoughts.

Instead of trying to construct some long elaborate essay, I've decided to present my reading notes as I was writing them. If you're at all familiar with my SPFBO9 opening reads thread, this is in a similar, though much protracted style. This is my travelogue of the first few chapters. If these notes are rough or feel stilted in places, I'm sorry. I DNF'd the book a few months ago, and I found in trying to clean up my notes that I was making up commentary to fill in gaps and I don't think that's fair. I've tried to provide some context where I could.

Pages referenced are from the first mass market edition, published August 2007 by Tor

My Notes:

Starts well enough. Interesting introduction to the fantastic elements of the environment (the ash fall) and the enslavement of the skaa. Some neat 2nd world titles “obligator,” etc.

Not great, not riveting, but competent introduction of world and one protagonist, Kelsier. He doesn't know what to do with Vin, though. Disconnect between the characters as we're told they are and their actions. Lacking coherent motivation.

(P.5)The slave that stands and stares defiantly sending a chill through the lord so-and-so is a bit melodramatic. Both actions struck me as over the top.

(writing note)…too many “of courses”

The writing is competent and descriptive. The Mist at night is another interesting setting detail.

(p.6) I immediately dislike Kelsier. “I’ll have to cure them of that (fear of the mist) some day.” This is has an unsympathetic arrogance about it. If this is also the man who stared defiantly at lord-so-and-so, hes blasé about endangering these people, and seems to look down on them, much like lord-so-and-so. I suspect this impression is not intentional. I suspect I’m supposed to think him strong and clever. We’ll see.

(7) rolling his eyes at these people. This seems intentional. But it’s also annoying.

(10) beatings beatings beatings. These “peasants” and their daily beatings. Did I mention the beatings? Their lives are harsh! There are beatings!

(‘) what is this talk about Tepper “leading” the skaa? Leading them how? They’re slaves! What decisions are they making? No, really. What is this forced little conflict? It’s pointless.

(‘) “How do you do that?” “What?” “Smile all the time” - there’s no reason for him to ask this. It’s unmotivated dialogue. How do you smile all the time? How? No. Why, sure. “You keep smiling. Is something about our home funny to you?”

(19-20, ch.1) I’m having trouble with Sandersons storytelling. This is coming across as heavy handed and simplistic. Here’s Vin. She was betrayed. There are betrayals. This boy who came to get her who’s nice enough will also betray her. But the ash is free…

I wonder if we’re going to slowly work through the alphabet section by section. Ash, then beatings and betrayal… who knows what could be next? Crime? I bet it’s crime.

Also - Reen’s sayings and betrayal. I think in general I find it a bit affected when we meet a character and they’re immediately thinking of their backstory … but that’s probably not fair of me. I think what comes across as affected is Sandersons execution. There’s a very light fiction - YA quality about Vin’s angsty introduction. I might have loved it if I read it at 14, but not now.

I’d like to think of an example of what would be more appealing to me - the introduction of a character with similar enough circumstances… Actually, Gideon the 9th might be a good example. We get to hear Gideon’s voice in the prose and the dialogue and get a strong sense of her character as well as the specific and very interesting world building details of how she got into the 9th house. Here, Reen’s betrayal is left completely unexplored, and so I wonder why bring it up at all except for that cheap YA punch in the gut of “my brother betrayed me and now I’m here.”

Maybe Sanderson felt some necessity to move faster here. He wanted to get to the city theiving … but it isn’t working for me, so obviously I think it was a mistake. Obviously he was hoping this would create a sense of anticipation that we would eventually find out HOW Vin’s brother betrayed her, but because he leads with it and then doesn’t explain it, it makes it seem like it doesn’t really matter HOW Vin was betrayed, what’s important is that she was betrayed and now she doesn’t trust anyone. It’s just a bit weak.

THE HEAVY HANDEDNESS (People being mean to Vin - her hard life) (21) the slap in the face (23) Theron looking Vin up and down - “eyes lingered on her … running down the length of her body. … She was hardly enticing (didn’t even look 16); some men preferred such women, however.” (24) “what do you know?” “Enough” - Vin hurts her, expositional dialogue about her brother’s debt and selling her to a whorehouse.

(25) fearing Vin would disappear in a scene she doesn’t have much to do during, we get these unnecessary interjections of her watching the interaction, followed by the explanation of Camon thinking Vin is his good luck charm. This should have been presented earlier, because it just interrupts the dialogue here. But also, it feels inaccurate after Vin made such a useful critique of Camon’s servants. She seems much more useful in other ways than a luck charm, and comfortable offering her criticism without the slightest hesitation.

This chapter ends rather abruptly and without much Go to it. Vin uses her Luck and gets our stuffy official to consider her boss’s mundane business proposal.

The notion that Camon brings Vin along because he thinks of her as his luck charm feels really thin, especially on a job like this where everyone has to look the part. Which raises an important question: what was Vin doing there? I mean literally. Why didn’t Camon have SOMETHING for her to do. Camon didn’t dress her up in any part, she didn’t have any kind of cover story as his daughter or nurse or anything. Just some kid in the room dressed … who knows how while important official business is discussed. She just floats somewhere, doing nothing, as far as anyone is concerned.

VIN’S MOTIVATION Where is it? What does she get out of making this work for Camon if he has no idea what she’s doing? Why is she avoiding him if this is such an important job? Why is she helping him at all?

The pieces are there, but Sanderson doesn’t put them together.

Camon should know about Vin’s ability to “smooth things over” in some capacity. This would give him a serious reason for her being there on this crucial job. Vin should be motivated to help him because if this lucrative job works out, it will go a long way towards paying off her brother’s debt. Now suddenly there is a sense of urgency for her instead of just having a bad time owned by a “crew leader” getting slapped around. The scam itself isn’t enough. Frankly, it’s kind of boring at this point. It’s a slow moving beurocratic swindle.

(32) Kelsier. Sanderson is doing a good job introducing some thieves’ cant here as Dockson and Kelsier are planning their job, talking about how they need a “Smoker.” Someone is a good Tineye. The loss of a man to the Steel Ministry underscores the mortal risk these men are taking. But … there’s something about all this crime play that feels a bit cute, like Sanderson had only a passing, generic understanding of (fictional) gangs/criminal organizations. He’s spent his world building energy on the fantasy aspects of the story - the dystopian Tolkien Lord Ruler and Steel Ministry, skaa, ashfalls, mist - but not on developing the criminal world of the characters, linguistically speaking. They’re all crews working on a job headed by a crew leader. This is the world we’re living in, most immediately, and yet it feels the most underdeveloped.

“Kelsier shook his head. ‘No. He’s a good Smoker, but he’s not a good enough man.’ Dockson smiled. ‘Not a good enough man to be on a THIEVING CREW … Kell, I have missed working with you.”

This stopped me dead. I laughed at the book and put my hand over my eyes. “Thieving crew” is just silly. It’s sixth grade D&D language, but even more ridiculous is the sentiment of Dockson’s statement: that character is somehow a moot point because they are criminals. It’s as if he’s saying: we’re breaking the law, so we’re the bad guys, and bad guys don’t work with “good men.”

Here we see Sanderson’s shallow understanding of the characters he’s portraying. They are stealing from slavers who exist in the service of a brutal, oppressive dictator. But put that aside, and consider we’ve just been told one of their ilk had been caught and beheaded by the Ministry. The risk these people are facing couldn’t be higher. Working with people they can trust, a stand up guy or a “good man,” would be one of the most important things to them. From their point of view a “good man” doesn’t mean a patron saint of the poor, but it means a hell of a lot. If a guy is a drunk who cheats on his wife, you can’t trust him not to turn on you. If he gambles too much, you can’t trust him not to gamble on your safety. He doesn’t keep his apartment clean, how can you trust him to be conscientious about keeping you alive. It all matters - even more so because he’s on a “thieving crew.”

Now, Sanderson probably didn’t give this line more than a moment's thought. He was writing fast and sailed right over it. But that’s exactly the problem. It gives the book a kind of childish, YA feeling.

(33) “Kelsier turned with curious eyes.” I’ve written lines like this, but I almost always revise them because I write about eyes too much. The point is his eyes aren’t curious, Kelsier is, and it shows on his face. I can’t picture curious eyes, and I’m sure you can’t either. And I would cut the next line of dialogue - going to chastise my brother … we already know he was going to do this because he said so, and the line just isn’t very good anyway. A look of curiosity from Kell, and the promise from Dockson “it’ll be worth your time,” gets us out of the section better. Sometimes the best repartee between characters is a look.

(33-34) the scenes with Vin remain heavy handed, and affected. This section adds almost nothing to the story accept for the disappointingly narrow view of a fantasy underworld that the women in it are only ever whores. This from a world crawling with Smokers and Tineyes? I think not. The clumsy presentation of Vin’s awful life is what makes these sections particularly affected. With her particular ability to use her Luck, I can’t help but wonder why she’s even still here. That seems to be the story to me. Not the abuse, but why she remains when she clearly has the power to get out. She can smooth over deals with reps from the SM, but she hasn’t thought to calm some member of the crew and then just … walk? Go literally anywhere in the city and use her Luck to get work where she won’t be whipped and slapped. It seems like the easiest thing in the world, so why hasn’t she done it? This is what the story here could have been, and it would have been so much more interesting.

Obviously she has to be there so Sanderson can have terrible things happen to her so she can be saved by Kelsier just like he saved the other raped scaa girl (let’s all take a moment to roll our eyes) and then her character can have a trajectory from passive victim to active hero - but that’s an excuse, and excuses don’t make good stories.

That said, as is, these two pages could be cut entirely and with very minor revision to the next session, nothing would be lost. It introduces a hideout we don’t need to know about, abuse that is redundant, over the top and unmotivated, and then Camon says “it’s time.” It’s just a prelude, in which nothing happens, before the actual scene. So just cut to the actual scene.

(36) we finally find out what the Camon job was supposed to be, I suspect because Sanderson finally decided what the details were. It would have been much more interesting to know this earlier, just like it would have been more interesting to understand about the particulars of Vin’s brothers betrayal earlier, so we could understand the context of the story being told.

But a LARGER ISSUE continues to emerge. First Camon tells Vin nothing about his plans. She says she is apparently the only crew member who didn’t know what was going on. Then, as they sit in the waiting room, in the vey belly of the obligator beast, he tells her everything. Why? Because Sanderson wants us to know even though he never decided who this character was.

He wants her to be a passive victim of inordinate abuses by a group of irredeemable villains, who only avoids constant sexual assault through the exhausting use of her secret magic so she can be saved and then learn how to be powerful later. But he also wants her to be a smart, capable member of Camon’s crew who is considered as such, because he knows passive protagonists aren’t interesting and because he wants us, the reader, to know what’s going on, and also think that Vin is cool. She can’t be both at the same time. She either needs to be less of an abject, pathetic victim, or she needs to be less involved in this big important scam - and that means she knows less about it and does less to make it work. As is, he’s done too little with either idea of her character and both Vin and Camon are an unmotivated mess.

(42) steel inquisitor. Cool, creepy, disgusting - something straight out of hellraiser.

(43) “Besides, I’m not about to let a possible Mistborn slip away from us” Ah!

Ch3 (45) after the meeting with the obligator (that was a trap), is the first time Vin ever expresses any interest in getting away. Much too late Sanderson gives us a much too thin reason why Vin hasn’t run away (considering the conflicting versions of her character as mentioned before). It’s little more than an afterthought.

(47) in no more than 2 pages Vin goes from never thinking she could make it on her own to leaving for good, telling herself she’d survived sleeping in alleyways before, she could do it again and - “Reen had taught her how to scavenge and beg. Both were difficult in the Final Empire … but she would find a way, if she had too.”

So far, this is all based on a bad feeling. More motivation conflict - Vin has no problem telling Camon directly how his plans won’t work and that he should change the way the servants are dressed, helps him succeed with her luck in both plans, but sees no reason to tell him “I have a bad feeling about this. That was too easy. Why did that obligator suddenly agree. Doesn’t this seem weird to you?”

Sanderson has many of the right pieces, but he hasn’t been able to put them together coherently.

(45)(And, just as an aside, I’m not sure why a girl who has spent to book so far reiterating to herself that EVERYONE WILL BETRAY ME is going out of her way to tell Ulef she has a bad feeling and to get him to come with her. Sanderson says “if he would go with her, then at least she wouldn’t be alone.” But he has also up until this point defined her character by a near constant desire to be alone - when she is introduced sitting in the window of the hideout thinking her brothers word “Vin wasn’t on duty; the watch-hole was simply one of the few places where she could find solitude. And Vin liked solitude. ‘When you’re alone, no one can betray you’- (37) at the “It’s just another betrayal, she thought sickly. Why does it still bother me so? Everyone betrays everyone else. That’s the way life is … She wanted to find a corner - someplace cramped and secluded - and hide. Alone.”

(47) "Bringing Ulef was a good idea. He had contacts in Luthadel." These after the fact explanations are no good. This isn't Vin thinking this, it's the author coming up with more justification for Vin's action, but in order for her character to seem active and motivated, this needed to be revised into the section where Vin decides to bring Ulef. Now it's just tacked on - oh, yeah, and, by the way, if you weren't sure it made sense for Vin to do this, Ulef probably knows people. So, there.

It doesn’t wash. Who is this girl? Can she not stand the idea of being alone, or is it the one and only thing she wants? Is she strong and resourceful in spite of her circumstances, or is she a passive victim? Does she believe everyone will betray her, or does she desperately want to believe otherwise because she can’t live in such an unkind world? Sanderson doesn’t seem to have been able to make up his mind. Maybe some of these details were added in revision on the suggestion of beta readers and the result is a checkerboard character. I’ve seen that before where you make a suggestion to a writer and they add your suggestion but they don’t make the necessary changes to the rest of the book so that the new material earns its place, they just throw it in and dust off their hands - job well done, gotta stay on schedule to publish! But now I’m just writing fan fiction about Sanderson’s process. I don’t know.

(55) Vin’s “weakness” - the contradictions/inexactitude of characters seems to be an ongoing issue for Sanderson, at least for Vin. Is she weak and has to pretend to be strong, or is she strong and often chooses to pretend to be weak (so far she has seemed to be weak and act weak, other than her Luck).

Well, that's as far as I got. Kel shows up just in time to be the wrath of justice for Vin. He's the superman who will make everything alright for this feckless girl. Our hero. Did Sanderson lay it on thick enough? Did you get that these people were all so irredeemably and stupidly bad? Aren't you so glad this strong man has shown up to be Vin's vengeance, just like had been telegraphed all along?

Sorry, I don't mean to be sarcastic. This part of the narrative really isn't so bad, its just been so heavy handedly and clumsily lead up to that there's no thrill in it for me. It isn't a bit satisfying. I'm just glad I don't have to read about any of these shallow side-characters anymore. Except, I have no intention to read on, so I don't have to read about any of them anymore.

Is this book bad? Yes and no. I don't want to read any more, and only read as far as I did as an examination of storytelling, so for me its bad. You only get so many eyerolls before I have to say that. The sentences are very clear and coherent. On their own, they are coherent. Together, they fail to paint of picture of coherent characters who drive the action of the story. If you don't have that, at least in my book, you've got nothing.

The images work. The setting, in its broad strokes, is eveocative. I'd love to set a DnD campaign in a world of ash and a dark lord and all that (I'm not the least mad about the cliché of the dark lord, by the way. Who doesn't love archetypical stories?) But, as near as I can tell, there are no human beings in this book. No one is real. The characters are just that, only characters in a book. They are paper cutouts. They fall flat when the hand of the author isn't pushing them around and making them do things.

Fans often hold Sanderson up as the gold standard of a fantasy author who produces work fast. And having read this far into Mistborn, I can say this about it: It reads like it was written fast.

Yes, Mistborn was an earlier book of his, so I can't judge him by it alone. But it is a work that is so often held up as a favorite by his readers. That's why I picked it up, to see what all the fuss was about. There were many things I enjoyed, but what I enjoyed wasn't the narrative. The story and the characters who moved it were the thing that I enjoyed least. The unique magic and broad setting details and description of places and creepy Inquisitors were what I liked best. The proper nouns were fun.

But proper nouns don't make a story for me. So I did not finish Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

If I were looking for a light fantasy read that I didn't have to take seriously and I could pick up and put down whenever I wanted because it was never that exciting or particularly witty or clever, but managed to string along one event after another and kept them going, more or less, whether it made much sense or not, until the end, I think Mistborn would be a fine book to dip into. Lots of people have read it. But then, that seems to me to be its major appeal. It’s a book you can talk about with other people.

It's not enough for me, though. There's lots of fun fantasy books out there that feel more coherent, and, well, INTERESTED in the story they're telling. Interested in violence and revolution and crime in an oppressively totalitarian, dystopian world. Interested in the plight of a young girl who only wants … well, what does she want? To be safe? But the only way she finds she can be safe is to go toward danger and realize how very strong she is? Maybe this story would like to be that, but it hasn't been for the first 60 or so pages.

Sanderson's novel felt more interested in the large and vague story shapes around the characters - a city, a dark lord, slavery, soot snow, bad mist, some kinds of magic, and (I cringe to say it) rape and thieving and beatings - but not in the world of their lives.

I've heard good things about The Way Of Kings from people who did not like Mistborn either, but its safe to say at this point that I have reservations about my reading tastes being a good match for Sanderson's work, at least at this point in time.

If I'm looking for fun I'd rather read another swanky, noir fantasy by Douglas Lumsden any day, or the next gothic gaslamp fantasy mystery by Morgan Stang, or discover my next favorite author, indie or otherwise.

I don't think Mistborn was terrible by any stretch of the imagination. Sanderson has delighted readers for over a decade now! He's prolific, hard working, and he delivers what his fans want, and he and they continue to be richly rewarded for his efforts. He is a Name in the genre, often listed alongside the greats. And why not? Isn't pleasing readers what this is all about? Taylor Swift has oceans of adoring fans, and she's no less deserving of her accolades. Brandon Sanderson is the Taylor Swift of fantasy, you could say. I just don't like her music either.

#books and reading #brandon sanderson #Mistborn #book review #book critique #dnf #fantasy books

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ironcmoniker1 · 1 year ago

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Grave Encounters 2, Rewatch and Reaction

Since Grave Encounters was better than I remembered it, I figured I'd roll right into Grave Encounters 2.

The original kicked off with a very good sartorial take on the ghost hunting realty shows. This one kicks off with the equivalent of era specific YouTube videos that capture the aesthetic and vibe of the time as well.

The entire scene in the Halloween party is unfortunate, in pretty much every way. It's comical and a little disappointing that this was made in 2012, but the entire rant about the state of horror films, in the middle of the party, while this very pretty girl is clearly looking for his attention, feels all too real, as does the vomiting and humiliation that follows.

The obsession with a supposed conspiracy has unfortunately become even more believable/topical in the last decade too. The way this is all coming together feels like a stretch though. The "spirits reaching out through the computer" almost always feels like a reach or like its shoehorned in, because it both doesn't make sense, but isn't far enough out of the norm to feel supernatural. It also leads inevitably to the questions about why the "spirits" wouldn't be luring as many people as they could to wherever they're looking for victims.

Bringing the producer back from the original is smart, and making him a very stereotypical Hollywood douche bro is good for effect, if not a little on the nose.

It's also a funny bit when Alex and Jennifer, go so quickly and easily into the same melodramatic, over the top on camera delivery as Lance in the original when he starts filming his "documentary."

Though it takes longer to get into the hospital, this one kicks into high gear even more quickly than the original, thanks to a conveniently placed spirit board. Where the first one took its time introducing the idea of time and space being warped, this one immediately jumps into that and the introduction of spirits/ghosts in camera. There isn't any consistency though, because we also see someone attacked by something that can't be seen within minutes.

There may be a bit too much of the ghosts on camera in this one. I also can't nail down why I felt more invested in the sense of threat the characters were facing in the previous movie. These kids all feel like cannon fodder.

The security guard showing back up to get electrocuted was unexpected.

This bit of the building letting them think they got out and were going to make it home was an interesting twist.

Lance (the protagonist of the first film) showing back up, looking like a Robinson Crusoe extra was unexpected as well. The Red Door bit is a little on the nose, but the bit with the door that doesn't go anywhere until the third time they open it is cool. They're playing with the rules of time/space warping in some interesting ways this time. This bit with the camera floating up out of the bad by itself seems kind of unnecessary. We already know that they're not alone, and whatever is there is malevolent. As an excuse to wake someone up, it seems a little extra, given the situation. Who's going to sleep all that well in the first place?

Trevor wandering off alone is also a little much, given what we've already seen. Characters in horror movies do dumb shit all the time, but these people have seen som serious shit already. Sean/Lance taking him out was unexpected. Feels like some Shining shit. The camera floating around by itself is taking things a little far. Are ghosts really that interested in being recorded and making sure they're message is going to get out? I don't know man. The hospital or whatever is in the hospital being obsessed with finishing the film also feels like it's a little much.

Well, I remembered correctly. This feels like a pretty inferior sequel.

#horror #found footage #paranormal #Grave Encounters 2

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marlowe1-blog · 2 years ago

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"The Wrysons" (The Stories of John Cheever)

1950s Angst

This one might as well be called Fear: 1950s Style, becuase if there is anything that quite encapsulates the anxieties of the 1950s it would be nuclear war and men doing "women's work".

The Wrysons are introduced as assholes, the kind of assholes that make everyone around them pay for their exactitude. They are unfriendly. They don't like to read or watch movies or anything. There one passion involves bullying the entire community into maintaining their lawns and not building a library (there's no discussion of a library in this story but the previous story about Marcie Flint was big on everyone trying to block the library to keep the suburbs dull and underdeveloped).

Only then Cheever puts you in their heads. Irene dreams of nuclear war and in almost all of her dreams, she's killing herself and her daughter to avoid the nuclear fallout. You know this was the abiding fear of most of the 20th century. There might have been a year after WWII when big bombs that can destroy entire cities were cool, but then everyone got very scared. I believe that they got scared even before the Rosenbergs gave the USSR enough nuclear secrets to build nuclear bombs, but I don't know. I just know that I was alive in the 1980s and once America and Russia seemed to be backing away from the whole "hey let's have a war and everyone's invited" it was very hard to come up with new things to scare people.

Yes, the Satan Panic was there to fill the vacuum left by the anxiety around a nuclear bomb landing on your front yard. That's my theory and I'm sticking with it. At very least, it managed to scare the hell out of everyone until the big bad gangsta rappers came along to say Fuck da Police.

Does Ice Cube owe his career to Glasnost? Maybe i should upgrade my ADHD meds to Adderall.

So Mrs. Wryson is afraid of nuclear war, but Donald? Donald is a sad little boy in a man's body who can only deal with his depression by baking a cake in the same way that he baked a cake with his mother after his father left. The cake baking is his security.

Given the main ways that 1950s men dealt with their depression, cake baking seems downright healthy. Only Donald is way too hidden away from his emotions to even admit to it.

And how does John Cheever end this? He dangles a tragic ending. It appears like he's presented his characters in two ways - how the community sees them and how they see themselves. So what happens?

In the tragic ending, Donald dies in a car accident on his way from a community meeting and Irene breaks a hip which eventually leads to her death. The daughter is taken in by relatives.

But instead let's have a downer ending that isn't melodramatic. Irene wakes up to a burning smell, thinks its the war and goes into the kitchen to see Donald sleeping as he burns the cake. She doesn't get him. She doesn't understand why he's baking the cake and he's not about to tell her. Just like she's not about to tell him about her dreams.

They are a married couple but they have their secrets. I guess all couples have things they keep from each other, but this one is kind of sad. Still they will bully the rest of the community together so Donald is fine without sharing his weakness with Irene and Irene isn't about to tell Donald about her dread of nuclear war (a common dread but probably not in that extreme).

Ultimately this is Cheever at his most economical. Here are the characters as we see them. Here they see themselves. Let's give it a synthesis ending, but Cheever never goes exactly where you think.

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celinewitch · 2 years ago

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Writing whatever I feel, once I think of something it just flows like this

Oh man, grojband huh (look at previous reblog). I didn't grow up with it or anything like that but back when I was obsessed with western world, including its animation series, I was really into that. Someone also posted the episodes on youtube too making it accessible to me. So I did have a quite a nostalgic feelings over it

There was this really interesting thing I have though. I found out from digging the net that canadian tv show have this stereotype of being varying levels of quality? It's kinda dumb thinking really cause like so is everywhere else in the world including america, so why only canada? just cause the most well known shows from there have mixed reception doesn't mean all shows from there are like that. There's this video I really like about canadian tv shows by someone growing up with it and I can feel the excitement and fondness that even I feel that nostalgic drive, even though I obviously don't grow up in canada

youtube

Anyway yeah I was a westaboo 3-4 years ago, I even sold a lot of my manga (which I will choke my past self for that wtf are you doing you idiot) I'll admit that. I guess I was trying to be less of a weeb after knowing that people out there find people like me cringe so I thought maybe I should migrate to other types of media. Which is dumb thinking. But seeing now I think it's... really no different from a lot of animes I watched back then? I really thought stuff like SU or Adventure Time is really very shonen-like? Please don't get triggered if anyone's reading this, I was a hardcore anime fan back then so I can't help but compare.

Back again I guess one thing about western animated shows is that it has a more off beat tone in its comedy? It took me a while to get used to that kind of atmosphere and mood not gonna lie. Yeah I grew up woth sponge bob but back then I was a kid who don't understand anything. While anime has more direct humor, and most of the time likes to reference other medias imo

I'm pretty sure that there are tons of essays out there that highlight the difference between these shows but one thing I do find about the western animated shows are they have this really big emphasis on 1 individual character arc. I feel this with something like Bojack the most it feels really... real which is a very bad description but bear with me. It focuses on a specific theme but in the way that's less melodramatic and just less fantastical at all (even though he's like a horse, but hey that's the point). It's really hard to watch at times but I also can't let my eyes off of that messy life of a talking horse. But then it also gets silly in a very american way, and those two jarring tones that sometimes works sometimes don't are what I tend to get from western animated shows

In anime I would usually say it's still realistic af but not to the point of despairingly, I guess it's brought up in a more subtle way and manifest more in its commentary on societal issues? It is still very real and gets to you but it will also still have a bit fantastical element of it. Like the way they tend to manifest emotions as physical manifestations. Perhaps because it was to show that those mental anguish is real? When it's shown in an understandable form it will be easier to see, especially in place where issues like this irl tend to be dismissed

Yeah they have their difference in themes and ways of storytelling mainly though thanks to cultural difference as well. But they also influence each other, like look at SU many manga and anime references. The Owl House's too. While from anime side the Osamu Tezuka Father of Manga has said he's influenced by a lot of disney animated movies back then.

So my thinking back then that there's this big difference between both and one is better than the other is so dumb. I wish people can just like both or even if they have preference for one, not to put down the other with comparisons. Letting go of that make me to this day enjoy them for what they are.

How I go from thinking over 1 canadian tv show to talking about why I used to have this phase of liking anything west animated tv shows and then talk about the difference I feel on east and western shows is beyond me, man if you read this I'm sorry

#12 am and I'm rambling to the void #why am I like this?

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vergess · 2 years ago

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So. Lots of pain meds at the moment, so this is a little bit nonsensical, but, I have been playing the newly released video game I was a teenage exocolonist (available on steam, not linked because tag visibility) while I am laid up in bed.

Lots of opinions, basically all positive. There's a specific thing I want to talk about in more detail, but this post got too long so I will just link a future post on the gender politics of nature, nurture, and future as presented by the twins Dys and Tang.

So instead here's my Most Recommendable Qualities (mostly free of spoilers):

Native linux compatibility:

you know how I am about that. I cannot believe I've become the very linux guy I so hated when I was working retail...

Upsettingly beautiful art

2D gaming is my first love but man the medium has come a long way since needing a flashlight to play pokemon. Sometimes I forget how far, and then games like this pop up with the gorgeous art and expressive characters, and I inevitably find myself wondering why the """"mainstream"""" video game market (in as much as such exists these days) focused so obsessively on photo realistic 3D when inevitably a well directed art style is what matters most.

The backgrounds and environments in the game are all extremely lush, with a gorgeous, colorful style that if I had become an art critic instead of a writing critic I would probably have better terminology to describe. Like, uh. Water colors or some shit. Stained glass. It's all very luminous fuck dude I don't know, the closest I'm going to get here is to write a poem and I'm not going to write a poem where the fuckign developers might see it. I need to be sober for that.

Characters:

I'm a character driven asshole, we all know this. It's why I read so much fanfiction and play so much melodramatic fantasy and spend several hours of my life openly sobbing about a single fucking issue of Sandman. So, you'll understand when I say, "people keep recommending me dating sims and I keep bouncing off of them because the characters never Do A Thing," what my major criticism of a lot of Large Cast Of Dateable Character games is.

None of those issues arise here. I've played a few runs now, making a conscious decision on each to focus on a specific character. One. SIngular. Except, the thing is, you can't do that. Not in the sense that the game won't "let" you. You could certainly just dump all of your time into skills and one character. And the timeline of the game would change to reflect your isolationism.

Characters you don't interact with during runs have their own "autonomous" storylines written, and each divergence your player character makes has its impacts meticulous tracked to create different character experiences every time, even as each character holds very tight to a narrow set of repeating traits. This only further emphasizes the fundamental strangeness of the player character, as the only one capable of being fundamentally different across timelines.

Also all the dateables are just, oh god, SO cute. And, by the time they are capable of fucking, very fuckable. Extremely attractive designs. Honestly everyone is super cute. The whole cast is magnificently designed. And that includes...

Monsters:

First of all, let's get the important personal opinions out of the way. I think I would fuck the antagonist....uh....commander, whatever his title is. He looks like a fucked up centaur and I'm into that. There are also Adequate Amounts Of Tentacles. If you've known me long, you know that is a high bar, but the game clears it admirably and with diversity!

The alien fauna are all very FUCKING COOL. There's a bit of throwaway dialogue from An Adult (your dad?) that talks about expecting the planet's ecosystem to be 'more alien' than it is, and I respect the space program's attempt a tpreparedness but for me, the whole uhhhhhh. Situation. With regards to the alien animals is PLENTY alien, and SO satisfying.

If you've ever been like, "god, I wish someone who wasn't orson scott card would do all the cool shit they did in fucking speaker for the dead" then by GOD is this the game for you.

Accessibility:

The content warnings are extremely detailed. I reviewed them all, and having seen several of the ones I was most worried about, I feel they accurately described the situations without spoiling them. I did end up upsetting myself rather badly with one thing which happened, but it is hardly the developer's fault that I misunderstood the context in which the "teenage pregnancy" CW would apply. I personally want to specify that (IN THE ROUTES I HAVE SO FAR PLAYED) the pregnancy is a very wanted, safe, and cherished.

The game players very well on controller, which is a must for me. There are a handful of UI elements that I have not yet been able to access by controller, but I think this is more a factor of my being bad at remembering buttons than the game's design. If you have a mouse, that will solve the issue entirely. My GF speaks highly of the keyboard and mouse gameplay.

Turning off screen distortions and weather effects generally made the game very visually understandable for me, with large, clear iconography. If you have significant visual impairments, I don't know if this is a good game to play. Picking up items on the ground can be tricky in some cases and there's nothing for eg a high contrast or greyscale mode if you need that kind of thing.

Good stability.

It's easy to forget that near-launch properties are supposed to be complete games that function well. This game is very complete (VERY, INTRICATELY, COMPLETE) and very stable. With as complicated as the sets of cause-effect-timelines are, I expected it to be much easier to create minor paradoxes in dialogue.

So far, the only time events have seemed to happen slightly out of sequence due to relationship progression or what ever else, was when I made a conscious effort to be as obnoxious as possible at one point just to see if I could make it misbehave.

I haven't been able to make it crash from within the game so far. I'm hardly a Q.A. tester anymore, but I do tend to be pretty aggressive to my games, so I feel confident in saying it'll run steady for you if you get it.

Politics etc:

The queerness is all very excellent, super queer in very believable ways, especially given the cultural aspects of the worldbuilding. Characters behave queerly outside of just all being bi-for-the-player. The trans characters were all extremely appealing to me with strong characterization that included but did not obsess over their genders. There are at least 2 trans teens in the player character's peer group and 2 trans adults of very different ages and character types, and there's even a cute little intergenerational trans solidarity bit you can get sometimes. In addition, of course, to the ridiculously complete gender personalization.

You would not believe how many games forget that "bro" and "cowgirl" are gendered terms, but this one remembers.

The racial politics are, from my perspective, adequate to not interfere with my gameplay experience. The human characters do consistently refer to the environment and native animals in very colonialist terms but they're literally colonizing the planet so.... The point is, there is not a native people being eradicated, though there are... territory wars(? I guess.) with both wild animals and antagonist peoples.

If you're particularly sensitive to colonial narratives, handle with care, but I felt the writing in the routes I've seen so far handled most of the issues well. Plus I mean. THe title. Is "teenage exocolonist" like. I think the whole "colonialism is a major narrative theme" ituation should be made clear bythat.

In terms of the human diversity it's pleasingly broad. There are characters of all ages, builds, complexions, races, personality types. There's a massive range of disabilities both physical and mental, as well as plenty of fun sci fi accomodations.

I mean just among the dateables I can remember top of the head, theres:

ambiguously asian twins who really said Autism Has Two Genders,

ambiguously brown fat girl with developmental disability,

ambiguously brown Gym Bro (derogatory) who is, and this is true, literally named 'ambiguously brown

ambiguously white farmboy who has clearly been eating his space wheaties and also helps invent space cannabis with your dad

unambiguously black girl who looks the autism twins dead in the eye and said 'no autism has one gender and is me'

unambiguously white tomboy who goes full samus

Venom but he's a twink now

There's something here for everyone, all of these characters are super fascinating concepts honestly. I know I keep harping on that but it's true so there.

Scenario writing:

It's a bit difficult to separate the player character writing from the scenario writing for reasons that rapidly become clear in the game. Both are very good, though, so that's fine. The writing is just really very good.

The variations on the timeline that you are able to uncover through repeated play are fascinatingly diverse even as certain events remain immutable, and the whole thing really plays with the concept of time travel and the other-self so beautifully. Really one of my very favourite explorations of the topic already, and I've only seen... IDK 4 endings along 2 routes? And there's 29 endings???

It's very good. The point is that it's very good you should go play it.

It's on steam. It's app 1148760 on steam and it's very good, it's definitely worth more than what they're charging. I mean have you seen what a $60 console game looks like these days, and then this is like. $25 and SO very much.

#exocolonist #i was a teenage exocolonist #Exocolonist #I was a teenage Exocolonist #Spoilers #Exocolonist spoilers

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loopy777 · 3 years ago

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its been suggested by some people that one way to get people to accept Ben Railey as the new spider-man during the 90's was to make it completely ambigious which spider-man was the original peter Parker, and which was the clone, thus sidestepping the initial knee jerk reaction that the spider-man who we had been following was a clone. Your thoughts on the matter?

I'm skeptical that it would have helped at all. Even if it's ambiguous, the possibility is still there, and I think we can definitely rely on comic book fans to always expect the worst. It would have been dreaded for months before the truth was revealed, confirming everyone's worst fears.

Personally, I think the real problem with Ben Reilly becoming the new Spider-Man is that he's a replacement for the character we'd been following for 35+ years at that point. It doesn't matter if he's the "real" Peter Parker or not. It doesn't matter if he has any relation to Peter Parker at all. He could have been a completely different, universally superior character, and it still would have caused a problem. There's no way to take something long-standing away from a fan and make them happy with or grateful for the replacement.

And I really don't think Ben Reilly as Spider-Man would have given fans anything they really wanted, anyway. The objections to Peter at that point was that he was too dour and weighed down by his history to be any fun- and that he was married. The first is easy enough to fix- just stop writing Peter as too dour and weighed down by his history. I mean, Ben Reilly is only a fix for that if he's written in a fun way, so why not just write Peter in a fun way? It doesn't even need in-story justification. Just do a small time-skip, call it an "All New Era for Spider-Man!", and put a good writer on it. Problem solved.

The second 'problem,' of course, turned out to be even more easily 'resolved.' Ben Reilly was a method of fixing Spider-Man's married status which wouldn't require awful solutions like a divorce or other dour breakup. Of course, we know that didn't work, and eventually the 'fix' implemented was having Spider-Man sell his marriage to the devil, which is universally recognized as the worst possible choice, and yet it's stuck around for 15 years, so obviously the quality of the solution doesn't matter.

But, personally, I don't see why Spider-Man being married is a problem in the first place. I started reading Spider-Man comics when I was 10 years old and I had no problem being interested in a married superhero. In fact, I think Spidey having a happy marriage to a normal person makes him rather unique and intriguing. How many other superheroes have that aspect? Just Superman, when DC isn't trying to wreck him, and Spider-Man was doing it first. The only stories you can tell with an unmarried Spider-Man are melodramatic romantic plotlines, and frankly, those are the storylines that I always had trouble relating to and maintaining interest in. And if someone really wants to write a story about Spidey dating Captain Marvel or whatever, just do a flashback storyline or an in-continuity miniseries or an out-of-continuity miniseries.

The real problem, of course, is that the people who tended to be comic book writers back in the 90s were raging misogynists who had no idea how to write a happily-married couple and/or a woman with no superpowers. And Ben Reilly wasn't going to solve that.

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cheap-hangover · 4 years ago

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GoldenEye, plot holes, and movie logic - part 3 of 3

Last time we left our heroes alive to fight another day, but so did the villains (minus Urumov) - with their villanous tools. And they swapped the chilly Sankt-Peterburg for the lovely:

Act III - Cuba It wouldn't be Bond if we didn't get some tropical paradise now and then, now would it? Except in this case it's almost just background. I don't think that's a mistake in this case, on the contrary, too much of the tropical paradise would detract from the final thrill ride, the conclusion where Bond saves the day and gets the girl, like in Goldfinger. Except...he already got the girl at the end of act II and I feel the writers, the director and/or the producers had a chat here: "The run time is too short, we haven't used the gadget-filled BMW Bond got in the beginning of act II, we have this beautiful location...what about some chilling in the Caribbean spiced up by some minor drama?"

This is just speculation on my part, so take this take as a hot one, but from what I've read, beginning of act III is universally held as the weakest part of the movie. What happens: Bond and Natalia drive about like they were on holiday (for about one minute), then they get stopped by Jack Wade in an aeroplane, swap vehicles and the pair (or couple, by this point) fly off to...a seaside bungalow? Bond then dresses for some deep thought and Natalia for having a good time on holiday. They share some deep thoughts, they argue for a bit, Bond forces a kiss with Natalia and then they have that good time on holiday.

So much wrong with this one. Let's start with logic: Why would they ride about in Bond's company car, when they could just arrive to the Bahamas, have some rest, get the intel and the aircraft from the CIA, and start exploring. No need for Jack Wade, he's posted in Russia, why would he move? That bungalow scene is also dumb. Why write a piece of conflict between them, when it's ended without any solution or catharsis and this relationship also doesn't matter in the overall story? What's more, calming a partner with a forced kiss...that's just wrong. Also, it doesn't work, not even if it's subtle. (Happened to a friend, you know.)

There could be a counter-argument, that there is so much stuff that was not shown, that all kinds of relationship development could have taken place. Stuff that was not shown or even hinted at, doesn't belong in a movie. OK, next: Wade could have been tasked to be their liasion for the Caribbean and the gadgety BMW...actually, I can't justify that one, just like I can't justify its colour. It's hideous. From a screenplay perspective, there needed to be a calm segment between the act II action scene and the final action scene, but they've handled it badly. It just feels like a Frankenstein's monster of underutilised plot devices.

What would I have done? I don't know, maybe some comedy as a jumping-off point for some character work. Remember the playful race at the beginning of act II? There could have been a call-back to it. Perhaps not in the BMW, maybe in some inconspicuous rental machine. Bond would start behaving like an immature boy, trying to race a fat retired American, but Natalia would show more character than the civil servant and chew him up considerably more than that civil servant. Which would lead nicely to their argument about Bond's shallow relationships with women in particular and life in general, again, calling back to M's criticism of Bond. He could have said "Do you think I'm like this because I wanted to? I have to be like this, so innocent people don't get killed. I once wasn't and they did. And now I have to kill a man that used to be my friend.", or something like that. Finally, they would make up and out. (After all, this is a power fantasy, and he did save her life a few times.) Maybe too melodramatic, but IMO, better than what we actually got.

Never mind. Let's move on to the plane search. Bond wrecks another vehicle, though this time not by his own fault. Surprisingly, the plane doesn't explode. What does, is the helicopter in which Ksenia arrives in, when Bond manages to overpower her (with help from Natalia). Why send a helicopter? The hidden base was right there. The true reason was, of course, the long-awaited payback on Ksenia. It's not that satisfying villain death, but that's just a nitpick. On the equipment side, we can see Ksenia's new rifle: Type 56-1 (a Chinese variant of the AKMS) with AK-74 muzzle brake, again for the purpose of making it look like an AKS-74.

The late great Arecibo telescope acts here in the role of Janus' secret Cuban telescope, hidden under a lake, which is then drained prior to operation. Of course, draining a lake takes time. In fact, it takes so much time that some shots were shot with the water being let into the dish and then played backwards. Peculiar. Alec sends troops to shoot Bond. They emerge from the jungle and shoot in full auto from the other side of the dish. Where did he recruit these guys? On an assault rifle, full auto is for suppressing fire only, because you can't hit anything with it, not at this distance anyway.

One standard Bond-style infiltration scene later, our heroes get captured, but not before Natalia manages to mess with the satellite control. I'm somewhat conflicted about the suspenseful scene with Boris and his pen. On one hand, there's good work with his calming ritual of twirling and clicking a pen. On the other hand, you need both hands for writing on a computer effectively. Also, if you didn't notice, the pen in his hand is completely harmless until the moment he drops it and picks up Bond's camouflaged grenade.

Later, the fist fight with Alec on the suspended part of the telescope is very good. A combat of two equals, except for Alec's pride and his hidden assets - but why did he call for the "gunship" helicopter? There was only a pilot in it...if we got a shot of Natalia forcing the gunner out, that would have made sense. So, Alec is defeated and gets a cold goodbye. "For England, James?" - "No. For me." And then Bond jumps at the helicopter. A nice optical illusion: If you take the diameter of the main rotor, subtract half a width of the landing skids and compare that with the human ability to jump from a fixed ladder that distance on the flattest trajectory, you get an impossible stunt. Perhaps asking him to climb on the top of the telescope was too much.

They come close to landing, Bond drops from the helicopter, Natalia jumps right on top of him and asks him if he's alright. I wonder if that was an intentional joke. I did chuckle. And last, Jack Wade comes. "Yo, Marines!" - well masked troops and even better masked helicopters emerge instantly in the frame. Seriously. Those helicopters were completely unnecessary. I know, I know, Bond movies are not supposed to be completely realistic, suspension of disbelief, more like Roger Moore style than any other, but this is really jumping the shark. Luckily it's just a second and you don't notice it if you don't want to.

To summarise the last act, we get some minor plot holes and illogical elements, with the major downside of the draggy beginning. Other than that, it's a very good finale.

Conclusion So, what is this movie? Why did I never like it? I can forgive the minor stuff, because it doesn't detract too much from the amazing spectacle. But those big mistakes: Catching the plane, unclear Alec's betrayal, tank vs. train editing and the "romantic" scene really bring it down for me. However, if I use the joke-frog analogy, now that I've dissected the frog, I can actually enjoy the good parts and not mind that the frog is actually dead. Because in a Bond movie, frogs don't matter.

GoldenEye was a perfect movie for its time, an gradual transition from the over-the-top Moore era to a slightly more grounded one, after they've overdone it with the two Dalton installments (especially the latter one). Looking back, the Dalton movies have aged considerably better than the Moore films. Brosnan's debut is either brilliant, or terrible, depending on your taste. For me it's both. If you want a film that's not just another testosterone ride for (pre)pubescent boys, watch the other Campbell's Bond revival, Casino Royale. It's better in every way - unless you can't be without the sexy Soviet equipment.

#james bond #007 #martin campbell #pierce brosnan #sean bean #izabella scorupco #alan cumming #famke janssen #joe don baker #eric serra #goldeneye

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fortunatelyhauntedblackcherry · 4 years ago

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Moonshine - A Beetlejuice Fanfiction 15

Warning: cussing, some parts are kinda nsft? But no so much so, no probs I think. Slight mention of past trauma.

Ari and Rei was standing before Sofía's door, both kinda annoyed by their big sister's behaviour by now.

- Don't be ridiculous! It's been almost a week! - said Rei and pounded her fist on Sofía's door... again. For the fourth time. - You can't still be mad at us! - no answer came. Rei threw her head back and frowned. - Ugh, Sof, you haven't made anything sweet since monday! If I don't have some cake soon, I might die! Do you want me to die, woman?! - Ari giggled at Rei's sudden selfish outburst. She shood her sister away so she could get to the door.

- Come on, cariña, you love salvaging! And now we can do it in our own home! We don't even have to go out! - said Ari and tapped the door with her fingertips lightly. - Por favor guapa....

- Cut the spanish crap, boo, it won't work! - interrupted Sofi. - You snake-ass bitches shut me up ON PURPOSE, AND you broke the laws of our Sister Code. Which YOU TWO CAME UP WITH, BY THE WAY, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS IT'S FUCKING IMPORTANT!!! - Ari breathed out like a horse and leaned against the wall. She closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them, Beetlejuice was there, right before her face, dangling in the air upside down. He flashed a toothy grin at his favorite breather.

- Hi there! - he said in an aroused tone. Ari sighed and scruffed his hair.

- Hello Bug. - the demon did a little half cartwheel in the air, then put his feet down on the ground. He pointed at Sofía's door with his thumb.

- How's it going with the little Drama Queen? She still won't come down from her tower?

- She can't be real dude. - said Rei with a sigh while rubbing the bridge of her nose.

- Sorry for this taking so long. - commented Ari with a light smile. She then turned towards the door and shouted: - SOMEONE'S PEOPLE SKILLS ARE A BIT RUSTY. - Beej leaned back towards the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. He shrugged with a handsign.

- No probs. - he rubbed his palms together. - This gives me a lot more time to fantasize, cause, hey, let's just look at you pretty girls, being all dolled up for me. - he said as he paced up and down on Ari and Rei. Ari wore a light purple dungaree with little bats all over it, a black cropped tshirt and a sparkly bat-shaped leather choker. Her nails were dark purple on both her toes and her hands. Half of her messy brown hair was let loose, the other half was put in a high ponytail on the top of her head with a black sparkly ribbon. Rei had a cropped, oversized, black Harley Davidson shirt on with a pair of cut-out jeans and black fishnets. Her copper-colored hair was free. They both crossed their arms before their chests and did an annoyed little frown. Beej stepped closer to them, held both their chins and lifted their faces up lightly. He summoned two more hands and with one, he caressed Ari's face, while with the other he pulled a lock of red hair out of Rei's face. - I was feeling a little off today, but you've turned me on again! - he released a kinda animalistic, guttural growl out while he pulled the girls a bit closer to him. Then with a lowered voice, he naughtily giggled. Ari tried so hard to tell herself that his gravelly, kinda smokey voice didn't make her knees tremble, but gosh she couldn't do anything about it. Being turned on by a fuckin corpse was so unnatural and was wrong on so many levels but... Gods what could this voice do with me if he whispered something into my ear while being on top of me. - I can't wait to have my own little private space and beat off to the thought of you, babies. - aaaand that snapped Ari out of fantasizing. She pulled her upper lip.

- Ew. - she commented as she shoved Beetlejuice away. He was laughing so hard his hair lit up. He made his extra hands disappear and stack his tongue out at Ari.

- Ya nasty. - said Rei with a pointing finger held up. Beej stack his tongue out at her too. Ari turned to her sister and shrugged with her hands held up.

- Nah he's just a man. - Beej hissed with his snakelike tongue still out and crossed his arms before his chest. Rei turned to Ari as if she haven't seen the demon at all.

- Is he though? When we last asked he said he has mischief in his pants not... - she held her little finger up and wiggled it. Ari burst out with laughter and had to hold her mouth so she wouldn't spit on her sister. Beej raised an eyebrow and bit his lower lip while smiling. He reached for his belt buckle.

- Well, you can check if you want...

The thing that stopped him from removing his pants was Sofía's shouting from the other side of the door.

- Oh that fuckin demon with the attitude problem is there to help you too?!? - BJ sighed as he started redoing his belt.

- Hey, I only called you a melodramatic bitch yesterday cause you're acting like one! - he shook his index finger towards the door. Then shrugged. - And, by the way, I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.

- Plus, he's nice. - commented Ari while looking at the door. Beetlejuice's hair turned into a light pink and neon green mess. He raised his shoulders up to his ears, put his hands in his trousers's pockets, put his weight from one leg to the other and smiled widely. Cute little wrinkles and holes appeared on his chubby face as he did so.

- Awwww, thanks, babes!

- No, he's not! - interrupted Sofi. - You guys forget that even though he does nice things like saving us from burglars and letting us rummage through the stuff in the attic before he makes the stuff we don't need disappear, he's still a demon! A FUCKIN DEMON!!! What if one day he gets bored and hurts us?! - the sisters looked at each other with a certain look. Maybe what she said was somewhat true...

Even though Beetlejuice didn't really understand human emotions yet (Rei told him the other day that it was like living with Sheldon Cooper, even though Beetlejuice didn't have the slightest idea of who that was), he did know what that look meant. The girls had second thoughts. He already realized that Sofía was the most serious one of the sisters, and that she could easily plant ideas into their heads. I can't let her fuck me off by the side of my new BFFFF... I should scare her. That will do the trick. He cleared his throat and held the girls' shoulders. He pulled them away from the door and made a little "I'll handle this" gesture with his hands. He quickly reajusted his thoughts and found his ground, so after a quick second he let a devilish, nasty smile find its way to his face. He stepped closer to the door and held both sides of the doorframe.

- Oh honey, if I wanted to hurt anyone here... - he said in a honeyed tone, then put his head through the door. - ...I would have already done so. - the last part sounded like it came from every possible direction, and had a weird smokey effect to it. His voice also dropped a couple octaves. Ari could hear in his voice that Beetlejuice was flashing an evil smile at her sister.

The girls heard Sofía growl and by the huffing, grab something heavy. Beetlejuice all of a sudden pulled his head out of the door just a nanosecond before something crashed against the door. Beej pulled the side of his lips and closed one of his eyes.

- That was an old camera. - Rei took her glasses off and rubbed her temples.

- Dwight you ignorant slut... - BJ threw his head back and growled. Okay time for Plan B. Being nice. Ew.

- Ugh, it's so tragic that someone this sexy as me has to go through this much to have some little privacy! - he growled then sighed and held the doorframe again. He took a deep breath and put his head through the door again.

- Look, Sofía, honey... No STOP, STOP, PUT THE CHAIR DOWN! - the girls heard Beej stop shouting for a second, then breathe out with a little "whew". - Good girl. Okay, see sweetcheeks, the easiest way to get into the attic without a key is to break the door in. - he said in a legitimately sweet tone. He let go of the doorframe and with a little whirl of a hand, a huge axe appeared in his right hand. He put it through the door. - And I'd gladly give this tiny fella to you so you could let some steam outofya.

Beetlejuice stepped back from the door, axe still in his hand. The door creaked and opened up. Sofía was still holding the door handle, a lock of her fluffy hair dangling before her eyes while the rest was pulled together with a tealblue scrunchie. She had comfy kneehigh jeans and a tealblue top with the picture of a maneating siren on. Her nails were mirrorlike and sharp. She huffed the lock out, then stepped closer to the demon and grabbed the axe out of his hand. He answered with a huge shiteating grin. Since Sofía was way taller than Beetlejuice, she easily rose above him and pushed her index finger into his chest. She wrinkled her brows.

- That's a good idea. But I'm still mad at you. - she turned around and pointed at her sisters. - All 3 of you. - Ari rolled her eyes.

- I'll make you the strawberry dress in lavender. - she said. Sofía let her finger down.

- ...kay I'm not that mad anymore. - Rei growled and rolled her eyes with her head thrown back.

- Sof, bloody hell, why are you the way that you are?

The door to the attic was at the end of the hallway, with a couple stairs leading up to it. Beetlejuice floated through the door, saying he's not comfortable next to Sofía while she's holding an axe so he would wait on the other side of the red door. Rei and Ari stopped a few steps behind Sof as well.

Sofía brandished the axe and cut into the door. The wood cracked and a part of the door broke in. The girl swinged the axe again and again, then looked through the hole she created and she shouted:

- HEEERE'S JOHNNY!

The girls woo-hood and smiled at their sister's horror movie reference. Sofía cut into the door a couple times more, creating a hole big enough for them to go through. She put the axe down and stepped into the attic.

The attic was kind of big, but it was full of boxes and random stuff. The 2 windows on the right side of the room were barely visible by the boxes shoved before them. The walls had wooden paneling on them, but that was barely visible because of the shelves as well. The floor had a couple old, hole filled carpets scattered around. And everything was dusty. Not just simply dusty, everything had at least 10 centimeters of dust on it. Mountains of dirt, one might say.

- Wow, it's like nobody came in here since... I dunno, the 90's. - said Rei as she peaked her head through the door. When all 3 of them were in the room, Beetlejuice put his feet down on the ground and unfolded his hands.

- Welcome to my humble hideaway! - he said dramatically, then clapped over his head and the lights turned up. He took a step towards the girls and with that, his shoes got tangled up in a hole in a carpet and he fell back with a loud thud. His fall filled the air with dust particles. The girls all coughed. Sofía looked at Beej and between two coughs, she said:

- I didn't know a bloody demon could be clumsy too.

- The fuck you mean. - answered BJ, still laying on the floor, looking at the ceiling.

- That you fell over.

- I did not! - he said, holding his middle finger up. - I attacked the floor! - Sofía stepped closer with hands folded across her chest and a disbelieving smile.

- ...backwards? - Beetlejuice thought for a minute then a legit lightbulb appeared above his head for a slight second. He pulled a smug grin, fingergunned and winked at the oldest sister.

- I'm skilled.

Sofía rolled her eyes, waved her hand and stepped aside to take a look inside the nearest box. Ari stepped next to Beej and offered him a hand.

- Come now Mister Skilled, you're dirty enough, you don't need to roll around in the dirt as well. - Beetlejuice grabbed her hand and tilted his head sideways. Then flashed an evil, smutty grin. Uh-oh. Ari knew what that smile meant.

Beetlejuice all of a sudden pulled Ari down. As soon as the girl fell on his chest, the demon quickly turned them around so Ari would be on her back and he could be right on top of her. Beetlejuice pinned Ari's hands to the ground above her head with a hand and with the other, he held her chin playfully. His green hair had some magenta streaks in it. Ari's heart was racing. Her demon buddy was basically lying on her, and the coldness radiating from his body made Ari tingle. Shit, I was fantasizing about this scenario... Oh wow that's a big dick even without an erection... NO ARI THAT'S WRONG. STOP IT. You might be horny, you slut, I get it, we didn't have any proper action in a year or so, but he's your best friend... Your pervy, always horny best friend who literally just told you, 5 minutes ago, that he's gonna jerk off while picturing you naked... But he's still your very dead best friend, which you haven't had in a long time. That's a point you should consider too... But that devilish smile... And his weight, pushing my body down...

- What you say we get you dirty as well, doll? - whispered Beetlejuice in a definitely horny tone. Ari tried to say something but no words came out of her mouth. Beetlejuice let out a guttural, small laugh... and was instantly stopped by a book hitting his head.

Rei had a couple books in her hands, and was ready to throw another at the demon. She had determination in her eyes. Beetlejuice let Ari's hands go and sat back on her belly to stick his tongue out at Rei. Ari saw the opportunity and immediately started tickling BJ's sides. He fell over, laughing his ass off, screaming at Ari to stop 'cause he's ticklish. A couple neon green, glowing tears rolled off his cheeks. He tried to push Ari away, who only got more dedicated to tickling her undead bestie to his second death by seeing the tears and hearing his screams. Rei facepalmed and growled.

- GET A ROOM, YA TWO! - she shouted. Beej was finally able to grab Ari's hands and stop her. He flashed a devilish smile as his hair turned neon green completely and he summoned 2 extra limbs to tickle Ari back. But as soon as he reached for the girl's uncovered sides (her croptop left her sides naked), her eyes flinched and she pulled her legs to her chest. Beetlejuice saw the uncomfortability in her eyes instantly. He quickly let go and jumped to his feet. Even though he was a demon, a kind of pain in the ass, he didn't want to scare Ari. Not like this, at least. A good old jumpscare is fine, but scarring your best friend is a douchebag move. He knew, he was still kinda pissed at his last best friend-o for literally scarring him.

Plus, Rei made him promise that he'll be a nice emotional support demon boy.

- Am I overstepping my boundaries? - Ari kinda shook her head but Beej raised an eyebrow at her. To which Ari sighed. She did the "más o menos" handsign. Beej offered her a hand. - Alright, no belly touching thingie then. Imma keep my hands to myself, sugar. - he pulled Ari to her feet, but before letting her hand go, he pulled her closer with a smutty grin. - At least for now. - Ari playfully scruffed BJ's hair with a giggle and pushed him away.

The weird and unusual group quickly got to work. They made some space on the floor and put several boxes down. Of course, Beetlejuice didn't help (lazy bum), he was just floating around and made quirky and pervy comments. And made the girls laugh. God that made him feel all tingly inside. A couple strikes in his hair even turned orange, he was so proud of himself, because, you know, being scared of is one thing but making someone laugh their asses off is even better.

The girls got little pillows to sit on from the living room. On their way back up their pets accompanied them. As soon as Minerva spotted a box, she ran straight past the demon she hated oh so much and jumped into her new favorite resting place on earth. She got comfortable very quickly and fell asleep while purring loudly. Sirius sniffed around the place. The black dog quickly turned brownish grey as he went through the attic. Rei shook her head and established that during the afternoon Sirius will take a bath, doesn't matter if he'd like that or not. Ari snorted when Beetlejuice flinched and made a disgusted face at the idea of a bath.

As soon as the sisters sat down into a cozy little circle on the floor, BJ snapped, disappeared, then a couple seconds later reappeared with a green puff of smoke next to Ari. He was holding a bunch of sweets and snacks, like gummy worms, Sugus, a bag of Boca Bits, Lay's Gourmets and Reese's packs. He sat down sideways next to his friendo with outstretched legs, then layed down and put his head in Ari's lap.

Ari was always a very touchy-feely, passionate, sentimental person. She never thought much of hugs, kisses, sweet embraces or just genuinely touching someone; these actions felt nice and natural for her. She turned out to be like this because of two reasons: one, she grew up in a household where hugs and words of affection were constant. Two, spaniards are naturally passionate and rather handsy. It's basically embedded in their heritage. Although, as one might guess, for a short period of time she was nothing like this. She got uncomfortable when someone wanted to touch her abdomen or sides while hugging, she couldn't let anyone near her in an intimate way and such tings. She hated that period of time in her life, but she considered herself lucky that she had help when she needed it, and slowly but surely she could return to her old self. She still had some issues, but she was working on them.

So knowing how she was, she didn't think much of BJ snuggling up to her; she already got used to how touch-starved her new undead best friend was. She also noticed that he was basically addicted to body heat. Anytime Ari hugged him - which, he honestly still didn't really understand why she did - at first he was startled, he didn't know what to do, he was just standing in one place and didn't move at all, but as soon as the girl tried to let him go he quickly wrapped a couple arms around her and held her close for long long minutes. He really liked that Ari didn't wear any shoes in the house, so he was even taller than her then normally. This way he could rest his chin upon her head... And smell her. I know. Creepy. Ari didn't notice though. What she did notice was his stench and how he almost choked her to death yesterday when he got too wound up in their hug. I'll make him take a bath even if he kills me, she thought.

She was telling herself that she hugged him so many times because she knew (based on the things that BJ told him about his past and mother already, even though it wasn't much) that he needed comfort and hugging did the thing... But to be honest, she hugged him and let him be all touchy-feely with her because it just felt nice. She didn't feel any discomfort when he touched her. It felt like they've known each other for ages. Plus, he was cute and soft as a plushie. And stinky. Very stinky. She pulled her nose into wrinkles.

- Bug, I adore your charm and everything, but honey if you'd be a fairy, you'd be called Stinkerbelle. - Beetlejuice looked up with glowing eyes. Literally.

- Awww thanks babe! - Ari shook her head.

- That... That was NOT a compliment. That was so not a compliment. - BJ crossed his arms before his chest and threw his stripey, forked tongue out at Ari. Ari clicked her tongue. - Come on, you ARE stinky as hell hombre! You wouldn't die by taking... - Beej stopped Ari by showing a handful of gummy worms into her mouth. She rolled her eyes and wrinkled her forehead angrily at the demon. He just smiled and threw his tongue out again.

Ari, just like her sisters, reached for a box and started going through it. They showed everything they found to each other so they could sort every little thing out: there was an empty box for stuff they needed, there was a dump for stuff they wanted to disappear, and there was an empty box for BJ. Ari reached into the box and shook her head.

- There's only a bunch of unfinished projects in here, guys. Let's see. - she lifted some very thick books out. - Books on computers... - she reached into the box again. - A "spin-your-own-yarn" kit? Home-brewed kombucha?

- Ew that most of the times tastes like an armpit. - commented Rei. Ari put everything that she lifted out on the dump and while reaching into the box again, she looked at her undead pal laying in her lap, shoving Boca Bits into his mouth.

- Tell me Beej, who left all this stuff here? I'm pretty sure it wasn't the previous owners cause, hey, they couldn't climb the stairs. - Beetlejuice shrugged.

- Adam and Babs. - he said with a full mouth. - Owners in the late eighties. Middleclass, suburban and white... A boring but very sexy couple. - Sof chuckled. Beej's bright green hair started turning a little purple. The girls already knew that purple meant sadness. He looked down at his stripey jacket and started playing with his buttons. His face turned all foggy. Literally. Ari stroked his forehead.

- What's the matter B? Did I say something wrong? - he shrugged again.

- Nothing, just... - he turned his head and looked at Rei. He started snapping, like he was trying to say something but didn't find the word. - Sugar, what's that feeling you feel when someone leaves you and you still wish for them to come back cause you... You know... What's that word? - Rei raised her eyebrows.

- Miss them? - Beej pointed at her with enthusiastic eyes and snapped again.

- YES! THAT'S THE ONE! - he looked back up at Ari, still being a little purple. - Yeah, I kinda miss them. They were fun folks... - his eyes wandered to the object Ari was holding. He gasped as his hair turned back to green, like his sadness was blown away by that black and white little object. He quickly snapped the thing out of the girl's hands. - AWWW THAT'S MY UKULELE! - he sat up and hugged the instrument. - I've been looking for this for years! - Sof smiled at the demon's genuinely happy reaction. Maybe he's not as bad as I thought...

- I didn’t know you were such a musical guy. - she said. Beej quickly snapped and reappeared before her. He pinched her cheek.

- Sweetcheeks, I'm the ghost with the most, name one thing I'm not.

- Helpful when it comes to moving boxes. - she said without hesitation. BJ rolled his eyes. Sof pushed him away by his head, which caused the demon to fall back on his backside. He threw his hands up in the air, still holding the ukulele.

- Come on, you can't blame a guy for loving to watch those sweet litle rumps of yours swingin' around! - he said, looked up at Ari and winked.

The next second, he was laying in Ari's lap again. He started tuning the ukulele while humming and gently singing.

- 🎶The Barbara you marriiiiied, she is dead and burieeed six feet below-uow-ouw... Ouw-ouw-ouw~~~🎶

- What's this song? - asked Ari as she put a fancylooking porcelain butterfly aside. Beej shrugged. He didn't even look up from the instrument.

- Oh nothing, just a little somethin'-somethin' that I can't get out of my head. - he played a couple notes on the ukulele, then did a proud little fistbump. - Yessss, works like a new one!

The girls got rid of a couple stuff, they emptied like a box when Rei called out to Beej.

- Hey, scruffyhead, could you play something for us? - an enthusiastic, shy light glistened through the demon's eyes. He tried to cover his happiness with a macho shrug.

- Sure, why not. - he sat up from Ari's lap and positioned himself in criss-cross-applesauce while leaning against Ari's shoulder. - Here goes nothin'. - he cleared his throat and started singing while playing his little instrument. - 🎶You're...🎶 - the girls all got wide-eyed at the clear voice that left the demon's lips. It even sounded somewhat humanlike? - 🎶You're gonna be fiiine... On the other siiiide...🎶 DIE! - he shouted suddenly in his normal, gravelly voice. - YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE! - he pointed at the girls with the neck of his ukulele. Gosh he seemed crazy. - YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE! 🎶I'll...🎶 - he changed back to the sing-song voice again, leaving a comedic impression behind, making Ari and Sofía cackle. - 🎶I'll be your guiiiide... To the other siiiiiide...🎶

- AWMYGOSH YOU HAVE A LITTLE BEERGUT! - interrupted Rei. She cupped her face with her hands, awed at her discovery.

- Wah... - said the demon while pulling one side of his upper lip into a grimace. Rei clapped little claps.

- I knew my eyes weren't lying! You have a dadbod! That's so sweet! Your beergut is so cute! - Beetlejuice quickly stood up with arms crossed before his chest, angry red streaks appearing in his greenish-purpleish hair.

- Shut the fuck up, I don't have a beer gut. - he said and held a finger up at Rei. Ari smiled at how sassy he looked. - I have a protective covering for my rock hard abs. - Ari still smiled but something started bugging her. Her friend kind of looked... Wounded? Self-conscious? - Plus, I look pretty fuckin good for a dead bitch, just so you know. - and with that last sentence it was clear for her. Not just the tone, his hair told on him as well. It had an angry red glow to it, but it was mostly purple and blue, just like his stubble. She guessed it might meant that Rei touched a sensitive subject. The girl tugged on the demon's pants, which made him look down. His eyes told Ari she was right. She flashed a humble smile at the demon.

- You really do, Mr. Devilishly Handsome. - and boom, the red glow disappeared. Beetlejuice looked startled. What did she say?!?, thought BJ.

Ari took a quick glance at her sisters. They knew what that look meant. Time to make someone feel good about themselves. That's what their mothers taught them. Rei blinked at the demon with glistening eyes.

- You look very fine! - Wait what the fuck is happening., thought Beetlejuice again. His hair started to change. It got a lot lighter.

- You really do. - said Sofía without even looking up from the box she was going through. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON SERIOUSLY?!?, thought Beetlejuice, now kinda panicking. A light pink streak appeared in his hair, and his stubble almost entirely turned pink at this point. Ari cleared her throat. Sofía looked up and pointed at the demon with a light sigh. - Look homeboy, I still have second thoughts about you, but it's a fact that you're a fine specimen. And it's coming from a chick who's into girls. - Beetlejuice leaned closer to the oldest sister with a toothy grin. Of course he had to cope with humour.

- Aww so I don't have a chance with ya? - Sofía raised an eyebrow.

- I'll seriously punch you in the face bro. - the demon laughed. Hah, cringey situation avoided.

- Seriously though, we love all body types in this household. - commented Rei. - And yours is very cute and fluffy. - NOPE NOT AVERTED, TIME TO DISAPPEAR, he thought as he started making smoke. - I understand now why Ari hugs you so many times. - that startled him. He looked down on the floor in embarassment, being unable to disappear he was so happy deep down in his little undead heart. He was never genuinely complimented. And these girls made him feel so nice...

- Oh calláte... - said Ari in a tiny voice as she looked down as well. Good thing BJ haven't seen her face was red as a tomato. Rei ponted at BJ with a gasp.

- AWMYGOSH YOUR HAIR! THAT'S SO CUUUUUTE! - Beetlejuice put his hands, all 4 of them on his totally pink hair.

- S...stop... This is so embarrassing! - he cried out. - You make me cringe at this mortal human bullsh... - he couldn't finish the sentence because Ari launched herself at his neck, pulling him down to a tight awkward hug. - Wha... No! - he said in an embarassed tone right after Rei scooted over with a giggle and hugged his knees. - NO STOP! - Sofía scooted over as well and ruffled his hair in a siblinglike way. - STOP! I HATE YOU ALL!!! - he shouted while trying to get away. But there was no escape from the girls' embrace who were all laughing at the suffering, pink demon at this point.

- Shut up, you like it! - said Ari right before she placed a sloppy kiss on the demon's face. He answered only with a shy smile and a certain pink glow to his body hair.

You can't imagine how much I do.

#alex brightman #beetlegeuse #beetlejuice #beetlejuice fanfiction #beetlejuice oc #beetlejuice the musical #fanfic #fanfiction #lawrence beetlejuice shoggoth #musical!beetlejuice #beetlejuice broadway

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lastsonlost · 5 years ago

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“‘Little Women’ Has a Little Man Problem.”

So reads the headline for an article on Vanity Fair’s website this month about the latest screen adaptation of the beloved Louisa May Alcott novel. The film has been lauded by critics and ostensibly possesses many of the qualities awards voters look for: an A-list cast (including Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep); a respected actress-turned-director (Greta Gerwig); and beloved source material.

But so far it has been noticeably underrepresented during awards season — two Golden Globe nominations and zero Screen Actors Guild nods — and Vanity Fair described the audiences at early advance screenings as “overwhelmingly comprised of women.” One of its producers, Amy Pascal, told the magazine she believes many male voters have avoided it because of an “unconscious bias.”

While the box office numbers following its release on Wednesday suggest the movie has found a decent audience — it placed third, behind the new “Star Wars” and the latest “Jumanji,” on opening day — that unconscious bias has seemed to trickle down to the casual male viewer as well, if Twitter is any indication. The New York Times critic Janet Maslin recently tweeted her surprise at the “active hostility about ‘Little Women’ from men I know, love and respect.”

She also described the movie’s “problem with men” as “very real.” Someone tweeted in response: “It’s not a ‘problem.’ We just don’t care.”

In 2019, this attitude seems like history repeating itself. When Ms. Alcott’s book was first published in 1868, it was an instant success — it was favorably reviewed by many of the top magazines and has never gone out of print — but that made it an outlier. At that time American women’s novels were not most critics’ idea of “serious” writing. While their female British counterparts — Jane Austen and Fanny Burney, for example — were considered giants on the literary landscape, in the United States a different spirit ruled.

The predominantly white and male guardianship of the literary and intellectual high ground tended to view the essential American story as a solo confrontation with the wilderness, not a love triangle or intimate domestic saga. Nineteenth-century men of letters “saw the matter of American experience as inherently male,” the literary critic Nina Baym wrote in her 1981 essay “Melodramas of Beset Manhood.” It was a complete negation of women’s points of view, not just an artistic dismissal.

That doesn’t mean American women’s fiction wasn’t popular — like “Little Women,” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” could barely keep up with demand after its 1852 publication. But that widespread appeal was used to slight the genre out of hand and further relegate it to the status of mere entertainment. As Ms. Baym noted, Nathaniel Hawthorne, for one, complained in 1855 about the “damned mob of scribbling women” whose inexplicably popular work he feared would hurt his own book sales.

There’s some truth in the notion that women strove to write works that would sell — Ms. Alcott herself said she wrote “Little Women” “at record speed for money” while men toiled away on epics like “Moby-Dick” that would fail to generate much income. This was in large part born of necessity; women had far fewer opportunities to earn decent money, usually forced to unskilled labor. Who wouldn’t write a book for money?

In some ways, we live in a different, more progressive era where recent onscreen stories by and about women have been highly regarded: the Emmy-winning “Fleabag”; the crowd-pleasing “Hustlers,” which outdid expectations at the box office and could lead Jennifer Lopez to her first Oscar nomination; “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” about a romance between two women in 18th-century France, which was nominated for the Palme d’Or, the highest prize at Cannes, this year. It’s not as if men have shunned these women-led stories.

It may be that on its surface, “Little Women” doesn’t seem as fresh and progressive, comparatively. Maybe men feel it’s too familiar — the book has been turned into a movie no fewer than seven times, including a little-seen version released just last year. But in an era when sequels and remakes clog the film landscape (many of them male-centered), it’s hardly an exception.

Or perhaps the movie’s marketing undersold just how inventive Ms. Gerwig’s adaptation — which takes many interesting creative liberties, such as ditching the linear narrative — is. The bucolic imagery in the trailer underlines the cozy, even slightly sappy aspects of Ms. Alcott’s book: the March sisters with their flowing locks and billowing gowns, looking as though they just stepped out of a John Singer Sargent painting. Knitting around a fire. Lots of dialogue centered around whom the young women will marry (in England, the second half of the book was called “Good Wives”). Some may feel the story is solely about getting a husband.

But the book has always been about more than this; in the character of Jo March (played in this iteration by Ms. Ronan), Ms. Alcott created a rebellious, tomboyish heroine eager for adventure. “I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy,” Jo declares in Chapter One. “And it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!” From afar “Little Women” may look like a standard 19th-century romance, but Jo is ready to subvert conventions from the start.

Ms. Gerwig’s film inhabits this spirit throughout. As in the book, the March sisters are intellectually curious, avid readers and artistically inclined, eagerly performing Jo’s melodramatic plays. Amy eventually goes to Europe to pursue a career in art, Beth excels at piano, Meg shows talent as a performer. In a pivotal scene late into the movie, Jo tries to describe to her mother what writing means to her and why she isn’t defined by wifely feelings. Women, she says, “have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts.”

There’s reason to believe this new “Little Women” has appeal beyond a predominantly female audience. Several male film critics have given enthusiastic reviews, and on Wednesday Ms. Maslin tweeted her belief that male opposition has receded now that the movie is out. “Men are loving it,” she wrote. “Even ones who said they wouldn’t go.”

Yet that this concern even existed to begin with is disheartening. If many men haven’t wanted to give it a chance because they don’t think it’s meant for them, we still have a way to go in considering all kinds of narratives about women to be deserving of thoughtful attention.

We can turn to a much-canonized American male writer, David Foster Wallace, for a vivid phrase not far off from Jo’s cry to her mother: Fiction writing “is what it is to be a [expletive] human being.” That’s what “Little Women” is — a plea for women to be seen as human beings.

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SO Let me see if I got this straight. People who are in fanatical support of a movie that has nothing to do with men, who's target audience isn't men and was never marketed to men seem to think it's mens faults but it bombed.

WHY DO THESE PEOPLE THINK MEN ARE OBLIGATED TO JUST GIVE UP THEIR MONEY?

Men that don't only one there Financial labor.

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go-diane-winchester · 6 years ago

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How Misha ruined slash fiction

THIS IS AN EDITED REPOST.

I first got into fandom slash fiction because of Lord of the Rings. Before that I had no idea there were others like me. The Ringers, as I prefer to call them, were the nicest slash fans and gave me the erroneous impression that slashers are really lovely girls. How wrong I was. But almost twenty years ago, I [and my generational demographic] had the semblance of mind to differentiate between fact and fantasy. I came across the definition of slash fiction, way back then. Its was generically defined as fanwork done by women for women. Of course one would argue that men like slash fiction too. Correction. Straight and Bi women like slash fiction. Gay or bisexual men like Bara. That is something that they indulge in because it is attractive to them. How trans people fit into this dynamic, would be an interesting study for the future and I have already done a post on that subject.

Straight women are completely different. How straight women show their attraction and what they are attracted to, is completely different to what gay or bi men like. Even bisexual women are still women and still writing from a female perspective. For decades, and I am counting the pre-star trek era, that was how things were. Women, for decades, had no other platform for sexual expression except slash fiction. The phenomenon started in the East, and spread all over the world. But Eastern and Western slash are completely different from one another. Why don't women just write something with a man and a woman? This is where we notice that slashers and other women are completely different. Slashers don't like to watch another woman’s love story. Its not satisfying for us. We can write ourselves as the other half of a pairing, like a Mary Sue scenario, but to be honest, its not the most popular genre because the only woman truly satisfied with the story is the writer herself. Women, very seldom, bond over Mary Sues. But slash stories are discussed as a way of bonding over a common interest.

Classic slash was hidden. It was underground, which was good because the uncultured riff raff stayed away. It was the ultimate girl talk. It surprised us, how similar our desires were and what we found attractive. Remember the faulty character Becky Rosen? Even though she is problematic, the moment Sam licked his thumb and wiped the ink stain off her nose, many of us turned into embarrassing swoony puddles. Why? He was cleaning her nose, for goodness sake. What’s so cute about that? I don’t know. We all just gushed at him. Remember Dean spinning the Impala in the episode “Baby”. I played that bit again and again. It had nothing to with sex. Dean was handling a car but I remember having a flushed face over it.

I read somewhere that foreplay starts in the kitchen. This applies to women anyway. So warming your girl up starts way before you even get her to the bedroom. So you start with a candle lit dinner and soft music and slow dancing. While he may be ready when he walks in through the door, she will need wining, dining, dancing and lovey dovey talk to get interested. Usually. Sometimes, she will appear suddenly turned on, but no, she just saw her husband helping an old man cross the street, and she thought ’‘why is he so stinking cute? Wait till I get my hands on him’’. But that is once in a while. We don’t switch on and off like men. We are, by nature, cautious creatures. Getting us in the mood is as important as the act of lovemaking itself. That is why art that is geared to women, generally, is over-the-top and melodramatic, indulging the foreplay more than the sex.

Ryan Gosling with a boom box [or whatever you call that thing] standing on top a car, confessing his undying love = foreplay. Jack Dawson making Rose stand at the head of the ship [or whatever you call it], making her imagine she’s flying = foreplay. Is it necessary to the story? Nope. Will the Titanic stay buoyant because Jack didn’t make Rose fly? Nah, its will still sink. Do we like it, nonetheless? Oooh, yeah.

For the past 80 or so years, we have kept slash fiction solely to ourselves because:

men wont appreciate it because its not their “thing”

men will misunderstand it [case in point: Misha Collins]

because it was sexual fantasy and some of us would prefer not to share that openly.

Did male actors speak about it when they did find out? Yes, in passing, especially if they were the subject of the story. A reporter or crew member would always tell them. In the case of J2, Kim Manners apparently told them what he had found on the internet. The Lord of the Rings cast found out because of Peter Jackson. What was their reaction? The same as all the other actor’s reactions: They would smirk/laugh about it, make a joke and move on. Then Misha Collins came along. The first time he had spoken about slash fiction, I had winced. Apparently, judging from the audience reaction, so had they. We really didn’t want this spoken about, openly, for two reason.

1] He was speaking to a general audience during his panel. Some of them don’t care for slash fiction and no, homophobia has nothing to do with it. If it doesn’t float your boat, it just doesn’t. Keep throwing the word homophobia around, unnecessarily, and its going to eventually lose its effectiveness because it is frequently being used to bully people into doing what you want, rather than for equality. So no, Jensen Ackles is not a homophobe because he doesn’t want to be up close and personal with Misha Collins. Grow up.

2] The sane slashers of those days, [and it was a decade ago] didn’t want their personal naughty little secrets spoken about so candidly in a public setting. Why? Let me illustrate. If you tell your friends, in a personal setting, how you like when a man runs his hands all over your body, it will illicit some “oohs” and giggles followed by their own contributions to the discussion. If you are sitting with that same gaggle of friends at a crowded restaurant and you say the same thing loudly for the whole room to hear, what will they think of you, especially if they have children with them.

Slash used to be one of those things a lady never spoke about in public, no matter how empowered she thought she was. Personally, I don’t think a lady has to relinquish her femininity and decency in order to feel empowered. That’s why I don’t like women, like Kim and Briana, who call themselves bitches to show how tough they are. Sure, I will break a man's face, if he puts his hands on me, but that doesn’t mean that I have no feminine qualities, and I won't exhibit this aggressive side of myself with a loving and caring man. I guess things have changed since the early days, and women are different now. But this is just my opinion and not relevant to the subject at hand.

If Misha knew how to gauge the audience, he would have understood there and then, that this is not a suitable topic to indulge in, where the audience was mixed and included some younger people, i.e., teens and children. What he did, was to keep running his mouth off about something he didn’t know. And its shows in the way he refers to Destiel as pseudo-porn. His fans were very angry about it, because it lessened their artistic efforts to pornography and nothing else. He said he went on Wikipedia to learn more about slash fiction. For a man who went to university, he is not very smart. If you have ever done any academic research report at university level, you will know that any report that includes citations from Wikipedia are immediately rejected.

Wikipedia is an unreliable source of convoluted, opinionated information that is sometimes not quantifiable and therefore cannot act as an academic resource. Plus anyone can edit those pages, no matter what agenda they have or how stupid they are. This fool didn’t know that. So he started to “educate” the still fixated younger batch [who have now grown into the hellers we loathe with gusto] in the audience and on YouTube as to what slash fiction was and that is why they like him so much. While other actors speak a line about it and move onto another topic, Professor Knowitall esq. will give his rather young audience a lecture on a subject he knows nothing about, thereby conditioning them to think that slash fiction is something that it isn’t. Is he that stupid or that arrogant?

If you look through Wikipedia, it will give you the impression that slash is homosexual in nature, and that it is an expression of gay love. The fact that those stories and artwork originated with straight women and are powered by the artistic efforts of straight women, is ignored. There are topics about queer recognition and LGBT relevance on that page. The page isn’t telling you what slash fiction is. It is telling you what other groups feel about it. I can tell you, almost a century ago, slash fans were not indulging this art form for those reasons. They were doing it for their own satisfaction. If other people like it too, that’s fine and dandy, but it is not about them. And what Misha has done with this fandom, which is bleeding into other fandoms via intrusive destiel fans, is to make slash about the LGBT.

That is why gay men are now getting angry because young impressionable girls are listening to him and turning a straight/bi female art form into an inaccurate gay platform. They are using things like closetedness, gay bashings, bigotry and even AIDS as a gay “trope” or theme for their stories. Gay men fought to change the name ''Gay Cancer'' to AIDS, because it was erroneously being considered a homosexual disease, and yet years later, we have a ''fake'' inclusive generation celebrating a story like ''Twist and Shout". No wonder gay men hate teen slash girls. If you write about a subject you know nothing of, you will write it wrong. These children [because they behave like that] are writing about some very sensitive and serious topics and they are romanticizing them. What person wont get angry?

In the old days, the two people who made up a pairing, were differentiated, by using two words: Seme and Uke. While slash was a straight female art form, gay men didn’t give two hoots about these words. They didn’t read the stuff. They didn’t care. They had bara. When “woke and non-bigoted, inclusive” slash fans started speaking for gay men through their stories despite the fact that these men have a voice of their own, the guys got angry because they don’t have a seme and uke role type in their relationships. Well, of course they don’t. Slash is not about gay men. Its about straight women and their sexual expression. And in their fantasies, there are seme’s and uke’s.

That is another problem with the Wikipedia page. When you look at the history, it starts with Kirk and Spock. The dunderhead who wrote that page, didn’t know that slash started in the east, probably Japan, although Hong Kong might dispute that. When it became animated in the 1970’s, the anime version was called Yaoi. The Japanese were actually making money from slash fiction way back when, by making comic type books, essentially novels with pictures. And it was those translated stories, which were almost always set in another world, that gave birth to Kirk/Spock slash fiction. Star Trek is also set in another world so to speak. The westerners got hold of these books when the Asians immigrated. The first slash stories were actually distributed in conventions, because the internet didn't exist back then.

There is only one other person who over-indulged his slash fan base. Harry Styles. He regretted it, because it ruined his friendship. So he stopped. But he had a good excuse. He was between the ages of 15 and 19 whilst in 1 Direction. He was a baby and didn’t know any better. Harry learned his lesson within five years and stopped. Misha has been on the show for ten years. He was in his mid thirties when he started on Supernatural. He was already a grown man who has no excuse, because he is not stupid. With the amount of damage the militant destiel fans have done, you would think that he would stop. He doesn’t. Because it gives him staying power.

The one thing I have noticed is, overindulging a slash fan [not necessary a heller - any slash fan] is like feeding a Mogwai after midnight. It turns into an uncontrollable gremlin. That is exactly what Misha’s militant fanbase is: a hideous collection of gremlins that he overfed and now they are attacking any mogwai that doesn’t show gremlin traits, even if they are mild-mannered destiel fans who don't like the leads beings threatened. What Misha’s dumb section have now done, is that they have taken slash fiction itself, and turned it into an increasingly hateful and problematic concept. Because, the general public, which includes J2 [because they have nothing to do with slash fiction], now have the impression that slash is a means of bullying and putting your indulgences before other peoples’ opinions and dignity, in the name of representation.

It also give the impression, to unknowing people, that homosexuals are boisterous and demanding people and you have to please them or else. The general public don’t know that predominantly female, heterosexual, entitled princesses are writing this crap. They think that gays are pushing slash fiction because words like gay, queer and LGBT keep popping up in a pro-destiel argument. Any gay man reading this, take heed, because these children are damaging your collective reputations. And if you don’t deal with it now, the PR headache you are going to have to deal with, in the future, as a group, is going to be immense. And it won’t even be your fault, but you will be blamed for it. How do you go about doing that? Speak directly to Misha. Shut up the master Gremlin-Troll himself. Tell him he is doing you a great disservice. After all, the mostly straight heller girls are speaking for you and he is pushing the microphones into their hands.

I always liked slash because not only was it a means of female sexual expression, but it was also a means of female creativity. Sure, we all like Cinderella, but it was lukewarm for some of us because, she was difficult to emulate. And growing up, we didn’t know she was a character to enjoy, not to emulate. Children always emulate what they see on screen. She was thin, pretty, a good singer with nice hair and small feet. I am club footed, bipolar and fat, with a lion’s mane that brushes broke on. I felt sorry for her because she was abused. I felt sorry for her because she was crying at one point. Then I remembered what I look like when I cry. Soft tears don't roll gently down my pink cheeks. Snot rolls down my nose, careening to the inside of my mouth. Not pretty. Not delicate. The story was nice but it left me feeling inadequate. Some women love it. Others, like myself, are “meh” about it.

When I read a bemusing slash version with actors in place of the fictional cast, I read the whole story smirking. I didn’t begrudge the beautiful lead [I think it might have been Jensen] because I was as besotted with him as Prince Charming was [presumably Jared]. I didn’t want to be him. I wanted him. I wanted the prince too, just FYI. I could be a fly on the wall in the story, without actually picturing how my insignificant self would fit into the story. That is what slash fiction meant to me. It was an escapist art form into a fantasy 'verse, that is custom made to put a smile on my face.

Now, Prince Charming is fighting for gay rights against his bigoted father, the king, and Cinderella is beaten by his ugly step siblings because he is a homo. And I look at it and blink. I am not the audience for this story. Empathy is one thing, but replacing your sexuality with someone else’s, is something else all together. Especially since every slash story now, seems to be about gay characters and gay rights and homophobia. Slash has turned into a one trick pony. How much could you write about gay rights? Slash’s creativity is running on autopilot. Take your ship, make them gay, make one closeted and unhappy, make the other out and happy, throw in a gay oriented trope, even AIDS [no decency threshold] and boom! You've got a story.

They’ve been writing in this way for the last ten years and they’ve ruined the whole genre. So much so, that destiel and cockles stories aren’t enjoyed by anyone except destiel fans, because Misha and Cas are in those stories. And he is always written as a precious smol bean. At this juncture, I have to point out that, to be fair, other ships on Supernatural and other fandoms are doing the same thing, because destiel fans bend the will of others to their own. I heard they are actually tagging destiel into posts about other shows. Other bloggers noticed that destiel and Misha are in Mother Nature tag. They don't even leave Mother Nature alone. Why? Because Misha has turned a harmless indulgence into an addiction. He is their only dealer and pursuing canon gives them their fix. They are gremlins on crack with stunted creativity.

Of course, the children argue that they can't read an unrealistic story which is why slash characters have to instead be gay. Oh yeah, then how come in Cockles stories, Misha is something pregnant. Sometimes, he is a pregnant wolf. So you can take your “realism” and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. When you write a totes realistic story, with gay characters rather than slash characters, you are disrespecting three groups of people:

the actors, who are your, sometimes, unwilling muses

the homosexual community, that you have absolutely no right to speak for

the earlier slash fans who nurtured this art form, before you ''woke'' idiots came barreling in, with your inclusiveness, and flushed their efforts down the toilet, all at the behest on one selfish man.

Decent slashers say: This is a work of fiction and has no bearings on reality. Then they go out of their way to not include themes that are synonymous with the gay community. The characters in a properly written story are never explicitly gay. They just like some guy, even though last week they were with a girl. And no, that doesn’t make them bisexual either. Remember, slash is a platform with a large percentage of straight females and bisexuals don’t want you speaking for them, either. Otherwise, nobody will dispute the hellers for saying that Dean is bi because he wore a purple shirt, once. The fed up bisexuals reading insulting meta on how Dean is bisexual, because of his food and clothing choices, are a case in point. So the character are fantasy slash characters. If I were to coin a word, then they are slashsexual.

They are just muses for the woman’s sexual expression. We don’t need to tell them what we are doing, thereby putting them in an uncomfortable position to amend or dispute our opinion about the subject. That is plain rude and borderline sexual harassment. Even if we are women and they are men. Treat them with the same dignity that you demand for yourself. Its got nothing to do with them. Don’t ask them. Misha, on the other hand, has no shame and will therefore never turn down a question. He will answer the question in a way that his gullible fangirls like, inflating his ego and giving him permanence in the show. Has Misha caused irreparable damage? I am afraid so. Older women, in the SPN fandoms, get caught up in life so they don’t indulge in slash as much. And so the brats are running this art form to the ground, teaching nonsense to those that are younger than them, parroting whatever crap Misha spews about slash fiction, in the name of sexual equality, representation and the LGBT. I am not even counting their online behaviour, just pointing out their horrible handling of slash fiction at the behest of Misha Collins. They still listen to him and its going to get worse and worse, until slash fiction becomes THE most hateful thing about fan culture.

Please note:

The analysis of slash fiction does not include tinhatting. Tinhats do not believe that the people they are writing about are mere muses. Cockles fans and J2 Tinhats believe that they people they are writing about, really are gay, but closeted due to public shame and ostracization. Tinhats, at least the ones that I came across, do not like to be seen as shippers. They are a separate entity altogether. That would be a fascinating topic for the future. Thank you to the tinhat who reminded me of this, because I completely forgot.

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