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lemonhemlock · 1 year

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What do you think about some of Asoiaf antagonists like Euron , Littlefinger , Varys , bloodraven Tywin , Roose?

some controversial opinions!

i like a lot of these antagonists actually! euron is one of my faves, absolutely unhinged and genuinely scary? one of the few undeniably evil characters george included in the books, like, i don't think euron has one redeeming quality to his name. but he's sort of mesmerizing? his actions make me sick but also leave me wanting more?? also he can be really funny and full of shit, which makes characters more enjoyable for me. love euron!!! hope lord leyton whoops his arse!!!! (fervently praying to the seven) euron is The One villain i couldn't possibly woobify even if i tried, so props to him he truly is *the one by shakira starts playing*

littlefinger & varys i can't really stand. i appreciate them for comic relief (always down for a good joke) but their meddling in westerosi affairs i find very exhausting & pugnacious. like, i realise everyone is out here for themselves, so, in that sense, them being self-serving shouldn't bother me the way it does, but i can't with these two. littlefinger is a naked opportunist and, while i can admire that trait in other characters, his sleaziness and lack of charisma put me off, so into the trash bin he goes.

varys i have an even bigger problem with. generally-speaking sanctimoniousness and moral righteousness are triggers for me and i can't really stand characters that are Like That. i legit fight with people who exhibit those traits in real life, like, i am an aries so i do not back down lol you'll die with me around your neck. there has to be something else in that character to balance out these things that annoy me, i guess, but varys didn't manage to make the cut, bc that is the entirety of his personality, i'm afraid. this may ruffle some feathers but i think that his scheme with young griff, real or not, is essentially morally bankrupt, in that he's out there role-playing the head of a research institute sending out his agents into the world to carry out this political experiment that may or may not work, but will have a huge body count regardless. it's very callously cynical to me, but he expects to be congratulated on how ideologically pure and morally unsullied he is - i think that's what drives me up the wall.

i know that people really want young griff to be real but varys' grand master plan is to destabilize a country, intentionally plunge it into a civil war that'll get a lot of people killed, in order to facilitate what would be another war of conquest undertaken under aegon vi's banners. instead of trying to actively improve the lives of the common people, since he's on the small council. he's still focusing on power plays and on plots with this brainwashed belief that he's doing it for the good of the people. but is he? he doesn't even know young griff. what if he turns out to be some bad apple; how is varys to know? idk i just cannot get behind it. and i don't think the author will eventually condone this message or plot as righteous either bc i don't see how aegon's reign will last. i think varys is the type of person dead-set in their belief that their actions are for The Greater Good in a the-ends-justify-the-means kind of way, but, ultimately what he truly cares more about is being Right TM - i.e. having his hypothesis proven to be true. clinical, cold researcher/mad scientist vibes.

for roose bolton i couldn't possibly mount a defense even if i were so inclined, but i do enjoy him as a character. i think he's very funny? lmao this sounds very obnoxious after i just tore varys a new arsehole but roose is unquestionably a villain, so there's no need to pretend like he's contributing to the good of society or anything. whereas with varys there is that element to him, perhaps why i find him annoying and roose i do not. roose has some great one-liners - he was funny in the show and he's funny on the page. absolutely awful but enjoyable for what he is.

for tywin i will not be writing any significant meta until i wrap up my last phd chapter and do a proper re-read bc i do not have energy to get into that disk horse right now. i know people hate him but yes he is one of my faves. with tywin i find that he generates three types of commentaries - either people hate his guts and see everything he does in a villainous lens or he attracts the sort of dudebro fan who idolizes the ground he walks on in a v silly way. the third way is the few people who might want to attempt to see him as more three-dimensional, but, because they don't want to get attacked, they preface their commentaries with disclaimers and apologies and messages that they absolutely do not condone his actions, so much so that the observations kind of get lost along the way. i'm neither. i want enlightened centrist meta on tywin lannister. i'm a chill tywin enjoyer, an aficionado of Machiavelli deconstructions. i'd lighten up the mood a little with my quirky takes. but anyway i don't really have time for that kind of fight and tywin himself would tell me to stop procrastinating and get my work done so i'll have to listen to Daddy i guess!!!

EDIT: oohhh i forgot about bloodraven. i'm gonna be contrarian about this one bc i really don't like it when george shoves his fave characters down my throat. i can FEEL that he really wants me to like bloodraven and the blackwoods, just like he wants me to like daemon the rogue prince. and it's annoying sorry old man. i don't think bloodraven is supposed to be written as 100% evil (george wouldn't do that to one of his faves) so his human life is supposed to be guided by some moral principles - i believe that he believed he was servicing the realm with his anti-blackfyre stance and surveillance regime and i believe that even the author intends that to be true to some extent. however, i can't say the same thing about his time as a magical tree. that's just some creepy AF shit. his luring of bran, i see that as magical corruption. bran is mostly a victim in all of this, but he is kind of tainted for me as a character now, bc i don't see how anyone could be 'redeemed' after dabbling in dark magicks like that, willingly or unwillingly. it would feel like a betrayal to how magic has been approached in the books so far - like a force you have to pay a high price for if you want to access it & not necessarily a bringer of peace and harmony either. that being said!!! if we ever got a blackfyre timeline show & bloodraven was played by this dark, sylphidine, mysterious, brooding albino twink......................i am not immune!

#ask #anon #what a question that was #euron greyjoy #petyr baelish #varys #roose bolton #tywin lannister #anon is currently off while i make my way through my backlog #bloodraven

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soldier-poet-king · 1 year

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finally sat down to watch da: absolution and i have Some Brief Thoughts and Jokes and absolutely NO political discourse bc fuck that shit i wanna talk about LOVE

the good

tevinter architecture my beloved

A SQUAD doing a HEIST aka my fave and why da2 is forever my fave game

little tidbits and easter eggs to the games for Lore Nerds

and then SOME BIG ASS CALLBACKS to the games

hawke continues to be incapable of killing their villains, next is the arishok or orsino ig ??

THEY GOT THE ELVISH NOSE BRIDGES RIGHT. MY BELOVED BIG NOSES.

terrible french orlesian accents

rezaren, this matt mercer looking mf, was an excellent villain. because like. he’s sympathetic. he has good intentions but he’s HORRIBLE and SELFISH and the story doesn’t shy away from showing him as horrible and manipulative. like yes maybe he doesn’t know better and he does care for miriam and neb in his own twisted way. that doesn’t make it right. doesn’t make it okay. doesn’t make him not a slave owner. and this really comes to a head in the dream sequence where he’s completely incapable of understanding why miriam doesn’t want to return to him, and then completely disrespecting her wishes, her autonomy, when she refuses him. he just cant see her and neb as real people even tho he cares about them in a childish selfish way. road to hell is paved with good intentions etc etc etc. like he’s so fuckin bad but also still sympathetic until maybe 2/3 of the way through the show when he goes full villain.

rezaren, had things played out slightly differently, could have been a dorian. dorian has some GOD AWFUL opinions in da:i and some deeply ingrained privileges and prejudices, esp re: slavery. he learns and grows and becomes better in the inquisition, and possibly leaving tevinter (even under such horrible circumstances) was the thing that saved him from becoming terrible because he didnt know any better. rezaren in many ways is a mirror of that, but slightly worse, slightly to the left, with fewer allies, never having his position of power challenged, etc etc etc. tldr i just think it’s neat :) it’s an arc i really enjoy and im just. obsessed with sort of well intentioned but also horrible people becoming better (or like. dying as full villains in the grave theyve dug for themselves and refuse to exit. either or yknow)

like blind privilege rather than outright malice is how 99% of the irl world’s evil happens and yet it is also where the most irl grace and atonement and forgiveness and betterment is possible. im fascinated by tevinter characters and tevinter in general. im never gonna shut up abt this.

cassandra cameo my beloved

as much as i hated the overabundance of quips (see below) roland is just. handsome. funny. charming. i saw a man so beautiful i started crying

tassia. her relationship with tevinter is complicated, much like dorian’s and i just. really love the whole ‘the place im from does horrible things and many would call it irredeemable and i understand that but also i think there’s a kernel worth saving there and i am going to work my whole life thanklessly trying to save it even if it wont try to save itself and even if that makes me the bad guy to both those opposed to and those loyal to my homeland’, i just think it’s neat and not at all a personal thing for me and religion :))))

‘no one ever saves us. so we save us’ maybe im sentimental and crying ok. whos to say. big believer in small kindnesses save the world.

the bad

negative points bc elves are wearing shoes and i like to think of them like hobbits and im v irrationally attached to this

qwydion is just. tall conventionally attractive woman with horns. not a vashoth qunari. where is my giant qunari woman. i demand a giant qunari woman.

suffers from mcu-funny quip disease. like fun quips can be enjoyable. in moderation. not constantly. we’re ALLOWED to have moments of genuine emotion, not everything needs to be counteracted and made light with a quip

some of the crew are caricatures but like. it’s a miniseries. i’ll forgive them. even if qwydion is comic relief and ofc lacklon (the dwarf) is the ‘suspicious untrusting one’

how could they kill fairbanks hes my da robin hood fave minor character and how dare they make me spend SEVERAL EPISODES thinking he was a traitor

the tevinter templars were....effective??? and had influence??? how does tassia have the authority to order rezaren around when in canon they’re just glorified bodyguards and only do what the magisters tell them? why are they actually effective against demons? why the fuck is tassia all like ‘oh no blood magic is evil im gonna report u to the divine’ like????? MAAM THIS IS TEVINTER AND THIS IS A MAGISTER not like. a soporati or laetan mage. how tf did u get the position of knight commander in tevinter if you arent willing to look the other way when magisters do blood magic

haha hawke is human disaster joke but also FUCK MEREDITH SO BAD I HATE THIS BITCH the joke is funny but i dont want her backkkkkkkk even if she WAS such a good villain UNLESS the da2 squad comes back but they cant do that bc anders’ fate is entirely up to the pc. also isnt varric the viscount of kirkwall. what the FUCK is going on in this city

ppl are saying miriam is ‘fenris but better’ but i resent that statement the show tried to do his 7 yr arc in 6 eps and it didnt work (understanably but STILL) and also im a fenris girlie first and foremost forever and ever so i will not stand for any besmirchment of his nearly perfect arc. he’s the PERFECT ‘character made to be a tool learns to be a person and love and be loved’ arc ok.

ik it’s been said but holy shit the dragon animation was BAD

#da:a spoilers #da absolution #da absolution spoilers #not discourse in the insufferably da fandom way lmao #just THOUGHTS bc i have a love hate relationship with tevinter #long post #dorian feels abt tevinter the way i do abt christianity send tweet #yes im a redemption for all truther #for better or for worse #ppl arent wholly evil even tho it is easier to think that way #and im just. i got a big heart and it is full of love but also so much anger

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rockslesbian · 1 year

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hmmmm im wondering if im ever gonna see any criticism of rian johnson/natasha lyonne's poker face bc its like that kind of lib-"progressive" pro-cop propaganda thats really dangerous and nonsensical??? it was like "meh whatever ive sat through criminal minds" until episode 4

starting the episode with two women who seem completely justified in their murder of the guy who convinced them in the 70s to join HIS lil movement (they even said he had cult leader vibes?) and then suddenly moving to Actually All Murder Is Bad by the end of it??????

even if i was on board with the whole OMGGGGG BOMBING THE MODEL UNION IS UNETHICAL thing..... wasnt it the idea of the guy who RATTED THEM OUT AND THEY MURDERED EVENTUALLY..... And even if it wasn't his idea it was because of him that they were there that night and he tipped them off to the feds. who opened fire on all of the protesters.

again. the idea is the feds/ have the right to open fire on these protesters bc Omg but they were gonna kill children!!!! which is not a thing. you cant just murder them when u get the tip. even in the tv show????? like ive never seen anything like that thats pure propaganda to get people used to the idea that if cops open fire on people they must have done something to deserve it hello?????

then charlie is completely fine with once again getting the feds involved and having these women arrested, not at all acknowledging that the guy who got them almost killed was in witness protection for years and they were supposed to... forgive him???? and its all played like they're crazy old bitches with paranoia like hello they were on the ground dealing with cops they were in prison for ages they have ptsd like theyre traumatized fuck you

also this whole "killing high schoolers" shit is so dumb and badly thought out bc if you took that out they would have been completely in the right if anything it just sounds kinda stupid or like it wouldn't have worked out. this is also propaganda bc i dont know if anything like this actually happened in history so it implies that the fbi is good for keeping these stupid low down hippies from hurting our poor future of america

LIKE idk it was awful i was rooting for those ladies the whole time the comedic timing of the random old annoying lady was so stupid like idk natasha lyonne became the villain real quick and the episode ended on a bad note! now shes friends with a cop and a fed! am i supposed to be happy!

i know a lot of murder mystery enjoyers don't care enough abt these things but its hard to suspend disbelief in someone who goes "im not a cop" and then takes two cops phone numbers like thats not.......

#just be fully lib at that point idk #not even gonna go into the dog she called a fascist for listening to right wing radio and then warmed up to

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

#loki spoilers #loki series negativity #loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #long post

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mynameisnowwyrm · 3 years

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Spoiler warning

TL;DR horrible adaptation, but very enjoyable on it’s own

(Also just wanted to say I was so sure I was going to hate this bc of what’s different but they changed so much the cartoon and the live action are barely connected in my head)

Okay my review will be split up into two parts: fate: the winx saga as an adaptation and as a standalone work

As an adaptation:

0/10. Maybe 0.5 if I’m being generous.

The things that were unchanged from winx club:

There are characters named Bloom, Stella, Musa, Aisha, Sky and Riven

Aisha, Bloom, Stella and Sky resemble their cartoon counterparts

Riven is an asshole

Bloom is a dumbass

Magic exists

The specialists exist

Main characters go to schools for magic and specialists respectively

The dragon flame is a thing

Witches exist

Other than that it’s a completely different show. The plot vaguely resembles season 1 of winx club only in that Bloom is trying to discover her true heritage. Musa, who is supposed to of East Asian descent is not, Flora was not included and in her place is a different character with similar powers, Tecna was excluded entirely ( I believe this was to distance the show from the futuristic elements of winx club and focus only on fantasy, which doesn’t make sense since they changed Musa’s powers ).

The magic system was changed. Fairies don’t on the regular transform since in the show the know-how to do so was lost, though Bloom does unlock the ability in the finale. Instead of each being a fairy of an individual concept, everyone’s powers ale element based, with Musa’s powers being changed to her being an empath. While this does feel more generic, it makes more sense from a world building perspective and I can see why they changed it.

The fashion is horrible. You will never be able to convince me teenagers dress like that. One of the reasons the original cartoon was enjoyable was all the colourful, fun clothing. The clothes feel dated and too mature for the characters, like I can see a twenty-something person in 2013 wear some of those outfits. It especially feels like a missed opportunity since 2000’s fashion is coming back into style.

The characterization of some of the characters compared to winx club was hit and miss. Riven was an ass and Bloom was impulsive and naive, which is accurate, but Stella, oh Stella was a disappointment. Stella was a jealous, manipulative bitch, which in context of her character backstory makes sense, but is so far from her original portrayal. Cartoon Stella was spoiled and at times self centered, but she was also genuinely kind, helpful and bubbly. To see her character take a 180 and become the all too familiar jealous ex archetype was upsetting.

Now, aaaaall that being said, I don’t believe we should judge this as an adaptation. They changed so much that it is quite literally a new story. So let’s see how it stands up on it’s own.

Summary, taken from the wiki

The series tells the story of Alfea, a fictional boarding school where teenagers study. The world inside this universe is not only magical and full of monsters, but it is also a world of real teenagers who do the most common things: make friends and enemies, go out and of course... fall in love. They are eager to find their place in this world. This universe is different from the one we have all known for a long time.

The attention is focused on a group of proud teens, also well-designed female characters. Sometimes they are heroines, sometimes weak girls. Sometimes they are friends, sometimes rivals. Of course, they are not perfect, but they are real. A group of girls who did not know each other until they are included in the same team inside a school that is strange to them. They will meet forces that are beyond their control and things they do not understand. But, throughout the series, they will find themselves, form an indestructible bond, and transform into powerful and strong girls, ready to change not only the supernatural world, but also ours.

Character summary:

Bloom is a newly discovered fairy from the human world who is attending Alfea college in the otherworld. There she meets her new roommates: chatty Terra, athletic Aisha, uptight Stella and stand-offish Musa. She also meets Sky, Stella’s ex, who is training as a specialist.Shortly before coming to Alfea, Bloom discovers she has magic powers by almost burning her house down and killing her parents. She is distraught over this and it is why she is eager to gain control of her powers.It is discovered that Bloom is a changeling, a barbaric practice where a fairy baby is exchanged with a human one. This leads Bloom on a quest to discover her true heritage.

Musa is an empath, she can feel the feelings of everyone around her. To shut them out and escape she listens to music through her headphones. This leads to her initially coming off as uncaring when Terra tries to get to know her better.

Terra is an earth fairy with a particular talent for making plants grow. She is very nice and chatty, eager to make friends, but not afraid to stand up for herself. She struggles with finding someone to like her and compares herself to “cool girl” Beatrix who has boys following after her.

Aisha is a water fairy who swims twice a day every day. She comes off a a good person who wants to make friends and do the right thing. She also tries to do everything in her power to protect her friends.

Stella is a light fairy and princess of Solaria, the realm in which Alfea resides. She is repeating her first year due to an event prior to season one where she lost control of her powers and blinded her best friend. She is very uptight due to her perfectionist mother and tries to exert control in every other area of her life, when this doesn’t work, e.g. when someone flirts with her on-again-off-again boyfriend she gets jealous and causes trouble. She is also generally rude to the people around her.

Sky is a specialist legacy and Stella’s on-again-off-again boyfriend who has an interest in Bloom. His father was a famous specialist and he was raised by his father’s best friend.

Riven is Sky’s roommate, best friend and a genuine asshole. He insults and antagonizes everyone around him and gets involved with Beatrix. He seems dissatisfied with the life of a specialist.

Beatrix is an air fairy with a lightning powers. She seems mysterious and looks to be the villain of the season. She has enlisted the help of Riven and Dane.

Dane is a first year specialist who first seems to be friendly with Terra but gets sidetracked after spending time with Riven and Beatrix.

What I didn’t like:

The world building is sparse and the magic system is generic. I feel like things could have been better expanded upon. Throughout the show they bring up archaic fairy magic but it’s never really explained how that’s different from current fairy magic.

The interactions between Riven and Dane come off as a bit queerbait-y although they could be setting things up for a second season.

Everyone is constantly so rude towards Terra. Even her supposed friends are mean to her. What gives?

Stella was constantly rude to everyone but by the end they are all the best of friends when she really hasn’t changed much. Also Stella being the jealous controlling ex archetype and not enough people calling her out on her bullshit.

What I did like:

For a Netflix teen drama there is surprisingly little sex between the teenagers. This might be subjective but it was refreshing for me.

Again subjective but I could definitely relate to Bloom’s antisocial teen flashbacks

Beatrix was a fun villain

Though the story might be a little generic, I felt it was compelling throughout. I genuinely wanted to know what happened next.

The story was well paced. It never felt like anything was dragging along

Overall:

The show was definitely enjoyable to watch. There is a lot of room for improvement. It sometimes felt like different plot lines were unconnected and the costume choices leave a lot to be desired. Aside from that they set up a solid story and likable characters (some of whom I love love and love to hate) which I very much want to see further developed in the future. As a stand-alone work 6/10

#fate the winx saga #winx club #winx stella #winx bloom #winx sky #winx #winx riven #winx musa #winx terra #bad adaptation #good show #fate the winx saga review #winx review #fate the winx saga spoilers #winx spoilers

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uwuwriting · 4 years

Text

Shirakumo x fem!reader

Request: Hold my fucking goggles bc we gettin angsty. Shirakumo angst. His gf get pregnant bc they're horny teens and she finds out after his death. Just how she deals with his death and the baby. Hehehhehehehe. I'm killing you Evie admit it. And congrats on 100 followers 💎💎💎💎- @the-arcana-fan-fic

Wow just wow. My heart is in pain and you are the reason Allie, I swear to god. I have some more Shirakumo angst coming your way bc people like to suffer apparently. Its me, I am people. So you better be ready for some pain. Love ya. 💖💖💖

warning: angst, unplanned/teen pregnancy, ouch my heart.

-You and Oboro have been together since the last year of middle school and you couldn’t be happier.

-He could go on for hours about your guys future and he even bought you a promise ring with the intention of replacing it with an engagement ring when he opened his agency.

-He would marry you the moment you graduated but he wants you to be a queen, and he’s broke so....

-You two have been active for about a year now and let’s be real this cloudy menace may have no experience but boii does he know how to make you feel good.

-Because of this mutual enjoyment and the intimacy of those moments, you two go at it like rabbits.

-When you start showing symptoms, Shirakumo is the first to say that you might be pregnant but he meant it as a joke.

-He was right though!!

-You ignored all the symptoms your body was giving you and just scratched it up as some bug.

-Then the incident happened.

-You called Aizawa searching for Shirakumo because he wasn’t picking up, only to get an ‘I’m sorry’ from the boy.

-Turning the TV on you saw the scene of the villain attack alongside a reporter saying that a UA student had been fatally injured, being announced dead on arrival at the hospital.

-Severe head trauma they said.

-At the sound of those words you collapsed.

-You didn’t have time to cry or scream, your body reacted on its own and put you into a dreamless slumber.

-You awoke on a hospital bed with some tubes going into your arm and your mother sleeping next to your bed.

-She woke up when you moved and dashed outside calling for a doctor.

-You asked her why you were here and what happened, having forgotten everything about Shirakumo.

-That lasted however only for a moment.

-Once she told you that you fainted in the living room, everything came back.

- “Where’s Shirakumo?”

-Her eyes widened at that a sad smile forming on her face.

- “No, no no no no no. He is fine, he’s alright. Please tell me he’s alright!!”

- “Sweetheart calmed down, please. It’s not good for you.”

-The doctor entered at that moment and almost manhandled you on the bed again.

-She explained that your fainting was a combination of the shock and the pregnancy and advised that you don’t over stress yourself, if you want the baby to be healthy.

-I swear to god you could feel your soul leaving your body.

-From that moment on you stayed silent, the few times that you did answer it was short and one word answers.

-This continued until you arrived home where you broke down completely.

-The love of your life was gone and you were left alone with another life to care about, when you could barely care for your own at this point.

-A life you two created.

-He should’ve been here.

-He HAD to be here.

-You couldn’t do it on your own.

-It took you a couple of days to calm down and think straight.

-You went to the funeral and never mentioned anything about your pregnancy to your friends.

-In a few weeks you would be out of Japan and on your way to the USA.

-You had decided to take your mother’s advice and move with her to America, start from scratch and have no reminder of him.

-You also saw this as an excuse to not bother your friends.

-They had just lost their best friend, you were brought into the group by Shirakumo, having them worry about your baby would just be cruel and unfair.

-And with that you left.

-The 8 and a half months that followed were hard.

-You had settled down and were taking online classes in order to finish school, but you became quieter and quieter as time passed.

-Your mother was almost certain you had fallen into a depressive episode, and she couldn’t really blame you.

-The baby was healthy though, you made sure of that.

-Your baby girl was born on a cold December night, right after Christmas.

-She was so cute and she helped pull you out of the depressive gutter.

-As she grew older, she resembled him more and more.

-From her hair which were the same sky blue his was, to her personality.

-She had his sense of humor and kindness while being a mini you with just his hair and eye shape.

-She had your eye color.

-When she developed a quirk you knew that karma was a bitch.

-She had a weird combination of your quirks and you can imagine how fast she learned how to ‘drive’ her clouds.

-When she finished middle school she asked you if she could try for UA.

-Said she wanted to be a hero.

-You couldn’t say no to her on that.

-She wanted to be a hero after all.

-Just like her dad.

-You just wished that she didn’t have the same fate as him.

-Time can heal, but losing both of them won’t.

TAG TEAM AY:

@the-arcana-fan-fic , @brattyquirks

#shirakumo x reader #shirakumo #shirakumo oboro #angst #bnha #my hero academia #god my heart #ouch #why do I do this to myself #shirakumo oboro x reader

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ac-liveblogs · 3 years

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oh geeze i always felt bad thinking "AM is the best route" bc so many (so. many.) people have gone "fIrST rOuTe BiAs" to dismiss it, but looking at the sheer shit show of the other routes.... it really is the best route. VW/SS have lore, CF.. uh..waifuism, but in terms of characters, drama, themes AM blows it all out of the water. If we could just get the cool map variety from the dlc & an extra chapter for redemption so it doesnt feel so rushed it'd be *chef's kiss*

Azure Moon is the best route in a lot of ways. It’s the only route -

with a coherent character arc for the main character - Edelgard and Claude are completely stagnant. Edelgard’s big character moment is falling in love with you - Dimitri meanwhile goes the full gauntlet. Rhea is off-screen in SS.

that makes good use of its main supporting cast - all of the BL are relevant or have something important to say, and their relationship with Dimitri is usually just as if not far more important than their relationship with Byleth.

that has actually dramatic, emotional stakes - is there actually any point in VW or CF you’re worried for Edelgard or Claude? Is there a point you think you might lose something? Or is it just a straight, easy shot to victory?

that actually competently utilises Edelgard - this is the best Edelgard you’re getting. Minimal waifusim, competent villainy, a great foil and personal rival to Dimitri. Proper setup and payoff for all the Flame Emperor stuff, too.

that competently utilises Byleth, christ. This is the only route where Byleth has an organic, evolving relationship with their Lord - growing, backstepping, recovering, helping each other. Claude drags you behind him and Edelgard is... that, but Dimitri and Byleth have a decent reciprocal relationship, and AM is definitely the route where Byleth’s Black Hole MC status does the least damage.

Gives a damn about setup and payoff. I talk about it a lot, but that’s because it’s important! One of the most important things!

Crimson Flower is a route where Edelgard dupes you into taking over the continent and murdering the other Lords, then has the gall to talk about humanity standing strong together as she slaughters one of the last survivors of a race nearly driven to extinction while the “real villain” of the game is ignored and dealt with off-screen. (Well, it’s villain route. What do you expect? If the game were more forthcoming about it, CF would be more enjoyable. Read as a hero’s journey, it’s atrocious, but as a villain’s victory march... far more palatable.)

Verdant Wind is a route where Claude will do all he can to convince you he’s a threat, reveal himself to be completely milquetoast, accomplish everything important off-screen, end racism (somehow), kill a secret society he found out about 10 minutes ago when he grilled Rhea bc he thought she was sus, then kill Zombie Nemesis who popped out of a hole. (Genuinely just bad. No emotional stakes to sink your teeth into, and nothing unique or exciting either... because it’s all off-screen.)

Silver Snow features Dimitri dying off-screen, Claude ollying out immediately, Edelgard dying pretty early, and you going to fight The Real Villain in a slightly more appropriate setting... and then Rhea goes nuts for no discernable reason and you have to put her down like old yeller. (Boring, but coherent.)

Azure Moon establishes Dimitri’s trauma and relationship with Edelgard early, spends the rest of the game building on those concepts while fleshing out Dimitri’s (complicated) relationships with the people around him, gives Dimitri and Byleth common ground they can use to deepen their understanding of each other, and ends the game by addressing all of these things and puts a bow on Dimitri’s character arc. It’s the only finale that doesn’t feel discordant. (Competent writing. Cosmic fluke.)

AM’s big weakness is that it doesn’t address The Real Villain or Byleth’s backstory, but honestly... the fact that it doesn’t is a good thing, because the other routes handled those things sloppily.

The only route I could imagine ~first route bias~ being an issue is... Crimson Flower. Because of the way it frames Edelgard and Rhea, and you’ve been primed to think of Edelgard as a hero because you don’t have the information to disprove her claims yet.

Hell, AM made me want to learn more about Edelgard. CF made me stop liking her.

#replies #ac plays 3h

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ziracona · 4 years

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So last night I wound up reading Amanda's wiki and It made me kind of sad for her, because it very much sounds like she was suffering from stockholme syndrome of a kind there, to me, atleast. Which makes me wonder, what do you think of the pig/amanda? What's your Amanda like in your stories? Do you think she had any potential for redemption (with A LOT of work)? I guess I just wanna hear your thoughts on her character because ur always rly good at it?? - Sleepy

Yeah, whoever wrote the Saw wiki loves Amanda and hates Hoffman and it’s genuinely hilarious. They make a lot of assumptions (like that her motive for killing Adam after he won his game was mercy killing, which is a throughly unconfirmed opinion), and use the most sympthetic & extreme language possible. I’ve watched all the Saw films, and as a character, Amanda is a very enjoyable villain, but as a person? She’s a truly awful human being. (Side note—this typed last— So, mentioning certain Saw characters sends me flying into a rage like a D&D berserker, so this is gonna get angry as hell, but 0 of it is at you. I love you. This is at the Jigsaw squad. WHO I FUCKING HATE. Ahem. Anyway. Felt like the level of unbridled and sudden fury needed a heads up lol.) It’s not Stockholm syndrome. In Saw one, she’s a victim who is put in a reverse beartrap and forced to either die, or cut the key out of the stomach of a paralyzed by drugs but very alive (which she knew) other kidnap victim, whom she cut open and killed. After enduring that trauma and barely surviving, she immediately accepted John’s offer to join him. She was not forced, she was not tricked. He asked, and because she wanted to feel special and important, she agreed to inflict suffering she knew goddamn well the horrible level of on others first hand, and went willingly. She is self-centered to her core, and became dependent on and infatuated with John, and obsessed with his approval. She kidnapped Adam and Lawrence with him, who were kidnapped for fuckall reason (literally John just thought photography was pathetic) and for almost cheating on his wife (lol this was John’s ‘stated’ reason—his real reason was John is the world’s pettiest bitch, and Lawrence was the doctor who told him he had cancer. I’m not fkn kidding he’s that level of petty self-absorbed, self-righteous bastard) respectively. Then killed Adam after he won his game, which should have given him freedom but John reneged on like he always does like the pissy little bitch he is, Amanda killed him for reasons up to speculation. However, given John usually tests people who win a second time or tries to get them to join or some bullshit, it’s more plausible to assume her motive was seeing him as a threat than that it was mercy killing, and it’s only stated in-film to be an emotion based decision, not her actual movtive. Everyone’s opinion on this action is just that—opinion. With varying degrees of factual basis behind the educated level of educated guess.

In Saw 2, she helps John kidnap a bunch of drug addicts like herself who all got false arrests by the same officer at one time or another, along with a poor fucking 15 year old whose crime is having that cop for a dad. She then spent the next two hours watching people whose only crime was drug use, like herself, die horribly of organ deterioration, knowing at any time she could have stopped it and saved them all because she knew how to get the antidotes. Bitch even holds one girl in her arms and stokes her head and pretends to care about her while she hacks up deteriorated lung and blood and fucking dies, when at any moment she could have chosen to let her live. Literally no one should be more sympathetic to them than her. She knows how addicted to drugs feels, and the help you need. Anyway, she doesn’t, she lets them die and plays with them, and then when it’s to her, the 15 year old—who multiple times saves or helps her when hurt by other participants, and is nothing but kind—and one other man, the man shows up to kill her to get an antidote, and the poor fucking 15 year old child kills him with a saw to save her, traumatizing himself to a breakdown afterwords, and instead of being even thankful, she attacks and knocks him out, ties him up and attaches an oxygen tank so he won’t suffocate, and locks him in a fucking like tiny ass safe to be a game piece for another trial and leaves him there. His dad, who admittedly needs to serve jail time but isn’t a fucking murderer at least & does love his son, shows up distraught looking for his kid he’s afraid is dead, and she sneak attacks and takes him down, then leaves him chained up in a nasty lost bathroom to starve slowly to death, and doesn’t even do him the decency of telling him his kid isn’t dead. When he breaks his foot to get free and comes hobbling wounded after her, she sneak attacks again and he nearly wins, but she fucks up his broken foot and starts to leave, then comes back and beats him (she thinks) to death becuase he said she would never be Jigsaw, and she’s that petty and proud. Kid never gets to know what happened to his dad, and even alive, will definitely die young from the complications one, you know, gets from almost dying of chemical organ deterioration.

In Saw 3, the main victim is a man whose kid was lost in a hit and run. Jigsaw has Amanda kidnap his wife because she’s a surgeon and also was once not as sympathetic as he thought she should be when talking to him about his cancer at the hospital (I’m not even fucking exaggerating—side note, I will beat John Kramer to death myself with my huge fucking meat fists and laugh as I watch his bones crumble to dust). This poor bitch just lost a kid, then separated from her husband because he was a fucking mess consumed with revenge against the poor college kid who accidentally hit his son & totally withdrew from the world, and she wakes up with a collar filled with shotgun shells basically a 360 gun blow off your head collar deal on, and Amanda wheeling her around in the wheelchair she’s tied to. They tell her if she keeps John alive until the person being tested finishes his test, she can go free. The whole movie, Amanda keeps trying to convince John to kill the poor woman even though she complies just because she’s a throughly selfish, petty, conceited, self-pitying bastard with no regard for others, and wants this “Bitch” to die for fun. She feels she’s a threat for John’s attentions, and John isn’t even romantically inclined toward her, but she’s obsessed and doesn’t care. Amanda decides between Saws 2 and 3 that people aren’t fixable—even though she herself was supposedly “helped” by her Jigsaw game and this is hypocritical as fuck—and just starts straight up fucking torture murdering for fun. To the point even John thinks she has to be stopped. Like if John fucking Kramer thinks you’ve gone to far? Jesus help you because no one else can. She still does the torture, but instead of like, chopping off your own hand with a paring knife and getting to live, you chop it off and then still slowly get your head crushed between two beams being screwed closer and closer together. She kills Kerry for fuckall reason except she wants to (Kerry is a detective who did jack shit wrong—she was just on the case. It’s utter bullshit). Kidnaps her, straps a thing with hooks in her ribs that will tear out her rib cage when a timer runs out, and kill her that way, and had her hung up above the ground tied by chains, and tells her if she burns her hand up in a bottle of acid to get the key at the bottom which is hard period in the suit—never mind losing the hand—she can live. And Kerry fucking does, ruins her hand, unlocks the lock, and the suit won’t come off becuase the cunt rigged it. Then Amanda shows up to watch her die for fun just to smile smugly at her and watch her fear. Because she’s a fucking soulless, sadistic, evil, self-centered, self-important asshole.

Obsessed dad let’s a fucking bystander whose only crime was seeing a hit and run and running off freeze to death stripped naked and sprayed with water in a freezer slowly, saves a judge who gave too weak a sentence to the hit and run kid after the man begs, and then lets the poor fucking college kid who did it and already feels awful get his arms twisted till they snap off, legs twisted till the same, and then his head twisted around back so far it twist snap kills him. The rack is fucking beyond inhumane death. Amanda monitors this while threading Lynn (the poor doctor lady) for fun and crying over poow wittwe John who is dying of cancer (thank you god for doing what we couldn’t), and being miserable. Eventually, Hoffman sends her a letter saying if she doesn’t kill Lynn, he’ll tell John that she was one of the people there to steal drugs the night his wife got injured and miscarried (he probably already knew 🙄), and becuase Amanda cares about nothing more than Amanda, she fucking monolgauges at John about how special and sad she is how he needs to fix her and she’s a murderer but she doesn’t care because you know—she’s depressed : ( so she gets a pass for her self she’s UwU sad so her poor little crisis can have a massive torture body count bc she’s that special UwU and why is Lynn not gonna die even though she did her job!??? So unfair! No one changes kill them all but tell me I’m special I’m symapthetic because I’m sad and that makes it fun for me to tear people’s ribs out :’( —and then she fucking shoots Lynn becuase she cares less about an innocent woman’s life than the potential for John to be mad at her :’-( you know—such symapthetic stuff! And then John is like “Ok then fkn die :’(“ and Jeff/unstable dad/Lynn’s husband runs in and shoots her and then kills John.

Anyway! I fucking hate Amanda with a passion, and John. I cannot stand humans who hurt each other for fun, especially when they target those who most need help. But above all I cannot abide a person who is a sadistic, selfish, wholly self-absorbed fuck of a human, and refuses to take any responsibility for their actions or admit how fucking bad they are and has the goddamn nerve to act like a victim. Like if you’re going to be an evil son of a bitch, at least have the decency to admit it. If you’re a self-pitying “im uwu special and sad and better and more important than everyone else” —double points for “& becuase I am attractive I can get away with being a soulless shit without any being held accountable” from fandom or the media itself, tripple if from both—? I will kill you myself. I will rip out your eyes and chew on them. I will kill my self on a bomb to take you too. I will chew off my left arm for the sole purpose of getting to beat you to death with it. The wiki writer bends over back so bad they’re gonna need a brace the rest of their life to make her sound sympthetic, but they’re just a fan. She’s not. At all. She doesn’t have Stockholm, and I see people say “she got manipulated and used : (“ all the time, but without fail so far it’s people who think she’s hot and just want a reason to stan that because somehow a hot white woman with short hair even if canonically infatuated with John Kramer is somehow both a lesbian, and excusable for every horrible torture murder she ever did to feel uwu special in her depressed sad times. She wasn’t manipualated. It happened fast, she wasn’t courted into it, and she didn’t even hesitate to say yes. He offered her an out, made sure she was serious, and she stayed. And then she escalated to the point John took her out to stop her, because it was worse than what he wanted to do. I enjoyed her as a villain but as a person I fucking hate Amanda, and don’t really want to see her get another chance. Bastard doesn’t deserve one. I can’t say there’s no continuum in which she could never improve or be redeemed becuase who the fuck knows, and I like to think there’s a smidgen of hope for anyone, but that said, I do think the more evil you willfully do, the more you lose your humanity, and you can hit a point there’s just no person left. So. Anyway, hah, I don’t think she’s redeemable and frankly don’t want her redeemed. I want to burn her to death myself if I have to die that way too. Also! This was a wildly angry answer but none of it is directed at you. That wiki writer does make her sound symapthetic, I’ve read the wiki too—just I go into a blind rage any time John or Amanda is even mentioned and it takes me a half hour to come back down. I fly into a rage. If I ever go into anaphylactic shock, all a friend has to do is start mentioning the names of Saw villains and my adrenaline will start pumping like jet fuel and I’ll be fine. I just have a whole lot of righteously just rage at horrible awful self-righteous self-absorbed malicious manipulative dehumanizing self-pity bastards who take 0 responsibility for their evil or admit it, and Amanda & John are two at the way top of that rage list. It’s a dark but powerful headspace when I think of them. I become very powerful...but also very enraged. Lol, anyway, here’s the breakdown you didn’t need, but it is throrough!

#ask #Sleepy #anonymous #Saw #dead by daylight #Amanda Young #Saw 2 #Saw 3 #spoilers #side note! I have friends who /do/ love her as a character—I ain’t got beef with her existing or smth. or people who enjoy or love her #I like my fair share of horrible villains. I love Rafe from Uncharted 4 & he’s a certified piece of shit.#the only thing that gets me is people who try to be like ‘🥺 : ( but she’s a pwetty white woman w short hair which = lesbian /queen/! & makes #her exempt from all responsibility of torture murder. 💕💖 bc she’s so special and she was sad : ( I hc she dissociates so how can people not #love her if I pretend she doesn’t know what she’s done when canonically that’s not the case but I still think it? why do you not adhere to #my personal head canon making her sympthetic. : ( She’s pretty so she deserves 0 guilt or punishment. pwetty sad poor little baby girl : (#needs love. TuT No badness ever wum? she isn’t responsible for her own actions what u mean an adult is responsible for their choices even if #sad?? :0 No. I don’t understand you can love terrible characters so I have to snap my back in half trying to pretend she did nothing wrong’#because I have uhhhh seen it more than I wish despite my best efforts & im so goddamn tired :’)#sorry Sleepy this is like #one of my top 10 ‘I’m flyinn into a rage’ buttons I can’t help it I hear John or Amanda’s names & I see red #and can’t stop until the Justice and Judgement cards of life’s tarot deck are done punting me back and forth like a racquetball

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theskyexists · 4 years

Text

Praxeus

Graham looks so strange - with glasses and out in the sun - lol.

I was just gonna say: oh these two husbands are so nice. And I'm gonna say it again: these husbands were SO NICE. That really was a very nice romantic story. (I was scared they were gonna kill one of em off).

I was very ???? When Yaz was like : I'm going back! And then the Doctor was like: ok! But I guess it makes sense when she's juggling so much?

Loved Gabriela teaming up with Yaz because it showed how much Yaz has grown and the Two Girls Roaming repeat was great. Also a nice little touch that neither Ryan not Yaz knew of their vlog as a way of saying they were out of touch (only - is that really a thing? Are vloggers really so popular that everybody should know them???). Gabriela switching from Ryan to Yaz in an instant was a weird twist but I spose there was no alternative plot-wise.

Gabriela checking Ryan out? Pretty funny. 'I do a lot of running'. HA.

Really really loved all the character moments - Yaz turning Graham's map, Ryan ragging on Graham, Graham playing granddad again. Him being just a bit of a silly old man but still very wise. Great.

Sad Suki couldn't be saved. Sadder Amaru was....killed??? That bird behaviour wasn't explained entirely. (Or why they'd have him walk out onto the beach - or why they felt the need to kill him - Chibs is so trigger happy). Did he survive because of the plastic antidote? I don't think so bc they didn't show it. Honestly he was completely useless as a character and it would have been better if he'd been cut. There weren't really any stakes to his death and he didn't really have much depth afforded him. And it makes no sense that he'd never notice Suki experimenting on people? Actually now that I think about it - did they control the birds or not? Because that's kind of implied - but how. Or did they just nab everybody they found to be infected. That reminds me that I have no idea how Adam texted his husband.

Upset that there was no reference to the Doctor going out to save this other planet from Praxeus.

The cure was also....I mean. Planet Earth has the microorganisms to fight back against the bacteria? Why then weren't any microorganisms capable of that on that other planet? But it was nice to get some basic biology education I guess.

The Doctor WAS wonderfully snappy, brilliant and the beats on her suddenly showing up were very fun. Her gun-aversion was also quite subtle this time - which made it enjoyably hypocritical. I really really really enjoyed the dialogue, acting and editing here.

Not sure about Graham and Ryan not knowing what pathogen and microplastics are....I mean. Are there people put there who don't know that...?

Quite liked the international approach too.

'Look at you going out on your own and not getting killed.'

It seems like the Doctor really does try to limit their exposure carefully but knows she won't always succeed. But....what an interesting thing to say.

Hmmmm. Yaz' dissatisfaction was also telling...of something. This is the first time I think we've seen her strike out on her own - and it REALLY contributed to the solution. I love that - but Yaz is not happy with the result.

Ryan saving the Earth by collecting a bird from Peru - good stuff and Tosin Cole plays it brilliantly. It shows - finally - how these adventures and the Doctor really build him up.

The Doctor divvying up tasks actually felt relevant and not contrived because she WAS actually consistently too busy to take care of everything herself. Graham's empathy interacting with Husband1's issues had major impact, Ryan sticking with his jobs and reporting in and doing them well - had real major impact, Yaz going beyond what is asked of her - had major impact. And the acting from them was wonderful.

The guests mostly had one-note emotional stories - and that's how it should be, I think. Giving them just enough texture but not so much that they detract from the companions - rather, their stories show off new facets to the companions.

This story -the threads - most of it really came together. Pete McTighe did great on this (which, surprising, after Kerblam!) - a more subtle environmentalist message mostly based in education and a genuinely despicable act from a nuanced villain - using a whole planet as a laboratory for studying a deadly pathogen after your own has succumbed??? That is NOT ethical science (even if the despair in her was obvious) and the moral message was clear and appropriate. The Doctor reaching out nonetheless was also very well done.

That the Doctor did not think to sonic these gas mask creatures and establish they were alien before, or take off their masks (you can't tall me those were deadlocked) - whatever... They kicked the pace high enough that that plot hole wasn't obvious.

If all episodes had been and are going to be like this I would be very happy indeed.

(loved all of the Doctor's lines but especially her line about being weak for scientists lol)

#dw #my stuff #praxeus #doctor who spoilers #dw spoilers #i.....really enjoyed that #the plot holes dont really matter to me tbh #vidi #edit: they do matter to me as there are like ten more than even listed here #but i still enjoyed it

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clonerightsagenda · 5 years

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The epilogues look terrible and I don’t want to spend my time reading them... but I love + trust your judgement and your takes on things. Could you summarize them? (No pressure if you don’t want to)

OK, it’s been a few weeks since i read it, but I will do my best.NOTE: This is probably not comprehensive and definitely not objective. As a supplement, I did some poking around, and the MSPA wiki has some bullet points. I also eventually found another summary on tumblr, albeit by someone who also didn’t like it, so it is probably biased as well.

ANOTHER NOTE: Those content warnings weren’t a joke. Below are references to sexual content, assault, suicide, sexism, transphobia, character death, and probably some other stuff.

WHAT HAPPENED:

In the prologue, Rose summons John to inform him that he needs to defeat Lord English right now, or they will all experience terrible consequences. These are mostly meta consequences you can interpret as ‘if we don’t produce new Homestuck content on its 10th anniversary, everyone will give up on this franchise for real, and also canon doesn’t seem stable when the big bad never got beaten’. John goes to visit Roxy and Calliope before he leaves and is given the option to eat either meet or candy. This represents a choice he is supposed to make, and that choice creates two timelines.

In MEAT, John travels back in time and gathers three 16 year old versions of his friends. They confront Caliborn in the battle he represented in his Masterpiece and are sucked into the house juju. Vriska activates it, but not before being pulled into the black hole. Rose and Jade die immediately, with Rose’s body being destroyed and Jade’s falling into the black hole, because why should women get to fight the story’s biggest misogynist. Dave lands a solid hit on English before having his head bitten off Mami from PMMM style. John gets chomped on as well and a gold tooth ends up embedded in his chest. Davepeta appears and drags the wounded LE into the black hole. John finds his father’s wallet, retrieves his car, and slumps inside. Terezi appears, in bad shape after a long time wandering the ring. She seems confused at his state (explained because in CANDY she has been texting that version of him for years). She removes the tooth from his chest and they have sex.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Dave and Karkat have avoided talking about being a relationship for seven years, while Jade harasses them about becoming a threesome. This is explicitly tied to her abandonment issues but also she is referred to as a slut so like. Don’t love that. Jane is running for president, and Dave thinks this is terrible because she’s a woman fascist and doesn’t understand the economy and Karkat should run instead. Other shit is happening but I lost track. Rose is ill because she’s becoming her ‘Ultimate Self’ and seeing all timelines. Dirk claims he’s overcome the same problem and offers to help her but ends up controlling her and revealing he is the one actually writing this narrative. There is a bit where the narration starts addressing the reader directly and then turns orange which I admit is genuinely cool and might have been interesting if done with characters I didn’t actually care about.

Dirk amps up controlling the narrative, directly forcing people to do and think certain things. (For example, he sequesters Rose away in his workshop and tells Kanaya via narration she believes Rose is better off with him, and she uncomfortably agrees without understanding why she thinks that.) He supports Jane’s bid for the presidency, even though she wants to crack down on trolls because they are naturally violent and reproduce too fast. Everyone tries to get Jake’s endorsement because he’s popular, which includes Jane attempting to seduce him in a very uncomfortable scene.Then Jade slips into a nice coma, because it’s not Homestuck without Jade losing her agency, and alt!Calliope starts using her as an avatar to take control of the narrative away from Dirk. They have some back and forth arguments before he is pushed out which, again, is genuinely clever but would be more enjoyable without all the edgy bullshit. Dirk eventually tricks alt!Callie and sedates Jade, taking back control of the story. Jane wins the presidency. Also at some point Meat!Roxy and Callie ID as nonbinary and start using they/them, and narrator!Dirk freaks out about it and misgenders them a lot, which is character assassination bc everyone knows Dirk is a trans icon. Anyway. Dave and Karkat have an awkward talk about their relationship where they keep dancing around things and Dirk tries to force Dave to kiss him. Dave gets frustrated because he’s aware someone is trying to make him do something (like with the Aimless Renegade), and eventually yells at Dirk to get out of his head before kissing Karkat. Terezi brings John back to Earth, and he begins to fade, since apparently LE’s tooth was poisoned with something more powerful than god tier that makes you irrelevant. Possibly a meta commentary on the hero or story not being needed once the big bad is gone. Terezi is sad about this and listens to him bleed while she smells him die. Then Dirk contacts her via narration and implies he can help her. She gets a text (later revealed to be Vriska). Dirk gets a spaceship from Jake after forcing him via narration to grovel about how much he loves him and then rejecting him and flying away with Rose and Terezi in tow. Jade wakes up long enough to tell everyone Dirk’s gone bad before she gets repossessed and starts pointing in his direction, prompting everyone to give chase.

There is a final scene that will make more sense later, so I’ll add it later.

CANDY

John decides not to go fight LE. Roxy is delighted, and they began dating. Calliope tells John it is time to let Gamzee out of the fridge. Gamzee pops out and claims he is redeemed in a long speech making fun of sloppy redemption arcs. He then proceeds to be terrible for the rest of the story.Candy essentially satirizes Harry Potter epilogue style fics. Jane marries Jake (it’s implied she essentially roofies him with the trickster lollipop) and has Gamzee on the side. They have a son named Tavros. John and Roxy have a son named Harry. Rose and Kanaya adopt a troll clone of Vriska and name her Vriska. Jade, Karkat, and Dave are all dating, but Dave and Karkat are miserable. Dirk kills himself when he realizes the timeline went off kilter. Jade’s corpse from the Meat timeline crashes to earth, and in the middle of the funeral (which was genuinely a good scene) she sits up, possessed by alt!Calliope. Alt!Callie sequesters herself on the old meteor, now landed, and explains to Aradia and Sollux that this timeline is a dead end and she is protecting it from the influence of the prince. She also, in a parallel to Dirk’s reveal in Meat, talks about how every narrator has an agenda even if the text is formatted to make you not realize that.Jane becomes a fascist dictator and begins oppressing trolls. Karkat eventually get sick of being in a trio and runs off to be a resistance leader, including getting a sick eye patch (reference to Summer Teen Romance). Meenah stole the Ring of Life from Meat John and lands in the session; she and Karkat begin dating. Other ghosts begin falling from the sky as well, and Gamzee converts them to his redemption religion.John feels like something is really off. His only solace is texting Terezi a lot, and he seems closer to her than he is to his wife. He and Roxy break up for a while and then (non-romantically) reconcile. Jake eventually leaves Jane and takes Tavros with him. Jade and Dave become rebels as well, then Dave meets a hologram of Obama, who helps him attain his ultimate self, putting his soul in a new robot body.

Oh, also Vriska falls out of the sky, has hatesex with Gamzee, kills him, and then talks with Rose and Kanaya’s Vriska about how she loves Terezi. Then she texts her, as seen in the Meat timeline. Isn’t Vriska 13 and Gamzee an adult at this point? Probably. There’s a lot of questionable age stuff in this.

I’m sure I missed some details. Can you tell I’m losing steam.

Anyway, the two last chapters of each section reference the other storyline. At the end of Meat, Lord English’s body falls out of the sky, and alt!Callie (still in Jade’s body) devours it, becoming powerful enough to battle Dirk. Candy!Davebot arrives and he and Aradia jump into the black hole in pursuit.At the end of Candy, Dirk’s ship nears a new planet where he intends a new game of SBURB to be played. Rose is in a robot body serving as his handmaid essentially, and Terezi’s also on board.

TAKEAWAYS:

There are a lot of different interpretations of the epilogue. A mockery of the two extremes of fanfic. Andrew Hussie continuing the theme of ‘all authors are tyrants by nature’ and using his self-insert to display how he hates his own story but also can’t stop telling it. Dirk trying to create conflict by making himself a villain because otherwise they’ll lose relevance and disappear. Musing on how being arbitrarily labeled 'grown up’ when you’re not ready (aka handed godhood by a game that doesn’t understand people) can fuck you up, and there is no single winning screen in life. Just a big old meta experiment on unreliable narrators. I can see where some of this is coming from, but frankly, I found it disturbingly sexist (even if it is intended to be so for effect). A lot of the sex and violence felt over the top and graphic just to be #ow the edge rather than serving any narrative purpose. Also, authors can do what they want with their texts, and they’re allowed to write tragedies, but after Hussie’s self-insert informs Caliborn that the most important stories are about friendship and teamwork and the fandom (that I’ve seen anyway) really responding to the bonds between characters, it felt cruel. That’s my feeling. Not everyone shares it. But hey, I’ve got my solution.

#Anonymous #homestuck//#bluh bluh huge bitching alert

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nat-20s · 5 years

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Top 5 Breakdowns over David Tennant- any fandom/show/ play you've seen? I really liked the dw one you did, just hoping you could expand over/ include other things he's been in.

Oh anon you are QUITE the enabler thank you.

So this is like half actual breakdown list and half just like David Tennant recommendations in general because I love that funky little scot.

+1. This isn’t going on the official list because I already did the previous list you mentioned (i’m glad you liked it, btw!!!) but yeah. Doctor Who. He plays the doctor in a very fuckin uhh mercutial way (he plays a lot of characters that way and I am 100% enamored by it every fuckin time he just does it SO WELL AUGH) and like highs were so high and the lows were so low and he was so FURIOUS AND CRUEL but also so GENTLE AND KIND and like oof!! The multifacetedness bitch!!!! That’s what it’s all about babey!!!

5. Good omens. I mean, duh. There was no fucking way I was gonna survive good omens. Like, honestly, even without miss tennant I wouldn’t have survived it because HA HA HA HA H O L Y SHIT MY FAVORITE BOOK FOR THE LAST DECADE WAS GETTING AN ACTUAL SCREEN ADAPTATION I GENUINELY DID NOT THINK WE WOULD EVER BE HERE THIS SHIT IS LIT. but then but THEN it was like. The way that he portrayed crowley definitely fit into a particular niche that david tennant KILLS. Like god okay I could spend an whole fucking essay on this point so I’m gonna distill this down to just. THE moment that I was like “okay okay okay okay fuck I’m GOING THROUGH IT” was when his voice cracks as he tells aziraphale that he lost his best friend because like in context OOF and out of context I have been Pavlovian trained for the past decade to Utterly Lose My Shit when David Tennant is like this close to crying and he expresses that with his whole body THE ASSHOLE! LET ME REST. I THOUGHT I WAS OVER THIS MISTER!!

4. The Escape Artist. Lesser known (I think?), but a VERY GOOD miniseries! The tone is much darker, and he’s a much more serious character. Similar vibes, role wise, to broadchurch. I’m not sure how much rewatch value it has but watching it for the first time had me like MISSION STATUS: SICK!!!! It’s like a cat and mouse mystery and like. I’m not gonna go to in depth into the story because I think it’s more enjoyable to go into it not knowing much and too me it was one of those things that took like 3 hours to watch all of and a full week or two to like. Process. Also I’m not usually one for drama and I was ABOUT it so I would recommend!!!

3. JESSICA JONES (season 1). Holy FUCK dude. Definitely his darkest and most evil role, and the subject matter is VERY heavy and I definitely would NOT recommend it for everyone because it could be, how you say, triggering as fuck or even just because it is incredibly dark and that might not be your thing. Funnily enough, it’s DEFINITELY not my thing, personally, I tend to avoid narratives about sexual assault because so many of them are, uh, ya know, bad, but Jessica Jones season 1 really is done FANTASTICALLY! The David Tennant breakdown was just a level of cognitive dissonance because I had never seen him play like a VILLAIN villain. I mean, yeah, he was Barty Crouch Jr., but that was for like 30 seconds and while the dude was creepy there was a layer of campy over the topness that is present in most fun fantasy franchises. I remember when he was cast as the purple man me and my parents were like. Yeah he’ll obviously crush the role because he’s talented but in the back of our minds we’ll probably still be thinking of like the doctor and I wonder if we can fully accept him playing the role. Yeah there was fucking NONE OF THAT. When he played Purple Man I never ONCE thought of his other roles and I didn’t even, like, think of David Tennant, ya know. I was just like oh shit this man is evil and terrifying and I want him dead! Please die!!! And yes, I know that that’s how acting works or whatever but also ACTING ya know!!! Of any of the roles on this list this one definitely made me be the most like SHE HAS THE RANGE because I really think it highlights how INCREDIBLY GOOD at his job he is!!! I have not ever rewatched Jessica Jones season 1 though because while it is honestly like a triumph of television it is also A Lot to deal with and I am very rarely in the kind of mindset where I’m able to watch it. But yeah. David Tennant knows what the fuck he’s doing and it is very good.

2. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING BABEY. Literally I knew nothing about the play or why I should care but the promo material was like. Catherine Tate and David Tennant are costars again and I was like OKAY SIGN ME THE FUCK UP HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH. For real I think on screen chemistry Catherine Tate and David Tennant are one of if not just straight up my favorite duo of all time. They are just so DELIGHTFUL and ENCHANTING and BEWITCHING and basically I want them to costar in everything ever. @azirafeathers was like “sherlock holmes adaptation where she’s sherlock and he’s watson” and I haven’t stopped thinking about that since!!! I would give my left thumb or at least like a solid $60 to see that. Like PLEASE it would be PERFECT. I LOVE THEM. And god this production of much ado is definitely like. “Here’s Benedick and Beatrice. They’re two chaotic dumbass bisexuals that are like fives on the kinsey scale and they fall in love much to their surprise” and it’s TERRIFIC. That’s exactly what I like to see. Like it’s set in the 80s and the set design? The visual gags? The costumes? The soundtrack? THE PHYSICAL COMEDY? It all SLAPS. David Tennant really balances “fun and funky slut” and “utterly PINING idiot” so fucking well. I have said it before and I will say it again David Tennant peaks when Catherine Tate is being mean to him. Also really iconic to give him the role that is like the only man in the play that is (after a bit) CHUGGING his respect women juice. I mean LOOK at this utter buffoon.

I’m in love. This play made me a proud morosexual. Plus it’s all FREE ON YOUTUBE THE NEXT TIME YOU HAVE THREE HOURS AND WANT TO HAVE A GOOD FUCKIN TIME GO WATCH MUCH ADO!!

1. H A M L E T. So imagine that you’re 14 and it’s 3 am and you’re casually watching David Tennant’s hamlet on youtube or at least the parts they put up and you’re painting stars on your ceiling with glow in the dark paint and it makes you realize that you have an excess of black bile and a melancholic temperment and you’ll understand why, while this might not be my all time favorite david tennant role (though it definitely is high up on the list) , this is absolutely my number one David Tennant Related Breakdown. Hoo boy. This probably doesn’t come as a shock to literally anybody that knows me irl bc I Will Not shut up about Hamlet and it is this productions fault. Different people will respond differently too it, and I’m definitely 1000% biased because a: I love him and b: it was the first production I ever watched and it’s what got me On My Bullshit, but this production honestly makes me like. Get Hamlet. Or not get hamlet, personally, as a character, we’re never meant to fully understand him honestly, but it made me understand the ALLURE of the play. I watched it and I was like oh. Yeah. Okay. I can see why people have been obsessed with this for 400 years. I know why it’s considered one of the greatest roles and one of the greatest plays of all time. And I went absolutely feral for it. It solidified Horatio permanently as one of my all time favorite characters in anything ever. David Tennant has this tendency to put manic and desperate energy into the characters that he plays, and that of course works extremely well for hamlet. Plus, like, he plays characters that are drowning, that need the assistance and kindness of love to try and float, and even with that might not be able to keep their heads above water, and the characters that are opposite him are basically always wonderful. Because I am deeply deeply predictable, the core dynamic of Hamlet and Horatio’s relationship is probably like THE most appealing and interesting and important aspect of the play to me, and Peter de Jersey (who is absolutely INCREDIBLE in this production) and David Tennant pull it of breathtakingly beautifully. Every time I watch this I have to lie down for a while. Every time I THINK about this I have to lie down for awhile. So, yeah, number one David Tennant based breakdown is over his hamlet.

Honorable mentions

this gifset-I have not seen what this is actually from but it made me have a conniption. I’m in love with her. She’s my idealized self. I don’t know what to do with myself. I spent 5 hours looking at this now. What the fuck.

The Decoy Bride- I didn’t have a breakdown over it BUT it is a recommendation. Very silly rom com, very much a comfort movie like music and lyrics or singing in the rain for me. Great for sleep overs or rainy sunday afternoons.

Richard II- I haven’t seen it but based on one (1) clip and some stills I would be lost in the sauce for a week after a viewing.

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger- watch nativity 2 danger in the manger.

Fright Night- jesus fucking CHRIST mister tennant went full slut

Casanova- Mister Tennant Goes Full Slut part 2- has blue colored contacts and it’s weird

#anon #replies #sorry this took a hot minute but i wrote uhh #squints at the screen #1700 words on david tennant making me lose it jesus christ #Anonymous

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movienotesbyzawmer · 3 years

Text

August 26: Mission: Impossible III

(previous notes: Mission: Impossible II)

Another one I haven't seen since it first came out (fifteen years ago!), but I remember liking it. Other than the exciting new personnel in the cast and in the director's chair, I really can't remember any details about this.

The director is, of course, J.J. Abrams. He comes in scalding hot from his television work, most notably Lost, and is making his feature directorial debut here before eventually directing what is currently the top-grossing movie of all time in the US. There was reason at the time to expect an improvement over the spotty second entry, but what does it say that I can't remember anything at all… okay let's start it.

You know how movies often love to tease the audience by opening with a really really exciting scene that's supposed to blow your mind and make you go OH my GOD like HOW did we GET to this VERY EXCITING SITUATION and then they jerk it all away and start from the beginning, this movie begins with that. That and very "modern" shaky shaky handheld camera stuff. I don't like that handheld stuff but whatever.

After the credits it's clearly back to before-problem. Ethan is having a chill dinner party with his girlfriend who is not Thandie Newton but who is definitely being tortured by Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the opening tease.

That is subtly interrupted by a covert request to meet at a convenience store for some espionage and, perhaps less subtly, a lot of exposition. Very unnatural dialogue lets us know that Ethan is not in the field any more, he is a trainer, but one of his trainees is in trouble with PSH and will he help please. Also that was his fiancée not his mere girlfriend. That is a much more elite status. High stakes OMG.

Off to Berlin, and I'm reminded that the previous movie didn't do as much globetrotting; it was pretty much in Australia the whole time. I like location diversity.

The rescue of the played-by-Keri-Russell former protégé is not a stealthy one. They plant a bunch of blowy-uppy things around the rusty warehouse where they're torturing her and cause chaos to help them get to her and shoot their way out. There is no mask-craft so far.

After a cocky moment where Ethan demonstrates that being down to only one bullet was just fine with him, there's a cool shot where a closeup of Ethan has a nicely-framed surprise explosion behind him.

Much splody. So much splody. Maybe M:I3 is the one that should be remembered as The Splody One. There are rockets toppling wind turbines being negotiated by chasing helicopters. But the most suspenseful issue is that KR has a secret surprise blowy-uppy in her bloodstream. A race to maybe do something about it doesn't work and she dies. I remember predicting her death to my friends before the movie started, but it didn't make those friends like me any better.

Worth noting that J.J. Abrams is not wrong to apparently think we will think all the wind turbine imagery will look pretty neat.

Before dying, KR sent a postcard to Ethan, and not even in a normal way, in a "Hi is this Rollo Tamassy? I was given explicit instructions to let you know there is a delivery for you in dead Keri Russell's mailbox" kind of weird way. The postcard had a blank microdot hidden under the stamp. Feels slightly eye-rolly. Simon Pegg is now in the movie now, though, so that's cool.

Ethan had to have a serious talk with Julia about how serious his life is or something, and they get married like right there in a storage room! Then Ethan and the team go to the Vatican and do a heist there. It's an okay heist that involves seeming like bickering Italian van drivers and then changing into different costumes. No masks though. They still look like themselves. J.J. Abrams clearly told people, "why should I watch the other Mission Impossible movies when I literally made Alias".

They shoot magic sticky pebbles near cameras to make them not work, this is important to their method, but I'm not sure how this is supposed to end, aren't they kidnapping PSH or something?

0:47:57 - Welly welly well, what have we here, they have the mask machine! We actually see it 3D-print a PSH mask, now we talkin

Ooh, and we also get to see a whole thing about the voice disguise technology, Ethan has a PSH mask on and he forces the real PSH at gunpoint to say a script to teach the tech thing his voice, but it's not ready in time when he has to say stuff in disguise and there is suspense there, I like it!

They successfully completed the heist of stealing PSH from the Vatican, even though we didn't see exactly how they transported his sedated body out of there but okay

"Whoever it is I'm gonna find her and I'm gonna hurt her", we're seeing PSH be a villain on a level that one really doesn't see very much.

Ethan responds to that by doing an odd thing that I guess would be described as "dangling him from the bottom of a plane that is flying up in the air and therefore scary". He's trying to figure out what "rabbit's foot" is, which we heard about in the opening tease. We still don't know what it is. I've known for fifteen years apparently and even I don't know what it is so

The next exotic location on our tour appears to be the bridges connecting the Florida Keys, and things get splody again! Rocket bombs destroy the bridges they're on plus also some of the vehicles that are around. Right before that happened we saw the secret video message that KR had hidden in that microdot pre-her-unfortunate-death, and it was the news that the spy executive we've seen a couple of times, played by Lawrence Fishburne, is secretly a bad guy. So the rocket-equipped military force that is recklessly decimating bridges and automobiles is probably under Spy Executive's direction. Kind of rash doing all this destruction.

Oh, I remember that shot! Ethan is running away from a car that is the victim of a rocketplosion, and the force of that throws him in a way you don't see very much, it was probably hard to make it look that good. There are other cool shots in this sequence too.

Oh I like this I like this… the bad guys that are under the direction of Spy Executive have apprehended Ethan just after he found out that PSH kidnapped Julia. He has 48 hours to do a "rabbit's foot" something for PSH in order to save Julia, but he's all restrained and has a strange mask on, but what I like is that Billy Crudup, who is Spy Executive's lackey, did a trick that required Ethan to read his lips. BC knows what's up and is helping Ethan, it's exciting.

1:21:53 - Ethan has escaped and met up with his crew (hey, we have hardly even seen Simon Pegg, what is up with that), and they're doing a heist plan, and it involves drawing skyscrapers on glass and the camera angle matches the actual skyscrapers and it's pretty cool especially when he's doing geometry and actual mathematic calculations to plan some kind of corporeal transfer between two skyscrapers.

That scene is followed by a very impossible-looking shot of Ethan on top of a Shanghai skyscraper; it zooms in from way far away and then circles him and stays on him having a conversation with Ving Rhames, all one shot.

Then a very exciting sequence, the one that was planned for so academically before; Ethan does a super crazy run off the top of the building, and the bungee thing he's attached to does cool looking stuff to get him to swing to the actual building that is his destination, but it's on a sloping thing and he slides down it and there are bad guys he has to shoot. His job is challenging.

I keep forgetting to note this but I do keep observing with satisfaction that the score is all orchestral and traditional, none of the neo-slickrawk of the last two.

Things happened so fast that I didn't quite comprehend how all of his leaps and swings resulted in him obtaining the "rabbits foot", but I guess the thing that looks like a cartridge-container for a pneumatic tube conveyer that has a thing with a radioactivity symbol on it is that. What even is.

The meeting to do the exchange of Julia & "rabbit's foot" is set up and pretty quickly we're caught up to the tease from the beginning. We now are enjoyably frustrated that Ethan thinks he gave them the "rabbit's foot" but dude is asking for it and it's like wut dood I gave it? That ends with PSH seemingly shooting Julia and BC showing up and clearly being in cahoots with the bad guys after all. And it was a fake Julia in a masky-mask, the real one is still okay somewhere. Masked-and-now-dead woman is someone we saw as PSH's translator at the Vatican and the expository dialogue that helps us know this is so artificial-seeming that it reminds us that elaborating on who that really was is kind of pointless and laborious.

This long monologue by BC, mixed too quiet again, also tries to explain his point of view, but I can't quite get it. He says something about the "rabbit's foot", are we supposed to know what it is yet? He mumbled something about a "middle eastern buyer".

1:44:45 - Somehow Ethan was able to get Simon Pegg on the phone after biting his way away from BC (SHHH NO TIME TO EXPLAIN), and then he gets to the top of a suburban Shanghai house and a shot is really cool showing that and it moves and follows him in a cool way, and then the subsequent shots of him running through the streets are cool, he's on the phone with SP who is telling him exactly which little city streets to turn into.

Just as he has found Julia and is maybe going to rescue her, he gets a big headache and we remember that he has the same mini-splody in him that killed KR, and PSH shows up, pretty bad news. PSH delivers his threatening dialogue in a vividly psychopathic way.

PSH's end is dumb, especially on paper. He turns is back on Ethan, who is easily able to jump him and fight him. The fight spills out into the street and a lucky car accident seems to fatally maim PSH while leaving Ethan unharmed. Meh.

The final resolution involves trying the idea they had at the beginning that didn't work with KR, where some kind of on-purpose electrocution death preludes the micro-splody death and then you just have to be good at reviving the person. And it almost doesn't work… but then it does oh my god it does

There is a very very pleasant shot of Ethan and Julia strolling through a Chinese village with a canal bridge and it really is nice looking and I want to go there and stroll like they are strolling.

But then they're back at HQ or whatever and oh, I guess it turns out BC was the only secret bad guy and Spy Executive was good enough and they're all on good terms and Ethan and Julia go on a honeymoon the end. Oh, and the final exchange cheekily reveals that we will never know what "rabbit's foot" was. Creative? Cop-out? Who's to say? (insert why-not-both gif)

So what's to remember about that movie? Was it indeed better than MI:2? I guess a little; there are several little annoying things from both of the first two movies that are absent here, so that's refreshing… but also some of the plot contrivances don't improve on what we've seen so far. Some very very very ambitious visuals! That's the real thing I want to make sure not to forget about this. The previous one had John Woo's signature visual style, but none of it matches the accomplishments of the cool shots in this one. I might have preferred a little more playfulness with the espionage stuff, but if I recall correctly the series doesn't really return to that form.

(next: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

#Mission: Impossible 3 #M:I3

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