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vivithefolle · 3 years

Note

Is there anyway you could share the entire livejournal essay about Hermione's reaction to Ron coming back in DH? The few paragraphs that you referred to in your recent answer sound extremely interesting.

[The “recent answer” that goes back to... last December. Oh my god I’m such an ass I left you hanging for so long I’m so sorry.]

Okay, okay, so here goes! KEEP IN MIND: I DIDN’T WRITE THIS. I FOUND THIS ON LIVEJOURNAL AND PICKED EVERYTHING THAT I LIKED ABOUT IT, AS WELL AS SOME COMMENTS THAT INTERESTED ME.

This “essay” was actually more of a “reading the books” thing with the person sharing their thoughts and ideas about it. The person was clearly a Snape fan, but they had sympathy for Ron too. I’ll try to formate it as accurately as I can remember it.

And now, here it is:

---

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

[About Ron being made a prefect.] The essayist: It’s sad, but this probably is the first time Ron’s beaten Harry at something. And the last time.

A commenter: Ron's had a really difficult life, and this is the book that proved it for me. It made me a Ron fan. Just look at the interactions he has with Fred and George. This is commonplace. I know a lot of people don't like Ron, but just look at this book, this chapter especially. People have accused Ron of being lazy, unambitious, having no emotions, and being a big stupid boy. It's just not true. Look at how Fred and George needle him out of jealousy. Look at how they treat Percy. Imagine Ron having to grow up with two older brothers that will not hesitate to bother, torture and torment people that stand out or that get more attention than they do or that cross them. He saw it happening with Percy, so what's he going to learn? He'll learn to shut up unless he wants to have something happen to him. He'll learn that standing out positively is rewarded with cruelty. I can understand how Mrs. Weasley could not have fully protected him from those two. Not all the time, not while trying to also care for Ginny, keeping up with her other kids in school, and running the household. Worst of all, punishing F&G doesn't seem to do anything. Those two just don't care/they crave the attention, negative or positive. The best thing she could've done would be to give them no attention, but that's so against her nature that unfortunately she just fed the monsters. No emotions? Is it really difficult to understand that sensitivity wouldn't be encouraged in young Ron? He's got these two bullies that only want a reaction out of him. If he cries, it'll only encourage them. Any reaction is encouraging to them, but he has to go with anger. It's a survival thing- puff yourself up, make yourself look bigger than you are so the predator messes with you a little less. Look at the pride Ron's showing in his badge. The desire to do well is there. He likes the good feeling that comes with it, but he's been hard-wired since birth that it's better to be "middle of the pack". In later chapters, I know you'll have to point out the way the power makes Ron behave, so I just want to start on the defence now. It's all Ron knows. It's all he's been taught. It's a huge character flaw, but it's what makes him so human. Rowling did develop this in the book, but only accidentally. We're never going to get a good look at Ron's psychology except through these hints because it's, as usual, All About Harry. Ron's flawed, but I hope we remember that he has a reason why he's got those flaws. It doesn't excuse him, but it really explains him. So yeah... that's why I defend Ron.

...

“I’m not Percy,’ he finished defiantly.”

The essayist: Mmmm-hm. Ron feels nervous at the thought of his good fortune inspiring anger in someone and what's his first defence? "I'm not Percy"? Man, the evidence that the Twins' psychological torment has left lasting scars on Ron could not have been more obvious if he'd shielded himself and said "Please don't jinx me, Fred! ... I mean Harry. ... Shit, what'd I say?"

...

“Excellent,” said Ron, with a kind of groan of longing, and he seized the nearest plate of chops and began piling them onto his plate, watched wistfully by Nearly Headless Nick. “What were you saying before the Sorting?” Hermione asked the ghost. “About the hat giving warnings?” “Oh yes,” said Nick, who seemed glad of a reason to turn away from Ron, who was now eating roast potatoes with almost indecent enthusiasm.

The essayist: Ron’s not being very restrained with his eating, is he?

The commenter: I don't know if it's accidental or not, but this is one of those moments that I love, one of the tellings of Ron's home life via his behavior. In this scenario, he's totally a kitten who just got adopted to a house where he's the only cat. He's at a table with food, so his instinct is to eat as fast as he can or his siblings will yoink it. It doesn't help that there are many other people around, encouraging the "get the good stuff fast or you'll have to sate yourself on bread or whatever nobody wants". Ron is so much more human than Harry! How can Harry not be showing any signs of his "horrendous abuse" for eleven years? Well... I guess he sort of does when he buys all that stuff in his first year. And I guess Ron has to go back home every summer where it gets reinforced. But Harry goes back every summer, too... what the hell?

...

“What’s going on?” Ron had appeared in the doorway. His wide eyes traveled from Harry, who was kneeling on his bed with his wand pointing at Seamus, to Seamus, who was standing there with his fists raised. “He’s having a go at my mother!” Seamus yelled. “What?” said Ron. “Harry wouldn’t do that — we met your mother, we liked her. . .” “That’s before she started believing every word the stinking Daily Prophet writes about me!” said Harry at the top of his voice. “Oh,” said Ron, comprehension dawning across his freckled face. “Oh . . . right.” “You know what?” said Seamus heatedly, casting Harry a venomous look. “He’s right, I don’t want to share a dormitory with him anymore, he’s a madman.” “That’s out of order, Seamus,” said Ron, whose ears were starting to glow red, always a danger sign. “Out of order, am I?” shouted Seamus, who in contrast with Ron was turning paler. “You believe all the rubbish he’s come out with about You-Know-Who, do you, you reckon he’s telling the truth?” “Yeah, I do!” said Ron angrily. “Then you’re mad too,” said Seamus in disgust. “Yeah? Well unfortunately for you, pal, I’m also a prefect!” said Ron, jabbing himself in the chest with a finger. “So unless you want detention, watch your mouth!”

The essayist: Note how Ron’s first reaction is to side with Harry.

The commenter: Not surprising because of the best friends thing (some might argue) but I say it's not surprising considering how Hermione and Ron were treating Harry like a ticking time bomb. Survival!

...

“Hello, Harry!” It was Cho Chang and what was more, she was on her own again. This was most unusual: Cho was almost always surrounded by a gang of giggling girls; Harry remembered the agony of trying to get her by herself to ask her to the Yule Ball. “Hi,” said Harry, feeling his face grow hot. At least you’re not covered in Stinksap this time, he told himself. Cho seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “You got that stuff off, then?” “Yeah,” said Harry, trying to grin as though the memory of their last meeting was funny as opposed to mortifying. “So did you . . . er . . . have a good summer?” The moment he had said this he wished he hadn’t: Cedric had been Cho’s boyfriend and the memory of his death must have affected her holiday almost as badly as it had affected Harry’s. . . Something seemed to tauten in her face, but she said, “Oh, it was all right, you know. . .” “Is that a Tornados badge?” Ron demanded suddenly, pointing at the front of Cho’s robes, to which a sky-blue badge emblazoned with a double gold T was pinned. “You don’t support them, do you?” “Yeah, I do,” said Cho. “Have you always supported them, or just since they started winning the league?” said Ron, in what Harry considered an unnecessarily accusatory tone of voice. “I’ve supported them since I was six,” said Cho coolly. “Anyway . . . see you, Harry.” She walked away. Hermione waited until Cho was halfway across the courtyard before rounding on Ron. “You are so tactless!”

The essayist: So Harry meets Cho, makes a complete faux pas and reminds her of her dead boyfriend. Ron quickly steers the conversation away onto something more happy, i.e., Quidditch, before Cho can get too upset. Nevertheless, Ron is apparently the insensitive jerk around here, not Harry.

[If this reminds you of something, then yes, I absolutely took what the essayist was saying and elaborated on it. I confess, I am a dirty thief.]

...

“Well, I suppose he could’ve played better,” Harry muttered, “but it was only the first training session, like you said. . .” Neither Harry nor Ron seemed to make much headway with their homework that night. Harry knew Ron was too preoccupied with how badly he had performed at Quidditch practice and he himself was having difficulty in getting the chant of “Gryffindor are losers” out of his head. [...] And so they worked on while the sky outside the windows became steadily darker; slowly, the crowd in the common room began to thin again. At half-past eleven, Hermione wandered over to them, yawning. “Nearly done?” “No,” said Ron shortly. “Jupiter’s biggest moon is Ganymede, not Callisto,” she said, pointing over Ron’s shoulder at a line in his Astronomy essay, “and it’s Io that’s got the volcanos.” “Thanks,” snarled Ron, scratching out the offending sentences.

The essayist: So Ron’s getting basic facts wrong in his essays.

The commenter: This is going to look so contrived, but I genuinely believe it, and maybe after these reviews, your standards for contrived have dropped enough for me to pass the bar :3 But... he's not putting in any effort. His ego can't take another beating at the moment (even punching bags have limits). Imagine it- after the Quidditch humiliation with his friend the Star Athlete (when he really was trying) he tries to distract himself by doing school work 1. which he isn't very good at anyway, 2. with the Star Athlete of Academics/Slytherin Spectator Crowd best friend Hermione there 3. with Hermione there to set it right anyway (it sounds as if Hermione isn’t so much correcting their essays as writing them herself). If he tries his best at this and then fails at that, Ron probably would start to consider suicide. It's self-preservation at this point to put in zero effort. This kind of fail is literally "I'm not trying because I have given up."

...

She wrenched her bag open; Harry thought she was about to put her books away, but instead she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects, placed them carefully on a table by the fireplace, covered them with a few screwed-up bits of parchment and a broken quill, and stood back to admire the effect. “What in the name of Merlin are you doing?” said Ron, watching her as though fearful for her sanity. “They’re hats for house-elves,” she said briskly, now stuffing her books back into her bag. “I did them over the summer. I’m a really slow knitter without magic, but now I’m back at school I should be able to make lots more.” “You’re leaving out hats for the house-elves?” said Ron slowly. “And you’re covering them up with rubbish first?” “Yes,” said Hermione defiantly, swinging her bag onto her back. “That’s not on,” said Ron angrily. “You’re trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You’re setting them free when they might not want to be free.” “Of course they want to be free!” said Hermione at once, though her face was turning pink. “Don’t you dare touch those hats, Ron!” She left. Ron waited until she had disappeared through the door to the girls’ dormitories, then cleared the rubbish off the woolly hats. They should at least see what they’re picking up,” he said firmly. “Anyway . . .” He rolled up the parchment on which he had written the title of Snape’s essay. “There’s no point trying to finish this now, I can’t do it without Hermione, I haven’t got a clue what you’re supposed to do with moonstones, have you?”

The essayist: This doesn’t seem like a particularly open-minded and enquiring position to take, although I suppose that Hermione’s open-mindedness has always been something of an informed attribute.

The commenter: This trope among fans has got me riled up beyond belief because they use the "Hermione's word is gospel" thing to make unfair assumptions about other characters: Ron's "emotional range of a teaspoon" thing comes to mind, and right after that, Lavender supposedly being silly about believing Trelawney about her dead pet (Hermione never considered that maybe the thing Lavender was dreading was bad news from home or bad news about her pet). Regarding house elves: This is one case where the fans ought to have seen that Hermione was being very thoughtless as far as strategy. Ron has lived all his life up until this point thinking that there was no problem with house elves and she literally expects to be able to just tell him "it's wrong" and he's supposed to change instantly? Talk about your cultural insensitivity. In this case, maybe Ron knows better than you do, Hermione? You didn't even know about house elves until you were at least twelve (but more likely, she didn't know until this year). She must understand the concept of "he doesn't know it's wrong". That was how she defended Crookshanks when he was chasing Scabbers. ... Hey, Hermione thinks Ron's smarter than her cat. That's something, I guess.

...

The commenter: Competition is seriously the worst thing in the world for Ron. He's got wa-a-ay too much baggage. Do well so they'll love you. Do well so they'll notice you. If they notice you, you'll get praised. And tormented by Fred and George. Then if you fuck up, you'll have let everyone down. My brothers never let anyone down. That's the standard. Oh God, I can't live up to that. Which do I want to chose- being ignored or scorned? I could do well. Then I'll be good enough to be called "just like them"! JFC, when's it ever going to be "Good like Ron"? Chess. Literally everyone else has one thing they shine in, even Neville with his Botany and Dean with his art (and... and I'm going to ignore the fact that Hermione and Luna are the only two I can think of with non-appearance based special stuff... someone please help me out? I guess Tonks' doesn't really count as a shallow one because it makes her a master of disguise...)

...

HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

...

Ron gagged on a large piece of kipper. Hermione spared him one look of disdain before turning back to Harry.

The essayist: “Hermione spared [Ron] one look of disdain before turning back to Harry” pretty much sums up her relationships within the trio. It’s no wonder Ron’s so insecure and keeps worrying that she really fancies Harry.

...

“And you’ve been through all that persecution from the Ministry when they were trying to make out you were unstable and a liar. You can still see the marks on the back of your hand where that evil woman made you write with your own blood, but you stuck to your story anyway...” “You can still see where those brains got hold of me in the Ministry, look,” said Ron, shaking back his sleeves. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’ve grown about a foot over the summer either,” Hermione finished, ignoring Ron. “I’m tall,” said Ron inconsequentially.

The essayist: Ron’s so adorably pathetic here, the way he’s obviously feeling inferior to Harry and being ignored by his so-called friends. *hugs Ron*

...

When they left the Gryffindor table five minutes later to head down to the Quidditch pitch, they passed Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. Remembering what Hermione had said about the Patil twins’ parents wanting them to leave Hogwarts, Harry was unsurprised to see that the two best friends were whispering together, looking distressed. What did surprise him was that when Ron drew level with them, Parvati suddenly nudged Lavender, who looked around and gave Ron a wide smile. Ron blinked at her, then returned the smile uncertainly. His walk instantly became something more like a strut. Harry resisted the temptation to laugh, remembering that Ron had refrained from doing so after Malfoy had broken Harry’s nose; Hermione, however, looked cold and distant all the way down to the stadium through the cool, misty drizzle, and departed to find a place in the stands without wishing Ron good luck.

The essayist: Hermione keeps belittling Ron and doing him down, and reacts quite strongly when he even so much hints at losing interest in her and showing attention to another woman. Can we say “abusive relationship”, anybody?

...

“Harry! Ginny!” Hermione was hurrying toward them, very pink-faced and wearing a cloak, hat, and gloves. “I got back a couple of hours ago, I've just been down to visit Hagrid and Buck--I mean Witherwings,” she said breathlessly. “Did you have a good Christmas?” “Yeah,” said Ron at once, “pretty eventful, Rufus Scrim—” “I've got something for you, Harry,” said Hermione, neither looking at Ron nor giving any sign that she had heard him. “Oh, hang on--password. Abstinence.”

The essayist: Wow, Hermione’s just being so childish here, ignoring Ron when he’s talking directly to her. Incidentally, Ron’s speaking to her like a normal friend, it’s Hermione who’s doing the blanking. Still, I’m sure this argument is all Ron’s fault for daring to go out with another girl. Hermione is totally blameless.

[Just in case: the essayist is being sarcastic, they’re pointing out the double standard of the HP fandom blaming Hermione’s immature behaviour on Ron.]

...

DEATHLY HALLOWS

...

“I think you’re right,” she told him. “It’s just a morality tale, it’s obvious which gift is best, which one you’d choose—” The three of them spoke at the same time; Hermione said, “the Cloak,” Ron said, “the wand,” and Harry said, “the stone.” They looked at each other, half surprised, half amused. “You’re supposed to say the Cloak,” Ron told Hermione, “but you wouldn’t need to be invisible if you had the wand. An unbeatable wand, Hermione, come on!” “We’ve already got an Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry. “And it’s helped us rather a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed!” said Hermione. “Whereas the wand would be bound to attract trouble—” “Only if you shouted about it,” argued Ron. “Only if you were prat enough to go dancing around, waving it over your head, and singing, ‘I’ve got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you’re good enough.’ As long as you kept your trap shut—” “Yes, but could you keep your trap shut?” said Hermione, looking skeptical. “You know, the only true thing he said to us was that there have been stories about extra-powerful wands for hundreds of years.” “There have?” asked Harry. Hermione looked exasperated: the expression was so endearingly familiar that Harry and Ron grinned at each other.

The commenter (?): Actually, I thought that Ron was proving the errors in the story. Because he’s right. The eldest brother didn’t die because the Elder Wand had corrupted him (like the One Ring). He died because he was an idiot. He died because he randomly decided to start blabbing about his new toy.

“You talk about wands like they’ve got feelings,” said Harry, “like they canthink for themselves.” “The wand chooses the wizard,” said Ollivander. “That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore.” “A person can still use a wand that hasn’t chosen them, though?” asked Harry. “Oh yes, if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand.”

The essayist: Harry’s wand has to think for and protect him because he’s too stupid and incompetent to think for and protect himself! Ollivander’s the expert, and he just admitted it. He said any halfway decent wizard can perform magic with almost any wand. The reason Harry could only work with the holly wand is because of the phoenix feather core it shares with Voldemort’s wand. That is, it wasn’t Harry doing the magic with Harry’s wand! It was the Voldemort soul piece! Once Harry was forced to use wands that didn’t have that core, the soul piece couldn’t do the work for Harry any more. He was forced to rely on his own magical powers and competence, which are clearly minimal. This is proven by his inability to do effective magic with any other wand. It’s also proven by an incident from Philosopher’s Stone. Remember when Harry was being chased by bullies and inexplicably found himself on top of the shed roof? That was the soul piece allowing him to fly like Voldy. Lily could slow her descent from a height, as if she had an invisible parachute, but that is not the same as flying, and we have no evidence she could fly. Only Voldemort and Snape fly without assistance! The evidence is overwhelming that I am right. How many spells can Harry do effectively? Expelliarmus, Expecto Patronum, Protego--that’s it. Even as a young adult, he is incapable of doing the basic healing or cleaning spells a young child should have down pat before going to Hogwarts. Of course, we’re told the Patronus spell is difficult and advanced, but who told us that? Remus Lupin, friend of Harry’s father, sycophant, and notorious liar, particularly when it comes to flattering Harry. Recall Lupin also said Snape didn’t like James because Snape was envious of Potter Sr.’s Quidditch prowess, and we know that was a lie. Given this evidence, anything Lupin says that cannot be confirmed by an independent source, especially regarding the Potters, should be dismissed out of hand. True, Hermione has trouble with the Patronus spell, and she’s super-competent. Doesn’t that prove it’s a very difficult spell? Not at all. To take an example from a different field, Beethoven was a virtuoso organist, the greatest pianist of his day, one of the greatest pianists in history, and probably the greatest improvisational musician ever. But he was only a decent violinist. Everybody has areas of weakness, no matter how good they are overall. In addition, Hermione is very gullible where authority figures are concerned. If a teacher tells her, “The Patronus is a very difficult, advanced spell that many people can’t ever master,” she’ll believe that, which may create a self-fulfilling prophecy. A couple of years ago, another DTCL member and I facetiously suggested Harry was less intelligent than his wand. We didn’t know we were right. It rarely happens, but this is an occasion when I would have preferred to be wrong.

...

If only there was a way of getting a better wand... And desire for the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, unbeatable, invincible, swal-lowed him once more... They packed up the tent next morning and moved on through a dreary shower of rain. The downpour pursued them to the coast, where they pitched the tent that night, and persisted through the whole week, through sodden landscapes that Harry found bleak and depressing. He could think only of the Deathly Hallows. It was as though a flame had been lit inside him that nothing, not Hermione’s flat disbelief nor Ron’s persistent doubts, could extinguish. And yet the fiercer the longing for the Hallows burned inside him, the less joyful it made him. He blamed Ron and Hermione: Their determined indifference was as bad as the relentless rain for dampening his spirits, but neither could erode his certainty, which remained absolute. Harry’s belief in and longing for the Hallows consumed him so much that he felt isolated from the other two and their obsession with the Horcruxes. [...] As the weeks crept on, Harry could not help but notice, even through his new self-absorption, that Ron seemed to be taking charge. Perhaps because he was determined to make up for having walked out on them, perhaps because Harry’s descent into listlessness galvanized his dormant leadership qualities, Ron was the one now encouraging and exhorting the other two into action. [...] But not until March did luck favor Ron at last.

The essayist: MARCH! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. The first fifteen pages of this chapter cover three months, and during that entire time, Harry Potter does nothing, nothing, but sit on his ass fantasizing about the Elder Wand and trying to connect with his Voldie-soul mate. Oh, wait. He also tries to open the snitch so he can get the stone out of it. (Nothing gay about that, either.) I wish he’d succeed in that, too. Maybe he’d swallow the stone, and it would end up in his scrotum. He sure needs something that works down there. Harry doesn’t have the right to bail out on his society like this. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t have the adulation that goes with being Mr. Boy-Who-Lived-Chosen-One-Wizarding-World-Savior and abdicate the responsibilities that go along with those titles and that adulation. Look at what happens in this chapter: Harry becomes obsessed with finding and uniting the Hallows, so much so that he withdraws from his friends, bails out on the job his idol Dumbledore gave him, and spends all his time brooding and trying to connect with the Dull Lord. In other words, he acts clinically depressed. Ron and Hermione were exposed to the same information Harry was, but they didn’t become obsessed/depressed. Ron was mildly interested in the Super-Wand, but not enough to distract him from the Horcrux hunt. Hermione dismissed the whole DH story as nonsense and continued following Dumbestbore’s orders. So why weren’t they tempted?

...

The essayist: Harry opens the locket using Parseltongue--interesting that this never occurred to him before now--and two ghostly figures emerge. They’re Voldie-versions of Harry and Hermione, and they articulate Ron’s worst fears: “Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter...Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend...Second best, always, eternally overshadowed...” I’ll say it again: When you’re right, you’re right. The evidence is overwhelming that Molly Weasley treated Ron the worst of all her children. And if Rowling doesn’t want us to ship HP/HG, she needs to quit throwing them together and making them leaders, with Ron either in the background or absent entirely. JKR obviously wants us to automatically dismiss certain statements just because they’re made by “bad guys” such as Voldemort and Rita Skeeter. There are two problems with this: (1) The “lies” make perfect sense, far more sense than what we’re supposed to believe. (2) Even pathological liars sometimes tell the truth, typically when it won’t hurt their own interests to do so. For those of us who live in what cartoonist Garry Trudeau calls “the reality-based community,” the evidence is what matters, not what we’re told by authority figures. Those of us in the higher stages of spiritual development are funny that way.

...

The essayist: Well, whose fault is that, Ms. Rowling? You’re the one who’s spent the last four books making Ron dumber and dumber, depriving him of any meaningful activity, while you shoved Harry and Hermione into increasingly dominant roles.

The commenter: Are we supposed to look down on Ron now so that we can condemn him for leaving Harry and Hermione? Because if so, then that’s just unfair. Every time Ron tries to come up with an idea, Hermione criticizes him or shoots him down. And the twins have done a fine job of intimidating Ron into remaining mediocre and modest so that he doesn’t remind them of Percy, so what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to come up with ideas when he’s surrounded by people who basically tell him to shut up and sit down?

The essayist: Just then, Hermione comes out of the tent with cups of tea, with tears running down her face and looking terrified her “friend” is going to curse her with her own wand.

The commenter: So, Hermione will snarl at Ron all day long, but cower in fear when Harry gets mad. Is she projecting herself onto Harry and assuming that just because *she’s* quick to hex people who anger her (Ron, Marietta, etc.), Harry will do the same to her?

The essayist: The evidence is overwhelming that Molly Weasley treated Ron the worst of all her children.

The commenter: And blatantly showed favoritism to Harry while snarling at Ron in the same breath. Of course, Horcrux!Tom doesn’t bring that up, because JKR would have to admit that there might be something wrong with Molly favoring Harry the way she does. The essayist: Hermione acts so crazy Harry has to put a protection charm between her and Ron.

The commenter: Yeah…sorry, it’s not “slapstick” anymore when somebody actually has to stop her from hitting Ron. When Harry feels that the situation is dangerous enough that his intervention is necessary. That’s not funny. That’s a true-crime episode. What gets me is that Hermione's tantrum lasts for days. It goes on for several pages into the next chapter. She doesn't start acting normal again until she comes up with the idea of visiting Xeno Lovegood. The essayist: Hermione tells Ron she still hasn’t ruled out attacking him with birds again.

The commenter: *flatly* So, all of the fans who cooed about how “great” it was for Hermione to show “girl power” by sending Ron to the hospital wing in HBP or breezily dismissed the scene as just tired teenage melodrama? Can put a sock in it. Hermione has clearly learned nothing, JKR clearly feels that that scene was funny, and at no point are we supposed to think that Hermione is an abuser. Even though, if the genders were reversed, fans would be calling for Ron’s head on a platter if he dared lay a finger on Hermione. No. This isn’t funny. This isn’t charming. Hermione hurt Ron so badly in HBP that he had to go to the hospital wing. And she tried to repeat the damage she caused here. Is she going to attack him with birds again after they get married? Is she going to do it in front of their children? Will it be “cute” and “funny” then? No, if a man is an abusive monster for losing his temper and trying to hurt his girlfriend, then Hermione is an abusive monster for losing her temper and trying to hurt her boyfriend. Not only did Hermione land Ron in the infirmary with the first attack, but she wants to do it again at a time when they are on the run. She will NOT be able to take an injured Ron to Hogwarts infirmary, nor to St. Mungos. In other words - she intends for him to remain injured and stick with them while camping, or else he must apparate away while injured, risking another splinching so he could be healed.

...

The essayist: Ron and Harry go back to the tent, and Harry fades into the background so as not to interfere with the lovers’ reunion. That’s a mistake. After Harry wakes Hermione, she shows her delight at Ron’s return by--attacking him? She punches him over a dozen times while yelling at him and screaming for her wand from Harry. Remember last chapter, when I talked about how immature Hermione is? Here’s your proof.

[The essayist quotes an article that I haven’t been able to find, but paraphrased: it speaks of a father who came to pick up his 4 y/o daughter from daycare, a little later than usual, and the daughter reacted by punching and hitting her father, upset at his being late. Additional read: “The parents must know that physical aggression is a common yet natural problem faced by toddlers.”]

The essayist: So there you have it: Hermione Granger, know-it-all supergirl, is so immature she acts like a preschool child when the boyfriend she’s been missing finally returns. I’m not suggesting she has a father-daughter relationship with Ron; this kind of anger is found in other relationships, too. What I am saying is that her way of expressing her anger is appropriate for a very young child. While adults may certainly feel this kind of anger and desire to hit when reunited with a loved one under similar circumstances, they don’t act it out. That restraint is what separates adults from children. Hermione acts so crazy Harry has to put a protection charm between her and Ron. I frankly found her behavior so out of control as to suggest mental instability. She engages in two full pages of histrionics before throwing herself into a chair, sitting so tensely I’m surprised the circulation isn’t cut off to her arms and legs. She remains in a bratty snit until the end of the chapter, which is another six pages. Hermione is still pouting the next morning. I’m wondering if her real problem is not that Ron left, but that she didn’t. Is she angry at him because he had the guts to admit they were blowing it and take a time out, while she just kept trailing along after Harry like a lost house elf? I think she’s definitely mad because she’s always controlled Ron and their relationship. How dare he assert his independence of her! Who does he think he is? Her equal? In an AU, maybe. This is called the Potterverse after all, not the Ronverse. Hermione’s having a bad month. First Ron runs out on them; then she saves Harry’s life, but he’s an ungrateful jerk about it; then Harry asserts his independence; then Ron comes back but doesn’t grovel sufficiently for her taste. All this mistreatment is going to give her the idea she’s just a normal character and not an Author’s Darling. While Ron was gone, he was captured by bad guys called Snatchers, who are bounty hunters for Voldemort. In getting away, he got a spare wand, which he gives to Harry. Of course, it doesn’t work as well as Harry’s “real” wand, so Harry’s still in a snit about that, and with Hermione in a snit, too, they’re a cheerful bunch. Honestly, I don’t know why Ron puts up with these two. The Hs are so spoiled and self-centered, they deserve each other, but I don’t think this is what HP/HG shippers mean when they proclaim the two as an OTP. Sane, normal Ron doesn’t deserve either one of them. Run, Ron! Run while you still can!

...

The essayist: As an interesting aside, ròn is the Celtic word for seal. In Druid lore, seals represent love, longing, and dilemma. No more appropriate totem animal could be imagined for this boy whose sense of selfhood is undermined by his longing for love from a rejecting mother and inadequate father, and who, like the selchie wives of folklore, is faced with the impossible choice of being who he truly is and being rejected, or denying the best part of himself to gain love. Ron’s intelligence and independence threaten his insecure wife (and best friend), just as the selchie’s identity as a seal-woman threatens her human husband; Ron imprisons himself by hiding who he is so the Hs can feel smart and in charge, just as the selchie’s human husband imprisons his wife by hiding her sealskin in a trunk.

#vivi answers #ask #ron weasley #hermione granger #hermione critical #hermione granger critical #harry potter #harry potter series #harry potter critical

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theatticoneighth · 3 years

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Watching The Queen’s Gambit; on the Remarkable Unexceptionality of Beth Harmon

‘With some people, chess is a pastime. With others, it is a compulsion, even an addiction. And every now and then, a person comes along for whom it is a birthright. Now and then, a small boy appears and dazzles us with his precocity, at what may be the world’s most difficult game. But what if that boy were a girl? A young, unsmiling girl, with brown eyes, red hair, and a dark blue dress? Into the male-dominated world of the nation’s top chess tournaments, strolls a teenage girl with bright, intense eyes, from Fairfield High School in Lexington, Kentucky. She is quiet, well-mannered, and out for blood.’

The preceding epigraph opens a fictional profile of Beth Harmon featured in the third episode of The Queen’s Gambit (2020), and is written and published after the protagonist — a teenage, rookie chess player, no less — beats a series of ranked pros to win her first of many tournaments. In the same deft manner as it depicts the character’s ascent to her global chess stardom, the piece also sets up the series’s narrative: this is evidence of a great talent, it tells us, a grandmaster in the making. As with most other stories about prodigies, this new entry into a timeworn genre is framed unexceptionally by its subject’s exceptionality.

Yet as far as tales regaled about young chess wunderkinds go, Beth Harmon’s stands out in more ways than one. That she is a girl in a male-dominated world has clearly not gone unremarked by both her diegetic and nondiegetic audiences. That her life has thus far — and despite her circumstances — been relatively uneventful, however, is what makes this show so remarkable. After all, much of our culture has undeniably primed us to expect the consequential from those whom we raise upon the pedestal of genius. As Harmon’s interviewer suggests in her conversation with Harmon for the latter’s profile, “Creativity and psychosis often go hand in hand. Or, for that matter, genius and madness.” So quickly do we attribute extraordinary accomplishments to similarly irregular origins that we presume an inexplicability of our geniuses: their idiosyncrasies are warranted, their bad behaviours are excused, and deep into their biographies we dig to excavate the enigmatic anomalies behind their gifts. Through our myths of exceptionality, we make the slightest aberrations into metonyms for brilliance.

Nonetheless, for all her sullenness, non-conformity, and her plethora of addictions, Beth Harmon seems an uncommonly normal girl. No doubt this may be a contentious view, as evinced perhaps by the chorus of viewers and reviewers alike who have already begun to brand the character a Mary Sue. Writing on the series for the LA Review of Books, for instance, Aaron Bady construes The Queen’s Gambit as “the tragedy of Bobby Fischer [made] into a feminist fantasy, a superhero story.” In the same vein, Jane Hu also laments in her astute critique of the Cold War-era drama its flagrant and saccharine wish-fulfillment tendencies. “The show gets to have it both ways,” she observes, “a beautiful heroine who leans into the edge of near self-destruction, but never entirely, because of all the male friends she makes along the way.” Sexual difference is here reconstituted as the unbridgeable chasm that divides the US from the Soviet Union, whereas the mutual friendliness shared between Harmon and her male chess opponents becomes a utopic revision of history. Should one follow Hu’s evaluation of the series as a period drama, then the retroactive ascription of a recognisably socialist collaborative ethos to Harmon and her compatriots is a contrived one indeed.

Accordingly, both Hu and Bady conclude that the series grants us depthless emotional satisfaction at the costly expense of realism: its all-too-easy resolutions swiftly sidestep any nascent hint of overwhelming tension; its resulting calm betrays our desire for reprieve. Underlying these arguments is the fundamental assumption that the unembellished truth should also be an inconvenient one, but why must we always demand difficulty from those we deem noteworthy? Summing up the show’s conspicuous penchant for conflict-avoidance, Bady writes that:

over and over again, the show strongly suggests — through a variety of genre and narrative cues — that something bad is about to happen. And then … it just doesn’t. An orphan is sent to a gothic orphanage and the staff … are benign. She meets a creepy, taciturn old man in the basement … and he teaches her chess and loans her money. She is adopted by a dysfunctional family and the mother … takes care of her. She goes to a chess tournament and midway through a crucial game she gets her first period and … another girl helps her, who she rebuffs, and she is fine anyway. She wins games, defeating older male players, and … they respect and welcome her, selflessly helping her. The foster father comes back and …she has the money to buy him off. She gets entangled in cold war politics and … decides not to be.

In short, everything that could go wrong … simply does not go wrong.

Time and again predicaments arise in Harmon’s narrative, but at each point, she is helped fortuitously by the people around her. In turn, the character is allowed to move through the series with the restrained unflappability of a sleepwalker, as if unaffected by the drama of her life. Of course, this is not to say that she fails to encounter any obstacle on her way to celebrity and success — for neither her childhood trauma nor her substance-laden adolescence are exactly rosy portraits of idyll — but only that such challenges seem so easily ironed out by that they hardly register as true adversity. In other words, the show takes us repeatedly to the brink of what could become a life-altering crisis but refuses to indulge our taste for the spectacle that follows. Skipping over the Aristotelian climax, it shields us from the height of suspense, and without much struggle or effort on the viewers’ part, hands us our payoff. Consequently lacking the epochal weight of plot, little feels deserved in Harmon’s story.

In his study of eschatological fictions, The Sense of an Ending, Frank Kermode would associate such a predilection for catastrophes with our abiding fear of disorder. Seeing as time, as he argues, is “purely successive [and] disorganised,” we can only reach to the fictive concords of plot to make sense of our experiences. Endings in particular serve as the teleological objective towards which humanity projects our existence, so we hold paradigms of apocalypse closely to ourselves to restore significance to our lives. It probably comes as no surprise then that in a year of chaos and relentless disaster — not to mention the present era of extreme precariousness, doomscrolling, and the 24/7 news cycle, all of which have irrevocably attuned us to the dreadful expectation of “the worst thing to come” — we find ourselves eyeing Harmon’s good fortune with such scepticism. Surely, we imagine, something has to have happened to the character for her in order to justify her immense consequence. But just as children are adopted each day into loving families and chess tournaments play out regularly without much strife, so too can Harmon maintain low-grade dysfunctional relationships with her typically flawed family and friends.

In any case, although “it seems to be a condition attaching to the exercise of thinking about the future that one should assume one's own time to stand in extraordinary relation to it,” not all orphans have to face Dickensian fates and not all geniuses have to be so tortured (Kermode). The fact remains that the vagaries of our existence are beyond perfect reason, and any attempt at thinking otherwise, while vital, may be naive. Contrary to most critics’ contentions, it is hence not The Queen’s Gambit’s subversions of form but its continued reach towards the same that holds up for viewers such a comforting promise of coherence. The show comes closest to disappointing us as a result when it eschews melodrama for the straightforward. Surprised by the ease and randomness of Harmon’s life, it is not difficult for one to wonder, four or five episodes into the show, what it is all for; one could even begin to empathise with Hu’s description of the series as mere “fodder for beauty.”

Watching over the series now with Bady’s recap of it in mind, however, I am reminded oddly not of the prestige and historical dramas to which the series is frequently compared, but the low-stakes, slice-of-life cartoons that had peppered my childhood. Defined by the prosaicness of its settings, the genre punctuates the life’s mundanity with brief moments of marvel to accentuate the curious in the ordinary. In these shows, kindergarteners fix the troubles of adults with their hilarious playground antics, while time-traveling robot cats and toddler scientists alike are confronted with the woes of chores. Likewise, we find in The Queen’s Gambit a comparable glimpse of the quotidian framed by its protagonist’s quirks. Certainly, little about the Netflix series’ visual and narrative features would identify it as a slice-of-life serial, but there remains some merit, I believe, in watching it as such. For, if there is anything to be gained from plots wherein nothing is introduced that cannot be resolved in an episode or ten, it is not just what Bady calls the “drowsy comfort” of satisfaction — of knowing that things will be alright, or at the very least, that they will not be terrible. Rather, it is the sense that we are not yet so estranged from ourselves, and that both life and familiarity persists even in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Perhaps some might find such a tendency towards the normal questionable, yet when all the world is on fire and everyone clambers for acclaim, it is ultimately the ongoingness of everyday life for which one yearns. As Harmon’s childhood friend, Jolene, tells her when she is once again about to fall off the wagon, “You’ve been the best at what you do for so long, you don’t even know what it’s like for the rest of us.” For so long, and especially over the past year, we have catastrophized the myriad crises in which we’re living that we often overlook the minor details and habits that nonetheless sustain us. To inhabit the congruence of both the remarkable and its opposite in the singular figure of Beth Harmon is therefore to be reminded of the possibility of being outstanding without being exceptional — that is, to not make an exception of oneself despite one’s situation — and to let oneself be drawn back, however placid or insignificant it may be, into the unassuming hum of dailiness. It is in this way of living that one lives on, minute by minute, day by day, against the looming fear and anxiety that seek to suspend our plodding regular existence. It is also in this way that I will soon be turning the page on the last few months in anticipation of what is to come.

Born and raised in the perpetually summery tropics — that is, Singapore — Rachel Tay wishes she could say her life was just like a still from Call Me By Your Name: tanned boys, peaches, and all. Unfortunately, the only resemblance that her life bears to the film comes in the form of books, albeit ones read in the comfort of air-conditioned cafés, and not the pool, for the heat is sweltering and the humidity unbearable. A fervent turtleneck-wearer and an unrepentant hot coffee-addict, she is thus the ideal self-parodying Literature student, and the complete anti-thesis to tropical life.

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avaantares · 4 years

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Imma rant for a minute. (This is me being critical of a thing, so if you’re eschewing negativity right now, feel free to scroll on past.) :)

Sooooo I took a break from replaying FFVII:R tonight (last night, by the time this posts) to watch the stream of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies, a show I already knew to be terrible (but hey, you can't argue with free musicals, right?). Long before the musical opened, I’d read The Phantom of Manhattan, the book it’s based on, and that was... like... Hmm. Think of a bad fanfiction you've read. I mean a really bad one, one that gets every single character wrong, has the stupidest of stupid fiction tropes, includes ridiculously contrived scenarios to kill off characters and weird medical "science" and historical inaccuracies and a totally implausible plot, all mashed together just to reinforce someone's OTP which was kind of an unhealthy relationship to begin with and got considerably more unhealthy in this story, AND it includes a lengthy author’s note in which the writer bashes the author of the original work his story is based on and explains everything that author did wrong and how it should have been written, using examples from the fic writer’s own work to demonstrate.*

Then picture that as a $24.99 hardback.

So I knew the general story already, and I'd seen a couple of clips from the stage show, and from what I remembered it was all pretty forgettable. But like I said, free to watch, right? Nothing to lose but a couple of hours.

Oh. My. Goodness. I was not prepared for the full experience. It's like Phantom of the Opera and Cats had a (secret) baby that got shoved in a blender with all of circa-2004 Fanfiction.net and then pasted back together by a YA fiction editor’s intern. Despite a truly exceptional cast and some strong visual and set design, it wavered between cringe-y and I’m-going-to-hurt-myself-laughing levels of bad.

Mind you, it’s still better than the book, in which (SPOILER ALERT if anyone cares, which you probably don’t because if you’re the type of fan who would, you’ve probably already seen the show) Christine’s son is not the byproduct of a willing affair she had with Erik after she became disillusioned with her marriage, but was conceived after he kidnapped her at the Opera House, and... let’s just say consent was dubious, at best. (IIRC she was “half swooning” and not entirely aware of what was happening.) Also there’s some nonsense about Raoul being impotent from a war wound and never having consummated their marriage... But broadly speaking, the story is the same as the musical -- by which I mean it completely negates everything good and symbolic and meaningful about ALW’s Phantom of the Opera, to which the book was as much a sequel as it was to the original Gaston Leroux novella.

Love Never Dies fails as a sequel for a number of reasons: Every character you liked in the original? Assassinated. Raoul, who was willing to sacrifice his life for Christine in POTO, is now an abusive, alcoholic wastrel who has gambled his family into crippling debt. Christine cheats on her husband with a guy who has made a habit of kidnapping and threatening her, and who has actually murdered a number of people. Meg, Christine’s dearest friend and confidante, is now a washed-up burlesque dancer who -- again, SPOILER ALERT -- tries to kill first Christine’s son, then herself, then finally succeeds in killing Christine. The broadest take-home message of POTO, that kindness and love can heal even the deepest wounds, is undercut by these dramatic character reversals. Even the show’s title anthem “Love Never Dies” is contradicted by the love triangle at the center of the plot. Maybe love never dies, but that doesn’t stop Christine from cheating on her husband, Raoul from walking out on his wife and son, Erik from threatening to kill Christine’s child if she doesn’t do what he wants, Meg from betraying and murdering her best friend... yeah, let’s not take relationship advice from this group.

But beyond that, LND is just bad structurally. The Phantom’s opening number builds up to be a “Music of the Night”-style anthem -- a dubious choice, since it makes everything he sings for the next half an act feel flat by comparison. Then we go into a surreal Coney Island segment for a while, then a bunch of really awkward dialogue exposition gets crammed in, and then twenty minutes into the show we finally meet Christine and her family, which kicks off the actual plot. The pacing is uneven. The tone is all over the map, too, bouncing between Phantom-like operatic ballads and Jesus Christ Superstar-esque carnival rock numbers. (All of which, I have to say, the Melbourne cast knocked out of the park. The vocal performances were definitely not a weak spot in this production.)

While I really like a lot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff -- I've seen a number of his shows on stage, some of them three or four times -- his titles seem to be hit-or-miss. For every Phantom, there's a Whistle Down the Wind. Some of that isn't his fault; a mediocre lyricist or book writer can do a lot of damage, even with good music. This musical had two lyricists and four writers, and it shows. But IMO, this is also not Lloyd Webber’s best work. Apart from the title song, which I’ve heard often enough to know it outside of the show, I can recall the melodies of... two songs? The score isn’t bad, it’s just not as instantly memorable as Sunset Boulevard or Joseph or Phantom. And a weak story plus average music doesn’t equal a great show.

I’m sure I’ve complained more than anyone cares to read, but I have one final rant about something that caused me to startle my dog by making some very screechy noises: When Christine arrives by ship, the Phantom sends a horseless carriage to pick her up at the pier. Mind you, this scene is specifically stated to take place in New York in 1905. The crowd of onlookers is utterly SHOCKED by a vehicle that moves by itself. “There are no horses!” someone exclaims. "How does it work?"

Apparently all four of the credited writers slept through history class, and also couldn’t be bothered to Google a photo of New York at the turn of the century. Automobiles have been around since the 1880s, and by 1905, New York had so many cars on the streets that the New York Supreme Court had to hand down a ruling guaranteeing that horse-drawn transportation still had the same right-of-way as motorized vehicles, because the motorists didn’t want to share the road. Heck, my own great-grandfather owned a car by 1895! Glaring, easily-avoided errors like this jar me so far out of the story -- even good stories, which this one wasn’t -- that they actually bother me more than other, more significant failings. At least do your basic research, people. Use Google. Grrr.

Anyway, I’m just rambling now because I can’t sleep and I'm on prescription narcotics for pain and my dog is tired of listening to me grumble. Don’t mind me; I’m not actually this negative in real life. 😅

----------------------------------------------------

* I am not exaggerating. In the foreword, author Frederick Forsyth bashes Gaston Leroux and gives examples from his own works to explain how Le Fantôme de l'Opéra could have been written better. Like. DUDE. NO.

That book went straight into the donation box the moment I was done reading it. When Love Never Dies came out, I briefly regretted getting rid of it, but then I remembered how bad the story was and stopped feeling bad.

#Love Never Dies #andrew lloyd webber #phantom of the opera #musicals #Review #insomnia writes #long post

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mtvswatches · 4 years

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Friends 2x08 The One With The List

Previous Recaps

In a nutshell: Everyone finds out about THE KISS. Chandler buys a laptop. Ross writes a list. Monica works for Mockolate. There’s a lot of staring at the rain out the window while U2 plays in the background.

Chandler: Chandler gets a new laptop and he’s obsessed, and honestly? Same. He then comes up with the idea that Ross should create a PROS/CONS list for both Julie and Rachel so that he can decide who to be with… because that’s exactly how all matters of the heart should be decided, right? To Chandler’s credit, he feels terribly sorry for coming up with the idea of the list and for not thinking on his feet and preventing Rachel from reading it (not that she didn’t deserve to know, but she deserved to have her feelings spared, you know?)

Joey: Joey’s solution for Ross’s conundrum? Threesome. But he’s the biggest fangirl once Ross breaks up with Julie and Rachel shows up at the apartment. I always loved Joey’s softer side.

Monica: Monica gets a job for Mockolate, creating Thanksgiving recipes. It’s a somewhat “comic” – in the “I know this is supposed to make me go haha” sense – relief in the midst of all the Ross-Rachel drama. Mockolate doesn’t get the FDA approval in the end, but Monica earns her pay anyway. And she also probably got some side effects.

Phoebe: Ross asks Phoebe to play a song in order to defuse the awkwardness of the situation - Julie showing up at the coffee shop, oblivious to the fact that her boyfriend had been smooching with Rachel the night before. Phoebe then played the iconic song “Two of Them Kissed Last Night”. HE MUST DECIDE.

Rachel: Rachel shares her excitement with the girls about THE KISS. Her exhilaration quickly dwindles, though, as she sees how A) Ross is still with Julie and hasn’t either told her about them nor has he broken up with her, and B) Ross hasn’t called her. Ross was already making her question her own worth. In the end, Ross kind of made up his mind, and Rachel is so happy that he’s going to get her coat, and then she sees the list on the computer (how contrived was the way she had to parade herself all through the apartment in order for her to face the computer and read what was on the screen? Why didn’t they just leave the computer on the kitchen counter? Did the computer have to be next to the printer, is that why?) And then the printer starts working. The boys try to distract her, but it’s too late, she saw her name there and she needs to know what it was about. Rachel OBVIOUSLY outsmarts them, and ends up reading the list. Kind of ditzy. Too into her looks. Spoiled. Just a waitress. Ouch. She’s disappointed and hurt, and rightfully so. To this day, Rachel words still hit close to home: “Imagine the worst things you think about yourself. Now, how would you feel if the one person that you trusted the most in the world not only thinks them too, but actually uses them as reasons not to be with you.” There’s no worse feeling in the world than having someone you love spew at you the most awful things you think of yourself but try to convince yourself are not true – when they say those things, it’s confirmation that they’re true, and that you’re not good enough. I applaud Rachel for standing her ground and not letting Ross walk all over her. But it’s painful to watch her be so heartbroken.

Ross: I see how the contrast they showed between the girls and the boys reacting to Ross and Rachel’s kiss is supposed to be funny, but who are we kidding? Ross would actually act like one of the girls. This is the guy who has been holding a torch for the same girl SINCE THE 9TH FUCKING GRADE. Am I really supposed to buy that he would just be: “oh yeah I kissed her, tongue, yeah”? REALLY? He’s been DREAMING about this moment for YEARS, literally. I’d say he would be a tad more excited, right? While he is excited about the prospect of being with Rachel, he is still very much in a committed relationship with Julie. They were about to get a cat, remember? And this is the episode where Ross’s “Nice Guy” schtick starts to show. He says he feels all torn about it, but if he truly were, he would’ve told Julie what happened the previous night. Instead, he continues to pretend everything is okay with Julie while making Rachel feel like the other woman. He was the one who came back to the coffee shop, remember? He was the one in a relationship, who shouldn’t have cheated on their partner, right? Anyway, Ross follows Chandler’s advice to compile a list comparing Julie and Rachel. And while it is sweet how Julie’s biggest con was that she was not Rachel, the whole comparison thing is simply despicable – especially considering how quickly he came up with the list of flaws for Rachel. Eventually, he does the right thing – sort of – and breaks things off with Julie. Goodbye, Julie. You won’t be missed, but you were a nice girl who deserved much better than Ross Geller. Ross thought he could have his cake and eat it too, but Rachel did not want anything to do with him after reading his list. He then climbs into the girls’ balcony, with a list of all the things he loves about Rachel. Which would’ve been an amazing romantic gesture. You know, if he hadn’t written that other list in the first place. There’s no convincing Rachel, though. Ross reasons that if things were the other way around, there was nothing she could’ve said that would make him not want to be with her. Which is 100% unverifiable. There’s no way to know he would’ve been so mighty. Actually, considering how petty he can be, I’d wager he wouldn’t let it go, but whatever. His argument is proven invalid, though, when Rachel argues that she would never write the list in the first place. Ross gives it one last shot – he sends a song request to a radio show, with a message for Rachel. But not even the radio host is on Ross’s side.

One Iconic Scene:

Ross and Rachel’s first break-up in front of the whole gang.

Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi. Thanks!

#F.R.I.E.N.D.S.#friends #Ross Geller #Rachel Green #Jennifer Aniston #Ross and Rachel #FRIENDS 2x08 #the one with the list #FRIENDS recap #recap #mine

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crackinwise · 5 years

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2x09 spoilers

jac-cat replied to your post “i wouldnt count this as permanent but i am still very very frightened...”

Yeah it would have been nice if they had brought Avocato back sooner and developed the character a bit. Kinda disappointed at how rushed it was. Hopefully this story line comes around the next few episodes. Avocato is such an intriguing character, would be a shame to waste that.

I’m still mad. In terms of airtime when watched back to back the impact of Avocato’s memory loss becomes less than 5 minutes. Bittersweet ending scene becomes “comedic” face-whipping. Why even have it? To double-sike us? He could have come back with some ptsd from the bomb and being fully dead (cuz who knows what he saw or if it was nice or scary) minus amnesia, then when they caught him up on events/got the transmission he could have been like “Wait, Quinn’s in Final Space? I know how to see her!” What's more emotional: a father making up for lost time a whole episode then getting snatched away again, or a father and son being cold strangers until like 30-seconds before the father tries to kill his son?

Avocato didn’t even have the chance to get caught up on anything since his death. Idk if he has all of his memories now or most; i haven’t rewatched the ep to frame-by-frame his memory scenes. He just got to immediately attach to Gary, which was sweet, but also fight his own kid all ep. I disliked Lil Cato’s behavior because he’s gd over 70 mentally and i get he’s hurt his dad didn’t know him BUT HIS DAD WAS DEAD HOURS AGO. He can be hurt without being an asshole. It’s not like his dad didn’t WANT to remember him! Avocato didn’t ask to be brought back and traded memories for it or anything. Friggin priorities here! It seemed contrived.

Also contrived is still Avocato’s jealousy. They had the foreshadowing scene for that before Avocato had any dad!memories back. He should have felt guilty, not “how dare the son i don’t remember bond with my friend.” I still say given what we heard Invictus was whispering to him, he coulda argued with it or fought a bit before Invictus got tired of his will and took him completely. Lord Commander said push not feather touch. On the subject: WHY would Invictus even give up Gary when he knows Gary is the one always thwarting him? He’s surrounded by hundreds of reminders! Cuz Avocato is “stronger”? Gary’s body was holding him off just fine! Right now this seems half-ass rather than planned.

I’m prepared for it to not get resolved anytime soon and not see Avocato again until the season finale. Invictus is supposed to be a bigger threat next season so i can’t imagine that’d come without Avocato and Lord Commander. But i could be surprised. Again.

#jac-cat #final space spoilers #final space

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cloudbatcave · 6 years

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Firestar’s Quest - REMIXED (10.1)

It’s been over a year since I picked this up, and I still plan to do voice recordings at some point but it’s far down the to-do list and right now I feel like going back to my good old roots of criticism blogging.

“He sprang forward but he didn’t see how he could reach Sootpaw before the badger swatted him with its blunt, powerful paws.”

To those of you new to warriors, badgers attack a lot in this series because that’s how they get their salaries, despite this having no grounding in reality.

Badgers will attack if provoked, but like most animals a healthy individual won’t attack another predator animal unless it was weakened first or the badger was provoked. Badgers eat carrion and small mammals! Cats are about half their size, they probably won’t pick a fight with that, waste of energy.

The narration says they’re intruding on its territory, but I’m not sure if badgers would care about cats intruding. Mysteriously, there aren’t a lot of studies done on this.

Also, blunt? Badgers have wicked claws, man.

Also x 2 why the fuck can’t Sootpaw dodge. Badgers are not fast. They’re burrowers, not hunting animals like cats.

but nevertheless:

“Then he spotted Willowpelt diving from the top of a rock to streak across the ground and shove Sootpaw out of the way with outstretched forepaws.”

instead of like, attacking the badger and distracting it. sure, why not.

naturally, the badger snaps her neck and tosses her into a clearing. because he was mad about the end of Infinity War and had to get his aggression out somehow, I guess. pretty sure badgers can’t toss cats like rings at a carnival game. that’s not how four-legged animals work.

badger discourse temporarily on hold, we get into something a bit more interesting if, like most things in the books, handled in a stupid way

Sootpaw is understandably upset about the death of Willowpelt, who happens to be his mom. It’s only been five months since Sootpaw’s dad died, so he’s now an orphan at the tender age of kitty adolescence. Pretty traumatic!

“She died saving me!” Sootpaw’s voice was shrill with anguish.

“Don’t blame yourself.” Firestar gave his shoulder a comforting lick. “Willowpelt knew what she was doing.”

Don’t think that’s helping, brah. Literally no one in the warriors series is good at comforting people, for whatever reason.

The other two cats with them (Thornclaw and Ashfur, for the burningly curious) report that the badger’s gone toward the road, and Thornclaw hopes it gets run over by a car.

“He padded over to Sootpaw and sat beside him, looping his tail over the young cat’s shoulders.”

and my best friend incorrect cat body language makes a shining return, as usual. can’t go a chapter without it. admittedly I don’t have much constructive to say - I lied, I do, the lack of sensible body language takes away from the seriousness of the moment, despite my genuine sympathy for Sootpaw.

“Are you okay?” Firestar asked Ashfur.

The younger warriors flexed his shoulder muscles. “I think so. I landed hard; that’s all.”

I miss when Ashfur hadn’t yet become a living fedora and was just another NPC. Good times. Wholesome times.

I’m sardonically amused at Firestar showing more concern at how he’s doing than the child who just lost his mother, though. Yes, he’s the leader, it’s his job to look after everyone, but there’s no serious injuries and Sootpaw just lost his remaining parent.

I keep harping on about this for a reason. You’ll see why.

Firestar carries Willowpelt back to camp with the help of Ashfur.

“Firestar, you’re back!” the white warrior exclaimed. “Are you - “ He broke off, his blue eyes flaring with alarm. “That’s Willowpelt. What happened?”

The plot stole Cloudtail’s nose so that he couldn’t smell what must be the very obvious badger scent (we’re often told in the books that badgers reek) and put two and two together. For some reason the cats only have the proper senses they should when it’s convenient for the plot and it completely vanishes whenever they need to be idiots for the sake of some asinine contrivance or even in minor instances like this.

“Shouldn’t we follow it?” Dustpelt suggested. “We should make sure it really has gone.”

I forgot to mention that the badger fucking off earlier is silly, because badgers live in extensive burrows that they pass from generation to generation. It should have just gone back in its den and stayed put.

but this badger’s an edgy loner, I guess, so they’re told to follow it but not attack it.

“Pain for his Clanmates stabbed deep into his heart. He was their leader; he was supposed to protect them, not let cats die when he was with them.”

good and reasonable sentiment! shame it won’t last, because nobody’s allowed to have lasting trauma in this series without it turning them evil.

Graystripe and Sandstorm give him a look, and Firestar remembers “oh, yeah, I just fucked off for a night for no apparent reason to them.

“SkyClan’s troubles crashed over him again, heavier than the weight of Willowpelt’s body, but he had to push them away. There was no time to think of the lost Clan now.”

Yes and no, Firestar. I’m not sure why the problems of a Clan who is - as far as you know - all dead, is somehow more emotionally impactful than your family member who just got murdered, leaving her kids parentless.

“Sootpaw settled down beside his mother’s body as if his legs couldn’t hold him up another moment. His eyes stared into the distance, glazed with horror, as if he couldn’t stop reliving that terrible moment.”

but what does Firestar say to Sootpaw’s brother and sister, when they ask what happened?

“A badger killed her.” Firestar replied. “I’m sorry, Rainpaw. No cat could have stopped it.”

HE’S SO GREAT WITH TRAUMATIZED CHILDREN. The narrative says he feels very guilty about not being able to stop this, but his words are more wooden than a picket fence, and it just feels weird and irritating next to the very real shock and horror Sootpaw is going through which is actually written believably, next to Firestar’s absolute shit attempts at consoling him and his siblings.

Which would be fine and an interesting character flaw if it were treated as such, but it’s not. I would also be complaining less if the narration didn’t continue to do shit like this:

Firestar was too sick at heart to reply.

Glad he’s mourning Willowpelt! Definitely an improvement from the first book in the series, where he’s a total jackass. But the narration keeps telling me how upset he is and not really showing me his reactions besides not talking or...repeating himself. There’s no good portrayal of body language or lingering shock like there is with Sootpaw, so I’m not buying it.

You could argue he’s just containing it to put up a strong front for his Clanmates, which is technically a plausible idea but neither the writers or the character is that clever, and there’s absolutely zilch about that in his internal narration, so. For how sad he says he is, we should see more of that.

I waxed really poetic on badgers and there’s still twelve pages of this chapter left, so there will be another post.

#cloud blogs #Firestar's Quest #warrior cats

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patsywalkera · 6 years

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trish/jess + first kiss because i am a simple gal, or, if you prefer, "You love me, right?". or both. whatever you choose.

don’t read the last page on ao3 (1130)

It was Patsy Walker’s sweet sixteen, and Jessica was the luckiest kid on the planet… if you asked Tiger Beat or J-14 or whatever other freaks were camped out on their lawn, which she wouldn’t recommend.

“I don’t get it,” said Patsy, an infuriating mix of haughty and tearful. “You love me, right?”

Sometimes Jessica thought otherwise — frankly, the Princess was no picnic — but the fact of the matter was that yes, despite everything, she guessed she did love her. She had just not wanted that to come to light when Patsy cornered her in a bathroom, pupils like saucers, and fucking kissed her. Maybe Jess felt guilty — it was her birthday, for God’s sake, and no one was even looking for her — or maybe it was because she knew Patsy would never remember, but she decided, in the moment, to be honest.

“Yeah,” she said simply, not backing away. She didn’t — couldn’t — look at her, not directly, but she knew her eyebrows were having a field day trying to process. Several moments passed, the two of them still pressed together and staring at opposite walls, before she broke the silence.

“Is it… not like that?” she asked, her voice catching. Jessica sighed. The truth was, she’d known she was bi ages before Trish had tried to come out, but after Dorothy’s reaction to that…

She smiled sadly at Patsy, then reached out and took her stupid wig.“I love you,” she told Trish. “She scares me. And you’re wasted.“

They were drinking (at eighteen, that was still something they could do together and it be “fun” rather than “desperate"). Trish and Jessica were on their own for the first time, and their Dorothy-free apartment needed christening or whatever, after all. Jess hated champagne, but she liked the thought. Mostly she liked that it seemed to make Trish happy.

Trish, for her part, was happy, by her standards. There she had it, in black and white: concrete proof of her own agency. Some hope for a better future. She was totally framing that rental contract and showing it off. Maybe with the art they’d confiscated from the house, or on her dresser, when she got one.

Maybe by then, they’d have more to sit on than their mattresses and a couch.

“We should get a cat or something,” Trish mused, hugging her pillow to her knees. Jessica snorted. “A cat?”She threw the pillow at her, of course, but not very hard; there was alcohol at stake. “Isn’t that what people do when they’re aimless? Get a pet?”“We’d kill a cactus,” she countered, and Trish couldn’t argue with that: they were still living on takeout, for Christ’s sake. “Besides, cats are assholes. They think the world revolves around them.” Jessica grinned her worst grin. “I’ve already got you.”

Normally, a comment like that would sting, especially from someone like Jess, who — at least on some level — meant every word. Normally…

“You love me,” Trish insisted, crawling over to her side of the mattress and wrapping her arms around her. Jessica, to her surprise, did not make a comic display of squirming away, as was relatively customary. She leaned into the hug.

“You’re okay,” she conceded, facing her, as if the Princess might be a pain but she was hers to bear, and she wasn’t terribly upset about it. They would remember later that it was hard to kiss, that first time; they were pleasantly drunk and both of them were laughing and their teeth kept colliding, instead.

(There were, certainly, worse ways to fail.)

“You’re okay, too,” Trish said, and nothing else mattered just then.

They drifted, both willingly and unwillingly. They found their way back to one another. Despite Jessica’s well-intentioned “I can’t risk you” bullshit, it was always worse for Trish when she wasn’t around. She wondered, sometimes, if — after everything they had both been through — what Jessica was really afraid to risk was making herself vulnerable.

It wasn’t that she held it against her; Trish Walker knew a thing or two about masks.(Patsy Walker was, quite explicitly, not a lesbian. She’d signed that more or less in blood.)

She didn’t really mind how her relationship with Jessica existed, as long as it did; as long as she was a part of her life, as long as she didn’t drop off the face of the planet and let her think she was dead. They were trying; they were healing. Jess still had her apartment, but she had given Trish a key, and she spent a lot of nights at her place. Sometimes, she even used the door, though that night there had been no such luck.

They were sitting in her living room actually eating cake for once, even if it was in ice cream form. Trish was trying to ignore her phone, because she knew she was due a text from Dorothy, and Jessica was telling her about her day. Mostly, Jessica was complaining about Matt.

The elephant in the room, her birthday, went unacknowledged, as far as talking went. That was how she liked it. “It’s good to see you like this,” Trish said, once the news ran out and it was just the two of them. She did not say the H-word; it was, as always, implied. “Sober? Fucked up, I know,” Jessica cracked, but she was smiling. Trish rolled her eyes. “You seem…” Well, that was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? How to describe Jessica Jones? She had never really been a happy person; to describe her that way, especially now, would seem contrived. “Purposeful.”

It wasn’t an orchestrated choice of words, at least not like that, but it worked.

Jessica purposefully closed the space between them on the couch, sat their bowls on the coffee table (under Trish’s stupid coasters, because it was her birthday), and lifted Trish, re-situating her on her lap.

“Hi,” Trish deadpanned, deliberately still, though Jess could feel her heartbeat. The asshole wasn’t making this easy, but she wasn’t fooling anyone, either.“Hi,” said Jess, “I’m about to do something stupid. You in?”Trish considered her for a moment, making a show of it. Her and her goddamn eyebrows. Then she reached out and put her hands on Jessica’s shoulders.“Do it purposefully, Jessica,” she said, though she only got about halfway through before she was laughing, and then Jessica’s mouth complicated everything.

The kiss itself was surprisingly chaste, for two people who had been messing around since they were teenagers, but it felt like starting over. Trish relaxed against Jess and pressed their foreheads together and for a bit they just sat there, their breathing in sync and their arms around one another. Safe. As far as birthdays went, she had had a lot worse.

#trishicaedit #jess x trish #trishica #katefic #adamparrush #answered #mine

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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Rise and Grind

If you can’t tell, I'm not a fan of the Hollywood system. I love film, i just hate how contrived, micromanaged, and manipulated the process can be to make a film in Hollywood. I believe you should just let those with imagination, build your cinema. I adore directors like David Finch, Park Chan-wook, Christopher Nolan, Luc Beson, Denis Villeneuve, and Alex Garland. I love the way they construct their films. I love the way they incorporate the visual aspect of visual storytelling. These cats don’t rely on effects, but use them to accentuate the story being told. They’re not used as crutches like, say, in a Zack Snyder or Michael Bay production. For great creators, effects are things used as flourishes to the narrative content, not the content, itself. It’s a frustration to me that smaller, more intimate, more profound fare, get slighted at the box office as failure because these films don’t make the studios a billion dollars. How ridiculous is it that such a gorgeous film, such a brilliantly acted, directed, and performed work like the Suspiria remake, can only garner a meager eight million dollars worth of return? Why can an abortion of cinema, a direct affront to the art of visual storytelling, like Transformers: The Last Knight, make six hundred million dollars? I hate that Hollywood would pump so much into such utter filth, despite having real originality and talent on tap, because the system is built to chase dollars.

That’s why I'm so infatuated with the streaming system and how it’s forcing change in the industry. Creators are no longer bound to the shackles of money-hungry, corporate monstrosities, who’ll sabotage your ideas if they sniff an avenue for more profit. Netflix gives creators the opportunity to just create. They’re very similar to A24 in that regard, but much larger. Some of the best television shows i have ever seen, have come out of Netflix. Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, Ozark, Manhunter; These are shows that give HBO a run for their money. There’s no way network television gives these things the green light. It’s not even the small screen that streaming is f*cking up but the multiplex, too. This is where the major studios are feeling the heat. Beasts of No Nation, a film by Netflix, f*cked every other movie released that year. It was raw, gritty, and told one of the most emotional stores i had ever seen. It deserved an Oscar nomination but, at that time, no one took Netflix serious in the theatrical space. They’re not all great and, admittedly, most of them are trash. Who the f*ck gives Adam Sandler an overall deal like that? F*cking Netflix. They threw money at that due and told him to make whatever, we don’t care, and that’s the point; Netflix let’s you make whatever you want to make. It doesn’t matter to them, they just want content. Netflix is funded by subscriptions, not box office take, and as long as people subscribe, it doesn’t matter if something's terrible. Just f*cking make it. Someone will like it and if enough people do, here's a budget to make something else. That sh*t is dope and lends itself to the spirit of creativity.

I didn’t care for The Old Guard. I thought it was mediocre sequel bait but i respect that it was made. I respect how it was made. Charlize Theron bought the rights to that thing as a vehicle for herself. Theron is a brilliant actress and a gorgeous woman but, in the Hollywood system, age is your enemy. Before too long, you go from the hot piece, to the mama hen, and then to retirement. Charlize is getting on n years. Her expiration in Hollywood is fast approaching but not with streaming. Since there’s no need to make money, you can create whatever you want. Charlize has a whole ass franchise she can star in until she doesn’t want to, then hand it over to an up-and-comer while staying on as a producer. There’s no pressure to succeed or perform at a box office because there is no box office. There is just exposure. Look, I love the theater experience. I'd hate for it to go away. But, I mean, as a creative, I love the possibility of streaming so much more. It's a pure medium for storytelling. There's no pressure to make money, no pressure to build a fan base. You can just go in with a pitch and if it's approved, bring your story to life. It's your vision, your voice, with no studio notes or executive directives. The gatekeepers don't have the keys anymore.

Recently, Disney has given up the ghost on their Mulan remake. They wanted, more than anything to release that thing theatrically but it doesn't look like that's going to be possible. The Wuha is strong and it keeps nixing any release dates slated for this year. I mean, look at Tenet. That motherf*cker has been rescheduled how many times now? A lot of that has to due with Nolan, himself. I get it though. Nolan shoots his films for the theater. You need those screens and that sound system to take in the film properly. Disney has no qualms. Everyone watched Trolls 2 take in a mint. The theaters hated it but what could you do? There's plague everywhere. Disney has decided to do something similar with Mulan but even more devastating than just a home release like Trolls. Disney has it's own streaming service, Disney+. So, for thirty dollars and a subscription to their streaming service, you can unlock the new Mulan, usually a multi-million dollar, theatrical blockbuster, in your home. It'll also get a proper, theatrical release but really? No theater. No COVID. No mess. Disney gets one hundred percent of those profits and brand new subscribers, the theaters get nothing. I mean, they get a percentage on whatever the actual theatrical run on Mulan turns out to be, but with the option of watching it in my draws, on my couch, in my home, why the f*ck would I go to the cinema? The difference between these brand new releases options? Disney+, a streaming service.

It's wild to see how this revolution of content is sweeping through the entertainment industry. Soundcloud, YouTube, and now streaming services like Netflix and Prime, are forcing the establishment to change. These competing distribution alternatives are f*cking up their respective industries, making new stars and content without the input of suits and I love it. A lot of the content is less than it should be but it's the spirit in which everything is being forged that enchants me. I can't f*cking stand Soundcloud rappers, but I respect the fact that they are out here doing it. I don't care for Lily Singh but I can't argue the fact that she has built a proper media empire off the back of a YouTube skit show. I didn't like the Old Guard as a film but I love the potential that thing holds for Theron going forward. More and more, we’re seeing prestige films come out of these streaming services, pressing the academy to recognize their value to the medium, whether the old guard likes it or not. I touched upon how Beasts of No Nation was kind of robbed at the awards the year it came out for being “just a streaming movie.” Fast forward three years, f*cking Roma was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. A black-and-white, foreign language, streaming movie was nominated as best film of the entire f*cking year. Two years after that, Netflix leads all studios with twenty-four Oscar nominations. We are only five years removed from one of the worst snubs in Oscar history, to dominating the very awards that didn't even want to acknowledge the merit of a streaming service. That’s pressure if i have ever seen it.

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smokeybrand · 4 years

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Pressure

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electronicdelusionstarlight · 7 years

Text

Praise Sanguine, a Skyrim Fanfiction

A N: I’m Going to face my real life problems the only way I know of, so enjoy this... Thing.

Synopsis: Ever wondered why Ysolda was so chill with the Dragonborn trying to Marry an Hagraven in a Night to Remember despite being, you know, THEIR WIFE? Answer: Open Marriages solve everything.

“My Love, you never told me what happened after you fucked that Hagraven?”

The question, who had been uttered by their lovely drug dealing wife in the most innocent of tones, caused The Dragonborn to pause mid-bite, a forkful of their wife’s delicious if a bit redundant home-cooked meal almost but not quite reaching their salivating mouth of not really discernible race or gender. They remained calm as they somewhat forlornly put their food back on the plate before looking back at their lovely wife at the other end of their small table in their house in Whiterun.

“Ysolda, dear, what are you talking about?”

Knowing full well what the woman was talking about, the Dragonborn gave a nervous laugh. They had stared down Bears, Dragons, Vampires, Emperors, Bears, Master Thieves, Murderers, Giants, Bandit Leaders, Bears, Dwemer Gods, Megalomaniac Kingslayers, Nazeem, Daedras, Dremoras, Bears, Draugrs, Mudcrabs with Monocles and Top Hats and even Hermanus Mora itself that one time, and they only had come out stronger and somewhat unscathed every time, and yet a spike of dread run down the Dragonborn’s spine spine when their wife brought up the VERY THING they were hoping she had forgotten by now.

“About that one time you went out for drinks with your friends and that weird dog and didn’t come back home till many hours later, asking me for my most expensive ring -which you didn’t even pay me, may I add- in order to woo another woman into fucking you, a woman I discovered only a couple hours later happened to be an Hagraven, dear” She answered, her faint smile turning into a small smirk, “I can’t believe you forgot about that, you even gave me back the ring and all just so I could tell you wherever in Oblivion your charming new friend went afterwards.”

Years of adventuring had ingrained in our hero the need NOT to panic in front of the most desperate of situations, since panicking only gave an edge to their opponent while kind of ruining their image as the Valiant Savior of Skyrim in the public eye, and if worse come to worse they could still try to Wabbajack the whole mess to death.

So, the Dragonborn didn’t Panic.

After all, that was Lydia’s Job.

The Housecarl who as for the rules of comedic timing was taking a sip from her drink during during Ysolda’s declaration, spat it out in alarm, fortunately out of anyone’s way, before trying to stammer one, horrified sentence out.

The couple ignored her.

“And what if I told you I never even managed to... Consume with the Hagraven?” The Dragonborn lied, betting everything on their Level 420 Speech Skill as he tried to sweet talk his wife into dropping the potentially marriage-ending issue.

Ysolda’s smirk was starting to remind them of a Sabre-cat, “Now now, dear, as far as Honeyed words go, that as pretty lousy...”she trailed off as she nonchalantly inspected her fingers before giving a small sniff “... I expected better from someone who had learned the art of trade by such an estimated teacher as myself.”

The Dragonborn began to sweat.

For one small, terrible moment, Ysolda kept ignoring her spouse as she kept staring at her fingernails, and then...

“I want in.”

“What?” The Dragonborn asked, confused on what was their wife sudden change of topic.

“I said I want in.” She said, her gaze turning once again to her spouse, “Your friend, the one who gifted you that fancy staff we now have on the mantle of our country home’s fireplace, he explained to me what was happening that night -which frankly, I let it slide till today because I was hoping you would have breached the subject first- but dear, I think 2 years is enough of a wait, I want in.”

“And... sorry, what did he tell you was going on that night?” The Dragonborn asked, only imagining what contrived and disturbing explanation did the Oblivion Damned Daedra of Debauchery give his wife to justify THEM FUCKING AN HAGRAVEN.

“He said you and him had been accepted into a weird fringe join cult of Dibella and Mara, and explained to me how that comported complete liberation from such concepts as Monogamy or sexual modesty as well as free love” She said as a small frown marred her brow, “Then he started arguing with that weird accented dog but I think that was just my Sleeping Tree Sap kicking in at that point, so whatever” She shrugged nonchalantly at his incredulous gaze, “What? you all found me in the middle of my test sampling session of the new batch, why the hell do you think I didn’t try to talk you out of fucking an Hagraven, I was clearly too far out to care-”

The Dragonborn could only stare at her in disbelief, “So, wait, you want in in...”

“The weird sex cult thing, yes” She repeated to her spouse, “I mean, I can’t see why you should be the only one having to fuck strangers in your travels and praise Mara and Dibella while I’m stuck here running my very proficuous Skooma and Sleeping Tree Sap Ring -Even giving you a pretty large cut of the earnings- And can’t even get to enjoy myself with some random stranger just because of that last shred of conscience and antiquated Nord Morals that force me to ask you permission first.” She said with an huff, crossing her arms in the process.

“So, I want in, you owe me, dear.” she said defiantly, staring her spouse down and daring him to deny her.

“You-” The Dragonborn started, Dragons and Giants and Bears having nothing on the nagging fear that maybe their wife didn’t love them that much as a rare sign of vulnerability appeared n their nondescript face “-Do You really want to fuck other people that much?”

Ysolda’s feature softened a little, “Look, dear, it’s just...” she started saying before sighing, “I love you, you know that? I think I’ve started loving you since that one time you came in this town for the first time and you knocked Nazeem out that one time he was being a dick to Carlotta.” She said, a fond smile appearing in her face at the memory, “It's just that... You’re always out there having adventures saving Skyrim or the Empire or some new Island or forgotten cities with hot werewolves or asexual vampires-” She took a small, steadying breath, “- And I’m not part of any of that. And I know I can’t fight and all I’m good at is swindling people or selling drugs, but I want to live some adventures with you, even just some amorous adventures if that’s all we can have.” She concluded, staring intently at her spouse.

The Dragonborn stared back at her.

“So, you want to fuck other people... with me?”

“Well, duh, your friend did say the cult you two joined, while teaching about free sex and other such things, was still pretty adamant on important stuff like said sex being safe and consensual, or the importance of the bonds that tie us together” she said with a glimmer in her eyes, “I think we should start something slow, like having another person join in with us- I think the Bretons call it Menage a Trois or something- Then we can discuss what else we should do.”

The Dragonborn kept staring at her, frozen in time.

“What?” She asked, confused, “Too forward? Don’t tell me you don’t want-”

“I love you” The Dragonborn said to their wife, “And as it is true the Moons are Lorkhan thorn in half and that they regulate the Kahjiits birth cycles, I’m going to do this thing with you, for better or for worse...”

Ysolda beamed at that, “Awww, thank you dear. Now we only need to find someone willing to-”

“MY THANE FUCKED AN HAGRAVEN?!”

The Dragonborn and their wife turned toward Lydia, who they had both forgotten about many sentences ago along with the narrator, her mouth hanging open.

“That’s all you took from our conversation?” The Dragonborn asked, incredulous, before noticing Ysolda almost predatory gaze.

“And- And under my watch...” She stammered, horrified, “My reputation as an Housecarl will be ruined, to know I let my Thane fuck some random hagraven and spiral their marriage in a vortex of depravity...” She gasped as an horrifying realization struck her “That asshole Nazeem will never let me live this down.” she cried out before hiding her face in her hands.

“Now now, Lydia, There’s no need to panic...” Ysolda said, getting more comfortable on her chair as she started undoing the ties of her corset, “People don’t need to know, and I’m sure we can think of an... arrangement suitable for all of us...”

Ysolda licked her lips in anticipation as Lydia’s face came out of hiding, her cheeks rosy.

“Say, Lydia...” Ysolda asked, “... just out of curiosity, I’ve always wondered how much of our burden can you actually carry.” She smirked deviously, “- Let’s say, a 5 lbs Mammoth Tusk, do you think you can handle that?”

And somewhere in Nirn, the Daedric Prince of Debauchery smiled happily, knowing he had once again made someone’s life all the more interesting.

#Skyrim #Dragonborn #The Last Dragonborn #Sanguine #Ysolda #Ysolda X Dragonborn #Dovahkiin #dragonborn x ysolda #Fanfiction #Skyrim Fanfiction #Not written a fanfiction in years #I'd appreciate criticism #Eh #Lydia

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kwa-mii · 7 years

Text

Confessions, Reveal

wherein I decide to write a softer, squishier ending to one of my own fics

This is set after a point that Nino reveals that Adrien has a crush on Ladybug and Marinette is like !!! time to make an impulse decision (1839 words)

Hey dudes did you know you can find me on ao3

Marinette had never dreamed to hope that Adrien might notice her - to be fair, he'd noticed the other her, but Marinette was far too excited to care about the details right now. Adrien liked her! He liked Ladybug!

This led to an unannounced appearance by the hero in question in the Paris skyline, leaping from roof to roof with her heart pounding so hard she thought it might be audible from the streets below, or maybe Adrien would hear her coming from a block away. But if he hadn't noticed her storming heartbeat around him all these months, she supposed she might still have a chance of seeming cool and relaxed when she came to face him.

That was nice, she supposed absently; imagine being relaxed in front of Adrien (unthinkable). But if she pulled this one off, she'd find herself with a lot more time to spend around him, and she could finally practise that important skill. That is, if her plan worked out - or one of her plans, she hadn't yet decided on her exact course of action.

Having uncovered Adrien's secret crush on her alter ego, she'd set her mind on visiting him; of all her opportunities, she wouldn't let this one go to waste. If he liked Ladybug, that surely meant he must like at least some part of Marinette, and she just needed to figure out if she wanted to reveal her familiar self to him, or if she was just going to make the most of her charming superhero self.

She'd figure out her exact plan later. Now, she swung over to the Agreste mansion, dangling from a ledge, and reached for the window. She peered in, pressing her face close and squinting her eyes against the sky's reflection to see what went on within. She couldn't see Adrien in there.

This slight, fundamental hitch in her plan suddenly set her thoughts aflame. What was she doing here? Why had she come? She realised now that her reasoning in coming was stupid, senseless. It wasn't as though she was a stranger to him; Adrien knew her as Marinette, and there wasn't anything there for a reason. Ladybug and Marinette were not the same person, not where it mattered most. It wasn't Marinette he liked, but someone vastly different, a whole other person. If she told him, he wouldn't instantly fall in love with her. She couldn't expect him to.

What was she doing?

Marinette began to panic.

There was a simple reason for Adrien not being in his room, and that was dinner.

Mealtimes in the Agreste house were cold and lonely, since his father so often took his meals in his office, and Nathalie couldn't always be persuaded to sit with him. Adrien was often in a rush to leave and return to his room, but Plagg's inhuman appetite often kept him. But tonight, his kwami was eager to get him back upstairs; "You'll never believe this."

And he didn't believe it, when he saw exactly what Plagg was referring to. When he stepped into his room and saw the bright patch of red outside his window, he shook his head in disbelief. Why would she be here, of all places? Yes, she'd protected him once or twice, but to come to his house for some other, mysterious reason, was an entirely different matter. For a moment, Adrien let himself hope that she had come for his company... but he realised how stupid that was, and that she probably just needed something from him.

"Maybe she's here for medical attention," Plagg deadpans, addressing his own concerns.

The usually implacable Ladybug was strung up outside his window, caught in some strange paroxysm. Her hand reached for the window, clenched, retracted, quivering. Her face, tilted to the side, cycled through the full range of emotions in a matter of moments, then returned to the old expressions and shuddered over the same frames like a broken tape; her mouth now open like a yell, then biting her lip, then she winces and screws her eyes shut, then she grimaces and shakes her head, then seeming almost wistful, then something entirely different. Her face was as red as her suit, and her body is tense. It was almost a miracle that she was still swinging from her cord, the way her muscles were clenched.

Adrien stepped closer, frowing, "It looks like she's talking to herself."

"I still think it looks like she's dying."

This unsettled behaviour was untoward, and Adrien felt a sharp shock of anxiety rock through him. Ladybug was brave and strong, and sure, she was human, he'd seen her stumble before, but this was on a whole other level. He felt that he was intruding on a very private moment, but that begged the question; what was she doing having this private moment outside his, Adrien Agreste's, window? Nothing added up here.

He took another step to knock on the window to get her attention, but without looking up she suddenly jerked and tautened, and zipped off into the streets of Paris again.

So strange. Now his concern rocketed through the roof. Something was definitely up, and he had a faint idea what.

"Claws out!"

Plagg couldn't argue, because Chat Noir was already chasing his lady through the rooftops of Paris. He could see from her retreating shadow - if not from her earlier strange behaviour - that something was off. She never stumbled like this, not since their very first fight. Her fist were clenched, and her step was awkward. What had happened to her?

He yelled her name, and she was oblivious to it, and kept veering across the rooftops, clumsy and almost blind. Chat Noir suspected an akuma, and he needed to snap his lady out of it (and maybe afterwards, he could have that company of hers he'd originally hoped for).

"Ladybug!" he shouted again.

This time, she whirled around, teetering around on the edge of the roof, and almost losing her balance - if not for Chat extending a hand and pulling her towards him. She thudded into him, and now it was his turn to lose his balance, and they both wavered in their step for a moment.

When they righted themselves, Chat gave her his most charming smile, trying to disguise that layer of worry that niggled at him, "What are you doing out so late, my lady?"

She shrugged wildly, still red, "Nothing. What about you?"

"Just checking the situation out. I got some reports of some strange behaviour around here."

Her blank, anxious stare now sharpened, "You think it's Hawkmoth?"

"I'm not sure. You tell me."

She frowned at him and stepped back, removing his hands from her, "I haven't heard or seen anything. What do you mean?"

"Do you often hang out at strange boys' windows?"

The look in her eyes loosened again, the blush evolved, "Oh."

"Is something wrong?" and when she avoided his gaze, "Has there been some kind of cat-astrophe, my lady?"

"Only your contrived puns."

"You wound me."

Ladybug shrugged, and gathered a little strength into her body, squaring her shoulders and facing him, "But to answer your question, nothing was wrong. I think I might have made it wrong, but..."

He took her by those steeled shoulders, "What happened?"

"Do you think... I mean, it's personal, is it okay if I talk to you about it?"

Personal. Adrien felt again the thrum of curiosity - if it was personal and Ladybug had come to him... could he dare to have such hope? "I want to know if something is troubling you. We're teammates, after all," and he loved her, and he knew the strength she carried in her and he wanted to keep that fire lit.

She nodded, and let out a slow sigh, "There's a guy I like," she confessed, twiddling her thumbs, "And I found out today that he likes me back, except for the fact he only likes me when I'm in this suit. And I don't know. I thought it might be a good time to confess to him, but I can't use him? I can't manipulate him into liking every dumb part of me by detransforming. I feel like an idiot..." then, going rigid again, "Oh, but you know. Sort of. Don't tell him, please, the reason why I was outisde. He doesn't need to know. I know he probably, like, asked you to find out, but I just want to put it behind me. I just want to put his crush behind me."

Adrien listened to this, and he could feel the pieces click into place, and he was sure she would be able to see the flash and click of recognition beneath his mask. His Ladybug liked him back. Not the version of him that he expected her to, but it was important to him that she was interested, somehow. She'd been rebuffing his advances probably because she was guarding her heart, hoping, for someone else - and that happened to be him. He already held the key to his lady's heart. The elation flooded into his face.

She did not fail to notice this, and quirked a hollow smile, "I didn't think, given your endless proclamations of love for me, you'd look so happy."

"Who are you?" he beamed, seizing her hands in his.

She blinked, "Excuse me?"

"You have to know me, right?"

"I mean, we fight akumas together..."

He barely noticed the strange look she was giving him. He was thinking; who had Nino told? Other than Alya, Marinette...

Ladybug, panicking on his windowsill. A sight very uncharacteristic of his partner, but one he saw near-daily in Marinette, clumsy, loveable, wonderful Marinette. The truth, great and undeniable, hit him at once, along with the impulse to gather her up into his arms and hold her tight against him.

Which he did, catching her off guard, and she began to protest; the redness that rose in her skin warm against his neck and chest. Marinette. There was no better person to be his Ladybug, no one he trusted more. This was the perfect ending.

"Chat, what are you-"

"I'll explain later. For the moment, I think you need a hug."

If he'd known how many more opportunities he would have to hug her after he explained his new revelation, he might have let go sooner and hurried that explanation along. As it was, he savoured the contact from which she did not, this time, pull away and replace with a high five. He was relieved to feel her body finally still, the last dregs of her corporal worry absorb into his embrace - but when he told her the quivering started anew, and she caught him up in another hug, smiling the widest he had ever seen.

Wrapped in his lady's arms, Adrien made a mental note to thank Nino Lahiffe for his services to beef (and romance) at another time. For now, he knew there was nowhere he'd rather be than by Marinette's side.

#miraculous ladybug #marinette #adrien agreste #chat noir #adrinette #ladrien #fanfic #kwa-mine #wow a fic with a happy ending this is new

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dixie-diamonds · 7 years

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The (non) Fridging of one Ms. Emma Frost.

For our initial offering, dear followers, we bring you our thoughts on the sad, tragic, and sadly unnecessary, fate of one Ms. Emma Frost at the end of the sordid, editorially driven to the ground, non-event Inhumans vs. X-Men.

We wanted to get some distance from the events of this installment before putting down our thoughts to keyboard about…well there’s really no better way to say it…the character rape-ification that happened to Emma on IvX # 6. So now a few days later. I think our thoughts have settled.

One of the most awful truisms in life is the notion of having to take one’s own advice. It sucks. Particularly when it comes to comics. We’re usually the one to tell folks, right after their favorite characters get nuked because some writer thinks awful writing choices means ‘genius’ or something, that one of the only constants in our hobby/culture/life is the constancy of change. Status quos last only rarely and even something seemingly permanent can be rebirthed, rebooted, forgiven, recast, retconned, whatever. That’s a long winded way of saying that…even though things are bleak at the moment, to quote Avenue Q, ‘this is only for now’. We know it’s small, fleeting comfort fellow Emma fans. We feel you. But…it’s the only silver lining we can see emerging from this hot mess of a fucked up sitch we’re in right now. It’s hard to swallow. We find it difficult to accept it at times still. At the end of the day though, I think it’s also important to assess and realize that look, at the end of day, and as much as we all love her, she is just a fictional character. Her status quo now, as awful as it is, hasn’t killed anyone (as far as I know) or made the Trump regime even worse (again as far as I know). So we’re ok.

So now that the table-setting is out of the way…let’s get on with the nitty gritty. We’re not gonna summarize the plot of IvX, as that’s available plenty of other places. And if you’ve read the story…well you know.

We’re not unhappy about Emma’s reversion to an out and out villain. Honestly, after the events of Death of X and the earlier installments of IvX, any other kind of conclusion, or hell even having her returned to the X-Fold wouldn’t make much story sense. Lemire and Soule have laid down enough story real estate that having it end any other way than that would just be silly or horribly contrived. And you know what? That’s fine. That’s totally fine. Why not? It might even be interesting. What would an anti-hero Emma, skirting on the darker sides of the gray lines she already inhabits, look like? What would an Emma-ized notion of Magneto’s previous ideology look like? Would that even be her motivation? Or would it just be (and to us far more interesting plot-wise and commentary wise on the X-franchise as a whole) more of Emma finally saying ‘FUCK IT’ to all the endless thumb-twiddling the X-folks have been doing ever since Bendis took over? Or hell, she can just go full on Black Cat and just be an international jewel thief coz she is so sick and done with the X-Men’s perennially regressive approach to things and the endless Uncle Tom-ing they all seem to be doing lately. All of these options are cool to us and they would be interesting to read about.

But that isn’t what we got. What we got instead is Emma literally assuming the identity of the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (also known as Cyclop’s secondary mutation, seriously man, you should check that, it is a serious condition), and without the wit or awesome musical numbers that you get from the CW show. Her motivation for turning the heel is literally, and we wave our fist to the sky as we type this, ‘my boyfriend died and I’m nothing without him’. A notion that Soule (and Lemire too? It isn’t clear which of these two editorial puppets came up with the notion, though most seem to argue that it’s Soule) ratchets up to a level beyond creepy when he has Emma don an outfit THAT LITERALLY IS HER PUTTING ON HER EX-BOYFRIENDS SKIN. What in the fuckity fuck fuck fuck is this? How/why does this make sense? As many other fans (and non fans) have said…we are talking about a woman who a) watched many iterations of her students die b) survived the 9/11-ing of Genosha by Sentinels (more on that FUCKITY FUCK plot point in a little bit) c) killed her sister for killing one of her students d) lost her brother, whom she cared for deeply to insanity because of an abusive father e) literally started from the bottom to build up a massive financial empire. We can go on. The point is, in the grand scheme of traumas that Emma has experienced, losing Scott would probably just amount to a small paper cut. The fact (that Soule and Lemire forgot about?) that she and Scott ALREADY BROKE UP BEFORE DEATH OF X makes the notion of this crazy, stupid love even more ridiculous. Also, remember, in her diamond form, she is supposed to feel nothing, NOTHING, now let’s go back to IvX and count how many times Emma assumes her diamond form... bored of counting already? This characterization of Emma as jilted lover, turned all the way up to level 100 gazillion, is just idiotic writing borne out of some editorial mandate.

And look ok, fine, let’s make Emma unstable. Sure, why not, we can go there too. But seriously? You’re going to show that by having the woman who, when she got god-like Phoenix powers (which, by the way also maybe made her a little crazy?) MADE IT HER FIRST PRIORITY TO LITERALLY DESTROY EVERY SENTINEL ON THE PLANET. How does this even fucking work? If Emma is really all ID now and she’s gone off the rails, and is now doing whatever the fuck she wants…why in the hell would she want to create Sentinels? It makes no sense….even if the aim was to show her instability. It also lacks the kind of deeper, elegant hurt that she’s capable of and prefers to inflict. This Sentinel shit is amateur fucking hour, and she is anything but. See, for contrast, the way she handled Laura’s previous handler Kimura. That wasn’t the kind of mustache twirling fuckery we got handed. That was Emma going for the elegant kind of pain: one that’s long lasting and deliciously poetic. If Emma is going to be a baddie, then that’s the kind of next level shit they need to show her being capable of, not this two-bit hysterical monologuing bullshit we got. Cullenn Bunn has stated in a recent CBR X-Position that Ems will be playing a big role in X-Men Blue. Now, we trust Bunn, he does good work, particularly with anti-heroes like Magneto and Sabretooth...perhaps he can salvage something from this horrible situation.

Making Emma the big bad of ResurrXion, the next Magneto, now that Magneto is a hero (at least this week), is all fine and dandy. But do it well. Make it meaningful. It takes about 2 panels for her to kill hundreds of inhumans. Almost as a side note. Those panels are going to define her as a genocidal villain for the rest of her days, the same way Hank Pym has been defined by a single panel that was not even scripted.

Why is all this happening? Why did it have to happen this way? Our completely unscientific (and admittedly conspiracy theory-leaning) argument is that it all has to do with nostalgia. RessurXion seems to be banking on regressing everything back to the 90s…the time when the X-Men were walking around in tights, constantly playing baseball, and involved in 30 plus year subplots that don’t ever get resolved. And look, there’s nothing wrong with that. But, why does that shiny new reboot have to be bought and paid for by throwing both Cyclops and Emma under the bus? Why does this have to come at the price of wiping away so much of the compelling additions that the Scott/Emma era of the X-franchise created? The notion of mutants as a tribe, as one people; of mutants being an actual political minority that exists in the larger Marvel firmament; the notion of an X-character, who not only is a compelling, multi-layered female character, who doesn’t go for the usual liberal/assimilative platitudes the X-People usually spout. Why does all this need to be wiped away? Are the new writers just not good enough to create something that the nostalgic mouthbreathing focus groups want (and is this even a real demographic? Who exactly did this development please? Other than godawful Jean partisans and non-intelligent comic readers?) while being respectful of and keeping (mostly) intact the import of stories that have already been told. The fact that what happened happened feels like a slap in the face to all the fans who are rightly asking these questions.

Secondly….we think this development also owes a lot to the kind of demographic Marvel is targeting, and the kind of female characters that that demographic is interested in reading and supporting. That is, the kind of female character who is a modified distillation of the manic, pixie dreamgirl: spunky, ‘strong’, sexual (to a degree), feminist (to a degree, but also only in a very specific second wave kind of a way) and of course have to be tumblrflower, Bleeding Cool and Mary Sue approved, lest the wrath of twitter be provoked. I’m talking of characters like America Chavez, Kamala Khan, Kate Bishop and Carol Danvers. Strong, feminist, etc. But, not threatening, not overtly sexual, not swagger-y, and god forbid, not sexual only for the sake of sex; they are the equivalent of Boy Bands in the 90′s and early 00′s, attractive, easy to sell, tame. Remember She-Hulk being a strong woman with a brilliant career, kicking ass and taking names, having sexual fantasies with fellow Avengers in the 90′s? well, that She-Hulk is also gone. After Civil War 2, poor Jen is being written as a very mousey Millennial...who’s afraid of her own power and strength. Seeing a pattern already?

Emma, in our view, represents one of the last few fabulously written female characters that counters this second-wave feminist tendency in current comic writing/production of female characters. She has an unproblematic relationship with sex for pleasure and she isn’t here to make you feel good about your goddamned feminist struggle or your sophomoric need for representation. And for that, she had to be punished and made the bogeywoman of all the twitter warriors who insist that female characters be feminist-strong…but only in the way that they find palatable and ‘relatable’. I’ve always been very aware that Marvel is a business (a point I belabor to anyone who thinks Marvel OWES them something)…and of course they have to go where the money is. But, it doesn’t make this direction for Emma, or the character assassination she and we have endued, any more palatable.

Which brings us full circle to the essay’s title. She may still be alive, walking around the Marvel U in an outfit that can only be described as ‘too garish, even for pre-Joanne Lady Gaga’, but for all intents and purposes, Emma Frost has been fridged. Not physically, and in a way this is even far more cruel to her fans. They could have just taken her away from us cleanly, ending her story, not in the best of places, but at least it would have ended (for now) and we can go on, missing her, but at least with the comfort that it couldn’t get any worse. But that isn’t what happened. Instead, they took her away from us, one sordid, horribly mandated development at a time, until all that’s left is this ghoul-caricature of a character, walking around; sapped of all of her vitality and that je ne sais quoi that made her so unique, endlessly compelling, and the source of such pure comic joy. That woman is long gone. And what’s in her place now is just a zombie that Soule and Lemire should have just put out of her misery.

It’s fine that Marvel needed an X-Men reboot. Hell, in many ways as a fan, I might have welcome it with much more enthusiasm than my tepid ‘oh great I guess I’m obligated to read it’ feeling that I’m having right now. If only, this shiny new future for the merry mutants didn’t have to bought with the merciless, cruel, and absolutely unnecessary, and far worse, character fridging of one Emma Frost.

At least, we’ll always have the trades fellow Emma fans.

Keep the faith.

We’re hanging on with you.

#Emma Frost #IvX #review #rants #XMenladies #hey there

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firstpuffin · 5 years

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Eighth (point one) in a series: Review of Redwall episode Twelve

Episode 12: Underground

This episode was… disappointing.

One of the first things we see is Log-a-log (y’know, the rough and ready leader of the shrews) whining and panicking, only for the brave and sensible (and super young) Matthias to calm him down and take charge. I’ll return to this later. We briefly see Cluny, who has not had very much screen time of late, preparing his horde for a final assault on Redwall abbey.

Still underground, Matthias attacks a huge dragon-looking skull because… Log-a-log was scared? Maybe? They never talk about it again though so heaven only knows why it was included; I suspect those in charge don’t know why it was included.

Our good friend Sam the Squirrel is in the kitch- wait, we haven’t been introduced to Sam yet. He was excluded from previous events because… and now they bring him in because… Seriously, what’s with this episode? Anyway, he’s the young child of Jess Squirrel who you may remember and he’s mute. He spends most of his time sucking his thumb and knows Mossflower woods better than anybody; he’s actually the one who guides Matthias back to Redwall after he saves the Vole family and meets Basil.

So, he and Cornflower are in the kitchen, moping about how Matthias has been gone for a while when they decide to climb to the top floor of the abbey to look out for him. Why are there no guards up there if they can see the whole of Mossflower from the window?

Back to Matthias, he decides to loose his anger onto a pile of rocks, striking them with his super old and valuable sword that he is convinced is the only thing that can defeat Cluny. Bleedin’ hell, what is with this episode? Getting back on track, they return to Julien the cat, do you remember him? It’s been a while I know. He joins them in finding Captain Snow, but the owl snatches up Log-a-log and has to be stopped from eating him. Rather ungraciously he keeps his word and promises never to eat another mouse or shrew.

Warbeak pops in to warn Matthias that Cluny is on the march, although she apparently doesn’t bother to tell the actual abbey, and he asks the shrews for a quick route back only for them to begin arguing, as shrews are bound to do. This is cut short by a young shrew who takes control. Once again we see Log-a-log’s uncharacteristically cowardly side, but he may have been right this time as they almost die when they fall down a waterfall. Being right doesn’t stop him from being a total prick to the young shrew though.

Cornflower and Sam have reached the top floor and discover Martin’s armour where it apparently hasn’t been discovered for years. In a contrived “dramatic” moment, they see Cluny’s horde marching down a path and making a right old ruckus, and Matthias walking almost parallel to them and totally oblivious despite the noise. They are bound to meet where the paths meet and Cornflower desperately waves to get Matthias’s attention, when Cluny sees the armour looking out from the window. He’s been haunted by the armour in his dreams and he loses himself to fear and runs away screaming. In front of all of his men.

What the f-!

Right. So. I might cut this entry short, if only because I’ve already been negative enough.

This episode is guilty of a number of things and the most unforgivable of them is the sacrificing of good characters to make the hero look better. Matthias in the book is a young, reckless wannabe warrior who does stupid things, gets emotional and has to be helped. In short, he’s a real character. In the cartoon he is a paragon of wisdom and virtue (unless he has to lose his temper and attack rocks?) and other more experienced, tougher and wiser characters are made to be snivelling cowards or fools, just so this two-dimensional Matthias can step in and fix things.

Some might say that as this is a children’s show, the point is to show them an admirable character in Matthias (and yet not the others?), but if I could meet these people I’d kick them in the shins and scream “Bu** Sh**!”. Perfect characters are either unrelatable or hold children to an impossible standard; it is far better to show them a realistic and flawed character who grows from mistakes and by listening to his betters, so that they can one: relate and two: understand that they don’t have to be perfect.

And above all, it’s an insult to the author.

I could add that Cluny is being wasted and has gone from an intimidating and worthy villain, to a bumbling fool. I could point out how they switched from using “years” to “seasons”. I could tear into the “dramatic” contrivances.

But I’d rather point out the imaginative way that they re-cap the previous episode. The tapestry that was once so important in the story reflects the events happening in the series. This is different to the book and honestly raises a huge issue in the story, but I won’t go there. Instead I want to talk about how at the beginning of the episodes they show how the tapestry represents the events of the previous episode. It’s a really cool way to do it, what with almost every other show using choice scenes to re-cap, this is a nice change. And they didn’t even need the tapestry in the show to do so, it could merely have been an artistic choice.

I’m going to leave this on a positive note and I actually ended up writing more than I expected. I’m cautious in my expectations for the next episode, it’s the final story in the series and has to come to a climax here. There isn’t a huge amount of story left, but they have already changed it by having Cluny run away and Matthias in the abbey, but that can be covered next week.

#first puffin #redwall #review #cartoon #books #children's books #children's literature

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demitgibbs · 6 years

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Out Pop-Star Hayley Kiyoko Puts Her Authentic Self Out There

Even lesbian Jesuses get swept up by the grandeur of the Statue of Liberty.

“I’ve never seen it before! It’s huge! Oh my god, it’s huge!” enthuses a giddy-as-ever Hayley Kiyoko, proclaimed “the lesbian Jesus” by her adoring disciples. The unapologetic pop fixture can’t help but check out of our conversation to soak up the moment, her driver cruising over a bridge in New York City. “It’s on my left. I had to, like, gasp. Oh my god, it’s so cool.”

The 27-year-old singer is doing a string of press calls to tout her debut album, Expectations, and though I’ve understandably lost her to a colossal Neoclassical monument, Kiyoko eventually remembers why she’s on the phone in the first place: oh, right, music.

Kiyoko’s DIY solo music career launched in 2013, when her partially crowdfunded debut EP A Belle to Remember was released. This Side of Paradise followed in 2015 and featured “Girls Like Girls.” The single’s video, which has amassed more than 92 million views on YouTube (collectively, her self-directed videos have eclipsed 180 million views), took a hard, unflinching look at the challenges of facing same-sex desire.

Kiyoko released her third EP, CITRINE, in 2016, which included single “Gravel to Tempo”; in the song’s video, she leaves a group of mean girls speechless with her seductive dance moves. “Curious,” a single from her first full-length, released in March on Atlantic Records, is as brazenly sensual as any straight pop star’s lustfulness. And the newly dropped video for the latest single “What I Need,” a duet with Kehlani, features the two photogenic, budding pop stars on a Sapphic road trip à la Thelma and Louise.

WATCH:

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While taking in the historic NYC views, Kiyoko opened up to me about letting her music tell her queer story (even when it came to coming out to her grandma) and the “gentle and vulnerable and emotional” bond she has with her fans.

[Editor’s note: Fans can catch Kiyoko (with Panic! at the Disco) at The BB&T Center in Sunrise on Tuesday, July 31.]

Your 94-year-old grandma recently discovered you’re lesbian thanks to one of your music videos. What was that like?

[Laughs.] It’s funny: I’ve just been gently sending her videos I’ve been directing, but I don’t know if she’s been watching them or not, because that was the first time she responded directly about my music. I still don’t know what video she watched, but with every video, it’s very obvious that I like girls, so I feel like the cat’s out of the bag — finally.

Which videos of yours would be a good gay conversation-starter for grandmas to watch?

[Laughs.] I feel like “Girls Like Girls” is a good introduction.

Tell me how you came to be so open about your sexuality as a pop musician.

It’s just been baby steps. I did the “Girls Like Girls” music video, which was the introduction; still, people didn’t really know where I was at. Then, I released “Gravel to Tempo.” Every video I’m wanting to challenge myself and tell a different story and [show] a different perspective on a situation that I’ve experienced.

Now, obviously, looking back at all these videos, it tells a very solidified story. I like girls, and I was never… as you know, it’s a difficult thing to want to be open about because it’s very personal. It’s something you don’t feel like you need to share, but I’ve connected with so many people through it.

I’ve kind of had to really own it and feel confident about it because I realize there aren’t a lot of people who do that. So, you have to lead by example, and that’s the best way to help normalize those feelings. That’s always been my goal: just to normalize things and not have it be a conversation. I always told my manager: “I don’t want to come out. I just want people to watch my art and take it for what it is.”

Talk about some of the queer themes on this album and how your life inspired those songs.

I have a song “He’ll Never Love You (HNLY).” It talks about a situation I was in where this girl wanted to be with me but was too afraid to own her sexuality, so I had to let that person go. It was always a frustrating situation because I knew how she felt, but you can’t encourage anyone to love themselves. That’s a journey on their own.

When, as a public figure, did you first feel 100 percent comfortable being open about your sexuality?

Probably the music video after “Girls Like Girls,” “Cliff’s Edge.” You can’t argue with what’s going on in that video. [Laughs.] So, that was definitely a moment where I was like, “I’m gonna own this and I’m gonna own who I am,” because, to be honest, I’ve always known who I was. But sharing that with the world is another level of pressure, I would say.

How would you compare how you felt about your sexuality during “Girls Like Girls” versus “Cliff’s Edge”?

I almost didn’t put “Girls Like Girls” on my EP. It was a very last-minute decision. And then I was seeing the reactions, and I didn’t know what my next step was. I didn’t really know where I was going with my career and what my message was. I made “Girls Like Girls” in a very honest place, just like every other video I do. But after you do something [like that], it’s like, what do I do now?

WATCH:

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How did you gauge what was next regarding your queer music narrative? Do you have a team of queer people who are guiding you?

No, I don’t think that’s a reality. [Laughs.] I mean, I don’t know. I’m just being myself, and I really don’t consult anyone. I just put it out.

But a lot of pop acts have a team working with them.

Oh, yeah. No, no, no. My team is my manager and my day-to-day. I have my team, but they’re all straight [laughs] and they can’t relate. So I go, “This is what I’m doing,” and then we do it.

There’s nothing contrived or manipulated with what I do. It’s really: Write a song; OK, I wanna shoot a music video; we create a music video; I do whatever I want with it, and then I decide when I wanna release it, and then I put it out on YouTube.

That’s really the process. I’m sure it’s different for other artists, but I’ve always been extremely controlling with my art. And when I signed to Atlantic they knew that, so they let me do whatever I want to do.

That control has probably been one of the reasons you’ve been able to connect with all these fans who call you their “lesbian Jesus.” Could you describe the connection you have with your queer fans?

I think the connection is very gentle and vulnerable and emotional. Sometimes kids will say things to me that they’ve never said to anyone else. It’s really an open space, and I think that they know I’m accepting of them.

Are you the lesbian pop star you wished for when you were a struggling queer teen?

I don’t know. I guess I don’t think about it that much. I’m not really looking at myself all the time in the sense of, look who I am. I’m like everyone else, just trying to get through life day to day. And I really want to get to a point in my career where people are just listening to my music and giving me an opportunity and a platform, so I don’t really reflect, because I feel like I have so much to share.

As a young person you were pretty hungry for representation, though.

Oh, yeah, 100 percent. And there were some great acts out there that I loved, like Tegan and Sara, for example. I love them. But I didn’t have a person where I was like, “She knows exactly what I’m going through, and we are connected.” I had icons and idols but not someone that I really connected with.

I read in The Guardian that Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” influenced you.

It did? I mean, I wouldn’t say… I don’t think I said it was an influence. They asked me what I thought about that [song], what my take on it was, because a lot of people were saying negative things.

I have nothing negative to say. It reminded me, OK, there’s Katy Perry singing about experimenting and kissing a girl, and that’s great and I support that. I’m gonna be someone who likes girls all the time and sing about that. So, I thought it was a positive thing. I thought it was a step toward what I was gonna do down the line one day.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/06/21/out-pop-star-hayley-kiyoko-puts-her-authentic-self-out-there/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/175108905610

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