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inamindfarfaraway · 1 year

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The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals Pitch Meeting

[Should be experienced imagining the voice and acting of Ryan George, who is linked to above.]

Producer Guy: So, you have a musical for me?

Screenwriter Guy: Yes sir, I do. It’s called The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals because the main character, Paul Matthews, doesn’t like musicals.

PD: He doesn’t?

SG: No, he can’t stand them. Watching one is his own personal hell. And that isn’t a throwaway quirk, it comes up several times and is integral to the plot.

PD: Isn’t the protagonist typically meant to be relatable to the audience?

SG: Yeah.

PD: And won’t the audience be full of people who like musicals?

SG: Yeah.

PG: Bit of a weird choice, but okay then. So other than the musical thing, what’s Paul like?

SG: Oh, not much.

PG: What?

SG: Yeah, he’s the most average, boring, white middle-class American everyman you can imagine. No desires, ambitions or hobbies; he never expresses much passion for anything except things he doesn’t like. He has an office job at a company that’s so generic, I didn’t even think of what it does. He’s not particularly nice either. Like, when his best friend Bill asks him to help him reconnect with his teenage daughter Alice, he refuses to avoid his own discomfort despite having nothing else to do. And when his other friend Charlotte right next to him is clearly upset because she’s in a miserable marriage to a neglectful, cheating husband, he doesn’t bother to comfort her.

PG: Isn’t the protagonist typically meant to be likeable and interesting?

SG: Yeah, but we’re not gonna do that I decided. So another important character is Emma Perkins, this barista Paul has a crush on. She’s the only reason he keeps going to this crappy café.

PG: And what’s her deal? Is she kind and friendly to balance out Paul being so apathetic?

SG: No, she’s also rude, but she has better reasons for it. She hates her job and has really annoying, mean coworkers her boss favours over her, who just won’t shut up about how great musical theatre is. They all love it so much that there’s a new rule that if they get tipped, they have to perform a whole song and dance routine.

PG: But working for every tip negates the point of a tip!

SG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I said, it's a crappy café.

PG: I gotta say, though, you’re presenting musical fans in quite a negative light there. They are the people whose money we want.

SG: (aside) You haven’t seen anything yet. Anyway, Emma and Paul bond over not liking things and people - it’s cute. But then at the end of the day, a meteor crashes down in a big storm and lands right in the town’s theatre, which is putting on a musical. And the meteor turns out to have evil alien life inside it!

PG: Oh my God. What happens to everyone in that theatre?

SG: Well, it’s offstage, but we find out later that the alien works by taking over your body like a virus and killing you to use you as a vessel for its hive mind. So that probably happens to most of the people. Bill and Alice get out okay, but a lot of people are dead now.

PG: This escalated very quickly!

SG: Yeah, this show does that. It’s a horror comedy; it’s like a sitcom where anyone could brutally die. But here’s the thing: the alien hive mind makes the Infected sing and dance like they’re in a musical, so all the fun, catchy songs are actually it controlling people’s corpses. That’s how everyone knows the lyrics and can move in time to music nobody’s playing. You only hear the music if you’re Infected. And it spreads really fast, so this mindless musical obsession could literally destroy humanity!

PG: That’s so dark and tonally dissonant. But I have concerns about the villain essentially being a living musical, in a musical. Won’t that kinda alienate the audience? As in ‘make them not like it’, not ‘make them aliens’.

SG: No, it’ll be fun. The first song after the intro is very entertaining. There’s this really funny part with a silly, crazy homeless guy.

PG: Ah, yes. Making fun of the homeless and mentally ill is tight!

SG: Not what I… (moving on) and, and, we can cleverly parody musical tropes. For example, Paul’s boss tries to get him to sing an “I Want” song because the Hive want him to be the protagonist of their ‘musical’, but he doesn’t want anything so he’s a terrible protagonist.

PG: Oh, that was on purpose! I thought you were just a bad writer.

SG: Yeah, no, I’m setting up an arc. So the Hive take over most of the town - which is on a island and the bridge gets pulled up, so there’s no way off - including Emma’s café. But she escapes with Paul and they meet his friends from work, plus this obnoxious asshole Charlotte’s cheating with called Ted, who's the worst. But then the Infected police show up, including Charlotte’s husband Sam. She begs him to snap him out of it ‘cause she still loves him, but he pulls a gun on her.

PG: Oh no.

SG: Fortunately, Ted knocks him out.

PG: Oh, good.

SG: But he hits him too hard and his brain falls out!

PG: Wait, even putting aside how unlikely it is that his flesh and skull were broken open wide enough that his whole brain could fall out, isn’t the brain… attached? That’s a very implausible injury.

SG: I’m gonna need you to get all the way off my back about that.

PG: Well, okay then.

SG: So Charlotte has a mental breakdown and Emma suggests they go to her biology professor, Henry Hidgens. He’s an eccentric doomsday survivalist who somehow predicted this exact incredibly specific apocalyptic situation and has a huge house with top-notch security. And he's a biologist, so he might be able to study the alien infection if they bring him Sam.

PG: It’ll be hard to get there safely with the town swarming with alien zombies, especially carrying a dead man.

SG: Actually, it’ll be super easy, barely an inconvenience.

PG: Oh, really?

SG: That part just happens offstage.

PG: So they get to shelter?

SG: They do, so they start to relax for a bit. Except Charlotte, she’s dying inside and stays with her tied-up dead husband. Bill and Ted have this funny argument where Bill threatens to kick Ted’s head, which, you know, is a stupid threat.

PG: It is?

SG: Yeah, because you’d have to kick really high and most people can’t do that.

PG: I thought you would just push the person to the ground with your arms and then kick their head. Most people can do that.

SG: True.

PG: And it would be highly effective. You could kill someone that way.

SG: (getting an idea) You could, couldn’t you? (writes that down)

PG: What are you writing?

SG: Nevermind. Emma and Paul have a nice heart-to-heart where she reveals her backstory. Turns out she had a sister, Jane, who lived a great life, dream job, true love, kid, everything, while Emma left home at eighteen and travelled around being aimless and irresponsible. But then last year Jane died and that’s why Emma came back and is studying, to try to do something with her life now that Jane can’t anymore.

PG: Aw, that’s sad.

SG: Even a zany horror sitcom has its serious moments. So she and Paul bond some more, until Charlotte and Sam burst in.

PG: Wait, what?

SG: The Hive made her think he’d come back to life and manipulated her into letting him go. Then he just killed her.

PG: Dick move.

SG: Massive dick move! So now Ted gets beaten up by the possessed corpse of the woman he loves, after the last things he said to her were mean because he’s the worst. Fortunately, Hidgens kills the zombies.

PG: Oh, good.

SG: But Alice calls Bill and she’s under attack at her school!

PG: Oh no.

SG: If Bill goes to save her alone he’ll almost definitely die. But Paul volunteers to go with him.

PG: So he won’t be nice to his friends in everyday life, but he will risk his life for them?

SG: Precisely, this is really bringing out his inner hero. But when they get there, Alice is already Infected. She sings a whole song about what a terrible father Bill is and he's so guilty that he failed her that he tries to kill himself with the gun they brought. Fortunately, Paul takes the gun off him.

PG: Oh, good.

SG: But he drops it on the ground, so Alice just shoots Bill herself.

PG: Oh my God! Why did he let go of the gun? That was a very poor decision!

SG: Extremely poor, yes. Alice nearly kills Paul too, but the army rescue him. Specifically this secret special unit that I made up called PEIP that deals with supernatural stuff like magic and aliens that most people don't know about. They're ordered to kill everyone to keep the weird stuff secret, but the leader, General John MacNamara, is a good person so he doesn't do that.

PG: So he lets Paul live?

SG: He does, and he sends a helicopter to take him and Emma off the island.

PG: Paul tells him about Emma?

SG: Uh-huh. He realizes that he's in love and finally does want something: to be with her.

PG: Cool, cool, cool.

SG: Meanwhile, Hidgens and Emma are studying the Infected. Emma theorizes that if the brain of the Hive is in the meteor, they could take out all of them by destroying it.

PG: Is that true?

SG: There's no reason it couldn't be! But Hidgens changes his mind about the Hive being evil, knocks Emma out and ties her and Ted up. Then he opens his house's gates because he wants the Hive to get in.

PG: Why does he think the Hive isn't evil?

SG: Well, he's thinking that since humans are so immoral and harmful we're killing the planet and each other constantly anyway, but the Hive will bring peace and harmony. And he loves musicals.

PG: Oh, he does?

SG: Yeah, he's even written his own awful one, and he plays a song he wrote and composed to lure the Infected inside. He's willing to die and doom humanity for his twisted, irrational love of musical theatre.

PG: Really slamming your audience again. Hey, why wasn't he at the musical the theatre just put on?

SG: I don't know.

PG: Fair enough.

SG: So Paul comes back, frees Emma and Ted and they escape, but General MacNamara kills Ted because the soldiers are Infected now!

PG: And this is all onstage?

SG: Yes.

PG: Then it's gonna be hard to get past a division of fit, armed zombie soldiers who can survive not even having brains in their heads.

SG: No, it isn't. Emma shoots MacNamara in the shoulder and that makes him just give up.

PG: What about all the other soldiers?

SG: Please ignore them.

PG: Okay.

SG: So Paul and Emma get to the helicopter and think they've made it, but the pilot is Emma's mean coworker from earlier and makes them crash.

PG: Why is she Emma's coworker and not just the army pilot, if the Hive got there first?

SG: Because.

PG: That works. Are they okay after the crash?

SG: Paul is, but Emma's too hurt to walk. Paul says they should find a boat -

PG: Wait. There are boats? Or does Paul just think there might be?

SG: I have more notes on this town and it has a boating society, so there are boats.

PG: Then why haven't the Infected got in the boats and gone to mainland? Shouldn't they have done that by now?

SG:

SG: ...You're right. I didn't think about the implications. Oh my God, I didn't think about it!

PG: Whoops!

SG: Whoopsie! So anyway, Emma tells him her theory and he goes to blow up the meteor with a grenade.

PG: But then he could die, and right when he actually cares about something. That is heroic. Do he and Emma have a touching maybe-last goodbye?

SG: Kinda. They try to kiss, but she coughs up blood in his face. The Hive knows Paul is coming and lets him in order to infect him. He does his best to resist its control, but it makes him sing and dance and have an existential crisis.

PG: Oh no.

SG: But at the last possible moment, he pulls the pin, blows up the meteor and saves the day!

PG: Wow, wow, wow. Wow.

SG: So we cut to two weeks later. Everyone else in the town is dead, but Emma was saved by the army reinforcements and she's getting out of hospital on the mainland and ready to start a new life.

PG: Well, at least she survived and the Hive is defeated. That's what Paul wanted. But it's still a shame he died.

SG: That's what Emma thinks... until he walks in!

PG: (excited) What?

SG: Yeah, he's okay and he gives her this soft smile and she's the happiest we've ever seen her and they hug.

PG: That's such a sweet ending. After everything they've been through, getting to be happy together feels earned, and I really have warmed up to them both.

SG: And then Paul starts singing.

[Beat. Producer Guy's relieved expression turns to confusion, shock, sorrow and horror as he processes that information and its implications. He stares at Screenwriter Guy, betrayed.]

PG: But that means he's... (SG nods, proud of himself) and Emma's theory was wrong, and... (SG nods again) the Hive is on the mainland now, so the entire world is... (SG nods again) oh, a very depressing ending!

SG: Set to a very cheerful song! The cast even stay in-character for the bows; the Infected bow while Emma screams and cries and begs the audience for help before being dragged away. So what do you think?

PG: That ending will haunt my dreams. But as creative as the premise is and as emotional as it gets later on, I don't know if this will be that big of a hit. The tone changes so fast and jarringly, the main characters aren't that likeable at first and it all just seems pretty niche. And it spends so much time mocking its own genre and audience. I can see it becoming a cult classic, but I don’t think you’ll be able to launch a series with it or anything.

#this is probably way too detailed because i don't know how to edit #i also genuinely didn't realize the boat plot hole until now #emma's 'you were right. i didn't think about the implications. oh my god i didn't think about it!'#tried to get ryan's distinctive dialogue style right #the guy who didn't like musicals #tgwdlm #hatchetfield #team starkid #starkid #pitch meeting #pitch meetings #ryan george #long post #very long post

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secretgamergirl · 11 months

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Twitter is dead. Get off it. This is an intervention.

So, back in... what was it, November? Elon Musk was forced via legal action to make good on a boisterous offer to buy Twitter. At the time, the reaction of literally everyone I know was roughly “oh damn, that’s the end of this place, that idiot’s going to kill the whole site. Where are we bailing to?” I feel like if there was a clear answer to that, maybe people would really have done it, but... a dozen people came out of the woodwork with really hastily thrown-together Twitter clones which all had weird quirks that one could be leery of, regarding security mostly, and thanks to choice paralysis, the general consensus seemed to shift to “watching this idiot try to speedrun killing this website is comedy gold, I’m going to ride this sinking ship to the bottom of the ocean, then deal with ditching it.”

The problem though is, that already happened. I guess people thought the metaphorical ocean was maybe deeper than it is, but that site really is on the bottom of it, and it really is time to move on.

Clearly, there’s some benchmarks people were waiting to see that just aren’t ever going to happen. A lot of people really expected there’d be a point where they’d just try to load up the site and get a 404 page because the servers are all permanently disconnected. Mostly people figured this would happen because Musk would realize that the site is absolutely bleeding cash like there’s no tomorrow and there’s no way it’ll stabilize again, but that’s not going to happen. He didn’t buy it to make money, he bought it to pressure bootlickers to pretend they think he’s cool, and that’s totally been working out for him. It’s costing him an absurd amount of money, but he has basically infinite money and doesn’t care.

Some people also thought this might happen because, well, he immediately fired like most of the staff and started randomly deleting huge chunks of load-bearing code and breaking contracts and not paying rent and stuff but.. yeah somehow that didn’t do the trick. A skeleton crew is mostly keeping the lights on. A lot of stuff keeps breaking temporarily but it’s held together with duct tape and someone seems to be restraining Musk from finishing the job. It’s as broken as it’s getting.

I’ve seen goalpost moving like “I’ll drop the site when it gets to the point where marginalized people are getting banned en masse and it’s just wall to wall nazi propaganda. That happened already. In November. Countless leftists, many celebrities, got taken out like day one. I got knocked off literally for the crime of being trans within the first week or so, as did a ton of other people. These are all bans that can’t be repealed. You’re hanging out in an online country club that doesn’t allow in a bunch of “undesirables” and that’s you actively propping up white supremacy if we’re really being honest about it.

I’ve seen the argument made that freelance writers and artists “need to be on twitter” in order to get commissions, and there’s a few ways to approach this one. First, do you really? Have you not reached a point in your creative career where there’s regular clients who hit you up, and don’t need to see you actively posting on Twitter to remember you exist? Do you not get any work from anywhere else? If it has traditionally been just Twitter, ARE you still getting work there? Because they don’t let you post off-site links to promote your stuff anymore, and they murdered all the discovery algorithms to instead promote far right conspiracy theorists and weird Musk sycophants to everyone instead of people whose stuff they might be interested in.

If though we live in a world where with all that being said, and all the massive bleeding of users we’ve already seen, you still want to insist that Twitter is the only place in your field one can get work offers though, then in sticking with it for that reason, you ARE kind of uh, you know, actively benefiting from your status as someone the open bigot running the place doesn’t have it out for? Again, would you join the whites-only country club? Would you apply to work at the business that refuses to hire any women or queer people? Some of us out here are literally facing homelessness because we ALSO rely entirely on commissions, and we aren’t allowed to be on that site, so, the longer that site remains the place you get commissions from, we can’t find work. Please hasten it’s fall for our sake.

Setting that aside though, there’s also the moral argument that you really should not be supporting what is quite plainly at this point a site maintained by nazis, explicitly to cater to other nazis. Like, the easy joke here is that the people who previously ran Twitter were cryptofascists, while the guy running it now is instead a crypto fascist. This of course ignoring the powers that be at Twitter also going all in on that, remember the hexagons? But seriously, with no investors to keep happy and no interest in keeping advertisers happy, Musk and the policies of the site both official and unofficial are just... full on mask-off nazi stuff now. Everyone who’s ever been kicked off the site (which traditionally had a bar of like, actually personally trying to have someone killed or personally threatening a celebrity) is back. There’s some stated transphobic policies on the books, Musk is personally posting a bunch of weird George Soros crap and hardcore propaganda like “nearly all crimes are commited by black people” and hardcore anti-vax stuff, and not only is none of this going anywhere it’s being actively pushed into everyone’s feeds constantly. You’re basically hanging out on a mirror of Gab, and your very presence there is feeding it, not financially per se (I mean, what income Twitter does have IS still advertising based, which in turn directly translates active users to dollars, but again, Musk has basically infinite money), but like, the nazis don’t just hang out on Gab is they need the attention of non-nazis and the legitimacy of hanging out in the same spaces.

So far this is me making moral arguments, but also, like... are you getting anything at all out of being on that site these days? I’m banned but private windows are a thing, and there’s still people I care about who adamantly refused to just like, be present on Discord or something so I can check in, so I do glance at people’s feeds now and then, and literally all I have seen from ANYONE in the past uh... 7 months from anyone on Twitter is just people’s live reactions to the site dying, the owner being an idiot, and having nazis shoved in their faces.

In the before time, one of the things that arguably made it worth having a presence on that site was people setting up a bunch of automated accounts to like, give weather reports and such (which you can just look up on a dedicated weather site/an app on your phone you don’t even need to open by the way) and stuff like those accounts that post a cute picture of a cat/wolf/fox/skink/whatever every hour on the hour. Those are all dead now I believe, because the idiot in charge heard someone saying that hated “bots” and thought people meant actual automated accounts, not the fascists shilling crypto and shrieking at marginalized people from their hundreds of burner accounts.

The thing though, that I’ve heard from quite a lot of people, is that not only did those feeds go poof (also anyone who hasn’t logged in in a month- dead friends, old joke accounts, etc.) but if you look for a replacement by just searching the site for say, “dog” or “cat,” because it is now a site by and for nazis, you get domestic animal snuff film gifs. The sort of thing nazis pack all their favored haunts with to deter people whose souls aren’t dead from looking at what they’re posting. I saw a lot of that stuff back in the day helping get other dedicated nazi sites offline, and that crap’s been haunting my dreams since. Why the hell are you there still?

You could jump ship and flee to some mastodon instance or whatever else is out there, or hell, you could also just... not. People had web presences before freaking Twitter. I’m just posting stuff on Tumblr here. I’m on some forums with people I’ve known for years. I’ve got Discord for live conversations (although wow, it’s really looking like it’s time to scout out the next thing there), there’s e-mail to randomly shout at people. You don’t need a doom scroll site replacement, honest.

And like, I get it. You don’t want to just be trickling out one by one. You want some oomphf, some momentum. So here’s the plan, share this around: You post whatever “here’s where to find me” stuff you need to now-ish. Then you wait... about 3 weeks. Then the date is going to be 6/9. You wait for the date to roll over, you make a single post where you just say “nice” and then you never touch the site again.

Oh and meanwhile, hey, again, I really do live off commissions, and I’ve had a hard time getting new ones since... well some former clients decided to not work with trans women anymore apparently, really, so I kinda need to beg for money to live, if you want to maybe toss some my way? Also there’s a new Zelda game out and that weird Bayonetta prequel thing, and I’m literally putting every single cent I can get my hands on towards paying my rent and utilities (the government’s covering groceries). I can’t even afford one of those streaming services. So uh, anyone feel like maybe doing the wishlist thing?

#Twitter

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is-this-even-relatable · 2 years

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DANNY PHANTOM FIC IDEA

tldr: danny goes to space (by accident) with NASA. shenanigans ensue.

ALRIGHT GUYS so a long long time ago i found this tumblr post (that i no longer know where it went) and it really got my brain juices flowing. I believe I copied a bit of the post here:

a (one-shot?) Danny Phantom fic where it is SPACE!!! so Danny was fighting with Vlad I think and then he got tired and went to a NASA station and hid in a cupboard to sleep and then he woke up after they launched and were already in space: I want to write a fanfic maybe and here is my concept I was thinking about posting on tumblr——

I feel like this would work reaaaally well as a lighthearted fic, or crack, or comedy in general, or fluff because it’s just DANNY IN SPACE!!!!

I headcanon that Danny doesn’t really need to breathe, since he’s... you know, DEAD. So,,, he can totally go into space unprotected as Phantom! Space shenanigans!!! but obviously if he’s not wearing a suit, he can’t really communicate because duh, no air = no sound wave travel. So he wears a suit anyway, at least just so he can talk with control or whoever/whatever astronauts connect to with their suit radios. (don’t quote me, i know nothing about how astronauts do space stuffs)

SO LIKE IF THIS WAS MADE INTO A FIC WHERE DANNY JUST... BECAME PART OF NASA CREW FOR A BIT OR SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE FREAKING AMAZING AND I WOULD SMASH THAT KUDOS SO HARD

if that was a thing tho (wahhhhh all the ones I’ve ever encountered where he does NASA space stuff are one-shots TT~TT) then i feel like it would have to be set during summer or something to have it make sense why he can just up and go to space without everyone filing a missing person’s report or anything lol.

first off - the setting. (NO PHANTOM PLANET)

- 1: it’s gotta be summer because otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to disappear during school, since everyone would notice. but, this only gives us roughly 3 months for Astronaut!Ghost!Danny to have space shenanigans and fun NASA stuff... so i’m leaning towards number 2

- 2: OR this is set when he is a teensy bit older. he finished high school (managed to graduate with A’s and B’s somehow) and is now gonna take a gap year to finally relax after the stress of fighting ghosts while also having to attend high school is over. so now he can focus on doing the things he wants/likes, and can fight ghosts worry free without having Major Life Consequences. and maaaaaaybe he kinda decided to go around and spy on a bunch of NASA’s facilities in the meantime :D. i mean it’s no big deal, right? he’s just floating around invisibly and intangibly, not really bothering anyone. And it’s not like anyone’s gonna know, all those weird temperature fluctuations are just the air ducts acting up, come on guyyyys that’s not weird and suspicious at all. so Danny is just doing his thing and wow are those pieces of asteroids? dangg look at thattt that’s so cool! and then over ther— OH MY GOD THE ROCKET LAUNCH IS TODAY?!! so obviously he flies over as fast as he can to check out the inside and watch it all happen and ohmygod!!! this is so exciting!!! but then after a few hours of super high strung energy... *yawnnnn* he’s getting real tired now, all that excitement and adrenaline really lends itself to a much harder crash once he calmed down a bit... maybe he could just sit somewhere unobtrusive for a little, yeah. ooh this cupboard looks really nice, i’m sure it’ll be fine here.... *snore* and BOOM the story all spirals from there.

then, the reasons why no one is worried when he goes to space (they would all need to be micro-adjusted per other scenarios, but I think they can all fit with any of the others):

PARENTS

- 1: his parents are on some summer-long cross-country ghost expedition trip and left the kids at home (“do what you want, stay safe!! see you in september!”)

- 2: or maybe they sent danny to a summer retreat or something for several months so they don’t even question the disappearance because he is supposed to be gone the whole summer (this would also explain why Sam/Tucker/Jazz don’t freak out)

JAZZ

- 1: Jazz is in/at college (or otherwise just a not staying at the house for the summer for some other reason, maybe also doing a summer-long boarding camp thing) and thus not worrying about Danny too much (we all know she would 100% be trying to check up on him and make sure he’s ok)

- 2: Jazz is home for the summer, but since she already knows about Danny’s Spoopy Stuff TM, Danny could just figure out a way to tell her he’s in space for a while somehow, or she just wouldn’t be too alarmed since she knows he can take care of himself now OR he told her he wanted to go on a trip like mom and dad are doing except his is to explore fun places like the Kennedy Space Station over the summer, so that’s what he would be doing (“i’ll check in every once in a while, just so you know I’m still dead and everything.” *Jazz pinched the bridge of her nose and tries not to sigh too loudly* “...please try not to get yourself hurt, Danny. You’re not a cat, no matter how much Tucker says the purring makes you one—“ “Hey!” “—so you don’t have 9 lives. At least remember to protect the half-one you have left.” *Danny pouts for a second, but then relents and sighs* “Okay okay, i’ll be EXTRA careful spying on NASA. Scout’s honor.” “you’re not a boy-scout.” “I CAN DREAM, JAZZ”)

VLAD

- 1: there might be some Vlad stuff too (or at least vlad’s perspective because that would be funny to slip in occasionally, if Vlad just couldn’t for the life of him find Danny and just spends the whole summer getting increasingly frustrated and then really worried because where is Daniel??? how did he disappear with no trace??? and then it escalates to where he eventually takes down the whole GIW because he thinks they killed/got rid of Daniel, the only one who could truly understand him they’re gonna p a y).

So it starts like this: Vlad was all hyped up to have this whole summer with no one in the way to try to get Daniel over to his side, but then the brat up and disappears on him before he can make any big moves and now he’s gotta hunt down the pesky little badger, but for some reason his ecto-signature isn’t showing up anywhere, hmm perhaps he is hiding in the ghost zone? or in a different country? and voila he starts searching.

- 2: or, he went after Maddie and Jack on their road trip instead of focusing on Daniel over the summer. Yeah idk, it lacks a bit of oomph, but after thinking about that first scenario so much I just can’t think of anything better.

SAM AND TUCKER

- 1: if this is the older!Danny setting from the top, then they would all be doing different things. Danny would be taking a gap year, Tucker would probably go straight into college (give it up, Tucker is a tech genius and would straight up get into MIT or some ivy league bullshit) and probably get an internship to some big tech company too. and then I feel like Sam might go to college right away to move out from her parents’ house, or she would go to California or something to do activist stuff. let her find her people guys.

- 2: if this is the summer setting, then I feel like they still might be doing different things, similar to how the college scenario worked out. Tucker = tech internship, or starts working with Technus (Danny has mostly friendly relations in this fic, cuz you know… he’s the ghost king and all) to learn tech stuff and whatnot. Sam = gone to go activist/protest, or her parents are taking her on a mandatory trip to do fancy shit she hates. (sorry sam, it’s just the hand you were dealt with)

either way, all 3 of Danny’s closest people, Team Phantom (Jazz, Sam, & Tuck), would notice after not too long that Danny was no longer checking in with them. Naturally, Sam and Tucker ask Jazz about it, since if anyone knew where he was, it would be Jazz, and she says that Danny was exploring NASA. so they look up whatzit goin on and lo and behold, they find out that there was a rocket launch recently. (“Wait, hang on...” Tucker mutters. “Guys, I think I found something.” he calls over to Sam and Jazz, who were sitting on the other side of the room, bouncing ideas back and forth of where Danny could be. They stop taking and walk over to where Tucker is typing away at the computer. “What is it?” Sam asks. “Ok so the last time any of us heard from Danny was two weeks ago, right?” “Yes, that was when he was telling me about the new rovers that are being built for the Mars explorations.” -Jazz “Yeah, so I looked up anything related to NASA that happened since then and... you guys aren’t gonna believe it.” Sam quirked an eyebrow at him. “Believe what?” Tucker took a breath, then blurted it all out in one go. “TherewasarocketlaunchandIthinkDannytotallystowedinsideorsomething.” Sam and Jazz just blinked at him for a couple of seconds before their brains caught up. “I’m sorry, <em>come again</em>? I think you just said Danny hitched a ride up into space?” Jazz squeaked. Sam groaned and looked up at the ceiling, covering her face with her hands. “Ughh, of course he would.” Jazz looked back at him. “Tucker, you’re sure?” “Well,” he fidgeted, “it makes the most sense, and there aren’t really any other big events that happened up until now. Him being in space would explain why he wouldn’t be able to contact us, and it’s much more likely that he jumped at the chance to go to freaking SPACE (come on, this is Danny we’re talking about) than say, a natural portal swallowed him up into another dimension.”

aaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s my idea. Please if anybody wants to adopt it feel free to message me! I might also write something for this in the future but hey… who knows if i’m ever really gonna get to that? so it’s up for grabs!!

#danny phantom #prompt #dp #older!danny #danny in space #space shenanigans #fic prompts #my idea #free to adopt #please tag me if anyone makes anything!#mine #isthisevenrelatable #is-this-even-relatable #space obsession!danny

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sins-and-wins-with-vix · 2 years

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Everything Right/Wrong with Ninjago “Legacy of the Green Ninja” E12: Return of the Overlord

Disclaimers: Show owned by lego. This is not a professional review/critique - it’s mainly intended for comedy.

Reblog, comment, and/or like! And make sure to tell me your thoughts!

- In case anyone is wondering about my mental state, I’m writing this pretty much right after watching the Crystalized finale and now listening to the intro is making me cry ✅

- Yada yada, beginning of this episode is different than the ending of last episode ❌

- “Red doesn’t seem to be your color. I think it’s time we try on a darker shade…” a darker shade of red is still red. ❌

- “Who cares about Ninjago!?” Blasphemy. The fandom is coming for you, Jay

- “Nya was my… my…ya know…” show treats the word “girlfriend” as if it’s as scandalous as saying “woman I occasionally f*ck ❌

- “I can’t fight him…” This is a tough predicament for Lloyd to be in - I wonder what familial comfort, or wise advice Wu is going to give him in these trying ti- “You must!” Yeah I really don’t know what I was expecting ❌

- “You have my fire!” “And my earth!” “And my ice!” “And lightning!” I don’t even care if this is a Lord of the Rings ripoff - Ninjago did it better ✅

- Also, Lloyd doesn’t have Jay’s lightning apparently. He just has lightning in general, but it’s not Jay’s ❌

- “We’re all in this together, kid!” Kid ✅

- The army may not have been there but it was a 10/10 entrance ✅

- “And here I was all ready to release the thunder!” Cole forgets his element ❌ (I’m hilarious I know)

- ^Lloyd! Didn’t your mother teach you not to change costumes in the middle of dramatic moments!? Kids these days ❌

- “He always wanted to turn Ninjago into his own image. Now we know how it’ll be done.” “But if he starts turning things evil…” Wait, how did we get from “he’s gonna use the weapon on Ninjago” to “he’s turning people evil?” Wouldn’t it be more likely that he’s just gonna nuke everyone or something? ❌

- “You go on without me.” No joke, when I first watched this scene all those years ago, my gut instinct was that Julien was gonna die, like right after the ninja walked away. Like we’d see the ninja fight the Overlord, then later we’d hear about how during said fight he, somewhere offscreen, had just dropped dead. To this day it is still my first thought every time I watch this.

- “Has anyone else been thinking about how this might be our final fight together?” “It’s all I’ve been thinking about.” Oh no I’m gonna start crying again, aren’t I? ✅

- “Remember that time Kai thought he was the green ninja?” *all start laughing* “He was SO NOT.” RIP Kai, burned to death by his brothers’ roasts ✅

- And, really? “Time?” As in one, SINGULAR moment when Kai thought he was the green ninja? ONE? ❌

- “You just had to destroy my tree house!” Lloyd, salty since episode 2 ✅

- “I thought [Wu] was a goner!” *bonk* “Wrong again mr. Empty head!” D*mn okay 😭 ✅

- We just glossed right over Nya learning Spinjitzu, didn’t we? ❌

- *Nya trips Lloyd* “No one does that to the green Ninja!” It’s a good thing Lloyd doesn’t go to school because Kai would murder any and all who dare bully him ✅

- “He must’ve used the ultimate weapon to turn her into his own evil image!” “Ahgjgjghg!” oh nO she groWLs😱 ❌

- “But… you said you’d always be behind me!” And they already screwed that up - they’ve been running in front of you this entire scene ❌

- Fun fact: Nya was originally going to be the master of wind, not water, which could explain how she does this sonic-like thing and stops Cole in midair, but now that her element has been changed to water it doesn’t make much sense, does it? ❌

- “So the balance has sent my son, my brother and wife to try to stop me?” Remember a few episodes back when I said you could replace words like “destiny” and “balance” with “plot convenience” and it’d actually make more sense? This is what I was talking about ❌

- “It looks like my little surprises kept the ninja busy!” Surprises? You only sent Nya. Is there another innocent civilian forcibly turned into an evil zombie just chilling around the island that no one ever found? Are they still there currently? *gasp* Ninjago: United plot line revealed?!?!👀😱 ❌

- “I don’t wanna fight you but I will if I have to. This is about more than just us - this is about what is right!” Solid line! Wait… we’re about to have a Garmadon monologue, aren’t we? A Garma-logue, one might call it? H*ll yeah I love those! ✅

- “Don’t you see? I will never do what is right - the evil in my blood can never go away! It has corrupted every ounce of my fiber, every bone in my body!” Oh it’s about to get really good isn’t it… this is like waiting for a beat drop ✅

- “I AM LORD GARMADON! Destiny took my family from me, and the only way for us to be together is to turn everything in this world into my image! Then you’ll all see what I see, feel what I feel!” ✅✅✅✅

- “You could’ve warned me it had to warm up!” “How could I? You were monologuing.” The Overlord believes in the integrity of uninterrupted Garma-logues ✅

- What is Misako’s bag made out of that it shields her from blaster fire??? ❌

- Yes, it is small, but this is the first moment that they’ve ever physically fought with each other! The slow-mo, and the way Misako gets distracted and just stares at them - I can’t even express how powerful this is ✅

- This too! We’re seeing people scream in fear before getting turned into zombies, and the “We’re losing” followed by “I win!” ✅

- “It’s four against one and I think she’s winning!” You THINK? Cole, you’re literally hanging upside down! ❌

- “Maybe we can use our powers without hurting her!” It’s taken them this long to figure out non-violent ways to use their powers? No wonder this show is rated as “fantasy violence” ❌

- “You stole that from my playbook!” Which is probably why you should’ve seen this coming sooner, especially when your entire family was literally just warning you about this exact thing ❌

- “Ninjago is mine!” “No… it was never going to be yours… IT. IS. MINE!” ✅✅✅✅✅✅✅

- I also love that when you see everyone’s faces, you can see Wu and Misako are scared but Lloyd is ready for a fight ✅

- “The metamorphosis HAS BEGUN!” ⬇️

- “Metamorphosis? What does that mean?” Kai skipped sixth grade ❌

- Overlord’s mouth movements aren’t synced with his words at all ❌

- “All this time… everything has led to this…” Not me getting goosebumps ✅

- “I’ve been planning this for thousands of years-“ “EAT GREEN!” Remember how Overlord believed in allowing others to finish their monologues? Lloyd doesn’t ✅

- “You are all alone!” “No! I’m not! My father is still in you - he won’t fight with me!” ✅

- “He is the green ninja!” Yeah, no sh*t?? Kai, where have you been the last entire season????? ❌

- ^ Jay ✅

- “Your father is… GONE!” F*ck! I’m supposed to be giving commentary but I don’t even know what to say to this ✅

- “But… the prophecy!” “Easy, kid! You’ve been through a lot!” Kid ✅

- “Destiny showed us who was stronger today… but destiny also wanted us around to fight another day. We didn’t lose the battle. Today, we just lost the fight.” ✅✅✅✅

Sentence: Get Overlorded lol

#ninjago sins/wins #lego ninjago #ninjago #lloyd garmadon #ninjago cole #ninjago jay #ninjago kai #ninjago lloyd #ninjago nya #ninjago zane

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adamwatchesmovies · 7 months

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Charade (1963)

1963’s Charade is a comedy, a romance and a suspense thriller all at once. The mix seems incompatible, particularly when your lead couple is separated by 25 years, but the results work. So well. In fact, much of what makes the film special are the ingredients other movies would’ve eliminated. It’s got so many twists it’ll make your head spin off its axis and there’s no way you’ll guess the ending.

Returning from a skiing holiday in the French Alps, Regina “Reggie” Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) discovers her apartment stripped bare, her bank accounts empty and the husband she was about to divorce dead. His four passports - all under different names - lead the police to suspect foul play. All signs point towards the three men who attend his sparse funeral (played by James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass) being involved in his murder. They threaten Reggie, warning her the money they’re owed better show up soon. With the help of a charming American stranger, Peter Joshua (Cary Grant), Reggie begins sifting through her husband’s last possessions for clues.

From the colourful and stylish opening credits (Designed by Maurice Binder), you know you’re in for an unusual treat. This movie is bright and shiny. When Reggie and Peter are together, all you can think about is them but he’s apprehensive. She just lost her husband - she didn’t love him. They’ve just met - and aren’t they great together? There’s such a big age difference - she doesn’t care, why does he? The banter they have back-and-forth is full of great, witty lines, the kind you want to memorize and pull out at the right moment to knock all your friends off their feet.

But wait. This is a romantic comedy… but it’s also a thriller. Just when you think we’re getting ready to zoom in on that first kiss… a dead body. A hideous murder. A gun. Now you’ve got to wonder. Is he actually hesitant to get with her because of some chivalrous impulse… or is he stringing her along for nefarious purposes? What if it's the opposite. Maybe Reggie knows something we don’t and she’s trying to seduce it out of Peter. Maybe their coincidental meeting wasn’t a coincidence at all! But no, there’s no way there could be anything sinister between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. They’re simply too good together to be anything but a couple waiting to fall in love.

That’s how you feel during the whole movie. One moment, you’re in knots over the thriller elements. You wonder if the unhelpful CIA agent (Walter Matthau) is up to something no good… until you remember this is a comedy. You think it’s getting fun and screwball-y with people looking into rooms for clues to figure out who’s got the money… and then someone turns up dead. Yikes! This movie keeps you on your toes in a way you’re not used to, which might make it more enjoyable on a second viewing. Then again, this first ride is a blast as you try to figure out who’s lying, who’s going to betray who, what’s a real clue, what’s a dead end, and so on. Not that you’ll be able to figure it out on your own. This is not the kind of movie that will linger on a piece of paper to give away a crucial detail. You might be able to guess certain motivations but where the money went? No way. I suppose you could call that a bit of cheat - part of the fun is usually piecing together all the puzzle's pieces and seeing if you can beat the detectives to the conclusion - but this isn’t a normal thriller. Not at all.

You could never recreate the magic of Charade. You might be tempted to, with the one fight scene that’s a bit clunky and another where everyone decides to go with the flow instead of calling the police, but too much of what makes this movie good is unique to when it was made. The actors fit their roles so perfectly it would be foolish to recast them. The dialogue is too magnificent to be tweaked. The atmosphere is a perfect mix of romance, mystery, and danger. It’s a great choice if you want to know what made Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant icons. (May 14, 2021)

#Charade #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #stanley donen #peter stone #marc behm #cary grant #audrey hepburn #walter matthau #james coburn #1963 movies #1963 films

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thesoftandhardcore · 2 years

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Hi @thesoftandhardcore! I got a question for you. What do you suppose KFP4's plot is? I believe that DreamWorks will take it in either of these three ways:

(1) During the movie, there'll be a lot of romance between Po and Tigress, with TiPo eventually becoming an official thing while they are off on some awesome adventure;

(2) One of the villains from the previous movies (or all of them???) will come back more powerful than before-- and that'll be Po's challenge (because I really don't think they'll be able to fit in another previously unknown villain again, honestly);

(3) There'll be a SERIOUS plot twist and Oogway would be revealed as the REAL bad guy (I have a theory that Oogway trained and brainwashed Shifu and everyone else to believe he was this enlightened, noble Tortoise Master and actually is secretly the real villain of the whole franchise, much like Darth Sidious in Star Wars)

That do you think? I'd love to hear your ideas! (Oof sorry this ask is so long LOL I just was curious what you thought about it) Hope you are having a great day! 😊

Hello! I am very very sorry for responding so late. I’ve been so busy with school lately that I couldn’t find the time to post or reply to your questions, so I’m really sorry!

Anyway, to answer your question, yes, I do have a few ideas and theories about what the fourth movie might be all about.

(1) During the movie, there'll be a lot of romance between Po and Tigress, with TiPo eventually becoming an official thing while they are off on some awesome adventure;

As much as I would love to see that on the big screen (believe me, I would absolutely love that), I doubt that DreamWorks would put "a lot" or focus more on romance between Po and Tigress’ relationship. I believe this for the following reasons: 1.) The film may focus on romance rather than the actual element or concept, which belongs to the action/comedy genre. and 2.) We are all aware that not all people in the Pandom are fans or shippers of TiPo. Some may be against it, while some are neutral about it. With that being said, if the movie does focus on romance between the two, I’m afraid non-TiPo or fans of the franchise in general, might not like or enjoy the idea of the movie focusing more on romance (I apologize for overusing some of the words).

Before I start with this topic, I apologize in advance to the people who want the KFP villains, especially with Tai Lung, to come back or have their own "redemption arc" for the upcoming movies.

As I was saying, I’ve seen a lot of people wanting the old villains to return in the future films, especially Tai Lung. The idea of him returning is that he will have his own "redemption arc," join Po and the Five, and together they will defeat the bad guys. In my opinion, it is not a bad idea. In fact, I actually find it interesting. Although I’m afraid that the idea or possibility of them coming back is a little impossible. And as always, it’s for these reasons. 1). Tai Lung had already been sent to the Spirit Realm and had stayed/trapped there for a long time, so I think it is safe to say that he had already turned into a spirit. As for Lord Shen, um, he’s already dead? So, he is also a spirit. And as for Kai, well, he’s basically gone. and 2.) I recall Jennifer Yuh saying in one of their interviews with Allesandro that they don't want to or try to avoid reusing characters or villains from previous films. In other words, I don’t think they'd give us the same or previous villain/s we already had in the previous films because it’ll take a lot of time and effort for the writers and producers to come up with another challenge for Po, considering that he has already defeated them.

Oh 👀

To be completely honest with you, I’ve never actually thought of that before. I’ve always seen Master Oogway as someone who is wise and would never do such things... or maybe I could be wrong lol I don’t know, I guess we’ll just have to find out when the fourth movie comes out!

I hope I answered your questions correctly or at least satisfied you with my answers 😊 I’ll probably make a separate post about my ideas or theories that I have about the fourth movie because it’s going to take a while and it’ll be too long to include in this post, so yeah.

#ask #didn't realize it was this long lol

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belphies-cuhm-sluht · 3 years

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I enjoyed your dad!Lucifer and dad!Asmo stories! May I please request one of dad!Belphie where Satan takes over? 💜💚

Welcome Home (Dad!Belphie Pt. 2)

A/N : I live for this kind of angst, I love it. Although this hurt my Belphie loving heart, these fics are so much fun. (Part 1) Word Count : 3.1K Warnings : children; babies; maternity; mentions of MC's death; mentions of childbirth; dad!character; angst

Belphie stiffened when he heard his son say it, but he didn’t have time to react before the knock came. He groaned as he got up off the floor, picking his son up and walking to the door to throw it open, expecting another Akuzon delivery for Leviathan, or maybe Mammon had just forgotten his keys. “See, it’s not Ma…” He hadn’t even been looking when he opened the door, he was still on edge from his son uttering the word, but the way the child was reaching out towards the door made him look up. “Y/N…” Your name was whispered from his lips, he felt like he was dreaming, this was all just some sick dream that his mind had come up with out of guilt and self hatred. He must have fallen asleep on the floor, that’s what this is. You couldn’t actually be there, could you? “You would not believe how hard it is to get out of heaven. You all made it seem easy, but that guy is a real stickler.” You joked, grabbing your son from Belphie’s arms and holding him against your chest. “It’s been so long… You’ve grown so much. I’ve missed so much… How long was I gone?” You looked away from your son's purple eyes to meet Belphies, but he was still silent. It was like he had gone into shock, which, you wouldn’t blame him. Nobody probably expected for you to come back, but you weren’t going to spend your eternal life up in the Celestial Realm when your entire life was down in the Devildom. “Belphie… Can you atleast breathe? Please? You’re worrying me.” His mouth fell open, but the sound that escaped him was like a mixture between a squeal and gasp, and you didn’t really know what the sound meant, but his eyes were wide and his hands were holding his hair away from his face as if he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You can’t… You can’t be here… I watched you die.” He shook his head, quickly grabbing his son back and walking into the living room, shaking his head in disbelief. “That was one of the worst days of my life… I never thought you’d come back… I never thought I’d see you again.” He turned back around to face you as you walked into the house, shutting the door behind you. “How are you back?” You giggled lightly, trying to remember what happened in the Celestial Realm, but the memories were fading faster than you thought they would. “Well… First of all the line was so long, you would not believe it. They need to make the gates more like an amusement park entrance, maybe like five gates instead of one. It’ll really speed things up.” He didn’t seem to see the humor in it, not right now at least. It probably was the fact that he still didn’t understand how you got back and you were making jokes about the waiting time in heaven, it probably wasn’t a good time to do it. “It took forever to get through those gates, and the entire time I was waiting, I was thinking of you, and I was thinking of him. I don’t even know how I got sent up there in the first place, but as soon as I got through, I went straight to the guy who’s name shall not be said, and I told him I wanted to go back, to be back with you.” You rolled your eyes as little bits and pieces of memories came back to you, the hell that you went through just to get out of there. “I caused so much trouble, and I think I finally just annoyed everyone to the point where they didn’t care and they just gave me the boot… and here I am!” You gave him two thumbs up which your son mimicked back to you, but Belphie was still standing there, blinking rapidly as he tried to process everything that you just said. “So you ditched heaven essentially, to come back to your demon boyfriend and your demon kid who both killed you?” He said it as if it were a weird thing, and to most it probably would be, but to you it just seemed like the only thing to do. It was a pretty quick summary of everything that happened, and you probably could have summed it all up to that, but then there would have been no humor to break the ice and… you kind of felt like the situation needed a little comedy to lighten things up. “You’re such a dork…” He mumbled, but you saw the small smile tugging at his lips. You were

finally back, something that he never thought would happen, something that he never thought would be possible, but it did happen, and it was possible, and you were standing in front of him right now and he didn’t know how he actually felt about it.

“So how long have I been gone?” You asked, your head in Belphie’s lap as you laid on the floor, watching as your son tottered across the floor over to the toys that had been stacked in the corner of the living room. “He’s gotten so big…” As much as you had joked about the wait, it hadn’t felt like it was that long. The events that had taken place to get you up there in the first place were fresh in your mind still, it felt like it had just happened, but how big your son had grown said differently. Belphie pouted slightly as he thought of just how long he had gone without you, how long he had gone through this alone. “A year… and a half.” He ran his hand over your hair, watching your reaction. Your eyes gave away how you were really feeling, he could see how his words upset you, and that wasn’t what he was trying to do, not at all. “I never forgot you. I never got over what happened. I relived that day over and over in my mind… I’m so sorry Y/N…” His head dropped, resting his forehead against yours as he cradled your face in his hands. It was the first time you had ever heard him apologize for anything, and for once, he didn’t have a reason. There was no need for apologizing, not for this. “Hey… Don’t…” You reached up to cup his cheek, craning your neck just enough to kiss him before dropping your head back down into his lap. “I’m here now. You don’t have to apologize. Plus…” You held his chin between your thumb and pointer finger, turning his face to look at his son who was now sitting in the corner playing with his plush farm animals. “It was worth it to me. I have you, and I have him, and I can stay here with you forever. What is there to be sorry for?” You let your hand drop down against your stomach, smiling as you continued to watch your son, but your happiness was short lived as Belphie groaned, pushing himself up off the floor, causing you to roll off his lap. “You’re such an idiot! You think it was worth it? Dying for that thing?! You’re not the human I fell in love with anymore, you’ve changed.” His breathing was heavy as his nostrils flared, his hands shoved into the pockets of his cardigan. “And you may not notice it, but I do. And now… now you’re saying you want to live out the rest of eternity down here with me and the demon spawn.” He sighed loudly, shaking his head, but you didn’t understand why he was acting like this, speaking this way. “I said before all of that happened that I wanted to spend the rest of my human life down here with you, and that once I did die I would come back. I guess the process was a little sped up, but I don’t mind that.” You sat up, eyeing him suspiciously. You didn’t know where all of this was coming from, you thought that he was happy to have you back, and now he was basically saying that he didn’t love you anymore? “You didn’t have a problem with the plan before… And now that I’m here you don’t want me? That’s not fair, Belphie.” You swallowed thickly, digging your nails into your lap as you sat on your knees looking up at him. He looked indifferent , like he didn’t even care that what he was saying was hurting you. What had changed? “You didn’t come back for me. You came back for that, and you can have it. I don’t care. I wasted a year and a half of my life on the thing that took you away from me, and you come back and try to sweep it all under the rug, like it never happened.” You could hear in his voice that he was getting choked up, the lump in his throat causing his voice to crack. “You didn’t see your face… You didn’t see what I saw. I watched it hurt you, I watched it rip through you, and I watched it kill you. You don’t know how hard that was… And you don’t even care. You want to just walk back in where things left off and start playing house and… I’m just… I’m not ready for that.” Your teeth were sinking into your bottom lip as you listened to him, fighting back the urge to cry. He was wrong, he was so wrong. You might now have been able to see yourself, but you felt everything, but that didn’t change the fact that it was your child, that it was his child, and you

loved your son just as much as you loved his father. “What so… So you want me to leave again? You’d rather me just be completely dead and never have come back? What’s the reason? So you can suffer with the memories? So you can hate him forever for taking me away even though I’m right here?” You walked over to your son, lifting him off the floor and holding him on your hip, glaring at Belphie. “You’re utterly ridiculous… I… I don’t even… You’ll have what you want, but I’m not going to let you fill him with guilt for the rest of his life for something he couldn’t help.”

Belphie watched as you left again, walking out of the house with a luggage in one hand and his son’s hand in your other. “Well, that was stupid.” Satan said, appearing from seemingly nowhere beside Belphie, watching you walk down the pathway to the gate. “You finally got her back and… you let her leave again. You make no sense. Weren’t you the one crying every night because you missed her?” Satan’s eyes never left you, watching until you were too far off in the distance to even make out. “Shut up, Satan. You sound like Lucifer.” Bephie grumbled, slamming the door shut as he turned his back to his older brother and headed back up the stairs to the attic. It was supposed to be a low blow, but Satan knew that Lucifer wouldn’t have butted into his brother's business like he did. He waited to hear the attic stairs before walking out the door, sprinting down the walkway and out of the gates until he caught up with you. What Belphie… What none of his brothers knew was that he was infatuated with you. You were graceful, beautiful, funny, smart, sweet, and so much more. His heart had been torn as he watched your stomach swell with his brother’s child, and it had completely shattered when he watched that child rip through you, rip you away from Belphie, away from him. “Hey, you look like you need some help.” He said breathlessly, running his hand through his hair as he smiled sheepishly down at you. You were just as beautiful as you were before, even with the tear streaks that stained your cheeks. Your eyes glistened as you looked up at him, but it was only from the tears, tears that someone as wonderful as you shouldn’t have spilled for someone as shitty as Belphegor. “Oh… Satan… I uhm…” You sniffled loudly, dropping the luggage to the ground as your eyes overflowed with more tears. Satan did the only thing he knew to do, what he really wanted to do for so long, pulling you into his arms and holding you close as you cried against his chest, your words mumbled as you spoke into the fabric of his sweater. “I don’t know where to go… I don’t know what to do… I thought he’d be happy… He…” Your voice broke off into quiet sobs as his hand rubbed soothing circles into your back. Of course he knew that the only reason you were holding onto him like this was because you were broken, and you felt helpless, but he hoped that in due time you’d hold onto him like this for other reasons, because you wanted to, because you wanted him. He pulled back, sliding his finger under your chin to tilt your head up, using his other hand to wipe the tears from your cheeks. “Shh, it’s alright. I’ll help you. And if it makes things any better… I’m happy that you’re back. I’ve missed you, Y/N.” It felt good to finally get that off his chest, originally fearing the repercussions that those words would bring him if he said them anywhere around Belphie. It didn’t matter now though, Belphie had done the damage, and Satan was here to try to clean it up. He cleared his throat, kneeling down in front of your son who looked at him expectantly. “You’ve missed her too, haven’t you?” Your son nodded quickly as a child would, smiling wide up at you before looking back to Satan. “How about ice cream?” He looked up at you, waiting for your okay and how could you say no? Those two words had your son tugging at your hand, pulling you in the direction of the ice cream shop and you couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

“Are you sure this is okay?” You asked, stopping right outside of the door that you had walked out not more than an hour ago. “He doesn’t want me here, I’m sure me and the baby can stay at a hotel until we find somewhere else to go.” You didn’t want to admit it, but you were scared to go back in, scared to face Belphie again. Would he be mad that you were back? You didn’t want to deal with that, and you shouldn’t have to. You were only doing what you thought was right, and in Belphie’s eyes it had been all wrong. How were you supposed to know that he wouldn’t be happy? “Nonsense. You’ll stay here until you find a place. I’m not letting you spend all your money on a hotel room and food when you could stay here and get both for free. Plus, your room is still open, it’s still yours.” It was his idea to keep it, not that he’d tell you that yet. There was a time for everything, and right now what you needed was for him to be your support system, a friend that you could turn to and a friend that would be there. He opened the door for you, having to practically push you in as your son ran back into the living room to find his toys. “What the hell…?” You heard Belphie’s voice, clearly confused as he rounded the corner, his eyes landing on his son first before glancing up at the door to see you and Satan standing there. “I thought she was leaving. I thought they both were leaving.” His words stung, but you tried not to let him see just how much it hurt you. He didn’t deserve to know he had that much hold on you and your emotions. “Why the hell did you bring them back?” He eyed Satan suspiciously, crossing his arms over his chest as he waited for answers. “I couldn’t just let her walk around the Devildom with a child that small by herself. I was doing the right thing.” He turned to face you, his eyes were soft as he read every emotion on your face. He could see the pain that Belphie’s words alone were causing you, and it irritated him more than he’d ever admit. “How about you go up to your room, get you and the baby situated. I’ll bring you both something to eat.” You nodded slowly, calling your son over and quickly carrying him up, glad to be away from the looming glare of Belphie. As soon as you were up the stairs and out of earshot Belphie let loose, coming at Satan and not holding back. “You’re a fucking liar. I know exactly why you went after her, you sick freak. You think that just because I needed a break to sort things out in my own head that you could rush in and try to take over?” He shoved Satan back, not even caring that his brother was the embodiment of wrath and pushing him like this was sure to have them both brawling. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” “What’s wrong with me? Shall I quote you? ‘You’re not the human I fell in love with.’ Do you remember, Belphegor?” He hissed the words, standing tall as Belphie shrunk away from him, backing up as his own words were repeated to him. “Or how about the fact that you won’t even call your son by his name, you only call him it or that. What’s wrong with you?” He scoffed, shaking his head at his youngest brother. “You know, I loathed you for what you did to her. You were the reason she died, you just couldn’t control yourself. You killed her… And you had no right to pity yourself, you should have only felt guilt. But then… she came back.” He chuckled loudly, stepping closer to Belphie to get in his face. “And you screwed up again… So tell me… What is wrong… With you?” He cleared his throat, standing up straight once more as he fixed his sweater. “Anyway, I have to go make her something to eat, she and the baby must be hungry. It’ll be a nice way to welcome her home, don’t you think?”

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iamnmbr3 · 3 years

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Hi. I've been reading threw a number of your posts related to Loki 2021 and the general impression your post give is that you don't like how Loki 2021 has been written and present (which I understand because while Loki is not a favourite character of mine, I want to see his character done justices). And I guess I was just wondering how you would have tackled Loki 2021, using the plot elements that have been established in the show, but with your own spin. Thank you :)

That's a great question! I think the premise actually had a ton of potential. @nikkoliferous and I often talk about all the really cool things that could've been done and why it's so particularly tragic that they wasted all that good story setup. I think there are 3 main types of directions the story could've gone in with this premise (and then a lot of variations within each type).

Direction 1 - A buddy comedy with a heart

So I think this is what they were trying to go for with Loki and Mobius's dynamic based on the narrative framing and how all the interviews have presented Mobius in a positive light. (Though that's not what they actually wrote at all).

The way to do this would be to set Mobius up in a more sympathetic way and put him and Loki on more even footing. They could've had Mobius be almost as much a prisoner as Loki. They could have started out with him being pretty indoctrinated into the TVA worldview, but also being considered expendable. We could've seen his superiors threaten him with deletion if he can't make things work with the Loki Variant. Maybe he even feels some compassion for Loki and convinces his superiors that Loki can be useful and shouldn't be deleted since he's powerless to do anything else and he figures being enslaved is probably better than dying. Loki could actually be in-character and question Mobius's world view etc. And Mobius could to the best of his ability treat him decently instead of smugly mocking and tormenting him.

We could have Loki escape early on and end up bringing Mobius along with him, either by accident or because he realizes Mobius will be killed for losing him and he feels bad about it. Then we have them thrown together by circumstances and they could slowly grow to trust each other over the course of the show. The series could dig into the parallels between them. Loki could point out to Mobius that he repeats the propaganda he's been taught but he's hardly less of a prisoner than Loki and his masters are hypocritical. This could also lead to Loki realizing that while maybe he wanted to tell himself that he was an ally of Thanos's the truth was anything but.

While they're on the run both could start to realize they're experiencing freedom from the first time. Mobius could learn to question the TVA and Loki could realize that maybe he can be himself and doesn't have to be a tool of Odin or Thanos. Loki could could grapple with how much control he had while attacking NYC (thus allowing Disney to leave that a bit open to interpretation without totally sweeping the torture and mind control under the rug) and Mobius could grapple with how complicit he has been in the TVA's horrific actions.

Rather than Loki "learning to be trustworthy" (smh) Loki could learn to trust someone else and that not everyone will betray him. Mobius could also be a stand-in for more casual viewers and slowly realize that Loki isn't just the uncomplicated villain he at first took him for. There could be a nice mix of substantive character drama and entertaining hijinks. And of course in the end they could burn the TVA to the ground and liberate all realities. There's so many variations on this and @nikkoliferous and I often chat about them. Because the show could've been so good! And yet. </3

Direction 2 - The TVA & Mobius are acknowledged as the great villains they are

This is kind of what they're making by accident without acknowledging it which leads to a lot of emotional dissonance in the narrative. In canon the TVA is a horrific organization and Mobius seems happily complicit. He doesn't seem to have any compunctions about supporting their agenda of using murder, genocide, forced labor, enslavement, torture, police brutality, sham trials without due process, and privacy violation to eliminate free will. He happily forced Loki to toil under threat of death, mocks and humiliates him, manipulates him, and participates in acts of torture. He is INCREDIBLY creepy and a great embodiment of the "banality of evil" concept. The TVA is also absolutely terrifying.

If the show actually leaned into that it would create a great sense of narrative tension. Loki has escaped Thanos only to once again fall into the hands of a horrifically evil and powerful enemy. And it's up to him to figure out a way out of this situation and a way to liberate all of reality from their grip. In this scenario it might be useful to introduce some other prisoner characters so that he has some friendlyish faces to interact with...and potentially an army to lead against the TVA after he's won them over and figured out a plan.

Mobius's parallels to Odin and Thanos would work really well here because having Loki eventually defeat him and tell him he doesn't get to tell Loki who he is or make him into a tool of evil would be hugely cathartic. We'd get to see Loki stand up to and defeat someone who parallels the two individuals who have most hurt and manipulated him and decide to make his own way from now on rather than trying to be what others make of him. It would be awesome.

Direction 3 - TVA are twist villains

Some people think this might be the direction the show is going. The problem is that if that's true it'll just fall flat because the TVA is already clearly villainous so there's no twist. In the first episode already we see them commit acts of murder, genocide (wiping out a whole timeline because they believe the beings in that timeline belong to a class - variants - that are unworthy of life), police brutality, trial without due process, privacy violation, torture, and illegitimate imposition of rule (they are not elected in any sense and yet they have appointed themselves the arbiters of reality) all in the service of eliminating free will. That is...not what heroes do.

However they COULD have been good twist villains with just a few tweaks. Maybe they approach Loki and play on his deep yearning to be viewed as good and worthy as well as his self-hatred and poor self image to convince him that an "evil" version of him is wreaking havoc and they need his help. Maybe they also sweeten the deal by offering him protection from Thanos and the Black Order since he has no idea they are dead in this timeline. (If you wanted to keep audiences more in the dark you could have them just talk about the Black Order so that audiences at first assume they are still hunting Loki even tho Thanos is dead and don't realize the TVA is manipulating Loki).

At first they don't do anything overtly evil. The authoritarian aesthetic would seem like a humorous parody of office culture. It would then take on a new, much more sinister meaning when the TVA get's revealed as evil later and we learn that they obliterate entire timelines, murder people for the slightest infractions, don't view variants as people, and want to eliminate free will. Mobius could either appear first as a friend and then get revealed as a villain or have a redemption arc where he ends up siding with Loki.

Also for all of these scenarios the script and characterization should be good. I should see Loki, not Larry his dumb lookalike cousin. The script should have Loki doing and saying things that are in-character. (Which certainly doesn't preclude humor since Loki's wit is one of his most iconic features!)

#asks #loki tv series #Marvel #MCU #loki series #loki show #loki 2021 #loki tv show #my post

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wangxianficrecs · 3 years

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❤️live from new york by varnes

❤️live from new york

by varnes

E, 87k, wangxian

Summary: Wei Ying lets out a long, ugly groan. “I am fine, Lan Zhan. Everybody is overreacting, it’s so embarrassing for all of you.”

“You had undiagnosed pneumonia, which you walked around with for weeks until you passed out during dress,” Lan Wangji corrects him. “It got a big laugh, until everyone thought you were dead.”

He keeps his voice even and does not tell Wei Ying that it had been Lan Wangji who caught him, who called the ambulance, and who rode with him to the hospital, where he was yelled at by nurses who wanted to know why he hadn’t noticed that Wei Ying couldn’t stop shivering or string proper sentences together.

“Rumors of my demise have been vastly overstated,” Wei Ying says. “Anyway, I’m already feeling much better. Basically fine. Really almost completely back to normal, so stop babying me and tell me why the fuck you let your stupid brother hire the worst man in the world to host our show.”

OR: the one where they all work at SNL, Yanli's ex-boyfriend is hosting, and that's just the beginning of everybody's problems.

My comments: This was sooo funny, ohmygoodness, but also chock full of pining and withheld communication and stupidly sacrificial idiots. Author juggles an ensemble cast flawlessly, and everyone's personality shines in the rawest and most shamelessly hilarious way (I saw someone comment that they were all feral, which suits). Story is most often lwj POV (he and wwx are co-head writers) and this boy is SO IN LOVE, but doesn't want to damage what he's got, so he stays silent (mostly). Their relationship drama is subsumed in the utterly hectic week that leads up to a Saturday show (Sunday is off, Tuesdays have a hallucinatory never-ending feel, Fridays are actually much busier than Saturdays).

Excerpt 1: There is no “end” to Tuesdays. There is Tuesday, and then later Tuesday, and then midnight Tuesday, and then timeless Tuesday, when it stops being nighttime but isn’t yet morning, and then eventually the sun is up and it’s not Tuesday on the calendar but it’s still Tuesday spiritually, because no one has slept and everyone is all hopped up on caffeine and cigarettes.

Excerpt 2: Some funny bits:

“Laughter is the best medicine!” Wei Ying wheedles. “Come onnnnn, Lan Zhan, I’ve been rotting away for months and months, if someone doesn’t let me get a joke on TV in the next twenty minutes I’ll die. I’ll literally be forced to fling myself out of the Jiang family’s beautiful bay windows, and on the way down I’ll shout, ‘This was avoidable! This is because Lan Zhan wouldn’t let me punch up the promos!’ and then you’ll be fired for secondhand murder and it’ll be a tragedy like the sketch comedy circuit has never seen.”

Lan Wangji says, “Second-degree.”

“What?”

“Murder. Not secondhand.”

Wei Ying furrows his brow. “...I’ve heard it both ways,” he says. “That would make a good detective show spoof skit, though. Secondhand Murder.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees. “Murder She Wrote, but an idiot.”

“Keeps suggesting a series of increasingly implausible manners of death,” Wei Ying agrees, scribbling on the back of the takeout menu. Yanli and Lan Wangji share a look. “All the deaths are like — incredibly obvious and she goes buckwild with her theories anyway.”

“Police keep asking her to leave.”

“I want to be one of the victims,” Yanli says. “Put like, a sword right through my chest, but I’m still alive, telling the cops what happened, and she’s still like, ‘No no, that’s what the murderer wants you to think.’”

“Gruesome! Love it,” says Wei Ying, making a note.

Excerpt 3: some just plain esoteric turns of phrase:

Lan Zhan mutters, “Wei Ying,” in that voice of his. He says Wei Ying eight million times a day but never the same way twice. A mood ring of Wei Ying. Wei Wuxian wants to be fully dead about it, wholly and completely excused from this earth because of how Lan Zhan says his stupid name.

“Lan Zhan,” he sing-songs back. “Ah, Lan Zhaaaaan.”

Excerpt 4: Some gut-punches:

Wei Wuxian wants bruises; Lan Wangji wants scars.

_____________________

ETA: There's a Sequel!

It's 19k of sheer delight as our boys go to the courthouse to get hitched... only to find out they've been married for the past 3.5 years. How. How did this happen? Wwx points out that they've never had anything but married sex which is very responsible and traditional of them. But still. How do you get accidentally married???

Excerpt: “How are you so chill about this,” Wei Wuxian demands, turning his face into Lan Zhan’s palm and kissing it at the center. “I feel like someone just informed me that everyone else on the planet except me has two dicks, and you’re just like, tralala, dry cleaning.”

“It’s easier for me,” says Lan Zhan, very tenderly. “I’ve always had two dicks.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, helplessly. “Lan Zhan.”

modern au, SNL au, saturday night live, humor, comedy, pining, FOREST OF PINES, light angst, lots of jokes, ensemble cast, feels, oblivious wei wuxian, oblivious lan wangji, idiots in love, slow burn, lack of communication, self-sacrificial idiots, flirting, getting together, everyone ships it, top lan wangji, bottom wei wuxian, roommates, hijinks and shenanigans, comedian everybody, jiang siblings, friends to lovers, found family, adorable juniors, happy ending, favorite, @itsvarnes

(You may wish to REBLOG as a signal boost for this author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

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the-desolated-quill · 3 years

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WandaVision: ‘Subverting’ Good Television - Quill’s Scribbles

(Spoilers for the first five episodes)

Hey everyone! Well... it’s been a while, hasn’t it? The last time I wrote a proper review or Scribble, people still thought the COVID crisis would be over within a month. The poor saps. But I thought that as a special way to mark this year’s Valentines Day, we could take a closer look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s shittiest power couple in their new Disney+ show WandaVision.

The first of many MCU spin-off shows that nobody asked for, broadcast exclusively on Disney’s totally unnecessary streaming platform, WandaVision is about everybody’s favourite whitewashed Nazi experiment and her red sexbot boyfriend as they try to fit into a suburban sitcom neighbourhood without arousing suspicion.

Yes, you read that correctly. The MCU has a sitcom now. My life is now complete.

Sarcasm aside, I was legitimately curious about WandaVision because of its unusual setting. And considering one of my most common criticisms of the MCU is its total lack of creativity, anything that’s even a little bit subversive is bound to attract my attention. Of course ‘subversive’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘good.’ I could hand you a canvas smeared with my own shit and call it subversive. That doesn’t necessarily make it good art. And that’s exactly what WandaVision is. A canvas smeared with shit.

So lets split this critical analysis/review/angry bitter rant into two distinct chapters. The first focusing on the plot and setting, and the second focusing on the characters. Okay? Okay.

Chapter 1: Bewitched

Critics seem to be utterly enamoured with the whole sitcom gimmick, and it is a gimmick. As far as I can tell from the episodes I’ve seen, the sitcom setting serves no real purpose whatsoever other than to make the show ‘quirky.’ Which I wouldn’t mind, believe it or not, if the show was actually funny. There’s just one problem. It’s not.

Now in some ways describing why a sitcom doesn’t work is often futile because comedy is largely subjective. What I find funny, you won’t necessarily find funny and vice versa. With WandaVision, however, I won’t have that problem. I can demonstrate to you precisely why WandaVision, objectively, isn’t funny. And it all comes down to one simple thing. The stakes. Or rather the complete and total absence of stakes.

The show makes it very clear from the beginning that none of what we’re seeing is real. The cheesy theme song, the era appropriate special effects (mostly. It’s actually very inconsistent), the joke commercials, and, in the case of the first two episodes, which are in black and white, the appearance of red lights and objects in Scarlet Witch’s general vicinity. (Gee, what a mystery this is).

Basically Wanda has brought Vision back from the dead and created this sitcom world for them to inhabit. I’ll explain the stupidity of this in Chapter 2. The point is none of this is real, and that has a negative effect on the comedy because the very nature of comedy is suffering. Take the plot of the first episode. Wanda and Vision have to prepare a dinner to impress Vision’s boss. If they fail, Vision could lose his job and the couple could be exposed as superheroes. If this were a normal sitcom, it would work. The stakes are clear and it would be satisfying to see the two struggle and overcome the odds. But here, we know it’s not real. If it’s not real, it means there’s no stakes. If there’s no stakes, it means there’s no suffering. If there’s no suffering, there’s no comedy.

It would be one thing if the unfunny sitcom stuff lasted for like the first ten minutes or so before making way for the actual plot, but it doesn’t. Oh no. It doesn’t even last for the first episode. Out of the five episodes I’ve watched, four of them are almost entirely about these unfunny, objectively flawed sitcom homages, each set in a different time period. The fifties, the sixties, and so on. And what’s worse is that nothing that happens in them is plot-relevant. That gets relegated to the last five minutes of an episode. So you’re forced to sit through twenty five minutes of boring slapstick and puns in order to catch even a whiff of actual story. Which begs the question... who is this for exactly? It can’t be entertaining to Marvel fans, who have to slog through all this pointless shit so they can figure out what the fuck is going on. Comedy fans may get a kick out of the sitcom pastiche at first, but after four episodes, surely the joke would wear thin. So why is it in here? Clearly someone in the writer’s room absolutely fell in love with the idea of doing a Marvel sitcom, but nobody put in any time or effort to figure out how it would work in context.

I cannot stress enough how bad the plotting of this series is. As I said, the vast majority of a thirty minute episode is about shitty sitcom plots that aren’t funny and don’t have any impact on the story, only to then tease you with a crumb of actual plot in order to keep you coming back for the next instalment. Admittedly it’s an effective strategy. I was more than ready to quit after Episode 2 until that beekeeper showed up out of the sewer (don’t ask. It’s not important). WandaVision essentially follows the Steven Moffat school of bad writing. String your audience along with the promise that things might get more interesting later on and that all the bullshit that came before will retroactively make sense by the end. Except, as demonstrated with BBC’s Sherlock, that doesn’t work. And even if it did, it wouldn’t justify wasting the audience’s fucking time. And that’s what the majority of WandaVision is. A waste of time.

The only episode that doesn’t follow the sitcom format is the fourth episode. Instead it basically exists to explain all the shit that happened before. The shit that the audience, frankly, are smart enough to figure out for themselves. Wanda created the sitcom world as a way of coping with the loss of Vision, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we got it. Thanks. It doesn’t advance the plot or anything. It’s just a massive info-dump. But by far the lowest point was when Darcy (by far the most annoying character in the first Thor film and is just as obnoxious here) was sat in front of the TV, watching the sitcom and asking the same questions we were. Not even attempting to look for answers. Just reiterating what the audience is thinking. Like this is an episode of fucking Gogglebox.

In the end it becomes apparent why the series is structured the way that it is. It’s to hoodwink people into subscribing to Disney’s stupid streaming service. If you think about it, there was no reason for WandaVision to be a TV series other than to lure gullible fans in with a piece-meal story buried in a mountain of crap. This isn’t a TV show. It’s what is cynically known in the world of big business executives as ‘content.’ They’re not interested in entertaining the audience. Instead they crave ‘engagement’, which isn’t the same thing. Watching WandaVision is like staring into the void, waiting for something to happen, while Disney charge you for the privilege.

Chapter 2: I Love Lucy

So the plot sucks balls. What about the characters? Surely if Wanda and Vision are likeable at least, it’ll give us something to cling onto.

Well as I was watching the first episode, it suddenly hit me that I couldn’t remember anything that happened to them in previous films. I knew Vision died, but other than that, I couldn’t tell you significant plot details or their personalities or anything. Not a great start.

See, up until now, Vision and Scarlet Witch have been little more than background characters. So already there’s an uphill struggle to get us invested in their relationship, especially considering we haven’t actually seen that relationship develop. In Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Scarlet Witch is killing people because she’s pissed off about Tony Stark killing people (you work that one out) until all of a sudden she stops and joins the good guys because the script said so. Vision meanwhile is introduced as a convenient deus ex machina to beat Ultron and gets no real personality other than he’s a robot. Captain America: Civil War comes the closest to giving Wanda a story and personality of her own as it’s her actions that cause the Sokovia Accords to come into effect, but she never gets any real growth or payoff as the film is heavily focused on Cap and Iron Man’s penis measuring contest. And as for Vision, all he does in the film is accidentally cripple War Machine. No real character or arc there as such. And then we have Avengers: Infinity War, where Wanda and Vision are now sporadically in love and on the run until that pesky Josh Brolin, looking like a CGI cross between Joss Whedon and a grumpy grape, comes along and rips out Vision’s Infinity Stone to power up his golden glove of doom, and the film treats this like a tragic moment, except... it isn’t. Because we haven’t really had the time to properly get to know these characters and see their romance blossom. So instead it just comes off as hollow and forced.

WandaVision has the exact same problem. Apparently Wanda was so distraught about Vision’s death that she broke into a SWORD base, stole his corpse, brought it back from the dead... somehow, and then enslaved an entire town of people to create an idyllic lifestyle for her and her hubby while broadcasting it as a sitcom to the outside world... for some reason. Putting aside the dubious morality of it all, it’s impossible to really sympathise with Wanda or her supposed grief because we’ve barely spent any time with her. Had the Marvel movies taken the time to properly explore the characters and show us their relationship grow and develop, this might have had more emotional resonance. But no, it just happens. In one film they barely speak to each other and in the next they’re a couple. No effort to explore how they feel about each other or any of the problems that may arise trying to date a robot. It just happens and we’re just supposed to care. Well I’m sorry, but I don’t care. You’re going to have to try a little bit harder than that I’m afraid. What’s worse is that, thanks to the whole fake sitcom thing, it’s impossible to really become invested in Wanda and her plight because the show has to constantly keep us at arms length at all times in order to keep up the pretence that this bullshit is somehow mysterious.

Looking through the WandaVision tag, it amuses me how many people say that she’s acting out of character. And yeah, her actions are a bit of a head scratcher. Why would an Eastern European’s ideal life be an American sitcom? Why a sitcom? Why kidnap an entire town? Why keep changing the decade? None of it makes sense, but you’re wrong for thinking that Wanda is behaving out of character for the simple reason that Wanda has never actually had a character. In fact, ironically, Wanda mind controlling an entire town and forcing them to do her bidding is probably the one consistent thing about her as she did this in Age Of Ultron. In interviews, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany described how they used actors like Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Van Dyke as influences, which is really funny because they’re straight up admitting they don’t have characters and even now they’re still not playing the characters, instead emulating the work of far better actors.

As I was watching the show, it became abundantly clear that not only do Marvel not have the faintest idea what they wanted to do with these characters, but they also straight up don’t give a shit about these characters. Wanda in particular has had a rough time under the tyrannical regime of the House of Mouse. First they cast Elizabeth Olsen, a white woman, to play a Romani character, then systematically erasing her Jewish roots, even going so far as to put a cross in her bedroom in Civil War, and now the character is being butchered even more by forcing her into an American sitcom housewife role that she apparently willingly chose for herself, which is laughable. I mean say what you like about Magneto in the X-Men films, at least they actually depicted his Jewish culture. At least they recognised his Jewish background was important (though not important enough to cast a Jewish actor apparently). Wanda’s steady cultural erasure over the years is incredibly insidious and judging by Olsen’s comments in interviews, where she called Wanda’s comic book outfit a quote ‘gypsy thing’ unquote, it seems nobody has an ounce of fucking respect for the character or the culture she’s supposed to be representing. (and to all those kissing her arse saying it was a slip of the tongue, she has been repeatedly called out for using the slur in the past, so at this point I’d describe her behaviour as wilful ignorance)

If you want further proof of how much Marvel doesn’t seem to care about Wanda, look no further than her brother Pietro, aka Quicksilver. At the end of Episode 5, Wanda brings Pietro back from the dead, except it’s not Pietro. It’s Peter Maximoff, the Quicksilver from the X-Men films played by Peter Evans, who coincidentally is not Jewish or Romani either. So Quicksilver has the dubious honour of not only being whitewashed three times, but also twice within the same franchise. But should we really be surprised at this point? It’s Marvel after all. The same company that whitewashed the Ancient One in Doctor Yellowface and claimed it wasn’t racist because Tilda Swinton is ‘Celtic’. But now I’m going off topic. My point is that this isn’t a simple case of recasting an actor like Mark Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton as the Hulk. WandaVision actually acknowledges the recast in-universe, which makes no sense. Why would Wanda bring back her brother, only to make him look like a different person? We the audience may be familiar with this version of Quicksilver, but she isn’t. That would be like me bringing my Grandad back to life and making him look like Ian McKellen. He’d be perfectly charming, I’m sure, but he wouldn’t be my Grandad.

If Marvel really cared about the characters or narrative consistency, they would have brought Aaron Taylor Johnson back. Instead, now they have absorbed 20th Century Fox into the hellish Disney abyss, they use X-Men’s Quicksilver as a means to keep viewers from switching off and so that people will write stupid articles and think pieces about whether the rest of the X-Men will show up in the MCU. It’s like dangling your keys in front of a toddler’s face to distract them from the rotting corpse of a raccoon lying face down in the corner of the room.

And it’s here where I decided to stop watching the show because fuck Disney.

Epilogue: One Foot In The Grave

You know, I am sick and tired of the so called ‘professional’ critics bending over backwards to praise these god awful films and shows when it’s so clear to anyone with a functioning brain cell how bad they truly are. WandaVision is without a doubt one of the most cynically produced and poorly structured TV shows I’ve ever seen. Its riffs on classic sitcoms are pointless and self-indulgent, the writing is terrible, the characters are unlikable and unsympathetic, and it’s entirely emblematic of what the entire MCU has become of late. And it’s only going to get worse as Disney drowns us with more ‘content’ to keep the plebs ‘engaged’. In short; pathetic.

#anti wandavision #anti marvel #anti mcu #anti disney #quill's scribbles

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capn-schmazz · 3 years

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edgar wright being my new favorite director:

i have to admit that after watching the cornetto trilogy I’ve become more than a little obsessed with Simon’s work and Edgar’s as well, which means I’m forcing my friends (who all have a similar interest in either film or geek/sci fi shit so they aren’t too upset with my dragging them along) to watch them with me. Rewatching the trilogy just reminds me of how much I love certain sequences so here are (some of) my top Edgar Wright directorial moments from each movie.

some spoilers (no major ones though)

Shaun of the Dead:

The Opening Shot

I absolutely love the intro to Shaun of the Dead. The song behind it (Ghost Town by The Specials) starts off on a black screen, the intro chords playing us into our first shot of Shaun where the music, just as it’s hitting its melody, switches to the background sound of the scene with the ding of the “last orders” bell. Shaun sits in the pub, staring vacantly as he sips his pint and smokes his cigarette, disconnected from the current scene. His girlfriend jolts him back to life with the first line of dialogue, and we begin that scene. What this is is a great bit of writing made even better by the cinematography of that shot (one of my all time favorites to be honest). On top of that, it immediately characterizes his actions for the rest of the movie in a really interesting way. His girlfriend’s nudge is what pulls us into the actual movie, and it’s the love he has for her and the drive to stay with her that motivates the majority of his actions in throughout the rest of it.

A Day in the Life and Shaun Being Ignorant of the Apocalypse

Three things I love about these sequences: the things they accomplish, the visual comedy, and the recreated shot. At first, the shot is really an establishing shot of how Shaun lives his life. It introduces us to his surroundings (which we’ll need to know well as it’ll become a warzone), the people in the area (more specifically, the people he’ll be fighting), and the way he as a character interacts with the world around him. As we see from that first shot, he strolls through, interacting passively with people, but still engaged in his surroundings in a sort of muscle memory way. In the recreated shot, we see that muscle memory, definitely helped along by his hangover, and he completely misses all the obvious signs of the coming end of the world: smashed car windows, someone running for their life, zombies stumbling in the street, the blood on the fridge door in the shop, etc. Now we know that even though the apocalypse is here, our homeboy Shaun isn’t actually aware of it, making him an incredibly unlikely hero, as we continue to see throughout the movie. There’s also the joke in it. The original shot is the set up, the recreation is the punchline. There’s also the fact that all throughout ‘a day in shaun’s life’ we’ve had normal people acting like zombies, including Shaun, as an obvious foreshadowing to when they actually will be zombies. So it’s also funny that after all that build up to the zombie apocalypse, and us knowing it’s coming, when it comes Shaun doesn’t notice until it quite literally lunges at him.

Honorable mention: The ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ zombie beating because Edgar’s musical direction is also killer.

Hot Fuzz

The ‘Village Green Preservation Society’ and Slasher Run

So, we go straight from the aggressive, signature Edgar Wright quick-cuts, intense zoom action sequence of Nicholas Angel arresting a load of teenage boys, to a shot of him in his bed that night exercising his grip (in a great visual innuendo). The action of that first bit is immediately killed by the stillness of that shot. Then, queue ‘the village green preservation society’ by The Kinks, and Nick’s bed is made and we get that establishing shot of the country town and all its greenery. What follows is a perfect following of Nick’s morning jog through the town, introducing us to the lay out of the town (that we’ll need to know for when it becomes a warzone later on -- sound familiar?) as well as the new characters we didn’t meet during Nick’s late night pub arrests (because we’ll need to know them well once they’re...the people he has to fight-- de ja vu again). The new characters, they greet Nick with friendliness and little bits like “good morning Sergeant!” and such, that are each in time with the music. The music is perfect for the scenario as well as aligning perfectly and it tickles me just the right way and I love it.

It ends abruptly with the appearance of Mr. Skinner who essentially issues a threat and acts very weirdly, making Nick on edge, and has a sort of uneasy villain music tone behind that moment. Then we’re cut completely out of the sequence by a signature Edgar move of making opening the door to the police station as action-y, zoomed in and quick as possible.

A Big Cop in the Model Village

“If you want to be a big cop in a small town, fuck off to the model village” (or something to that extent) is a line one of the detectives says to Nick earlier in the movie. So, this moment is not only a great shot but a terrific writing moment. Also the fact that the model village itself is a pun. Sandford likes to fancy itself as a ‘model village’ with perfection, a dream world, a perfect haven that wins village of the year award every year. Not only is he a big cop in a small town (as is literally demonstrated by this shot) but he has destroyed the town (both the real town and this one), both of which were ‘model towns’ in different ways. It’s just so brilliant.

Honorable mention: Nick Riding into the Village on Horseback all Dramatic-Like because it’s dope and also really funny

The World’s End

Most of my love for this movie is about the writing, which is why I only have on massive directorial hard-on for this:

The Entire Fucking Intro to The World’s End

It starts with a basic expositional story telling us exactly who everyone is, where they’re going, what they’re doing, and what stopped them from doing this before. But it’s not just exposition. That’s the beauty.

Gary King’s in a group therapy session telling them this story. So the exposition is justified in a characterization way. But this isn’t about the brilliance of the writing, this is about the directing and cinematography. So I present to you:

That shot. Such beauty in that shot. It pulls out and out, running the production company logos with the incredible music of Primal Scream’s ‘Loaded’ in time with the movie title. The letters of the title even go out in time with the drum riff thing in the song. Then we go into a never ending shot going from left to right, following the action, as we see each of those characters of Gary’s friends and their modern lives with comparisons to Gary’s institutionalized squalor. It’s magnificent. This intro, from 0:00 to the bit where Gary hides behind Peter’s bushes and Peter drives around to see who it was, is probably one of my favorite sequences in any movie I’ve ever seen, and certainly the best introductory/exposition/characterization/title sequence I’ve ever watched.

I could go on about it for longer, but I have homework I’ve been procrastinating on with this post. Once my classes are done I’m planning on bingeing Edgar Wright’s work as well as Simon and Nick’s.

fun fact though: That opening shot of Shaun of the Dead, I saw it on youtube, just that opening shot, and immediately I knew I had to watch the movie.

peace out.

#the cornetto trilogy #shaun of the dead #hot fuzz #the world's end #edgar wright #directing #simon pegg #nick frost #cult film #movies

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hotdemonsummer · 3 years

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Obey Me! and Angelology and Demonology

alternatively titled Lets Get Into Lucifer

This is yet another long, long post about the lore of Obey Me! from the perspective of historical and theological angelology, and demonology or the study of angels and demons respectively, because I think it’s neat. I also talk way too much. I’m scared to check the word count on this.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on anything, and certainly not on religion. I just like comparative theology. Also, spoilers for lesson 43/44.

What is an angel? And what, in turn, is a demon? It depends on who you ask. All religions that have angels have a general consensus that they are spiritual beings, intermediaries of some kind of higher power. Demons, on the other hand, are much more vague beyond general malevolence toward humanity. Any connection between the two is entirely dependent on the culture and religion in question. Some have angels but not demons, and many have vice versa.

There’s generally four kinds of spirits that are considered demons:

Dead people with extremely bad vibes (think mogwai, yuurei, and other revenants)

Neutral-to-malevolent energy, physical form optional (think djinni or yokai)

Cult subjects (including foreign gods and ancestor worship)

Corrupted angels (either fallen or Nephilim)

The word demon comes from the Greek δαίμων, or daimon, but the concept of a demon is much older than the Greeks. The original daimon had none of the malevolent, evil associations that we now think of. Instead, daimon just described a kind of powerful spiritual entity (for example, δαίμων is the term Euripides uses for the new god Dionysus in The Bacchae). What we think of as demons now didn’t exist in Greek culture, and the negative associations came when the Tanakh was translated from Hebrew to Greek, but even then shedim aren’t identical to the contemporary depiction of demons that we see in Obey Me!, which, like everything else in Western society, came about through the domination of Christianity.

Shedim, the precursor to the Christian demon, was more or less a term for false gods, a title for the various Levantine pagan gods (see: origin of Beelzebub, Belphegor, and pretty much every demon that starts with Bel- or Bal-).

Obey Me! pretty much canonizes Type 2 and Type 4 demons, with characters like Diavolo, Barbatos, and Satan as Type 2 and the other brothers as Type 4. Historically, Beelzebub and Belphegor are Type 3 (Beelzebub and Belphegor being Levantine gods), Mammon being Type 2 (a general personification of Wealth, although Milton did write him as a Type 4 in Paradise Lost) and Asmodeus being somewhere in between Type 2 and 3 (being heavily derived from a Zoroastrian daeva of wrath). Lucifer is, historically, the only consistently Type 4 demon.

I don’t think I have to explain what a fallen angel is to any OM! fan. But I will.

Let’s talk about these guys. We’re all familiar with Satan’s weird complex about Lucifer, and I’m sure we’re all equally familiar with how Satan and Lucifer are terms used interchangeably for whatever being is The Big Bad of Hell. However, they’re not synonymous.

Satan derives from the same Proto-Semitic root as shayatan, which... should be pretty obvious, but nonetheless has a pretty analogous role as a tempter of men in the Abrahamic religions. Beyond that “tempter of men” title, though, the actual details of what Satan is is incredibly varied, including whether or not “Satan” is a name or a title. In Christianity, the view of Satan as an extremely powerful and evil corrupter of man, wholly opposed to God, came around the Middle Ages, when witchcraft hysteria spread.

Lucifer, on the other hand, is simultaneously a figure originating in Christianity and much, much older than it. The term of course means “light-bringer”, and is heavily associated with the morning star, aka the planet Venus. To make a very long story short, many Mesopotamian, Levantine, and Mediterranean cultures saw the lowering of Venus toward the horizon at night and thought, “hey, thats a pretty neat image!” and created stories about heavenly beings falling toward the earth. Of course, they didn’t use the ‘term’ Lucifer, that’s Latin, and came from the Vulgate Bible.

The term Lucifer does not exclusively refer to The Evil Fallen Angel™ in Christian texts (some very sacred things like the Exsultet explicitly refer to Jesus as Lucifer), but it sure is the most popular interpretation. In works like Paradise Lost or the Divine Comedy, the general idea is that the angel Lucifer rebelled against God in some way and was cast out of Heaven, then becoming Satan, and thus the two are one and the same.

(inb4 some Quora-type chews me out for accuracy’s sake, the “lucifer” mentioned in Isaiah 14:12 refers not to any angel, but to a Babylonian king. The whole fallen angel thing, much like the beatitudes or Bethlehem or Christmas, is a fusion of pagan influences.)

In other words, Lucifer is always and has always been a fallen angel. Satan, on the other hand, doesn’t have those connections to angelhood, and the two figures have an undeniable connection despite their clear individual differences. Sound familiar?

The next question is then what kind of angel is Lucifer anyway? to which you might be thinking, wait, there are different kinds? Yes, holy shit, there are so many kinds of angels and very little consensus on what they are. In terms of Christian angelology (because again, Lucifer is a uniquely Christian/derivative Christian figure unless you exclude Leland’s Aradia which I don’t because lbr they were Italian anyways), most hierarchies are based on the work of this guy:

This man has the incredibly succinct name of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and sometime in the 5th century he wrote a book called De Coelesti Hierarchia. It orders the *WTNV voice* hierarchy of angels into three levels called spheres, and each sphere has three sub-levels called choirs. Many, but not all, of the choirs are adopted from various Jewish angelic hierarchies. If you thought that it was just angels and then archangels were, like, the middle management version of angels then you are very wrong. I’m sorry that television lied.

You know who also lied? Tumblr dot com and any post that implies that the true form of angels is a big wheel with a bunch of eyes. That is, in fact, a descriptor for only one kind of angel: ophanim, or thrones. The depiction of angels runs the gamut from winged humanoids to multi-winged humanoids with multiple animal heads to burning snakes to vague heavenly mist.

Archangels and angels are the eighth and ninth lowest choirs of angels, respectively. Angels, or malakhim, are the default messengers of God and the choir from which guardian angels come from. Generally, if someone claims to have a message from God delivered to them, it will be an angel doing it. If it’s really important, it’ll be an archangel. Everyone else literally has more important things to do. No one’s getting visions from dominions.

Lucifer’s (the theological one) actual designation is kind of a mystery. Depending on the text, Lucifer has been described as a seraph (the highest), a cherub (the second highest), or an archangel (the eighth). According to Thomas Aquinas:

Lucifer, chief of the sinning angels, was probably the highest of all the angels. But there are some who think that Lucifer was highest only among the rebel angels.

Not very helpful, but hey. The question remains: what kind of angel is Lucifer, and this time I mean our Lucifer.

We know that Michael, just like his namesake, is an archangel. We also know that (SPOILERS) Simeon, unlike his namesake, is an archangel as well (Simeon is a saint, not an angel.) Lucifer likely was at their level, if not higher.

However, Lucifer was also a six-winged angel, a depiction generally reserved for seraphim (and cherubim, but far less frequently).

Moreover, in terms of role, an angellic Lucifer fits well with that of the powers, the sixth choir. Powers are in charge of moving the heavenly bodies, and are depicted as powerful warriors dressed in beautiful armor. It's fitting for a being so closely tied to the morning star to be a power, after all.

So, with all that considered, what is Lucifer?

Well, he’s a seraph (or saraph, technically). Why? Because Simeon is somehow a seraph and an archangel (I have already written too much to unpack that bullshit), and Mammon was a throne (remember those wheels with eyes?) and Beel was a cherub and therefore Lucifer had to be higher than both of them (interestingly big brother Mammon is in a lower choir than little brother Beel). This makes Michael kind of, well... weird, given the archangels’ low rank.

Some like to differentiate between archangel the eighth choir and Archangel, with a capital A, as a term for any high-ranking angel. While this is likely what Solmare is doing, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this has zero basis in any religious text whatsoever and is solely done for the convenience of not remembering anything besides angel and archangel. Which is like, fine, but I’m a pedantic jerk who I found claims to the contrary while researching and I felt the need to correct that.

Anyways, the more you know.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me theories #obey me demonology #obey me angelology #obey me lucifer #my theories #YEEHAW that was a lot. my god #anyways besties dont let this flop

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adamwatchesmovies · 6 months

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Petey Wheatstraw (1977)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

As long as there have been cult movies, there have been delusional filmmakers who’ve thought “Hey, I can do that on purpose!”. It never works. Something incompetently made in all earnestness like Troll 2, The Room, or Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is miles away from a film that deliberately tries to look shoddy. Petey Wheastraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law lives somewhere between the likes of “The VelociPastor” and The Human Tornado. It’s got some genuinely funny moments and some unintentional hilarity. The rest is a lot of untalented people sleepwalking through a film production.

After learning “Kung Fu” from his mentor, Petey Wheastraw (played as a baby by Clifford Roquemore II, as a young boy by Danny Poinson and Rudy Ray Moore as an adult) swore he’d never bow to anyone - living or dead. Now a successful comedian, he's asked by his rivals Leroy and Skiller (Leroy Daniels and Ernest Mayhand) to postpone his show so they can make the money required to pay back their debts. He refuses. Scared the mobsters they owe money to will ice them, they decide to assassinate Petey. In Hell, he's offered a deal by Lucifer (G. Tito Shaw): he can return to Earth to enact his revenge if he agrees to marry the devil’s daughter once he’s done.

Rudy Ray Moore playing a successful comedian who “knows” martial arts", gets with the ladies and speaks almost entirely in rhymes? Are we sure this isn’t another Dolemite movie? It might as well be. The only thing that separates this picture from those is the supernatural element but that wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for The Human Tornado. While Rudy Ray Moore’s filmography isn’t exactly known for its brilliant performances, well-written scripts, convincing stuntwork, production values, or any sort of quality, this represents a new low, primarily because it doesn’t feel like anyone is even trying.

The martial arts fight scenes are pathetic. Wheatstraw’s opponents patiently wait on the sidelines until it’s their turn to pretend like the punches and half-hearted kicks collide so they can fall over and go to sleep. To be fair, it's what you'd expect from Moore's filmography. More disappointing is the relative absence of comedy. In the past, his films have always found a way to crowbar a proxy of his act into the running time. Not today. There’s an all-too-short monologue at the beginning, and that’s it. This means the film’s best joke isn’t delivered by our hero; it’s by the murderous comedic duo who can’t afford to see him succeed.

Actually, Wheatstraw’s status as a hero is debatable. I know the Devil’s the Prince of Darkness and all, but in this movie, at least he’s honest. He offers Petey a simple deal: marry my daughter in exchange for revenge. It isn’t like Petey’s being tricked into the union, it’s what he signed up for. Of course, since she's ugly, Petey wants to worm his way out of the agreement asap. His idea is so dumb it’ll convince everyone watching that this is a bad film.

Faced with the prospect of matrimony with a monster, Petey decides to trick the ultimate trickster. His plan? Grab some random wino on the street, knock him out and pass him off as himself “in a profound state of meditation” with the help of some clothes and a convincing mask (so in movie terms, having Moore play him). By the time the drunkard wakes up, Petey and his friends will be long gone.

Where do we begin? Firstly, damning some poor soul to the wife you agreed to marry doesn’t make you likable. Second, how stupid does he think the Devil is? Third, where is he planning on going? Lucifer is a supernatural being. He’ll find you without much difficulty. Fourthly, how convenient that one of Petey’s close friends happens to be an expert makeup artist. If he didn’t have this skill, we might’ve had to use the magic pimp cane he’s been using to enact his revenge by transforming men into dogs, making objects levitate, manipulating people like a puppet master and more. It’s such bad writing it might be funny elsewhere. Here, it’s the final straw.

Petey Wheatstraw makes the mistake of thinking it knows what made Moore's previous two cinematic entries “successful”. Its attempts to be funny rarely work, which makes it a chore to watch. You’ll be doubly disappointed if you see this after Dolemite and The Human Tornado, which felt genuine in their efforts. If this was the first of Moore’s filmography you saw, you wouldn’t even make it to the end before shutting it off. (June 18, 2021)

#Petey Wheatstraw #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #Cliff Roquemore #Burt Steiger #Theodore Toney #Rudy Ray Moore #Jimmy Lynch #Leroy Daniels #G. Tito Shaw #Ernest Mayhand #1977 movies #1977 films

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unohanadaydreams · 3 years

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Okay I’m mentally prepared to ramble about the Hell Arc. No panels, just words.

The first blurb is definitely Ukitake speaking and I’d like to think it’s hiding some bitterness and regret, since he’s in hell, but you know I’m not gonna hold on to hope that it’s anything deep.

Orihime being resigned to laundry as well as just NOT knowing where her son is??? I’m sorry the same Orihime that can sense Ichigo like it’s her fucking job? But y’know uwu it’s okay to be a housewife and this is definitely Kubo showing off his depth of feminist theory and not shoving Orihime in the background bc wife clean and cook and nothing else ooga booga.

Kon as a babysitter is horrifying. The implication that they’ve kept him as a teddy bear for all these years is even more so. Like damn you can’t ask Urahara for ONE gigai after you saved the world, Ichigo? Hope youre paying him a living wage for helping you navigate the terrible twos. Tbh I think it would’ve been better to have a new sidekick and for Kon to be working for Urahara now.

Okay I do think the kid sending souls to Hell on accident is pretty funny. But also it’s definitely Kubo forgetting that Orihime is in the picture and Kazui is not Ichigo. He has more than Isshin; he has Orihime as his mom. He has someone who cares very much that he’s still in his bed and is someone he would talk to about uuuuh sending ppl through a portal. I know women are a different species and are incredibly hard to grasp because of that so it’s okay Kubo.

Ichika being taught by Ikkaku and to a lesser extent Yumichika is very good. Love that enough to gloss over my disappointment at Rukia not teaching her. I just know Byakuya is probably a lil bitter about it too. Rukongai rats 1 Noble clan 0

Booooo Kubo, get off the stage. Pointing out Orihime is at home doing laundry does not fix that she’s there. If she’s not gonna stop Kazui from doing whatever the fuck she might as well be eating bad ramen too.

MAYURI MY BELOVED. You’re so right, king, Urahara is a tasteless capitalist unlike you, who fully commits to the too-organic technological horrors the Seireitei deserves.

Did Kubo forget how to draw Rangiku? Why the fuck is her face so moe. Some of the women look pretty off in the face over all but with Rangiku it’s jarring. I know her face got more moe somewhere in tybw arc but jfc it’s worse here.

I find it hard to believe that Shunsui would stick to a tradition that demands all lieutenants be away and in the human world all at once but maybe he just doesn’t give a shit about anything nowadays. Depression is leading the Gotei 13 now.

It’s not a Bleach surprise attack unless a woman is grievously injured right off the bat.

That being said, I do enjoy the two new lieutenants. The hakama shorts are a Choice but they work somehow. Also a zanpakuto being on nails is fun.

Kira and Akon ❤️ I’m glad Kubo retconned the novels so Kira could make his entrance in a hoodie and black tabi. Hope he gets more depressing and bitter moments tho. Also Akon having so much panel space…..I’ll never recover.

Hell Szayel is so fucking horny which is astounding considering like everything he did was a sex joke in Hueco Mundo arc. His sex appeal has aged like fine wine. Also pure comedy that Ichigo can only ask who he is. If only Uryu were there 😔

So did they have ceremonies for Gin and Kaname because if not then???? Like I understand it’s impossible to make this gel 100% bc its not based on anything other than wanting characters to come back as cool demons and is actively working against previous canon but c’mon. They would’ve noticed before this when no ceremony for Gin and Kaname was held and their reishi haunted everyone via molasses rain drops.

That being said, I love love love the concept of characters coming up from Hell with not holes within them but outside them. They do not need to consume others to feel completion, they are consumed to the point of wanting to fill others. Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you see what you’ve done? Don’t you long to fill that hole inside of you, too? All it takes is dying to reach that nirvana of knowing who you are and what you feel in swirling completion. Even fallen, the fruit of knowledge is divine.

I want Ukitake to say he’s glad Shunsui lived to his face while looking so heartbroken that he didn’t get to live too. I want these two to cry across from one another with a flashback to their idyllic youth. I want it *grabby hands*

Sosuke Aizen has disappeared as in dead? Or are they counting ‘out of Seireitei’ as disappeared. Honestly 50/50 whether he’ll have a form of cameo. On one hand he’s incredibly popular, on the other hand Kubo was floundering with him during tybw so I can’t imagine he gives a shit to bring him back.

As far as new lore for hell butterflies goes, I guess we’ll see how interesting it gets but I highly doubt it’s going to get a lot of thought.

With the way Kazui is smiling, it makes me wonder if someone taught him about the shrine and sending souls to hell. Does he recognize the door? Is Kubo implying that Ukitake has had contact with Kazui? I mean, it would make a LOT of sense considering the fish he was riding, the ritual he knows. It would also make sense why the soul reaper badge was highlighted; Ukitake has been around in some capacity before officially being stomped to hell???

Definitely me thinking too much about it but also there’s no way Kazui just knows this shit without someone from Hell telling him about it even covertly.

This entire arc set up definitely seems like it’ll bring some worthwhile angst and maybe some moments for the more unexplored characters if characters like Akon getting screen time is any education.

Overall not hoping for anything other than good Hell designs and seeing characters do things.

If I don’t see Kenpachi with his beefy titties out I will be disappointed. That’s my bare minimum.

#Kazui is absolutely being led astray by someone in Hell #gonna guess Kubo is joining the ‘making parents criminally incompetent’ club #also MAYURI AND AKON MY BELOVEDS #I just wish Kenpachi had even one panel??????????#he’s so….hes so ❤️#bleach spoilers #bleach hell arc #okay spoilers tags added

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 4 years

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Re: Star Wars prequel novelizations - the Revenge of the Sith book is genuinely one of the best things I have ever read and changed my life.

THANK YOU, anon, for reminding me about the Revenge of the Sith novelization. I just reread it, and my crops are watered, my skin is clear, and — I cannot overstate this — I actually remember why I love Star Wars. That love has been for too long stolen by The Fandom Menace sucking the life out of those movies to invent a new definition of suffering while digesting them slowly over a thousand years.

Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover is one of the greatest works of adventure fiction I have ever read, and it continues to inspire the way I write action sequences and character conflicts. It does so damn much to transform a movie that is, to be honest, just okay. There are a couple of big additions from the novel that make the whole Skywalker saga richer, and there are about five hundred little tweaks that deepen the lore in a way that shows that Stover loves Star Wars to the core.

First big addition: having Obi-Wan tell Padmé that he’s in love with Anakin. This is great because yay, queer representation! But within the specific context of RotS, it also sets up the super-important contrast between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Obi-Wan, Stover’s novel makes clear, is the quiet and unassuming embodiment of everything a Jedi is supposed to be: he’s selfless, loving, hard-working, and incredibly skilled with the Force. Obi-Wan falls in love with Anakin, realizes that Anakin doesn’t love him back in that way, and... lives with it. He spends time with Anakin, supports Anakin, enjoys Anakin’s company, and doesn’t act like the world will end if Anakin isn’t his.

Anakin loves Obi-Wan, in a siblinglike way, and he loves Padmé. But he’s got a nasty habit of expressing that love through possession and control, through going behind Padmé’s back to “fix” her life without her permission. Anakin falls in love with Padmé and immediately concludes that he cannot possibly live like this: they must begin a secret relationship, and he must both marry her and remain a Jedi. Later he destroys the Jedi and eventually Padmé herself because he sees himself as having no way out of that dilemma.

And all the while, Obi-Wan is there in the background. Also in love with someone with whom he cannot have a relationship, and just… dealing with it like an adult. Because millions of people are in love with people who don’t love them back, and that’s just how it is sometimes. It’s selfish to obsess over “having” their love at all costs. For Anakin, that obsession with saving Obi-Wan and Padmé eventually leads to him killing them both.

When Yoda tells Anakin that he must deal with his fear of losing Padmé through letting go, Anakin takes this to mean “let her die.” But what Yoda means is not “let her die,” but rather “love her the way Obi-Wan loves you: quietly, selflessly, and with a willingness to do what’s best for her, whether or not that means you get to have her.” And Anakin never understands that, because Anakin’s view of the world is so intensely egocentric.

Second big addition: updating the Force to explain the Dark Side. Revenge of the Sith, even more so than any other Star Wars, is all about the contrast between the Dark Side and the Light Side. Here, Stover’s contribution is brilliant; he makes the Dark Side egocentric and the Light allocentric.

Terminology! “Egocentric” in psych refers to the perspective that focuses on how the world affects you and how you affect the world. At the extreme, egocentric thinking can be believing that a baby is crying in a deliberate effort to annoy you, or that every person in a crowded cafeteria will remember what shirt you wore when you ate there a week ago. “Allocentric” refers to the perspective that the self is one of several disparate elements buffered around by the world. At the extreme, allocentric thinking can be failing to realize that others are reacting to your presence, or viewing your own life as one thing you can give to help others.

Stover doesn’t use those terms, but he does describe how Dooku “drew power into his innermost being until the Force itself existed only to serve his will” (p. 64). Later, Obi-Wan “gave himself to the living Force… the Force moved him, let him collapse as though he’d suddenly fainted, then it brought his lightsaber from his belt to his hand” (p. 285). Dooku ultimately loses his fight against Anakin because he focuses on how everyone is responding to him, and misses that Anakin and Palpatine are beginning to build an alternate alliance right under his nose. Obi-Wan ultimately wins his fight against Anakin because he allows the Force to shove him around, and sets aside his concern with both his own life and that of his best friend while fighting for the greater goal of peace.

Not only that, but Obi-Wan’s understanding of the Force moves beyond that of most Jedi. He compares “the will of the Force” to “the will of gravity,” in essence stating that simply because it is beyond human comprehension doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own rules. One can be a Jedi without needing to understand the Force in the same way one can be a pilot without needing to be a physicist. In RotS, we see that his refrain of “search your feelings” is a way of calling on a Force user to be mindful enough to accept realities that are already evident, if one can only allow oneself to have that knowledge.

Stover also uses these competing perspectives — allocentric and egocentric — to explain why the Jedi Order falls. The tight control the Order exerts over the Jedi moves them away from the will of the Force and toward the will of the Council. Its insularity creates a sense of superiority, which is the reason so many Jedi fail to see their clone troopers as threats until it’s too late. Stover tweaks the Jedi Purge scene to emphasize that the only reason Obi-Wan and Yoda survive is because of their selflessness. Obi-Wan takes the time to befriend his alien mount, repeatedly confirming her well-being, and then she shields him with her body when his troopers open fire. Yoda respects the Wookie command and puts himself in a position to assist rather than lead the resistance movement on Kashyyyk, meaning that when a fight breaks out between him and his troopers the Wookies don’t hesitate to side with him. Yoda and Obi-Wan are the only two Jedi who truly give themselves to the service of others, and thus they are the only two to survive the Purge.

...and the million little favors this book does for the movie.

During the opening battle, having Obi-Wan tell Anakin to “use the Force” to fly a narrow trench and having Anakin roll his eyes at such an obvious suggestion. It’s a callback to A New Hope, but one that drives home how much more the Force is integrated in the lives of Old Republic Jedi than it is in the lives of Imperial kids like Luke.

Fixing the minor continuity error from Episode III to Episode IV — why would Admiral Motti dismiss Vader as following outdated superstitions if there were millions of Jedi within his lifetime? — by explicitly stating that the Sith are considered a dead culture. Ergo, Vader’s “ancient religion” isn’t the Force in general; it’s specifically the Sith creed.

Making Palpatine scarier and more seductive than he is in the movie. Stover’s rhetoric about killing even the Jedi children is frighteningly rational and coherent, and he uses it to give Palpatine some stomach-churning speeches while corrupting Anakin.

Using the novel format for all it’s worth. Stover skims over the physical-comedy elevator sequence in favor of having Dooku and Palpatine discussing their plans for the war. He only tells us about Anakin’s conversation with Yoda after the fact, in scattered flashes as a panicking Anakin runs through the halls of the Jedi temple. He gives us intense focus on Anakin’s mindset while trying to land the broken halves of Invisible Hand, less on what the ship itself is doing. He cuts away from Anakin and Obi-Wan’s final battle, toward R2D2 and C3PO as they struggle to drag a dying Padmé into her ship out of a desperation to find some small way to help her.

Revealing that Palpatine spends the entire story trying to kill Obi-Wan. This gets hinted at in the movie, but Stover includes several moments throughout Palpatine’s “rescue” from Dooku when Palpatine sets Obi-Wan up to die, and mentions like eight other attempts on Obi-Wan’s life as orchestrated by Palpatine. It’s a great character addition, that Palpatine assumes he cannot get Anakin to fall unless he first eliminates Obi-Wan.

Expanding Padmé’s role in the movie (set dressing, and later refrigerator filling) by having her secretly organize and launch the Rebel Alliance right under Vader and Palpatine’s noses.

Those are just examples of how Stover clearly knows the Force, gets the Force, and strives to make the Force more internally coherent. How he sometimes translates, sometimes preserves, and always improves the pacing and tone of the film.

I haven’t even touched on the FUCKING AMAZEBALLS imagery or introspection in the book yet, but this post is getting wicked long, so I’ll go ahead and leave it here for now. Point is, all y’all should go out immediately and get a copy from your library and/or used bookstore, because Nonny is right and it’ll change your life.

#star wars #revenge of the sith #star wars episode iii #matthew stover #revenge of the sith novelization #book review #long post #nothing to do with animorphs #the force #star wars episode iii: revenge of the sith #anonymous #asks

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