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theartoflovingthomashunt · 4 years

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HWU102: uncertainty

Masterlists: [Hollywood U] || [Red Carpet Diaries] || [Baby Hunt] || [Love & Scotch HWU/OH] || [#HollywoodHacks HWU/LH]

Characters: Alex, Thomas Hunt, Ethan Blake (mentioned) *No Ben Park this chapter, sorry!*

Prompt: Hope @choicesmaychallenge; @kinda-iconic

Background: This is part of my #HollywoodHacks series (a Hollywood U/#LoveHacks crossover). This picks up later in the same day as HWU101:a transfer. Hunt had come out of retirement to direct the movie Alex is producing. However, the current production is going anything but smooth, leading Hunt to give Alex an ultimatum: fix the film or he’s quitting.

Catch up on chapter one

Synopsis: Alex is frustrated about the events that occurred in the previous chapter. Her film is failing fast and she worries she's not enough to save it. Hunt is there to offer her some support.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Alex leaned back against the front door, her head banging harder than she expected. She winced at the sudden rush of pain, but it was no more than the headache she already felt.

Not only had she not found a way to save her movie, but Mike also didn’t show up to their meeting. Apparently, threatening to have him removed from the production for missing yet another writer’s meeting was easier said than done. She couldn’t worry about that now, Ethan and the team of lawyers would handle that. It would be challenging, but Ethan ensured her he’d get it done. She had to trust him. She had no other options.

Her focus needed to be on finding a way to rewrite the script without Mike’s content, keep Holly’s character dynamics, fill the new story gaps, all while not straying too far from the original concept as to not lose the money and time they had spent on props, sets, and costumes.

Her face dropped in her hands. She knew that even if she could pull all of that off, the likelihood of Hunt staying on knowing this increased uncertainty was highly unlikely.

Her heart sank. Worse still, he was the only one she wanted to talk about this all with, but she didn’t want to burden him. The stress of everything that had happened over the past couple of weeks with the production was getting to him and she knew it. Plus, they had decided to compartmentalize work and home in an effort to be objective when it came to making production decisions.

She slid to the ground before she could stop herself, letting the door support her. She just needed a minute to breathe. With her eyes closed, she counted each breath–in and out–trying to calm her racing mind.

“Alex?” Hunt called.

He must have heard the front door close. She could hear his distant footsteps growing closer.

“Alex!” His voice filled with concern. He moved quickly toward her, crouching down in front of her. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Alex forced a smile on her lips before looking up. “I’m fine, really.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.” His fingers brushed against her cheeks. He could see the pain in her eyes.

“It’s nothing,” Alex insisted, though her voice betrayed her. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I hope you know you can talk to me about anything,” he offered, moving to sit beside her.

Hope. Alex thought. She had hoped she could fix the growing problems with the film, but if anything, she made them worse. “I have to do this on my own.”

Hunt wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in. “You don’t have to do anything alone. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about certain things. All of this is new. We’re figuring it out as we go. We’re bound to make mistakes. I’m bound to make mistakes and making you feel like this is one of them.”

“I just feel like I’m letting everyone down.” Her voice cracked as she leaned into him. “Most importantly, I feel like I’m letting you down.”

His thumb caressed her arm. “You could never let me down.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “But I did. I can’t save this film. I tried. I really did. I just couldn’t. I’m sorry!”

“Shh,” he kissed the top of her head, brushing her hair behind her shoulders. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about.”

“I do,” she breathed heavily. “Tomorrow, I have to tell the cast and crew that our production is on hold, while we draft a new script because I fired one of the lead writers… and I can’t even give them a timeframe for the delay, and, I also have to tell them, that you may be leaving too.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Hunt admitted.

“But you said?” She looked at him with confusion.

“I know what I said. But, I realized that I don’t have to believe in the film. I just have to believe in you!” He wiped the tears from her cheek. “And I believe in you, Alex. Whatever you need, I’m here for you, always.”

“Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around him, burying her head in the crook of his neck. She breathed easier. Tomorrow was still going to be a difficult day, but knowing he’d be there to support her made all the difference. She had to hold on to that tiny flame of hope that she still flickered inside of her that the could salvage the film.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Perma tags: @lilyofchoices ; @simplymissjulia ; @mfackenthal ; @the-soot-sprite ; @virtuallytakenby ; @zeniamiii ; @kaavyaethanramsey; @choicesobsessed; @xjustin-ethansgirliex

Thomas Tags: @alleksa16 ; @flyawayboo ; @alj4890 ; @twin-skltns ; @ab1901 ; @riseandshinelittleblossom ; @hopelessromantic1352 ; @thearianam ; @trappedinfandoms; @zodiacsign1 ; @curiouslittlefreak ; @sharrybh20 ; @awkwardambition ; @jodibo ;

#thomas hunt #professor hunt #hunt x mc #thomas hunt x mc #hollywood u #fan fiction #lovehacks #hollywoodhacks #alex spencer #alex hunt #hunt x alex #hwu #au #hwu au

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 4 years

Note

um hi who’s steve moffat??

Oh my goodness. Okay, my sweet summer child, buckle up. I’ll try and keep this short. I assume you’re asking this since I just reblogged that post about Moffat creating the new Dracula show for BBC, so I’ll explain the particulars of why that’s upsetting as well.

So, Steven Moffat is a British television show writer and creator. He created the very popular (and well-done) comedic show Coupling, which was a take on the modern-day dating world and apparently inspired by how Moffat met his wife. He was also a writer on Doctor Who, the long-running British science fiction series, and this is where the fun (note the sarcasm) begins.

See, Moffat wrote some very very very good episodes on Doctor Who. In fact he wrote two of my favorites: the two-parter “The Empty Child”/“The Doctor Dances” (which includes my all-time favorite television moment, “Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once–everybody lives!!!”) and “Blink.” “Blink” is considered one of the best, if not the best, DW episode as it works so damn well and is so well written and ALSO functions very well as a standalone episode. Someone who has never seen a single DW episode could watch “Blink” and enjoy it.

Given Moffat’s good writing chops, everyone was super excited when he became the showrunner for Doctor Who after Russell T. Davies, the original showrunner, left, and when Moffat also announced he was creating Sherlock, a modern-day adaptation of the beloved Sherlock Holmes character.

I will direct you to this highly entertaining video that explains why Moffat’s show running skills and BBC’s Sherlock are, well, garbage.

Please do watch that video when you have the time since it’s fucking hilarious but here’s the gist of it: Moffat relies on building cliffhanger after cliffhanger and never actually delivering any climax, catharsis, or answers to the questions he gives. He makes his shows about one “super special genius” male character whose only function is to be “super special genius” and never actually has any character development and really actually is an asshole to everyone around him. And he writes female characters horribly, Irene Adler just to start. He crams in LGBT+ characters and other such “minority” characters in order to get “woke” and “diversity” points but he doesn’t actually give them any legitimate layers or nuance. The genius straight white male always saves the day and he does it while being a dick to everyone.

Yay.

Moffat’s constant reliance on twist after twist after twist without any character development, conclusion, explanation, or even logic, means that eventually his shows spiral into the absolutely absurd, as happened with season four of Sherlock. I would argue the show went off the rails in season three but that was before I saw it completely jump the shark in season four. Holy shit.

Which brings us to Dracula.

Look, vampires are sexy, I will be the first to admit that. But Dracula himself is not a vampire you want to swoon over. In the original book he is a sexual predator (the passages where he feeds on Mina are particularly disturbing and evocative of rape) who brutally and mercilessly murders people by twisting their spines and bashing their heads in until their brains burst out, sending wolves to tear them to pieces, and ripping their throats out. He literally throws a toddler to three vampires who do something so horrendous to it that Jonathan Harker blocks it from his memory.

Dracula is also, to add to all of this, a metaphor for two things a) the powerful and charismatic but “forbidden” gay relationship/love (and the shame that comes with that because this was the 1800s) and b) the racist/xenophobic fear of the “pure Aryan race” being “corrupted” by the “impure” eastern/non-Aryan bloodline.

Yeah, you heard me. The second one is pretty damn obvious and it’s a real sign of continued xenophobia and racism if you ask me that no adaptation (save for the silent black and white film Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary) has addressed this issue. Dracula literally says that he will destroy the Western race of heroes “through your women, and through them your children! I shall have them and through them I shall have you!” and basically says yeah I’m gonna rape your wives and they’ll have my children and your pure bloodline will be corrupted. This is far from an uncommon fear. It’s a repeated threat from the non-white villain in racist texts and it’s a common rhetorical trick. You even hear it in historical films when the heroic leader stands up and is like “would you have them kill us and rape our wives?” The fear isn’t just death, it’s that the “oh so pure bloodline” will be corrupted by the “unclean” race mating with the “clean” one.

AND THAT’S IGNORING THE BLATANTLY RACIST STEREOTYPE OF THE ROMANI PEOPLE AS EVIL STOOGES OF DRACULA LIKE WTF STOKER I’M GONNA RAISE YOU FROM THE DEAD JUST SO I CAN KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS–

*ahem* Anyway.

The first one is also pretty obvious given that the entire first third of the book is Dracula flirting with Jonathan up to and including making innuendos about Jonathan teaching him English by “showing him how to use his tongue” (NO I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP). Most people believe that Dracula was based on Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler but actually, while Stoker did research on good ol’ Vlad, Dracula was based on a popular actor and close friend of Stoker’s, Henry Irving. Dracula was originally supposed to be a play, written for Irving, with Irving in the title role. When Irving refused, Stoker changed it to a book.

In fact when people who knew the two read the book they all went, “holy shit Dracula is totally Irving and Stoker is totally Jonathan.” Contemporaries noted that the relationship between Irving and Stoker was toxic, with Irving being manipulative and narcissistic, taking advantage of Stoker, while Stoker was too damn in love with Irving to stand up for himself even as he knew that Irving was being an asshole.

SO THAT MEANS WE HAVE: queer subtext, racist subtext, and vampirism as a metaphor for sexual assault.

None of which Moffat has a history of handling well.

It’s a sad tradition in Hollywood to change Dracula into a sexy anti-hero, and to claim that Mina Harker, the heroine of the book who saves everyone’s goddamn bacon, was actually attracted to Dracula and wanted to be with him. Y’know, the man who in the book makes her drink his blood in a way that is explicitly worded to make it sound like she’s forced to give him a blowjob (no seriously reading those passages is genuinely disturbing). Seeing how Moffat treated Sherlock and The Doctor on their respective shows, he’ll probably turn Dracula from a monster that is legitimately scary (because y’know he rapes people) into yet another pale white super special genius Mary goddamn Sue.

Seriously, the next time someone asks me what a Mary Sue is I’m just directing them straight to the Moffat-run seasons of Doctor Who and BBC’s Sherlock.

And given how Moffat handled the character of Irene Adler by turning her from a woman who received the world’s first unsolicited dick pic and was forced to use it to protect herself from persecution by royalty in order to quietly marry the love of her life into a dominatrix whose bisexuality was used as a one-off line to show how “irresistible and sexy” Sherlock is and is beaten by Sherlock, is a villain, not just a villain but the lackey of another villain, and has to be rescued by Sherlock twice instead of being the clever quick-thinking woman who gets one over on him and teaches him not to underestimate women and that he’s not always right…

Yeah. I don’t have high hopes for how Moffat will treat Mina Harker, the meticulous wannabe journalist who loves her friends to death and has a fucking backbone of steel and memorizes train schedules in her spare time like the utter dork she is.

And even if you set all those things aside! Even if you hope that Moffat will do justice to the women in the series, that he’ll properly address the sexual, gay, and racist subtext in Dracula, even if you hope that he won’t make Dracula another annoying can’t-ever-do-anything-wrong-jackass that treats the people around him like shit but we’re supposed to think he’s cool for it and people still somehow inexplicably stick around him and forgive him for it…

EVEN IF YOU HOPE FOR ALL OF THAT

…there is still Moffat’s major storytelling issue which is that he never tells a complete story. He never delivers on any of the promises he makes to the audience. He dangles cliffhangers that promise some big revelation is upcoming, but he never actually makes good on that–he just gives another twist instead, so that you never conclude any story arcs. It’s like listening to a song but having no resolution in the music so it’s just hurting your ears. Moffat is all about sound and fury, about making things look and sound cool, but without giving them any actual substance.

Moffat has done some great writing work, but it was always when someone else was in charge reining him in and forcing him to tell a complete story. He was given carte blanche with Sherlock and look how well that turned out. Season four was so bad people actually wondered if it was a joke. Yeah. Seriously.

So, people are understandably frustrated about this upcoming Dracula adaptation and have zero hope that it will handle any of the characters or the complex issues with any kind of nuance or substance. My personal bet? The women will be treated as props who fawn over Dracula, Dracula himself will be an asshole that we’re supposed to somehow like, his bisexuality will be a throwaway thing and the men who fall for him will behave in stereotypically gay ways and God forbid he actually get a long-lasting substantial relationship with any of them, Van Helsing is gonna be a woman and be either his bitter ex or eventually fall for him, and oh yes the racism/xenophobia in the original text will never be addressed ever.

That, my dear, is Steven Moffat, and that’s why people hate him and aren’t happy about him creating a Dracula television series, bisexual vampires or no.

#mads answers things #dracula #dracula bbc #moffat #steven moffat #I'm paraphrasing the Dracula quotes because I've read that damn book ten times by now #and I'm too lazy to go find my copy to get the exact quote right #I hope this explains everything satisfactorily my dear!#apologies that it's such a long answer lol #I tried to be succinct #nalgenewhore

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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The Precise Moment I Stopping Reading City of Bones

by Wardog

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Wardog is probably a bit patronising.~

Like all inflexible people, I like to think of myself as being relatively open-minded and, therefore, in the spirit of open-mindedness I recently got round to reading (or rather attempting to read) Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. I wanted to like it, no really, I genuinely did. Cassandra Clare, for all those who have been living under an internet stone, is a pseudonym of a pseudonym, but Cassandra Cla(i)re, back in the day, wrote fanfic, the very popular Very Secret Diaries and The Draco Trilogy, which seems to be no longer available on the internet at the request of its author (interesting that, hmm?). Well, when I say no longer available on the internet, what I mean is ... not available unless you spend about five minutes looking, which I might have just done. For the record, said trilogy is beautifully decorated with anime-style Draco Malfoys and black roses. Awww. She also has a hefty set of pages over at the Fandom Wank Wiki (trust me, if anything needs a wiki, it is fandom wank), which are suitably, painfully entertaining in a "for what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" kind of way.

Anyway, background cheapshots and raised plagiarism eyebrows aside, I really have no strong opinions on either fandom or Cassandra Cla(i)re, but I quite liked the idea that a popular, moderately competent fanfic writer managed to break into the publishing world. Fanfic is a difficult beast to comprehend unless you're right there in its mouth but, as far as I see it (and, bear in mind, if you do write fanfic this is probably going to sound like the simplistic flailings of an outsider), there are three possible attitudes, or at the very least a spectrum with some definable stopping points on it:

1) Fanfic is art, man, art and there is ultimately no difference between If You Are Prepared and Bleak House. They're both pretty damn long for starters.

2) Fanfic is like original fiction but not as good, and is basically written by people who can't get their own stuff published

3) Fanfic is entirely different from original fiction

Since the first one is clearly non-viable, and the second is actively rude, I subscribe to the third. Writing for fans and writing for publication is vastly different, and to assume that the one aspires to the other is rather to miss the point (and, arguably, the pleasures) of fanfic. Even so, I would have thought the gulf between fanfic and original fiction to be eminently jumpable. I mean, the ability to string a decent sentence together is a transferable skill, right. Right? Well, evidently not. To be fair, my problems with City of Bones a are not about the sentences (although they are of questionable quality), they goes rather deeper than that.

The truth is I actually couldn't read the damn book. I had to give up. It's not that it was, y'know, bad as such, although it occasionally was, it just didn't - to my mind at least - make the leap from fanfic to original fiction at all successfully. I know attempting to draw a distinction between fanfic and original writing is likely to get me shot at dawn but it's the only hope I have of articulating why City of Bones just doesn't work.

As far as I could tell from the sliver I read, City of Bones is young adult urban fantasy. The heroine, Clary Fray, (and let's not even ask why an author who calls herself Cassandra Clare decided to call her heroine Clary) is exactly the sort of spunky young thing you would expect of a modern heroine. She's out at a nightclub with her best friend Simon when she happens to witness a supernatural murder. Demons yadda yadda vampires yadda yadda Shadowhunters yadda yadda sardonic attractive blonde yadda yadda yadda wise old mentor with bird yadda yadda. Look, truthfully, I don't really have any idea what the plot is because I only made it to page 63.

And this is the exact moment when I snapped.

"In the distance she could hear a faint and delicate noise, like wind chimes shaken by a storm. She set off down the corridor slowly, trailing a hand along the wall. The Victorian-looking wallpaper was faded with age, burgundy and pale grey. Each side of the corridor was lined with closed doors. The sound she was following grew louder. Now she could identify it as the sound of a piano being played with desultory but undeniable skill, though she couldn't identify the tune. Turning the corner, she came to a doorway, the door propped fully open. Peering in she saw what was clearly a music room. A grand piano stood in one corner, and rows of chairs were arranged against the far wall. A covered harp occupied the centre of the room. Jace was seated at the grand piano, his slender hands moving rapidly over the keys. He was barefoot, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, his tawny hair ruffled up around his head as if he'd just woken up. Watching the quick, sure movements of his hands across the keys, Clary remembered how it had felt to be lifted up by those hands, his hands holding her up and the stars hurtling down around her head like a rain of silver tinsel."

Let's skim all over the things that are awkward about this passage ... wind chimes only make sounds when they're stirred and piano music doesn't sound like that anyway ... how can wallpaper be faded with burgundy ... can a skill be desultory but undeniable ... why does it have to "clearly" be a music room, surely it is just is one ... how many times can you say "hands" in one sentence ... how does she know he's barefoot, he's playing the bloody piano ... and what the fuck is with the rain of silver tinsel...

But, yes, skim all that and riddle me this:

Wouldn't that whole scene be so much better if it turned out be Draco Malfoy sitting at the grand piano?

There's a technical name for what's wrong with this passage. In the industry we call it "blowing your load prematurely" (question is, what industry). Seriously, though, we're on page 63, we've spent all of 20 of them in the company of this character (and, let's face it, he's a pretty, sardonic, wise-cracking faintly angsty type very reminiscent of Cla(i)re's take on a certain slytherin): why the fuck should we be even remotely interested in the sight of him at a grand piano? It's a very senses-heavy scene: we have the sound distant music, the wallpaper beneath Clary's fingertips, and the lovingly detailed description of the ruffle-haired eyecandy sitting at the piano, so there's this self-conscious build up, deliberately (albeit not entirely eptly) evoking something of the fairytale, and what's the pay off? Up until this point the tawny-haired Jace has been a rude and snippy, so it's clear that this little scene is meant to show us a different side of him but character revelation scenes only function when you know the character well enough to experience it as a revelation. This is just ... information, excessively presented. It's like being hit over the head with a neon sign saying: "you should fancy this character now." And for the record, he's a demon hunter, not a concert pianist so there really is no reason to have that scene there except as drool-footage.

Possibly I'd feel differently if I was a teenage girl but I hope I'd have more taste.

What the scene did for me, aside from inducing me to throw the book across the room in disgust, was exemplify the subtle sense of wrongness I'd been getting throughout the previous 62 pages. Essentially City of Bones reads like fanfic - and I don't mean that as kneejerk indicator of poor quality, I mean that it reads like something constructed for a different purpose, functioning on a different ruleset. Leaving aside any criticisms of the actual style, this scene would probably work - for me - if I read it as fanfic. It's visually and linguistically striking - the juxtaposition of scruffy boy and fine old instrument (sorry), the hint at aspects of a character hitherto unknown, the touch of submerged melancholia (playing the grand piano to an empty room is a lonely hobby), all this would be fine if the mysterious pianist turned out to Draco. I mean, playing the grand piano is one of the things that one could potentially imagine Draco being able to do. Well, if you stopped and thought about it for a moment, probably not, because surely wizards have ... like ... magical pianos, or house elves to produce their music for them. But given that Draco is a repressively raised posh kid, it seems to me at least credible his parents made him have piano lessons, even if he hated it. And Draco, being the wizarding equivalent of genetically modified, would probably be reasonably good at it regardless.

I truthfully have no idea what it is that makes fanfic work but it seems to me to have something to do with potential plausibility. Scenes of certain characters doing things they never explicitly did in the books (even if this is fucking each other) resonate with you because it feels both novel and familiar - to continue the musical theme, if I presented you with Remus Lupin playing the electric guitar you might raise an eyebrow because he's far too bookish and quiet, but it would totally suit Sirius Black for example. Or even James Sodding Potter. And such scenes require no build-up because the reader already knows the characters being written about. Equally, dwelling on the details, and presenting very visual, senusous scenes, seems less purple than it does when you do it in original fiction because it helps to establish a familiar character in what may be an unfamiliar setting: for what's it worth, I can picture Draco Malfoy playing the grand piano very vividly. Pale hair, slender fingers, whatever. Fan fiction, even if you're looking at a 100,000 word AU fic, seems to be all about the establishment of moments, which need not necessarily (and probably don't) exist as part of a continuum of moments.

This is absolutely the opposite to a book.

The scene of Jace/grand piano has utterly no resonance for the reader because, well, partly because it's rubbish and partly because no time has been given to properly establishing the character so it's essentially meaningless, but mainly because it has no real sense of its place in a connected, developing narrative. Although the 63 pages I read did occasionally have moments of genuine mediocrity that made me suspect I should try to be more generous with the text, the whole reading experience felt so ultimately hollow I couldn't bring put myself through it. There's nothing inherently wrong with something reading like fanfic - fanfic reads like fanfic and I quite enjoy the stuff - but City of Bones is a work of original fiction, it's a book that I paid real money for (more fool me) In essence, then, it's original fiction without the necessary underpinnings, and fanfic without any of the characters you like. Worst of all possible worlds.

Comments:

Dan H

at 12:57 on 2008-09-25So I've started reading it now, to pick up where Kyra left off (nearly at good old Page 63).

I actually don't think it reads that much like fanfic (at least not like *good* fanfic). There's way too much exposition (fanfic tends to assume that everybody knows what's going on) including some truly wonderful scenes with people actually saying things like "surely you recognise a girl, your sister, Isabelle, is one" (Isabelle, it should be pointed out, is *right fucking there*).

Favourite line so far: "Her hair was almost precisely the colour of black ink".

What colour would that be, exactly? Black, perhaps?

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Arthur B

at 15:32 on 2008-09-25It strikes me, actually, that while most of us have a good idea of what "bad" fanfic is like, good fanfic must by its nature vary widely in style, because at least part of the point of fanfic is to produce something that is reminiscent of the source material, so good Lovecraft fanfic will read different from good Firefly fanfic, or good Pratchett fanfic.

(Which would mean that, say, "good" Cecilia Dart-Thornton fanfic is a contradiction in terms: if it's good, it's no longer reminiscent of the source material.)

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Dan H

at 18:38 on 2008-09-25I think Lovecraft fanfic is a special case actually, because it borrows Lovecraft's ideas rather than his characters. Lovecraft fanfic (and, to borrow Arthur's term, peerfic) is all about eldrich horrors from beyond the void, it's not like anybody writes Herbert West/Charles Dexter Ward slash.

Actually they probably do.

By contrast, I actually think with most fanfic the style is fairly consistent between fandoms (although I admit to limited experience here). Part of Cassandra Cla(i)re's big plagarism debacle, indeed, was the fact that she regularly borrowed lines from Buffy for her Draco fics.

In further updates on City of Bones I've now got past the point reached by our intrepid editor and have the following to add:

Holy Crap the wise old mentor dude is a lot like Dumbledore. There's a bit where he asks the heroine if she wants anything and I *totally* expected him to offer her a sherbet lemon. And if you don't read "Muggle" for "Mundie" every time you're a better man than I am.

Also, some exposition from earlier in the book which I found particularly awful:

"Demons," drawled the blond boy, tracing the word on the air with his finger, Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, as any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension."

"That's enough, Jace" said the girl.

"Isabelle's right," agreed the taller boy, "nobody here needs a lesson in semantics - or demonology."

As you know, I *almost* applaud the bare faced cheek of it.

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Arthur B

at 00:38 on 2008-09-26

I think Lovecraft fanfic is a special case actually, because it borrows Lovecraft's ideas rather than his characters. Lovecraft fanfic (and, to borrow Arthur's term, peerfic) is all about eldrich horrors from beyond the void, it's not like anybody writes Herbert West/Charles Dexter Ward slash.

To be fair, there aren't that many recurring characters in Lovecraftian fiction except for the Old Ones themselves, who get reused all the time. And I've lost count of the number of times I've read stories about long-lost offshoots of the Whateley clan or where yet another dozy protagonist realises they come from Innsmouth stock.

I agree, though, that the Lovecraft-tribute scene is pretty unique; I expect this is partly because Lovecraft was one of the first authors who genuinely encouraged people to write stories set in his mythology, to the point of sending them detailed letters showing them how to boost their fanfic to peerfic. Having essentially established the core of his own fandom before he died, that core went on to set the norms for Lovecraft tribute works forevermore.

I would suggest that this may be the result of people writing to indulge the sort of mores that have grown up around fandom-in-general, as opposed to writing to emulate the original work.

Which might explain why City of Bones exists. Once you don't care what the background to what you're reading is, so long as it has shipping and mary sues and whatnot, it becomes easier to accept the idea of fanfic-like work which is fanfic of nothing in particular - nothing, that is, except fanfic itself.

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Montavilla

at 01:55 on 2008-09-28

Sadly, you made me immediately start wondering what Remus would play in James Potter and the Silver Marauders band. He might, ala George Harrison, play lead guitar. (Sirius would be play rhythm guitar and James would play the bass). Peter, of course, would be on drums. Which might explain why they put up with him all that time. It's hard to find someone who's got their own drum set.

Favourite line so far: "Her hair was almost precisely the colour of black ink". What colour would that be, exactly? Black, perhaps?

To be fair, comparing hair to ink is a difficult image these days because we only really see ink in the stems of our ballpoint pens. Perhaps it might have been better to say, "Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

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Dan H

at 12:18 on 2008-09-28

Hee hee.

In all seriousness, though, it's not the comparison to ink that bugged me, it just strikes me as elementary that if you're saying "X was the colour of Y" then unless you're doing a Blackadder style joke "Y" should not include reference to a specific colour. "Her hair was black as ink" "her hair was black, like ink" "her hair was ink-black" would all have been fine. So for that matter would be "her hair was like black ink". "Hair the colour of black ink" is like something out of the Bulwer-Lytton contest: "Her hair was the colour of black ink, her eyes the colour of a blue crayon, and her dress the colour of a dress made out of red silk."

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Wardog

at 14:16 on 2008-09-29

Since we're playing Favourite Lines, my personal shoutout goes to: "He had electric blue dyed hair that stuck up around his head like the tendrils of a startled octopus..." I guess it's just the awkwardness of the construction coupled with that startled octopus...

Arthur: I would suggest that this may be the result of people writing to indulge the sort of mores that have grown up around fandom-in-general, as opposed to writing to emulate the original work.

I'm not sure emulating the original work has ever real been the goal, well, not unless there's specific stylistic feature *to* emulate if that makes sense - like Lovecraft. I mean, you want to make your characters sound like the characters they are but ... well ... to indulge a bit of JKR bashing just because that's what we do here, most of the Harry Potter stuff I've read has been stylistically objectively better than the author.

"Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

Hehe!!!

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Arthur B

at 15:47 on 2008-09-29

I think direct stylistic mimicing is, as you point out, actually rare, especially since a lot of fanfic is written about TV series, so you're translating a visual format into a literary one. But at the same time I think that the aim of a lot of fanfic is to emulate the source work in the sense that the writer's trying to tell a story that is a) reminiscent of the source material, in that it establishes a mood and tells a story which could recognisably fit within the source, and b) features the characters behaving in a manner recognisable from the source (unless the explicit point of the fic is something like "What if Captain Lolcats got possessed by a brain worm?"). At the very least, a lot of fanfic authors seem to want to produce something where the reader would look at it and say "Yes, that's very much how it would have happened on my favourite show if the screenwriters had only had the courage to write an episode where the ship's doctor and the robot owl consummate their love".

I say "a lot of fanfic" because I've seen the occasional piece (generally AU fics) where the premise is so utterly far removed from the source material that I start scratching my head and wondering why the author bothered retaining the link to the source material in the first place. Sure, perhaps the characters retain scraps of their personality, but they're in such an utterly different scenario it becomes a stretch to call them the same characters; to my mind, at least, characters are at least partially defined by context. Being a cheeky black marketeer on Deep Space 9 is a very different proposition from being a cheeky black marketeer in Blitz-era London.

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Wardog

at 16:01 on 2008-09-29

We are now mainly haggling over semantics, dear boy.

So instead I would like to play the "Her hair was" game.

I submit: Her hair was almost precisely the colour of one of those motorola telephones, the ones with that come with a gloss finish not matte."

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Claire E Fitzgerald

at 16:32 on 2008-09-29

Her hair was almost precisely the colour of a grey cat in a room that was totally dark, such that the colour of the cat was indistinguishable from black.

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Arthur B

at 16:59 on 2008-09-29

Her hair was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

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Wardog

at 21:20 on 2008-09-29

Oi! Minus three points from Slytherin for being meta.

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Arthur B

at 00:26 on 2008-09-30

“Minus three hundred points for turning the comments section into Harry Potter fanfiction," muttered Harry, glowering at his Nintendo DS. He was pretty sure he was on the right track in this Phoenix Wright episode, but the game was being evasive about precisely which investigative avenue he should pursue. Harry was not looking forward to the half hour he'd have to spend looking for the plot, but he supposed he couldn't complain: he normally had to doss about for half a year before getting anything done in real life.

"How's my hair looking?" asked Ron, anxious about his big date with Hermione. He had spent the last six hours smearing his skin with Hackiburr's Very Useful Ointment in order to conceal the telltale marks of gingerness, and was now in the process of rubbing the stuff into his scalp. Harry glanced at his bare-torsoed chum and then returned his attention to his game.

"Your hair is all carroty," quipped Harry, "like someone was just sick in it."

Draco giggled and ran his hands through his hair, which was bright yellow like artificial egg yolk.

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Rami

at 12:17 on 2008-09-30

I think these are still worse, but you're getting there ;-)

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Guy

at 04:26 on 2009-07-24

Her hair was almost precisely the colour of light with a frequency of 590 nm and a wavelength of 526 THz, and as she moved the angle of its inclination to her scalp seemed to undulate with a regularity that spoke softly to his soul.

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Rami

at 04:41 on 2009-07-24

a frequency of 590 nm and a wavelength of 526 THz

I think you got the wavelength and frequency swapped around ;-)

A redhead, eh? Why is it that female protagonists never seem to have violently ginger hair?

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Guy

at 08:34 on 2009-07-24

Oops, so I did. I could pretend that it was a deliberate attempt to further enhance the awfulness of the sentence, but no, I just muddled it up. :)

It would be kind of interesting to see some kind of frequency histogram of female (and male) protagonists and the wavelengths of their hair colours... but I suspect nobody would be mad enough to actually do the work to make such a thing.

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Michal

at 05:29 on 2011-09-29

And I only stumbled on this when I found out Cassandra Clare will be one of the instructors at the 2012 Clarion Writer's Workshop.

Suffice to say, I won't be applying. (Jesus Christ guys, you had Neil Gaiman and Ellen Kushner and Particia C. Wrede and Gene fucking Wolfe as instructors and now you've had budget cuts or what?)

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Arthur B

at 11:25 on 2011-09-29

Well they also had Orson Scott Card.

I guess it's like Hogwarts. Not everyone can be a Griffindor or a Ravenclaw. They also have to recruit Slytherins (Card) and Hufflepuffs (Clare).

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Michal

at 13:30 on 2012-11-18

There's a movie now.

I think I caught a half-second glimpse of Henry VIII at one point.

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Arthur B

at 14:05 on 2012-11-18

Urgh, they actually say "mundanes".

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Ibmiller

at 15:05 on 2012-11-19

It's like they learned nothing from Golden Compass...

Also, are they deliberately trying to recreate the "awkward teen significantly older British actor" Twilight vibe?

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Wardog

at 15:36 on 2012-11-19

Oh no, that's Jamie Campbell-Bower. Officially the drippiest boy in Hollywood.

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Arthur B

at 15:44 on 2012-11-19

Also, are they deliberately trying to recreate the "awkward teen significantly older British actor" Twilight vibe?

I suspect they are going to mimic Twilight/Potter as closely as copyright will allow. It's got that "clinging to the underbelly of the bandwagon and trying to scrape as much gold as you can out of it" look. (Of course, this is likely to lead to jibbering incoherence due to Potter and Twilight being two different bandwagons...)

The extent to which Blonde Love Interest looks like a reject from the Draco Malfoy auditions is hilarious.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 16:51 on 2012-11-19

The extent to which Blonde Love Interest looks like a reject from the Draco Malfoy auditions is hilarious.

Hey, at least they got that right.

#Ferretbrain #Cassandra Clare #The Mortal Instruments #Harry Potter #Fanfiction #City of Bones

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keeloves · 6 years

Text

My Top 10 least favorite Celebrities

Now keep in mind this list is simply my opinion I don’t mean to offend people and I do my best to give good reasons on why I don’t respect or like any of these people.

#10 Danielle Panabaker

I haven’t always had a problem with Danielle. She is the reason I started watching the Flash. I was also familiar with her work on Disney channel. She starred in the movies “Stuck in the Suburbs” “Read it and Weep” alongside her sister Kay Panabaker and most of you know she was in the movie Sky High. I was excited to see Danielle move on to bigger and better things. However, my issues with her began after watching her interviews and how I heard she tried to steal Candice’s spot as leading female. I tried to let it go at first but the more interviews I watched of her the more I started to lose respect for her. There was this ‘Ship war” between West Allen & Snowbarry. The problem with that is that Snowbarry is nonexistent. That was made up shortly after Candice Patton a black woman was cast as the leading female. Danielle has baited her racist shippers into thinking Snowbarry could happen. She has boasted about her and Grant’s chemistry right in front of Candice and Carlos and she has disregarded canon for the sake of baiting her SB shippers. Candice Patton has always talked about including more females on the show and Danielle boasts about being the “Only girl in STAR Labs” She even implied that her character Caitlin was jealous of Candice’s character Iris simply because of attention Iris waEs getting from guys. Candice on the other hand says, “That Iris will be fighting over a guy.” Danielle never once mentions Candice or her character in an interview but completely gets excited over Emily Bett Rickard’s character Felicity because “It was great having another female on the show.” Even though she got done bragging about being “The only female in STAR Labs” The worst thing is she tried to pass off a moment of sexual assault/harassment as a cute Snowbarry moment just get her portion of the fan-base excited. Even worse than that she did that in front of Candice and Carlos. Carlos even had to remind her she had her own ship called SnowStorm. In a most recent she did, she was asked about a Snowest friendship (Iris & Caitlin) she didn’t even give a straight answer she said something along the lines of “Iris doesn’t really make a lot of sense in STAR Labs and I am excited to see her journalism arc” and I am like that had absolutely nothing to do with the question that was being asked. Her answer sounded a lot like Iris West Allen haters. I don’t know if Danielle is doing this on purpose because she is mad at the fact she was not cast as the lead or is it because she really is that oblivious to the kind of horrible stuff people say about her female costar? Either way I don’t have much respect for Danielle because she is willfully ignorant to her privilege she has a white woman. Honestly Candice deserves a better female costar than the one she has now.

#9 Alexandra Shipp

She is known for playing Storm and the singer Aaliyah. Storm in the comics is a dark skin full blooded black woman. Alexandra Shipp is a mixed woman. Once again, the casting directors were too lazy to hire someone like Lupita to play Storm. When people expressed how upset they were that Alexandra Shipp was cast as Storm she basically told people to get over it. Okay now on one hand Alexandra is an actress so she should be allowed to play a part without getting back lash. However, the problem is that Hollywood has a long history of casting racially ambiguous/mixed women as all out black female characters who are supposed to be dark skin. Hollywood is colorist as hell. Alexandra basically said she isn’t going to miss any opportunity to audition for a part or take a part even if it is meant for a dark skin woman. As an actress she has a right to do that but the downfall this prove she is unaware of the privilege she has a mixed woman. As a mixed woman myself I believe we should be using our privilege to help up lift dark skin women. Media shits on black women enough and it’s even worse when mixed women who are half black are helping this problem. Sadly, Alexandra Shipp isn’t the only woman guilty of this. Yara Shahidi and Amandla Stenberg will acknowledge their privilege as mixed women but then turn around take parts meant for full on dark skin black girls. That is so hypocritical and this trend Hollywood and in media in general really need to die. So, I hope that these women stop doing this and really do something to fight against the colorism in Hollywood.

#8 Julie Plec

I have only watched to season 1 episode 7 of The Vampire Diaries. I have watched clips online too. Three reasons I have trouble getting through that show. One Damon is an abusive asswipe, two Delena and three Bonnie Bennet’s piss poor treatment. I put Julie Plec on this list because she called Delena sexy and treats her one black character the worst out of all the characters on the show. She is entitled to her opinion on Delena. However, my question is what is exactly sexy about an abusive relationship? Damon has raped and abused Elena and her friends, has killed several people she has care about because she didn’t do what he wanted, the biggest example is that when Elena rejected Damon he murdered her brother by snapping his neck. Yet she calls that a sexy relationship? She sabotaged Stelena and Bamon actual healthy relationships to force an unhealthy couple. The only time Damon is likable is when he is around Bonnie. Bamon on the show didn’t happen because Bonnie is black. They happened in the books because Bonnie was white in the books. The fact that Julie Plec can tease ships like Delena and Stelena but is so quick to shut down Bamon shippers is part of the reason racism in fandoms exist. Behavior like that from people like Julie Plec and Danielle Panabaker are only helping fuel a racist fanbase. You can’t tell me Julie has never seen the nasty racist stuff that Kat Graham the actress and Bonnie Bennet the character gets. If she has seen it and said nothing, then shame on her for not saying anything. Anyways I don’t have too much else to say but when I complete the series of TVD I will make sure to give more thorough opinion on the show and Julie.

#7 Marc Guggenheim & Wendy Mericle (This picture felt right due to my feelings on them)

These two will forever be known as the two idiots who ruined Arrow. I have three big problems with these two. One, their treatment of female characters, two the vast amounts of white washing and three how unprofessional they are. Every female character that has been killed off died in a way where they had no chance to defend themselves. Shado and Moria stabbed with their hands tied behind their backs and killed off for the sake of man pain. Sara Lance shot off a building with arrows while caught off guard. Dinah Laurel Lance Earth 1 the true Black Canary frozen by magic stabbed with an Arrow gets successful surgery only to have a random seizure and die. Really? However, the men on this show no matter how evil get to die as a hero. The worst thing about Laurel’s last moments is that she spent it with Oliver a man who treated her like shit and her last words were spent propping up his relationship with Felicity. Laurel was treated like trash all through out the show. Marc and Wendy didn’t know what character was going in the grave until episode 16. The death took place in episode 18. Katie Cassidy found out two episodes before that her character was going in the grave and she didn’t even find out in person she was told over the phone. So not only are Marc and Wendy unprofessional but they have proven themselves to be incompetent writers. Even John Barroman was dissatisfied at his departure from the show. They are also heavily misogynistic in their writing in the way they kill their female characters without giving them chance to defend themselves as I have mentioned earlier and in the way, they write Felicity. Felicity is written as a jealous bitch. She has been jealous of every single one of Oliver’s relationships. They had her refer to Lian Yu as fantasy Island a place that Oliver describes as his personal hell, just because there were two other women with him on the beach. Now on to the problem of white washing. Arrow has a bad habit of white washing characters. Here is a list of characters that Arrow has white washed https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2015/04/10/white-canary-and-arrows-habit-of-whitewashing/ Arrow also treats characters especially female characters like they are interchangeable. The character Evelyn Sharp is Starling in the comics but because she was introduced the episode after they killed Laurel she got the name Artimis attached to her due to the popularity of the Young Justice character to simply gain them more views. Evelyn Sharp/Starling are characters that have never had a live adaptation so why not do that character instead of mix matching characters. The next character they messed up is Dinah Drake who was established as Laurel’s mom on the show and she is the first Black Canary in the comics. Yet the show introduces to a new Black Canary named Tina Boland whose real name happens to be Dinah Drake. Arrow now has had four different Dinahs two of them being Laurel. Conner Hawk is now randomly John Diggle Junior and they have completely erased the Asian half. William and Samantha are supposed to be Blasian characters named Conner and Sandra Hawk only to be random white washed nobodies. .I hate how they treat their queer/lgbtq characters like trash. They forced a lesbian into a hetero marriage and have their one bi character sleep around. Marc even admitted two bi characters of the oppososite gender hooked up simply because they were both bi. I am sorry to all the LGBTQ people out there for being represented so terribly. Anyways thank god Marc and Wendy won’t be around for season 7 of Arrow. All though sadly their damage of the show will be left behind

#6 Marlene King

She is the writer for Pretty Little Liars and Famous in Love. I put Marlene on this list because of “creative choices” she has made in her shows. In Pretty Little Liars and Famous in Love she had characters statutorily raped and did nothing about it. Toby was raped by two women, one being his step sister Jenna and the second woman being Alex, Spencer’s identical twin sister. For those going to Alex didn’t rape Toby yes, she did because she pretended to be Spencer to trick Toby into having sex with her. Tricking someone into having sex with you is rape. The fact that Toby’s rape from Jenna was played off as a secret love affair is disgusting and purpurates the stereotype that all guys are horny and want sex. This ignores male rape victims. Then I watched the scene where Alex and Toby are “having sex” and the people in the comments are calling it cute just because Alex looks like Spencer. That is so gross. There is nothing cute about watching someone get raped. Then on Famous in Love Nina who is the mother of Jordan’s best friend was having sex with Jordan when he was 16 and she was an adult. All though I am having trouble with that because people say she didn’t know because Jordan lied about his age. I am not sure if that is true but if she didn’t and found out it was her job as the adult to put to a stop to it but if she did know and didn’t care then shame on her and she needs to be in prison in a cell next to Ezra Fitz who I will talk about next. Ezra Fitz purposely stalked four underage girls and started a relationship with one of them knowing full well that she was underage and knew he was going to be her teacher all to write a book about their missing friend who is another underage girl that he had a relationship with. This was never addressed in a nuanced way. Ezra never went to jail or prison. Instead people questioned his relationship with Aria, but not once did they call the police on him. He stalked the four girls while he claimed to be away on business. Then at the end of the series Aria and Ezra get married. Yes, that is right folks Marlene King had a victim marry their statutory rapist/stalker. Sadly, that is not the only abusive couple that ended up together. The one LGBTQ couple that ended up together was abusive and only ended together because of whiny ass fanbase and Emily’s eggs being implanted into Alison without either girl’s knowledge which is a violation of both girl’s bodies. I have gone on in the past on why I hate Emison so if you want to know more read my Top 10 worst couples list where you will find Emison and Ezria. The next problem I have is how Marlene treats poc characters and her lgbtq/queer characters. She treated Paige badly even though Paige had the most common sense. She made a few mistakes but learned from them and she didn’t get the happy ending she deserved. The show Pailey lived together but we don’t get to see that instead we get flash backs of Emison where Alison is abusing Emily. Maya a woman of color who was also bisexual killed off for shock value. Yvonne woman of color Toby’s finance killed off just because of Spoby, Charlette a transgender character made into a villain and killed off, Shauna made into a villain and killed off. Ugh. Anyways Marlene is guilty of promoting abusive relationships by having two be endgame. She is basically saying if “Your abuser is nice to you sometimes then you should give them what they want.

#5 Adam Horowitz & Edward Kitsis

They are best known for making the show Once Upon A Time. I wrote a long post on deviant art that I will copy and paste here if you want a more thorough explanation but those of you wanting a brief explanation on what my problem with them are here you go. I have four main problems. One, they way the treat male rape victims on the show, two the fact it took them seven seasons to have people of color on the show because prior to that they have been killed off, three the vast amounts of queer baiting they do and four the fact that a woman needs to have a child and a man to have a happy ending. The first lgbtq/queer couple they had were rushed, forced and slapped together and then the two characters were never seen again. It just felt like they wanted brownie points from the lgbtq/queer community for representation. They have had three females on male rape which two out of three of them were done by deception and two out of the three rapes had babies born from this. Okay now here is the long-winded version from Deviant Art about my problems with Adam and Eddie. Its long because it is my review on Once Upon a Time. “There is a lot I am going to say here. These are my overall thoughts on Once Upon a Time and the writers. Not all of this is going to be positive so be prepared. Once Upon A Time was a show I really enjoyed because of the many characters I grew up with got to be done differently and interpreted different ways. I thought the names characters had were quite clever. For example, Cora is the Queen of Hearts and Core means hearts, Regina Mills last named being Mills was because her mom was the Miller's daughter or how Rumpelstiltskin was called Mr. Gold or Detective Weaver because he weaved and spun gold. I loved all the clever names. My favorite story lines were Ruby being the wolf, and her boyfriend being named Peter as a nod to Peter and the wolf. I also enjoyed Ingrid as a character and I enjoyed the show for what it was. However, this show has many problems which I will now get into. The show's main problem is that villains’ actions are not called out properly. The two biggest examples are Regina and Rumple. Regina, has mass murdered three villages worth of people, separated children from their families, locked away Belle in a tower for 28 years and straight up raped Graham and yes folks I said it she RAPED Graham. Several people of asked Adam and Eddy about the Regina raping Graham argument and they have dismissed the argument by saying it Graham was Regina's sex slave. This isn't the only problem with Regina. She has committed so many heinous crimes and none of her main victims have called her out for it they just give her a free pass because "She's good now". Once Upon A Time has a huge problem with rape in general. Adam and Eddy have written three female on rape cases and never once bothered to address any of them. Two out of three of the came a child and two out of three rape victims ended up dying by murder basically and it was never dealt with again. Zelena killed Marion a woman of color (We are getting to that soon) shape shifted into her then raped Robbin Hood who was dating Regina at the time. Then Zelena gets pregnant and names her daughter Robin? Why? I truly believe it was to spite Regina and rub it in her face that she can't bear children of her own. What the hell were Adam and Eddy thinking naming Zelena's baby Robin? Then Gothel raped Nook/Wish Hook and had Alice. Why won't they address this issue. What about Emma and Neal. Neal aka Bealfire is over 300 years old or 24 for safety and Emma was 16 or 17 years old. No one thought that relationship was weird? I feel conflicted about Swanfire. The most problematic relationship to me is Rumbelle, it’s so awful even the actress who plays Belle hates the relationship. Why did Adam and Eddy make that a relationship at all? Rumple did nothing but lie and deceive Belle. He murdered Milah twice and now he can't respect Belle. It is honestly the most emotionally abusive relationship I have seen. These writers tried to shove it off as a dysfunctional relationship. It was that all right but it was very emotionally abusive and just really creepy. Rumple went so far as stalking Belle by putting a tracker bracelet on her and showed up at the library when Belle clearly didn't want him there. Belle honestly should have ended up with Ruby, Graham or Adam who was never introduced. Moving on from Rumblle up next the show's problems are how they treat their characters of color. Up until season seven there were no main characters of color. The characters were either one offs, or they died too soon. Rapunzel who was black appeared once and never mentioned again despite being a popular story, Gus Gus dies, Ursula basically a one off never seen again, Sydney a black man brought on and used as a slave or indentured servant depending on how you look at it either way bad. Tamera Neal's girlfriend killed off by Rumple, Mulan an Asian bisexual woman never got a happy ending but was there to cape for the white characters. The Dragon guy killed off, Merlyn dead, and many others have died as well. The next problem is the queer baiting on this show. This show took five seasons to give us a lgbtq couple and it was rushed, and they weren't seen again. The two most popular couples are Sleeping Warrior and Swan Queen. Sleeping Warrior was the closest thing to a healthy lgbtq interracial relationship. We were so close but nope Aurea had to get pregnant with Prince Philip's baby and they won't even let Mulan say she was in love with Aurea which really pisses me off because the writers have established her as bisexual but won't allow her a happy ending or a chance at true love. The only main canon lgbtq couple we got were Robbin and Alice. I think if Mulan were a white woman and in season 7 she would have gotten a happy ending and a wonderful love interest. (All though Mulan is Asian and should stay Asian because, I hate white washing) Swan Queen all though I am not big on it I do see why people ship it. All though can people take a minute and realize that Emma and Regina are step granddaughter and step grandmother? Then again Emma married her almost step father in law so this show is close to having incestuous relationship so why shouldn't they give Regina and Emma a chance? My biggest problem with the show is how Emma got treated like shit by the fandom and the writers. Emma who tried to save Marion's life had to apologize to Regina for "ruining her chances with Robin or making her life more complicated?" Excuse me but Regina was going to murder Emma as a baby, Regina is the whole reason Emma didn't have a family for 28 years of her life. Regina can drink a tall glass of STFU. Seriously these writers coddle the hell out of Regina and it is annoying as hell. As I said before Regina has kidnapped an entire town by cursing them, she raped Graham for 28 years and she mass murdered thousands upon thousands of people. Here these videos are a summary of all the messed up things Regina have done.www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q8bNf…. Then the writers have retconned Henry. He told Regina "You were the first person to love me." Excuse me but this kid was going to build an armory against her and ran away to Emma. Yeah Regina isn't abusive. Adam and Eddy also think that happy endings mean children and other true love. Really characters like Regina and Rumple should work hard to improve themselves but nope corners were crossed for those two and they got happy endings meanwhile good characters such as Mulan, Facillar, Milah, and many other characters who were actual good people didn't get a happy ending. Yet mass murdering rapists got happy endings that is so messed up. In conclusion Adam and Eddy are misogynistic assholes and have proven to be racist in their writing. They have also don't care about lgbtq people, male rape victims and the people of color on their show. I also found it really insulting that they portrayed women as incomplete if they couldn't bear children of their own. All in all, Once Upon a Time could have been a great show but instead it was mediocre.”

#4 Kanye West

If there were a contest on being the most arrogant and most full of yourself person Kanye would either win first place or he would take second to his in laws/his wife. He is colorist, he is an attention whore and he said that slavery is a choice. I hope he meant the mind set of slavery is a choice but I highly doubt it but I highly doubt it. He put a confederate flag on his clothing line. I have seen the price of his clothing is way too expensive. $200 for a shirt all because it says Yeeze? Then again there are purses that cost more than that just because the purse has the word Coach on it. His wife who isn’t even black takes things from black culture but never pays respect to the culture she is borrowing from and Kanye just supports this. Kanye has bashes other types music just because it is not his own and he is just so full of himself. He even said he supports Donald Trump which his right, but he probably said that for attention too. Anyways I have never really cared for Kanye I can’t say too much else about him.

#3 James Gunn

He directed both Guardians of the Galaxy movies which are both great. However, I don’t think he will be directing the third since he was recently fired over some ten-year-old tweets. Now tweets shouldn’t get someone fired but if you are making several jokes about pedophilia then that is probable cause to be to be fired. James Gunn made these tweets in his forties and never deleted them. First off why is James Gunn making several jokes about pedophile at the age of 40? He is now 50 and he didn’t use his common sense back then to know those are not things you joke about? Second why is that type of thing on his mind. He didn’t just make one joke about it he made several jokes about child molestation. If that is on his mind constantly then he needs to be psychologically evaluated. I honestly hope he hasn’t acted on the pedophilia because the fact that is something on his mind at age 40 is terrifying and he needs serious help.

#2 Robert Sylvester Kelly/R Kelly

He refers to himself as the Pied Piper of R&B. Which is ironically fitting since he the Pied Piper is known for kidnapping children. R Kelly is one of the most talented singers I have ever heard in my life. I listened to his music growing up. He “wrote” the song “I believe I can fly” and the song “Ignition” Now for those wondering why I put the word in qoutioans its because R Kelly is illiterate he can’t read or write. I am serious he is not dyslexic he has never learned to read or write according to his brother Carrey and Wendy William. Now as I said before R Kelly is one of the most talented singers but sadly he is also one of the most garbage human beings I have ever had the displeasure of hearing about. Where do I even start? There have been stories since the early 90’s of him being a predator. He would hang out at middle schools in Chicago as an adult picking up young girls, and promising[HK1] them money, gift cards and McDonalds. The girls he did get to come to his house he kept him them in their rooms or the basement, forced the girls to call him daddy and made them perform sexual acts on him. He pissed on a fourteen girl and married the singer Aaliyah when she was 15 and he was 27 at the time. In fact, for more detail about R Kelly and his creepy behavior here is a documentary of all the fucked-up things he did. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p060m6qx When R Kelly was 49 he dated a 19-year-old which wasn’t illegal but given his past history with girls that is just creepy. I also hate the fact he could afford to pay someone to teach him how to read and write but won’t because he used his money for lawyers and paid off the families of the girls he abused to keep them quiet. One day R Kelly will go to jail. I think the reason he stayed out of prison for so long are for two reasons. Number one he is famous and loads of money to pay people off and two he targets young black girls/women who are the least protected group in America. Anyways R Kelly needs to be in prison in solitary confinement until the day he dies. He is disgusting, and he is probably just as disgusting as my next choice for my number one pick.

#1 Gregory Daniel Jackson

He is better known by his YouTube alias Onision. He is a famous youtuber who tries to be like Shane Dawson in video style and in hair style. I put him on the list for the countless fucked-up things he has done to basically gain attention. He has met all his wives and his current wife over the internet while they were either 16 or 17. He was an adult at the time. He flies these women out to his house and has isolated them from their families. He put his first wife on blast because she didn’t want to have sex with him and gave out the number of partners she had as revenge for not wanting to have sex with him. The number was pretty high, then after treating her like garbage he left her several voice mails. If you don’t believe me here is the video of the “voice mails he left for her” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPnC3n2fpYs&t=1s . His second wife Shiloh lost three years of her memory and posted a video of her having a break down but apparently she was faking I am not entirely sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz_9s9SgQao and then filmed her having a meltdown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7HcGsMb5PQ I am linking these videos as proof because Onision is just gross. He encouraged Lainey to get a girlfriend even though she/”they” (Lainey is nonbinary but Onision calls her she all the time so I am not sure what pronoun to use for Lainey so I used both) was not into it. He only encouraged it to for his benefit. He killed his pet turtle/tortoise and to this day he will not admit that he did it. He put his turtle in on the grass put a plastic container upside down over the turtle and left it in the sun for two hours. He never owns up to what he did wrong and when he does he always makes himself out to be the victim. He has made jokes on self-harm, 9/11 and sexual abuse. He has made fun of people who struggle with their weight, eating disorders. He says things but later goes on to deny them. Anyways, he isn’t worth watching but if you plan on watching his videos I advise you to watch with caution. I almost forgot to mention people have had to call animal control on his ass. I pray he goes to prison soon. He even had to get a lawyer to find out if his marriage to his wife was legal or not. He lied about being honorably discharged from the military. Anyways, Onision is a narcissist, a sociopath and psychopath. He needs to go to prison and he doesn’t need to be making youtube videos. I forgot to mention if you are a meat eater Onion boy will hate on you wish death on you and get on his high horse on he is better than you because he doesn’t eat meat. He has done that in the past.

#anti danielle panabaker #anti alexandra shipp #anti marc guggenheim #anti wendy mericle #anti marlene king #anti adam horowitz #anti eddy kitsis #anti kanye west #anti james gunn #anti r kelly #anti julie plec #anti onision #my top 10 #the flarrowverse #pretty little liars #anti pretty little liars #The Flash #gaurdians of the galaxy

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alia15 · 6 years

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The Future of AA

For as long as I can remember, I was a writer. I wrote short stories for fun as a kid, I kept a myriad of diaries and journals as a pre-teen, I LOVED writing essays in high school & college, and with the advent of social media I spent a lot of time writing (what I thought was) creative, engaging & humorous content. Then, in April of 2012, I listened to my gut -- and also the suggestions of friends and family members -- and finally started a blog. A blog where I wrote about a myriad of topics -- mostly personal stories, opinions and anecdotes -- and literally covered every subject imaginable.

The love of writing is still there.

But there is some lost love for maintaining a blog; a blog that for the past 6+ years I've constantly and consistently thought about, researched things for, ruminated over, stressed myself out about and put an immense pressure on myself to keep up.

After 6 years, I felt like I was forcing myself to keep going; to keep writing and posting frequently in fear that if I slowed down, I'd lose my loyal followers. In fear that my already dog-shit online reach would decrease even more. So I spent the little 'free time' I had and kept going; often writing posts that I wasn't even really passionate about but figured "eh, this'll do" just to publish SOMETHING.

No more.

Blogging has changed significantly in the past year or so, and so have I. I don't want to keep up with the Joneses and monetize or focus more on the aesthetics and money-driving aspects of blogging, because that isn't why I started. I have a good job -- a job I love, actually -- and I was never trying to become a full-time blogger. Props to those who do it, but I didn't have what it took to get there: sponsored posts/ads, promotional content, and SELLING SELLING SELLING. I actually stopped following a lot of bloggers for going this route because I first fell in love with their real, raw, honest & humorous writing, and they lost me when it became sponsored posts for curling irons.

As a result, my kind of writing and blog style was going extinct, and social media drastically changed. From what I can see, people don't really 'read' anymore. They want quick bursts of content, like a photo with a storytelling-style caption or a series of short videos on Instagram Stories or Snapchat. When I'd take the time to write a longer post on what *I* thought was a meaningful topic, it often got :::crickets::::.

And despite how I may sound, I'm not bitter. I work in the industry of digital media and I get how this works. Trends change. The way people consume media changes. It's damn-near impossible to get people's attention nowadays. And quite frankly, I was tired of vying for the attention that just wasn't going to be there anymore.

Here's the thing: I'm not 'getting rid of' this blog. It'll be here as long as the hosting site allows. I will occasionally find an old post that I want to resurface and post it somewhere. If I have something I want to say, I will absolutely post it here and promote on social media. I hope that you'll use the archive link on my site & the search button on the left-hand side to find older posts of mine that you want to (re)read.

It's been a few weeks of going dark on 'AA,' and I have to say, I know I made the right choice to take a step back. I've felt less anxious and stressed, and when I do have free time I don't feel that pressure to focus on writing or posting new content. I DO miss the community and as a result of not writing, I'm not reading as often either, but I promise I'll keep checking in when I can. I'm a big fan of so many writers & bloggers out there, but I guess you can say I've fallen victim to the trends in how *I* consume content these days, too. I'm more likely to engage with you on your Instagram or Twitter than I am to comment on your blog lately.

Before I go, I want to say I'm so insanely grateful and thankful to those who always did check in and engage with my work: my 'IRL' friends & family but especially those I've never actually met. The women I admire who had the same love I did; sharing their thoughts, experiences and opinions on some really important matters. I'm sorry I lost the spark to keep it up, but I hope you guys don't.

If you still want to follow along, I’m really active on Instagram and Twitter, so I hope to see you there! (What, you thought I was going to just stop posting altogether? Psssssssh.)

Sending lots of love your way -

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diaryofanangrynerd · 6 years

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Luck Don't Live Out Here

Wind River

Hey everyone, welcome back to my Diary. Today we are going to talk Wind River, staring Jeremy Renner (The Avengers) and Elizabeth Olsen (Captain America: Civil War), a murder mystery based on actual events. How much liberties the film took with this story is unknown to me, but I was shocked by the it. More of that to come, but first a bit of news…

Gonna start of slow with the news today; but coming as a surprise to me is the news by Deadline that Bryan Fuller and Michael Green are stepping down as showrunners of STARZ series American Gods. The website stats that no official word has coming from the cable channel, however rumors are that the two ditched the show due to budgetary reasons. Now I haven’t seen the show fully, but I have to wonder why STARZ is not going to throw everything they have at this show. With big name actors, a great storyline, and a following that only ballooned after the premiere of the show last March; I guess I would give these two anything they wanted to stay in competition with other Premium cable channels and their content.

Next up…No whitewashing for Disney this time around. The titular character from the upcoming live action remake of Disney’s Mulan has been found. Liu Yifei (The Forbidden Kingdom) has been cast as the crossdressing action heroine for one of China’s beloved tales. I am all for this because I think studios are going in the right direction with casting choices now. We are going into an age where the story is going to draw people in as much or even more than who is top billed on the poster.

Lastly…Avengers: Infinity War trailer was released yesterday. With the world set into turmoil Earth’s Mightiest Heroes must unite to take down the villainous Thanos (Josh Brolin Sicario). I wish that I can be super excited about this like a lot of other people, but I just didn’t feel it. I thought the trailer was very underwhelming and I wish they would have just released the footage shown at D23 (Yeah I ‘seen’ it…shh!). Don’t get me wrong I am still super excited to see all of these characters on screen and this story play out, but the trailer did no justice to the hype that is following this film.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on today’s news…now on to the review.

When this film showed up on the release dates for this year I was skeptical and then I saw who was writing and directing it, so then I got a little more interested. Sat down and watched Hell or High Water, then I become stoked for this movie. Wind River tells the story of Cory Lambert (Renner), a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent and animal tracker, who comes across a young girl’s body in the middle of nowhere in the freezing climate of Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming. The closest federal agent to the scene is Jane Banner (Olsen), who happens to be in a training class in Las Vegas. Instructed only to determine if the death was a homicide, Banner and Lambert are swept up into a mystery that neither one will recover from.

Writer/director Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water) has definitely made a good name for himself by slowly introducing a newer genre to audiences around the world. The neo-western is greatly become an intriguing part of cinema, especially if they keep making films like this. I absolutely loved this movie. It was heart wrenching, surprising, and very well made. Starting with the acting, Olsen and Renner sparkle more than the snow they are running through. Renner gives a very deep performance that should not be over looked during award season. A broken man that just wants to forget his past is shoved face first into a situation that is all too familiar. Olsen also is great by giving the audience a character that may be very inexperienced but she portrays her in the most believable way and not in that dumb way a lot of filmmakers like to depict rookies. She gives Banner a strong exterior but is able to flash some of that naivety that comes with dealing different cultures like these. What amazed me with this film is the fact that Sheridan gives us such a straight forward story, but is able to make this simple story so compelling. The main investigation is something that comes right out of a Law and Order episode, but it is the character moments and the acting that give this film so much more life. I give credit to the actors for their performances, but I also give great props to Sheridan for pulling all this together is such a beautiful way.

The post script for this film is what really got me. It just amazes me that all people forget that there are people in America that are suffering a lot worse than what the majority is screaming for. The rest of my thoughts on that are for a different platform.

Please see this film, it is a great murder mystery that tugs at the heart strings and has one of the most haunting scores I have heard for a film in a long time. Renner and Olsen are awesome behind Sheridan’s chilling direction. Wind River will have you glued to the screen for its modest 2 hour runtime.

The Verdict: Very Much Worth Your Time.

#Wind River #Wind River movie #Jermey Renner #Elizabeth Olsen #Taylor Sheridan #neo noir #neo western #movies #movie reviews #film #film review #cinelli

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invested-in-your-future · 7 years

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This season of Arrow is absolutely the best. PLS WATCH IT

Here’s the simple way to judge whether Arrow is still misogynist trash:

Is Laurel Lance still dead?

Are Guggenheim’s fanfic characters(ex: Tunaface, Felicity) still propped up into roles they don’t deserve?

Is Laurel Lance still dead?

If answer is yes to any of that, then the show is still shit and does not deserve anyone’s time being wasted on it.

Arrow has been same low quality wannabe Batman nonsense since the very start. The difference being that at the start it was still interesting and coherent and it was the only DC TV show available. But over the course of show it went worse and worse. The writing kept getting worse and worse and the female characters got treated worse and worse.

Season 2 was pretty much mostly trash.For starters most of the first half was utter filler with literally everybody but Laurel Lance being completely and utterly braindead, while Oliver literally sleeps with everybody.

Season 3 was literally a filler season. The only good parts there were Laurel’s storyline and Laurel seemingly being built up as a superhero, albeit way too slow.

Season 4 was an absolute trash of misogyny and sexism. And not only that - the writing literally was braindead - nothing made any logical sense. The writing was so bad that it would have made kitsch like Vampire Diaries look like fucking Twin Peaks in comparison….And yeah, the show made huge mistake in fridging Laurel Lance, the one and only Black Canary. It is not a mistake to be forgiven or glossed over.

What I know about Season 5 frankly does not sound in anyway fun or watchable:

I know that the main villain is pretty much Discount-Bane

I know that majority of season is the same old Oliver Queen mangst.

I know that Guggenheim is still propping up Felicity Smoak as some paragon or virtue and best character ever.

I know that Guggenheim decided to insult all the fans of Black Canary by just throwing the title around to random characters, including his new favorite writers pet I like to call Tunaface Canary because I just can’t remember her name.

I know that the writers pulled despicable bait and switch with Katie Cassidy returning to show only to shit on Laurel Lance yet again. All for the sake of ratings.

I know that writers completely mishandled Black Siren and she should have stayed on Flash or gone to Legends.

I know that Guggenheim still believes fridging Dinah Laurel Lance for sake of manpain was absolutely totally correct decision and keeps trying to rub it in via not so subtle plotlines in the show telling the viewers that.

I know that Guggenheim continues to be a disrespectful shit towards the Black Canary fanbase.

I know that the showrunners and the overall Arrow fanbase alike have been incredibly sexist and awful towards Katie Cassidy and treat her like shit.

WHY WOULD anybody but straight white males or tangerine voters watch this shit? WHY? Scratch that, why would anyone SMART watch this shit?

The show is literally feeding it’s viewers the same exact kitsch it has always been feeding them. Why should I care about Oliver’s toxic manpain and mangst? Why should I watch yet another wannabe-batman plotline with no fun or good writing to be found? Why should I forget utterly despicable misogyny of Marc Guggenheim and forgive the show for fridging one of THE MOST ICONIC heroines in the whole DC verse?

I should not.

Arrow is trash and belongs in the trash and I will never understand why would anybody hype up this season as something different. I mean I am sure misogynists and all that will keep loving the show, but no just no.

There are plenty of shows that do the superhero thing better. There are four whole seasons of Agents of SHIELD available where Chloe Bennet’s character gets EVERYTHING LAUREL LANCE DESERVED AND MORE

Let it die.

#Arrow #Arrow CW #CW Arrow #Laurel Lance #Dinah Laurel Lance #Black Canary #DCTV #DC comics

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bellabooks · 7 years

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“Wonder Woman” and the wonders of writing women

Wonder Woman, the latest in the DC Comics film franchise, will be released in theaters on June 2, 2017. It’s noteworthy because the Wonder Woman character is the only female superhero featured in this line-up, soon to be followed by Aquaman and The Flash in 2018. These films, including Shazam, will continue the all-male tradition of superhero films. Bella authors, who regularly write about women, definitely have something to say about this iconic character. Renée J. Lukas, a Bella author and film fanatic, shares her perspective on this momentous step by Warner Bros., and why it’s so important to increase female visibility in film. Why Did it Take So Long for Wonder Woman to be Brought to the Big Screen? Warner Bros. response: they found it difficult because they knew they had to “get it right.” You’re darn right they did. They had to make her soft enough to appeal to the traditional members of the audience, but badass enough to appeal to women like me who are still likely to rake them over the coals for her skimpy outfit. Heck, even if the movie is absolutely perfect, some critics, including myself, are still not likely to be happy about it. So is it any wonder a studio would fear Wonder Woman? But eventually, the public outcry about Wonder Woman’s omission from the Marvel superhero line-up became too deafening. And now, a gazillion years later, action has finally been taken. What is the Problem with Wonder Woman? First, let’s be clear. It isn’t Wonder Woman’s fault. Her character has the same problem that the first LGBT character or black character or Hispanic character or Asian character, etc. has. When you’re the lone example of your group, (in this case—in a particular genre), standing on the horizon, everyone is going to assume you represent ALL of your group, which is never the case. And that’s a lot of pressure, even for a fictitious character. We Haven’t Come a Long Enough Way, Baby The more pervasive problem: According to the acclaimed documentary MissRepresentation, only 16% of women are protagonists, or main characters, in U.S. movies. Women make up 51% of the U.S. population, yet are virtually non-existent in leading roles in big studio films. Yes, there are exceptions, but this is still the rule. And the numbers are worse when talking about the superhero genre. So in that context, the pressure is really on Wonder Woman’s shoulders, as a shining beacon of female superhero-ness. The solution? Fill the screens with more women, so they can be treated as diverse characters the way male characters are. What a revolutionary idea! Among male characters on the big screen, you have your heroes, your bad apples, your much older men who happen to still be alive after age forty, and you have your heroic but flawed guys. Guess what? I’ll let you in on a big secret. Come a little closer. . . women are like that, too! Who knew? Hollywood’s Female Problem In the superhero/action genre, male writers seem to have a block when it comes to writing women. In other words, they can’t do it. The problem is they see a man at the center of the universe, and any woman who enters the plot is usually just a manifestation of male fantasy—the love interest. But a love interest isn’t a real person who yells back at the TV news, who steps in something sticky on a sidewalk. . .things mere mortals do. A love interest is on a pedestal, so her lines are very limited and reveal little about her as a person. The love interest’s dialogue is populated with things that assist the male character, lines like “Can I help? You seem tense.” Why does this matter? Statistically speaking, whenever you go to the movies, 9 times out of 10 you’re seeing a film directed by a man. Since film is the most powerful medium in shaping cultural attitudes, this translates to a male-dominated viewpoint that profoundly impacts our collective consciousness. Let that sink in a moment. Even in classics like Casablanca, they shot Ingrid Bergman with a high angle so the audience was literally looking down on her, while looking up at Humphrey Bogart with a low angle. Imagine that. It’s so disturbing it’s worthy of a separate blog. Bella Books and the Deep, Deep Secrets of Writing Women At Bella Books, we writers are used to writing women as people—flawed, magnificent, not-so-magnificent. . . and our readers find our characters to be colorful, often relatable and even frustrating at times. It’s ironic, though. Even as lesbians who do find women to be our “love interests,” we tend to treat women to a fully multi-dimensional existence in our stories. In my comedy, The Comfortable Shoe Diaries, there’s a woman plagued by anxiety disorders. In Hurricane Days, there are double-crossing women whose intentions (they both think) are equally honorable. But these women aren’t all good or all bad. Like life, there’s plenty of gray area. It baffles me to see how Hollywood continues to stuff female characters in boxes. All you have to do is live a little, and you’ll meet so many wild, weird, wonderful women. Why is it so puzzling to write about them? How a Trope Becomes a Trope So we’re left with female film tropes and very little deviation from them. Why does this happen? A trope becomes a trope when a writer copies what he sees in other works without drawing from his own experience. It’s lazy writing, to say the least. Either that, or the only women most male writers in Hollywood have ever met have been prostitutes, strippers or the always supportive housewives who are content to live their lives through the actions of their husbands—the ones who wait at the door with a fresh avocado and a neck rub. Personally, I’ve never met any of these women. Back to superheroes. As someone who likes character-driven stories, I’ll admit I’m not a big Avengers/Marvel franchises fan. I don’t enjoy watching stories where the women are placed as props for the men, which is so often the case. But it didn’t always seem this way. In the mid-‘70s Superman franchise, Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane had way more personality than the cardboard “love interest” we see so much of today. In fact, her character was infused with plenty of the drive you see in women trying to make a name for themselves in the big city. She was humorous and lovable, not just a silky voiced woman who slid on stockings at just the right camera angle. Unfortunately, women in many of today’s superhero films are on set merely as decorations with extra cleavage. Or, “Oh look, she can kick bad guys while wearing a skin tight suit!” The flip side: When a female superhero is included, meaning she has more than three lines, the idea is that she must be as tough and badass as possible in order to be considered equal to the male characters. Now I’ll admit Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow can tie me up any day. But this thinking leaves you with heroes that must continuously be bigger and badassier than ever until there’s hardly a shred of humanity left in the character—or until they’re all more like stereotypical action guys. Is that true equality? It’s nothing but punching and kicking and more action than an energy drink commercial. It’s exhausting. Now I understand that fans of superhero action flicks aren’t going for depth of character. Your expectations for dialogue are more like “Hand me that rope!” with a focus on the death-defying situations that will be faced. I get that. I also get that we’ve had some films that dared to put a woman front and center in the action genre—a risky move indeed. (Not risky, but the studios seem to think it is.) Speaking of Scarlett Johansson, she’s enjoyed some success as the lead in the traditionally male sci-fi genre with incredible films like Lucy and Under the Skin. Oh, and who can forget Sigourney Weaver carrying the Alien franchise. . . But for some reason, the superhero genre has eluded female characters for quite some time. I did believe they’d use every last male character in their line-up (Ant Man? Squid Guy? Sewage Rat. . .), anyone else, before attempting a female superhero. Now that it’s happening, we have to hope it won’t be a one-shot wonder. Sometimes Being a Lesbian Complicates Things As a lesbian, I always feel conflicting emotions when I think of iconic women in movies. On the one hand, in my mind, no one but Lynda Carter will ever be fit to throw that golden lasso. And yes, she’s older now AND still sexy. If Jack Nicholson can play roles until he’s a hundred, Lynda Carter can still be Wonder Woman. Next, it would be great if Wonder Woman is hot, but not in a male titillation kind of way. Now hear me out. . . Since nearly everything in Hollywood is written, packaged and produced for the male gaze, I cringe at the thought of Wonder Woman being yet another prop for male fantasy. Of course this begs the question—what are the differences, even subtle, between lesbian and straight male fantasies? I’d argue there are differences in the way sexy women are depicted, but sometimes there’s probably overlap. For me, it boils down to the under-representation of women in front of and behind the camera, as mentioned earlier. So despite my overall wariness about superhero/action movies, I’ll be going to see Wonder Woman in theaters when it comes out, hopefully to break box office records, to send a message to studios that female characters CAN and SHOULD open a tentpole film, and that women in Hollywood should be paid what their male counterparts are paid. As of now, it’s a political act. And it will continue to be a political act until female characters are as diverse as males, and until it’s not such a big deal to have a female superhero headlining a film. Renée J. Lukas holds a B.A. in Motion Picture History, Theory & Criticism from Wright State University. She is the author of four books published by Bella Books, the latest one, In Her Eyes, due out this July. http://dlvr.it/PJSxX8

#Books #Movies #Renee Lukas

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Taskmaster: the Cult British Comedy Show Coming to Save America

https://ift.tt/33bdDVi

Gloom has several remedies. Jogging, alcohol and the excessive consumption of Kit-Kats each have their merits. There’s a fast-acting fix though that, unlike the other three, is highly unlikely to end in vomiting. Its name is Taskmaster and it is the UK’s happy place.

Since 2015, Taskmaster has aired nine series and one special in the UK, growing from a cult delight on digital channel Dave to a Bafta-nominated, millions-attracting hit about to make its debut this autumn on major broadcaster Channel 4.

But all that’s just numbers. In real life, Taskmaster has done much, much more. Ask anyone who loves it and they’ll tell you. This unimprovably silly show in which comedians complete a series of absurd tasks, and then get together to watch the results, be judged, and laugh at themselves, is a holiday from strife. It’s an open window on a suffocating day, and a blessed reminder that whatever else may be going on in the world, people are funny and inventive and magnificently willing to do stupid things to make each other laugh. As the Cheers theme song says, sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Sometimes though, you want to go where Bob Mortimer is demonstrating his patented sausage and pork pie presentation unit and a woman from Bridget Jones’ Diary is inserting slices of cake into a scared man’s armpit.

When a Taskmaster line-up is announced (there are five new comedians each series, giving the show a 50-strong back catalogue of established and rising names in UK comedy), the response isn’t just positive, it’s thank-God-can-we-have-it-now-please grateful. That’s because fans know a new series means a precious 10 hours off. Off work and off worry and off having to think about anything other than whether a man is going to successfully hit a Babybel across a football field with a snooker cue. (He isn’t.) A new series of Taskmaster is respite. It means being among friends and being kept company by inane joy. Great if you’re bored, a lifeline if you’re grieving, struggling to find common ground with your kids, or just struggling full stop.

Comedian and writer Greg Davies plays the titular Taskmaster, a sort of fee-fi-fo-fum giant whose relentless demands for contestants to fill an egg-cup with tears or paint a picture of a horse while riding a horse give the show its premise. Davies judges the comedians’ performances, awarding points that go into a league table and determine the overall winner. His sidekick is series creator Alex Horne, the task umpire who accompanies contestants through their wildly inventive/pitiful endeavours.

In the US, The CW is starting with series eight and nine, on the understanding that if the American viewing public take to the show, they’ll also buy in the previous series. ‘If they do air the rest,’ Greg Davies tells Den of Geek, ‘Alex and I will be getting younger as it progresses, giving it a sort of Benjamin Button-type twist.’

‘The props will be getting cheaper and the Taskmaster house will get stripped down,’ says Horne. The house is the backdrop to most of the tasks and the site of the famous-among-fans shed and caravan. ‘Guess how much the caravan cost,’ Horne challenges Den of Geek. £500? ‘£200. It’s fully plumbed.’

New Taskmaster Now Filming: How Covid-19 Will Change Series 10

By Louisa Mellor

Taskmaster: the top 11 tasks so far

By Louisa Mellor

There was, briefly, a 2017 American remake on Comedy Central but it failed in one key area: time. Cut in half to just 30 minutes an episode, there were fewer tasks and crucially, much less space given to the comedians reacting to their own and others’ performances. A major joy of Taskmaster is the interaction between the five contestants. The comedians are asked not to discuss the tasks – most of which they complete solo – until the studio record, making it the first time they find out how well (or otherwise) they’ve done. The laughs almost all come from the clash between expectation and reality, from the camaraderie and competitive rivalry.

‘Something that I think American viewers should know is how much people want to win the show,’ says Davies. One early task was to buy the Taskmaster a gift for £20. ‘I had some great things bought for me. Someone bought me a title, so I’m a lord now, and someone genuinely had their foot tattooed with my name. That people would actually have their body tattooed for life in order to get points on this show… It seems on the surface to be a frivolous gameshow but it’s life and death for these people.’

The series eight contestants US viewers are going to meet first up are a strong mix of personalities. There’s actor-writer Joe Thomas, a former co-star of Davies in British comedy series The Inbetweeners. ‘He’s quite well-known because The Inbetweeners was an enormous hit in this country,’ says Greg. There’s Paul Sinha from UK gameshow The Chase,‘a former GP, a gay, Asian quiz champion who we’ve since discovered has got Parkinson’s Disease, so he’s got a lot going on,’ says Horne when asked to describe the line-up. ‘He’s very nice and funny,’ says Davies. ‘But very bad at the tasks,’ adds Horne, ‘possibly our worst contestant.’ There’s Car Share’s Sian Gibson, ‘a very good actress and writer and nice person from Wales,’ says Horne. There’s comedian Iain Stirling, the voice of huge UK reality show Love Island, described by Davies and Horne as ‘Scottish, nice, funny and like a puppy.’ Finally there’s stand-up Lou Sanders, ‘a scatty British comedian on the rise,’ says Horne. ‘She’s quite a unique voice,’ adds Davies. ‘She believes in angels.’

Davies calls Taskmaster a joy to be part of and hopes it’s also joyful to watch. ‘Even though I’m horrible to a lot of people on the face of things, it’s meant to be an inclusive show where people can forget about the more troubling things and just be silly with us for a while. I hope that some of that joy makes it over the pond.’

Some of that joy made the journey earlier this year. During UK lockdown, the Taskmaster team introduced Hometasking, which expanded the task-setting premise to the general public. For weeks while UK schools were closed and businesses had put their staff on furlough, the team set tasks online, giving people fun activities to occupy them in a a worrying time. They received record entries from around the world – over a third from North America. If you had 17 minutes downtime, you could do worse than watch this final results video to see just what it meant to those who took part.

The effort devoted to tomfoolery is perhaps what’s most cheering about Taskmaster. Over its many series, teams of people have devised literally hundreds of challenges the sole goal of which is silliness. They’ve debated the comedic merits of throwing a potato into a golf hole and making a Swedish person blush. They’ve considered the practical implications of one comedian wheeling another around inside a bin or driving a golf buggy blindfolded. The risk assessments must be as thick as telephone directories. And they’ve gone to these lengths purely in the interest of good cheer.

Horne hopes that Taskmaster will be embraced in America the way it has been in the UK. ‘It’s a cult-y show here, but a family cult-y show. It’s not too niche, but the people who like it really like it. If that could happen in America, people to really get into it when they discover it, rather than it being a mild curiosity, that’s what I’d love.’

Is Horne worried that the peculiarly British quirks of some tasks might not translate to the US? ‘I’m starting to,’ he tells Den of Geek. Will Americans embrace, or be confounded by, Taskmaster’s distinctive Britishisms? Surely the former, but just in case, here’s a bit of context for our American friends on a few UK-specific task items.

Greg and Alex, over to you.

Taskmaster explains: Marmite

Series 5, Episode 4 Task: Make the best Marmite

Greg Davies: Marmite is a yeast-based spread that you might put on toast. It’s been around since the 1940s, certainly since the war, maybe even before. And for many decades, Marmite has prided itself on its advertising campaign which consistently has been ‘Marmite: You’ll either love it or hate it’ but it’s not true. It’s a lie, at least a 45-year-old lie, because I for one am indifferent to Marmite. I certainly don’t mind it being put on my toast but I wouldn’t ever ask for it. So, the truth of the advertising campaign should be ‘Marmite: You’ll love it or you’ll hate it, and some of you will be absolutely ambivalent to it.’

Taskmaster explains: Christmas Crackers

Series 7, Episode 7: Make the best Christmas cracker

Greg Davies: I can honestly say in all my years on this planet, I have not once enjoyed pulling a Christmas cracker. I think America is leading the way and it’s something we should get rid of. Pulling an explosive tube of cardboard to reveal an awful gift is something this country can do without.

Alex Horne: They are a poor tradition. I have never enjoyed a Christmas cracker. As a dad, we’re just giving children choking hazards at Christmas. They get so excited about the thought of pulling them and then it always ruins the day.

Greg Davies: My mum was a skinflint at Christmas so a typical cracker gift would be a small tape measure.

Alex Horne: A little pack of cards was always a highlight.

Greg Davies: That’s high-end.

Taskmaster explains: Egg Cups

Series 1, Episode 4: Fill an egg cup with tears

Alex Horne: Really? Americans don’t use egg cups? How do they keep their eggs upright? You’d have to chase it around the plate.

Greg Davies: But that means they can’t have soft-boiled eggs? What do they do, hold it in their hands? What do they hold an egg in?! That makes no sense at all. It’s a staple of British crockery!

Alex Horne: An egg cup must be a really peculiarly British thing. We use it as a measuring device because it’s a satisfying item. It’s probably 20 ml or fluid ounces. There must be something they use. It’s probably a shot glass isn’t it? That’s an equivalent.

Greg Davies: A shot glass! Which I do use as an egg cup actually.

Alex Horne: I go the other way around.

Taskmaster explains: Traffic wardens

Series 7, Episode 5: Cheer up this former traffic warden

Alex Horne: They enforce parking restrictions and I guess they’re a sort of jobsworth position, someone who thinks they’ve got a lot of power but doesn’t, and is a constant irritant to the motorist.

Greg Davies: But a saviour for the children.

Alex Horne: Do you mean lollipop ladies?

Greg Davies: I do mean lollipop ladies. I try to be kind to traffic wardens even when I’ve been ticketed because I just think it must be an awful job having that many confrontations a day so I try not to get cross.

Alex Horne: And lollipop ladies?

Greg Davies: I’m furious with them.

Alex Horne: You’d be a lovely lollipop lady, Greg.

Greg Davies: Well I’m sure that’s where I’m headed.

Taskmaster explains: Squirty Cream

Series 6, Episode 4: Make the best art using the entire contents of this can of squirty cream

Alex Horne: Squirty cream is a staple of every British fridge. You spray it straight into your mouth. It’s made of, I think, plastic and no dairy products, and we’re not allowed to show people spraying it directly into their mouth on British TV anymore because of health and safety.

Greg Davies: I’ve got three tins of it in my fridge and every day over lockdown I treated myself to a squirt. Whenever I needed a lift.

Taskmaster explains: aubergines

Series 9, Episode 1: Hide three aubergines from Alex in this room

Greg Davies: There’s a name for it over there. It’s a purple vegetable and I for one would move for us to just get rid of those off the face of the earth. What do they call it over there?

Alex Horne: I’m enjoying this, seeing him scrabble around.

Greg Davies: What does it begin with, the American one?

Alex Horne: It rhymes with your name.

Greg Davies: Greg?

Alex Horne: Yeah. Well, not the whole thing. If your name was Greg Slant, it would rhyme with that.

Greg Davies: My name isn’t Greg Slant though.

There you go, America, hopefully that should now all be crystal clear. Tune in to Taskmaster series 8 in the US at 8pm ET/PT on The CW from Sunday the 2nd of August. Seriously, do, it’s good for what ails you.

The post Taskmaster: the Cult British Comedy Show Coming to Save America appeared first on Den of Geek.

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talltalestogo · 5 years

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Los Angeles is a madman’s prayer wrapped inside a murderous dream.

It’s homeless on sidewalks and hustlers in the hills. It’s laborers and housekeepers, and billboards of lust, dystopia, apes, robots, Chewbaccas, Kim and Kanye, and Lady Gaga’s newest thing. It’s clear skies, no mosquitoes and laser-sculpted people with money, hedgerows and sins. A crime writer can make of it what he or she wants, like “Westworld” or a lover who gives you a kiss and a key, and one day changes the locks.

The city is the seething, sexy capital of noir. It is an illicit urge — a trick of possibility — slinking like a con -man’s ruse into a novelist’s imagination. Transgressions pile up and the skyline is newly pricked, rising above vintage bungalows that sell for a million-plus and are gutted and remade for the conceits and dark angels of a new century.

Raymond Chandler knew Los Angeles was both lie and delusion. A bitter candyland, where paradise betrays, and men talk tough and women know the score. The city is desire and the demons beneath, a metropolis where virtue is transactional and shifting façades, like so many Hollywood sets, mask cruelty and indifference. Not forever but long enough to make one wonder whether Michael Connelly’s reticent and resilient Det. Harry Bosch will in the end find peace in his creed: “Everybody counts or nobody counts.”

“Telling something new about this place is what defines a great L.A. crime novel,” said Connelly, whose new book, “The Night Fire,” which pairs Bosch with Det. Renee Ballard, will be published Tuesday. “Not imitating what has been done in the past but taking those influences and inspirations, putting it in a blender with your own experiences and ideas, mixing on purée and pouring out something unique about this unique place.”

Los Angeles is at once a stereotype and piercingly its own, a mountain lion caught in traffic, a cumbia gliding through a hymn. It is a surfer’s sunset, a Santa Ana gust, a wildfire, a canyon howl, a glittering mural, a whispered hate, a body in a street. Like the men and women in its crime novels, the city, a multicultural diary of splendor and hurt, is its own character: grisly, sinister, smooth, sly, urbane, verbose, sparse, fatalistic, celebratory, hopeful and occasionally as doomed as James Ellroy’s “Black Dahlia.”

“All books about Los Angeles have a little bit of noir in them. The city, after all, demands it,” said David L. Ulin, a former Times books editor, author and editor of “Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology.” “This is a place where many people come out of their aspiration — to get famous, to get rich, to get away. Noir is what happens when they don’t get what they’re looking for; noir is what happens in the aftermath ... when desperation sets in. That’s one of the central stories of Los Angeles.”

Writers and readers have many takes on what makes the definitive L.A. crime novel: “An L.A. noir book must unfold in the darkness of L.A,” said T. Jefferson Parker, whose latest book is “The Last Good Guy.” “It can be old or contemporary. It’s a mood, not a time.” Steph Cha, author of “Your House Will Pay,” a compelling new novel exploring the city’s racial tensions, is less particular: “I figure if it’s got crime in it, and it takes place in Los Angeles, it qualifies.”

The city’s noir is a puzzle of flawed heroes and devious interlopers: cops, private eyes, assassins, gamblers, schemers and femme fatales looking not so much for absolution as for a reckoning that will edge them through another day. Or not. From Philip Marlowe to Easy Rawlins, crime novel sleuths know that human nature, whether in Watts or Beverly Hills, is balanced between reward and tragedy, and that a soul — its tender wants, grievous yearnings and amoral fascinations — is a peculiar, hard-to-reconcile thing.

“I’ve always been drawn to the beautiful loser or the unwitting dupe,” said Tod Goldberg, author of “Gangster Nation.” “Characters like Roy Dillon in Jim Thompson’s ‘The Grifters’ or, of course, Tod Hackett in Nathanael West’s ‘The Day of the Locust,’ characters too smart by half to be wrapped up in the lives they’ve chosen. Issues of identity have always run through the best crime novels of our region, each of us ruled by who we think we are versus who reality has shown us to be, difficult circumstances in a world where seemingly half the people we encounter are employed in make-believe for their living.”

Chandler’s wry cynicism, tinged sadness and clever asides (“Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains”) infused his novels, including “The Big Sleep” and “The Long Goodbye,” with a hard-boiled sophistication that would influence crime writers and filmmakers for generations. The 1946 movie version of his Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart/“The Big Sleep”) was a near perfect union of book and film, one that showed how indivisible noir literature and cinema would become even as crime movies lost their suave double entendres to expletives and gratuitous gunplay.

“I don’t think there’s any other genre that is so intertwined as the crime genre with film and novel,” said Don Winslow, author of “The Border” and “The Cartel.” “You can’t separate them. They have been informed by each other from the time they started rolling the camera. Noir particularly. Look, I never sat in my office as a PI where a trumpet started and a long-legged blond walked into the room. It was my wife, and I was home with a jazz record on, but that soundtrack of noir informs me when I sit down to write.”

In more recent decades, voices from diverse communities have articulated the texture and resonance of the city’s multiethnic landscape. What defines Los Angeles is being shot through different prisms. Hector Tobar’s “The Tattooed Soldier” brings the enmities of the Guatemalan civil war to the L.A. Riots. Japanese American novelist Joe Ide has sketched a wonderfully clever thinking-man’s sleuth in his “IQ” series. Cha has delivered Juniper Song, an edgy and inventive Korean American private investigator. Walter Mosley’s proud and enduring Rawlins — a World War II vet with a taste for real estate and temptation — journeys into racism and social inequities faced by African Americans.

The Rawlins books “present a side of L.A. so real that I have no doubt it exists,” said writer Bette Ross. “In my mind, I see streets of modest houses, some with rusted cars in the yard, some yards well-kept with flowers, hints about the people who live there. Personal expectations are built from different parameters. ... Justice is tempered by implacable, sometimes vicious reality.”

“For so many decades,” said Daniel Olivas, author and editor of the anthology “Latinos in Lotusland,” “people of color in Los Angeles really were nothing more than props and ugly stereotypes in ‘classic’ noir fiction.” He praised Yxta Maya Murray’s novel “Locas” for capturing the lives of Chicanas “living in the gang-ravaged Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park. ... But in this novel, women of color are at its center rather than being relegated to mere plot points, sexual conquests or incidental appearances.”

Reality here is a tease with a bullet, a come-on for a setup. In his 1981 novel, “A Savage Place,” Robert B. Parker called Los Angeles “the last hallucination, the dwindled fragment of — what had Fitzgerald called it? — ‘the last and greatest of all human dreams.’ It was where we’d run out of room, where the dream had run up against the ocean, and human voices woke us. Los Angeles was the butt end, where we’d spat it out with our mouths tasting of ashes, but a genial failure of a place for all that.”

It is the lonely heart beating inside the wreckage, where characters confront history and themselves, such as Jackie Ishida, a Japanese American woman in Nina Revoyr’s “Southland,” who examines the life of her grandfather in a story that is an intimate and sweeping look at Los Angeles’ diversity and danger. Like a smart dame — a derringer in her sequined clutch — outwitting a patsy, the story of the city is a protagonist’s search for answers no matter how unseemly.

“For me,” said Ide, “L.A. noir is about a lone, determined character, trying to find a way through a perilous, capricious, multilayered city. Sometimes to seek justice, sometimes just to survive.”

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londontheatre · 7 years

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Kate Perry

I have no idea how true to life the characters Kate Perry has ‘collected’ are in The Very Perry Show. I recall the 2008 feature film A Complete History of My Sexual Failures, in which its writer and central character, Chris Waitt, was threatened with legal action if certain people he was once acquainted with were even alluded to in the film, which immediately made the project’s title inept. This, in any event, is a series of vivid but always pleasant monologues. I am grateful each part is played in its entirety before moving respectably onto the next – so often, shows of this nature are made unnecessarily complicated, and exhausting for both performer and audience, by flitting between characters, narratives and timelines, rather like the channel-hopping Carmel that the show starts with.

It’s like watching Mrs Brown’s Boys but without all the profanity. Carmel, who hails from Northern Ireland (as does Kate Perry, funnily enough) has a warped sense of humour so left-field it only reminds the audience that this is, at the end of the day, something of a stand-up comedy act: she misses The Troubles, she says, because people joined together and supported one another back then – there isn’t, apparently, the same sense of community and belonging there was before. I can sort of see where she’s coming from (people in England still talk about the ‘Dunkirk spirit’) but, goodness me, much of this story needs to be taken with more than a pinch of salt.

The septuagenarian Carmel gives way to twelve-year-old Susie Hedley-Simmons, a well-to-do north Londoner, who maintains a personal diary, broadly in the style of the Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend, though her largely incapacitated mother (for reasons explained in the story) and absent father (for reasons unexplained) means she gets up to mischief – she wouldn’t have been out of place, apart from her tender age, amongst the retired men in the BBC Television series Last of the Summer Wine.

Maddie Melarkey continues a running theme of amiable but hapless characters, with an elaborate setup regarding a relative’s hospital bed leading to a truly laugh-out-loud climax. All this is done with just a few props, but no set, no accompanying score, and no sound effects to assist, just a few lighting cues. It stands or falls almost purely on its script and the performance. Both are a delight, and each of the stories told has an element of refreshing unpredictability about them.

‘Wee Brigit’ is the love-to-hate character, the prepubescent girl who incessantly talks on a long-haul flight, such that there is no escape for anyone within earshot. I would, ordinarily, intensely dislike such characters with unbridled passion, but Perry’s portrayal of her with such charming cuteness almost – almost – warmed me to this one. Rounding off this quintet of monologues is an intriguing look at the Amish community. Mary Peachy-Bender’s story could well be expanded upon to become a show all on its own; the audience here is treated to just a glimpse of living, or trying to live, in a way that conforms to outmoded traditional values from the Reformation in such a modern and technological era.

Overall, this is a gentle and delightful production. An absolute pleasure to see.

Review by Chris Omaweng

The Very Perry Show is a happy hour of comic monologues inspired by people Perry has ‘collected’ along the way, each one portrayed with chameleon like skill, humour and charm. A wooden spoon, a pair of goggles or a can of WD40 bring Perry’s characters to life with ample doses of humour and effortless transformations. The result is an evening of fresh comic writing that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre. Perry’s characterisations of her hilarious sketches have enthralled audiences in Ireland, London, Edinburgh and San Francisco. It’s going to be a Very Perry experience!

The Very Perry Show writer & performer: KATE PERRY / director: SARAH MEADOWS 5, 6, 12 & 13 March 7.45pm

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isabellelambert1975 · 7 years

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A week in the life of a garden blogger

What does a garden blogger do?

Or, indeed, what does any blogger do?

And, most importantly, does blogging make money? If so, how?

The world wakes up in February, after the hungover sleep of January. In the garden, the first snowdrops and hellebores are up.

And in the blogosphere, companies start reaching out to bloggers.

When I started the Middlesized Garden blog, I promised to be honest about the ups and downs. I said I would reveal what goes on behind the scenes.

So I thought a diary of this week would be one of the best ways of showing you how the business of blogging works.

Sunday – snowdrops day + editing

The Middlesized Garden comes out first thing on Sunday morning. So when I wake up, I check it on a mobile phone or tablet in order to spot any mistakes.

Then I publicise the new post. I use Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and (sort of) Google+. It saves time to use Hootsuite to schedule tweets.

If you only tweet your post once, most people will miss it. You have a better chance of getting it seen if you tweet it around a dozen times, on different days and different times.

So rather than manually tweeting it every time, I use Hootsuite to schedule tweets about posts.

Last Sunday I went to Copton Ash’s snowdrop open day. Copton Ash’s owner, Tim Ingram, talked to me about growing snowdrops.

I turned this into a video for The Middlesized Garden YouTube channel. This, too, has to go on Twitter, Facebook Instagram etc.

I use a Sony Xperia X phone to video. The EE shop recommended Sony phones for the best photo and video because Sony are also camera manufacturers.

Note: there are some Amazon affiliate links in this post, which means you can click through to buy. If you do, I may get a small fee. More about that later in this post.

Here’s the video:

youtube

Monday – book review, emails and catching up.

I received a review copy of Good Soil from the publishers, Frances Lincoln.

As soon as I opened it, I was hooked. Would it be very shallow of me to say that I am only likely to read about something as worthy as soil if it’s written about in a very beautiful book?

Good Soil – manure, compost and nourishment for your garden, by Tina Raman has the design and photography you’d expect in a book on Californian smoothies or Danish hygge.

It has beautiful photographs, accompanied by really solid information. You will find interesting tips boxes and excellent advice.

For example, there’s a box on which wild flowers and weeds do best on which soils. And did you know that cow manure is the best manure for fertiliser?

A spread from Good Soil – a serious book that’s also a pleasure to look at.

As the intro says: ‘We hobby gardeners often go all out on the plants and decorations, completely forgetting how important it is to build up a good nutrient-rich soil.’ Well, no more.

Apparently, this book is already a best-seller in Scandinavia and Germany.

Note: bloggers are supposed to state clearly when something has been sent free for review. Like most bloggers, I only review books and products I really like. There is absolutely no point in saying you think something is good if you don’t. That’s why I, along with most other blogs, can’t guarantee a review when a product is sent for free.

Now for the emails

I deal with around 100 emails a day, often from people wanting to ‘guest post’ on The Middlesized Garden. Some are charming, and say lovely things about the blog.

Others are misspelt and vague.

And some offer money. People and companies want to ‘guest post’ because it gives them links to a reputable site. When search engines see these links, this raises a company in the search engine rankings.

So Google have made it clear. If you are paid to link to a company, you should firstly state that it is ‘sponsored’ or ‘collaborative’.

Secondly, you should make the link ‘no-follow’. This means people can click through to the company from your blog, but there’s a piece of code in the link. Google then knows not to recognise it as a ranking signal.

So that is one way bloggers make money. Charging for guest posts on their site.

But many companies do insist on a ‘follow link’. And a few don’t even want the words ‘sponsored’ or ‘collaborative’ on the post. Some bloggers agree to that.

Why ‘disclosure’ matters

If you don’t follow the rules, then both the blog and the company that paid for a ‘follow’ link could be marked down massively by Google. You may disappear from sight. It’s not worth the risk.

It’s also illegal to mislead readers. There’s more about ‘disclosure’ here:

And I believe it’s important to be honest. If you have been paid to write something, that’s fine, in my view. It’s just wrong if you pretend you haven’t been paid.

The Middlesized Garden only does a few sponsored posts. We only do them if I feel sure that the product is good, and that the sponsor is happy to stick to the rules.

I also read about a dozen other blogs a day. Some are gardening, homes and lifestyle blogs.

That’s why I know that a few bloggers are accepting money for paid posts, and not disclosing they’ve been paid. The same companies approached me.

Interestingly, however, some companies are increasingly emphatic that the guidelines must be followed. Wayfair works with a number of bloggers and insists that all links ‘must be no-follow’ and that posts must be marked ‘sponsored.’

Tuesday – Pippa Greenwood for tea and Gardeners Question Time

On Tuesday, BBC Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time recorded at the Alexander Centre, Faversham.

By coincidence, I handle the social media for the Alexander Centre. Blogging or handling the social media for other companies is another way bloggers earn a living.

Pippa Greenwood and I had been communicating on Twitter about her plug-plant veg growing sets, so I suggested she pop in for tea beforehand to talk about it.

Gardening author, plant pathologist and BBC Radio 4 panellist Pippa Greenwood in the Middlesized Garden. She’s talking about her new veg growing sets.

She started Grow Your Own with Pippa Greenwood to help people who want to grow their own veg but either don’t feel confident or are too busy to grow from seed.

Pippa is a trained botanist and plant pathologist, formerly of Wisley and Gardeners World. She’s a regular panellist on Gardeners Question Time, gives talks and is the author of many gardening books.

Grow Your Own With Pippa Greenwood is a range of garden-ready plug vegetable plants. You choose the ones you want. They’ll be sent to you when they’re ready to plant, along with precise growing instructions.

She also sends you a regular newsletter and advice on products that she recommends. And you can buy Gift Vouchers. That’s a really nice present for anyone thinking of growing their own for the first time.

‘Although I am really pleased to find that people are coming back year-after-year,’ she says.

‘And every year is different, so if you’ve just started growing veg, you may get disheartened when you get a bad year. If you’ve got access to good advice, then you either find out how to deal with bad weather or unexpected pests. Or at least you realise that it wasn’t your fault, and it is worth trying again.’

10% discount on Grow-Your-Own With Pippa Greenwood

There’s a 10% discount for readers of the Middlesized Garden. Order from www.pippagreenwood.com.

Use the discount code 12462-VNZJ7 when checking out. Valid until 15th May.

And there’s more about Pippa and her vegetable plug plants here:

youtube

We did the video interview in the back garden. I don’t have a tripod for my phone, so we propped it up on a table, step-ladder and two copies of Nigel Slater’s Tender.

My makeshift ‘tripod’. The cost of blogging equipment adds up quickly, so a proper tripod will have to wait. I managed to do a quick ‘poo-pick’ of the garden before she arrived, but we sat amid piles of pruned branches.

We then went to the Alexander Centre, where I interviewed the BBCGQT producer, Dan. He told me that Gardeners Question Time will record anywhere from a big city centre to a small village hall.

‘We try to vary where we go, week by week,’ he said. He revealed that the programme has never been to the Orkneys, so if there is an Orkney Horticultural Society reading this – invite BBCGQT now! Dan says he’d love to go.

Warming up for Gardeners Question Time at the Alexander Centre in Faversham.

If you go to Gardeners Question Time, there’s a pile of forms. You can write your gardening question on the form. If you’re chosen, you will be moved to a reserved seat at the front. If you fancy this, Dan advises you to choose a question that hasn’t been answered on the programme recently.

I use a Zoom Handy Recorder for interviews. The microphone on a mobile phone is never as good as the camera. A proper recorder or microphone makes the sound much better.

Wednesday – People’s Friend and photo/film editing

Twenty years ago, my journalistic work came mainly through magazines I’d worked for in the past. Now it’s more likely to come through editors reading the blog.

People’s Friend magazine has asked me to do fortnightly gardening pages for a couple of months. I’ve been gathering info for this during the week, and put it together on Wednesday.

A blog keeps your name out there, and anyone wanting to use your services will have a good idea of what you do. It’s a calling card, plus portfolio.

Whether you’re a writer or a specialist in cheese-making, cake baking or crochet, a blog can help you be better known in your field.

Beware of the time sink…

But – and it’s a big but – blogging takes time. If, for example, your work is very local, you’d be better off spending that time networking rather than blogging.

If you’re a florist who wants more weddings, then it’s probably better to spend the time at wedding fairs or at local events. If you’re a florist who wants a book deal, then blogging is an effective way forward.

I’ve seen several book review bloggers go on to get book deals, and then become novelists in their own right. The book review blogs got them known in the publishing industry. Their writing talent got them the deals.

Photography, video and editing takes time

I probably spend an hour or two each day taking photographs, editing them, then sharing them on social media or creating videos.

This includes making YouTube thumbnails and Pinterest images, using Canva. I’m not a trained designer – far from it – but images are vital both for the blog and social media.

A YouTube ‘thumbnail’ (cover photo). I made it with Canva and one of my photos.

Having worked with some brilliant ‘proper’ photographers, I know the difference between their work and mine. I have a lot to learn.

But some bloggers’ photography is good enough to sell. One friend has signed up to the Getty Images photo agency. Most months he only gets about £20. Occasionally, however, someone buys a chunk of his photos for a book or catalogue. Several hundred pounds (or more) come in.

If you blog in a visual industry, such as gardens, homes, art etc, then syndicating your photos is another option. Garden bloggers Harriet Rycroft and Andrew O’Brien – you should give it a go, if you don’t already!

Thursday – the Garden Press Event

I went up to London to The Garden Press Event in the Barbican.

This is where garden companies introduce their new products to the media.

The first person I saw was Charles Dowding. When I explained that the Middlesized Garden was for people whose gardens were larger than courtyard but smaller than an acre, he said ‘Like mine.’

‘No dig’ guru Charles Dowding and Steph Haggerty at The Garden Press Event.

I was impressed to find out that Charles has achieved so much in the world of veg with just quarter of an acre of veg growing space. The total area of the plot is only three-quarters of an acre.

‘Some of that is house,’ he says. ‘And I keep the rest fairly wild.’ Charles has written several books. The most recent is Charles Dowding’s Vegetable Garden Diary from www.charlesdowding.co.uk.

The book starts on February 14th, because that’s when Charles starts planting seeds. And it gives you week by week ‘no dig’ veg planting and harvesting advice.

Gardening equipment is now easier to use

I’ll review other products I saw at the Garden Press Event in a few weeks. But the headline message is that tools are getting lighter, brighter and easier to use.

Wilkinson Sword has some super-lightweight tools. Burgon & Ball has luminous-bright tools that can even be seen in the dark.

Burgon & Ball’s luminescent tools- no more losing tools in the compost heap!

And Cobra have a lithium-ion lawn-mower which means you can mow a middle-sized lawn with a battery-powered mower. It’ll do 40-50 minutes before you need to recharge it.

For the purposes of full disclosure, I must also reveal that Cobra had some delicious cup cakes on their stand. I’m not sure where Google stands on cake bribery.

The Garden Press Event is also an opportunity to catch up with people you normally only ‘see’ on Twitter or Instagram. Mr Plant Geek, Michael Perry and I had a quick catch-up, and I also met a fellow garden blogger, The Chatty Gardener.

Friday – coaching, writing and catching up

Coaching writers or bloggers is another strand of work that comes via the blog.

People get in touch because they’re thinking of starting a blog.

Sometimes people want a ‘blog clinic.’ Their blogs may already be successful, with a good following. But they have a sneaking feeling that they may be missing a trick or two.

Or they just want another eye on their work. When there’s only you, it’s easy to overlook something.

They’re not necessarily garden bloggers. Coachees have included Emma Varnam, who has a very successful and beautiful crochet blog. Rachael Hale’s lovely Home & History Magpie focuses on historic homes.

Whether you’re a primary school teacher or a pianist, you can publicise your coaching and teaching via a blog.

But the ‘local’ issue crops up again. If you want to coach eleven year olds to pass exams, you’d be better off spending the time getting involved with local schools.

However, I can coach or teach by Skype, so I’m not limited to local activity. Many bloggers also run excellent online courses (for example, Jen Stanbrook’s Pinterest tips courses.)

I’m trying to pluck up courage to start one myself.

Saturday – writing and photographing the next post

There hasn’t been alot of time for writing (or gardening!) this week. So at 9.30am, I went to a friend’s house to photograph next week’s post.

You can read about that next week, so now is probably a good time to mention affiliate sales.

What are affiliate sales?

If you are, for example, an Amazon Affiliate, then you can sell products via Amazon from your blog. You sign up, then you get special links to insert in your posts.

If someone clicks on the link and buys within 24 hours (without visiting another site), you would get a small percentage. Typically, this is 3%, but it ranges from 1%-10%.

It doesn’t affect the price the buyer pays.

The affiliate fee on books is 7%, so if you click through to buy the Gardener’s Companion to Medicinal Plants after my review, I would probably earn 94 pence. That’s only if you buy while clicking through my link. If you leave the site, but then return to buy the book, I wouldn’t earn anything.

However, if you buy other things, having clicked through via my site, I’d also get a small percentage on those.

As you can imagine, it takes a while for pence to add up. To date, in February, I have earned £33 via Amazon Affiliates.

Only recommend products you personally rate

And it is important to recommend products in your blog that you would recommend to a friend. People won’t be impressed if you just stuff your site full of links.

I only recommend either products I’ve tried myself, or those which have an exceptionally high number of positive reviews. It can take a while to hunt the latter down.

Often the products I recommend are ones I’ve bought, such as the Zoom Handy Recorder or Sony Xperia X phone that I mentioned earlier.

What about advertising?

You need hundreds of thousands of page views a month to make money from internet advertising. Fashion, beauty, travel, food, parenting and personal finance blogs can get that many, but a garden blogger is operating in a smaller industry.

I also find that internet advertising interrupts my reading. And if I don’t like it, then you probably don’t like it either. So, as a garden blogger, I don’t personally think it’s worth taking advertising.

So that’s been my week. What about yours?

If you’d like help with blogging or writing, do get in touch. And to get a post from the Middlesized Garden every Sunday morning, enter your email address in the box on the top right.

Thank you!

The post A week in the life of a garden blogger appeared first on The Middle-Sized Garden.

from The Middle-Sized Garden http://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/week-life-garden-blogger/

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