hi originally posted this at the end of a long thread of back and forth, here’s the og post if you want full context but i feel like this needs to be its own post especially bc i keep seeing this argument being made—the argument that the kids (in this case it was annabeth) SHOULD just know the monsters are monsters and who they are and how to defeat them before ever encountering them, that it’s a problem if they don’t.

the problem is not if 12 year olds should recognize a trap when they see one, even if they’re smart 12 year olds, and if that’s realistic. that is entirely beside the point.

the problem is rick riordan wrote a book series whose formula is bringing myths to the modern age and he’s not sticking true to that in the show—percy jackson and the olympians’ Shtick is taking these classic, ancient threats and giving them a new face. these traps work because these kids are not walking into a cave marked with Get Out and getting ambushed by monsters—the monsters are disguised as harmless mortal human beings, in harmless mortal human being places (for the most part) and i think we—and more importantly, the show—are all forgetting the mist, the magic involved here. it’s not just that medusa is a “creepy lady with her eyes covered” it’s that there is ancient magic at work here, magic that, like the systems of abuse pjo exists to criticize, has been evolving and continuing its malevolence for millennia. it’s formulaic, that’s the point. it’s the same trap you’ve learned about all your childhood, the same trap a thousand children before you learned all their childhoods, and still, it works. you fall into the trap. because that’s how generational abuse works. it’s a trap. it isn’t enough to learn monsters exist, what they look like from a second hand story that originated thousands of years ago. if you want to escape alive, you have to adapt as quickly as they do, recognize their face, and ultimately, beyond any individual trap, the game itself has to change. real, generational change.

so. the problem is rick riordan wrote a series with a formula for action that perfectly captures the overarching, systemic conflicts he was commentating on, and then threw that formula out in the show because it was “unrealistic”. i don’t give a damn about realism when it works to the detriment of the story. this is a story about generational abuse, yes, but it’s told through ‘a tale as old as time’ and that’s why it works so fucking well. and when it comes to basic storytelling, if your characters know the threat before they even walk in and you do practically nothing to then make up for the stakes you have removed, that’s a flaw. now you’ve lost the entertainment value for your audience, on top of also lessening your themes.

something else that is so. honestly soul-crushing as a writer and a creative, is that to me this is reflective of the way we are now afraid to tell earnest stories. stories where we care not for listening to the people who want to pick apart fictional, mythical, fantasy stories for not being “realistic” instead of aligning with our target audience who acknowledges reality is not what makes a story. think of your favorite movie, show, book, comic, what have you—has the reason for your favoritism ever been because it is the most reasonable, the most grounded, the most practical out of any you’ve seen? or is it because of the emotion? the way it speaks to you, to your life and the person you are? the journey it takes you on? is the percy jackson and the olympians book series so good because it’s inherently realistic?

the secret to storytelling is, very simply, focus on your story. everything else is secondary. if it’s written well, it doesn’t matter to me that the characters walk into a trap that, to the audience, is obviously a trap. because i can understand how the characters don’t know it, and how the story falls apart if the narrative just tells the characters it’s a trap from the jump. that’s what dramatic irony is—first used in greek tragedies! this is literally a tale as old as time in every sense except for the end—where it’s happy. and it’s not earned if we don’t first see, over and over, the status quo as a tragic trap.

it’s not about if annabeth (or the other kids) is “smart enough” to not walk into a trap, or about if she’s just too prideful to not walk into what she knows is a trap (or any reason that could apply to the other characters), it’s that annabeth, at the end of the day, is a character. she is a storytelling tool for the messages of the narrative. that doesn’t make her any lesser. in fact ignoring it reduces her, because it reduces what she represents. it’s about how rick riordan, or whoever else at disney, has fumbled the storytelling bag so ridiculously hard that they can’t take the simple, effective formula outlined from start to finish (by good ol 2009 rick himself) and adapt it to the screen without answering the most unimportant, derailing, anti-story questions.

so these are the TOP RATED comments of a paid dailymail puff piece talking about how “adorable” taylor and travis are 💀

let’s just say the people aren’t buying it.

taylor’s PR team is going to be FURIOUS that the stunt’s not working. expect some overly affectionate PDA pictures + videos to drop along with an engagement announcement at this point.

pjo cast watch party leah is making fun of her performance for just a second

“why did i do that?!”

walker before she can even finish her sentence fully : “BECAUSE YOU’RE ANNNABETH😄☝🏼”

the whole cast is so perfect i’m crying my eyes out

Todd Haynes on Mandy Slade

OM: How did you come to cast Toni Collette as Mandy? She doesn't strike me as an obvious choice for the role as it is written; her most famous part was in Muriel's Wedding where she played the podgy, Abba-obsessed ultra-hetero outcast.

TH: Mandy was the hardest part to cast in the film. It's a particularly demanding role due to the range Mandy has to display as she changes from the seventies to the eighties. This type of camp female character has basically vanished from our cultural landscape, as far as I can tell. The closest equivalent today is probably a Parker Posey-type character, but she's still quite different from the Liza Minnelli of Cabaret or the Angela Bowie of the glam era. Mandy has a theatrical, campy party girl persona that can be turned on and off at will, and owes a great deal to the gay male sensibility of the time. I think women around the world were liberated from all kinds of highly codified notions of femininity when people like Patti Smith entered the pop cultural arena. It had such a profound effect on women but girls today have no memory of that kind of camp femininity.

I saw so many strong actresses for Mandy, both in the US and the UK, and it was really tough to find the right one. We came close a few times, but it wasn't until I met Toni that it all clicked. I had no doubt about her acting ability, but the question was how to transform Toni Collette psychically, both for the camera and in her own self-regard into this very different, very confident, overly sexual creature. She really had to go off the cliff; I'm sure it was terrifying. And what you see in the film is such a transformation, such a complete commitment to the role that she almost becomes unrecognizable as Muriel in Muriel's Wedding. After a certain point, nothing was too scary for Toni. What you get with the character is what you get with the actress playing her - this range of changes and the effects of various cultures and various experiences on one extraordinary woman.

OM: Although the script informs you of Mandy being an American bisexual who reinvented herself, you get the sense of invention fully in the scene where she presents Brian with the divorce papers. She breaks down and you see the façade in a seventies context. It's a very moving moment and it's contrasted with Brian's coked-up emptiness. What did you discover in your research about the 'back-stage' women of the glam era?

TH: I guess Mandy's basic expression of real needs is made more vivid by that scene, but the beaten-down, hard-boiled Mandy of the eighties gives you the framework for that. She was definitely one of those people who was feeling and hurting and acting out at the same time. Often the casualties were the women of the male rock world. I really feel the film builds and develops complex sympathies for Mandy that you won't necessarily feel going in. The character is loosely inspired by aspects of Angela Bowie, and it's very easy to make fun of that kind of pop creature after the fact. But in all the books I read there was no argument on how fundamentally essential Angela Bowie was to the invention of Ziggy Stardust and to glam rock in general. She inspired risk-taking and flamboyance to a degree no one else can claim credit for. It wouldn't have happened without her.

Source - "Superstardust: Talking Glam with Todd Haynes", Oren Moverman.

Photo source

Emphases my own :)

I sometimes see my mum in the way I stand when I think or the way I wrinkle my nose when confused.

I see her in the way I say certain phrases or make certain jokes.

And every time I realize, I wince.

I love my mum, yet I do not want to become her.

Send "Pins" for your muse to pin mine against a wall in an attempt to stop them from leaving

@evcryopeneye "Pins" ( from Yuffie, IM SORRY SHES JUST TRYING TO PROTECT HIM THERE WILL BE NO MORE BROTHER FIGURES DYING OK, not today Satan! )

Cloud was sure he was there... calling to him. Sephiroth. His head was killing him and his voice was clear. Often he questions illusion from reality, but certain urges can't be resisted. Cloud couldn't see for himself but his eyes started to turn blank as he made his way to the reactor. No one probably saw but him, but what mattered was what he was being told at the moment. All he could say was, ❝ I need to do this alone... ❞

Of course, others protested, but no one knew the first step to stop him other than to just follow him, and make sure he was okay. But someone else sensed something wrong. It caused her to act out. Snap out of it! The voice wasn't clear until his body was pushed against metal. He felt his shoulders shake and the impact on his back. ❝ Huh? ❞ Cloud blinked rapidly as he started to see clearly again. He saw her face. Yuffie didn't look happy at all. In fact, she looked so sad. It took him off guard. ❝ Sorry... I didn't mean to worry you. ❞

"we both know you secretly enjoy our conversations"

Me: I'm going to rewatch Legend of the Seeker for the plot.

The plot:

My thing about Leela/Andred is that I think it is in character for Leela to see what she wants and just take it. The abruptness and in many ways incomprehensibility of her choice perfectly mirrors her similarly abrupt entrance onto the show. She decided she was boarding the TARDIS now and then she did. So in that sense it's a perfectly appropriate character beat. Do I agree with her choice? Irrelevant, she has a knife.

.

🔊🔊🔊

I’m listening to the hbo tlou series podcast and this line about Joel: “no matter how closed off he insists he is, he’s not. He will always be a dad. It just kinda comes out” is mmmmmm.

For the monster fucker vertical limit Tim joke post that I love a bit too much I offer meh quality meme