#PLUS DAN !!!!! he also didn’t have a tragic ending really but i love dan

[rystiel]

guys ok so this ep was awesome and cool But i’m kind of sad that there was no martha, rory, nardole, or fam and dan mention at all </3

[thirteenthdyke]

oh yeah. here are my #thoughts on netflix a81 btw. (it’s long)

disclaimer these are just my thoughts from watching it once & all in a single day like two days ago. there were things i liked and things i didn’t like! obviously the biggest thing i didn’t like was melody not being gay but i feel like that’s been gone over so many times and i’ve been angry about it so long i’m kind of just tired so. moving on! 

things i liked: 

- the sound design - i know the creator said they were inspired by the podcast’s incredible sound design, and it really showed. i listened to most of the episodes with earbuds in, and that was definitely the best way to go - sometimes the most enjoyable part of a scene was just how it sounded. 

- ratty was there 💗💗💗 and he even lived maybe 

- i genuinely enjoyed mark’s character i thought he was funny and he had a fun role in the tv show. i do wish he’d had more petty gay best friend energy but i guess that’s harder to show off when dan doesn’t have a girlfriend for him to hate

- i LOVED the cold opens at the start of every episode & i thought that was the closest they got to the spirit of the podcast - it especially reminded me of s2 and all the weird seemingly unrelated tapes that tied into the overarching story dan had to figure out. 

- rat (jacob?) wasn’t there ❤️

things i didn’t like: 

- my genuine biggest complaint (asides from melody making out w samuel) was the change in motivation for melody and dan? one of my favorite parts of s1 in the podcast is how in a way they’re both motivated simply by the need to finish the story. this is more obvious in dan and less so in melody (since she’s also motivated by finding jesse) but it’s still true for both of them, and i remember that being a big draw for me as a person who loves discussion of narrative in media and when characters are aware they are in a story....that is simply My Thing. so to have that taken away to give dan and melody motivations that are? both partially based off of parents (dan wanting to know why his dad is in the tapes/tragic backstory tying in/invested in melody’s fate specifically & melody looking for her mother in visser being her only motivator before getting deeper into it w anabelle & samuel, etc) felt like Such a downgrade for me and evidence of honestly lazier storywriting. 

- how everything was connected and everyone was related. when davenport said samuel was his brother........ bro this isn’t once upon a time it’s a horror tv show. plus melody being dan’s dad’s patient & dan’s family dying because of visser stuff & melody being related to some ancient witches...idk i paid less attention towards the end. OH and melody’s mom being the groundskeeper kjdsghkf like. i’m so sorry i did not care about that at all. 

- related to both of the above but giving dan a tragic backstory made him so less just some guy.....like podcast dan is truly Just Some Guy and i felt like we were missing that. also podcast dan is more of a loser (i mean this in a nice way)  

- whatever was going on with the plot in the 1920s. sorry i didn’t really pay attention i spent most of the time trying to figure out who was playing iris vos cause she wasn’t listed on imdb yet (believe it or not :/ i recognized her from a ouat role from like 2015. also from watching fringe with my dad over the summer. anyway)

- a lot of other people said this but the downgrade from eldritch unknowable leviathans to religious horror/a demon with a name....not fun! not a fan!! i kept waiting for all the religious stuff to kind of like. be something else when the curtain got pulled back but it never happened. especially upsetting since they all kept referencing ‘the otherworld’ and then it was just a weird little dream sequeunce like.....no dude i want the world where the city is!! where the blacktop is!!!! 

- the only canon lesbian being an evil cultist :/ when it should have been melody 

in conclusion: i think it’s a perfectly okay adaptation of the podcast - it makes sense that there had to be a lot of new stuff, as other people have said again they had to expand a roughly 2 hour podcast into an 8 hour tv show so there would need to be a lot of new information. but boy they were not kidding when they said ‘loosely based’ huh  i also thought it was really cool to have a horror tv show with a black lead and multiple important characters of color, and i think all the actors did a really good job! however storywise i felt like the horror was a step down from where it was in the podcast and honestly </3 just wasn’t that scary. i wish they hadn’t been afraid to be weirder - they went there a few times w the cold opens & ratty!! a lot of the other horror stuff just felt very unoriginal to me though. anyway once again these are literally just my thoughts you do not have to agree with them at all lmao. if u read this far thank u i appreciate it and i hope this was legible. i’m gonna go relisten to a81 the podcast again now see ya 

[drowningindango]

Nobody:

Me: Did Mito die before Nawaki, or did she have to see her grandchild die before her?

(Warning: there’s a lot of unorganised rambling under the cut)

Either way it’s horribly sad because if my timeline is correct (don’t ask why I would bother with that MESS, I know, I know, it makes no sense, nothing does) then Kushina becoming the Kyuubi’s jinchuuriki (+ Mito dying) and Tsunade losing both Nawaki and Dan should be very close in time. (So Tsunade lost a lot of people she loved in a couple of years...)

It’s never explicitly said when Kushina became the new jinchuuriki, but from uhh... subtext clues I’m guessing that she already was a genin and older than ten. (I’m basing this on the fact that when Kushina and Minato fell in love, it was due to Kushina getting kidnapped for having a special chakra - so not for the power of the kyuubi. Minato became a genin when he was 10, Kushina is the same age as him and she also was an active ninja when the kidnapping happened, so she must have been older than 10 (probably at least 12? Minato was called a genius for graduating early) when the kyuubi was sealed into her.)

Building on that: Kushina was 24 when she died. At that time, Tsunade was 39. If we believe that Kushina became a jinchuuriki around 12 (at the earliest), then Tsunade was around 27 when that happened. (It’s also possible that this happened later, if they wanted to prepare Kushina properly for her task. Which would push Mito’s death even further down the timeline.) It’s debatable how long Mito might have lived after that, but she probably died shortly after or immediately during the process of giving the kyuubi to Kushina.

I have no idea how close in age Dan, Nawaki and Tsunade were, but Dan and Tsunade were probably somewhat close in age? Dan died when he was 27. Nawaki died before him. Which makes it likely that Mito might have been there for one or both of these tragic events. (Or died not long before/after them.)

But what makes me further think she actually was alive for all that is the fact that Dan died during the second shinobi war. Meanwhile Minato didn’t become Jiraya’s student until after the second shinobi war. Jiraya’s first students were the ame orphans, who he trained roughly towards the end of the second war, what makes me think Minato and Kushina grew up during the brief period of peace in between the second and third war, or towards the end of the second war. Meaning, Tsunade’s losses possibly happened before Kushina was even brought into the village.

And now I did a lot of counting and talking, but my point really boils down to:

I want grandma Mito being there for Tsunade during the hardest time of her life. I’m just soft for family feels.

Interesting to consider: Tsunade did not have the yin seal on her forehead yet while Nawaki and Dan were still alive. She must have started that later in her life. Maybe picking up on her grandmother’s legacy? (Or modelling her jutsu after Mito’s mark in honour of her.)

I like to think they’ve been very close. After all Tsunade was her and Hashirama’s first grandchild who was canonly spoiled rotten by her grandparents, and after outliving the first Hokage by far Mito probably held her children (child?) and grandchildren close to her heart, since she seemed like a very loving person. Tsunade especially must have reminded her of her husband (same laugh, plus the gambling habit).

(Disclaimer: all ages are taken from Naruto wikis, so don’t hold me accountable if I got something wrong, I honestly am just here for feels and sad headcanons)

[palmett-hoes]

Hi, I really loved your post with the monsters as Birds of Prey! Was wondering if you had any thoughts on the Foxes as Marvel or Mcu characters? I feel like I could see Dan as Carol Danvers and Andrew for sure is Jessica Jones, idk about the rest.

oh wow old post!!

haha unfortunately i’m not really a comics person so i don’t feel like i can really give the best analysis possible, but i have seen most of the mcu movies and bits and pieces of the netflix show so i’ll try my best. also im using dc characters too bc i want to

1. Dan: I think your instinct with Dan as Captain Marvel is spot-on (at least uhhh,, based on the movie lol sorry comics ppl). Her direct, forceful powers and fighting style are definitely reminiscent of dan’s no-nonsense leadership approach. similarly the themes of overcoming sexism and acceling in a male-dominated industry in the captain marvel movie is pretty much the same as dan’s story establishing herself as the first female exy captain (tho sports is way more valid than the military). plus there’s a lot of emphasis on love and friendship between women that dan is ALL about. also lashana lynch would be a god tier dan wilds fc. Dan could also def have that lawful good Okoye from Black Panther energy. Loyal, disciplined, no-nonsense leader. no powers except discipline. no hair. also danai gurira in 2012 with the dreads and the sword and the cape on TWD was definitely part of my middle school sexual awakening

2. Kevin: Aquaman. this is based pretty much exclusively on the fact that jason momoa is my #1 kevin fc and also that Pasifika kevin is phenomenal and mandatory, actually. otherwise i think he has a decent amount of stick-up-the-ass cyclops energy. or dick grayson nightwing energy but i don’t have any evidence for why. kinda looks like him tho

3. Andrew: andrew gets the most characters bc he’s my favorite. i think ur jessica jones instincts are absolutely correct, both in her storyline (i only watched the first season) and her powers. i’ve seen some powers au and the tendency seems to be giving andrew like,, psychic powers or the like, and i don’t really agree. andrew is a very direct character. he’s pragmatic, he confronts problems head on, and he doesn’t muck about in details. to me this really translates best into physical powers like super strength that help u big punch straight thru all ur problems. also i def think andrew would be not just a solo hero but a mercenary (or a detective) because he’s not altruistic enough to be a standard vigilante. he doesn’t care enough about other people to hang out on rooftops all night waiting for Crime to occur. there’s a price for that.  which brings us to the NEXT andrew hero: deadpool. maybe in personality more of a drugged andrew but the superpowered mercenary is really a perfect fit for andrew. also, healing powers have a decidedly tragic poetry to them on andrew. already he’s self-destructive, if he had a healing factor his concern for his own well-being would be so beyond rock bottom it’d be in the earth’s core. even worse when you remember that with a healing factor, as opposed to indestructibility, you still feel all the pain. which brings us to Wolverine and X-23, who have the same thematic points as deadpool but are much more of a personality match and they have knife hands, which i really think andrew would appreciate. ending that sadness train and onto another tho, andrew’s aesthetic and Vibes fit the Winter Soldier just SO well (just that movie tho, not really civil war or anything past that) and a reinterpretation of the captain america story using the twinyards would be incredibly interesting. and finally, one last hero that would work really well for andrew: rogue, only remove the angst around not being able to touch people, andrew would love that. one touch and their comatose? baller. don't fucking touch him.

4. Matt: Shazam. I didn’t see the shazam movie but my dad and brother did and they said it was very funny and all the trailors looked like it had a lot of fun himbo energy and i really think that fits. in terms of matching himbo disaster energy i think i’ve heard good things about comics hawkeye (not mcu). thor?

5. Aaron: Mr. Fantastic. now this might be a stretch but aaron is a character who uses a skin-deep veneer of anger to cover the fact that he’s actually quite pliant and bends to other people’s wills. and he’s a doctor or w/e. he could alse be like,, antman. he’s smart right? hank pym not paul rudd. katelyn can be wasp

6. Seth: Arm Fall Off Boy. no i will not elaborate.             ..... ugh fine, but i'm using my favorite piece of superhero media of all time: x-men evolution, the one where they're all teenagers in public high school. seth can be lance alvers/avalanche who’s a bit of a jerk and has a lot of issues with authority and has a rivalry with cyclops very reminiscent of seth with kevin, but still there’s the recurring theme that he’s lashing out because of low self-esteem and a bad situation and he’s a surprisingly sympathetic character who i’m very fond of. his power is earthquakes but i think the name makes that pretty self-explanatory

7. Allison: Iron Man. cocky, bitchy, and rich rich rich. sounds like allison to me. then to elevate it a level higher: emma frost, rich bitch extraordinaire. also if allison had telepathic powers she would be unstoppable. plus one more bitchy, morally-gray blonde (but chaotic this time): Harley Quinn

8. Nicky: Okay so I do wanna give a quick shout-out to Northstar, the first openly gay comicbook superhero, who’s a speedster which I’d actually say fits Nicky pretty well. However, if i had to choose a superhero to represent nicky in presence and powers it would have to be Jubilee from x-men (... from what i’ve heard lol. i’ve never actually consumed any of her Media hahaha anyway) she’s a joyful, energetic presence and her powers are setting off fireworks which i think is a good balance of nicky being a supportive cousin-parent AND a chaotic train wreck garbage trash man. also gonna throw in johnny storm for a cheap 'flaming' joke

9. Renee: Thunder/Blackbird from Black Lightning bc she’s a fufkin lesbian lol. (i don’t watch the show but i do follow nafessa williams’s tag). now the fr ones i’m gonna do together because to me they have the same Vibes so i chose them for the same reasons. Wonder Woman and Storm who to me have the same  reserved, impartial, regal energy. honestly ethereal and somewhat otherwordly, and quite literally goddesses. also op as hell.  black widow and her “red in my leger” looking for redemption story also fits thematically.

10. Neil: okay lazy answer first: the flash or quicksilver. get it? because they run fast? and neil run too? yea i like to think i've proven myself to be better than such a surface level interpretation but worth the mention ig. so for srs now, mystique and her shape changing powers would be an interesting interpretation of neil's identity issues, but i wanna push it a step further. nightcrawler would actually be possibly the MOST interesting hero to apply to neil 1. because powers still very movement go fast place to place 2. because of the thematic focus on neil's unusual looks and the lengths he goes to hide them, very much in line with the way nightcrawler will use a hologram-projector in order to look human, yet in both cases it's only a surface-level illusion, and 3. his parentage. here, mary would be mystique, which i also think works very well considering mary seemed to be the far more effective chameleon on the run than neil, and also fits with her place as a morally grey character, as mystique herself is often a villain or an antagonist, with her own agenda and shadowy motives. then nathan matches well with nightcrawler's father: azazel, a literal demon, and also where kurt gets his appearance. it's a shockingly coherent narrative between the three of them. then, to also give neil some powers that aren't contingent on his fucked up geneology and rather on his own merit and abilities, Black Canary and her sonic voice parallel the way that neil began to anchor his identity and take ownership over himself through his voice and his sick roasts

and 1 extra, wymack: batman, on account of his altruism, his dedication to second chances, and his many, many adopted children

---

anon, ik it's been a sec since you sent this, so i hope it gets back to you. i had a fun time with it and it prompted like,,, 7 different au s that i'll never write

[dangermousie]

All the dramas I am watching this month and next

(Not counting the ones that haven’t aired yet or the fact that I want to do a 6 Flying Dragons and Come and Hug Me rewatches.)

This is loooong, so enter at your own peril.

Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency (watched 11/12 aired) - I honestly don’t know why I am keeping up with this one as I tend to watch with one eye and do something else with another. And if it hasn’t grabbed me by ep 11 and it’s not exactly Jumong length, it’s not gonna ever grab me. But it’s so pretty and relaxing even though I wish the story was about the evil ambitious girl and the traumatized womanizer. 

Rebel: The Thief Who Stole the People (watched 11/28 complete) - it’s a very very solid drama (though ironically in light of the cap I chose, the romance does nothing for me; luckily it’s secondary.) It’s not going to go on my favorite list but it’s very very well made and I am always down for a period rebel trying to bring down a corrupt government. My favorite take on that trope is likely always going to be 2008 Hong Gil Dong followed closely by the criminally underrated Return of Iljimae, but this is very good.

Just Between Lovers (watched 4/16 complete) - this is so gorgeous and tender and lived in. I am watching it very slowly mainly because I ff so very little. I love the two above with unholy degree of investment and want them to heal each other.

Goodbye My Princess (watched 13/55 complete). Well, these two are not gonna be healing each other any time soon. If you trick your wife in order to kill her grandfather and wipe out his clan, she is unlikely to OK with staying married, just saying. I am looking forward to these two self-destruct and destroy a small galaxy in the process of dealing with their doomed love.

The Tale of Nokdu (12 watched/14 out) - it continues to be funny (though seeing he is the son of the mad king, those are not the genetics our heroine should mix hers with) but I like it, not love it, since comedies are not normally my forte. 

Extraordinary You (12 watched/12 out) - I am obsessed - it’s clever and metaish and moving and romantic and funny and I wish to get all the eps and binge like an insane person. Also, Dan Oh x Haru better have a happy ending or I will riot.

One Spring Night (watched 2/16 out) - I am watching it really slowly but it’s a total delight. I slept on the Jung Hae In mania because I wasn’t watching kdramas (we were on a break :P) when he first became a thing, but he is so good and Han Ji Min is always awesome and I root for them so hard. Plus, noona romance is always a plus. 

The Great Graftsman (sorry, haven’t seen English subs for this one, watched 6 out of ?) I am a sucker for Wallace Huo and Yang Mi and period stuff. It’s very early days yet so I don’t have a strong impression. 

Love and Destiny (watched 10 out of 60) - I was obsessed with this star-crossed supernatural love story when it was aired but it had the most inconsistent sub release I’ve seen in a long time. Now all the subs are on schedule and my interest has moved on but it’s slowly reawakening mainly because the OTP is so slowburn and epic and I want the God of War to be miiiiine! Ahem.

Angel’s Last Mission - Love (watched 4 out of 16). Blame Nalini Singh for giving me a thing for angel fetish. Or something. It’s romantic and lovely and I didn’t watch when it aired because it had tragic ending written all over it (blind bitter ballerina and an angel? Yeah) but now I know the ending and can watch in peace.

Legend of the Phoenix (watched 12 out of 41) - only in a cdrama would you start with goofy physical comedy and transition to terrifying angst and torture. Just how I like it! Also, happy ending, thank God!

Haechi (watched 1 out of 24) - don’t cry, Jung Il Woo! You finally picked a good project! This one is binge territory and he makes the sexiest tortured royal arguably ever. 

Her Private Life (watched 0 so far) - I really want to watch it but it’s too close to me watching Secretary Kim and this would be waaaaay too weird to watch two romcoms in a row with the same leading lady. 

Search WWW (1 out of 16) - older ladies, younger men; lady friendship, and all the color being leached out. I kid but fondly - this one is fun so far.

My Country: The New Age (6 out of 6 that aired so far) - for God’s sake, someone feed Hwi and give him a comfy bed and a therapist. Physical and shrink. This one is my obsession. 

Fates and Furies (4 out of  20) - aka Joo Sang Wook does a complete 180 from his monster character in the Grand Prince. I mean, he gets a gold-digger hired to wreck him to fall in love for real. Smart woman.

The Secret Life of my Secretary (about to start) - heroines of this and Secretary Kim should form a club for secretaries who hook up with their weird hot bosses. 

While You Were Sleeping (about to start) - I miss Lee Jong Suk! Not enough to watch Romance is a Bonus Book wince LJS not being tortured in a drama is against the laws of nature. 

Still 17/30 But 17 (about to start) - My Country has given me a fixation with Yang Se Jong. Plus the potential for a girl waking up from a coma as a 30 year old woman tingles my spidey angst potential senses. 

Deserving of the Name (about to start) - she is a modern doctor, he is an ancient doctor, time travel! It’s like a Faith AU where the heroine hooks up with Lee Philip’s character. Or Bidam lives and studies medicine. Why is Kim Nam Gil not in more things, anyway?

Devilish Joy (1 out 0f 16) - the soft filter annoys the hell out of me, but it’s so sweet and kooky and lovely.

[aion-rsa]

House of Dark Shadows: The Craziest Vampire Movie You’ve Never Seen

https://ift.tt/37TdnN3

This article contains House of Dark Shadows spoilers.

In 1970 House of Dark Shadows flipped the vampire subgenre on its head. While certainly a B-horror in the Hammer mold, this chiller wasn’t satisfied with one bloodsucker, or even two. Instead Dark Shadows would turn nearly its whole cast into the ravenous undead, indiscriminately slaughtering beloved heroes and heroines, not caring for a second that they were also the stars of a daytime soap opera—one that was appointment TV for millions of kids across America.

Clearly it was a different time. And therein lies its charm.

When the television series Dark Shadows premiered in 1966, it wasn’t an instant pop culture phenomenon. Creator Dan Curtis was savvy enough to see the appeal in a daytime melodrama draped in a Gothic aesthetic, but he didn’t yet have the necessary hook for his central character as she stepped off a train in New England. Sure, mysterious Victoria Winters (Alexandria Isles) would meet the Collins family, who more or less ruled over the town of Collinsport from their ancestral home of Collinwood, but the reason to stick around only came about a year into the series’ original run.

That eureka moment turned out to be the dapper and effortlessly suave Jonathan Frid. Cast as Barnabas Collins, the Canadian theater actor was initially hired for a single storyline (a set number of episodes) as the heavy: Barnabas was an ancient and forgotten vampire, who’d been buried alive like the family’s dirty little secret after a curse condemned him to drink blood in 1795. Now he was out and wreaking havoc by feasting on the locals and obsessing over Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), whom he was convinced was the reincarnation of his lost love Josette—a fiancée who threw herself off a cliff in the 18th century rather than become Barnabas’ corpse bride.

It was morbid, obviously, but also romantic at a time when vampires were defined by the coldness of Christopher Lee or the goofiness of Scooby-Doo. Instead here was the most pitiable of creatures, one who doesn’t wish to be a vampire, and through impeccable manners and courtesies revealed a soft love for the Collins family, even when he preyed on them. Rather than create a great villain, Curtis inadvertently invented a tragic hero who audiences flocked to, both the typical daytime target demographic and also, surprisingly, kids and teenagers, who’d rush home from school to be lost in a melancholy land of eternal loves, ancient curses, and of course fangs.

Thus Dark Shadows became a blender for all things Gothic. Following in the success of Barnabas’ introduction, the series would go on to add ghosts, werewolves, séances, multiple stints of time travel, and one particularly devilish 18th century witch named Angelique (Lara Parker). It also appropriated every classic horror trope from Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, and Edgar Allan Poe, and synthesized them for an audience that was now consuming it along with kid-friendly board games and trading cards.

So why not a movie, too? As early as 1968, Curtis began pursuing the idea of making a Dark Shadows movie, even while the series was still going. Eventually, House of Dark Shadows was the result. Released 50 years ago this week, this toothy amusement was the chance to do everything Curtis wanted with the series, but was prohibited from by Broadcast Standards and Practices censorship, budget constraints… and maybe even audiences’ good taste.

“Blood flows,” actor Roger Davis observed in The Dark Shadows Companion: The 25th Anniversary, which was edited by Scott. “It’s not like the serial. You have a few dabs of blood and the network brass have apoplexy. TV does a mock-up on life. This is in living color. And the vampires really bite.” 

Whereas Dark Shadows, the television show, was appointment TV for those still in middle school, House of Dark Shadows was aimed directly at the drive-in crowd with its emphasis on blood gushing from neck wounds and stakes violently going into almost every character’s heart. As Scott’s book surmised, the film was “entirely the child of its creator,” who would at last have his evil Barnabas. And at a glance, it is an American riff on what had already become kitsch by 1970 thanks to Hammer Film Productions’ seemingly endless line of Dracula movies, plus the knockoffs.

And to be sure, House of Dark Shadows is in many ways a Dracula movie. It’s also insight into how Curtis originally viewed the Barnabas character before Frid went on a charm offensive. Playing almost like a CliffNotes version of Barnabas’ first several storylines on the show, the vampire is awakened during the film’s opening moments because of the foolishness of groundskeeper Willie Loomis (John Karlen). Barnabas then forces poor old Willie to become his living slave and creates a fictitious narrative about being a distant cousin descended from the original Barnabas Collins, whom family lore claims sailed away to London in 1795, never to be heard from again.

Bringing back the “original” Barnabas’ family jewels to ingratiate himself, the Barnabas of 1970 is free to attend family gatherings, fix up an old ruined house on the estate, and even feed on cousin Carolyn (Nancy Barrett), a dear relative who becomes a dead ringer for Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s famed novel. Even so, Carolyn cannot displace Maggie (still Scott) in Barnabas’ eyes, who he is sure is the reincarnation of Josette.

It very much has the narrative beats of a traditional vampire movie, but the charm that lingers a half-century later comes in part from seeing these actors, who are intimately familiar with their characters, going through the paces with better production values. That quality also manifests in Curtis’ sense of atmosphere, now liberated from the stage-bound quality of daytime drawing room drama. I would even argue House of Dark Shadows is one of the more satisfyingly atmospheric vampire movies to come out of the 1970s.

Curtis filmed in the upstate New York’s Tarrytown area, mostly on the actual Gothic Lyndhurst Estate, built in the 1830s, and shot much of the exteriors in the legendary Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Whereas Hammer films tended to rely increasingly on sets during this period, and most B horror movies had no budget for evocative locations, House of Dark Shadows was filming its sequences in between tours of the Lyndhurst Mansion and in the same atmospheric cemetery that helped birth the myth of a Headless Horseman.

Regarding the filming location, screenwriter Sam Hall remarked, “It’s a wild house. I’d hate like hell to live in it.” 

This is only accentuated by the fact Curtis knows how to drain a spooky location dry. Images like vampire Carolyn standing in a window, draped in white, beckoning her lover to become one of the damned is a better use of Lucy iconography than any Dracula movie made before House of Dark Shadows. And the film’s ending sequence reaches an operatic opulence rarely seen, even in vampire cheapies. Barnabas, bathed in a blue light and shrouded in inexplicable fog in the interior of his decrepit home, beckons Maggie, now in a wedding dress, toward him as the famous melody of Josette’s music box twinkles, only now in a weeping minor key.

The corruption of that wistful melody is intriguing. An original part of the Dark Shadows television series, Josette’s music box, and Frid’s soliloquies about it, is what first gave Barnabas his soul, distinguishing him from the general depravity of other pop culture vampires. One could even say Barnabas is the first significantly sympathetic male vampire in fiction. In House of Dark Shadows, he has a more sinister mean streak, but the pathos remains.

Hence why the film plays at times like a gonzo delight. It may feature the original, more wicked Barnabas, but it is still derived from the genteel series, and many of those elements carry over. Take Dr. Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) spending half the movie trying to cure Barnabas, a subplot that eventually ends happily for the pair on the show, but less so here. It’s soapy pulp, yet it’s given as much stone-faced gravity as the Collinsport Police Department unquestioningly agreeing to patrol around town with standard issue police crucifixes. One might ask if they keep silver bullets in every squad car too?

The overall effect is bizarre, but endearingly so. It’s also fairly influential, as confirmed by what happened after Dan Curtis dropped Barnabas in favor of another vampire.

Read more

TV

Dark Shadows’ Witch Was As Influential As Its Vampire

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

In 1974, following Dark Shadows’ cancellation, Curtis wrote and directed a Dracula TV movie for CBS that within its opening titles billed itself as “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Far removed from Stoker’s novel, the little remembered television film nonetheless starred Jack Palance as the vampire, and introduced several significant elements to the story by overtly making Dracula an undead version of historical figure Vlad the Impaler (which he is not in the novel) and turning Lucy into the reincarnation of his great lost love.

Curtis was in essence trying to recast Dracula as Barnabas Collins. Like House of Dark Shadows, Curtis even sought to build a Gothic atmosphere by filming in real locations, albeit now Eastern Europe. The result was effective in those scenes, even if the rest of the movie failed in no small part because Palance could never wear the tragic cloak so well as Frid.

In spite of its shortcomings, many have fairly speculated on whether Curtis’ Dracula influenced James V. Hart, the screenwriter of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Hart was certainly more successful at turning Dracula into a lovelorn prince, and Coppola made that idea permanent in the pop culture imagination. Yet, at the end of the day, they were still remaking the pop culture image of Dracula so as to be closer in line with Barnabas Collins, instead of the other way around.

I would even argue that Coppola’s film is closer in tone with Dark Shadows, at least in its romantic moments, than Tim Burton’s big budget Dark Shadows movie was in 2012. Burton of course attempted to avoid some of the mistakes of House of Dark Shadows, namely by keeping Barnabas as the good guy who is trying to save his family instead of ultimately destroying them, as well as retaining the other fan favorite character, the witchy Angelique (who like all other non-vampire elements was omitted from House of Dark Shadows). But Burton also played her and the whole concept as pure camp, making the Collins’ a subject of ridicule, and their problems a punchline.

Admittedly, there is something faintly camp about the 1960s daytime series and its ‘70s drive-in remake; plots turn on ludicrous developments like Julia falling in love with Barnabas, and then intentionally sabotaging his vampire cure when she realizes he loves a younger woman. But they were sold with absolute sincerity, and in the case of Frid, a palatable conviction.

House of Dark Shadows continues that conviction, no matter how batshit things become. Thus the ending where, accepting he’ll never be cured, Barnabas transforms family patriarch Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds) and even the film’s version of Van Helsing (Thayer David) into vampires. And we get to a finale so madcap that it turns “Renfield” into the last remaining hero. Madness, indeed.

Ironically, House of Dark Shadows was blamed by some for the eventual death of the series. Every character in the film, including Barnabas, had to be written out of the show, for some weeks at a time, so the actors could go shoot a movie upstate (another reason Angelique and other significant characters were left out). This correlated with some of the series’ weaker storylines that lost audiences’ attention.

Additionally, it’s believed parents who went with their children to see the movie in October 1970 were appalled by the amount of blood and sensual subtext in the film. As a result, some may have forbidden their kids from watching the series further… with the show getting cancelled in April 1971.

“The TV ratings fell after the movie,” Scott’s The Dark Shadows Companion revealed. “It has been suggested by some that House of Dark Shadows led to the series’ eventual demise. Perhaps it was the audience’s reaction to seeing their hero Barnabas in an evil light. Perhaps it was because parents attended House of Dark Shadows with their children and, seeing the amount of blood spilled across the screen, discouraged their children’s choice of television viewing material.”

Star Frid was even more unsparing in his final analysis.

“[The film] lacked the charm and naivete of the soap opera,” Frid said. “Every once in a while the show coalesced into a Brigadoonish never-never-land. It wasn’t necessary to bring the rest of the world into Dark Shadows, which is what the film did.”

Nevertheless, both the series and movie left a few marks on the throat of pop culture. The series certainly paved the way for more multidimensional portraits of vampires to be explored, opening the door for, yes, the Coppola Dracula movie, but also Anne Rice and True Blood. In fact, even if House of Dark Shadows might’ve been considered too brutal by parents in 1970, decades of pop culture refinement would find a way to make the sympathetic vampire archetype much more tolerable when instead of drinking from his cousin, he sparkled in the daylight and told his prey they needed to wait until marriage.

Without Barnabas, his series, and his slice of bananas role is House of Dark Shadows, we may never have gotten Lestat, Edward Cullen, or Gary Oldman’s Dracula. At least not as how we know them. Fifty years on, that’s a bloody good legacy for a daytime drama and a B-movie you’ve never seen.

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[galladerocksgamer]

I saw several other blogs passing this around and it looked fun so I decided I’d give it a shot and see if I can’t spread it around to some others to do too!

Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions!  Don’t look at them first. Then tag some people.

Gravity Falls

BoJack Horseman

My Hero Academia

Trollhunters

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Who is your favorite character in 2?

Wow I’ve never really stopped to consider this one that hard before.  My gut reaction is to say Todd because he is simply wonderful.  But Diane is definitely up there too, she’s a character that I really connected to in ways I didn’t expect.  Princess Carolyn is in the running too, her series-long character arc was one of the most heartbreaking and heartwarming.  I’m not sure I can pick one fave, I just love the development of these three.

Who is your least favorite character in 1? 

Uh geez I’m not sure I really have a LEAST favorite, I can’t think of anyone that I particularly dislike.  I mean sure there are characters that I dislike because they’re jerks, like Filbrick or Preston or (duh) Bill, but in terms of like disliking them as a character?  I’m probably gonna say Priscilla Northwest, she’s as much of a rich jerk as her husband but is a lot less entertaining.  Or maybe Gabe Bensen, he’s the least amusing of Mabel’s various love interests to me.

What is your favorite episode of 4? 

A House Divided.  Just ... no contest, it’s A House Divided.  Haven’t seen much else that just stops my dang heart like the ending of that episode.  It just HURTS OKAY.  In all the best ways.  Jimhunters and Unbecoming are very close seconds.

What is your favorite season of 5? 

Overall I think it’s gotta be Season 3.  There’s a lot that I love in Season 2 especially, but on the whole Season 3 just has so much going for it.  There’s some fantastic character development and new moral issues explored within the Fire Nation itself.  There’s the invasion, Zuko joining the Gaang and having various life-changing adventures, the Boiling Rock, the freaking Ember Island Players, and of course one of the absolute best series finales in television. So yeah, it’s gotta be Season 3.

Who is your favorite couple in 3? 

Tbh I don’t really have that many ships for MHA (probably in the minority on that one).  There’s really only two couples I’m particularly into, and that’s Mirio/Amajiki and Yaoyorozu/Jiro.  Mirio is just so supportive of Amajiki and they’re just cute and GAH they’re fantastic.  And Yaoyorozu and Jiro, I think it was the first movie that got me attached to them, they’re just super cute too.  They’re both just pure adorable pairs, I love them.

What is your favorite episode of 1? 

Once again, no contest, because Not What He Seems is just, like, my favorite episode of literally anything ever.  It’s just SO GOOD.  The culmination of so much story and theory, the animation, the music, the tension of the climax, the ending reveal.  It’s just.  The best.  Gosh.  Weirdmageddon 3 is definitely close, the best finale in animation imo, but just absolutely nothing beats Not What He Seems.

What is your favorite episode of 5? 

Okay now this one is actually tough.  I’m probably gonna say Zuko Alone, it’s just brimming with heartwarming and heartbreaking material, between Zuko’s childhood flashbacks and his touching - and tragic - present story.  The Tales of Ba Sing Se is the other top candidate, of course it has the tearjerker Iroh story that is probably my favorite thing in the whole series, but I also love, well, the whole thing.  The Katara/Toph and Zuko stories are so sweet and pure, the Sokka story is hilarious, and the Momo story is also dang sad.  The Blind Bandit, Sokka’s Master, and The Southern Raiders are also personal favorites.

what is your favorite season of 2? 

I am surprised I have a definitive answer for this because the whole series is so transcendentally great, but I do in fact have an answer, and it is Season 4.  It’s my favorite story arc of the series, with BoJack for once not having a special project to center his life on, still reeling from what happened to Sarah Lynn, and having Hollyhock and Beatrice rather suddenly entering his daily life.  It’s about the closest we ever see to BoJack having some semblance of a family life.  The whole storyline of Hollyhock and Beatrice is just fantastic, and it’s the start of the real meat of Todd and Princess Carolyn’s character arcs too - and ends with the setup for Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter finally breaking their destructive cycle.  Plus it’s got my two favorite episodes of the entire series - The Old Sugarman Place and Stupid Piece of Sh*t.  Also Time’s Arrow is definitely top 10, maybe even top 5.  Also also love Hooray! Todd Episode!  And Thoughts and Prayers.  And Ruthie.  Yeah seriously no contest it is my favorite season.

How long have you watched 1? 

I started watching Gravity Falls really near the beginning.  The first episode I watched was The Inconveniencing, the fifth episode overall, and after that I was immediately intrigued and went back and watched the first four.  After that, I watched the whole series as it went.

How did you become interested in 3? 

I don’t tend to watch a lot of anime, and my experience with shounen before MHA was touch-and-go.  Like I’m a big fan of Fairy Tail and to a lesser extent Dragon Ball but I’m still heavily critical of both and would have a hard time recommending them without a heavy disclaimer.  So it was something I’d considered before but never really took the plunge into watching until, funnily enough, my anime-adverse girlfriend decided to check it out.  She’s significantly less anime-invested than me (well, she used to be at least) but lo and behold, we both wound up obsessed with it.  Color me surprised that this series wasn’t being overhyped and didn’t come with the glaring flaws of every other shounen I’ve watched.  So now this is definitely my big interest of the moment, and I am grateful to have it.

Who is your favorite actor in 4? 

Anton Yelchin, he just brought so much heart and emotion to Jim.  He’s a big part of the reason that Unbecoming just snaps my heart in two, my gosh.  As for comedic delivery, Kelsey Grammer absolutely kills it as Blinky, not that I’d expect any less from him.  He just has so many lines that completely crack me up and that’s largely because of his delightfully hammy delivery.

Which do you prefer: 1, 2, or 5? 

Oh my gosh they are literally my three favorite pieces of media in existence.  But it’s Gravity Falls.  Like I would just roll over and die without any of these three but it’s not debatable, the absolute #1 in my heart is Gravity Falls.

If you could be anyone from 4, who would it be? 

Probably Toby?  I think I’d be good in the “well-meaning dorky disaster-prone best friend” role.

Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? 

Theoretically, maybe?  Magical troll warriors team up with superheroes to fight a wizard supervillian.  It could happen.

Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple?

Hmm, not sure I have a good answer to this one.  I’ll just say Manly Dan and Tyler.  It’s not exactly an ODD pick because we see them together quite a few times and honestly they always look like a dang couple, but we never really see what their INTERACTION is like, so it’s kinda difficult to judge exactly how that relationship does/would work.  But I think it’s a nice one to think about.

Overall, which show has the best storyline: 3 or 5?

Oof.  Probably gonna have to say AtLA on this one, if only because MHA isn’t exactly that focused on a super-condensed story at this point?  Its progress tends to come through more world-building and character development than major plot beats, though it certainly has that too.  So yeah I’ll say AtLA.

Which has better theme music: 2 or 4? 

Oh absolutely BoJack, it’s one of my favorite theme songs.

Okay, I’m only gonna actually tag @immaplatypus for this, but if you see this and want to do it then absolutely go right ahead and do it!  I’ve had fun seeing some other people doing these and would love to see even more going forward.

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2011

22 to 23 years old. Was working in Paris and all the hours of train were exhausting. Listened to a LOT of music for that reason. It was an average year, but the songs that were good were excellent. Anything from this top 5 could have topped a list for a more mediocre year.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

Finished my job training in June and worked full time. I kinda miss the campus. It was in the middle of nowhere and we had to steal wifi but we had some great parties there. Made friends, lost friends. And when I wasn’t there, I had my own appartment! My s.o and I put posters everywhere immediately, haha. We also had our first car which was basically a wreck but it lasted way longer than it had any right to.

Some fantastic albums dropped that year, like Ceremonials (Florence & The Machine), Modern Ruin (Covenant), All Things Bright And Beautiful (Owl City) and Imaginaerum (Nightwish). But the album that ruled the entire year for me was Mylo Xyloto (Coldplay). It’s my favorite Coldplay album. Hurts Like Heaven? Charlie Brown? Don’t Let It Break Your Heart? And especially Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall, which, no joke, is one of my favorite songs of all time? Incredible. Excellent. Amazing. The fact that the mediocre Paradise and the good but not great Princess of China were the biggest hits from it continues to baffle me. Really guys? But yeah. Album of the year to me.

So... some more unelligible songs, now. There’s the unexpectedly very, very good Lonely Lisa by Mylène Farmer, which would have ended somewhere in the middle of the list, but, way more tragic, there’s Alligator Sky by Owl City ft Shawn Chrystopher which has to be one of the most underrated songs of the 2010s. The key change is so visually fantastic that, no joke, it made me cry the first time I heard it. Chills every single time. Why wasn’t this a bigger hit. What happened. It’s so unfair. I’m not even sure it would have been my #1, but easily top 3.

As usual, here’s some honorable mentions.

Party Rock Anthem (LMFAO) - Badly written but still catchy.

You Make Me Feel (Cobra Starship) - Nice but not as good as Good Girls Go Bad.

Nightcall (Kavinsky) - This is the only song I kinda disliked on Kavinsky’s album, so of course it was a single. Of f█cking course.

Mr Saxobeat (Alexandra Stan) - A bit too repetitive, but nice.

S&M (Rihanna) - Clearly in the “so bad it’s good” category.

F█ck You (CeeLo Green) - Really fun but kinda killed by the overplay.

Black & Yellow (Wiz Khalifa) - Kept getting stuck in my head.

What the Hell (Avril Lavigne) - This felt like a brief return to form and it was pretty good.

Dynamite (Taio Cruz) - Who else misses this guy? Because I kinda do.

Judas (Lady Gaga) - I’d like to introduce you to this wonderful mashup. You’ll thank me later.

Last Friday Night (Katy Perry) - This has no rights being this catchy.

Paradise (Coldplay) - The very last cut from the list. It baffles me that this was the biggest hit out of Mylo Xyloto even though it might just be the worst song on it. Still nice to hear it from time to time, though.

Here comes the actual list.

10 - Jeanne (Laurent Voulzy)

US: Not on the list / FR: #99

Well that’s a mildly embarrassing pick on top of being barely elligible. This is a song about a guy falling in love with Joan of Arc after he sees her in a dream, centuries after her death. Some sentences are really strangely written, in an old fashioned way, and it gives the general impression of a young 19th century nerd falling in love with a picture in a History book even though it’s a 21st century song sung by a 60 y-o dude so this feels really damn weird to say the least, but it’s so pleasant to listen to it’s hard to say anything too negative or mean about it.

9 - More (Usher)

US: #61 / FR: #91

I know I sound like a broken record or an old idiot but where has fun music gone. Bring this kind of stuff back, please. We know things are terrible in the world, music doesn’t need to make us feel even more miserable. Please. We need more stuff like More.

8 - Rolling In The Deep (Adele)

US: #1 / FR: #2

Is there anything I could say at this point that hasn’t been said by everyone already? Uh. Well, maybe I can say that the only reason it wasn’t #1 in France was because the #1 spot was another Adele song, hahaha.

What else? Uh, well usually I don’t like slow emotional music which is why I never listened to a lot of Adele, but Rolling in the Deep has energy and anger, and that’s everything I want from sad songs, so I’ll take it.

7 - Somebody That I Used To Know (Gotye ft Kimbra)

US: Not on the list (obviously, it was #1 the next year) / FR: #4

That song took nearly an entire year to grow on me, but I’m glad it did. Like the previous one, I don’t think there’s anything new I could say about that one.

6 - Pumped Up Kicks (Foster the People)

US: #13 / FR: #44

This should be more offensive and disturbing than it actually is, even in a country with extremely strict regulations on firearms where school shootings are basically unheard of. I think it’s because the song sounds pleasant and mellow instead of threatening? I guess? Maybe? I don’t know. I’m kinda glad it didn’t come out when I was 15, though.

5 - Levels (Avicii)

US: Not on the list / FR: #63

Let us take a moment to appreciate all the bangers and absolutely wonderful songs Avicii created or contributed to create in his way too brief stay on Earth, and deeply regret his untimely departure. We already miss you dude.

4 - All Of The Lights (Kanye West ft Rihanna)

US: #59 / FR: Not on the list

Behold, the only Kanye West song I ever loved or even liked. But what a song. And what a fitting title. This song is full of flashes of light and that music video is extremely fitting and a joy to watch because it kinda looks like the song itself, down to its very colors. Just fantastic. What is that guy even doing nowadays instead of making more stuff like this. Why.

3 - We Found Love (Rihanna)

US: #69 / FR: #9

So many fantastic songs with fantastic beats and/or dance/electronic tracks at the top of this list. Rihanna is good in nearly every genre she has tried to fit in so far but obviously, as someone who kept putting eurodance track after eurodance track at the top of my 90s lists, you guessed it, my favorite songs from her are the ones where she’s basically a dance diva ala Corona project. Just great stuff all around. This is still on my mp3 player to this day.

2 - Edge of Glory (Lady Gaga)

US: #29 / FR: Not on the list

There it is, my favorite Lady Gaga song, in all its glory (HA). A joy to sing along to, a joy to headbang to, a joy to listen to it while walking, driving, painting. Makes you want to dance even if you don’t know how to dance. Not sure why this wasn’t the first single of the album, but who cares.

I put this at the top of the list at first, and then I was like oh wait, I need to check the French charts first to make sure that- OHMYGODOHMYGOD

1 - Elle Me Dit (Mika)

US: Not on the list / FR: #7

The guy I called the “new king of pop” back when I made my 2007 top ten list finally claims a top spot on one of my lists, and that feels so good.

So... Mika made a song in French. A few of them, in fact. And at first I was like “why would you do this. Your songs in English are so great, dude.” But then I heard that one when it dropped in July 2011 and I was like NEVERMIND. FORGET I SAID ANYTHING. THIS SOUNDS FANTASTIC. CARRY ON.

But it gets better. See, the song is about (and I’m quoting him there) “all the horrific things a mother can say to her son to get him to get out of her house”. Now is a good time to remind you that when it dropped, I had been out of my parents' appartment for good (and basically out of the range of my mother’s verbal abuse) for just about a year, and that entire song sounded like a double middle finger specifically targeting my mother, and, no joke, I burst out laughing the first time I heard the song.

Elle me dit (She tells me) Ne t'enfermes pas dans ta chambre (Don’t stay locked in your room) Vas-y, secoue-toi et danse (Go, get up and dance) Dis-moi c'est quoi ton problème (Tell me what is your problem) Elle me dit (She tells me) Qu'est-ce que t'as pas l'air coincé? (Why do you look so depraved?) T'es défoncé ou t'es gay (Are you high or are you gay) Tu finiras comme ton frère (You’ll end up like your brother) (...) Elle me dit (She tells me) Pourquoi tu te plains tout le temps? (Why are you always complaining?) On dirait que t'as 8 ans (It’s like you’re 8 years old) C'est pas comme ça que tu vas plaire (Nobody’s gonna love you if you’re like that) Elle me dit (She tells me) Un jour je ne serai plus là (One day I won’t be here anymore) Mais c'est quand elle me dit ça (But that’s when she tells me that) Qu'elle me dit un truc que j'aime (That she says something I like)

Catharsis is delicious, especially when it’s sung by someone as lovely as Mika. Most useful song of 2011 to me, I swear. Way too relatable.

Next up: the first of THREE top 12s in a row because Quality(tm)

[thesportssoundoff]

“No but seriously, he has one eye” The Brawl For All Combatants Ordered Out!

So a few weeks ago, I presented you with a beginning outline of what I'm aiming to do here. A chance to take a long look at the Brawl For All; a concept so insiduous that I imagine even Vince McMahon has aimed to bury it in the deepest recesses of his mind. The first time out we looked at its genesis, the concepts and the back stories beyond the concepts:

http://thesportssoundoff.tumblr.com/post/183395306465/what-happens-when-you-take-a-bad-idea-and-make-it

NOW let's take a long look at who participated, who didn't participate and the fallacy behind the entire project IF rumors are to be believed.

A Hot Take To Lead Us Off

This is something I long theorized but a long look at the people involved in the Brawl For All confirmed it for me. So by and large, the Brawl For All was a stupid dumb concept. Agreed, right? Well what if it could've worked elsewhere? Now again the rules are dumb, the genesis behind it was dumb, everything about it from stem to stern is full of stupidity. Allow me to argue that it COULD have worked; just not in the WWF. When you see the roster the WWF was working with here, it's not going to blow you away on paper and we obviously have a mighty fine idea of how the execution went. What about a different Brawl For All roster? Saaay (in 1998 when this happened):

Rick or Scott Steiner- Decorated All American wrestlers for the University of Michigan Scott Norton- Legitimate tough guy bad ass professional arm wrestler, former bodyguard of Prince Jerry Flynn- Taekwando practitioner, former mixed martial artist Earnest Miller- Three time karate champion Glacier- Professional karate man dude prior to pro wrestling Brian Knobbs/Jerry Saggs- The JBL's of WCW in more ways than one seemingly Meng- All time legendary tough guy and bar room savage Barbarian- Genuine tough guy El Dandy- Jam Up Guy Serious Professional All Around Good Man

Plus the other litany of guys who were noted shooters or tough guys on the undercard. Let's also be fair and note that the South was a touch more receptive to the UFC at this point in time than say the East Coast as well. Perhaps it could've worked with a better roster and perhaps WCW, with its glut of shooters and tough guys respected in the industry, would've been better suited for a Brawl For All.

Or maybe it's just a stupid fucking idea with no merit. That too.

So who DIDN'T participate?

Well let's start with the very beginning and work our way back. Let's talk about some of the guys who just opted NOT to participate. For starters, the big stars were obviously not going to partake in this. Right off the jump you have to assume Undertaker, Austin, DX, The Rock, Kane, Mankind, Vader and the like are not going to be participating. This was about giving a bunch of guys they kind of didn't give a shit about something to do so that meant no sacrificing top stars. It was filler programming and obviously everybody doing important shit was busy doing important shit. Also of note was that the WWF did not want originally the likes of Dan Severn, Steve Blackman and Ken Shamrock in it. Ken apparently wasn't interested and made the argument that it didn't benefit him given the fact that he was a genuine UFC star still to take a pit stop in pro wrestling. At the same time, Dan Severn was asked not to participate at first and then had to be coerced into taking a spot when injuries happened. The same goes for Steve Blackman who was signed up after a few drop outs occurred, primarily due to the promise of Blackman being allowed to throw kicks in the tournament. The dropouts are hard to pinpoint but Tiger Ali Singh is one of the more notorious ones per Bob Holly. I've also read around that Ahmed Johnson was at one point supposed to be in it but I've never been able to confirm that (or remember the shoot interview that it was mentioned in). The point is that on its face, the Brawl For All was going to be a shoot fighting tournament without the two genuine proven shoot fighters in case you're curious about the true idea behind it.

Also as an MMA fan, I can't help but notice the # of "I was a last minute addition" stories these guys have. Lord knows that has to be a common thing said by guys like Sean Shelby and Mick Maynerd to get some of these fights done. I'd imagine that "We need a guy and you're going to help us out!" sweet talk happens to this day. My immediate thought is that they were either a) having a tough time filling spots in the Brawl For All and started telling people they were in need of last minute additions or b) most of these guys regret doing it and figure saying they were last minute replacements helps take the edge off.

So who WAS in?

We got sixteen names so buckle up and pour a drink or two.

8-Ball- Ron Harris aka 1/2 of The Blu Brothers aka Vince Russo's Creative Control. Vince Russo has never been a master of subtlety and so I suppose it's no surprise that one of his top angles was "Gang Warz" pitting an all white stable (The DOA) vs an all Puerto Rican tag team (Los Boricuas) vs a mostly all black tag team (the Nation Of Domination). Needless to say, Vince Russo makes it hard to defend him sometimes. To my knowledge neither Ron nor brother Don have any sort of proven fighting experience and the less said about them (and their tattoos), the better off we'll be. Ron (and Don) were rumored to have threatened Shawn Michaels on their last night in the WWF in the 90s, a rumor that seems to be corroborated by at least a few folks.

Steve Blackman- Most of the dudes who talk about the Brawl For All admit that this guy probably wins it all things being equal. Blackman had a legit karate background with some muay thai and amateur wrestling mixed in. Besides Blackman somehow overcame being bedridden for two years with malaria to become a legitimate pro wrestler so needless to say if it's a "Who wants it more?" shoot type deal, he's going to cover the grit and grind department well. Blackman is also rumored to have once taken down The Big Show and held him down until Show begged him to let him up which is akin to Bob Backlund apparently getting the Iron Sheik down and sitting on him until he either lost interest or was asked to let him up. Steve Blackman is by all intents and purposes a badass.

Bradshaw- Apparently the inspiration behind this atrocity depending upon who you ask. Bradshaw's reputation is marred now with incidents of bullying (real or fabricated), pro wrasslin' racism (goosestepping in Germany to get heat, some other old school heel shenanigans) and borderline dangerous behavior like blindsiding the Blue Meanie and beating the shit out of him when Meanie thought it was a working brawl. At this point though, none of that is really widespread and Bradshaw is just a fake Stan Hansen who looks tough and stiffs the hell out of people. He's about to eventually turn into a mute member of the Undertaker's industry before he comes a heel mercenary for hire before they turn into FUN beer drinking cigar smoking mercenaries for hire before turning into a Wall Street rich Texan chasing Mexicans "at the border" to get heat for a feud with Eddie Guerrero. I suppose you cant say Bradshaw didn't earn it at least.

Brakkus- Wooof. Brakkus was a massive German bodybuilder who apparently didn't quite understand that the Brawl For All wasn't worked. The WWF had big plans for Brakkus (if they send you to Memphis to work for Lawler in the USWA, it probably means they had a long term vision for him) but he sucked and no matter where they sent him, he continued to suck. He was bad in Memphis, was bad in ECW and ultimately this feels like an attempt to just do something with him. Again though, how good you are as a pro wrestler doesn't matter in the Brawl For All. It was about legit fighting----and Brakkus apparently according to Savio Vega had no idea he was in a real fight. Keep that in mind.

Mark Canterbury- I have NO idea why Henry O. Godwinn is listed on wikipedia by his real name but fuck it, here he is! So full blindspot up front, I LOVED Henry O' Godwinn as a kid. He carried around a slop bucket, poured what looked like puke on people, wrestled in overalls which helped him stand out and it sort of gets lost in the fact that he was given a dumb gimmick (In the mid 90s, it felt like the WWE was acknowledging how big of a slide it was in because every human being had a side hustle) that Godwinn could absolutely work. Here's Godwinn vs Bret Hart in a killer match btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9vihPkNmLM. This was before Vince Russo and company turned them from a fun midcard act into a gross-ish play on Vince McMahon's distaste for southerners. Oh and also! Henry Godwin PROBABLY is doing this with a  still kinda broken neck. He broke it in 1997, was told to take three months or more off (Godwinn gives numbers ranging from ten weeks to sixteen weeks) and he just showed back up in less than two months to work through it. Keep that in mind.

Droz- A tragic story all in all which we'll get to eventually. Droz at this point is basically coming out of a dead angle with the LOD where he was written in storyline to be feeding drugs (and whatever else) to Road Warrior Hawk in an attempt to take his place in the Legion Of Doom. If it sounds awful it's because it was and while MAYBE a good writer can make that work, we're talking about the WWF in 1998 trying to soap opera a drug pusher/drug abuse victim angle. It ultimately ended with Droz shoving Road Warrior Hawk off the titantron while Hawk was attempting to commit suicide. Again, it's as bad as you'd believe. Droz had a college football background but that's about it unless I missed some boxing or kickboxing background.

The Godfather- By all accounts the Godfather is a badass. He was hip to MMA before the UFC really caught on, was a freakishly devoted bodybuilder and he just looks like the sort of guy who would take very little shit from anybody. The Godfather is about to become THE Godfather as he's transitioning from Kama Mustafa and the Nation Of Domination's actually good muscle enforcer (Mark Henry is bad around this time and would continue to be such until about 2009 or so) but at this point I'd imagine the writing is on the wall for most of the NOD guys that the Rock is about to leave them in the dust and this group is going to theoretically die a death. The Godfather is about to take a seriously big turn but FIRST, the Brawl For All!

Bart Gunn- At this point, Bart Gunn is doing nothing. Basically nothing. One could even say less than nothing. Bart Gunn is in The New Midnight Express, an angle that Vince Russo has claimed was apparently a way to shut up Jim Cornette and prove to him that old style wrestling couldn't work in 1998. Bart Gunn was apart of the Smoking Gunns and according to him, he had toughman contest experience. Apparently Bart Gunn got brought into the Brawl For All because Kevin Kelly had seen him wear out big guys in Tampa and per Billy Gunn, Bart was the sort of dude who could wipe out a bar room full of people if need be. That said it's not like Bart had any boxing experience or what have you.

Hawk- Another noted tough dude and one of pro wrestling's weirdest mysteries. Every old school dude be it Kevin Sullivan, Jim Cornette or Paul Heyman raves about Hawk as a talent and claims he could've been a major marquee attraction as a singles wrestler. Kevin Sullivan in particular claims that had he had the opportunity to work with Hawk and freshen him up as a singles wrestler, he could've been an Undertaker-esque attraction who drew money across multiple character iterations. Hawk is coming off his personal demons storyline which I mentioned before that sucked. At this point, he and Animal have broken down and are in serious need of repairs from a physical and character standpoint.

Bob Holly- Bradshaw and Bob Holly in the same tournament and somehow they didn't face off? In 2019, I imagine people would be rooting for a double KO (although Bob's image has softened with fans since leaving the WWE) but at this point Bob Holly is just trying to figure shit out in his career. He's teaming with Bart Gunn in the New Midnight Express after sputtering out (HA HA) as a race car driver. Bob Holly is another dude who by in large is just known as a tough guy with a bit of a bully streak tendency behind that reputation. Owner of the wrestling world famous "YOU GOT TWENTY FOUR HOURS TO LEARN HOW TO FIGHT, BITCH!" threat to Rene Dupree before he kicked the shit out of him over parking tickets.

Marc Mero- The story of Marc Mero is a rough one with a happy ending. Marc Mero was really over in WCW as Johnny B. Badd, a Little Richard knock off with a Badd Blaster that shot confetti. Johnny B. Badd was so over that Vince paid him big money to be Johnny B. Badd----only for someone to smarten him up that Johnny B. Badd was a WCW trademark so he had paid for a guy who was trained from jump to do ONE role his whole career. Marc Mero was pretty over and underrated as a wrestler (I SWEAR BY THIS) before his knees gave in. Making matters worse for him was that his wife, Rena, was the women's face of the Attitude Era as Sable. According to Jim Cornette, Marc Mero was trying to be a good husband and help get his super over wife even MORE over---so he took a powerbomb from her on TV. Mero's future big money opponent was Stone Cold who happened to be  watching the show at the time from home. Apparently Austin called up Vince McMahon and immediately asked who he would be working with on next week's Raw since he wasn't going to do any business with Mero after eating a powerbomb on TV from his wife. I don't know if this was before or after the Brawl For All though so take that for what it's worth. Either way, Mero is doing a boxing gimmick now (he is apparently a reputable legit golden gloves champion) and so it makes sense he'd be in the Brawl For All.

Pierre- This is a real shootfight tournament. Actual punches are being thrown and takedowns are implemented. This is, again, a legitimate shoot fight----and so of course one of the dudes involved in the shoot fight is missing an eye. Quebeccer Pierre/Pierre Carl Oulette/Jon Pierre Lefitte is missing an eye and was competing in a shoot tournament WITH one eye. We're not talking Michael Bisping fighting with a damaged eye for years on end, we're talking about an actual lack of an eye. This happened, people. We'll talk more about Pierre (and his amazing story in 2019) but right now in 1998, he's JAG who is bouncing between WCW and WWF looking for something to do. He's also at this point known as the guy who refused to put Kevin Nash over in 1995 despite Nash being the face of the company. PCO is the original Bret Hart, refusing to job in Canada.

Scorpio- I gotta admit I have no idea what Scorpio is doing here. I bet he doesn't know either if we're being truthful. Scorpio is one of those guys who was ahead of his time but seemed incapable of staying on the right path (whatever that means in wrestling) to get what he was due. He had come into the WWF in 1997 as Flash Funk and so I imagine Flash Funk was over and he's just killing time until the Job Squad angle.  Scorpio is apparently a legit tough guy (or madman depending on who you ask) and held a 1-0 unofficial record over Hawk after he beat the shit out of him in WCW.

Dan Severn- Dan Severn was told he wouldn't even be allowed to participate and then was told the day OF the taping that he was needed to take a spot. Severn is not too far removed from being a UFC everything (champion, tournament winner etc etc) and so he's for the most part a prospective favorite. That's probably why he wasn't asked to compete at first I'd imagine since the plan was PERHAPS to get somebody else over. Another rumor is that Severn is such a boring plain dude with a boring plain style (Severn admits his plan was to never throw a punch and just grapple people) that if he had won, there would've been no payoff in it.

Savio Vega- I have NO idea if Savio Vegas has a professional sports background or what the deal was. Apparently Savio Vegas asked to be in it and was also the unofficial official matchmaker (he drew the names out of a hat) and he's Puerto Rican so he's got my rooting interest right away. I think Los Boricuas at this point were in full swing and Savio was obviously the head of said stable. Gang Warz was dumb as hell.

Steve Williams- And we reach the FINAL name. "Dr. Death" Steve Williams. Steve Williams was a former football player at the University of Oklahoma and one of the more decorated wrestlers in Oklahoma history. He had carved out a niche in Japan by this point after establishing himself as a star in Mid South with the occasional stop off in the NWA/Jim Crockett Promotions/various regional feds and start ups. Williams didn't have any official fighting background but he was a crazy good wrestler and by all accounts a ridiculous bad ass. Jim Cornette tells stories of Dr. Death fighting fans and laying bodies to waste with little to no effort. He was also extremely popular with people in the WWF office, namely Jim Ross and Jim Cornette. Bruce Prichard doesn't QUITE say that the WWF thought Dr. Death would win the Brawl For All but he does a damn good enough impression of Jim Ross advocating for Steve Williams that I have to believe it. Vince Russo has spoken in the past about Steve Williams being Jim Ross' "boy" and how this was basically his way of seeing whether Jim Ross was right. Bob Holly has said that they were already doing vignettes with Barry Switzer and interviews as if Dr. Death won the Brawl For All. Dr. Death claims that the Triple H push of 1999 was the one Vince had promised him before the Brawl For All.

All of this brings me to my final point.....

Dr. Death was never going to be a big star in the WWF

I truly hate to speak ill of the dead and I'm trying hard no to either. Let's just speak from a more realistic pragmatic grounded stance. The kind of talent that was getting over in 1999 falls into three distinct categories. The first were talkers, guys and gals who could rap so to speak and had tremendous presence. Promo guys could carry the day and even IF you gave Dr. Death a Jim Ross to do the talking for him, let's not forget that by 1998 at this point in July there's basically just one manager actually doing anything as a talker and that's Paul Bearer. "Dr. Death" Steve Williams was not a talker and even if he was, he's certainly not the kind of talker who would fit in Vince McMahon's WWF. The second were guys who were big with "the look" according to Vince McMahon. Pull up a picture of every top star in 1998 for the WWF and then slide Dr. Death in there and ask if he fits the mold. He's unique for sure and there's the Mick Foley outlier----but imagine how long it took Mick Foley to be seen as legitimate by Vince McMahon. Even if Dr. Death is the definition of a Jim Ross style Hoss, he looks woefully out of date by 1998 standards. He in many ways, like a lot of guys who frequently toured Japan and basically were behind on the times, looked like he had been left in 1988. Lastly there were the gimmick guys; the Undertaker, Kane, The Rock, DX, Austin etc etc. Dr. Death's gimmick was that he was an ass kicker which is great but AGAIN we are to believe every human being in the WWF at this time is an ass kicker. Maybe Vince and company would've found a way to get something out of him but the chances are that Dr. Death would've never been a big star. Could he have feuded with Stone Cold? Surely! A big money draw? A multi million dollar hit? I just don't see it. Can't imagine it. Also let's be fair here, how toned down would his style have been for the WWF at the time as well? Is he going to suplex Steve Austin around after Stone Cold broke his neck? I'm not quite buying that either.

So there's your sixteen. You got a few amateur wrestlers ten years beyond their competitive days, a boxer or two, a toughman contest guy, a few dudes who dabbled in kickboxing and a man with legitimately one eye. You've got the guy who the company thinks SHOULD win it. So who won the fuckin' thing? How did they win it?

That's for next time.

[starspatter]

I think you should do ALL THE ASKS :D

WELL ALL RIGHT THENA - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.1) DCAU TimSteph2) ItsuHaru3) Logan x Diana Prince4) Itsuki Koizumi x Kyouya OotoriB - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.*looks at WonderWolf and SuperBats*C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.BatCat.  Even back when I wasn’t a fan of Batman I remember I read one DCAU comic involving Catwoman, and her character just didn’t appeal to me.D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.Any Kagepro ships tbh.  Idk I’m just not really invested in the romance of the series.  I prefer them all as friends/platonic.E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?Ahaha…  I’ve contributed a fair bit of Kagecrack through vids/posts, though I think my favorite are these BTAS crossover edits.Also Kyorange and Skitzo!Kyon for TMoHS.  (Plus the “genderbent cast is the previous generation” theory if that counts?)F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?Well I’ve been a Pokémon fan since elementary school.  While I no longer watch the show/play the games, I still follow the new generations and RP on occasion.G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?Eeyup.  While I don’t ship too often, when I do I ship HARD.  ItsuHaru was my first real “obsessive” OTP, but I think the honor for the *very* first ship I had goes to… Cody x Ken from Digimon S2, in a sense. *shot* ^^; Idk I was just really focused on the idea of them making up and becoming “friends”. XP Though I also shipped Ken with Kari too bc of the Dark Ocean stuff.  (Also Gary Oak x Molly Hale from Pokémon but that’s a whole other story. >.>; )H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?I’m still mostly a weeb so animu is my go-to, but I’ve been branching out to more Western stuff lately.  (Although when it comes to Kagepro the songs are still the best medium. =3=)I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?Steven Universe.  While I still love the show, hearing about all the toxicity in the fandom really turned me off so I just try to avoid it.J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)Again, Steven Universe.  Also Over the Garden Wall and Bojack Horseman (the former of which I still really recommend you see).K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?I’m also gonna say Sunset Shimmer from Equestria Girls.  She went from being a seemingly one-off villain to a fully redeemed good guy and leader in her own right.  Though she still has her insecurities, it lets her relate to and help others in the same situation to not let those feelings of inadequacy or jealousy overcome them.Also Midna from Twilight Princess.  Her change of heart from servicing her own needs to selfless sacrifice after observing how hard Link tried to save others mirrors my own feelings when I met Link in OoT/MM and watched him grow into a true hero, working to help both the people of Hyrule and Termina even when he had no obligation or was openly blamed for Ganon’s rise to power.L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)So I’m not a big fan of Dick Grayson in the DCAU (or any of his animated adaptations aside from Lego Batman; his YJ version being especially egregious) since I see him as rather childish and bad at dealing with conflict, but he’s admittedly a lot better in the tie-in comics, which give him some much needed development as Nightwing (whereas he barely got any screentime in TNBA).  There he acts as a genuine big brother to Tim, and is shown to not be as nearly as bitter at Bruce as the Old Wounds ep would have one believe.  I also like that they highlight Dick’s fondness for music, wherein his musical knowledge actually comes in handy to solve a couple cases.M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.All of the Mekakushi Dan, SOS Brigade, or Host Club tbhN - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).1) More Kagepro content in general2) More DCAU TimSteph 3) More ItsuHaru

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?Growing Up - Run River NorthDefinitely a Timmy Todd/TimSteph song now that I think about it.  Especially the lines “I found my way without your help, with a broken family” and “monsters in my head”. ;(P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).…Tbh I’m really liking the “Legion x Ouran” idea lately. XD *shot*Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.Hm…  I don’t think there are any I’ve really “abandoned”, per se.  Most of them are still there, just not at the forefront anymore.R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?All the relationships in Kagepro *shot*S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)Molly Hale from the third movie is the god of the Pokémon world.  Just… don’t ask lol.T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?Already answered, but I’ll add a few of my favorites for DCAU TimSteph:1) Tim cuts his own hair after RotJ (or rather just lets it grow long) since he doesn’t trust anyone else with sharp objects around him.  Steph is the first person he allows to trim his hair for him (even though she has no experience with it either), since I imagine him feeling comfortable enough around her that he even falls asleep like Sousuke does with Chidori in Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid.  (For context, he was raised as a soldier from an early age and this is what happened when they tried to take him to a salon.  Played for laughs, but probably an accurate portrayal of people suffering from anxiety/PTSD having to deal with mundane tasks that trigger them.)

2) Similarly, Steph plays piano to help calm Tim down whenever he’s having a panic attack.3) After RotJ Tim refuses to wear red for a long time until Steph knits him a red scarf and tells him it “suits him” bc red is the color of heroes.

As an aside, I also recently like the idea that Logan was at Lex’s party in the DCEU and saw Bruce and Diana together, based on this playlist that I made.  U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.Gonna talk about a few I don’t mention too often nowadays.

1) Link from The Legend of ZeldaLink will forever be my greatest true love.  He’s the first real “hero” I believed in, and he honestly changed my life at one point to actually want to be a better person.  While that faith has faded and I don’t think I can ever reach his example, I still wish I had that kind of courage and kindness - or at least be able to inspire others in the same way he did me.2) Meroko Yui from Full Moon wo SagashiteIf Link was the first (and only) person I ever truly fell in love with, Meroko was the one who taught me what “true love” was in the first place.  I won’t say too much since I still sincerely hope you will check out the series someday, but suffice to say there’s a scene towards the end where she makes a choice that shows how much she has personally grown, and come to understand what it really means to “love” someone wholeheartedly.

3) Gary Oak from PokémonThis is a bit of an odd one, but Gary is a character I related to a lot when I was an adolescent since, of the main series cast, he was the first and one of few to really change his “status quo” by quitting training and deciding to become a researcher instead.  In my eyes it seemed like a shockingly conscious choice to “grow up” in a world where you can ostensibly remain a “child” forever, and I both admired and deplored him for it (especially at that tender transitory age I was going through at the time, where it feels like you’re being forced to “become an adult” whether you want to or not).

V - Which character do you relate to most?Already answered.W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.Romance in general is really not my thing, so I dislike when it’s the focus/the writers feel the need to pair every character.  I’d rather leave things open-ended most of the time.X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.Family/friendship stories + tragic adopted children wanting to be heroesY - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?X-Men, Kingdom Hearts, Dangan Ronpa, Fate/Stay Night, Various Magical Girl series, Various RPG Horror games

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)I feel like I’ve rambled enough already phew. OTL Thanks for asking though. =P

[xyouaremylifedelena]

Some thoughts after seeing The Last Jedi

I’ve been a fan of Star Wars for as long as I can remember. I liked the prequels, but the acting was cringy at times (I’m looking at you, Ep1&2) but still enjoyed the tragic love story between Padme and Anakin even though Anakin became an ass at the end of 3 (still love Vader though). 

With that being said, I was always in the Rey & Kylo fandom but didn’t interact that much with you guys. I was always liking an rebloging stuff, other than that, I tried to stay as far away as I could from the fandom (or every fandom for that matter). I used to talk with other shippers on twitter and tumblr, interacting with them between 2010-2014, because for me, thats when the ‘fandom culture’ wasn’t that much toxic. I’ve shipped damon & elena since 2009, I’ve always made fanvids with them on youtube and the shipping wars we had was about which couple was better, (for those whose been in that fandom, remember that Delena and Stelena we’re craaaazy) but for some twisted reason, it was fun having a ‘war’ with the other fandom. Probably because we didn’t insult each other, we just didn’t like the other couple, that was that.

But from 2015 to now, I’ve seen the fandom culture changing into something that wasn’t healthy at all. Insulting each other and throwing the words ‘abuse’, ‘toxic’, etc. everywhere wasn’t my cup of tea, so I stayed away for a long time. It’s fiction first of all, so it isn’t that deep and second, I’ve grown up with worse tv shows, games and movies than that and didn’t turn out to be ‘fucked up’. I’ve had an ex-boyfriend who was mentally abusive to me, but didn’t stop liking certain ships because  ‘they we’re presumably bad for each other’ or ‘(insert character name) fucked up’. Yes, I changed the way I viewed my relationships with everyone. I did let some people go because of it but I never paired fiction with reality. EVER. Because liking something doesn’t make you a bad person, change your morals or whatever. It’s like saying we should stop making Star Wars as whole because it promotes war? Humans aren’t that dumb. Yes, some people make bad choices, but that’s not because they go on tumblr or twitter and ship a certain couple. Like wtf. You do you guys. 

All of that to say that, I couldn’t stay away from the Reylo fandom because I just can’t get enough of them. I’ve shipped them since TFA got out (I even whispered to my best friend ‘is it weird I ship those two?’ at the interrogation scene) and never looked back since then. 

Anyways, I have some things I have to say about the movie so here it is: 

I absolutely loved every Rey & Kylo (Ben?) scenes. Driver and Ridley we’re so amazing in this one, I couldn’t help but REALLY stare at the screen for every scene they shared. Seriously, they’ve blown my mind. The movie could have been better in my opinion but everything was perfectly executed and believable, I would go and see it a second time for sure (Overall, I give the movie a 7.5-8/10).

The force bond

It was really well done. It felt like they we’re in the same place at the same time, even though it was totally different scenes. I have to give a thumbs up to Rian Johnson for that. One of my favorite moment is when they touch their hands and Luke explodes the hut. It was sweet and not something I was expecting from them, or at all actually. I loved that Ben is transported into her surroundings instead of his, mostly because the lighting in hers is really warm and just feels safe and comforting instead of his who’s more cold and dreadful. It clearly states that she is okay with him being near her and found a friend who can actually understand her worries when she thought she was alone. They have each other.  I’ve seen some post worried about the last scene, when she is shutting the door of the falcon on him as if destroying the force bond. But the thing is... You can’t destroy a force bond unless one of the two dies. And even then, it feels like a piece missing in you, a wound you can’t heal. Also, when she sees him, she hesitate for a moment, opens her mouth as if to speak but chooses not to. She looks more mad at him for his poor choices dans than hating him just because. She knows he won’t hurt her, she just want to make a point by closing the door that she can control when she can see him or not, shutting him out of her mind like she did at their first force visions. 

Ben’s redemption

It’s happening. I seriously didn’t thought he would be after the little tantrum he did on Crait, but there’s one moment, a little moment that can confirms you that he will be redeem. It is not a scene with Rey though. It’s the scene where Luke and Leia talks when they see each other for the last time. She says something along the lines that her son is not himself anymore and Luke respond by saying that he can still be brought back. I have no idea why, but the fact that Luke finally see this calls back to when Rey tells him that Ben is their only hope after the hut scene. Rey lost that hope at the end of the movie, but Luke finally understands her words and believes it more than ever. Even when he’s in front of Kylo, he tells him that he will always be with him like Han is. I’m pretty sure that we’ll see Luke guiding him and Rey in IX together, because she’s the only one who can bring him back now that Carrie Fisher is gone. Maybe Kylo knowing that his mother is dead will affect him dearly, but I don’t see that happening in the first act of the movie.

 There’s subtle hints here and there that he’ll come back, like the fact that Hux wants to kill him and side eye him when Kylo pulls a tantrum on Luke. My theory for this, is that the real villain of IX will be Hux and not Kylo. The fact that Kylo is practically begging Rey with his eyes to not reject him does not make him the baddest villain, it’s a call for help. If Rey would have taken his hand, Kylo would have turned around and run away with her, so he wouldn’t have lied to Hux about who killed Snoke. Pretty sure he would have exterminate the dude. The guy is still conflicted about himself being in the dark side or light side, and ends up being grey at the end of the movie even if he’s still trying to be dark (we all know he loses his chill when Rey rejects him, not because he just wants to be dark).

I’m not sure yet if Reylo will be endgame yet, I’ll have to wait for more inteviews but they’re not dead for sure. They’ll have a final showdown and all that and then Ben will probably switch side by the end of the second or third act. I just hope they don’t do like Anakin’s story and kill him at the end.

Also, J.J. Abrahams is the one who compared Rey and Kylo to a Princess and a Prince, that star wars was a kind of fairytale and that they wanted to explore that relationship further down the road. Plus, he still had to approve the idea of Johnson with TLJ. If he didn’t want this to happen, we wouldn’t be seeing any romantic Reylo in the movie AT ALL. 

(Sorry if I made some mistakes while typing this, French is my first language so if you didn’t understand a shit of what I said, don’t be afraid to tell me!) 

[frankensteindotpdf]

*deep coughing* all. of. them.

Do you prefer writing with black or blue pen? Black

Would you prefer to live in the country or the city? City. I like having so many resources available. I do love the country though. 

If you could learn a new skill, what would it be? ASL (if that counts)

Do you drink your tea or coffee with sugar? As of right now, I don’t drink tea, but yes, lots of cream and sugar in my coffee.

What was your favourite book as a child? Ha that depends on the age. At 2 I had The Cat In The Hat memorized (not exaggerating, there’s videos). As I got older I liked series, first The Magic Treehouse, then A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Harry Potter (obviously) and The Secret Series.

Do you prefer baths or showers? Showers. Baths are gross.

If you could be a mythical creature, which would you choose?  No idea. Maybe a lethifold, because I find them absolutely terrifying. Or a thestral.

Do you prefer reading paper or electronic books? Paper. You just can’t beat the smell of books.

What is your favourite item of clothing? I don’t have a favourite, I love my Hufflepuff jacket, my Cadet jacket, and my trench-coat style jacket though. (Plus my billions of t-shirts) (And my reversable galaxy dress)

Do you like your name? Would you ever change it? My first name I like. My last name, definitely not. If I’m not married by 30 (hahahaha like that’s ever gonna happen) I’m changing it.

Who is a mentor to you? It sounds so nerdy but honestly Dan, Phil, and Thomas Sanders. They’re just so inspiring.

Would you ever want to be famous? If so, what for? Maybe? I like being alone though, so I might find it irritating. Probably for art.

Are you a restless sleeper? Not really? Apparently I snore though.

Do you consider yourself a romantic? Mentally yeah. Couldn’t flirt to save my life though. If I were in a relationship I’d probably be stupid and sappy lol

Which element best represents you? (I know this means air, fire, water, or earth but fite me) Bismuth. Not only is it all rainbowy and weirdly shaped, the chemical symbol is Bi. Quite fitting, if you ask me.

Who do you want to be closer to? Everyone? Anyone? Honestly I never get that close to people, I just never trust people. I would like a best friend or something though. I wish I could be just…closer. (specifically though definitely the girl I have a crush on)

Do you miss someone at the moment? A few years ago, I had a really good friend who just changed out of the blue one day. I miss them. I wish they were the funny, interesting person they once were and not the verbally abusive jerk they are now.

Tell us about an early childhood memory. Once I was at an amusement park with my kindergarten class and the little group I was with decided to go on the teacup ride. (The boy I had a crush on was in my group, and his mom was the supervision) In the middle of the ride he slipped of the seat and into the middle of the teacup. He was super scared and sat in his mom’s lap after that. It wasn’t anything major but I specifically remember that for some reason.

What is the strangest thing you have eaten? I want to say crickets that were sour cream and onion flavoured, live ants, or Chili with PB sandwiches (it’s delicious I swear). The first was out of curiousity, the second was because a crush (sheesh I’m ridiculous) suggested it, and the third is a family tradition.

What can you see outside your bedroom window? My backyard. A tree. Some grass. My neighbours (well their houses and yards lol)

What are you most thankful for? My friends. I talk about wanting friends a lot, but I tend to ignore the fact that I have friends. They may not be “the perfect best friends” I imagine, you know, the Disney Channel “practically live at each others houses, weekly sleepovers, share clothes and go shopping all the time” friends, but they’re still wonderful and I love them all.

Do you like spicy food? Not really. Mildly, but nothing very spicy. I’ll eat it if I’m dared though, always up for a challenge. And trying new foods.

Have you ever met someone famous? Nope. Tragically.

Do you keep a diary or journal? I have tried about a billion times, but it never works out.

Do you prefer to use pen or pencil? Depends on the type, what I’m using it for, and the feel I want. for sketching, a pencil. For math and other things I’m not confident with, a pencil. For other things, a pen with good inkflow. For writing (stories), it literally depend on the day. I’ll use whatever feels most comfortable in my hand at that moment.

What is your star sign? Leo.

Do you like your cereal crunchy or soggy? Crunchy.

What would you want your legacy to be? I just want to help people.

Do you like reading? What was the last thing you read? YES. The last thing I read was The Umbrella Academy (Book 1) by Gerard Way, and the next thing I read will be The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, also by Gerard Way. Those are both graphic novels. Novel-wise, the last thing I read was probably A Court Of Mist And Fury.

How do you show someone you love them? Usually presents; drawings, little gifts, different things like that.

Do you like ice in your drinks? If I plan on drinking it rather quickly, yes. Otherwise no, it just ends up watering it down.

What are you afraid of? Everything. On a more superficial level, spiders, needles, elevators, walking by myself at night, heights…On a deeper level, being alone, being forgotten, wasting my life, the future.

What is your favourite scent? Oh there’s so many! Books (literally all books, new, old, ugh they smell so good), sweet scented candles (especially cupcake and marshmallow scented ones), baking food, basically sugary sweet smells.

Do you address older people by their first or last name? I hate using people’s name (I’m always scared I’ll say it wrong). If they’re a teacher, I usually just call them Sir or Miss.

If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? Reading, drawing, travelling, helping others.

Do you prefer swimming in pools or in the ocean? I hate both (low self esteem is great) but pools? The beach has too much sand

What would you do if you found $50 on the ground? Probably leave it? I would want someone to leave it alone if I had dropped it, and I’d feel way too guilty to take it.

Have you ever seen a shooting star? Did you make a wish? Not that I can remember. (I totally would make a wish though)

What is one thing you would want to teach your children? To love. Love everyone. Be kind. Think about everyone’s perspective, the reason behind someon’s actions.

If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? Ha another nerdy one. The VFD tattoo on the inside of my left ankle.

What can you hear right now? “EVERYONE ATTACK!” “RETREAT!” “ATTACK!” “RETREAT!” (I’m listening to the Hamilton soundtrack while I write this)

Where do you feel the safest? Probably libraries. They’re just so calming.

What is one thing you want to overcome/conquer? My fears and doubts.

If you could travel back to any era, which would you choose? I read once that time travel is only a good idea for white men, and honestly it’s very true (In the areas I know about, anyway. I have minimal knowledge of other areas of the world, especially Asia and Africa. I really need to research those). However, I would love to see Victorian England, and see the suffragette movement develop.

What is your most used emoji? ����

What is your favourite season? Why? Of what show? jk jk Winter or fall. I love the cold, jackets and sweaters and sweater paws and warm drinks and snow and seeing your breath and Christmas and Halloween and manohman do I love fall and winter

How would you spend your ideal day? with a datemate probably read, fully focused and not distracted; draw, paint, or something artistic; listen to music of course; go to a musical with friends or a datemate

Describe yourself using one word. Scared.

What do you regret the most? Certain ways I acted and things I said when I was younger. Nothing too harsh, just little things I didn’t understand were wrong. I didn’t think about how offensive my words were. (I don’t think I actually offended anyone, just realising now some of the really sexist crap I said without realising or understanding that it was sexist is painful.)

Invent your own word. What does it mean? Plunck. It’s the feeling of your stomach dropping when you realise no one cares about what you’re saying, that you’ve been talking too much, or that your phone went off because of social media, not a text. 

[kxias]

...so, yeah, don’t rlly know how the fuck i got accepted to be quite honest w you??? like that definitely sounded fake but yet here we are??? anyways, hi, i’m red (she/her pronouns please) i’m 19 and i live in the est timezone and i am so, so excited about this roleplay — like i said, highkey was not expecting to get accepted so it certainly came as a shock when i refreshed the main before leaving to grab dinner and saw my post? i’ve been dying to put this muse of mine into play for a month or so now but i really haven’t been able to find a group that i was Down for up until i saw this one ! i am a heaux for uni rps, an even bigger one for the greek life rps since i in a million years would never be able to join greek life (yay introvert!!) and while i wasn’t here first time around, i’m happy to be here now and writing w all you lovely people ; i’m working on getting her stats and wanted connections up so pls bear with me, classes started back today and i’m trying to sift thru all the junk of my online courses while attempting to enjoy my last moments of freedom but they’ll be up soon ! in the meantime, there’s a bit beneath the cut about my baby angel and a few ideas to tide you over, make the heart go red and i’ll pop in your ims for plots ! and yes, i do ramble like this all the time so Get Ready !!

tw: death, slight depression, mentions of verbal/emotional abuse

have you read the gossip blog lately ? apparently, a GIGI HADID lookalike was seen strolling across campus with their DANCE textbook. but nah, that’s just KAIA ZAMAN, the TWENTY year old JUNIOR, i’m sure you know HER. they’re mostly known as THE SANGUINE because they’re very SILVER-TONGUED and INTREPID but also RETICENT and GUILELESS.

so kaia was born and raised in chicago, illinois, the only child her parents ever had due to a few factors — one of which being that it was incredibly hard for her mother to carry a child + rushed into an emergency hysterectomy right after kaia’s birth, so she was their rainbow baby

her parents did everything in their power to make kaia as happy as they possibly could since she had been everything they’d wanted for so long, so whether it was letting her watch another cartoon before bed or enrolling her in dance classes at the age of three after a full-fledged obsession with the nutcracker reached its pique, they pretty much granted her any wish she could’ve possibly had

at age four, a few nights after christmas, kaia and her parents were on their way home from dinner, taking a road that was pretty notorious for collecting black ice in the winter and got into a really bad accident, and this cost her both of her parents

so in her father’s will + due to a lack of any other eligible family members, kaia was left in the custody of her uncle ( dad’s younger brother ) and it was...disastrous, to say the least; daniel had pretty much resigned to a life of forever being a bachelor and fucking around and now he had a four year old niece that he was expected to raise???

her uncle was a trashbag with a few shreds of decency (driven by guilt) in him — he wasn’t going to dump her into the foster system but he sure as hell didn’t want anything to do with her ! so in true trashbag fashion, he just decided to completely neglect her, pretend like she wasn’t there and hope she’d get the hint, and it took her a while to figure this out?? kaia was a sweet kid who went from having a shit ton of affection and love to being ignored and treated like she was a nuisance, and it fucked w her head at four years old

she wound up raising herself; all her uncle was good for was giving her a place to live, making sure she had clothes on her back and food in her stomach, and putting on an act when people gave a second glance their way. the only time he really wanted anything to do with her was when he could benefit her somehow, like keep one of his girlfriends around ( they all found kaia adorable and daniel ‘admirable’ for stepping up ) or when it came to the $$, her parents had left her a little but daniel pretty much absorbed it and took it for himself, to throw more parties or buy booze or play sugar daddy to one of his hookups?? like i said, trashbag

kaia and her uncle were roommates at best, and that was pushing it — she struggled a lot with the neglect internally, and her way of coping was to push it down, push it down, suppress with a smiling face and act like all was well. daniel was enough of a decent person to let her continue with the dance lessons which she absolutely adored, dance was her Everything, and by the time she hit high school, she started teaching classes at the studio she learned at in order to make some $$ that daniel wouldn’t take for his own

the older she got, the more she’d fight back a little against daniel and they had their fair share of fights ( which usually ended in daniel saying something to shut her down entirely and she’d scramble away ) but even despite that, sHE NEVER GAVE UP HOPE ON HIM...?? like, kaia always gave him the benefit of the doubt even though he’d proved himself time and time again thAT HE DIDN’T DESERVE IT

to her it was v black and white, she didn’t understand why tf he wouldn’t just get over himself and be a Family ( daniel is Where she gets her stubbornness tbh ) but despite having a little resent towards him, kaia never ever stopped hoping that he’d wake up one day and they’d start being a family and she still hasn’t bc optimist in the highest degree

when it came to college, kaia knew if she didn’t get out of chicago she was literally going to be sick, there was just smth about the loneliness there that made her skin crawl ( she also hates the winter now so she had to get as far away from snow as possible lmao ) and so she was like “alright i need a college on the west coast and w my dance major”, found crawford, and it was Settled

you ain’t getting my gossip blog secret out of me *wink*

anyways, now that the tragic backstory has been #unlocked...onto kaia

she’s the sanguine, which basically means bitch is a ball of sunshine, which she is — there’s no such thing as a stranger in her world, she likes constantly being surrounded by people ( bc she gotta make up for being lonely all those childhood years, thanks a ton dAN ) and making new friends and going out, she just loves people and people usually love her, she knows how to reel them in and keep them by her side, girlie will do Anything

she flat-out refuses to see the bad in people, even if it is staring her in the face, and this is where her stubborn nature comes in to play?? you can’t tell her anything, once her mind is set on something there is no hope of ever talking her out of it, she’s got to come to her senses on her own and even then it’s usually too late or she diminishes the impact of it?? she’s rash and got bad tunnel vision so it’s p clear where disaster lies w her

has the unhealthiest coping mechanisms on the history of the planet, tbh; she thinks the cure to everything is putting a smile on and acting like it’s not a problem and while that works when one fails a test, it doesn’t work w everything and she’s just forced so much pain and depression and anger down that it is Bound to come right back up at some point, so basically homegirl is a ticking time bomb

kaia’s also a people pleaser, she’d literally give you a kidney if you asked, which makes it easy for people to manipulate her?? and she doesn’t always see when she’s being manipulated either?? and won’t always stand up for herself when she’s being treated unfairly??? she just likes keeping the peace if at all possible

blurs the line a lot between doing things because she can and doing things because she feels an obligation to so she doesn’t let anyone down

ever since her parents died, she doesn’t like to give anything a second-guess — if she wants to do something, then she’s doing it, because it may not come back around again or she may not have the chance to. is the Definition of living in the moment, which is nice in theory, but kaia is v bad at compartmentalizing so it’s easy for her to get off track or ofc do things that will come back to bite her

dance is life, i’m not even gonna go into detail on it bc this is long enough already and like.....it’s just her whole world, ok, moving along

she wants everyone to let her in but she very rarely returns the favor, which is why i gave her the reticent trait?? she doesn’t tell people about her parents or her uncle, doesn’t let people see that iceberg of emotions underneath the surface, she acts like if it doesn’t exist then it doesn’t as far as anyone’s concerned???

girl is one of the greatest friends you could ever have but is a piece of work when you think about it, tbh, so that being said come love us !

and if you read this far: the reason this STUPID vine is my ooc tag is bc i have an ex named kyle who is a piece of trash and that vine is a p accurate description of how i feel about him.....plus it just makes me laugh ok going now

[soaker87]

What's your favorites OTP in each Battle Spirits seasons? Explain why.

Bashin- 5x8 (aka Card Sensei and Masako)- Actually, I didn’t really think of it at first. Ep. 26 is what really made me ship them hard. It surprised me that Masako still cared about Sensei that much. And actually, I loved both characters. I really could get behind the love/hate relationship going on. And how they both had to overcome their own weaknesses to be together. Masako had to decide to forgive Sensei and also accept who she really was, and Sensei had to get over his guilt and stop running away. I think, even though they didn’t have a lot of scenes together, they had a really good love story. And I’m happy they focused on an adult couple even though most of the characters are kids.

Dan- Yuuki x Kajitsu- I felt bad for shipping them at first, because I’m not usually into incest. But the show itself made it so obvious they did not love each other like a brother and sister. It was definitely a tragic relationship, but it really kept me invested. And it’s canon, so why not?

Brave- Gilfam x Lucretia- I think I’m the only person who cares about this ship. But I love how Lucretia is the only person who would stay loyal to Gilfam and was willing to die for her. And I feel like they had a kind of intimate relationship that went beyond friendship. Honestly I also just love Gilfam, and no one else makes as much sense to ship with her, so that’s another reason why I like the pair.

Heroes- Tameru x Kimari- I found Tameru sort of annoying at first. But I think he did genuinely fall in love with Kimari later on. He accepts her for a villain and not just an innocent princess. And I love the scene when Kimari said he could still call her princess. She actually started to warm up to him by the end. I think it would take work, but they would be really cute together.

Sword Eyes- Grenada x Amarello- Yes, I know it’s utterly sunk. It didn’t really have any chance of happening to begin with. But just, the lady and knight dynamic they had was pretty sweet. I love the undying loyalty thing, same with Gilfam/Lucretia.

Ultimate Zero- Kiriga x Denebola- Also this one is totally sunk. But it’s just so funny I like it. It would be interesting if Kiriga actually gave Denebola a chance. Plus, Denebola is my favorite.

Burning Soul- Yukimura x Toshiie- Yes, even considering how much I don’t care about Yukimura. But Toshi is my favorite, and this one just wrote itself. They were constantly thinking about each other.

Double Drive- Tatsumi x Inui- Once again, because the undying loyalty gets me. And also because Inui is my favorite and I want to ship him. It’s probably a delusion because it’s too one-sided, but I think it would be interesting.

[bunny-wan-kenobi]

Bunny’s Beastly Review *SPOILERS*

I’ve seen the movie three times. I started as the skeptic. Then I saw the film. Here are my thoughts...

I’m a Disney lover, and the films from the Disney Renaissance are close to my heart. I think that animation is a medium that is so rich in the way that it can construe meaning and capture emotion in an artistic, entertaining, magical way, and the animated Beauty and the Beast is an exceptional example of this. 

I’ve been skeptical this whole time of Disney’s recent efforts to translate their animated works into live-action. It feels so opportunistic and uncreative to capitalize on what the animated films already did SO WELL instead of creating something new like Moana or Zootopia. When I first heard the news, I planted myself in the belief that these films really don’t need to be made. 

Do I still believe that after seeing Beauty and the Beast? Well yes...and NO. Maybe I was primed to come to this conclusion after enjoying many elements of Cinderella and falling unexpectedly for the live-action Jungle Book, but I can honestly say that Beauty and the Beast surprised me...but not in the ways I was expecting. 

I expected the nostalgia, the covers of classic songs, the pretty visuals, the strong supporting cast. I knew I would get that. But what surprised me was how happy the movie made me feel. It was the same infusion of warmth I felt when I saw Cinderella’s radiant gown twirling on the ballroom floor in the Disney live-action version.

 It was like I was a little girl nestled on the couch, sometimes in awe, sometimes just beaming because the movie evoked some intangible positive regard that wasn’t based on the perfection of it, but on its ability to speak to my heart. The live-action Beauty and the Beast managed to awaken that feeling in me, which means that there is the possibility that it won’t mean the same thing to someone else or ignite the same experience for everybody, but since this is my review...this movie honestly just made me happy. 

The movie’s not perfect--heck there are just some elements where the animated film is simply superior, but I’m glad it was made. Here’s my breakdown:

The Exceptional

- It answers questions I always had from the animated movie and creates a cohesive narrative. We learn why the villagers forgot about a LARGEASS CASTLE AND ROYALTY a few miles of forest away. We learn why Chip doesn’t age (don’t pretend this never bothered you). We learn more about the curse itself. I appreciated these gaps getting filled.

- We got answers to questions we didn’t know we wanted. I LOVE that Belle’s mother features in this movie, that it holds weight and connects her and the Beast’s stories of loss and loneliness together. I liked getting to see Mr. Potts and understanding just how widespread the effects of the curse were. I liked the backstory given to flesh out Gaston, Maurice, and the Beast, leading to...

- The Beast. I LOVED the Beast. I hold Dan Steven’s performance as equal and different from Robby Benson’s, and that is the highest praise I can give it. His Beast is less growly and irascible, more grumpy and self-effacing. I think it was a brilliant idea to re-interpret Beast as a classicist Sun Prince-eqsue figure and position him in juxtaposition to the romantic and intelligent farmgirl Belle. It changes the nature of their love story in that Beast’s flaws include his predilection to look down on others and judge them along with the usual selfishness and temper. Yet this Beast is just as soulful, just as expressive, and just as much of an endearing dork, made evident by Steven’s wonderful face-work beneath the CGI. It’s the little moments: the sharp exhale of shock and grief when Belle leaves, the surprised smile when Belle asks them to “go home,” the befuddled expression when he realizes in the library scene that he actually likes this girl. I felt like I was watching a different Beast, someone familiar yet refreshing, and I fell for the character. And then the song....

- Evermore. Yes, I’m that person. I’m playing it on loop. I have no shame. I wasn’t expecting this song, I wasn’t spoiled beforehand, so I was BLOWN AWAY. I really enjoy “If I Could Love Her,” but I understand Alan Menken’s explanation that it didn’t quite fit into this narrative. Evermore does. It’s a song of mourning yet it’s stalwart in the Beast’s resolution to keep waiting, keep going on even as he believes that Belle is never coming back and that he IS going to waste away for YEARS all alone. It really has some dark implications when you pause to think of it, but this song soars beyond them, carried by the imagery of the Beast rising higher and higher in his tower to see Belle leave and then THAT SHOT pulling out of the tower to Belle...it was EVERYTHING. 

- Maurice. I really appreciate that Kevin Kline brought a dignity and quiet strength to this character that was treated as a caricature before. I really felt for the character in his grief, and I think he had more dimensions within this film and that made his relationship with Belle more compelling. 

- GAS-FREAKIN-STON. Or LUKE EVANS. Luke Evans made this character his own and I think his performance is one element of the movie I like better than the animated film. His Gaston is still egoistic and broad, but there is a kind of cunning and real malice in his actions that heightens both his attraction and his presence as a villain. He’s just so enjoyable to watch as he’s trying to manipulate Maurice’s affections or preening in his chair during “Gaston” or bellowing in the kill the beast sequence. Not only does he have the singing chops, there is so much personality and charm in this performance and it’s simply magnetic. 

- The set. Yes, there is a blend of Jacques Cocteau and other fantasy films, but this set was haunting and magical to me. I liked the sinuous shapes of the outer facade, the crumbling floors, the detail in Belle’s bedroom (the gold on the ceiling ugh). It was a beautiful setting, and a feast for the eyes. 

- The stakes are raised. I cared about the supporting characters before and they were all lovable, but I think this movie conveyed more clearly what the cost of the curse is and how tragic it is for all those caught within it. Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, Cogsworth and the others are desperate for this to work because their humanity is at stake (and for Mrs. Potts, her SON’S) and there is a yearning for that carried in the film that adds even more emotional weight. I don’t know if I’m the only one that actually loves “Days in the Sun,” but this song got to me. They’re wondering whether they will ever be human again, but not in a celebratory, bombastic way like “Human Again,” but in an understated, more poignant way. There’s a beauty of the human spirit that rises in the song, evidenced beautifully by Audra McDonald’s delivery of: “I could sing/Of the pain these dark days bring/Of this spell we’re under/Still it’s the wonder of us I’m singing tonight.” They haven’t given up on hope or of love, and though Belle’s change really isn’t made as clear, this is probably what impacts her decision to stay. So when they become objects at the end, the score cradling that moment, it’s devastating. 

The Good 

- The love story. Both versions are good, but I feel like the way it’s developed in the live-action film is more organic and allows the characters to spend a little bit more time together. It was so sweet to see Beast and Belle bonding over their love of books (say that 3x fast), the quiet understanding that passes between them when they visit Paris, the comfortable dynamic they enjoy as they puzzle over how they are both oddities. And the transformation moment, while somewhat dulled, is undeniably charming because of Belle’s tearful relief when she sees Beast/Adam. This was probably the most important element to get right, and I thought it was solid. Plus it crushes all the Stockholm-syndrome arguments by framing Belle’s decision to stay and help the castle residents and giving attention to her desire for freedom and efforts to escape in the beginning.

- The supporting characters. Like I said, I expected them to be wonderful and they were. I loved every performance, and this set of amazing actors brought new life to the characters. Special shoutout to Ian McKellan’s crusty Cogsworth, who made me like Cogsworth in a way I didn’t before. Also, I LOVE LOVE LOVE that instead of Babette, a feather duster coded as a sexualized French maid, we get a beautiful, elegant Plumette and a tender love story with her and Lumiere. AND SHE’S PLAYED BY GUGU MBATHA-RAW, a gorgeous black woman. And she gets one of the prettiest costume designs in the movie, a woman who should be a princess in her own right (someday...). 

- The rest of the songs still have the vitality and warmth of the original. “Gaston” is a highlight of the film and I really appreciate that they included Howard Ashman’s original lyrics (in other songs too). They made the film feel new to me.

- The fact that I ended up shipping a operatic wardrobe and a toothless harpsichord. Like...they had a dynamic that was unexpectedly moving and I was really rooting for them. 

- Belle’s village is ethnically diverse! Like Brandy-Cinderella levels integrated. That was pretty cool. 

- The French-ification. Okay...it’s still not in French, but I really liked that this film stands apart from the animated version by heightening the French aspects of the original story. The costuming (expect for maybe Belle--more on that later), the sets, the inclusion of “Maman” and Notre Dame, and the overall aesthetic provided a welcome fusion of the original and the animated. 

- BELLE TRIES TO ESCAPE. Like, she really tries to get out but decides to bring the Beast back and stay. She’s curious about the curse and learns more about it, and she remains an assertive character who pushes back when people try to make her comply. 

- Belle’s little “UGH!” during the “Belle” reprise. I can relate. 

- It’s a little thing, but Dan Steven’s disgusted head tilt when rejecting the rose. It cracks me up but points to the pompousness nature of the character. That’s when I knew we were getting a different Beast. 

- The “Beauty and the Beast” scene was really lovely to look at and was somehow more charged (maybe it was the dip?). The revolving shot when Beast lifts Belle up...magic 

- Every time Beast smiles toothily like a weirdo. Just charmed. 

- I actually like the trip to Paris scene because it allows for more of Belle’s development and for her realization that the castle (and Beast) has become home. It was also hella dark (like PLAGUE Disney--REALLY?!)

- That freakin’ snowball. EVERY theater I went to laughed uproariously at that scene, and Beast’s delighted laugh afterwards makes it. 

- LeFou and Gaston’s dynamic. There was a camaraderie and friendship that was fun to watch, and I thought Josh Gad did a great job with the role. 

- That mob song was so gooooood. I wanted to fist pump to it and I liked LeFou’s “But I fear the real monster’s unleashed.”

- The final ballroom scene is really sweet. I loved the sequence with “Winter turns to spring” and what a quiet moment it was. An addition that worked really well. 

- The end credits made my heart swell, and my aesthetic was all the silhouettes of the supporting characters and then the zoom out the stairs with Celine Dion soothing us the whole time with her beautiful voice. Gosh those credits were beautiful...

- Some of Emma’s line deliveries stood out to me, in particular when she declares “And I told you NO,” when she tells her father “Yes. Yes it is” in response to him telling her that returning to the Beast would be dangerous, and the “I love you.” Those were moments where I saw the strength of Belle emerge and Emma disappeared into the role, leading to...

The Meh 

- Emma Watson’s performance was the underwhelming one for me. I wanted so much to like it, but in some scenes it felt flat and just didn’t carry the passion of Paige O’Hara (the “Belle” reprise is a prime example). I still saw Emma as Emma and not necessarily as Belle. Yet even her performance warmed to me over time, and I think I appreciate more of it with each watch. The autotuned singing did take me out of the movie at times, and I really wished that was better because Emma does have a gentle sweetness in her voice and looks beautiful in the film. Was it bad? No. But it wasn’t my favorite Belle performance. In the end, it did sell the love story and I still enjoyed the character, but I think this performance was the weaker note in a solid film. 

- The dress. It was still pretty and floaty, but I wanted more. I wanted Cinderella-level brilliance, something that evoked the iconic dress of the animated version. This was nice, but it could have made so much more of a statement. 

- The inclusion of the Enchantress into the rest of the film. This really felt unnecessary. I get why they did it, but the scenes really didn’t make much sense. Why is Agatha living in the village? Is she monitoring the curse? WHY? Why is she a poor barmaid? Why does she have a Morgana-eque forest hovel? Like maybe they were going for enigmatic, but her scenes just felt like filler and could have been taken out without much impact or just expanded differently. 

- MRS POTTS SHOULD NOT HAVE SAID THAT LINE. She should not have said “It’s because he loves her.” That was the Beast’s moment--his moment to finally acknowledge that he loves Belle because he doesn’t have a moment to really say it in the rest of the film, and it’s supposed to be a weighty moment. That was robbed in the film by giving the line to Mrs. Potts and I will fight you on this. 

-  I get it...but Belle hiking up her dress every other moment and going out IN WINTER without layers annoyed me like AREN’T YOU COLD. I wanted to throw blankets at her. 

- Why give Cogsworth a love interest? That felt gratuitous and unnecessary. That lady had some pipes though...

- Some of the pacing felt rushed because of the editing, and I really wish the film had slowed down to linger in some moments. 

- It really weirded me out that Belle had all these conversations about the curse and the Beast RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BEAST. Like...he wasn’t sleeping. It just felt kind of...not right? Like, can you talk about him somewhere else? Was I the only one who felt uneasy about that? 

- THE LAST SHOT. If you’ve seen it, you know. You know why the movie shouldn’t end with that. An editor should have been on that and it still jars me. 

I honestly can’t think of anything else right now that I really disliked. Some of the song sequences could have been more powerful (yes I still keep going back to that “Belle” reprise) and Emma’s performance was inconsistent (because there were moments in it that were quite good to be fair), but overall, it comes down to the fact that I enjoyed the film enough to see it three times. I mean...that’s a review in itself, and better than 500+ words on the topic. The movie had enough in it that made me love it, and me and my friend sang through the “Beauty and the Beast” cover at the end, bobbing to the syncopated beats, and we had a great time.

The point of a review isn’t to convince you to like a movie. It’s to point to the way you interacted with it in case someone else can resonate with it, get excited by it, or feel legitimated in the way they feel about it--whether good or bad. I enjoyed the live-action Beauty and the Beast, so now I’m going to stop typing, make some quesadillas, and return to listening to “Evermore” on loop.