#but i refrain from doing so because my opinion is irrelevant <3

[bladeofthewest]

i really don't understand why some people insist on constantly posting about what they hate like..... at least keep your thoughts out of the main tags. i'd really prefer not to see senseless discourse every time i browse for content of my favorite character

[flintsdragon]

it started out with a song!!!

I've yet to see the broadway revival of merrily we roll along (although I desperately need to) but I have watched the first production of the show that Maria Friedman directed in the west end several times (shoutout @dolorianpolymath for insisting that I do like five years ago now??) I am still manifesting a New York trip where I see this show before it closes, but in lieu of that, the announcement of the revival cast recording was the most exciting news I've heard in a while. this is the first time I've had a chance to really sit down and listen (with my copy of Finishing The Hat by my side) so im going to ramble about how I feel about the whole thing now:

overture

like the rest of the show, this has been a profoundly overlooked. overture, its jazzy, it sets you so perfectly in the eras of the show, it makes me cry, needless to say it could've kept on going! gimme just the orchestrations of the entire show and I would enjoy it just as much <3

HEY WHERE THE FUCK IS THE HILLS OF TOMORROW

since when is "may we come to trust the dreams we must fulfill" irrelevant to the show???

merrily we roll along

this narrative device that is literally directly lifted from the ancient greeks that people decided was too confusing in the 80's. sounds like they're looking us directly in the eyes saying "I guess it made sense the whole fucking time, didn't it?"

that frank

feels like an audio play more than a modern cast recording. much more interested in carrying you through the show than being like "Hey guys look Lindsay Mendez is here! There's Jonathan Groff!" character/plot centric over celebrity boasting.

old friends-- like it was

old friends is a top tier Sondheim song of all time. on top of being really fun, it perfectly canonizes this relationship dynamic in a way you can apply to any story. Case in point, I made a letterboxd list about it earlier this year!

Trouble is Charlie, that's what everyone does, blames the way it is on the way it was. on the way it never, ever was.

and like it was really fucking gets to me, it gets to me more and more every year. the brutal underbelly of nostalgia, amirite ladies?!!

Franklin shephard inc.

"Listen- Frank does the money thing very well, but you know what, other people do it better. And Frank does the music thing very well, and you know what, no one does it better."

tour du force from Radcliffe, fucking good for him! what else is there to say! its like the realest song ever. the whole money refrain is really interesting coming from Daniel, because like he's part of a unique group of actors that had their breakout in massively successful franchises and now choose to use their clout to get fun, interesting indie projects made (ie. Kristen Stewart, Elijah Wood, Robert Pattinson post-Twilight, pre-The Batman) Give him a Tony (and give me the video of him in the recording studio)

old friends

its really interesting to see where old friends falls in the plotting of the show, because unlike not a day goes by, we aren't heartbroken by this not reprise reprise because we are starting to understand these characters but we don't fully love them like we will in an hour. so this gets to mainly be fun.

Halfway through listening to the song and trying to formulate an opinion on it I realized that I was literally listening to fucking Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez sing Old Friends in a Merrily cast recording and got so happy I could cry. what a gift!!!!

growing up

secret good thing going reprise. capitalism ruins everything! they all want the same thing and they still end up where they end up I can't handle it :(((((( I can't help but feel we don't really need the Gussie stuff. I guess that seeing someone who has no dog in the fight in terms of Frank's soul is an important foil to Charlie and Mary.

third transition

the harmony is so pretty

omg not a day goes by

lets GO Katie Rose Clarke! I've been truly obsessed with this song since I first heard it. It just grabs you by the shoulders and stares in your soul and shakes you around a bit and then it lets you go and you're like holy the fuck where am I. no shade to Katie Rose Clarke (who kills) but Bernadette's version is the only version.

Now You Know

wow this show really moves. we're already at now you know. I guess I have bootleg brain. fun story I saw Lindsay Mendez in Godspell at Circle in the Square like 12 years ago and she scared me when she was running through the audience and high fived me. I'll never ever forget it. Legend behavior always.

every "right" from Groff is iconic lololol

Gussie's opening number

oh Gussie. I don't think she's a horrible character but she's a narrative device. a two and a half dimensional character, to use Sondheim's term. cannot over-emphasize how good Krystal Joy Brown sounds though

It's a Hit!

"If it only even runs a minute, at least it's a wedge"

it's a bop! the most meta-song of the whole show. you love to see it!

fourth transition- the blob part 1

the transition slide is so fucking gorgeous I could listen to it all day.

I initially feel compelled to say the blob is prescient but I know it's not meant to be. It was written by Steven Sondheim in 1980 about the 60s, and it's reflective of how this sect of society has always been and always will be. It feels diminutive and inaccurate to call it prescient.

growing up (reprise)

Gussie's power is that she takes control of the pace of the show. its manic time-traveling nature has to stand still and listen to her every word.

good thing going

"it could've kept on growing, instead of just kept on"

makes me cry before it even starts *bangs my head on the table* the pain in Radcliffe's voice is killing me.

"we want to hear it again"

I truly feel like I'm in a horror film every time I hear this line. It is so fucking brilliant it feels like it must've come from lived experience because how do you even think of something so subtle that feels like such a direct attack on our characters emotional evolution. give in to the encore and you'll never keep on growing.

the blob- part II

the interruptions during the encore are fucking perfect- because its like yeah of course they didn't really want to hear it again- the blob can't know what it really wants that's the whole point! its the blob!

Frank and Charlie singing louder hurts me personally because they don't just want to be heard they want to keep singing together.

fifth transition

the tonal & rhythmic shifts are thrilling- I think it would be fun to sing this at an audition or something lol

Bobby and Jackie and Jack

the Irish jig music is so fucking funny

Both Beth and Gussie are undersung but it's nice that Beth gets to be funny and not just the stereotypical long suffering wife. two and a half dimensional!

not a day goes by (reprise)

I think Mary being literally in love with Frank is realistic but doesn't provide much to the story in the grand scheme of things.

Groff just has one of the most lovely voices on planet earth. they all sound so lovely together.

sixth transition

how did you ever get to be here?

more mournful the more we move backward. real. devastating

Opening Doors

"Russian Tea Room" feels dated without feeling actively offensive? a smart change.

groff's "I saw My Fair Lady/ I sort of enjoyed it" is so fucking funny! I love when line deliveries prove that actors get what lines are fun!

they all have so much chemistry its unreal. this feels like their polygraph test video.

the horns!!! the horns are incredible!

I love "up a tone" it showcases their chemistry instantly

can you imagine being in the room when Lindsay, Jonathan, and Daniel sang together for the first time??? I think I would pass out

seventh transition

a child??????

our time

the decrescendo at the end truly almost killed me. this song makes me so emo already and groff was born to sing it. it got me so bad!

final thoughts

I'm really hoping they're filming a pro-shot because they clearly marketing.the shit. out of it. so why not? its star studded and historical and I would like to see it!!!!

[collabwithmyself]

1-3: Turnabout Transfix (1/2)

Ray and Maya both teased him about his "old man phone," but in Miles's opinion, it worked perfectly well, so he saw no point in replacing it. It was simple, it was solid, and most importantly, he could still customize a ringtone with it.

This meant that waking up abruptly to a tinny rendition of the Steel Samurai theme song had him in a marginally better mood than if it were a normal, repetitive ringing dragging him out of slumber an hour earlier than usual. He fumbled blindly for the cell phone chiming away on his nightstand and dragged it over to him, squinting futilely at the caller ID before answering.

"Mlejerth," he managed.

"My!" screeched a voice, shouting directly into his ear and startling him into sitting up. "It's a disaster!"

"Wh-- Maya? What happened? Are you in danger?"

"It's the Steel Samurai!" Maya wailed. "He killed the Evil Magistrate!"

"Well, that seems largely out of character for him," Miles mused, rubbing his eyes. "...Wait, hold on, where did you get this information? Why are you giving me spoilers?"

"I mean in real life! Turn on the TV, or whatever it is you old men do to get news!"

"In real--" Miles's sleep-addled brain struggled to comprehend what Maya was trying to tell him. "You... do you mean their actors?"

"Yes! Duh!"

He fell back against the headboard in shock. "You're telling me Will Powers killed Jack Hammer?" Why didn't she say that in the first place?!

"That's what the police are saying! You're a defense attorney, My, do something! There's no way the Steel Samurai would kill anybody!"

"Wh-- Maya, you can't expect me to be able to catch the attention of a celebrity, let alone be picked by him to defend him in court! I've only acted as an attorney in two trials!"

"Yeah, and you beat Sascha von Karma! That's better than a whole resume of cases or whatever! Come on, My, you gotta!"

Miles pinched the bridge of his nose. "You won't stop pestering me until I agree to this, will you?"

"Nnnnope!" Maya popped the P emphatically. "Meet you at the detention center!"

"Yes, I'll see you--"

Click.

"...there..."

What had he just gotten himself into?

⁂

"So this is Global Studios?" Maya asked, hands on her hips as she peered around. "I kinda expected it to be... I dunno, bigger."

"Bigger isn't always better, you know," Miles replied, pushing up his glasses. "They make do excellently with what they have, wouldn't you agree?"

"You can say that again!"

Maya strolled closer to the gate, standing on her tiptoes. "Geez, where's the handle for this thing? You think we might have to climb it?"

Miles gave her a look that he hoped conveyed his lack of amusement properly. "We are not breaking into the studio. I highly doubt they'd let just anyone in, especially after a murder just took place. We might need to go back and get, well, a permission slip from Mr. Powers."

Maya smirked at him. "You just wanna get his autograph."

Miles's ears burned. "It's important to the case--"

A horrible screech startled them both, and Maya sprang back from the gate, reflexively snagging Miles by the sleeve and making him flinch a second time. It took him a moment to recognize the piercing cry as a human voice instead of some furious animal.

"Hey! You there! You wanna get in, you're gonna have to go through me! Honestly, all day I've had to deal with nothing but gawkers and sightseers, it seems like nobody in this city knows how to keep their nose out of things, they've all got another thing coming if they think they can get past me--"

He turned to find a person in blue storming out of the nearby security station and towards them both. Intimidated, but knowing better than to let that show, he straightened up, and beside him, Maya did the same.

"Er, pardon me. I'm a defense attorney, and this is my," Miles hesitated, "paralegal. We're here on behalf of--"

The elderly woman squinted at him, then brightened like a light being turned on. "Oh! What a lovely young man you are, aren't you just a sweetheart?"

Miles blinked at the praise. Beside him, Maya made a sudden retching noise, though he couldn't fathom why. "Er, I'm representing Will Powers," he continued, gesturing to the badge on his lapel, "and I was hoping you could let us in to conduct an investigation? You are the security guard, aren't you?"

"Oh, where are my manners? Wendy Oldbag, Global Studios security, but you can just call me grandma!" The old woman waved a hand at him. (Miles was... not going to do that.) "Why, you're so polite, not at all like most people these days, so pushy and impatient, looking to sightsee just because something horrible happened! No, I can tell you're an honest young man, you wouldn't dream of causing trouble, would you?"

Miles shook his head. Oldbag continued to ramble, so his gaze slipped away from her and towards Maya, who looked positively mortified.

"My, I think she likes you," she stage-whispered.

"Is that not a good thing?" Miles was puzzled. "She'll be more likely to let us in."

"Ohh, boy..."

It took a lot of convincing to assure this woman that they didn't need a personally guided tour, thank you, and it was Maya being her blunt self that eventually got her to take the hint and leave in a huff.

"That was..." Miles searched for the right word as he gazed about the studio grounds.

"Yikes," Maya finished.

"Maya, she was a perfectly agreeable woman--"

"Are you that oblivious, My? She was totally into you!" She threw her hands into the air. "You get such a bad crush you practically block out your memory when Mr. Powers talks to you, but this lady flirting with you doesn't set off any alarm bells?"

Miles spluttered. "She was not flirting!"

"She was totally making kissy eyes at you!"

"This is an entirely irrelevant discussion topic anyways, we should be investigating."

Maya puffed her cheeks out, balling her fists. "You can't just stand there and let weird old ladies creep on you, My!"

"Believe me," he huffed with finality, "I would never let any weird old person get into my head."

They didn't get far before a figure standing under the archway leading to the studios spotted them. The already large detective puffed up in anger when they approached.

"Hey! Aren't you that murderer from the other day?!"

Maya squeaked, bravado evaporating. "Yikes! It's that himbo detective...!"

"I-- I beg your pardon, Maya, what--"

The detective - Gumshoe, was it? - stomped a foot in frustration, chest heaving. "Prosecutor von Karma's real upset because of you! All frustrated and can't focus on work, staring out the window and muttering..."

Maya seemed to regain her resolve. "How is it our fault she's a sore loser, huh? And besides, if anyone's at fault, it's you for doing sloppy detective work!"

This only served to agitate Gumshoe further. "Don't you insult my boss!" he exploded. But then, all at once, he deflated, brows knitting together guiltily. "...I did my best..."

Maya looked thrown. "Um... s-sorry," she stammered. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings..."

The detective shook his head. "Nah, you got a point, pal... I shouldn't be blaming other people like that..."

Miles refrained from pointing out that it was pretty much his job to be blaming other people, along with his boss's. "Well, I suppose there's always the next case."

"Yeah... hey! Speaking of which! What the heck are you two doing here?!"

Maya put her hands on her hips and tried to make herself look bigger. "Well, we're on this case too, pal!"

Gumshoe's mouth fell open in offense. "Hey! You can't just go around calling people pal! That's my endearing character trait, pal!"

"Well, what are you gonna do about it, pal?!"

"Pal, I'm gonna--"

"Are you here," Miles interrupted loudly, "on behalf of Miss von Karma?"

It was the wrong thing to say, evidently, as Gumshoe set his jaw again. "I told you to address Prosecutor von Karma by the proper title! Don't let me catch you saying that around my boss, or you're in for it!"

What an odd thing to insist on, Miles thought, but he nodded along nonetheless. "Well? Are you?"

"Am I what...?" Gumshoe took a moment, most likely replaying the conversation in his head. "Oh! Yeah! Prosecutor von Karma's on this case, and this time, we've definitely got it in the bag!"

Miles remembered the strange, uneasy feeling he'd gotten when staring down that woman in court. How her eyes burned with a disgust and hatred Miles couldn't hope to decipher. How her cold composure had dissolved into furious outbursts and frantic bluffs in an effort to save face as Miles took her case apart. How angry, humiliated tears had pricked at the corners of her eyes, and she'd clung anxiously to her right side like she was preventing a wound from bleeding out.

"I'd be worried about her punching you, My," Maya had said to him, "but I think she might just break her hand trying."

How the scrawny brunette managed to be so imposing, Miles had no idea. Everything about her made his stomach twist, like something was inherently incorrect about her. He almost felt sorry for her, having to be raised by a man like Manfred von Karma, but she had been molded into his likeness - a ruthless prosecutor who sought no less than a perfect win record - which made her his enemy.

Some part of him wondered if they could have been friends in another life - a life where they'd crossed paths earlier.

But Miles had far more important things to worry about than that.

[d-n-battle]

You know... it’s not so much that I hate Naruhina and Sasusaku...

It’s more like I just really don’t get how anyone can really like these pairings?? Like I really just don’t understand the appeal???

Like did I really watch the same series as all you Naruhina and Sasusaku shippers????

Y’all: aaawww look at all of these Naruto and Hinata scenes, he clearly loves her sooo much <3 <3 <3🥰😍😌

Me: bitch where????😂😂😂

(Literally, I could make the exact same joke about Sasusaku)

Like, is it just me, or are these two ships literally just about the girls’ feelings???

I mean I’d be totally fine with these two couples, if they didn’t put this emphasis on the girls, and completely ignore the guys...

I mean ok - serious time now - can the Sasusaku shippers and Naruhina shippers show me any evidence from the anime (or manga if you’re a reader) of Naruto and Sasuke returning Hinata and Sakura’s feelings respectively???

Again, I want to reiterate that this is a genuine request, I’m not trying to poke fun with this one. I’m just genuinely curious as to what you guys can dig up. (But also, side note - please refrain from using the films or Boruto as I haven’t watched them yet. I honestly don’t think I’m even gonna watch Boruto, cause I’m not a big fan of like spin off series, so yeah...But anything from the 720 anime episodes, or any of the manga chapters is fine.)

Anyway, back to my point.

Relationships are about two or more people coming together because they recognise that they have romantic feelings towards each other.

Which is exactly why I, like I’ve said already, don’t understand how Naruhina and Sasusaku are supposed to work???

Like yeah, Sakura and Hinata both like/love Sasuke and Naruto.

But when have Sasuka and Naruto expressed that they like them back in that way???

I mean as a whole the show was never even about romance, sure there were hints at possible relationships throughout, but that was never the point of the show.

I mean I feel like this all harkens back to some points I’ve already seen made by other people, but like why is romance necessary in this situation???

.....siiiiiigh.....😒

Because what else are female characters for??? If not to fawn over the male character then really what are they for??? I mean it’s not like they’re meant to represent real life people just like the male characters right??? It’s not like they’re meant to actually have well fleshed out characters with goals that don’t revolve around getting the guy of their dreams to notice them right??? Nooo, of course not, don’t be ridiculous....

I am seriously just soooo done with this bullshit. Like I’ll be the first to admit that Hinata and Sakura are not my favourite characters, but I mean it’s not like that’s really their fault now is it??? I mean they honestly both had a lot of potential. Like, seriously, soooooo much potential. I’m being completely honest here, I was well and truly so disappointed by how these two girls’ character potential was squandered 😔😔😔

And all for the sake of fullfilling their ‘true’ purpose in the show....

And don’t even try to give me the excuse that because Naruto is a shounen anime aimed at a primarily male audience, female characters can’t be feutured as anything besides the love interst. Like what kind of shit is that - so guys can’t even enjoy female characters unless they’re lusting after the male characters they like to insert themselves into???? I mean if you really think that then you must really hate guys.

Like I’m sorry but that just makes men sound like shit. It makes them sound like they only view women as people who belong to them, and are only relevant when it comes to how they are connected to men.

Women are their own goddamm people!!! They don’t exist solely to appease men!!!

As I woman, I have had to put up with this shit for years, and I am so done with it. If guys get to have characters that represent them in almost every piece of media out there, then why don’t women get to have the same treatment??? We make up a whole half of the entire goddamn population!!!

Honeslty, a bitch is soooooo mad about this 😡😡😡(thag bitch being me of course)

And what I’m also super mad about is that these two relationships imply that the guys feelings are completely irrelevant. Like I’m sorry but no amount of Sakura liking/loving Sasuke makes it okay for her to end up with him - if he doesn’t feel anywhere near the same amount of love or appreciation for her. And the same can be applied to Hinata and Naruto.

This outcome also forces everyone to just completely ignore/forget the fact that Naruto and Sasuke are completely unready to be in a relationship with anyone.

Like, yeah I’m gonna admit here that I am indeed a Narusasu shipper, but I’ll also admit that I dead ass don’t think they’d even be ready for a relationship with each other.

I mean the war and everything else just completely messed them both up, so they would both probably need some time to heal. And knowing those two, it would most likely take quite a while before they’re anywhere near healed enough to date - let alone fucking marry - anyone.

And, also (so that I’m not accused of favouritism towards the boys) - what about Sakura and Himata and the shit that they themselves experienced??? I mean Hinata had to watch her cousin die in front of her - that’s gotta mess you up. And Sakura was a medic - there’s no imagining the shit she must have seen.

War messes people up for a long time, and bassed off of what I’ve heard of Boruto - the timeline implies that these two couples got married and had kids pretty soon after the war.

That. Does. Not. Add. Up. Sis!!!!!

Honestly, the series should have just had what I like to call an ‘open ending’. This is where pretty much everything is left (you guessed it) out in the open. By everything I mean like the final relationships and stuff like the minutiae of the story. Unless, your story is a romance story in which case the romance is the most important thing, but as we’ve established- this is not the case with Naruto.

If you don’t explicitly state that characters X and Y are married with 2.5 kids, everyone who would dislike that as an outcome is free to think that they didn’t.

Like seriously, the whole point of using the line “and they lived happily ever after”, is so that you can leave the ending open to the interpretation of the audience. That’s why I’ve never liked being told how they lived happily ever after.

Because, ultimately everyone has different ideas of what happy looks like.

Some people want to get married because that’s what would make them happy, and for some marriage would achieve the opposite. It’s the same case with having children. Or what job you wanna have.

I mean really, there is soooo many different ideas of what happy looks like.

So why limit yourself and more importantly your audience/readers????

I mean think about it like this. The purpose of a main character is basically to give us a point of view of the story through which we can be influenced. That’s why a lot of the time they don’t really have distinct personality traits - so that the reader can project their own onto them. That way the reader/audience member is able to immerse themselves in the story. We are allowed to image that the main character is us. That’s why we get angry when they do something we don’t like, our first thought is - “well, I wouldn’t have done that...”. So image how disconnected you would feel, from a character who makes a big decision that you don’t agree with. Like say, getting married, when you yourself can’t imagine yourself getting married??? Or say, getting married to someone who you yourself wouldn’t want to get married to???

I think that’s the real issues in case of Naruhina and Sasusake. The majority of us - who are clearly of sound minds - would not want to marry Hinata, Sakura, or even Naruto and Sasuke. Most likely because their characters often times feel like caricatures of people, instead of real life people. They feel somehow unfinished, and so we have a harder time seing the bigger picture, and how these big decisions they have made are supposed to make sense.

Okay, I feel like I’ve rambled enough. I leave you with this -

I don’t mean to offend anyone with this post, and so I hope I haven’t/didn’t/won’t. I’m truly just stating my opinion here. If you don’t agree with anything I’ve said here, please do let me know; I’ll always appreciate constructive criticism.

I will always love Naruto. But in order to truly love something you have to also recognise it as flawed. And this was simply me pointing out some of the things which I perceive as flaws of the show/manga.

Please, don’t think of this post, or any others which I might make in the future, as hate posts. As I’ve said, I do love the show/manga - but that doesn’t make me unwilling to crique it.

Alrighty, this is where I actually end the rant.

Thanks for coming y’all,

Love,

Danny

[badbookreviewclub]

Empress Theresa, Chapter 1

(This is a direct transcription of my tweets, so I apologize if it gets choppy at times) DISCLAIMER: Please read the preface before you continue on!  PAGE 1   This is a terrible start to the book. There's nothing here to gain the interest of the reader nor is there anything that could potentially give you a clue to who Theresa is. You get who her parents are, but nothing about her parents (e.g. If they're important people) "I was the Princess in the Sullivan clan of Framingham, Massachusetts because besides being cute I was a whiz in school and had a good disposition." This sentence makes me die inside every time I re-read it. What does it even mean to have a 'good disposition'? This is the first time I've ever read someone describing themselves as having a 'good disposition'. "All the relatives expected great things from me." And then not even a paragraph later it says; "Nobody could have dreamed of what I would do a few years later, and nobody would have believed it if they'd been told." This is a conflicting message here, Theresa. Did they expect great things from you or did nobody expect you to do anything big? "Prime Minister Blair said I'd still be remembered in a million years." Okay, so we know that you're doing something big now, but you just introduced a character who we don't know. At all. What's the context behind all of this? What kind of person is Prime Minister Blair? "Did you catch that?" Yes, I fucking caught that. You literally just said it. "Churchill, Hitler, and Lincoln..." I don't like the way that these are ordered. It's alphabetical, but going in historical context would sound nicer in my opinion. "Lincoln, Hitler, Churchill..." That's not even counting that she just compared herself to being greater than Hitler. There are so many other people who are better that could have been brought up here and not someone who committed mass genocide and traumatized humanity. Directly after that, Charles Martel is brought up in a long paragraph that sounds like someone who just watched a documentary and is eager to share everything they just learned with their friends who could not give less of a shit. It's pointless to have it there and adds nothing. "...but Prime Minister Blair said I'd be remembered for a million years." You said that not even a paragraph ago. I didn't forget, I promise. I may have the attention span of a peanut, but my short-term memory isn't completely dead. Though my last few brain cells may be dead after I finish all 465 pages of this monster. "I was the last person you'd expect to earn this accolade." Contradicting to what you said earlier of all your relatives expecting big things of you. Not to mention, I don't know who you or anyone else is yet Theresa. I can't fucking say if you would be the last person expected "When this story began I was a little girl who didn't have much of a clue about anything." Why not start the story here? It's far better than that big ramble you just had. This is far more interesting than "I'm Theresa, the younger daughter of blah blah blah." "My job as a kid was to figure out what the heck was going on and what to do about it. It's not easy when you're young and everything is brand new." No shit honey. Except the thing is, life is so much easier when you're younger. you don't have to worry about taxes. Or your employer forgetting to mail you your W-2. Or if your employer does mail you your W-2 but your mail-lady delivers it to the wrong house so some random person has your W-2 and social security number now. You don't have to worry about that as a kid. Life as a kid is easy. ide note: The text in this book is fucking huge. Like it was written so children could easily read it. PAGE 2 The way the first paragraph on this page starts out is jarring and throws the reader out of any flow that may have been there before (There wasn't one there before, but I digress). It then is quickly followed by her father making a comment to her about being the captain of her ship, without actually being a quote from him. It would have been more interesting if it was a direct quote from her father rather than just a passive memory with how she phrases it. What is says is, "He said I had to be the captain of my ship, but sometimes the seas would be rough." Which is poor phrasing in my opinion. There are far better ways to phrase this that give some more character and depth to the relationship between Theresa and her father. A better way to phrase it would be; "He said 'You have to be the captain of your own ship. Sometimes the seas will be rough, but you need to keep pushing through it until you find smooth seas again.'" However, it's not phrased like this or anything remotely close to this. It's then followed very quickly by saying "I had to learn all I could about the world." How does this relate to what your father told you in any way shape or form? I am so confused and feel like what your father told you was completely disregarded or misinterpreted. "I wondered why should I be worrying about it in the fourth grade? I'd soon find out." My Grammarly is kicking in and telling me that 'worrying' is used wrong here. This is a direct quote from the book, and I have to agree. Once again, this relates nothing to what was just said. I want to scratch this entire page out so far, but I've refrained from doing so. Then we come to the first paragraph I have completely scribbled out. I hate it so much. It is a shit paragraph in every way humanly possible. It relates nothing to the first sentence and could completely be ignored and taken out of the book without changing anything. “Everybody has pressures. There are two kinds. One is threats to your life and health. I had more than my share of that with a thousand assassins wanting to get me. The other kind is bearing responsibility for other people's lives and welfare. That's really tough if you care...  ...about them. I set new world records in that department. People were sure I'd crack under the pressure, but I didn't. It will take smarter heads than mine to figure out why not." There is so much I want to say about this paragraph that I can't express in words, just guttural, angry screams. I scribbled it out for a reason and that reason still stands true. It is complete and utter shit. Side note: "It will take smarter heads than mine to figure out why not." Thank you for the reassurance that you're a dumb shit, Theresa. I needed it. "I'll be telling my own story which is a good thing because nobody knows it as well as me." We are already all well aware this is an 'autobiography' at this point, Theresa. There's no need for you to tell us that. The fucking point of an autobiography is to tell your own story. More scribbled out sentences about her saying that there's stuff she can't know because she wasn't there. Then she comments on a conversation between Prime Minister Blair (who we still know nothing about) and President Stinson (a new character who we also know nothing about) and how they were talking to each other on the phone. Theresa then assumes that P.M. Blair and President Stinson were talking about how they would stop her if she got out of control. How pig-headed can she get? Not everything is about you. The entire world doesn't revolve around you, bitch. Except, oh wait, in this book, it does! Another scribbled out section I scribbled out so horribly I can barely read it. I will do my best to write it down here so you can suffer with me. "But remember you'll learn things in the same sequence I did. Somebody else telling my story could only say what I did... ... in the world. They couldn't get in my head like you will. You'll see what a horrible, worldwide mess I had to deal with." Ah. I remember why I scribbled it out so badly now. Because it's garbage. Even more so than the first paragraph that I tried to destroy. She's just repeating the fact that this is a fucking autobiography. I've read good autobiographies, where you actually get into the author's mind. So far, this shit isn't it. "My story began quietly with no hint of what was coming." All of that before was pointless. And I will tell you now, most of the details that come after are pointless. This book refuses to be clear and concise, which is a good thing a good majority of the time. The book started terribly and wrote the whole tone for the first few pages, and so far, I'm more upset than when I started. Sidenote #2: After this I'll try to do Chapters in these tweet chains, mentioning (for the most part) the stuff that stands out the most to me. Unless I run into a page that is truly the worst thing ever. The Rest of Chapter 1  Starting on page 3 Starting off strong, I scribbled out the entire first paragraph because it's all terrible. It's Theresa describing her older sister who has absolutely no importance to the story whatsoever and then stroking her own ego by boasting about how... ...she's a whiz in school and her sister isn't. "She's thinking of going to one of the many trade schools in Boston after high school Mom and Dad said I should go to college." These two really don't share any correlation to each other besides being education after highschool. Not to mention, I think Norman, the author, is strongly trying to suggest that trade school isn't nearly as good as university or college when that couldn't be less true. Trade school is just as valid as a university or a college. You gain new skills and can enter a career far... ...quicker than you could at a 4-year university and then some if you're going for a Masters or P.H.d. in your chosen field. Also, I really hate Twitter's character limit. It's fucking stupid and makes these reviews hard as hell to write out. Theresa drags things out more, shares a story that seems currently irrelevant about her mother seeing a fox that came and sat in front of her six months before she was born. (Keep this in mind. Six months before Theresa was born). Theresa even says that this strange... ...event seemed unimportant and that her parents forgot about it for 18 years. Fuck, if something like that happened to me, I'd forget about it too. I certainly wouldn't remember it 18 years later. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast last week. And then more than halfway down the page, Norman finally starts the fucking story. Theresa's doing some summer reading for school when she sees a fox walking along the edge of the woods. The fox ducks into the woods before walking back out, which is completely... ... irrelevant and yet for some reason, Norman felt it was important to include despite the fact it adds nothing and just feels like lazy writing and editing. Speaking of editing, I am dead convinced that Norman didn't have an editor for this book or even look over a chapter... ...after he wrote it. "In an instant, faster than you could blink an eye, a softball sized white light emerged from the fox and went straight into my stomach." Besides being poorly written, keep in mind the fact that she just said it was in the blink of an eye. Theresa goes inside and has a pointless as fuck conversation with her older sister about seeing the fox. Rather than like any rational person who might glance outside to look because apparently seeing "Foxes in the daylight never happens" as Norman puts it, she just says that... ... the fox won't hurt her before going back to the living room never to be mentioned again for another 12 pages or so. Theresa assumes that because she hasn't eaten yet she's hallucinating or having a vivid daydream, so she goes to eat and we get an unnecessary description of... ..what she makes. We also get this gem of a line; "At age ten I was already conscious of my weight and tried to stay skinny." There is so much wrong with this that I can't even put it into words. So. So. So much. Specifically the 'at age ten' part too. More weird phrasing and poor writing later and Theresa determines that yes, it must have been that she hadn't eaten anything because after eating she feels less worried about it. Then there's a HUGE fucking heat spike according to Norman. Enough so that the firemen have to get involved to see what the fuck is up. Theresa somehow has this meta-knowledge that this has to do with the white light that jumped into her stomach. Long story short, someone called the firemen because the heat spiked up so massively and they thought it might be a fire without going outside or looking around to see if it actually was a fire. We get an absurdly long and very dull section about how the firemen started poking around trying to figure out if it was underground or not, which is completely unnecessary and adds nothing to the story in my opinion. I have scribbled it all out because it's all shit. Then we get another fucking gem that Norman uses a total of one time and never brings up ever again. It gave me an idea that would have made this book far more interesting than it ended up being, but it's never mentioned again. Its sole purpose for existing was to give Norman... ... an excuse as to why Theresa didn't talk to anyone. "My Cousin Mary was diagnosed a schizophrenic and the whole Sullivan clan was biting their nails waiting for the gene to show up in some other family member. It wasn't going to be me! I resolved to never tell anybody... ... Not even my parents would know. They'd think I was ill like Cousin Mary. I didn't need it." This alone caused me so much anger I put down the book and didn't pick it up again for a good couple of hours. I honestly don't feel like I need to explain why this is so terrible. But as for the idea it gave me, the book could be far better if it turned out that Theresa was schizophrenic. That this was all a hallucination. It would explain a lot of her actions later on in the book, especially when she experiences extreme paranoia. Well, Norman doesn't call it paranoia. It's just Theresa being 'super smart and know just what's up'. We learn shortly after that there are government officials who turned up to watch 'someone' (spoilers: It's Theresa). Somehow everyone knows they're officials despite... ... never approaching them and instead trusting the word of a neighbor who said the police approached them, were shown badges by these officials, and then the police left them alone afterward. Theresa somehow knows that these people are here to watch her and for some reason... ... she calls the operator to see if they're spying on her or have her phones tapped. I guess this is just supposed to be common knowledge that if you call the operator and ask them for a number and if there's a delay they then you're being spied on? After all, it's not like the operator is human and they take time to look up numbers and whatnot. But this time around there's not a delay so Theresa concludes that they aren't listening to her. Not sure how this makes sense, but okay. Theresa and her mom decide to go shopping and Theresa spends the entire time thinking that men are following her everywhere. Despite the fact that it's a public space and they're different men. The first instance is at the parking garage, where someone parked close to them... ... and then followed them to the surface. Then they go to a very popular and big brand book store, Barnes and Noble, and Theresa sees a different man who she thinks is watching her as well. She goes to the second floor by herself because I guess her mom is okay with that. When I was ten, my mom wouldn't let me wander over to the next aisle to look at stuff no matter how much I insisted. So you know, not judging her mother's parenting skills, but I'm lowkey judging her mother's parenting skills. After that they go to McDonalds and another man gets in line behind them and leaves around the same time they do. Theresa thinks that this man is also following her. And then, a man who was on the corner started walking in their direction. For some reason, Theresa thinks all... ... these people are spying on her. Which is total bullshit in all honesty and is incredibly paranoid behavior. However, Norman doesn't write it that way and instead writes it as Theresa just knowing what the fuck is up. When she gets home, Theresa calls the operator again and this time, instead of taking half a minute to get the number, the operator takes a minute. Please tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty certain that doesn't mean that someone has tapped your phone. Aside from that, I've also started to realize just how much Norman really likes to be as precise as he can be with his numbers and it's super fucking annoying to read and I wish that I didn't have to read it. But I am. Blah, Blah, Blah, more boring stuff and then Theresa goes to a movie story with her mom. She gets 2001: A Space Odyssey and apparently that's super, super fucking important because that's how the officials know that Theresa has an alien inside of her. I don't see the... ... correlation but you know what, maybe it's just me who's a dumb shit and Norman was right all along. Besides that, the movie is also super important because Theresa names that white ball of light that flew into her that she dismissed because she thought she was hungry. However, that's just something Norman seems to have conveniently forgotten right now and Theresa has just accepted the fact that it really did happen. "Mom did most of the grocery shopping on Saturday and I usually went with her because Catherine wandered off with her friends." Someone, please tell me how the first part really relates to the second part because I can't make sense of how your sister not going... ... to hang out with her friends would keep you from going with your mom to go grocery shopping. Especially when there's a seven-year difference between you two. One of the gov't officials approaches Theresa when she's alone in the cereal aisle (once again, judging her mother's skills as a parent), and tells her to call her when she's alone. That seems vaguely pedophilic to me, but that might just be me. Either way, Theresa somehow knows that this woman is working for the officials who are watching her. We get another paragraph of a line; "The woman knew that I knew about my watchers. I had often stared at them. So this woman also knew I had to think she was one of them and I... ... had to be curious enough to talk to her." This is so convoluted and overthought. I hate it in every way shape and form. It's so damn repetitive and gets repeated several times throughout the next few paragraphs. But I digress. Theresa goes home and goes to her room and pulls out her cellphone and calls the woman. We found out her name is Jan and we get the most boring conversation in the history of conversations. Yet for some reason, Norman has the audacity to say that... ... it is the most important interview since Moses came down from the mountains. I don't read the Bible, but as far as I'm aware, Moses was never interviewed after he came down with the 10 commandments. Correct me if I'm wrong. Theresa describes the white ball of light in so much detail that you realize, there's no fucking way she could have been able to see all of it if it was "faster the blink of an eye." So I guess Norman conveniently overlooked that part.1 Theresa says she named the white ball of light HAL from the movie. I don't see why, but she did. More boring as fuck conversation giving us the information we already know. We know that the woman's name is Jan now. Jan tells Theresa that they're always watching and listening... ... to her. After reading this I am under the belief that Jan should never ever be allowed to handle any cases dealing with children ever again because she uses so many fear tactics that would absolutely terrify a child. Jan also tells Theresa that she can't talk to anybody or tell anyone about HAL. I don't know about you all, but when I was younger, and someone told me not to tell anybody about something that involved me, I really wanted to tell someone about that thing. More boring as shit exposition that's poorly written and then we jump forward a few days. This is where my suspicions about Norman loving being super precise with numbers were confirmed. He also goes into way too much detail about gardening and weed pulling. Anyways, this is where we learn that Theresa has an aimbot basically. She woke up with a small orange dot in the center of her vision and automatically assumed it had something to with HAL. But she learns it's an aimbot because she can throw rocks and hit a watering can no... ...matter how far away she is from it. She then says it has no use, but I think Norman means that it has no practical use. It has plenty of uses, just not many can be applied to everyday life. Pretty quickly after Theresa finds out she has an aimbot she wants to play baseball with a neighbor boy so she goes to his house and talks to his mom asking to play with him. Except Norman doesn't write 'his mom', no, Norman writes 'The mother.' The Mother. The one true mother of all mothers. The queen of mothers. The mother that all mothers descended from. She is THE Mother. Aside from calling her 'The Mother' over and over again, Theresa tosses the baseball back and forth and doesn't miss no matter what. She comments constantly on how bad Tommy (the neighbor kid) is at this. Eventually Tommy's dad (referred to as 'The dad')... The Dad. The one true dad. The one Dad to rule them all. The Dad that all Dad's descend from. He is the ultimate Dad. He is THE Dad. ... comes out and takes over for Tommy, playing baseball with Theresa. I don't know why, but this came off the wrong way when I was reading it and just didn't seem right. Norman becomes even more repetitive in his writing, "This was August and it was very hot. "Let's call it quits, Theresa" the father said. "It's getting hot."" More shit I scribbled out because it's fucking horrible. Basically so you don't have to live through the same hell I did, I'll summarize even more. Theresa gets super strength because of HAL. She knows this because she broke a steak sauce bottle white trying to open it... ... because she was eating a steak for lunch. Because ten-year-olds can cook steaks for lunch. When I was ten I could barely fucking cook macaroni and cheese for myself. This is all boring as shit but the super-strength makes Theresa want to go and talk to her priest. Father Richard, who is also referred to as Father Donoughty later on (which make me think of the name Father Dick Doughnut ngl). Anyways, Theresa doesn't think her mother could just ask Father Richard about what she didn't want to talk to her about, thinking that priests... ... are bound to secrecy. I don't think they are but I'm not religious so how the fuck would I know. Anyways, Theresa shows she has super strength and blatantly states that the priest probably thought she was possessed by a demon but after going out to talk to Jan he believes... ... otherwise. And with that conversation between Father Dick Doughnut, we get the worst dialogue of all time. So you can suffer with me this time, I'm typing it all out. "These men don't know everything. Only I do. What did Theresa say?" (Jan) "I'm not at liberty to say." (Father Dick) "It's not the usual stuff?" "It isn't." "It's critical you can tell no one. Theresa will be the first to suffer. People will come after her. They'll kidnap her, kill her, or worse." "Who are you?" "I work for the American government" "How many of you are there?" "Hundreds" "That's a lot of people." "Do you understand how important this is?" “I'm beginning to." First of all, boring as fuck. Second, what is worse than being killed? You're fucking dead. I don't think much can actually top that. Third, I don't know if he's asking how many are watching Theresa or how many are working for the gov't. Either way, stupid question. After that absolutely immersive conversation, Father Dick Doughnut says he needs to call the cardinal to have them come watch Theresa. This seems really extreme in my opinion. As far as I was aware, a cardinal has far more to take care of than one little girl... ...at one church in a town that I don't think is that big. Even a bishop probably wouldn't spend their time focusing on that and they're two steps down from a cardinal. But no, Theresa is just too fucking important. Why not just have the Pope get involved now? Or is that... ...too much for you to handle Norman? Ugh. This entire chapter just fucking sucks and it's only the first chapter. Blah, Blah, Blah, Theresa's story about an alien being inside of her is confirmed because Jan said so and she works for the 'government'. Then we get a huge fucking jump over her fifth-grade year where Theresa gets to jump from fifth grade to seventh grade because her hair started to grow in thick thanks to HAL. Apparently, this is a sign of her 'emotional maturity'. I don't see the correlation. At all. At the very end of the chapter Theresa makes the claim that there are "four hundred" people watching her and that's how many people it takes to watch someone 24/7 without being caught. That seems like bullshit to me. In fact, that seems like the fastest way to get caught. It takes maybe 4 to 8 people at most in my opinion to watch someone day and night. But no. Theresa is just too fucking important for only 4-8 people. She needs 400. I forgot to mention earlier, but only the high ranking officials know about why Theresa is being watched. As far as I'm aware, there are only about 20 high ranking officials who know why Theresa is being watched. That leaves 380 people who have no fucking clue just what the hell is going on or why they're watching an 11-year-old girl. That's absolutely absurd. Something I forgot to mention earlier is that Jan claims something came from space 7 years ago and they lost track of it. She assumes that thing is HAL. Keep that in mind 7 years ago. But the fox that Theresa's mother saw was almost 11 years ago. And the fox is what gave... ... Theresa that ball of light. Norman loves to be precise with numbers, but he can't even keep his own fucking storyline straight. This book is hell. But I will keep reading because I apparently love to torture myself.

[sometimesrosy]

U have advantage that ur a writer and also have a degree. But there r other people in the fandom who r writers with a degree. That girl erin from met station. I think she also lost hope

I have an advantage because I have degrees and decades of experience and an understanding of the discipline, so i can sometimes go deeper than others, or pull on extra-narrative knowledge, but understanding a story is not some esoteric, elite skill that only people with degrees can do.

A story, whether book or movie or tv show, is laid out for you. All right there on the page or screen. We all have access to the same canon facts. And as it’s a tv show, not some academic, high-literature experiment with post modernism or something, most of the interpretation of The 100 is pretty basic. I found season 3 to be the most ambitious and complex, but they pulled back after that. 

I don’t believe you need a degree or to be a writer or an english major or a teacher or in hollywood to understand what’s going on in the show. All you have to do is make sure that your own personal opinions, desires and fears aren’t taking over your interpretation and confusing what’s happening in canon.

And I don’t believe HAVING a degree makes you more able to do that. Unfortunately, erin, while a professor, has a hard time separating what she WANTS to happen from what IS happening on the screen. She has a tendency to decide what the meaning is (for whatever reason) and not allow any question about it into the equation. Whether she decides her interpretation through analysis, shipping, or the “correct” pc position, is irrelevant. She won’t allow anyone to question it, or have an alternate interpretation. She told me, personally, that I wasn’t allowed to have my own interpretation of Polis, or understand authorial intent, because SHE understood authorial intent, and I was wrong. I was also immoral for my interpretation. 

And as a lowly public high school teacher, I can tell you, EVERYONE has a right to their interpretation, especially if they show you where they got it from in the text. In fact, that’s what I taught. Come up with a hypothesis, defend it with evidence from the text, come to a conclusion of what it means. This is SIMPLE analysis, and anyone who pays attention to the canon can do this. If ANYONE tells you that you have no right to your analysis, they are untrustworthy, because they are trying to dominate the conversation, silence you, and keep you from thinking on your own. That a TEACHER would tell someone that they were NOT ALLOWED to interpret a work of fiction differently from their interpretation offends me as a pedagogue. It’s our job to teach students how to understand, analyze and think. It is not our job to teach students our dogma and to follow only our interpretations.

As it turned out, erin was wrong in her interpretation. And not only did the narrative prove me right, but so did the writers, as my interpretation was confirmed and hers was debunked, no matter how she said only she was allowed to interpret the story. But it’s not really ABOUT the interpretation. It’s about a refusal to question her own interpretations, because she’s the authority and believes she’s right and anyone who disagrees with her is felt to attack her identity. 

Erin lost faith because the story did not turn out like she thought it would, and the only explanation she can come up with for that is that the story is wrong and JR is a bad writer, and he hates Bellarke, and she’s been betrayed. So, at this point, you can see that not only does she think other people are not allowed to have different interpretations from hers, she also doesn’t think the WRITERS are allowed to have a different story than the one she has declared is happening. 

Instead of going back and seeing how she got it wrong when canon didn’t do what she thought it should, where her interpretation was off, and how she could better understand the body of work that he was analyzing, she declared the body of work wrong, bad and inferior. So that her interpretation could remain. She demanded the story follow HER story, not the creators’. This is actually a pretty common thing in fandom and you can see it all over, like when fanboys decide that star trek has gotten too political, despite the fact that star trek was EXPLICITLY political all the way back in the pilot episode. THEY don’t want to see it as political, so they erase the story being told, and say canon now is WRONG, because it doesn’t match their experience and interpretation and what they valued from the canon in the first place. 

IMO, as a teacher or as an academic or as a writer or whatever, we should always double check our own ideas about the facts/canon. Make sure we are staying true to the facts/canon, make sure our own biases aren’t coloring our interpretations to the point of ignoring canon. We all have biases. There’s no way to avoid them, but there is a way to get past them, and that’s double checking your opinions and how you came to them. Asking yourself, “if i see it a different way, do I come up with a different interpretation, and if I do, is that interpretation more valid than my original interpretation?” Look at your canon with different perspectives. “If lxa is a hero, what is happening here?” “what would this story look like if Clarke were the hero vs if Lxa were The Hero and which seems to be the story?” “if clarke is in a dark pscyhological story, how would it change the meaning?” “Does the story make more sense if Bellamy is the villain or Bellamy is struggling with his own darkness to do the right thing and become the hero?” “If I was wrong about Lxa being the hero and Bellamy being the villain, then what did I miss, and if I take that into consideration now, how will my interpretation change?” Please note, i’m only talking about interpretations from s3 right here. Erin never did this. She simply went, “Well JR is a bad writer who told the story wrong, nobody understood it.” And I would like to say, no they didn’t tell the story wrong, they didn’t tell HER story. 

And this attitude continued into season 5 where she believed that Bellarke was not romantic, and ignored all the canon evidence for a romantic story of Clarke and Bellamy having romantic feelings for each other including the word “love” and canonical on screen jealousy, being called his girlfriend, comparisons to canon love relationships, and a narrative focus on Clarke and Bellamy, their relationship, their feelings for each other, and their reunion, rather than the “canon” relationship of B/E. She believed Bellarke wasn’t happening so she ignored all evidence to the contrary, because it contradicted her theory.

SO. When she got “inside information” from someone who said that the writer’s room used to argue all the time about whether or not to do romantic Bellarke and they didn’t argue anymore, she interpreted that to fit with her theory that Bellarke was NOT happening at all. She suffers from confirmation bias. When she hears evidence, she only hears the evidence that confirms her bias, she ignores totally anything that challenges her interpretation.

Because she didn’t see Bellarke in season 5, despite all the canon romantic bellarke and canon love triangle of C/B/E which makes Bellarke a romantic story. When someone said the writers didn’t fight about doing romantic bellarke, she decided it meant they’d chosen not to do bellarke at all and it was platonic. It confirmed her belief that Bellarke was dead.

I hear the same evidence, and because I saw a classic dead-wife-back-from-the-dead love triangle romantic trope, and that means THEY ACTIVELY PURSUED ROMANTIC BELLARKE IN THE WRITERS ROOM, I hear that they’re not arguing anymore, because they’ve already started the romantic bellarke story. There’s no should we or shouldn’t we, because it’s already happening. Bellarke is coming.

HOWEVER. That’s not what happened with Erin. Erin took something told to her in confidence and spread the rumor that Bellarke was dead, and it was confirmed dead, and JR was never doing Bellarke because it was confirmed. Because she said so. Despite, as a professor, knowing that nothing is canon until it is canon. Or I guess she doesn’t know that. I guess she thinks interpretations and rumors are canon. 

I will be honest, I have refrained from talking about her, even though my conflict with her was years ago. I do not believe she understands the story at all. She keeps ending up wrong. And she doesn’t admit it. Instead, she blames JR for doing it wrong, fandom for interpreting it wrong, or me personally for having an interpretation she personally didn’t like so didn’t listen to. :)

But to actively harm fandom by spreading unconfirmed gossip and rumors and saying they meant bellarke was CONFIRMED dead, and using her position and authority as someone who is in the know to destroy people’s enjoyment of a tv show, means that I find her HIGHLY unethical and I blame her, personally, for a lot of the anguish in the fandom.

She’s a professional. She should behave professionally. And she’s not. She’s using her position as a professional to give her interpretations more clout, rather than using the CANON to defend and support her interpretations. 

So if you try to challenge my interpretations, and say “yeah sure you have degrees, but erin has degrees and she thinks bellarke is dead, so your degrees don’t mean anything,” I’m gonna have to tell you. You bet our degrees don’t mean anything. Not mine, or hers.

The only thing that means anything is canon. Stick to the text. Never think that someone’s degree means their interpretation is better than yours. Because degrees don’t support an argument. EVIDENCE DOES.

[jakey-beefed-it]

i have seen some takes in the past couple days with regard to people who criticize The Last Jedi that are... well, maybe they’re not bad, maybe they do apply to some of the most toxic parts of the Star Wars fandom. But they wildly miss why I found it somewhat jarring. I’m gonna do this as calmly and reasonably and diplomatically as I know how, because I know tempers are high on this one.

A short summary of my problems with TLJ:

1.) Not enough Finn. I can be charitable and not speculate as to why they sidelined him, but as a critical part of the first movie in the trilogy, his role felt greatly reduced in this movie and I feel like it hurt the film overall and was disappointing to everyone who, like me, have a lot invested in Finn and his story. Biggest issue: when will Finn’s agency return from war.

2.) Character regression for Luke. The man who threw away his lightsaber rather than continue to fight his father, rather than give in to the (righteous!) anger within and ‘strike [the Empreor] down’. We can argue all day about whether the extremely pacifistic morality implied there is what the Light Side should be, but it’s certainly what Luke decided was the correct moral path. At the beginning of RotJ, Luke’s force-choking gammoreans and dressing like his dad, okay, sure. But by the end? He’s come around entirely.

While people in real life regularly take two steps forward and one step back in their moral development (and that’s if they’re trying to be better), these films are not real life. They’re mythology; practically allegory. To have Luke regress so far to even consider striking down an unarmed student while he’s asleep is huge whiplash for me. Ostensibly somebody could make a big long series set in Luke’s Jedi school and that might somewhat rehabilitate my opinion if it showed Luke struggling to find his way- in much the way that the Clone Wars show gave me lots of Feels(TM) about the prequels that I hadn’t previously had -but for now, there’s just this huge gulf between point A- Luke would rather die than kill his father, or even strike down the biggest cackling madman in the entire fuckening galaxy -and Point B -Luke strongly considering killing his own nephew in his sleep. Whiplash.

3.) Poe’s arc felt like it was written for a different character. Is there a need to show the typical hotshot macho braggart character taken down a peg in sci-fi stories? You bet. Is Poe any of those things besides hotshot? He really isn’t. You could show him becoming a better leader without resorting to having his effectively mother figure literally slap him. If nothing else, guys, I know that humans in a galaxy far far away are ostensibly not racist, but your audience has to deal with the cultural baggage from our society. Watching him get slapped felt like a punch right in my half-Mexican guts, and I love the hell out of Leia and Carrie Fisher. 

4.) Laura Dern’s character had no reason to keep her big secret. A fucking handwave would’ve satisfied me- a line like ‘I was concerned we were being monitored and so actually saying the plan out loud would’ve been disastrous; sorry Captain Dameron.” As-is, the story makes it seem like she kept her plan to herself out of... whimsy? Because she felt like Poe needed a lesson in trusting officers he’s not worked with closely? You’re a resistance leader, not a five-star admiral in the Republic navy- you can’t just expect the ‘ragtag band of rebels’ to follow you because of military hierarchy. People need reasons to trust, dammit.

5.) The ‘btw the real villain of the series is arms dealers’ side-plot was, imo, misplaced in a major film. These films are, as I said above, mythology. Could a Star Wars series tackle the issues of war profiteering? Absolutely. It could be great! I’d watch it. Should a tentpole Star Wars movie dip into that stuff when there’s Epic Tales of Good versus Evil Both in the Galaxy and in Ourselves to be told? Not in my opinion. Whatever your opinion about the entire arc on Canto Bight, (I’m not a big fan, but you might be) and how it was handled, I feel like it shouldn’t have been in the movie at all. Any major Star Wars movie.

6.) Misuse of the Tico sisters. Either let us have a little longer to get attached to Paige so that her heroic sacrifice carries more punch, or at least let Rose focus on her emotional trauma a bit more. I’d have been a lot happier with the romance subplot if it had made more sense for Rose, but she went from ‘oh god my sister is dead’ to ‘ooh wow a hero’ to ‘oh no; never meet your heroes’ to ‘i like this boy and want to kiss him’ in entirely too short a time. Have the film start off after a time skip; Finn has been working with the mechanics a bit since he’s a highly-trained soldier who knows all the technical details of First Order stuff, he and Rose are friends and Rose maybe has a crush to begin with, then Paige dies and that becomes her emotional arc for the movie- dealing with that loss. By the time she has the wherewithal to realize she loves him, he can either return her feelings or not depending on where they want to go in Episode IX. 

7.) Given that their relationship (platonic or romantic as you interpret it) was the entire heart of TFA, having Finn and Rey separated for the entire movie was just hard to deal with, and not in a good way. More in the ‘where’s the heart of this movie?’ sort of way. Still trying to answer that question.

Also, you will pry Force-Sensitive Finn from my cold dead hands and as a result I would have done unspeakable things to see him get trained alongside Rey. But that’s less a legit beef with the movie and more something I fervently would like to have seen. 

I have other personal taste complaints as well (why the boob-monster? why so much focus on Kylo only to double down on what an irredeemable jerk he is at the end? why completely abandon all the interesting plot threads from TFA? I liked those plot threads! I had fun speculating! why make them all irrelevant? sheesh!) but they’re pretty clearly matters of personal taste and so I will refrain from going on and on about them.

Anyhow yeah; I even enjoyed the film and have seen it twice now, but my initial misgivings have only grown. Especially the Luke business By no means am I of the opinion that it’s the worst character assassination in Star Wars canon (*cough* Padme *cough*) but I still find it really jarring. 

Blargh. No doubt I’ll get people jumping into my inbox to tell me that I’m dead wrong in that I dare not entirely love it because it’s the Best Thing, or that I’m entirely too easy on it because it’s the Worst Thing. So I’m gonna take a shower and then head out to the Warhammer store rather than sit around reading messages all day. 

[alltechtipstricks]

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[thisishowyouletgoandfindyou-blog]

Men Don’t Leave This Kind of Woman.

Via

Monika Carless

on Aug 3, 2015

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“Find a woman who makes you feel more alive. She won’t make life perfect, but she’ll make it infinitely more interesting. And then love her with all that’s in you.” ~ Gayle G. Roper

A long time ago, when I was still new to the world of men, I heard someone say that men don’t leave their wives for a sexier woman—they leave them for a more interesting one.

It’s true, that is a rather broad generalization. It’s true that men do leave their wives or partners for younger and possibly more attractive (to them) women. It’s true, love can dwindle.

As I grew into a woman, and life presented more opportunity for observation, experience and introspection, I came to believe that men, indeed, are attracted to interesting women.

I am more convinced now that a man would leave his partner for someone more interesting over someone more physically attractive, because life has taught me about the complexity of men.

The more I learned about myself as a female, the more I came to see that men truly are creatures of depth. Male and female often reflect each other’s qualities, so it’s not that surprising. Men are “accomplishers,” and I have observed them long enough to see that they like women who are motivated by their own passions.

You see, life well-lived is inspiring. Life well-lived promotes an inquisitiveness about the one doing the living.

Men are curious. They like to track down and hunt a female that leaves a scent of self-worth.

Here are a few things I have learned from men about what makes a woman interesting:

~

1. A woman who knows her own mind and is not afraid to speak it.

Long gone are the days when women were cautioned to keep their smarts under wraps. Conversation no longer need revolve about what a man has accomplished or knows to the exclusion of their date. Any man worth keeping will be dying to hear our thoughts.

I’ll qualify this with an oft-repeated sentiment that women who are elegant in the delivery of their wisdom are much easier to learn from. Shrill, sarcastic conversation is not the kind we’re looking for here. Honest, open discussions are the basis of strong foundations between male and female.

Lure a man to your intellectual gifts with a softness that complements the complexity of your mind. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a strong mind is sexy and can drive a man to his knees. I’ll refrain from elaborating, but you get the visual, I’m sure.

“Of course, I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.” ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2. A woman who is comfortable in her own skin.

A woman who knows who she is and owns it.

You’ve worked hard to develop your best self. Don’t be afraid to claim your own power. We’re not flaunting anything here, ladies—not trying to one up a man; there is no reason to.

Confidence is not the same thing as cockiness. Confidence does not shout about itself, it simply exudes its essence in a quiet way.

Your unique personality and accomplishments will speak for themselves, they will come through in the way you carry yourself, in the way you listen to a man. Trust me, men adore women who share from the heart and who listen with it, too.

Although men like healthy competition in many areas of their lives, it’s not much fun to have to side-step a postulating female who is determined to prove she is equal. Show him your truth. Honor his. And leave it at that.

3. A woman who cultivates her own interests.

My partner and I are not two peas in a pod. He is an accomplished sportsman… Me, not so much. Our taste in music varies widely, we rarely travel together, and yet, we have a tight bond as lovers and friends.

Why?

He knows that I am going to walk my own path no matter how much I need to be with him. Whether we match interests or not is irrelevant. What we are, though, is committed to supporting each other in our separate ventures.

It is a deep compliment to hear a man say that you and your ideas or pursuits interest him.

Engage a man’s mind and pique his curiosity about you and he will eat the crumbs off your proverbial table.

Sure there are many days when I want to do nothing but sit at his feet and forget everything I love to do otherwise. Mix it up a bit. Stay curious about what moves him and move him with your mystery.

“The enemy of love is never outside, it’s not a man or a woman, it’s what we lack in ourselves.” ~ Anais Nin

4. A woman who can take a compliment and give one.

I had a friend who was perennially shy at receiving compliments. She was wildly attractive. She was quirky. She was smart. She never accepted a compliment and her boyfriends (more than one, notice) never understood why she squirmed whenever they voiced their admiration.

She was all that, but did not believe it herself. Men like to give compliments more than flowers. They are looking for that joyful smile when they tell you what they see in you. It’s frustrating to give a gift that is returned time and time again.

So if you’re going to be interesting as hell, bask in the recognition. Give him that signal that you know your own strengths and are not embarrassed to show them.

While you’re at it, remember that men are not all tough skin. I’ve not met a man yet who did not like to be complimented. As long as it’s sincere, it will keep him appreciating your willingness to be vulnerable and share why he rocks your world.

5. A woman who takes care of herself.

I mean this in every sense. When we divide ourselves into sections, deeming one part more worthy of our attention than the other, we lose the delicate balance of what it means to be human. We are indeed flesh and blood, and while we may have been told for centuries that our looks are not important, I argue that it’s not so.

I’ve been observing two women. They are both gifted with a natural beauty.

Both work hard at their jobs. One takes the time to preserve her fitness, she shops for herself when she buys clothes for her family, and in general looks after her appearance.

The other is determined to show that appearance does not matter, only her spiritual and emotional condition.

It’s not for a lack of money that the one chooses to grace her husband’s presence with her most frazzled self. It’s not for lack of time. It’s not for lack of not knowing what to do. It’s her determination to have her partner say that looks don’t matter. Her attitude is bent on proving that he will love her no matter what.

And he will love her no matter what, but he has lost interest altogether.

She complains that he looks at other women. He admits that he wonders what it is that keeps some women trying. He has admitted to having lost interest.

Every part of you is important to a man. Every part of you is essential—the part that keeps his heart, the part that keeps his mind and the part that keeps him wanting to rip your clothes off.

I’m not saying that you must be in heels at the door when he comes home from work, a la June Cleaver.

I’m saying that a man will stay interested in you if you stay interested in yourself.

It’s not true that love and sex wane for all couples. The ones that are keeping it hot in the living room and the bedroom are still interested and interesting.

“It’s one thing to catch a man, Monika, and another to keep him. “ ~ My mother.