#do better barbie script writers

[illeaadante]

devastated to announce that Barbie has done a version of “The Prince and the Pauper” 3 times and it got worse each time.

Like, Princess Adventure is *fine* but it doesn’t have nearly the drama,style, or musical chops of either Princess and the Pauper or Princess and the Pop-star. Truly the Made for TV version.

[abeautifulblog]

thoughts on the Barbie movie

Finally got around to seeing the Barbie movie -- I think some of its messaging could have been clearer, but on the whole it was a lot of fun, and one of the most visually-innovative things I've seen onscreen in ages. So much stuff these days bills itself as "deconstruction," when more often than not it's just a mean-spirited mockery of something the writers don't actually understand. The Barbie movie is deconstruction done right, by people who are deeply in the know about the material (which in this case equals the entire Barbie mythos/ideology), and love it anyway, warts and all. Good deconstruction is both a critique and a love letter.

The theme that the movie understands and communicates most clearly is about the impossible, contradictory directives that are constantly put on women -- "you need to be assertive, but you mustn't be a bitch", etc -- and how unfair it is that half the population isn't given the same respect and the same chance at success. Barbieland flips the script so that the Kens are the empty-headed ornaments while Barbies run the world (which I suspect is what made a lot of men so viscerally uncomfortable with the movie), but that's also eventually recognized to be just as unfair as the Real World where patriarchy reigns.

What's a lot muddier is the messaging around how exactly men participate in the patriarchal oppression of women, and how the patriarchy harms them too. Because patriarchy is a pyramid scheme -- and not all men are on the top of that pyramid, nor can they all be. It convinces men to strive for an unattainable ideal of masculinity (not unlike the unattainable ideal that Barbie represents for femininity, actually!) and then penalizes those who fall short for not being "man enough," and paints it as a personal failing, not one that's baked into the system.

A lot of the gags around Ken Discovers Toxic Masculinity legitimately had me in stitches, because oh my god, too true, but then it didn't really offer any conclusions about it. Granted, this is the Barbie Movie not the Ken Movie, and he already gets more of a character arc than female love interests usually do, so I'm not going to rend my garments all "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MENNNNS??"..... but if you're not going to follow through on toxic masculinity, then maybe better to leave that particular can of worms unopened. There's more than enough for feminism to talk about without it.

Personally, I would have preferred if Ken weren't an antagonist -- if he'd just been the supportive himbo boyfriend who cheerfully follows Barbie on her journey of self-discovery, and backs her every play, and has never had a mean thought in his empty head, which is kind of what the promo materials led me to expect -- but that would have been an entirely different plot. (Possibly one in which Ken encounters the real world and finds that the men there think he should tone down his self-expression (for coming off as too GAY) and be less of a simp for his girlfriend, and he's like, Wow that sounds terrible actually, no thank you!)

In any case, I don't envy the women who are now having uncomfortable conversations with their husbands and boyfriends who got mad about the movie and went on the offensive. Because this is not a movie that softshoes its message to coddle to men's fee-fees -- its male characters are largely mocked and/or marginalized, and I imagine that a lot of men who saw it, and who haven't ever examined their privilege, came out of it feeling personally attacked, and reflexively wanted to attack it in turn and reject everything it's saying.

To which I'm like… y'all need to sit with your feelings for a minute. Remember that one movie taking the piss out of men does not actually make a single dent in the power and privilege that men enjoy in the real world. And then think about the fact that media BY men (which is most of it) routinely treats women the same way -- frivolous and sidelined, ornaments and sex objects. And the fact that we consider that the normal way of things -- that women are expected to watch themselves being portrayed like that and enjoy it.

(A line that I think should have gotten more weight is at the end when Barbie says, "I want to be the one doing the making, not the thing being made," because it's such a clear, straightforward articulation of the subject vs. object distinction.)

Storytelling-wise (to put on my nerd-for-narrative hat), the third act of the movie runs into difficulty with the fact that this is not about human characters, but about anthropomorphized archetypes of femininity and masculinity -- and how do you write a narratively satisfying "ending" for things that don't actually end? And how do you do that within the context of not just a doll world, but the Barbie world, with a gender-unequal status quo that isn't actually going to change either? With the conflicts they set up, I'm not sure there was a wholly satisfactory way to end it.

But anyway, none of that detracted from my enjoyment of the movie -- it's fun, heartfelt, thought-provoking, a continuous source of pleasure and novelty for the eyeballs, and consistently hilarious. Definitely worth the watch.

(And if you want some feminist-themed media that does do a complex exploration of how the patriarchy fucks men over too, even the men who think they're winning at it, I recommend Agent Carter, it is so so good. (The first season, anyway. 😑) There are five notable male characters in it, and the only one having a good time is the one who's declined to buy into society's narrow idea of what constitutes acceptable masculinity.)

[thelittlehansy]

Barbie is Maleficent Bis : pretend te be feminist while putting down orignal Barbie

So i have Watch Barbie. Sadly I hate it 🥲because i adore the actors and the existential crisis of Barbie was very interesting idea ( not really exploit on the movie) . Really I hate that movie. there was plenty reasons that make me hate the movie but the ultimate one : thats basically Mattel version of Maleficent. And I hate maleficent for what it did to sleeping beauty 😂😭

that's a movie that is gonna passed his whole marketing campaign trying to hype you about something beloved from your childhood promising a coherent adult story about that beloved character/story. ( sleeping beauty/Barbie) but once in the cinema : this has nothing to do with the source material when they whole existence is based on. They put adult theme very weird such like Rape and patriarchal society ( wtf) but also they are extremely insulting piece of movie because the Writer that was thinking herself so smart and feminist end up not making any single research about the source material or just not caring and decided to put down original aurora. Original Barbie. Which is the whole contrary of feminism putting down an other women.

( long post and spoiler ) my post is more about discovering the world of orignal Barbie that a review of Barbie.

1- Ken

Ken in the movie is an accessory Not Barbie lover he had no job except beach ?

Yeah like king Stefan who is a loving father for aurora who is gonna want to cancel the wedding because he care for her feeling is gonna be turn into a Monster that don’t give a fuck about aurora….

well i make research 2 second thats actually Fake news !

Ken was always mean to be the PERFECT MEN for WOMEN ! He is sweet but still mainly !! He is cool but not stupid !

Ken is Barbie’s counterpart. He is her double. Her twins in some way. he is NOT an stupid silly extension. and have plenty activity. Kenneth is Barbara Brother in real life.

( exclusive reaction of ryan gosling when he read the script)😂 love that gif

« Kenneth Sean "Ken" Carson is a fashion doll and fictional character introduced by American toy company Mattel in 1961 as the counterpart of Barbie, who was introduced two years earlier Ken was introduced as a male counterpart of Barbie by American toy company Mattel in 1961 » Wiki

So Ken was always mean to be Barbie male version and that’s logically because when we think of Barbie we think immediately of Ken after he is not just Ken that’s only a weird idea of the movie. And little girl playing less with Ken is just the sign that they prefer Barbie because she is a girl not that Ken is a silly little dumb acessories for Barbie.

He was named after Kenneth Handler, Son of Barbie creator/inventor Ruth Handler, just as Barbie was named after her daughter.

like a said before....Sick. really Sick. because the whole moving passed his whole time humiliating Ken. And Ruth is gonna meet Barbie and have a mother-daughter meeting so son are useless I m sure Ruth handler is gonna appreciated ! Lol! love it ! 😍

I found GOLD in wiki that give you a taste of their mind behind that movie : in the movie Ken is said to be only silly jobless dolls and Barbie a super powerful doll because she can all the jobs she want.

All Ken occupation on wiki 😝 ( yeah Ken WORKS just like Barbie ) : Total 76 some examples : Astronaut (clothing pack 1965) Banker (playset 1995[17]) Barista (2019[18]) Baseball player (clothing pack 1991[19]). Basketball player (clothing pack 2021[20])Beach (2023[21]) Boxer (clothing pack 1963[16]) Businessman (clothing pack 1992[22]) Cameraman (playset 1987[23]) Coach (clothing pack 1992[24]) Country Western singer (1999[25]) Cowboy (Venezuela-exclusive Llanero 1989[26]) Dancer (2011[27]) and plenty others Dentist

Ken have occupation just like barbie....the only fake occupation come from the movie..."beach" so there is not any "Ken is jobless and Barbie is better than him" thats a made up fairy tale of the movie that want to belittle men.

II- BARBILAND

Just like the land in maleficent has nothing to do with sleeping beauty same same for Barbie. In the Movie they live on a World where Women hate on men and men after on women not treat them really well. A Matriarchal society. where Ken suffer and Barbie don’t love him.

BARBILAND ORIGINAL WORLD

Barbie's sisters ( all info are found on wiki it’s long I copy the text )

Skipper Roberts (1964–2003, 2009–present): The first character added to Barbie's family, she is Barbie's younger sister. Originally around 8-years-old, she was changed to a 14-year-old later on. After stopping production in 2003, Skipper dolls returned in 2009 with brown hair and a new colored streak (purple or blue) in her hair. She is one of the main characters in Life in the Dreamhouse and its follow-ups, where she is shown to love technology, music and gadgets.

Stacie Roberts (1990–present): Originally introduced as Kelly in the 1990 Wedding Day Midge gift set as the flower girl, this doll was renamed and re-introduced as Stacie shortly thereafter in 1992, and the Kelly name was instead used for her younger sister. In Life in the Dreamhouse and Dreamhouse Adventures, Stacie is 11 years old and shown to be a competitive, skilled athlete. She has her own line of sports-themed dolls called "Team Stacie".

Kelly/Chelsea Roberts (1995–2010 as Kelly, 2011–present as Chelsea): Barbie's youngest sister, approximately 6 years old, then later 7 years old. Chelsea loves the color pink and has blonde hair and blue eyes like her older sister Barbie. Chelsea is the star of her own series, Barbie: Dreamtopia.

Barbie's parents

George Roberts (1960–present): George is Barbie, Skipper, Stacie and Chelsea's father and the husband of Margaret. Originally just a book character, he has not been issued in doll form but has appeared for the first time in animation in the digital series Barbie: Dreamhouse Adventures. He was originally an engineer, but his job changed to documentary filmmaker in Dreamhouse Adventures.[12]

Margaret Rawlins Roberts (1960–present): Margaret is Barbie, Skipper, Stacie and Chelsea's mother and the wife of George. Also, originally a book character, she has not been issued in doll form, but she made her first on-screen appearance in Dreamhouse Adventures. She was initially a homemaker, but in Dreamhouse Adventures, she is a computer engineer and the designer of the Roberts family dreamhouse. She has a sister named Millicent.[12]

Tutti and Todd (Tutti: 1965–1971, Todd: 1965–1996): Twins, both Tutti and Todd were younger siblings of Barbie and Skipper and had seamless 'bendy' bodies with internal wires.[13] The two were only sold together in one set. They debuted in 1966 and were available in the US until 1971, remaining on the European market until 1980. Todd was reintroduced in 1991 as part of the wedding party for Barbie's best friend Midge Hadley, but Tutti was not reintroduced, with new sisters Kelly and Stacie taking her place. Mattel produced several more of the new Todd dolls over the next few years, but Todd was dropped from the Barbie line after 2008. The last version of Todd was the 2008 Todd and Stacie Mary Poppins boxed set, with a comment on the back that "Todd and Stacie are dressed as Michael and Jane from Disney's Mary Poppins".

Francie Fairchild (1966–1977): Marketed as "Barbie's Modern Cousin," Francie paved the way for Barbie's transition into the MOD era. Francie appeared to be only slightly younger than Barbie, and had a straight, streamlined figure. The Francie doll was the first to feature rooted eyelashes. In the March 1966 issue of Barbie Magazine, she is the daughter of Claude and Lily Fairchild.

Jazzie (1988–1992): Another cousin of Barbie and part of a small group of high school age dolls. She was taller than Francie, with Jazzie being almost the same height as Barbie.

Kristine "Krissy" Roberts (1998–2001): This character is an infant and is only intermittently included in the Barbie sibling lineup.

Blaine Gordon (2004): Barbie's Australian ex-boyfriend, whom she dated during her much-publicized "breakup" with Ken. Blaine is said to be the brother of Summer, one of Barbie's friends. Blaine does not show up in any of the Barbie series but was originally a character from Generation Girls and showed interest in Ana.

Ken family : ( all info found also on wiki)

Edna Carson (mother) ,

Kenneth Carson (father)

Iazzy Carson (sister)

Tommy Carson (brother)

Barbie Roberts (best friend, girlfriend)

Barbiland Exist. has an existence for little girl and that Family Place that no an overtly girly world. Authors make a wrong inaccurate version of Barbie World.

Barbie whole Script by not doing research ( or they just dont care ) is an infuriating story that end up very insulting and infuriating because yes Ken is not just Ken in the original version Kens has Job like barbie in the original version Ken and barbie have a family and are not in over girly world and Barbie is a sweet girl very cool and feminist when you learn about her.

Conclusion : yes Barbie is anti men propaganda if you Change source material that was not belittle man and you belittle man. Then that means yes you are not being feminist you are hating on men.

II- Barbie and Ken relationship

Except the screenwriter no one , literally no , literally not any single soul on earth has associated Ken with a "nice guy". and literally no one no one was thinking «  Barbie hate Ken and is a bitch » literally no one take « barbiland » for a matriarchal world but a cute place. And really no one no one has associated Barbie with things like patriarchal matriarchal. so barbie and ken hate each others and are gonna learn to only be Ken and only Barbie. and to enjoy your womanhood and Menhood you need to be separated ! you cannot love someone nope sorry !

We can have an idea of their relationship based on toys story and barbie cartoon :

Barbie is a very cool friendly girl that is doing plenty different jobs not because it’s give a sort of power over man but because she just like being a doctor a lawyer an astronaut and Ken that’s her boyfriend or just best friend sometimes !! he also have job he is very cool. She can appreciated her womanhood and her boyfriend Because Ken is a healthy guy he is not an Asshole and has no problem with her doing what she wants he doesn’t feel his manhood is threatened and he is hot. ( really I have watch cartoon moments they have a lot of chemistry and are fun together) Ken is cool guy. Barbie is very cool guy. But to know that you need to get yourself interest into Ken and barbie ! even in toy story their interaction are very fun ! they are very likeable couple ( well in my opinion). 😊

Original Barbie and Ken are fun very healthy very cool Duo. And with them there is no «  just Barbie » and just «  Ken » because they are before being love interest BEST FRIEND.

By by ignorance and lack of respect Barbie took the healthiest coolest couple on pop culture to wrote a very hateful story that put apart Ken and Barbie who are originally best friend before being lovers when Barbie was already feminist. just like how maleficent put a story even less feminist that sleeping beauty by tearing apart Aurora and the fairies when the fairies were already Feminist.

III- Same Accident that With Maleficent :

Maleficent passed her whole time insulting the fairies when Flora was name in 1959 After Walt mom.

Barbie passed her whole time insulting Ken when Ken was name after Ruth Son Keneth Handler

Even worst : really sad !

Flora died very tragically from a gas accident in 1939. "due to a gas leak in the house the two brothers had recently purchased for her" Walt accidentally feel responsible of his mother death and name in 1959 Flora afer her.😞

Kenneth Handler died very tragically from a tumor that was rumor after also to be possibly AIDS diagnostic in 1994 when Ruth will deceased 8 years after him in 2002.😞

Behind Flora and Ken there is a part of the sorrow of a Son and a Mother.☹️

To finish We could have the two most genuinely feminist movie of the whole galaxy of movie with original Sleeping beauty and Barbie adapt for adult but it’s never gonna happened because authors put down an other woman « not enough feminist » and decided therefore they should not care about the original material and end up just being a feminist hating on men movie.

I think I belong to small minority that didn’t like it 😅

[beardedmrbean]

But wait Nunya, I’m a autists adhd man that like the uncensored version of the black eyes peas song, but it accurate to when I play games like Saints Row

But a new undercover brother movie (I really need to find a way to watch it) could work…if black Hollywood had self awareness

But as many Africans been complaining about certain black American celebrities and creators….after talking to Mexicans, Indians, and other people from different countries I realize a huge issue

The problem is a lot of black content creators especially on the woke side don’t understand they are American as hell. In fact worse that your average patriotic hillbilly

Like sorry the magical negero thing…the white people they complain about seem like the upper middle classes and up ones that the average working class white person see as insufferable

(Aka the Karens)

It like how the Barbie try to say the Ken’s represent women throughout history

Oooh Greta, I don’t think you should compare say Jane Fonda rights vs what my great uncle had who died in Vietnam during the 60’s

Not to mention the Kens are treated more like how Hollywood treats women than the average society (psst your classism is showing Greta)

And the Karen movie, someone pointed out the black couple moved into neighborhood named after a confederate general. And I hope they don’t do something to humanize the racist Karen-

Wait her hatred towards black peoples because her cop husband was killed by a dedicated cop killer?

Aaaand the black couple later kills her and her brother thus leaving the Karen kids now motherless and very likely to go to foster care?

Writers didn’t think this script through did they?

Also it was BET film, oh BET who awards show is basically a high budget strip show and make content about black people so racist one would think it’s made by kkk grandwizards

Sorry for ranting.

But wait Nunya, I’m a autists adhd man that like the uncensored version of the black eyes peas song, but it accurate to when I play games like Saints Row

ADHD and Dyslexic so I'm with ya there

But a new undercover brother movie (I really need to find a way to watch it) could work…if black Hollywood had self awareness

I miss self aware over the top humor, Wayne's family had a gift for that.

But as many Africans been complaining about certain black American celebrities and creators….after talking to Mexicans, Indians, and other people from different countries I realize a huge issue The problem is a lot of black content creators especially on the woke side don’t understand they are American as hell. In fact worse that your average patriotic hillbilly

They gonna be mad at you for saying that, but you may have a point

Like sorry the magical negero thing…the white people they complain about seem like the upper middle classes and up ones that the average working class white person see as insufferable

Be nice if people could remember class is a better determinate of where people will land than race, #1 thing that crosses every single demographic in determining life outcomes is a father in the life of the child.

I would imagine the same would hold true for the mother if they managed to look at those numbers too, but given the way society is set up the mother isn't usually the one that goes missing since they're pretty easy to locate and determine who they are without any real issues.

It like how the Barbie try to say the Ken’s represent women throughout history Oooh Greta, I don’t think you should compare say Jane Fonda rights vs what my great uncle had who died in Vietnam during the 60’s Not to mention the Kens are treated more like how Hollywood treats women than the average society (psst your classism is showing Greta)

jane fonda represents nothing but treason, gretta is just parroting hillary anyhow.

I know the rest of the quote and the context and in it's own way ya she's right, men don't have to suffer anymore after they've been killed, not that that makes this any better, also she's forgetting the children who's parents die that aren't female.

Son will feel the loss of his father, father will feel the loss of their son, and now husband can feel the loss of his husband as well making hillary's statement here not only sexist but homophobic as well.

And the Karen movie, someone pointed out the black couple moved into neighborhood named after a confederate general. And I hope they don’t do something to humanize the racist Karen- Wait her hatred towards black peoples because her cop husband was killed by a dedicated cop killer? Aaaand the black couple later kills her and her brother thus leaving the Karen kids now motherless and very likely to go to foster care? Writers didn’t think this script through did they?

I'm very big on not blaming the group for the actions of the individual or even the extreme minority of the individuals, which might be a point they're trying to make here, but I bet it would lose a lot of steam if folks started to think about that too hard given so many of the complaints made in certain groups.

Also it was BET film, oh BET who awards show is basically a high budget strip show and make content about black people so racist one would think it’s made by kkk grandwizards Sorry for ranting.

Like I said, if people moved away from collective blame there might be some push back.

[zhangster-moon]

ok finally saw the barbie movie and i have some thoughts, especially as a leftist seeing other leftists review the movie

so overall the movie was like .... okay? the plot was kind of a mess and the writing had some really big issues, but the direction was good and obviously visually it was stunning (i honestly think greta gerwig should maybe direct scripts written by other people)

my problem with a lot of lefties bemoaning that the movie isn't "really feminist" is that I feel like a) you are basically asking for a completely different movie (like what kind of critique is "all the barbies are conventionally attractive" when that's literally... what barbie dolls are) and b) you kind of have to accept the limitations of hollywood and th film industry and meet them where they're at.

like this is a now billion dollar movie that was clearly written to appeal to a very broad audience. it's going to feel very intro-to-feminism, and it's okay for being that. personally I found a lot of the feminism stuff faaarrr too on the nose, like I get the gist of, for example, gloria's speech about existing as a woman, but it was just like being repeatedly hit over the head with the point that it's impossible and you have to exist in these paradoxes that just ultimately break women down. but the thing is, that sort of speech may make a lot of people feel seen when feminist movies are still in their infancy in hollywood's mainstream, I don't doubt that there are lots of indies that approach the subject better and with more nuance, but when you're making a movie that's funded by a giant toy company, about a very profitable doll, that is supposed to be for both kids and adults, what do you expect?

another thing is that one huge limitation of making a movie itself means that more radical aspects will get absolutely watered down. now, I don't think that greta gerwig is a huge radical, i think she's probably a very milquetoast liberal, but I do think that this is when you really have to think about the medium of the piece of art you're critiquing. part of why I like books — they take fewer cooks in the kitchen, and obviously you'll have to bypass gatekeepers in the publishing industry (unless you self-publish, but then there's the issue of getting the word of your book out), but largely books come from one mind and can stay true to the artist's vision. movies are a completely different ballgame, you've got writers, directors (often different people), actors that then make characters their own, producers, you have to bend all sorts of ways to get funding, distribution, etc etc. for barbie to be such a massive success means it inherently must be watered down to some degree, because that's what appealing to a broad audience is.

now, there's more specific critique that I think is totally legitimate and valid, for example pointing out lines such as that smallpox joke are explicitly harmful. there's also some more interpretation-based critique that I personally have seen that I disagree with (for example the ending, which I didn't see as trans-exclusive, speaking as a Trans myself, but rather just a signal that she's human now and therefore has genitals). I think these types of critique are more "legitimate", because they don't poke that the fundamentals of the movie itself.

its frustrating to see people sort of engage in this really broad criticism about the movie, when really what they're saying is they want an entirely different movie about a different subject matter. case in point what I mentioned earlier about the barbies all being conventionally attractive. like, yeah??? it's a movie funded by mattel about BARBIES?? I think gerwig and robbie make some attempt to sort of deconstruct this via narrator going "you probs shouldn't have cast margot robbie if you wanted to make a point about barbie not feeling pretty anymore" but to me it wasn't super effective. fine to criticise this. but I do honestly feel like I'm losing my mind a little if you go at reviewing this movie by completely divorcing it of its origins, i.e. the dolls themselves IRL, the process of getting a movie made in hollywood.

I do actually also think that a lot of what was in the movie itself that didn't work for me was also because gerwig tried to distance her work from the reality as well, for example gloria's idea about making "ordinary barbie" (just logistically, how would that even work... barbie comes with 1 singular story because barbie is a doll and not a human. how would you make a barbie that is just an ordinary woman? to me, ordinary women contain nuance and subtleties that just cannot be captured in a doll in a box.)

overall I really enjoyed the experience of watching barbie — there were some genuinely laugh out loud jokes. but there was also a lot that frustrated me about it — but I also understand that some of those frustrations are not limited to the barbie movie! there are a lot of factors that limit a movie's ability to make nuanced points about real world politics that just mean every movie you walk into, ESPECIALLY a global blockbuster like barbie, you need to manage your expectations of seeing some incredible feminist film that doesn't moderate its own politics in any way. I'm sorry but in this day and age that's just not possible, and I don't think that's fair to put on barbie, or greta gerwig, or anyone except for the current state of the world.

[svankmajerbaby]

✨️🎀🎈💞💝🕯🎙🤲💌

!! thank u so much for the ask. i love talking about writing......

✨ What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

-hmm theres a point in which i have to tell myself not to worry about likes or comments bc what really matters is me getting the practise and exercising my writing muscles and having fun with it... But. i do wish i could get more ppl into my toy story fic. its got a whole bunch of wonderful comments and kudos and stuff, i just feel so proud of it and writing it came so easy and i poured so much of my love into it, i really really wish anyone who loves these characters would read it too.

🎀 give yourself a compliment about your own writing

-english is not my first language so grammar isnt often The Best, but i take a lot of care with using words and expressions as correctly as possible, and I try to always spell words right (i dont think ive ever confused loose and lose, for example, which ive seen confused a few times). some descriptions of spaces are particularly well done, at least to my own criteria, and the song choices are fun (or at least fun to write and picture in my head).

🎈 describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

- honestly, ive no idea. i think i get verbose, and i write long dialogue scenes. i overuse the — to lead into another thought, because thats kind of like how my mind works. i try to be "cinematic" in my writing and always start a scene with a description of a place, its lighting and its sounds, like im used to when writing scripts. and i got the sense that usually the characters often ramble and go on long discussions about stuff that maybe normal people wouldnt just start out discussing so strongly. but honestly id much rather someone else outside my own perspective told me what my writing is like, i would trust them more than my own opinion.

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

-the characters!! everything is important, and stuff like grammar often jumps out first for me... but i need to enjoy how the characters are written, and feel like theyre real people with genuine motivations and interactions. i dont mind too much if theyre not super alike to canon, as long as they feel true to the core of their personality and values.

💝 what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

-i was surprised to even get comments on my barbie frankenstein one. i loved writing it and it came through so easily and comfortably, but even though i had used that moderately popular meme of reimagining barbie as a gothic protagonist as inspiration i didnt really think it would be anything but something i liked to picture existing. i was so happy to see people enjoyed it too.

🕯️(there are two questions with this candle emoji symbol? i chose the first one, idk why theres two) was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

-the tiff fic :'^) ive always liked writing sorta dark stuff, ever since i was little, but this was on another level. sometimes i felt (and still do) feel a bit awkward bc i really do push myself to write stuff i feel a bit embarrassed or shocked by, but i do think that if i want to be a better writer it does me good to make an effort to depict stuff that makes me uncomfortable and seek to write it in a sense of finding a way to both make if effective and relatively tasteful (or at the very least in-character).

🎙️which one of your fics would you like someone to make a pod-fic of?

- i have never heard about pod-fic before, but i guess i can imagine what it is (wonder if its like an audiobook, or if it has sound effects and the like??). i would love to listen to an audiobook of the barbie frankenstein fic mostly bc i would love so so much to hear the dramatic literary dialogue ive written in kelly sheridans barbie voice. also now that i think about it i have no idea what the creature would even sound like... that would be an interesting challenge.

🤲 what do YOU get out of writing?

-practise writing in english, a sense of accomplishment (when i get to finish something!!) and every once in a while some strong validation in the form of ppl liking what i write... all of it is super valuable to me, especially practise and the push and drive to finish stuff to upload, but the validation in particular just really hits that dopamine in my brain i guess

💌 share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

-its from the glen and glenda fic im halfway planning! i got a few dialogues written and some scenes sketched out, but its still a long way to go. im very excited about it tho! ive grown to really love the versions of the twins ive made in my head. hopefully theyre faithful to their screen depictions while also adding a bit more depth and character building ive wanted to take them through.

[whorejolras]

61, 68, 70 for the fanfic writer ask!! :D

🥰🥰🥰

61. Why do you continue writing fics?

why do i breathe? i'm always gonna be writing something, books or short stories or scripts.

fic writing is especially good bc the stuff i write is so self indulgent, but i can also share it with other people who are just as obsessed with our blorbos. and it's also great practice. i especially feel like i've become a better writer in the last six months through almost daily practice

also in my sw writers group we write things that can get heavy and personal and therapeutic which is great but also it's good when i need a break from that to just play with my favourite barbie enjolras for a second.

68. What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

other than driving/walking i also read other ppls work and look at fanart. like i reblogged this dope fanart of vampire enjolras (!!!) and then immediately opened a new doc and wrote a scene that started the vampire au

70. When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

oh yeah enthusiastic, i don't really get embarrassed about much and if someone asked if/what i write i would probably talk their ear off for an hour 😭

[aaronmaurer]

Movies I Liked in 2023

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

2023: Good Movie Year! Despite the writers and actors strikes resulting in a lot of releases being pushed to 2024, there was still a wealth of cinema to choose from. Many of my favorite directors made excellent films and there were many others that I admired, even if I didn’t quite connect with them (i.e. Poor Things, Dream Scenario, Past Lives). Here then, my 10 favorites, plus a few honorable mentions:

10. How To Blow Up A Pipeline (VOD, hulu)

The heist movie as a piece of compelling agitprop (or maybe vice versa), How To Blow Up A Pipeline turns a nonfiction treatise on climate activism into an expertly structured thriller. The film traces a diverse group of characters with varying motivations in their common journey to disrupt a the seemingly intractable foothold the oil industry has on contemporary society through sabotage. Regardless of your political leanings, it’s a white-knuckle ride that provides a lot of food for thought.

9. Air (Blu-Ray, Amazon Prime)

Yay, brands?, Part 1. This telling of the origins of the Air Jordan shoe (and Nike’s relevance to the basketball market in general) boasts a whip-smart script resulting in a surprisingly funny movie (which is way better than if it were self-serious) with terrific performances by the likes of Matt Damon and Jason Bateman. Unlike this year’s Blackberry (also excellent), Air is too much of a brand/corporate-controlled product to be satirical, yet it manages to transcend most of that dubiousness through sheer likeability. Its triumphs are ultimately commercial, though, so it leaves you feeling a little grody about rooting for millionaires to become even richer.

7. (tie) The Killer (Netflix) and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Blu-Ray, VOD)

Two of my favorite action-oriented films of the year.

David Fincher’s The Killer is, at once, a classic revenge thriller and a rebuke of the same, highlighting the mundanity of its hitman protagonist’s existence, the hypocrisy with which he lives his life and the futility of his chosen profession. It has the verve of a Steven Soderbergh film and its episodic nature makes it ideal for rewatching.

The latest Mission: Impossible, my favorite action franchise, comes on the heels of what has become my favorite entry in the series, so it can’t help but suffer a bit by comparison. That said, it’s still a high-octane thrill ride of a movie, with riveting setpieces and a climax that continually had my heart in my mouth.

6. Asteroid City (Blu-ray, VOD, Amazon Prime)

This year’s full-length Wes Anderson confection is a nesting doll of a film that boasts frame story within frame story, yet somehow through its artifices still manages to connect on an emotional level as it deals with grief, age and the unknown — all while taking place during a youth astronomy convention that gets visited by aliens. As you do. Boasting another truly incredible cast of stars and Anderson regulars, the film is loaded with great comedic moments and singularly immaculate production design.

5. Barbie (Blu-Ray, VOD, Max)

Yay, brands?, Part 2. Sure, you can argue the merits of its existence, but in the same year that saw huge box office returns for the utterly bland brand-extension that is Super Mario Bros., at least Barbie had something to say. Many things, actually; about women, patriarchy, societal roles, perfectionism, horses, etc. If you’re going to turn a massive toy property into a movie, you could do a lot worse than involve the likes of (co-)writer/director Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie & Ryan Gosling. Plus Michael Cera as Alan, the stealth winner of the movie. I love both of Gerwig’s previous directorial efforts and I assumed there would be moments of emotional resonance, but I was not expecting just how laugh-out-loud funny this movie is; my favorite straight-up comedy of the year.

4. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Blu-Ray, VOD, Netflix)

I enjoyed 2018’s Into The Spider-Verse, but despite its innovative animation it didn’t quite crack my Top 10 that year. Its sequel manages to be no less groundbreaking (through incredible visuals that are often like moving paintings) or grounded (through character relationships that are given moments to breathe amid the action), while amping things up on all levels. Whereas the first movie brought several characters from other realities into that of protagonist Miles Morales, in this one, Miles visits several other realities himself, each of which is rendered in its own unique aesthetic. Moreover, Miles is not the sole protagonist — this time out Gwen Stacy kicks off the story and the film is as interested in her emotional journey as his. In a year of superhero fatigue, Across The Spider-Verse shows that there is still life in the genre, when humor and heart are involved.

3. Killers of the Flower Moon (VOD, Apple TV+)

Martin Scorsese has spent a career training his camera on the evil — specifically the violence and greed — men do. Killers of the Flower Moon adapts David Grann’s true crime book about a series of murders of wealthy Osage Nation members and the early days of the F.B.I. into something more narrowly focused yet more powerful for it. It can be tempting to look away, or misinterpret it as glorification, but Scorsese dares you to witness these acts. To sit with them and behold their perpetrators as their justifications, rationalizations and patronizations fly; and to hold those perpetrators to account. The final two scenes of the film hold a tension and a release: the recognition of who has told and been telling this story, and a final shot that hints at what has been lost culturally (and really, in every way since the Doctrine of Discovery to begin with) by such gatekeeping. A masterpiece.

2. The Holdovers (Blu-Ray, VOD, Peacock)

The latest film from Alexander Payne is a warm and charming dramedy about a trio of misfits who are left to “celebrate” the holidays together at a New England prep school in the 70s (with production design that feels right out of the era). Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newcomer Dominic Sessa are all pitch-perfect, bringing a depth of humanity to their characters as they deal with personal tragedies small and large. Immensely satisfying and sure to be a new alternative Christmas classic.

1. Oppenheimer (Blu-ray, VOD)

Christopher Nolan’s biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer is ostensibly a period piece, but unlike many other historical dramas or “great man” epics, it feels thrillingly alive, propulsive and current, never getting stuck in nostalgia. It’s pop avant garde history, akin to Damien Chazelle’s portrait of Neil Armstrong, First Man, where the sound design and cinematography emphasize the enormity of the events being witnessed while the performances keep things grounded and all-too-human. Despite its dozens of characters, multiple timelines and 3-hour runtime, there is a flow to this film; a feeling that Nolan is orchestrating things as a conductor would a symphony. Every piece fits and every piece matters. And at the end of things, there is the overwhelming WEIGHT of what has transpired, and the contrast between the animating forces of the universe with the pettiness and self-interest of the people who seek to harness them.

Bonus! Honorable Mentions:

American Fiction (Theatres) – a clever trojan horse of a family dramedy in the guise of cultural satire

Blackberry (DVD, VOD, AMC+) – an immensely engaging look at the rise and fall of the titular tech company; while brands were big at the movies this year, this one wasn’t afraid to focus on corporate greed

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Blu-Ray, VOD, Paramount+, Amazon Prime) – I have never played D&D and am not a big RPG guy period, but the charming cast and the script & direction from the team behind Game Night make this a surprisingly fun watch even without context

Rye Lane (hulu) – a super-charming British rom-com with charismatic leads and a visual flair beyond the genre’s usual sameness

The Zone of Interest (Theatres) – like Killers of the Flower Moon, Jonathan Glazer’s latest film focuses on mundanity of evil and systems of violence, while not completely ignoring small acts of defiance

[entertainment]

Entertainment Spotlight: Osric Chau

If you’re a fan of Supernatural or the Arrowverse, you probably recognize actor, producer, writer, director, and martial artist Osric Chau. He landed his first leading role in Kung Fu Killer in 2008, after spending years training in martial arts with aspirations to work in stunts. The following year Osric played Nima, the Tibetan monk, in the blockbuster film 2012, and he recently produced and starred in the film Empty By Design. On the television front, he played genius high school student pulled into the role of prophet, Kevin Tran, in Supernatural, and is currently starring as Ryan Choi in the Arrowverse’s epic crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Over the years, Osric has more than found a passion for acting and filmmaking. He still enjoys stunts, and has enormous appreciation of the skill and sacrifices involved but he'll settle with doing as many of his own stunts as a production will allow. Osric took time out of his busy schedule to answer some of our questions. Check it out:

With Supernatural ending this year, what is your favorite memory from the show (either on or off camera)?

First day, first episode. The beginning of it all. Met everyone. Got to do some running around as Kevin. And Jared became a father that night. Such a crazy time.

If you could have a conversation with Kevin Tran, what would you want to ask him and/or talk about?

I'd probably talk him into doing some physical training so he could be a hunter too.

You just produced and starred in Empty By Design. What did you learn from the experience? 

I learned that I'd been holding back my whole life. That I'd been limiting myself in what I thought I could or could not do and that there really isn't anything that I can't do with passion, hard work and a couple of good friends.

How would you describe the plot of Empty By Design to a five year old?

So Barbie lives in her house, right? (Child says yes) And GI Joe's always fighting some bad dudes so he's kinda homeless, but he lives in his truck, right? (Child says yes as well) Well let's say Barbie leaves her house and her family and goes to school for years. And one of the bad guys kidnaps GI Joe and keeps him away from his truck for years. And one day Barbie comes back to her house, but things have moved around and it's just a little bit weird, GI Joe escapes the bad dudes, and now he's back in his truck but his brother changed it to a stick shift while he was away and he doesn't know how to drive it anymore, and they bump into each other and talk about how weird it feels to be back home again even though they belong there. That's what Empty by Design is about. Can you tell I'm bad with kids?

What inspired you to make Empty By Design?

I needed to do something for myself. And I found some friends that did too. I asked my roommate Drea if she could do anything, what would she want to do? She said go back home to the Philippines. I told her to write a script about that. This was all happening while we were moving into our new apartment and after daily Ikea trips for a week, the words Empty by Design popped out of her mouth.

Do you have any fun facts about the making of Empty By Design that fans would be surprised to find out?

We flew to the Philippines with one way flights without a budget and we somehow managed to raise the money within the first two weeks there.

Can you walk us through an average day on the set of Crisis on Infinite Earths?

"What're we doing right now?" "Why are they in that costume?" "Wait what happened before this?" "My beard is so itchy..." "Okay this feels like Comic Con! Am I too excited right now?"

You wake up tomorrow morning as Ryan Choi in the middle of Crisis on Infinite Earths. What do you do?

I recognize I am not as smart as him but thankfully better trained and stupid enough to run in with full confidence. I limber up and try not to get in the way.

How does the making of a crossover event differ from the making of a regular episode?

Well for starters the crossover event was filming 5 episodes at the same time, so that in itself is a feat. Now on top of that, you're trying to use the same actors on all of those episodes so to coordinate which character which set and which show at all times and then you have other actors from other shows that you need to coordinate with as well. It was a logistical miracle that they pulled off. Hats off to everyone that made it happen.

What’s next for you?

I'm writing a script right now that I'm gonna co-direct with a friend. It's about my parents and I started writing it after the realization that they're actually real people and getting older. Weird thing to consider but that really scared me and I had to force myself to take the time to appreciate them while I still can. Doing a movie for them is my way of saying I love you, and thank you for putting up with me my entire life. And I'm also in talk with a good friend of mine to starting a vegetarian restaurant in Vancouver. I won't go into the ambition that i have for both of these but they're high haha, and they both bring me back to Vancouver more often which goes back to me wanting to spend more time with my family.

Thanks for taking the time, Osric! Give Osric’s Tumblr a follow right here. 

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 65

~*~Sebastian~*~

I turned back toward the others. Sam was looking at me, "You're hopeless."

I looked around, hoping she was looking at someone else, "What? Why?"

"Three weeks ago with the good luck kisses and Reese Cups you were ridiculous. This week... hopeless. You're a big soft squishy marshmallow of a boyfriend. I expected more."

I went for a confused look, "Do we know each other well enough for you to ride my ass like this?"

She smiled, "Apparently."

I held up a finger in Scott's direction before he could say anything. Everyone laughed.

We talked, laughed, and drank until the ref blew the whistle. Like earlier I was between Sam and Mallory. Sam leaned closer, "Too far?"

I knew she was referring to her teasing after Emma left. "Oh hell no, perfect." I sat back enough to include Mallory. "Thank you. I'm much more comfortable in front of five hundred people than in a small group. Expectations are different. You fucking with me lets new people know I’m just a guy here to watch his girlfriend play volleyball."

Sam looked at Mallory, "See, hopeless."

Mallory smiled, "Yeah, but cute as hell."

“Am I imagining the southern accent? It comes and goes.” I looked between the two of them and they indicated I wasn’t imagining. “Southern accents are trouble.” I shook my head, took a drink of my beer, and watched them win the first set.

Emma ran over, "Hungry. Would you order me something, please?"

I gave her a thumbs up and I had plates of appetizers ready when they got to the table. After losing. I slid off the stool, giving it to Emma, standing behind and to the side. I reached around her to eat while my other hand kept in contact with her. Touching her back. A slide across her shoulders. Anything for the contact. When Emma was finished eating, she leaned back, using me as a backrest. I leaned in and kissed her temple, my hidden hand on her hip.

I can't explain my want for contact. Before we met, before I saw her, before I heard her voice, I knew the feel of her touch. Her hand on my arm. Since that first touch, I've always wanted it. Maybe it's because touch was the first thing I knew. Like if the first thing you're attracted to is someone's smile you always remember the first one and want to see it again. I've never been touch hungry like this. I don't mind, kind of like it actually, and I'm not all in trying to overthink the why. It's just different. Hopefully, the relationship outcome will be different too.

Mallory's voice saying, "Barbie Bitches at ten o'clock," drew me out of my thoughts.

Emma said, "They're really not that bad."

Mallory snorted, "Yes, yes, they are."

There was a group of five heading our way. Three women and two men. I'm going to go ahead and guess the bleached blondes are the Barbie Bitches. There is a natural blonde in the group, so I could be wrong. The men were lagging a little behind. The one with short black hair had a full beard and the other had shoulder-length brown hair with a couple of days growth of beard. I don't feel jealous or insecure, but I am aware these are men she knows. Possessive. Protective. Proud. Definitely wanting to mark my territory, I guess her using me as a pillow does that. If she sits up I may have to kiss her. Tragic.

One of the guys recognized me first. He elbowed the other and nodded. I went on talking with Nick about the best flavors for chicken wings. I’m partial to teriyaki. Hot sauces aren't for me. I like flavor over burning the shit out of my mouth.

The five reached the table, hugs and handshakes for those nearby. Emma leaned forward and the hand I had on her hip magically moved to her shoulder when other eyes locked on me. Beside me, I heard Sam mumble, "Hopeless."

I looked at Sam and laughed, giving her a silent thank you. I realize someone in my line of work not liking to be the center of attention seems strange. Work and personal are different. Meeting her friends is personal, but the first minutes when they're recognizing work me is uncomfortable. I wish it wasn't. I don't like it.

Emma did the introductions, "This is my boyfriend Sebastian." I do like how she gives me a title. It feels like a diversion, setting an expectation. There's no question who I am. I'm not Sebastian with a dangling "the actor."  I’m Sebastian "the boyfriend." That makes me uncomfortable too but in a much more fun way. She pointed as she gave names. "Justin, Caleb, Rose, Tammy, and Toni."

There was no way in hell Toni and Tammy weren't the Barbie Bitches. I was right about the hair too. I waved, "Hi, nice to meet you. Everybody work with Emma? Teachers?"

They told me what they taught. Toni and Tammy are English, Rose is Physics, Caleb is History, and Justin teaches programming and robotics. I looked at Rose, "I got a zero on my physics final." They laughed and I shrugged. "In my defense, of the eight seniors, the highest grade was a fifteen."

"You had a shitty teacher."

I widened my eyes and nodded in agreement, “Yeah, he gave us shit about the scores. I told him they said more about him than us. Finals were over, I didn't care."

Everyone started sharing stories from being a student or things students had done. Turned into a competition between the high school and elementary teachers for the most inappropriate comments and behaviors. High school was funny because they knew what they were doing, elementary because they didn't. I felt embarrassed for the mom who got the call her vibrator had made it to show and tell.

The game going on behind us was in the last set. Emma took off for the bathroom. When she came back, she went to the middle of the high school teachers, thanking them for coming. She was a good hostess.

Toni glanced at me before turning to Emma, "Are we really supposed to pretend he's not Sebastian Stan?"

Several things happened all at once. On one side of me, Samantha said, "Yes." On the other side, Mallory groaned. In front of me to the right, Tammy nodded her agreement with Toni. A little to the left, Emma said, "No."

Guess who I want to hear more from?

"You don't have to pretend you don't know who he is. But first and foremost, he's a person, so we're not going to talk about him like he's not right there." Emma looked at me with a smile. I was uncomfortable again. However, her protectiveness is hot.

Tami grimaced, "Sorry."

Emma hugged her to soothe the rebuke, "He scrambles my brain sometimes too."

I want to scramble more than her brains right now.

Tami looked at me as Emma headed around the table. "I'm sorry, Sebastian."

I waved away the apology, "You can ask me anything you want about work when they're warming up. The rest of the time I'm here to watch my girlfriend play."

It was Justin who did the fist pump, "Yes!"

I laughed.

Caleb faked a cough, "Fanboy."

"And not ashamed."

I had a fan. Sweet.

I'd taken Emma's seat when she left. When I started to get up she shook her head. She stood right up on me, laying her hand on my thigh. I lifted my arm over her, my hand landing on her ass, and my fingers going under the leg of her shorts to run my fingertips along the curve of her ass. My other hand, which was already under the table, moved her hand from my thigh to my crotch. I never stopped talking with Dawn. Beside me, Sam turned her back to me and leaned against the table, blocking anyone else from seeing. She’s definitely my favorite.

I was torn when the other game was over. I would miss our under the table fun, but the sooner the game was over the sooner we could go home.

Jeff walked around the table, heading toward the court. He pointed at me, "Your last good luck kiss sucked. Do better."

I jumped off the stool, grabbed Emma, dipped her low, and kissed her slow and deep. It felt very good. Reluctantly, I set her back on her feet. I looked at Jeff with my eyebrows raised.

Jeff grabbed Emma's arm and pulled her toward the court. "Much better. Thank you."

I turned back to the table to find all eyes on me. I shrugged with my hands up, "Taking one for the team." I took my spot back on the stool.

Justin leaned onto the table, "I have questions about stunts and drone shots." That conversation went on for a while. I could talk all day about that shit because it’s not directly me.

Toni wanted to know about Evans. Nia asked about gossip sites.

"I don't go there. Anybody can pretend to know anything and people will believe it if they want to. Even random guesses are going to be right sometimes. A friend had something real show up. It's best to ignore it. It'll go away with the next scandal. A lawsuit confirms and calls more attention." I could tell Rose had a question, "Go ahead."

She smiled, "Fanfiction."

I returned the smile, "What about it?"

"Love it? Hate it? Any favorites?"

I finished the last of my beer, considering how honest to be. I went all in. "I'm human. I got curious. For about a week. It doesn’t bother me. If a character I brought to life feeds someone's creativity I’m flattered. There are good stories and good writers out there. One of those could write a script, hell, for all we know someone who won an Oscar used to write fanfic."

"Real person stuff?"

I bobbed my head back and forth while looking at Dawn. "Still fiction and no more me than Bucky is. The imagination and amount of time spent on me is still flattering. All that's a step away. Now, the thirst tweets. Those are the things I wonder if people realize I see that. Fanfic is about an imagined version of me. Tweets and comments on Instagram are directed to me."

Caleb jumped in, "I bet you get the same things live at photo ops and shit though."

I nodded, "Some people lack boundaries."

Cindy said, "You looked uncomfortable reading those thirst tweets."

"Sort of." I laughed, "I wasn't embarrassed by content, just reading them out loud."

There were a few more questions before the whistle blew for the start of the game. I said, "Boyfriend time" and turned around.

It was another nail biter of a game. They lost the second set. All of us were screaming and clapping. It was a lot of fun. I liked this, being the spectator while hanging with her friends. I’ve always liked going to things and being the support person for friends. Fuck knows I’ve asked that from them enough. What I didn’t like was that this place didn't have Reese cups and the deck was too high for a between set kiss. Piece of shit dive bar.

They won the final set with a rejected spike by Becky and Nick. The team jumped in the air and hugged. So did Sam, Mallory, Scott, and I. I moved out of the middle to get to her first. In my head, I could hear Sam calling me hopeless.

I walked toward the opening to the court and met them, handing out words of praise. Emma stepped onto the deck and crossed the short distance into my arms. I kissed her head, "You did good."

"Thank you." She left my arms, kissed me, and took my hand. "It was a fun game. And I didn’t hurt myself."

We headed back to the table talking about plays and laughing. Emma sat down and pulled a beer from the bucket. I leaned my elbows on the counter behind me between Emma and Mallory, stretching out my back to reverse the hunching over during the game. I watched her profile as she talked with her friends. I could stand here looking at her all night. It didn't take long before I saw her energy drain away. Her smile shrank and her eyes lost their sparkle. I stood up, tucked a piece of hair that had escaped her ponytail, behind her ear, and waited until she turned her head like I knew she would. "You're tired." Not a question. She nodded. I turned to Mallory, "You ready?"

"Anytime."

I put Emma's bag on my shoulder. Emma stood up, "We're heading out."

Several other people said they were too. It wasn't late, but it was a weeknight.

I waited while they hugged their goodbyes. Mallory was back to me first. I slung my arm around her shoulder, "She's like a hostess saying good night to her guests."

Emma heard me and smiled. She joined us and I put my arm around her too. "Nice to meet everybody. I’m sure we'll do this again. Have a good night."

The three of us walked around the building to the CRV. I put in the code, opening the passenger and rear door, closing it behind them. I could see Mallory put a hand on Emma's arm and while I could tell they were talking I couldn't hear them. I walked a little slower around to the driver's side.

They didn't stop when I got in. Mallory was telling Emma about the questions during warm-up. When I turned to back out, Emma looked at me, "I'm sorry you were uncomfortable."

I smiled, "It was fine."

Emma's hand went to the back of neck, "I don't like you being uncomfortable. My friends making you feel that way."

"I don't enjoy it either, but it's part of being with you. You get my fans and a lot of other bullshit. I get your friends. I got less uncomfortable as they got used to me." I took her hand from my neck, kissing it before laying our joined hands on my leg. "I did like you going protective. You handled it well."

Emma barked a short laugh, "I wasn't ok with them objectifying you."

Mallory added, "I call them Barbie Bitches for a reason."

I laughed, “I’ve survived worse.”  Emma leaned over and kissed my cheek. “See, all worth it.”

“Emma, you know they’ve sent out shit. Your room is going to be Grand Central tomorrow.”

Emma sighed. I thought to say something but wanted to hear from her first. I wasn’t surprised by her response. “You can stay at home if you want.”

“Without you?”

“Yeah, I have to get packed up but you don’t have to go.”

“Nope.” It was never an option. “What sort of an asshole would I be if I’m not willing to deal with your co-workers dropping by your classroom. I promise you what you’re going to have to deal with will be much worse.”

“I get that, but to be fair, there’s not been much fall out from your fans.”

From the back seat I heard, “There will be. Probably is, but you don’t have an online presence to know.”

I nodded backward, “What she said.”

“I don’t know how your fans react to girlfriends, but I was a huge One Direction fan. Fans were brutal to their girlfriends. One released a cookbook and they left shitty reviews bringing her rating down on Amazon. Death threats to one if they broke his heart. They went all the way back in their social media and dug up shit. Hopefully, your fans are older.”

“Not always.” I guess this is when we’re going to talk about this. Maybe having a friend who’d been a fan would be helpful. “I won’t say fans cause breakups, but they don’t help. It’s complicated. There’s more nice than ugly, but a lot of time the ugly is really ugly.  Like you said, trashing her career, her cookbook because of who she’s dating. Girlfriends don’t always react well. Friends don’t always react well. The men, me, don’t always react well. I’m good at hiding when I don’t want to be seen, but I don’t understand people who can hide whole relationships for years. Hell, we’ve already been spotted having lunch. Two weeks in. I don’t know what the right answer is, because I haven’t found it.”

Emma jumped in,  "On the plane home I went looking around. There is a blog with all your relationships. Chronologically."

I'm sure I looked horrified. Because I was. "I don't want to know that. I don't want you to know that."

Emma grimaced and shook her head. "I didn't read any relationship stuff. I'd have to give you my high school and college diaries to equalize the invasiveness." She faked a shudder and Mallory laughed. Emma continued, "I was looking for fan reaction. There were links to Instagram posts, Twitter threads, and other blog posts. They have lots of opinions."

"Yeah, I know."

"You can't win." She pointed at herself, "Neither can I."

She’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. "And you're still here. Are you crazy?" This was a legitimate question.

Emma reached over to play in my hair again, "Only about you. I'm going to focus on what I can do something about. You and I. I'm too curious to not look, and I can't promise it won't get to me, but at the end of the day I get you." She leaned across the console and I met her for a kiss. "Also going to keep my shit on private."

Mallory spoke again, “I know it’s totally none of my business.”

I interjected, “Wouldn’t be discussing in front of you if we weren’t ok with your opinion. Sometimes outside opinions see things better. Especially if you watched a fan meltdown before. Thank fuck I’m not in One Direction.”

“Can you sing?”

“Not in a way anyone wants to pay to hear. Maybe a charity karaoke or something.” I liked injecting laughter into a not funny conversation. I worried about this. I worried about Emma get drug through shit.

“I think you have to find a balance. You can’t do something because of fans, but you can’t avoid things either. Fans don’t react well to being kept in the dark, but they are quick to be pissed by baiting or what they think is rubbing their face in something.” She put her hand on her chest, “For me, and remember I was seventeen, I didn’t care about casual dates or whatever, but if it was serious and they were being spotted everywhere it was different. Then it becomes fans creating their own stories if they don’t have the real thing. Some fans got pissed when they could see what was going on, but being told nothing was going on. Felt like they were being lied to or treated like crazy fans. Again, with balance. How much are you ok with revealing versus how much fiction is tolerable. Emma’s right. You can’t win.”

I waited until we got to a stoplight and turned to look at Mallory, “Now, you’ve given me things to think about.”

Mallory shrugged, “I think you play to the sane stable fans. The others are going to create chaos no matter what.”

“Ummm.” I was full of thoughts.

Emma chuckled, “Will you be filling me in on these thoughts.”

“When I’m done overthinking and sorting through them.”

They went back to talking and I tried to leave all the thoughts behind. They needed to simmer. I’d look at them later. When we reached Mallory’s place I jumped out and ran around to the other side of the car. I pulled Mallory into a hug. Initially, she tensed and I was afraid I’d entered unwanted affection territory, but she quickly relaxed and hugged me back. I’d just surprised her. “Thank you for everything. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Emma was smirking when I got back in, “What?”

“I think you get comfortable with people before they’ve totally adapted to you.”

I knew what she meant. “I hug too quick.”

“No, no, no. Not too quick. It’s just fun to watch the reaction because getting used to talking to you is very different than being in your arms. You up close is better looking than you a few feet away. Your blue eyes. And your arms and chest feel . . . mmm.” She shimmied in the seat, “So good.”

“That may be just you.”

She started laughing. Hard. “I don’t think you believe that.”

She was right. I started laughing with her, “I do know I can cause a reaction. Not gonna lie, it’s fun.”

“I can’t wait to see you with a group of fans..”

“It’s a mind fuck. Prepare to deflate my ego. I can get a little out of hand after events.”

“Really?”

I nodded, “Part of why I take friends with me when I can. Hours of screaming, crying, and shaking fans. Being told your gorgeous and they love you. The stories about what something I’ve done has meant to them. It’s all pretty heady shit.”

“Plus all the hugs and inappropriate comments from beautiful women.”

Well, I walked myself into this. Luckily, I could tell she was teasing me and not taking it seriously. “You know how visual I am.”

“You just bring all that pent-up sexual energy home to me and we’ll work it off.” She patted my thigh. “And if you’re getting too cocky we’ll go to a Pearl Jam concert and you can feel the love rolling off fifty thousand plus people all at once.”

Comparatively, I ain’t shit.

[thankskenpenders]

Yeah, this is the big one. Grab your popcorn

Sally finally gets a moment to talk to Sonic after being ignored all day, and tells him what’s up. With her being put in charge, and Sonic being her royal consort (basically, the guy who’s committed to marrying her someday but isn’t quite her fiance yet), Sally wants Sonic to stop going on away missions and lead Knothole by her side

Look. Let’s set aside all of our preconceived notions about what a Sonic comic should or shouldn’t be. Ignore the fact that we obviously want to see Sonic go on adventures. Forget it. Let’s look at it from Sally’s perspective for a second

Yes, this is the post in which I explain that “The Slap” isn’t that bad. It’s certainly not great, but it’s not The Worst Thing Ever like it’s been made out to be. I wish I didn’t have to spend my evening writing this, but 15 years of hyperbolic fan outrage (note: some Wikia rando added that “reception” section this year) have forced my hand

First of all, again, Sonic is formally committed to marrying her and ruling alongside her someday. This was established ten issues ago. He was already committed to this. Then, Sonic went and died. Sally still spent an entire year of her life thinking her basically-fiance was dead, and had to deal with shit in Knothole without him as things continued to get worse and worse. No one can just bounce back from that unscathed. After his return, she WANTED to help Sonic and go be a Freedom Fighter on the last mission, but her parents forbade her and the royal guards kept her in the castle. (That SUCKS, but is a whole ‘nother conversation.) She wants to fight by his side and keep him safe, but her parents are forcing her to stay home and be the princess, which only makes her more distraught. Last issue, she broke down into tears when she saw Sonic get shot by M over Eggman’s video feed, and her mother had to console her and reassure her Sonic wasn’t dead

Sally very clearly has PTSD over Sonic’s “death” a year ago. She doesn’t want to lose him again. She’s outright said as much

And also... when she says Sonic isn’t the only hero around, she’s got a point?Sonic barely did anything in the last arc! Tails was the one who outsmarted ADAM. Shadow dealt with Eggman. Bunnie did most of the damage to M and took out an entire fucking aircraft carrier on her own. Knuckles, the Chaotix, Rouge, and Amy took out the robot horde. All Sonic did was land the final attack on M--which, honestly, someone else could’ve done. And he got his arm injured in the process

Add on to this all of the chaos of the last few days. Sally’s barely had a free moment to see Sonic since she found out he was alive. They nearly got nuked by Eggman. They’re being harangued by the paparazzi. It sucks. And hell, it goes back WAY further than this! She spent years as a kid trying to save her parents, and now all they do is belittle her. She found out she had a secret older brother, and then her parents decided he was the more important child. She went through all sorts of relationship drama. She nearly died a few times herself. And now, her parents have decided to leave her in charge of their whole kingdom at a time of war, while she’s still a mess from the trauma of losing Sonic. The idea Bollers had was apparently that Sally had been bottling up her issues for years (which she totally had been), and this was just the breaking point

I know Sonic’s desire to keep being a hero is understandable. I know he’s right. That’s all he really knows how to do, and he feels useless in times of peace. And obviously, we the readers want to see Sonic go on adventures. But Sally’s concerns are valid. We don’t have to agree with her plan to have Sonic rule by her side for her emotions to be understandable

Sally’s been on the verge of a breakdown for who knows how long. She should be mad at her parents, but they’ve worn her down to the point where she thinks she’s unable to confront them. (It would be very, very easy to make a case arguing that Sally’s parents are emotionally abusive. Max especially.) She thinks that Sonic is the one person who will listen to her and have her back. They’re betrothed, after all. This is literally what he signed up for. After trying to get his attention ALL DAY, she finally gets a chance to talk to him. But he wants other things in life, and refuses. In front of a crowd, no less

So she lashes out at Sonic and slaps him

Then they both start yelling at each other and crying. Sally asks Sonic if she’s more important to him than fighting Eggman, Sonic can’t answer, and Sally runs away in tears. For all intents and purposes, Sonic and Sally are now broken up. (For now.)

Should Sally be lashing out at Sonic? No. Could this scene be done better? Oh, absolutely. This is not the direction I would want Sally to go in as a character, and if you ARE gonna have them fight, this wasn’t written with the care required to make fans sympathize with both parties. The fact that we’ve seen everything from Sonic’s perspective with barely any insight into Sally’s certainly doesn’t help. But as the several lengthy paragraphs above explain, this does not come out of nowhere. It’s easy to find lots of fans online calling Sally all sorts of names (sometimes very misogynistic or ableist ones) because they think she just flipped out on Sonic out of nowhere. But she didn’t. Sally having some sort of breakdown had been foreshadowed for several issues, and the reasons why make sense. No, she shouldn’t have lashed out at Sonic, but this isn’t just her going “Oh no, my period! Let’s nuke England!” as so many have made it out to be. (And hell, the comics already had a lengthy history of treating Sally even worse than this, with Gallagher making her the nagging girlfriend who bickered with Sonic all the time and Penders sympathizing more with her shitty dad.)

Again, this was supposed to be a turning point in which Sally bottling up all this crap and carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders finally leads to her breaking. It’s a dramatic low point to build back up from. The problem is that Bollers left the series only a few issues later, and Penders and “Chacon” never did much with this. So in hindsight, many view this as her randomly snapping “for no reason,” because the followup stories that would have explored how she’d been bottling up her feelings were never actually written. But it’s not hard to figure out what’s supposed to be going on in her head if you actually go back and look at the preceding Sally scenes

For the most part, this is just run of the mill relationship drama for Archie Sonic. You see this kind of shit all the time in serialized media. Characters date, but the writers need to keep things ~spicy~, so they break up, see other people... then inevitably end up back together, and the process repeats ad nauseum. You ever watch Scrubs? You know how JD and Elliot are obviously love interests from episode one, but they had to do that will they/won’t they shit for years and have flings with other characters to keep up ratings? Yeah, it’s just that. For Sonic, there’s also the added pressure from Sega, who never allowed Sonic to be in any stable relationship for very long. Several writers have talked about how this limited what they could do with Sonic and Sally. Do I like that this cycle of drama is the norm? No. But after over 200 of these comics, I’m used to it

(And hell, at this point in the comics, they had literally just broken up Bunnie and Antoine, and Rouge was starting to get in the way of Knuckles and Julie-Su’s relationship. Between Julie-Su and Knuckles’ first kiss and them actually dating, Penders had Julie-Su get mad at Knuckles and go out with some random other guy. They do this shit all the time)

The worst you can really say about this scene is that Jon’s art is a little too goofy and undermines the drama a bit. In his own words from his website’s FAQ: “I’m sorry. Like I said, I was an overeager noob and I drew what I was given.” But really, he had been drawing these sorts of exaggerated, frantic expressions throughout the entire issue. Not just with Sally. Look at all the panels of Sonic wigging out in the previous pages. I still think his work is fantastic. If anything, it was a bad call on Archie’s part to give this somber scene to a brand new artist with a very exaggerated, silly art style. He just drew what was in the script

You know what really blows about this whole thing, though? Jon Gray is still, to this day, over 15 years later, getting harassed for drawing The Slap

That is so utterly ridiculous and shitty. People have made up all sorts of conspiracy theories about the slap, saying that Jon had some sort of “anti-Sally agenda” and that it wasn’t in the script. (This is completely false.) People are so stuck in the past and bent out of shape over this one panel in a pretty run-of-the-mill Archie Sonic issue that Jon has to block people who come into his Twitter mentions accusing him of “sabotaging” the series on a regular basis. Y’all, Jon’s a good guy, and he doesn’t deserve to be treated like that

And lord. There’s so much nastier shit within this series. Penders hooking a 15-year-old Sally up with a dude in his 20s (and later saying that he wanted her to lose his virginity to said dude). Gallagher making Barby Koala have a creepy crush on Tails. Penders rephrasing a poem about the Holocaust to be about hedgehogs. Penders having Sally rationalize her dad’s attempt at genocide. (I could go on and on with Penders, can you tell)

This whole thing is just, so blown out of proportion. It’s not a great scene, but it didn’t “ruin” Sally’s character. Neither Jon nor Bollers had some sort of “anti-Sally agenda.” They weren’t out to ruin your fucking ship. And for god’s sake, quit yelling at them about it. This was 15 years ago and all parties involved have moved on. It’s just more melodrama in a series that’s always 90% melodrama

It’s a single panel in a comic about Sonic the Hedgehog. Can we move on

[pottedfairies]

ive been like. trying to envision myself in all the career options im thinking about and theres so many like i cld be a capital w Writer, a professional editor, a teacher/professor, edu researcher, speech writer, commercial/screen writer or i cld drop everything to be a housewife and out of all the options the only one i dont have any experience in is commercial/screen writing and its the one i think id have the most fun in djfhgdukskjhygkujhs like i have never wanted to be a capital w Writer bc thats full of elitism and id like to not rub elbows with ppl who will only publish u if u go wine tasting with them. and editing is like easy for me?? but also boring as FUCK i know theres jobs out there for that tho and i keep circling back to it anyway i shld just buy adobe indesign smh. if i get my teaching credential i can do it so easy i know ill like the kids but i dont think i want to teach anymore like dgbfkuyjhdks i wANT TO i enjoy teaching and education is still the most important thing to me but idk!!!! theres so much abt it that needs changing and idk if id ever wanna go into traditional avenues for teaching like so far all the times ive taught ive been in extracurricular programs/not govt affiliated programs and those seem to allow more fun for the kids so if i teach id wanna do smth like that BUT ALSO private schools r the worst creation ever id rather pull out my eyes than teach in a private school and research is good and all and creates those avenues for change that i want to see in education but it seems so stiff and flavorless like i LOVE to read edu theory and stuff and to create smth like that would be BALLER as FUCK but also oh my god imagine researching something for 12 years and writing 300 pages just to say “kids are autonomous people and education is eurocentric and art is healing.” and speech writing is just so goddamn boring lol also i hate writing in voices of white men rip [redacted] i know u think u can keep me around but i have OTHER PLANS but also hes already paying me so like HMMMMMMMMMMM money is good also his white money connections could get me to places that my name and hijab wouldnt otherwise having a white man in ur pocket rlly helps if u wanna do media writing BUT LIKE the shit i have the MOST fun with is creating stuff with and for kids so script/screenwriting for childrens shows and media sounds SPECTACULAR bc books r fun and all but i love love love the ways in which visual media interacts with the written and esp bc barbie was so formative for me as a kid like cultivating that whimsy and passion for joy is so important to me as a sad kid but also for other kids to connect to and idk!!!! maybe i never matured properly bc i still love to and prefer to watch shows/movies aimed at children but!!! they just are so much better and always treat the characters with so much more care than shows aimed at adults AND IDK IDK IDK this is fuyckign scary!! bc i always thought i was gonna teach/do research so i only know grad schools and stuff for edu and i think!! i want an MFA now!! in screenwriting!!! AND I HAVE ZERO EXPERIENCE AND IM FUCKING SCARED likeduifbhkhdj i have to change all my plans and start from fresh and i dont kndiubj i dont know if this is the right path!! AND I HATE THAT I FEEL PRESSURED TO CHOOSE ONLY ONE PATH LIKE WHAT THE FUCK ID LIKE TO DO MANY THINGS but also screenwriting still gives me opportunity to publish individual work and i can still hold writing workshops and stuff so this is the path with the most Options but i cant shake that my undergrad profs and stuff always told me that the Best writing is heartwrenchingly personal and not commercial at all so im trying to unlearn that but god is it hard 

[ofdyncmite-blog]

howdy  ,  my  dear  fellow  roleplayers  .  i  am  el  ,  i’m  20  ,  hella  into  the  paranormal  &  do  stupid  shit  everyday  .  i’m  super  excited  to  get  started  &  get  to  know  with  everyone  .  here  is  my  first  baby  ,  roberta  /  bobbi  .  if  you  wants  to  gets  downs  to  plotting  ,  just  give  this  a  like  or  hit  me  up  on  ims  /  discord  (  gaygrandmother#4906  )  .

(  barbie  ferreira  .  twenty  four  .  cis  female.  she  /  her  .  )  ❛  roberta  ford  ,  an  aquarius  from  queens  ,  ny  ,  moved  into  holloway  three  years  ago  .  they  are  a  writer  that  lives  in  apartment  4b  &  their  neighbors  don’t  particularly  mind  them  .  some  say  they  can  be  -distant  &  -unpredictable  but  others  say  they’re  +humanitarian  &  +creative  .  anyways  ,  one  thing  is  for  sure  :  you  hear  everybody  wants  to  be  famous  by  superorganism  ,  it’s  bobbi  blasting  it  .

STATS

full  name  :  roberta  ford  .

nickname  :  bobbi  ,  bee  .

age  :  twenty  four  .

birthday  :  february  15th  .

zodiac  :  aquarius  .

relationship  :  single  .

sexual  orientation  :  bisexual  .

occupation  :  writer  .

BACKGROUND

bobbi  was  born  to  two  large  figures  in  entertainment  &  film   —  ELIAS  FORD  &  CARMEN  SILVA  .  her  mother  was  an  actress  &  singer  from  brazil  but  raised  in  queens  ,  whilst  her  father  was  a  director  from  upstate  new  york  .  they  were  jacks  of  all  trades  ,  wanting  to  pursue  something  new  all  the  time  ,  so  had  a  lot  of  various  projects  under  their  belt.

she  has  a  twin  sister  &  an  adopted  siblings  .  after  their  birth  ,  her  mother  could  no  longer  have  any  children  ,  otherwise  she’d  risk  dying  .  but  ,  they  still wanted  to  have  another  ,  though  ,  so  they  made  the  decision  to  adopt  . 

they  gave  them  as  normal  a  childhood  as  they  could  ,  it  just  wasn’t  easy  with  paparazzi  following  your  every  move  .  they  went  to  good  public  schools  in  BROOKLYN  ,  took  family  vacations  like  any  other  family  would  .  but  ,  there  was  also  the  glamorous  side  of  movie  premieres  ,  flying  to  amazing  locations  &  being  treated  different  just . because  of  who  your  parents  were  .

they  often  encouraged  her  to  be  herself  ,  follow  her  dreams  .  &  hers  followed  closely  in  her  parents  footsteps  .  ever  since  she  was  little  ,  her  passions  had  surrounded  the  arts  ,  specifically  writing  .  she  could  always  be  found  on  a  desk  ,  putting  her  pen  to  work  or  lying  under  a  mountain  of  crumpled  paper  .

she  attended  NYU  when  she  turned  eighteen  (  she  moved  into  holloway  during  her  third  year  )  ,  determined  to  not  let  her  family  name  dictate  whether  she  became  successful  .  sure  ,  it  helped  .  her  creative  streak  she  certainly  got  from  them  ,  but  she  wanted  to  rely  on  her  talents  &  wits  too.  after  graduating  ,  she  was  thrust  into  the  working  world  .  she’s  written  a  book  with  her  best  friend  ,  which  helped  her  establish  herself.  now  ,  she’s  working  on  a  script  &  is  hoping  to  work  on  it  with  her  family  .

PERSONALITY

she  is  extremely  stubborn  ,  she  sticks  to  her  guns  no  matter  what  .  though  ,  if  you  told  her  that  ,  she  would  argue  that  she’s  open  minded  to  other’s  opinions  in  extremely  stubborn  fashion .   she’s  free  spirited  ,  &  doesn’t  really  like . being  told  what  to  do  .  it’s  one  of the  reasons  she  craves  independence.  she’s   a  social  butterfly   ,  yet  can  be  rather  aloof  &  alientating .  she  pushes  herself  to  make  as  many  connections  as  possible  but  is  not  close  to  many  of  them  .  letting  people  into  her  life  does  take  a  lot  ,  but  when  she  does  let  someone  get  close  ,  she’s  extremely  loyal  .  it  just  takes  ages  for  her  to  warm  up  to  someone  .  when  it  comes  to  love  ,  she  alienates  pushes  away  people  the  most  ,  a  talent  she’s  picked  up  over  the  years  .  she  either  detaches  herself  from  people  she’s  already  in  a  relationship  ,  or  locks  away  her  emotions  when  she  knows  she  has  feelings  for  someone  .  it  leads  her  to  a  lot  of  one  night  stands  &  friends  with  benefits  ,  preferring  ‛  no  strings  attached  ’  type  of  situations  .  she’s  a  paradox  of  wanting  people  in  her  life  &  wanting  to  be  isolated  ,  part  of  a  group  ,  yet  fiercely  independent.  in  the  end  ,  intimacy  scares  her  because  she  doesn’t  want  to  lose  herself  in  the  chaos  of  a  relationship.  plus  ,  she  has  this  perfect  image  of  how  she  does  want  to  fall  in  love  ,  failing  to  realise  that  it’s  probably  never  happening  or  she’s  been  so  focused  on  it  that  true  love  has  actually  passed  her  by.

EXTRA

infp  /  enfp  all  over  !! she’s  extremely  into  the  paranormal  &  conspiracy  theories  —  she  often  ghost  hunts  on  the  side has  a  bearded  dragon  (  gigi  )  .  she  loves  animals  more  than  anything  &  has  had  quite  a  few  . grease  terrified  her  as  a  child  .  she  once  puked  on  john  trovolta  .  here’s  a  pinterest  board  for  her  .

CONNECTIONS

exs  :  the  amount  of  lovers  she’s  pushed  away  is  unbelievable  &  so  she  has  had  quite  a  few  relationships  end  on  (  mostly  )  bad  terms  .

best  friend  :  they  can  have  been  best  friends  since  they  were  little  or  maybe  bonded  at  holloway  .  i  just  want  someone  she  hangs  out  with  almost  all  the  time  ,  pretty  much  inseperable  .  &  ,  who  she  would  do  anything  for.  maybe  ,  someone  who’s  the  opposite  of  her  (  very  shy  but  has  more  common  sense  )  .  they  would  be  the  person  that  she  made  her  first  book  with  ,  which  was  a  little  successful  .

fwb  :  she’s  very  open  &  loves  to  have  a  good  time  .  overall  ,  she  prefers  no  feelings  at  times  ,  so  fwb  arrangements  always  are  good  to  her  .   i’d  love  to  make  it  more  complicated  by  them  having  feelings  for  her  ,  though  .  i’m  a  sucker  for  drama  .

twin  :  her  &  her  twin  are  the  complete  opposite  of  each  other  .  bobbi  is  a  lot  more  anne  of  green  gables  /  phoebe  buffay  &  her  sister  is  more  ...  dracula  ,  in  her  opinion  .  they  argue  constantly  &  just  rile  each  other  up  ,  but  at  the  end  of  the  day  ,  they  love  each  other  very  deeply. 

adopted  sibling  :  super  close  with  them  &  will  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  for  them  .

honestly  anything  .  i’m  sure  your  ideas  will  be  a  lot  better  than  mine  ha  .

[luck-ofakennedy]

I guess I'm leaning into this more

Here's the thing. I am procrastinating when it comes to the virtual training of my new job because it's all reading and watching videos of technical shit. This is why I avoided working for the hard tech start-ups in sectors like finance and programming. It gets really hard to figure out at this level! Ugh, whine whine about a huge opportunity because the pandemic fucking sucks and it makes me suck.

So of course I got high then wasn't able to focus on hour seven or whatever this week of training videos (had Monday off so it's only the second day somehow) and was like, let me finally make that tumblr. I thought about creating this while I was publishing HUAL on ao3 but I partially felt like I was being presumptive that anyone would want to interact with me here and partially that I should just keep it to ao3, not put more time into this than the huge amounts I already have been.

But, you know, fuck it. I liked getting kudos and comments and writing it fun. And I as a reader like when a really good fic writer has a good tumblr. I'm for sure a collector of people. It's a rare thing for me to unfollow anyone, both people I've met in real life and people I've never met (famous or otherwise). I get invested in everyone's story.

I even recently tried to find a writer I liked back in my early tumblr days and I legit think he died. Everything he published online, even in legit publications, stopped at some point.

Anyway, I haven't had the best of luck when it comes to sharing my writing in the past, which is also part of this.

My tumblr which I still maintain like a zen garden now (and is still followed by people I know in real life, which is why I'm not just sharing that) was found out by my on-and-off college boyfriend back when he was a factor. I used to write little posts pretty much unloading on how hot and cold he was and how I felt about it. He and his friends supposedly read sections in a Samual L Jackson voice when someone shared it with them. No wondered he ended up abusive!

So with that shit experience and the times before when my mom would find either movie scripts or vlogs I made in high school that she had opinions about, I stopped writing outside of the occasional post to my cleansed tumblr that couldn't be used against me. Would I kill it with the bodies of Facebook events for parties I've thrown? Yes. Do I text and email constantly for life and work? Yes. Do I have a pretty fun InstaStory situation? I think so! But like, no writing of anything creative and minimal writing of personal shit.

But I have been doing a version of fic writing for a long ass time. Fantasizing about crushes, celebs, or fictional characters (made by others or even myself) has been my go-to daydream for so long. I remember riding my bike on my driveway as a pre-teen making up vivid stories in my head for hours. I still now will fall into it, currently, as you can imagine, thinking about Bucky and Darcy. I saw something on tumblr about having it all in your head but getting it to the page is the harder part, which like, yeah.

I have had a few different ships I've been into over the years- Johnlock, Eames/Arthur, Lorelie/Luke, Leslie/Ben, David/Patrick, etc. I wrote fics in my head for all of them. The Eames/Arthur one was the closest I got to putting anything else out since I actually have some writing in my notes app for them.

It took a pandemic and my life to slow so far down for me to finally write HUAL. I'm overall glad I did it. I am proud of it, which is why I did publish it. I wasn't expecting to like comments and kudos so much but like, I'm a sucker for any compliments, but especially those about my brain.

It's been harder to write since life picked up, which makes sense. I want to write more but I also don't like the internal pressure I give myself to do it. I already procrastinate enough as it is in general, don't need more things on the list.

So I guess this is my way of forcing myself forward. This won't be seen until I start publishing FP, which is good, this is very transparent. The act of being seen is scary which is why I should do it, right? I've already shown the very nice readers the equivalent of me mashing two barbie dolls together while making sex noises for over 37k works and that worked out better than expected.

Hope you enjoyed my high ramblings on my process and writing. It should get more fun?

[crazy-noonoohead]

So no one told you life was gonna be this way. *CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP!*

I’ve spent the past two months re-watching all of Friends from beginning to end (that’s right, all ten seasons in two months), and I just finished the series a couple of days ago. This was a project I had wanted to take on for a while now (and yes, binge-watching a TV show totally counts as a project, especially one that ran as long as Friends), and thanks to Netflix, I was finally able to do it. Friends is the first TV show that I remember ending. I spent most of my childhood under the assumption that TV shows just kept going until they got abruptly cancelled or the entire cast died of old age, but then the words “series finale” entered my life. Watching it now is a very different experience than watching it when it was on TV, and I have some thoughts.

Things that don’t hold up (I forgive these things because we were a lot less conscious of them in the 90s/early 2000s than we are now, but it’s still important to acknowledge the parts that would be considered offensive if the show had been written in this decade):

*Awful lot of straight, white, cisgender, thin people in New York City. In ten seasons, I think there have been three interracial relationships, and two involved the same person outside of the friend group (Ross and Julie, Joey and Charlie, Ross and Charlie). If I missed any, someone please let me know.

*Toxic masculinity. A lot of the jokes in this show give me an “LOL STRAIGHT MEN DOING SOMETHING FEMININE” vibe now (nap buddies, Chandler calling Joey a woman when he gets into potpourri, Chandler and Joey worrying if they hug too often). If those same jokes were in a script today, I would want them to make fun of the internalized toxic masculinity instead of making fun of the actions themselves. Although, in the episode where Ross freaks out about Ben having a Barbie doll, his side is clearly written as the wrong one, so they get points for that.

*Body shaming jokes. This one gets more of a pass, because even Monica joked about how she used to be overweight (“I WAS the pile of coats!”), but a lot of the comments about her past appearance would be criticized a lot more heavily today. Unfortunately, this is still an issue in media, but I think viewers are more likely to call TV shows out on it now than we were then.

*Ross’ jealous, controlling tendencies were written as funny quirks. Now I know to stay away from people who have those qualities as strongly as Ross does. That’s not endearing. That leads to unhealthy relationships.

*Trigger warning: Sexual assault.    They completely made light of the fact that Joey’s tailor sexually assaulted him for most of his life. While I admit I still laughed at the “That’s not how they do pants!” line, I don’t think a network would even dream of having that happen to any of the women on the show. Also, Paolo didn’t “make a move on” Phoebe. What he did was harassment.

*Semi-related to the last one, there was the occasional comment about characters liking certain celebrities who were later revealed to have sexually harassed and/or assaulted people. I 100% don’t fault the writers for this because they couldn’t have known, but watching now, with that knowledge, I definitely had some “...Oh” moments. Of course now I can’t think of any examples, but I know I’ve gotten that feeling a few times.

*With the exception of Rachel, everyone starts the show with stable jobs and enough financial security to live independently in nice apartments in their mid/late 20s. REALLY? Maybe that was easier in the 90s, but it wasn’t THAT easy. I’m now older than these characters were at the beginning of the series, and very few of my friends have moved out of their parents’ houses. Our 20s aren’t as grown up as we used to think.

Things that totally still hold up:

*Everyone’s comedic timing! They may not be the greatest, most versatile actors ever (I still see their Friends characters in other roles they’ve played), but they’re still very funny and they delivered their lines and reactions in just the right ways.

*The bittersweet, mostly-feel-good, classic sitcom ending. Its series finale had every quality most people would expect and want, and while most of my favorite series finales don’t wrap everything up neatly, this one did so in a good, effective way. I do have that “one coupling in a TV friend group is enough” mindset, and I even thought that when I first watched the finale at 13, but I still wasn’t bothered by Rachel getting off the plane. Although, I cared more that it would be easier for Ross to see Emma than I did about his relationship with Rachel.

*Their willingness not to shy away from some of the more serious life events, obviously aside from the one I mentioned earlier in this note. The best example is when Monica and Chandler found out they probably couldn’t have children. This was one of the only times Chandler didn’t try to lighten the mood with a joke, because it was a big deal and had to be treated as such. Showing the difficulty of the adoption process added to this, because while I may not have personal experience in the matter (yet), I know it’s not easy.

*Alternatively, finding the humor in serious situations. Phoebe had a very disturbing past, but the way she talked about it so casually is still funny. No one’s laughing at her mom’s death (hopefully), but the show allows us to laugh at her willingness to joke about it...and use it to guilt-trip people into giving her what she wants.

*How quickly Chandler accepted his dad after going to his show. I don’t think his issues were ever with his dad being gay, but more that he left, and the person he left for also happened to be a man. Yes, there were jokes about his dad wearing dresses in public, but of course that bothered him as a child, because kids in elementary and middle school are mean and used that to make fun of him. Allowing himself to move past that and reconnect with his dad after years of not speaking was a great moment in the series, and again, wasn’t played as a joke. Something funny probably happened immediately after that, but the moment itself was taken seriously.

*So many things are still relatable. The struggles of finding a job, eventually finding a new job you really love, finding meaningful romantic relationships (for those of you who are interested in those), etc. will always be relevant. Watching Rachel’s journey from someone who still relied on her parents’ money to someone with enough financial independence has a lot more meaning to me now than it did when the show first aired.

*Going back to Ross being jealous and controlling, I like that Rachel got mad and called him out instead of immediately forgiving him because it meant that he cares about her. His actions may have made the audience laugh, but he still didn’t get away with it.

*Despite the lack of non-white characters, the few interracial relationships just were. Julie happened to be Asian and Charlie happened to be black, and no one made a thing out of it.

*All six characters have both flattering and not so flattering qualities, and you never doubt that they genuinely care about each other. I don’t think I need to elaborate any more.

Other random thoughts:

*I’m definitely the most like Phoebe, but I have Chandler’s sarcastic humor, as well as some aspects of Monica in the way I like some things organized.

*I want a CD of all of Phoebe’s songs. “Smelly Cat” is still better than the entire score to [show title redacted].

*A lot of cool celebrity cameos/guest stars, most of which are people I wouldn’t start recognizing until years later! (Hank Azaria, Jane Lynch, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Ellen Pompeo, Ron Glass, Mae Whitman, and Danny DeVito, to name a few.)*I never watched Mad About You, but now that I know Ursula is a character on that show, I appreciate the cross-over.

*There’s a fan theory that Ross has Asperger’s, and I’m into it.

*Rachel ordering the lobster on her date with Joey was definitely a shout-out to “He’s her lobster” back in the second season, her getting sick from what she thought was the lobster was an indication that they didn’t belong together, and her getting sick right before she has an affair with him in the alternate universe episode proves that even more (shout-out to my friend Tracy for bringing that last part to my attention), and nothing will convince me otherwise.

*To help myself ease out of the withdrawal, I started watching Joey. It’s not as bad as I remember people saying it was, but...it’s not that good. With the exception of Joey, the characters are pretty one-dimensional, and a lot of the jokes feel forced. The fact that I only remembered two things from the show (memorizing a monologue but performing it at the wrong play, and presenting an award to the wrong person YEARS BEFORE STEVE HARVEY DID IT) says a lot about its quality. As much as I love Joey, I think the wrong friend got the spin-off. The one I’d really like to see is about Phoebe’s life before she met the rest of the group. Just like she always does, she’d be able to find the humor even in the toughest of times, and I think it would be a very interesting story.

*I still hear, “we’d come up to poop in your ear” instead of, “your week, your month, or even your year,” despite knowing better.

*They were most definitely, without a single doubt, on a break.

So parts of Friends didn’t age well, but 10-20 years from now, we’ll be saying the same thing about beloved TV shows from this decade. And in my personal opinion, the parts that did age well outweigh the parts that didn’t, which is why I love it just as much now as I did back then. I’m thrilled that after all these years, it’s still there for me, like it’s been there before.

[uomo-accattivante]

My Suburbicon Review

This past Sunday, I attended the premiere of “Suburbicon” in Los Angeles. I had heard unflattering reviews stemming from the film’s performances on the Fall festival circuit, yet I was eager to find out for myself whether or not George Clooney’s adaptation of the Coen Brothers’ screenplay worked since I read an older version of it in advance (before Clooney modified it). Ooof. Unfortunately, there are just some films that Oscar Isaac cannot save - no matter how good his performance is. Here are my two cents:

First, the positives. I liked that this story was set in the 1950s. Stylistically, it was way more charming than the nondescript current-day setting, which was how it had originally been written. Composer Alexandre Desplat’s music was very enjoyable and punctuated the jaunty quality of the 1950s, yet highlighted the ominous overtones shadowing this picture. And I am in agreement with everyone else’s opinion so far that Oscar Isaac was the main stand-out element in the film. His dialogue delivery was crisp and snappy, and his performance served as a breath of fresh air that cleared out the staleness of the rest of the film’s pacing which, in my opinion, seemed to drag. Compared to Isaac, everyone else had moments of dialogue that came across like they were talking in slow motion. However, I did find Julianne Moore’s overall take on her creepy Barbie-like character to be quite fascinating. And Noah Jupe, who played the Lodge’s son, Nicky, did a fine job of portraying a boy stuck in the middle of a luckless situation. Matt Damon’s performance was suitable, but nothing to write home about.

Now, for the stuff that didn’t work well. What George Clooney attempted to do was combine two completely separate stories - The Coen Brothers’ original home invasion gone-wrong tale and the real-life based account of harassment that the (African-American) Myers family experienced in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in the 1950s. In my opinion, he should have just kept the two stories separate and made a film based on one subject or the other. Trying to integrate the two plots didn’t work, as barely any of Myers’ storyline overlapped into the home invasion plot, making for awkward, almost nonexistent transitions between the two subjects. Clooney shortchanged the social impact of the Myers’ ordeal which deserved a film unto itself.

The only thing tying those two stories together were Nicky Lodge (Caucasian) and Andy Myers (African-American), the two boys in the film, since they both played baseball together. But then, Clooney made the editorial decision to remove the two funniest scenes in the film that featured Josh Brolin as a rogue Little League coach talking to his baseball team (which I would presume to have included both Nicky and Andy), so that didn’t help weave anything together further. I have not seen the cut footage, but I read those two baseball scenes in the original screenplay and they were freaking hilarious, and just as entertaining as Oscar Isaac’s scenes. I really hope that the deleted footage is included in the home release of “Suburbicon.”

In what was the most unsatisfying part of the film for me, there was no clear payoff or ending to either storyline. In the Coen Brothers’ original script, the home invasion plot ending was pretty vague. It appeared to me that one of the reasons why they never got “Suburbicon” made was that they hadn’t nailed the ending yet, even after having brought on several other writers to work on the screenplay. So, I was under the impression that Clooney must have finally figured out how to bring closure. Unfortunately, I still felt like I was left hanging at the end of the film. In addition, no one was reprimanded or brought to justice for the neighborhood incident that happened at the Myers’ home, which totally frustrated me. I was waiting for the film’s “lesson to be learned” moment since Clooney made such a big noise during interviews about how the current political climate and significance of the Myers’ story motivated him to make this film in the first place. And that moment never arrived.

In a nutshell, “Suburbicon” came across to me as two stories shoehorned together in too small of a space, with me longing for the scene between Oscar Isaac and Julianne Moore to extend until the end of the film. This does not add up to the makings of a hit movie. Sorry, George. I hope you have better luck next time.