#every character is basically at the midpoint of their story anyways

[willthelies]

Edit: Okay after getting started on the dialogue for Parasite...looks like the next two chapters are going to have to be Will and Jonathan's POVs. So maybe not ideal for Mike's birthday. For now I'll get going on the thumb-wrestling one shot, but feel free to keep voting.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream - Spider-Man: No Way Home

I’ve basically grown up with Spider-Man. I watched the original Raimi films with my dad, I saw both of the Webb films and did not particularly care for them, and I’ve seen Spidey’s appearances in the MCU. No matter the ups and downs, though, there is one thing that has always stayed true: Spider-Man is my favorite hero, and all of the actors have always done a fine job at breathing life into him. Tobey Maguire had that awkward dorkiness to his Peter that made him endearing, and Andrew Garfield had that playful “never shuts up” energy while in the suit. Holland is a bit of a mix of both and does a solid job himself. The point is, I love Spider-Man, and even at his Amazing Spider-Man 2-est I can still find something to love.

No Way Home is a film all about that love. This film embraces every bit of the Spider-Man lore so far, every single movie across three separate takes on the character, and brings it all together into the ultimate, amazing, spectacular experience that is one of the most ambitious crossover events of all time. This is a film that honors Spider-Man’s legacy, paints him an interesting future, and manages to fix so many of the problems with every other iteration of Spider-Man in film that it’s mind-boggling. Be warned, there’s mild spoilers in this review because it is impossible to talk about this film without them... but it is stuff I’m sure you can easily guess anyway. Still, fair warning!

This is definitely Tom Holland’s best performance yet. He gets to be awkward, charming, a hero bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, a young man haunted by terrible traumas that he has to shoulder as he grapples with doing the right thing… In this film, more than any of his other outings, he feels like Spider-Man for the first time. And with the way this movie ends, that may be the point. These first three MCU films come off as a prolonged origin story for the Peter we all know and love, and in this movie Holland shows us that he can be that Peter and not just a Tony Stark fanboy.

The supporting cast is also fantastic here, though there are a few weak spots. Obviously Ned is not one of them, as he continues to be as great as he’s always been, and MJ continues being a great character as she was in Far From Home. Doctor Strange also isn’t the issue, and he easily could have been if he was allowed to be a mentor to Peter; however, the film uses him sparingly, mostly to set up the plot, provide some conflict in the middle, and then help resolve it, leaving the mentoring to go to a couple other characters who work much better as guides for Peter’s development. Surprisingly Aunt May is not either; she’s sort of been relegated to minor roles in all her appearances where her sex appeal is played up and Marisa Tomei doesn’t really get to show off her skills. Here, she gets a bit of an expanded role and basically sets Peter on the right path for the plot a few times, acting as a bit of an emotional core and guide until a shocking moment at the midpoint. It’s pretty impressive even if she still isn’t the strongest character. There’s also a really nice cameo from a certain blind lawyer who manages to completely clear Peter of criminal charges in regards to Mysterio’s death, which manages to be a highlight of the film despite being incredibly brief.

The weak spots here really are Happy and, shockingly, J. Jonah Jameson. Happy is just absolutely sidelined throughout the film and is hugely ineffective; by the end his life is effectively ruined and he didn’t really get to help at all, which really sucks. Good ol’ JJJ is played with gusto by J.K. Simmons as always, the man’s definitely still got it, but he’s a bit of a flat antagonistic character who seemingly just exists to kick Spidey while he’s down, with none of the emotional depth the Raimi iteration of the character had. I don’t think it’s bad per se, but I hope they expand on him in the future.

Now onto the villains! Spider-Man movies in the past have always struggled with juggling multiple villains, so there was obviously a fear that would happen here when there are five villains showing up. Thankfully, the movie knows which villain is the main threat and gives each one something. It sort of helps that the villains, while an antagonizing force in the story, are sort of side effects of the main problem of the plot (which is the bungled spell), and they come across more as a cherry on top. At any rate, each of them gets some great moments to shine: Doc Ock gets the bridge scene that was shown in the trailers, Electro gets a fight when he first appears which has Sandman helping stop him, and Lizard… Well, Lizard honestly gets the short end of the stick, but he does get some cool moments in the final battle. There is a problem where some of these guys feel a little underutilized, particularly Lizard and Sandman. This mostly comes from restrictions due to COVID, with Rhys Ifans and Thomas Haden Church only able to reprise via voice acting and so not getting the same physical presence as the others, but Sandman still manages to feel pretty in line with his persona at the end of Spider-Man 3 while Lizard gets to be mildly funny by going from his more tragic and complex nature in his film to a cartoonish lizard man with a posh British accent who seems overly enthusiastic about turning everyone into lizards. This is the closest we’ll probably ever get to seeing the Marvel villain Sauron adapted, so I’ll take it.

Electro and Doc Ock manage to get a bit more spotlight, and it’s great seeing Ock go through a turn and become an ally, because Alfred Molina is such a charming man and Otto in Spider-Man 2 was a good guy at heart anyway. It’s very deserved and satisfying here. Electro, meanwhile, gets to be an actual fun character here, with all the dopiness of his debut gone and replaced with some snarky cynicism courtesy of Jamie Foxx. They actaully make fun of the electric eel thing multiple times, and when the big final battle rolls around Electro gets to be the massive threat and the fun antagonist he deserved to be. It’s really great seeing  Foxx in a truly great Spider-Man movie for once. Hell, it’s great to see everyone! Alfred Molina, Church, Ifans, all of them put in good work here. But there is one villain I’ve neglected to mention, mostly because he’s the most important of all, and the true big bad of the film: The Green Goblin.

Gobby is, as in the comics and the Raimi film, Spider-Man’s most evil and deadly foe, and no man could possibly put in a better turn as Osborn than Willem Dafoe. Dafoe manages to pull off the terrified old man grappling with an evil split personality that is Norman and the terrifying, cackling madman that is the Goblin just as well as he did back in Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie all those years ago, and honestly? He may actually be better. You see, it seems that they listened to Weird Al’s “Ode to a Superhero” and agreed with the line about how dumb the Goblin mask is and how “He’s scarier without it on,” because Dafoe gets to put his absolutely insane facial acting to work here when he shifts into Goblin mode. And yes, Dafoe is utterly terrifying without the mask, no doubt about it. He was always great, but now he truly gets to shine like never before, and cements himself as perhaps the greatest villain in the MCU with his actions here.

And now, time to talk about the worst-kept secret in Marvel history: Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprising their roles as their respective takes on Peter Parker. It’s actually amazing, but their appearances don’t overtake the film and outshine Holland, but they actually manage to complement him very well, acting as mentors and surrogate brothers to help teach him what it truly means to be a Spider-Man. Equally amazing is how they get a substantial amount of screentime, appearing as major players in the third act and sticking around until almost the very end. I don’t think I need to say that Tobey’s still got it; he’s just as endearingly awkward as ever before, as if he just stepped out of the Raimi films and into this one, and they actually managed to up his snark a bit. What I would like to highlight is how Andrew Garfield finally gets to prove he might be the very best Peter ever with how adorably dorky and self-loathing he is. This man really shows he has the true essence of Peter down pat, and I can’t believe it, but I actually want to see an Amazing Spider-Man 3 with him in it. He deserves it, like I always knew he did. Man just needed the right script and the right plot to shine, and boy does he ever get to here.

The plot does hinge on some stupidity on the part of Peter and Strange, but honestly there’s nothing too egregiously awful. It moves at a pretty solid pace, maybe a bit fast in the beginning but it soon finds its groove and keeps moving along steadily right until the end. The action manages to be really varied and creative, with all sorts of fun Spidey antics, and the characters never act overwhelmingly stupid or out-of-character. Yes, it all does end up feeling like a massive fix fix that addresses the problems of every single film Spider-Man and works to rectify them, but if you’re a fan of these films and these characters, who cares? Are you going to complain Holland’s finally free of his Stark connections and gets to really be Spider-Man? Are you upset Garfield gets to redeem himself? Are you mad that Tobey gets to be snarky and worked things out with MJ?

This movie is honestly just a dream come true. I always joked that I wanted the MCU to adapt One More Day, because if they could adapt Civil War and make it suck less surely they could do the same with Spider-Man’s worst story ever. And this movie really is essentially that, but more than that this is what One More Day could have and should have been: A massive change to Spidey’s status quo that brings him back to basics in a good way. MCU!Peter is in a spot where he can truly grow and embrace the Spider-Man mantle, and it has me very excited for the future. This is probably my favorite Spider-Man movie ever, and if you’ve grown up with Spider-Man like I have it might end up being yours too. This is definitely one of the few Marvel movies to break away from superhero fatigue as of late, so if you just want a really great superhero movie this is it. I’m not holding my breath that we’ll ever get a superhero spectacle on this level again, but at least I feel a bit safe in saying that Spidey’s looking forward to some great adventures going forward.

Fingers crossed they try and do the Clone Saga next!

[gopeachllama]

Why I think Feysand were OOC in ACOSF

I hope that no one misunderstands from the title but let me say this is a 100% PROfeysand post. so if you hated feysand even before acosf, then this post isn't for you.

So i've seen a lot of interesting theories about feysand's and in particular rhys' behaviour and choices throughout acosf. and while alot of them seemed possible and may have been the case canonically speaking, even as a feysand stan i just couldn't seem to wrap my head around some of the things they said and did in the book. they just both seem OOC, its the only pausible explanation for me.

To understand why feysand were OOC in the book we have to look at this through a narrative perspective. as in we have to ask why would the author write the character/s in this way?

a quick overview of what a character arc is

so there can be a lot of variations of a character arc in a story but the basics is as follows (how does the character go from point 'a' to point 'b'):

the 'big lie' - the views/beliefs/actions the character has at the start which will be challenged throughout the story (this is point 'a')

the 'incident' - a plot point in which starts development of the character. something that spurs the character into action, this most ofter happens when they are placed in an unfamiliar situation. this usuallyy is the intial challenge to their 'big lie'. at this point the story will move forward and theres no going back.

the midpoint - the character changes conciously or subconciously, they start to recognise their own flaws in the 'big lie'.

world collaspes - this is usually on the heels of a victory, the character reaches the lowest point in their journey. they finally confront 'the big lie' and forces to stop this deception they inflict on themselves. they can destroy it or it will destroy them.

the climax - the reason for the story. the reason why the character had to take this journey in order to get to this moment. the moment that the character will decide once and for all whether they will go forward to point 'b' or regress back to point 'a'

the resolution - the character reaches point 'b'. their view/beliefs/actions have changed, they no longer believe in the 'big lie'.

So obvisouly the main character in acosf is Nesta. What sjm does in her books is that every plot point and development of secondary characters is in service to the arc of the main character. None of the character's outside of Nesta have their own development. Not even Cassian, any sort of changes or developments he undergoes is in service to Nesta (a complete missed opportunity for Cassian but that a whole other point). And before anyone tries to say otherwise, you can have development for characters even if they are secondary ones (and for a book that is 800+ pages long it is definitely possible). An example is with his can also be seen with Gwyn. Her leaving the library for the first time was a huge moment for the character, but she did so, in order to comfort Nesta after her big fight with Cassian. It was also so that Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie could all be together in Illyria so they could be kidnapped and forced to enter the blood rite (where the final showdown occurs with Nesta and the villan).

so what has this got to do with feysand and why are they OOC?

In fact the entire plot with feyre's pregnancy was made to give chracter developments for Nesta. There was nothing written in the book that suggested any developments for feyre and rhys. it did nothing for them. Nesta needed to become central to the story and the only way sjm thought to keep feyre side lined was to make her pregrnant. It was also just lazy writing and world building bc there is no way that rhys would have though of this when he and feyre were trying for a baby.

SIN #1 The Shields

Rhys practicing shields (shield thats doesn't even allow anyone to even touch her) on feyre, which she just allows. the book explains because of the fact that there is more danger to her now that she's pregnant. Narratively, this would make sense if there is a payoff. Like later in the story if feyre was in physical danger and the shield saves her or if the shield became a detriment to her in some way. But no nothing like this happens. Rhys 'practices' the shield on her and thats it. Rhys, who was the same person that trusted feyre enough defend herself against the weaver. It was totally out of character that he would shield her to the point that Cassian can't even kiss her on the cheek (sounds familiar huh). and the same goes for feyre, who has no problem with this (*cough* tamlin locking her up *cough*). Thats is some OOC behaviour.

So what were the point of the shields? well since sjm made it canon that fae can smell when a female is pregnant, the biggest way they came into play was in the scene when rhys lifted it long enough so that everyone could sense that that feyre was pregnant. And It could have been just that, feyre and rhys were expecting a baby, and Nesta can go along with her development, they did not need to intersect. But it did, and we'll come back to that later. This scene is a lighthearted moment in the book, one of the rare few where all the characters are happy and celebrating a good thing. acofas we knew that rhys and feyre decided to try for a baby, and seeing it pay off here was enjoyable for the readers.

But what else does this scene do? through Nesta's perspective, we can read her thoughts on it, and though she doesn't reveal much its an important character moment for her. the readers can see that she can feel happiness for someone else beyond the self-loathing she guards herself with, it shows that she is a character worth rooting for.

SIN #2 Rhys concealing the dangers of the pregnancy from feyre

oof this one is a doosey. this was the most baffling thing to come out of acosf for me. there is literally no reason or explanation that would make sense for rhys to lie to feyre like that. It offers no development for the two character it affects the most: rhys and feyre. there no fallout on rhys' end for lying to her, and there is no turmoil for feyre such as falling into depair like we told she would (the whole reason that rhys was hiding it in the first place).

When Nesta finds out that the pregnancy was most likely going to kill feyre and the baby. instead of Nesta disagreeing and urging Rhys to tell feyre, she doesn't say anything and forms a temporary truce with him, a character she has always had conflict with. It also serves as the incident that allows Nesta to have her 'world collapse' moment in her character arc. How else was Nesta going to realise what a shitty person is was being if she didn't do something so absolutely shitty? in a fit of rage, Nesta reveals to feyre that the pregnancy was going to kill both her and the baby. she get taken away on a hike in illyria (because???) and she reaches rock bottom after she comes to term with what she did. the story is taken away from velaris and the inner circle, and any conflict and resolution that happens between feyre and rhys, if it even happened at all, happens off page. again furthering my point about the pregnancy having no impact on the two characters is affects the most. After Nesta's fleeting moment of enlightenment, and her swordplay sex marathon with Cassian (urgh) she returns to velaris and nothing has changed between rhys and feyre. there isn't really much of a development with Nesta's relationship with feyre, their 'reconciliation' occurs all of less than one page and doesn't even happen out loud, just mind to mind. Now that Nesta has had her important character moment, nothing else matters (again lazy writing).

SIN #3 Everyone dies

ok so yes everyone has said their two cents about this and i agree with it. Feyre and nyx had to die so that Nesta could have her climax moment. It is the climax of the story since it is the big story development right before the resolution. and about the bargain - feysand decided in acofas that they were going to try for a baby. meaning that it was after this decision that they struck the bargain that they would die together. so at some point they would have thought of the fact they would have a child/children when the both die. im sorry but do they seem like the kind of ppl that would make a suicide pact even if it meant leaving their children behind? TOTALLY OOC for me. and i dont know i guess also the stakes weren't high enough with just the threat of feyre and nyx dying.

So feyre and nyx are dead and rhys will soon follow and Nesta intervenes to save them. Its also a self-sacrificing moment bc she has to give up her powers in order to do this... Showing that she does truely love her family and the depths of her powers. (seriously idc how you stan or hate how does anyone this good book?). don't doubt that in the future books sjm will find a way for Nesta to get her powers back (whatever they are (pure death WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???))

So Nesta saves the day, everyone is fine and nothing has changed except Nesta is nice now probably. the end.

welp this got way longer that i expected but anyways long story short there was nothing about the pregnancy that gave development to feysand characters and it was all for the development of the main character.

i don't claim acosf!feysand and sjm better fucking leave them alone in the rest of the books.

[fencesandfrogs]

clan culture inspiration fic master post

a collection of fics/series/w/e i've used for inspiration. ordered by how much i used them

Flightless Dove, Poison Ivy acaciapines

read it, it’s good. it's 100% my main fic inspiration, i love it, it's very good.

the light that shines on you solacefruit

huge inspiration for my riverclan. just. massively where i get a lot of ideas. probably a larger source of material than flightless dove, if i'm being honest.

RIVERCLAN leaders have a litany of names. weather caller, storm seer, spirit walker. a new leader being made is a chance to find another for the list. these names are to honor leaders for the role they play in their lives.

(names. leaders. meaning.)

so you can see where i got that from.

Warriors Redux Deconstruction Dullard on ao3 (not linked)

i've split this into two parts, because there's a lot. i'm a fan of this in terms of world building, but i've been select in what i've used from it. deconstruction is linked highly because it had a lot of key details that shaped my opinions on what wouldn't be. a lot of this i would've changed anyway, but i wanted to list WR because it'd be dishonest to act like this wasn't shaping my thoughts.

anyway, a short list of things that were mentioned in WR:D that i'd already decided on or am now using

behaviors. i mean, i've said "flicked her tail" or "flattened his ears" so much it's getting old, but by god if i am not being true to cats movements. i think WR:D is somewhat conservative on use of purring, but i've also been writing about kits, and a lot of purring is involved with kits, so special case, i suppose. but i'm very cautious with my descriptions. i've tried really hard not to use smile, because cats don't smile. that's the one that gets me the most.

water. this is kind of a specific thing. but. in ctd's fading echoes. the lake is a concern not because the cats need water, but because the prey needs water.

queens and toms. now. i have always been irritated by this. and the lack of female leadership. because toms should know they're kept on the graces of the queens. the sisters got it right. but i can't just kick out half the cast, so i'm forced to keep them. i have, however, kept toms out of the nursery. queens are protective around their kits. it's the best i can do to appease my strong desire to literally just kick every male cat out of the clan. in all of my stories, though, i keep track of who's in the nursery with what kits, because those kits are going to bond to every damn mother. it's super annoying that this isn't kept more clear anywhere. i have to do so much math and check so many allegiances every time.

kits. it's basically impossible to convince me to write this the way the hunters do, so even in ctd, we see kits not walking, not opening their eyes, until real kittens would. does this make the early chapters of growing shadows a pain because dovekit does basically nothing but sit and listen? yes. do i care? yes, it is important to me that dovekit does nothing but sit and listen because she's a baby. bb. need protect.

genetics. usually i correct coat colors for POV cats. because it bothers me. see: tortie dovekit/ivykit in CTD, and the fact that i think in jaywing, jayfeather is going to end up amber like brightheart. i need to do some research to double check, but...i think that's what will happen. (please don't ask about hollykit, ivykit, and lionkit. i don't even know who their parents are. how is crowfeather "dark grey, almost black"? what does that mean. how is leafpool even leafpool. i don't understand anything.)

religion. i'm not fundamentally changing how starclan works, because i'm writing the books where magic is confirmed real, but...i've tried to distance the connections with it. and god, so help me, i'm going to make things a proper religion for w&f. there will be religious things like prayer. god.

cultures, folklore, names. this is getting long so i'm lumping this together. basically, i've got some name stuff sorted out. it's not "traditional" naming, because i'm not going WR on this and renaming really important cats (altho the reason WR has my respect for traditional naming is because they're not afraid to rename cats to fit the scheme), but i have some pretty defined rules. and there will be folklore and stories. this is especially important for dovefeather, when she goes to riverclan.

Sharing Tongues Icej

a series. i don't think i've used much of this directly, but it has shaped a lot of my opinions on clans. it's why thunderclan is militaristic and why windclan is so strict.

it's also shaped my thoughts on a lot of parts of clan life. i'm writing this all out of order, so i'll say, a lot of the inspiration that warriors redux had, is shared in this series. i'm not sure if there's overlap in the interst, but it's got simularities.

especially in terms of relationships. i have a bit of a fascination with story telling as a form of culture, if only because in my personal life, story telling, especially verbal story telling, has always been really important. so i think a lot about it.

anyway, these are a good set of fics, and they're ranked so highly because they're kind of a paradigm i've crafted my thoughts around.

Tell me about your Ancestors Drowsy_Salamander

so this was what got me started, even over flightless dove. it got me thinking about the differences clans would have.

i haven't written "funerals. mourning. prayer." yet, although as you might guess from the fact that i have a title, it is on my mind. i think i'll draw heavily on this for that.

one other very specific line in this that i draw on is

When SkyClan was reformed by Firestar at the gorge, it was reformed in ThunderClan’s image.

now i say that specifically because i didn't want that. i wanted leafstar to find her own tradition. a lot of skyclan's destiny deals with her struggling to adapt the warrior code to her clan. so Ancestors continues by talking about tree's influence, and this is what i got from it:

SKYCLAN once held ceremonies at tilt, when the birds were quiet, but now, they hold most ceremonies at low moon, when the spirits are strongest. ...

apprentices are made at low sun, born from a time when they were not always gathered.

(ceremonies)

and i'm happy with that

Warriors Redux: Ammendment Dullard on ao3, not linked

this is ranked significantly lower than deconstruction because (a) i'm borrowing superificial things at best and (b) i had already come to a lot of these conclusions. still, i'm writing a full list because there are little things i don't think to write whole essays about sometimes. that said, whereas in deconstruction, i could basically say "yes, everything that's said here, i agree with, i'm only tweaking things for personal taste or because of differences in perspective" here it's more like "here are the things i'm using" and the other stuff is just there, but not really anything i want to use

time and date. in one of my generic CTD posts i had a few paragraphs about this. basically, i like the system of time. except for half, because that confuses me. so it's dawn, sunrise, low sun, (sun) tilt, sunhigh, dusk, moonrise, low moon, (moon) tilt, moonhigh, repeat. and kits are aged to apprentices at the beginning or rough midpoint of seasons.

numbers. math. drawing things in the dirt with claws. in short, yes, no, what the...no. just no. cats in my stories can basically count, but they don't really, like, count the way we do? they might say five leaf bares ago, because i am not saying, "the leaf bare before the one with X which was before the one with Y" and that's what a cat is thinking and maybe they have words for this, i don't know, i'm not writing that. four and nine are holy numbers, or the closest cats get. (apprentices are apprenticed at nine moons in the holy sense, because a queen pregnent for a three --- two, but who's counting --- and in the nursery for six. this will never come up in a story unless it's a background note, because it's confusing and hard to explain off the cuff.) i don't have to explain my last point.

names. i have my own rules. i don't intend on changing character names with the exception of the symbolism in jaywing and dovefeather, but i may at some point make some comments on what, based on my rules, i would do. i don't want to change names because it confuses me, but i don't want to say for sure that i won't. definitely not based on WR rules, i have my own form of "traditional naming" for the w&f world.

clan specific notes. you can find it in my writing. there's a lot of influence in it. i don't want to list everything.

come back to you one by one solacefruit

i haven't really used this for anything, i just generally like it. it's definitely given me inspiration for how i use stories, but not any particular thing.

it really is beautiful, though.

alright, that's about it.

[theastrophilearchitect]

I started writing a book.

And I’m mad about it, because I just started this post, brought up a new tab and lost it because I didn’t save my draft.

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. Wow.

As of this moment, this post won’t be going up until April 19th, but I’m starting writing this at 10.30pm on Sunday, February 21st, 2021. I’ve done a lot in the last couple weeks, and I want to have some record of all I’ve accomplished without just letting most of it fade over the next two months.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. From when I was reading under my covers with a torch past bedtime, through the years I wanted to be an artist, through the years I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s always been there - no matter what primary career path I went down, I wanted to be an author. The last few years, I’ve been invested in becoming a biologist, and that dream really took a backseat.

In the start of this lockdown, my mental health went downhill, and some advice my therapist gave me was just to prioritise myself. It sounds simple enough, but, even in my free time, I’d been focusing on schoolwork - revising constantly for exams I’m still not sure are actually happening. (Boris Johnson is apparently making an announcement tomorrow about beginning to ease lockdown, but we’ll see) So, on Saturday, February 6th, I started an attempt to coalesce the ideas I had floating in my head into something tangible.

I’ve tried to write books countless times (not technically countless - I have all the documents on my laptop, so I could if I wanted to), but mostly, I’ve never gotten further than a couple bare plot points and some characters, maybe some ideas for subplots, before I’ve stagnated and given up.

Three times, I’ve finished a skeletal outline. Twice, I’ve started to go back over those outlines only to realise they made no sense or just seemed week, and simply not cared enough to fix it. Until now, I guess.

February 6th, 7th, and fast-forward to my week off beginning the 15th, up until the 19th, I kept developing this concept I’d managed to form, but I was struggling to establish a coherent plot. I had up until and including a midpoint (which was later condensed into just a first act), but everything after that was just a void. I began searching for some skeletal structure I could apply to it, both to work on pacing and fill in the blanks. I tried several, and got a little further, but was about to give up hope.

Then I remembered a video by Katytastic I’d watched years ago about the 3-act, 9-block, 27-chapter structure she used, and couldn’t see the harm in giving it a go. And something clicked.

You can find the video here - the structure’s detailed and easy to follow, plus she even gives an example of using it to generate a plot.

I started binge-watching her writing vlogs in the background, and even started using her same writing program, Scrivener, which just made every a thousand times easier by taking away the need to juggle a billion Word documents. It’s fairly pricey, but I’m currently using the 30-day free trial - it’s 30 days of use, not of ownership, too: if you use it every day, it lasts 30 days, but if you use it once a week, it lasts 30 weeks.

Where Kat used the 27 parts the structure broke down into as chapters, I chose to refer to them as beats, and separate chapters later.

On Saturday the 20th, I finished defining my scenes and started writing an actual draft. I wrote two scenes, putting me at a collective word count (not including notes, synopses, etc.) of 2,580 words.

This morning, Sunday the 21st, I started over. I hated my opening. I’m not going to go through the mess of today’s process, but I currently have around 80 one-line-outline scenes, split into 3 acts. I wrote a draft of my prologue and detailed-outlined (which I’m mentally referring to as zero-outlining because it’s similar to how Katytastic does what she calls a zero draft, but is very much outlining, not a draft) two and a half other chapters. Scriver also tells me how many words I wrote in total, across notes, character profiles, location lists, a document I’ve named ‘Train of Thought’ for my ramblings as I go etc.

Today, I wrote a grand total of 4,141 words, which, rather counterintuitively, puts me at a draft total of 2,598. That makes sense. Anyway.

There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, and I have no idea how much time I’ll have in the next six months to invest in this project, but I’d like, at bare minimum, to have one complete draft by the start of the next school year in September, which gives me just over 6 months. Which is probably too much time to actually motivate myself, but that’s not the point.

A manuscript needs to have a minimum word count of 50K words to be considered a novel, so, even though my ultimate goal for this project is around 80K words, 50K is going to be my goal for this draft.

I’m being optimistic about sticking with this.

Tuesday 23/02/2021 - Word Count: 3,099 I wrote nothing yesterday; planning to focus writing solely on days off rather than work days, but last night, watching through the incredibly long queue of Alexa Donne writing videos, I came to the conclusion writing every day, even just a little, would be the best way to ensure I keep working on this, so I set myself a goal of just 500 words a day.

Wednesday 24/02/2021 - Word Count: 5,350 After doing a little bit of maths as to how long this outlining and draft would take me if I were to only write 500 words a day, I decided to boost that goal to 1,000. I got started around 1pm today, online school draining me so much I couldn’t face another two hours. I worked on and off until 6pm, and around 4.45pm, I finished outlining Act One!

Thursday 25/02/2021 - Word Count: 7,022 I continued my scene outlining into Act Two, but I hit a brick wall around the midpoint. I have to write chronologically - some people jump around, but I have to write linearly, or it feels like I’m trying to make something in a void. It just doesn’t work. I didn’t know how to get from one scene to the next - there were so many things I needed to establish to get there, but I didn’t want to backtrack. I decided to re-jig the whole thing, but, after dinner, I realised I didn’t have to, and instead, decided to just start a draft, conscious of the things I need to establish as I go.

Friday 26/02/2021 - Word Count: 8,208 Starting draft one, I rewrote the prologue I’d already written, technically putting me to my second draft of it, because I’d been thinking about it for days and just wanted to revisit it, and it was so much better. Then I moved on to chapter one, but decided I wanted to re-jig my chapters. While outlining, I’d split the whole book into only about twenty chapters, but decided to go for shorter ones for more effective divisions of the story. I got most of the way through the first scene of chapter one, but basically ran out of both time and motivation, since I hadn’t heavily outlined that scene. in total, I wrote over 2000 words today, but because I only increased the prologue word count by about 100 words, it didn’t do that much to the total count.

Saturday 27/02/2021 - Word Count: 11,050 I got some chores done Saturday morning and focused on finishing my book so I could include it in my February wrap-up, but I still had time to get some writing done around mid-day. My goal was just to hit 10K this weekend, but I though I could do it in one day. I wrote about 1,000 words before feeling a little word-drained, but took a break for lunch, got back to it and wrote 2,400 words. Though that only added a little over 2,000 to the word count, it took me to 10K! I’m 20% of the way to being able to call it a novel! We’re in quintuple digits!

And then eight hours later, I wrote another thousand words and got to 11K.

Sunday 28/02/2021 - Word Count: 13,722 I spent most of my Sunday morning writing, though it took me more than two hours to write about 1500 words, though it only added about 1100 to my count. I decided to set myself an overall and weekly deadlines to hold myself accountable. Due to the fact I don’t yet have a clue how many words this will work out as, I decided I wanted to have either a complete first draft or 100K words (which I doubt I’ll reach, but it seems like a good way to make myself finish the draft before my deadline) by the end of April. Which works out to a little under 1500 words a day, or just under 11K a week, which is perfectly doable. Bearing in mind my current word count is including outlines, but I still believe in myself.

I wrote another 1600 words later, which took me to 14K, until I deleted the 300 word outline I wrote for one scene, but I worked out my words per day for the next two months with the assumption of a 10K word count as of March 1st and a target of either a complete draft or 100K words by the end of April, so I’m nearly 4,000 words ahead of schedule. Which gives me 6,606 words to write this week, instead of 10,328. (If you couldn’t tell, I like numbers. They just make sense to me.

Monday 01/03/2021 - Word Count: 15,005 I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, but I was completely leached of motivation today, I’m ahead of schedule anyway and I was only under by less than 200 words. It’s alright. But, hey, we hit 15K! Two days after hitting 10K!

Tuesday 02/03/2021 - Word Count: 21,119 This was an insane writing day. My end-of-day target was only 16,480, and that was still ahead of schedule - if I was sticking to the 100K by April 30th, I’d only actually need to be at 12,950 today. This was the best writing day I’ve ever had. I wrote before school and during breaks, which kept both my writing and working momentum up.

I didn’t read a page of my current read, but I wrote a total of 7,681 words and increased my wordcount by 6,114 words, or literally an additional 40.75%. I hit 20K three days after hitting 10K, and am 42.238% of the way to being able to say I wrote a novel, be it a shitty first draft that won’t be complete at 50K words.

I also finished chapter three, which I’ve been working on for three days and came out ~5,000 words, and wrote chapters four and five in their entirety.

Note to self: this is day 10 of vaguely outline-drafting this project.

Wednesday 03/03/2021 - Word Count: 23,364 I've only written 490 words today, as of writing this update, but I just wanted to make note of the fact I've done some calculations, and can reasonably finish my draft this month. I'm still not completely sure how long it'll work out to be, so I can't quite work out my daily words to finish on the 31st, but if I stick to my current 1,475 words a day, I'll hit 63,894 words by the end of the month, which is a little less than I imagine this draft will be, but if I stick to that as a minimum, my first draft won't have to go into April.

I'd like to post this later this week, but I already have a post for this Friday, so God only knows how long this will be by the time it goes up. So far, I've written 1,900 words today, and I don't think I'm out of fuel yet, but I'm stopping because I need to read today, and I'd rather not burn out. I'm over my goal, anyway.

Oh, also, I'm nearly at 25K, which is halfway to a novel, but I haven't broken into Act Two yet, which means this book will be 75K minimum. I'm going to do some maths and work out how many words a day to hit 80K by March 31st. 2,030. That's doable. So I haven't read, but back to writing for like ten minutes.

I've now hit an additional 2,245 words for the day, though I wrote a total of 2,663

Thursday 04/03/2021 - Word Count: 25,415 I've decided to work out how many words I need to write each day to hit 80K by March 31st, and watch the fluctuations. (I like statistics). It should steadily go down throughout the month if I surpass it each day. Today's minimum word count is 2,023, already seven words less than yesterday's. How exciting.

The last scene of Act One was very heavy on world-building I haven't yet figured out, so I stuck what was meant to happen in brackets and just moved on, meaning I have now broken into Act Two!

I think, during the week, I'm going to focus on just meeting my minimum word count rather than exceeding it, just to save fuel for the weekends, when I can write so many more words.

And, we hit 25K! I'm halfway to a novel!

Friday 05/03/2021 - Word Count: 26,693 In complete honesty, I'm beginning to lose momentum. Maybe it's just today, but I don't really want to write and feel like I need a break, but I'm going to make myself write anyway. I'm going to make myself keep writing until this draft is done, however shitty it may end up. I really hate first drafts.

When you say 2,000 words is only 7-8 pages, it doesn't sound like that much to write per day but my god. Luckily, most of the stuff I've had to save to a Pinterest board called 'Writing Motivation' says if you write when you don't want to, it should pass instead of worsening. I wanted to hit 35K this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the momentum. I'll at least hit 31,270, though, which is my minimum goal for this week. I'm still over 700 words off my goal for today, but I'm taking a break because my head is foggy and there's still eight hours left in the day. Besides, 700 after dinner is easy. She says, realising she's probably jinxing it. Oh, well. 80K by March 31st would be difficult, even if I weren't going back to school soon, but that's a stretch goal. 100K by April 31st is my minimum, and I'm 9,000 ahead of where I need to be for that.

I think I’m stagnating because I’ve hit the ‘Fun and Games’ section, which I find really boring. I’m going to try to keep going with it, but I may just skip it and come back later.

Saturday 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 So, I did not get the extra 700 words in. Before dinner, some stuff I had to deal with came up, and by the time it was done, I just wanted to go to bed, so I did. Today, I'm going to try to make up for it, which I think is reasonable because it is now the weekend. I'm still kinda exhausted this morning, but I'm going to do my best, and my wrist hurts, but I'm not sure why. You'd think it would be from all the typing, but only one wrist hurts - you know what? Never mind. They do both hurt. I'm just not sure why, but it doesn't hurt typing this, so that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, to hit my word count for the day, I need to write 2,555 words, which doesn't sound like too much, but it kinda is because I'm primarily writing Act Two at the minute, and for every thousand words I write, I lose like 400 from my outline. You'd think I'd just not include my scene outlines in the word count, but it's too late for that now.

I'm thinking this over, and I really don't think trying to write 80K by the end of the month is going to be good for either my motivation, mental health, or ability to function back at school, so I'm going to stick to 100K or a finished draft by April 30th, and re-work out my goals from there, based on yesterday's word count, so I'm not making myself do catch-up today.

So, to hit 100K by April 30th, I only need to write 1,309 words each day (which will decrease over time because if that's my minimum now, I'll probably surpass it, decreasing the amount of words left etc.). That's so much less pressure.

God, I really don't want to write today. I just want to watch YouTube and Netflix and read.

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been working on this story straight for three weeks and I'm kinda exhausted of it. I'm not done with it, not at all, and I want to keep working on it because it exists, which makes it workable.

I watched a writing vlog by ShaelinWrites yesterday, and she said she writes different projects at once, alternating in week- or multi-week-long blocks. I think I might try that.

My plan with this post and the following updates was to keep updating it until the day it goes up, the day after which is when I begin drafting the next, but, since I may be switching projects for a while and this is really about the project I've decided to dub 'Bay Tree' (which is just, I guess, a pseudonym for here because while I have no idea what it would eventually be called, I know that's nothing like the title I'd want to give it) so I'd want to start a new post for a new project.

I'm now doing a little outlining instead of actually continuing writing, but I think this will help me, though I'm still not certain about whether or not I'm going to directly continue with this specific project for the minute. Instead of setting daily goals based on a target, I'm also just going to say 1,000 words a day, and see where that takes me.

I've just been outlining into Act Three, and I've met a major plot stumble, but I'm going to work that out and explain what I'm doing in my next writing update.

So, go drink some water, eat if you haven't eaten in the last few hours, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how wonderful you are and how much happiness you deserve, and, if you want to write a book, stop thinking about it, and go write.

[the-metaphorical-jellicle-cat]

A Scene in Cats 2019 Where the Music Makes the Scene Better

Last time I spoke about Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat and mostly talked about how I think Steven McRae’s talent as a dancer influenced how the song was basically choreographed and how it seemed as though all the energy went into this performance.This time, it’s Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer’s turn. I actually really liked this both as a song and performance. Like with Skimbleshanks, I will be going over my initial thoughts with the music and then the scene itself. I also think the same can be said here when those cast for Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer make the scene better than it needed to be. Alright here we go!

When I first listened to the soundtrack recording, I was very puzzled. I was already familiar with the version from 1998 which is upbeat and fun. This version was jazzy and slow. I was definitely surprised but in a good way. When I did some research to see if this version was actually from the show’s history. And it was (and is) used in the original London production. If you want a good idea of how it was performed you can see it here as it is in the 1993 London production. Anyway, the opening instrumentals really gave an immediate different feel from what I was used to. Just from that opening, I know that these cats are sneaky and they know it.

I also get a Pink Panther type of feeling with the instrumentals. Where Pink Panther sets the mood of the music to be mysterious and shows how it’s a detective film, Jerrie and Teazer give off a mood of sneakiness and danger. And that only in the first 16 second of the track. The use of the cymbals and the horns also lends towards tension. We don't know what these cats are going to do. Because I am listening to it first, I don’t know if they have an audience or not. Who are they singing to and why? The use of piano is also hesitant yet inviting. We want to know. We have a need. The same can be said with the clarinet, strings, and some of the piano. It is a hint of what’s to come.

Then we hear the characters singing. I needed to remember that this was recorded as a ‘live performance’ in the Tom Hooper style. (If you don’t know what I am referring to, watch this video. I also made a post about it. Just search the tag #sideways and you’ll find it.) Anyway, so far in the movie, as according to the soundtrack, we have heard 3 solos. 2 of which were terrible and 1 that was actually pretty good. The reason being that it was sung live just like Les Mis was. I thought they were going to butcher Mungo and Teazer but was surprised when I heard the singing capabilities of the actors (Naoimh Morgan and Danny Collins) who are from the world of musical theater. Of course I didn't know that when listening to the track at first but one can tell they had experience with this type of music. Their voices pull you into their story almost as if they are talking to the audience very much like in the stage show. I also want to point out the instrumentation once more since, unlike the other songs,it almost becomes a character in itself by contributing to the version that is being performed. 

After that we come to the midpoint where we hear big brass and percussion. There is something happening but we don’t know what it is. We can infer by the use of these instruments that something chaotic is happening in the scene. It builds and builds and we hear Rumpletazer come in once more but quieter as she is hiding something. It’s 72 seconds of instrumental music which takes us to a different location musically with the instruments. As Teazer sings her part, we hear more piano but with Mungo, we hear a dynamic change with the horn and the instruments that follow. The music becomes more playful and more like the characters we know from the stage version. 

What I really love about this track is the playfulness we hear when they are at the dining room section of the song. Mungo breaks the song by speaking instead of singing and it works. It works because it helps us understand how the cats view humans. To them, we are their source of fun. These two cats like to trick humans for food and essentially cause as much chaos as they can. Then we hear an entirely new voice. It’s Victoria and we realize these two actually do have an audience. It's this new voice who sounds taken in by their story. They have her wrapped around their paw. You can especially tell this because Victoria finished the line “it’s that horrible cat”.

Afterwards we get another big band moment but it lasts longer than the last. There’s more bombastic horns and saxophones and percussion while their voices reach above them. This combination pushes that chaotic sneaky narrative we heard at the very beginning. We even hear a guitar that uses the same musical theme as the horns/saxophones.

Then we get towards the end of the track and I hear something I have no idea how to take. We hear them creating the chaos we have only heard through the music. We hear the smash. We hear the crash. However, it sounds very rushed and the actors sound out of breath. I can barely tell what the lyrics are and if I wasn't so familiar with this song I would probably never know. 

Then the music quiets while keeping that mischievous tone. I also love Victoria’s high note for the word “and” and how it matches with one of the instruments. But Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer whisper “and there’s nothing at all to be done about that” like it's a conspiracy and they can get away with pretty much anything. The end of the song also has a sense of finality. This is who they are and they managed to get Victoria to follow what they want. The fact that the music does this also suggests that something is going to happen. Nothing stays final and their chaos doesn't end there. All of which we see later in the film but not the music. We just get a taste. 

Overall, I like what they did with this song musically and vocally. This version is different and not used as often as the one we know which is smart. They also had to choose a version that matched the film’s aesthetic, was different in mood from Bustopher Jones, and gave a different interpretation of the characters. It needed to stand out against what we had heard so far and I think it accomplished that task.

Now onto the scene itself. I had to backtrack a bit after Bustopher Jones and really listen to the dialogue that happens during the track itself. The first 16 seconds of the song is instrumental yet the dialogue within that section is important. Victoria had to leave her new friends because of Macavity. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer literally pick her up which transports her into their world of chaos and shenanigans. I’m going to be pointing this out a lot in this section but the tail animation is used perfectly throughout the sequence. Their tails are used to make sure Victoria is looking at them when each of them is speaking. It’s a great detail which then causes us to pay attention to the two cats’ relationship. Their facial expressions are also great! We get a moment where Rumpleteazer is speaking to Victoria and the look on Mungojerrie’s face gives us a hint of what’s in store. The music itself helps with this set up of mischievous fun.

You can also see how Victoria is very uncomfortable with the two cats at the very beginning of the song. Her face and posture is uptight and uncomfortable. She is kind of forced to be there since none of the other cats are there with her. She doesn't want to be there but Rumpleteazer ‘encourages’ her to have some fun. Teazer steals the spotlight in the beginning of the song as it shows Victoria this is what they do. She even does this thing with her hand as if she is hypnotizing the other queen. Teazer even nods to Jerrie to continue with the job. It’s almost as if Teazer is technically used as a reassurance device to show that this is okay and they’ve done this before. 

Then Teazer puts the pearls around Victoria’s neck. Of course this is done with the line “suddenly missing her Woolworth pearls” and it is effective. This is when Victoria begins to trust these two cats. To her they are different. They don't take the world seriously. The fact they are having fun basically destroying every room in the house makes everything right.

The camera work from when they are on the bed to when Mungojerrie puts the drawers on Victoria is very well done. The circular motion of the camera creates movement with the choreography without it becoming nauseating. 

I don’t have much else to say about the sequence other than once the music picks up near the end, we see why they become so out of breath. They are literally destroying the kitchen and the bedroom with very little care. And, again, Victoria is fully invested which also contributes to her part in the actual song. In the version we know, the only vocals come from Mungo and Teazer. This version has Victoria, who represents the audience. At the beginning we only hear the two trouble makers. Then Victoria has bits and pieces. She, like us, wants to be part of this new type of fun. And destroying property can be fun. 

Overall this is a version that deserves to be seen and heard. I think if we got the other version, we might have a different movie all together and these characters might be different. This is definitely one of the many highlights of the film. The others being the ones I’ve already written about. But what I love most about this sequence is the acting, tail animations and the use of practical props. 

I will say this now, if it wasn't for Naoimh Morgan and Danny Collins, this could have been a lot different. The acting, especially the facial expressions throughout the scene, are perfect for these characters. They give a sense of mischievousness and like they can get away with anything. Their facial expressions give more to this idea that these characters like to have some relatively harmless fun. If it wasn't for those facial expressions, I don’t think I would have enjoyed this version as much as I did. 

There is also the use of dialogue that I didn't expect to like but it works. In between some of the phrases, dialogue is said by the two cats which help with their character. My favorite bit is from Mungojerrie on the stairs. He says something to a ‘police officer’ which is in character for the purpose of the film. 

This is also probably one of the best scenes to watch if you want to see how they used the tail animations for the characters. My notes for this scene were mostly just how they animated those tails. I wrote examples above, but another one is when Victoria is singing ‘And’ at the end of the song. If you pay close attention, her tail rattles because of the high note. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer also constantly use their tails to communicate with each other and Victoria. 

There are also two things I want to commend in this sequence. The use of practical props and the scale of the set. I really like how the cast used the practical props in a way that not only showed quirks of the characters but also development (in Victoria’s case.) My favorite set of props they used were during the dining room scene. There were parts where it did feel a bit faked and plastic but I ignored it in favor of the performance. There were several points I did have to remind myself that this world is different from reality. Other than that, this sequence used props that pushed the story rather than hinder it. They weren't there to be there, the props were there for a reason. One can say they are a character in themselves because this world takes human objects and transforms them into how a Jellicle may see them. 

They didn't need the theatrics of the stage version. What I mean to say is they didn't need the double cartwheels because they were not necessary. Instead we got the over the top music, wonderful acting, dialogue that made sense, and a version of the characters that make sense within the world of the film. While I know a lot of people wanted the double cartwheel (myself included), it felt fine the way it was. If you want to watch a version of this with the double cartwheel, I highly suggest watching this video. It’s a dress rehearsal from the 1994 West End production with Jason Parmenter & Vikki Coote.

Overall, I love this version of the song and scene. It fits the characters of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer while also continuing Victoria’s journey through the Jellicle tribe. This is also one of the few songs where there aren't any interruptions from other cats or mice. The other one being Skimbleshanks (there was one but that’s it). The only ‘interruptions’ are dialogue between Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer which never break the song. It doesn't take away from the flow of the song like in Rum Tum Tugger where the interruption disrupts the scene and performance. Here, it was done in a way that was smart. 

I would definitely suggest this to others who want to know some of the good parts of this film. It is definitely up there with one of the best sequences of the film. Right along with Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat and the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees.

[sometimesrosy]

do you think we'll see Clarke in leader mode in the wake of Octavia's disappearance (Bellamy is probably in manic mode)

Yes I think we’ll see Clarke in leader mode. 

I’m not so sure we’ll see Bellamy in manic mode, though. He’s made a lot of developments since season 1. I’m not sure manic mode is his thing.

In season 1 when Octavia disappeared (ooh parallel) he didn’t go into manic mode. And that was when he was least evolved. 

I’d say his only manic mode was in season 4, after waking up from the trauma of s2 in season 3 and learning something about himself, and taking up the reigns of power again, in season 4 he freaked out about not being able to save everyone. BUT he learned how to let people go in that season also. He let Jasper go. He let Octavia go. He even let Clarke go, sorta, learning to deal with that loss by holding her in his heart and moving on. 

He let go of his past image of Octavia in s5. And when he believed he couldn’t save her in s6, he let go of Clarke. Until he realized he could do something about it. Then he went into leader mode. Into rescue mode. But he wasn’t manic.

And I don’t think he’ll be manic with Octavia missing, and if he does start to lose his balance, he has Clarke there to take the lead. Although I don’t think she will, I think he will. Or they’ll be a team again. I could see him lashing out at Echo, because she doesn’t seem to understand what he needs in regards to his sister. that could be slightly manic. 

But I think he’s made his hero’s journey and come out the other end stronger. And I think that Clarke is now in the phase of the hero’s journey where she comes back from the darkness and uses what she learned there to transform the world. So now they are heroes together and on the same path.

I would like to think that they’ll stay that way the whole time, but thsi show s NOTORIOUS for separating Bellarke… because the show, every season, is about REUNITING bellarke and bringing them together. So we’ll probably see that again. But it’s so close to the finale where they ACHIEVE unity of their soulmate relationship, that I’m not sure what that separation will look like. Will it be typical of what we’ve seen in other seasons? Last season wasn’t. They were separated by the villain and he WENT AFTER HER. Which was not normal. 

Anyway, I think both will be in leader mode. We had so much character development for both of them, and in the structure of their 7 seasons (seven acts?) that means that the heroes should be near fulfillment of their goals and close to the height of their powers, which they will use to defeat their biggest enemy. 

Oh I googled 7 act structure. And this doesn’t QUITE show acts. I’ve worked with this structure with 3 acts actually, but it COULD be seven acts. Or seven seasons. And if you follow this, that means s7 is the conclusion which should wrap up all the others seasons. So let’s follow it with the 7 seasons.

Hook — Your character’s starting point. This is the opposite of the Resolution. (s1. dead ark. living planet. delinquents in the middle.)

Plot turn 1 — The event that sets your story in motion and moves you from the beginning to the Midpoint. You introduce the conflict and your character’s world changes. This is basically when you character sets out on his/her journey. (s2. nope Mount Weather. Welcome to trauma. There are no good guys.)

Pinch point 1 — This is where you apply pressure. This is often used to introduce the antagonist. (s3. broken heroes. against each other. self determination and free will. the REAL antagonist is the end of humanity.)

Midpoint — Your character moves from reaction to action. He/she determines he/she must do something to stop the antagonist. (s4. MUST STOP THE APOCALYPSE lol. nope.)

Pinch point 2 — This is where you apply more pressure. Your story takes the ultimate dive. Your character is at his/her darkest moment. He/she has lost everything. (s5. Clarke is alone she literally says she’s lost everything. THEN she gets her people back and finds out Bellamy isn’t hers/betrays her, so she loses even her dream. Octavia has become a monster. Bellamy has lost her. Humanity can’t stop fighting. They lose the earth. THEY KILLED THE EARTH YO.)

Plot turn 2 — Here you move the story from Midpoint to the end, the Resolution. Your character gets or realizes he/she has the final piece of information to achieve what he/she set out to do in the Midpoint. (s6. Be the good guys. For Clarke. For Bellamy my theory is that what he’s learned is LOVE makes it worth it. Clarke’s facing her darkness gives her the final piece of information. Literally. “Love is NOT a weakness.” She uses that to save everyone.)

Resolution — This is the climax of your story. Everything in the story leads to this moment. Here, your character achieves (or fails to achieve) what he/she set out to do. (s7 then means all the above is leading to the goal. I think it will be a success not failure based on the narrative so far. They have BOTH become the leaders they were meant to become. I think they’ll save humanity [which means saving Octavia because she symbolizes humanity whether you like her or not humanity deserves some misanthropy for all they’ve done so that still works with the story] AND I think they’ll find love [Bellarke] because the two fold goals [be the good guys and live a life with love] of the dual protagonists [the head and the heart] are reaching completion. I think this has been the story from the beginning. Intentionally stretched out over 7 seasons.)

I know you didn’t ask about bellarke. But my answer is based on the story structure and how far our heroes have come in their goals. So I needed to clarify their goals in the story.  I think Bellamy has reached the point where he loves in a healthy way. That’s HIS goal for the series. Live a good life with love. The Heart. And Clarke has reached the point where she leads in a healthy way. That’s HER goal for the story. Be the good guy. The Head.

She saves the humanity. He saves her. Epic love in the apocalypse. Heroes are the strongest they have ever been because their obstacles will be biggest. And I think we’ll get octavia back in season a. I don’t think either of them will be flailing anymore. 

I can’t 100% be sure that JR will leave Bellarke alive, but he DID say it would be The 100′s version of a happy ending, and the only one of those we’ve had was Marper. If Bellarke gets to withdraw from future struggle and live out their lives in happiness and obscurity I will take it. I think they’ll either die together (TOGETHER) or live together. But they will be together, because the story has been leading there since the very beginning. TOGETHER.

[laylainalaska]

Torchwood 1x01-1x08

Since I’ve been posting Torchwood rewatch episode reactions over on DW, I may as well post them here too!

Cut with a readmore because long and also spoilery. No specific S2 spoilers except set off in its own section.

----

1x01: Everything Changes, aka Torchwood is the worst-kept secret in the greater Cardiff metropolitan area. The episode with the infamous date rape via alien aphrodisiac. I have made the deliberate choice to compartmentalize this/pretend it never happened due to TV writers being notoriously terrible with recognizing the real-world implications of fantasy aphrodisiacs and sex magic (there was just a scene like this in The Witcher in 20-fucking-20), and treat it as what it is clearly supposed to be in context -- unethical but basically harmless misuse of an alien artifact -- instead of what it really is. But I recognize that this is a personal choice and I also hate this writing decision and wish they'd picked literally any other way of making this particular point, for the record. Anyway ... the rest of this episode other than the fucking date rape was a lot of fun, though. Torchwood is the worst secret quasi-governmental agency at being secret. THE ACTUAL WORST. I love the team trying to keep straight faces and then giggling when Gwen enters their secret base, and the entire base set is just so fantastically bonkers; I really really love it a lot. There's literally a fountain in the middle of it and, like, random water everywhere?! And a pterodactyl. And the invisible lift, with Gwen's wry comment about how there's nothing to stop random pedestrians from falling down it. It's possibly the most utterly bonkers secret spy base outside of kids' cartoons and I love it. 1x02: Day One, aka Murder By Orgasm. In which the show classes things up with an alien who kills people (men only!) via orgasm. Choices were definitely made in this episode. Many choices. For sure. Owen continues to be a total sleaze because the writers think it's funny. Also, his survival when the sex alien targets him makes absolutely no sense at all. He's literally the only person she left alive, and she's in the throes of sex-energy withdrawal at the time. In short, this was an episode that happened. There were a few cute team bits but really not enough to redeem it. 1x03: Ghost Machine, aka Burn Gorman Is Very Pretty. Not that I am biased. He is so pretty in this episode. SO PRETTY. Also, for a refreshing change, Owen manages not to be creepy and sexist at all in this episode. He's just prickly and kind of sweet. I like this Owen. I want to keep him. This episode overall was really a lot of fun, aside from (or perhaps also including) the most unintentionally hilarious death of a redshirt ever, in which he goes to hug Gwen and she accidentally stabs him with the knife she's holding. But overall it's so great! The Owen arc was my favorite - I love how affected he is by the memory device (the scene where he's clearly having a panic attack and trying to keep control!) and how determined he is to get justice for the murdered girl, only to be essentially brought down by his basic decent nature and inability to kill an old man in cold blood. Owen trying to save the guy's life when he was holding a knife on him thirty seconds earlier breaks me a little bit. Lots of fun team scenes in this one, too. The Splott conversation! ("Estate agents call it Sploe.") 1x04: Cyberwoman, aka CYBERBIKINI! Here again, Choices Were Made, most of them by the costuming department with a side of deeply uncomfortable racial implications on the part of whoever cast the episode. To be fair, maybe they just couldn't afford enough tinfoil to cover CyberLisa entirely, since the budget for this episode was clearly three shoestrings and a potato. I don't know if my favorite part of the low-budget f/x is the way they're clearly splicing in Doctor Who clips for the cyberization process, or the fall of Torchwood One, a giant battle involving hundreds of participants that is represented by Ianto screaming while surrounded by plastic sheeting. Honestly, I really love this episode. It is not good by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something incredibly charming about its sheer commitment to utter batshittery and OTT sobbing over emotional team betrayals, and parts of it were incredibly tense. It has the general feel of a horror film shot by college theater majors. Also someone getting doused in barbecue sauce and fed to a pterodactyl is literally a plot point, and the team basketball game at the beginning is one of my favorite little team moments; it's so cute. Cyberbikini aside and with expectations properly lowered, this was terrific fun. 1x05: Small Worlds, aka Death By Hanahaki Disease. On the whole this episode was not terrible nor was it memorably unpleasant; it was just kind of there. In going back to write about the episodes, I really had trouble remembering what even happened in this one. The concept is really interesting, but the fairies stopped being nearly so creepy once you actually see them in all their low-budget-CGI glory; I think the episode would actually have been better if they'd stayed invisible. The flower petal deaths were really gross. I hadn't realized that, while Gwen (unlike the rest of his team) knows that Jack can die and come back, she didn't actually know before this episode that he's much older than he looks. 1x06: Countrycide, aka Don't Split The Party. WELSH MURDER VILLAGE. I loved this episode. This is the ridonkulous teamy sci-fi horror shenanigans that I'm here for. I mean, I was there with bells on for TEAM CAMPING TRIP and then it just got better and better. Ianto gets to go out in the field for the first time and nearly gets eaten by cannibals! Poor Ianto. His life is the worst. I sort of vaguely knew because of season two that there was Owen/Gwen in the first season, but what really caught me off guard is how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting meaningless sex with a side of skeeve, and I do really hate that she's cheating on her boyfriend and how pushy about it Owen is at first, not to mention outing their kiss to the whole team. But the crazy thing about it is, by the midpoint of the episode they're actually, genuinely very sweet, and by the end of the episode you can see what they're both getting out of the relationship and get the feeling that it's a positive human connection for both of them. Also, the near-kiss and teamwork in the woods was incredibly hot. I really loved (and was also surprised by) how loyal and protective Owen is toward his teammates. We saw it a little bit in the previous episode with his "Don't you touch her!" re: Gwen, but it's abundantly on display here, from Owen repeatedly insisting that they need to go after Tosh and Ianto, to his fury at the guy threatening Tosh, to his captor having to restrain him when they pull the hood off Ianto's head near the end. Love Jack's big-damn-hero entrance to the Murder House, and everyone running around screaming and getting separated and hurt, which is always a good time. Basically I just loved this episode. It needed more hurt/comforty aftermath, though. I might have to write some. 1x07: Greeks Bearing Gifts, aka Tosh Has An Alien Girlfriend. I really loved this episode, on the whole, but it is Made Of Ouch. As well as Tosh's isolation and hurt, there's also that bit where she hears Ianto's thoughts and it's just endless painpainpainpain. I like to think that after this episode, she started getting together with him for drinks occasionally and talking about things. They both need friends so badly. (I do not love Jack's random transphobic comment near the end. From JACK of all people. WHY.) And seeing Tosh's delight and squee when she gets to just geek out about things is so lovely. Tosh is absolutely a person who leaves her teammates notes with little hearts on them. I love her. ♥ (Also, as much as I love Owen personally, I really wish that so much of Tosh's storyline didn't revolve around her hopeless crush on Owen. Toshiko deserved better, in all ways, than what this show gave her.) It's too bad that Gwen and Owen's affair is, on the whole, a rather destructive thing, because they're really happy! They're like the only happy people in Torchwood at this point. It's not a grand love story or anything, but I felt like the sheer joy of that initial rush of infatuation was well conveyed and sweet. Owen's relationship with Tosh in season one is completely baffling to me. He's not only staggeringly oblivious to Tosh being into him, but she's literally the only woman at Torchwood that he doesn't hit on. And yet, it's not that he doesn't like her! He clearly does like her in a friend kind of way and enjoys hanging out with her. The card that Mary was looking at in Tosh's apartment looked handmade to me, so he literally made her a handmade birthday card! And yet, he is blindingly oblivious to her interest and rejects her every time she makes overtures. ... I mean, the meta-reason is probably just that the writers thought it would be funny if the character who always sleeps around doesn't notice the one person who really wants him. But I can't help wondering if the basic issue is that Owen has somehow, without really intending to, classified his relationship with her as basically a sibling-type one. We know from the flashbacks in season two that they both joined Torchwood at about the same time and were both in a very emotionally fragile place when they did, and Jack also has a very quasi-parental sort of vibe with both of them. It makes me wonder if Owen either tried to initiate something early on and was rebuffed because Tosh wasn't really coping well either, or if he met her at a point in his life when he was really not interested in having relationships with anyone and simply classified her mentally in a sort of little-sister category. This actually does fit very well with the sometimes bullying, sometimes playful and sweet, generally sexless way that he relates to her this season, and the way that he clearly does care about her and in fact is very protective at times; he just doesn't view her as a target of romantic interest. Anyway, Tosh was very beautiful this episode, and her alien girlfriend was also quite hot, and I really enjoyed it. 1x08: They Keep Killing Suzie, aka I don't think anything I could come up with is better than the actual title. The scene in which they've accidentally locked themselves in their secret underground base and have to call the cops to let them out is possibly my favorite scene in this entire show. That was GOLD. I also wish the cop lady from this episode had come back. She was great, and her rapport with Jack was really neat. Part of what I want to say about this episode contains massive season two spoilers, so that's set off in a spoiler section at the end. This was a highly entertaining episode with a plot that was total nonsense that falls apart within 0.2 seconds of actually thinking about it. Good emotional stuff, yes! Plot? BONKERS. I mean, Suzie's plan was something like this: 1. Drive someone insane by feeding them Retcon for two years. 2. Kill yourself. 3. ???? 4. Profit! I am just going to headcanon that the team are actually wrong about Suzie planning all of this, and it's mostly an accidental set of circumstances that she took advantage of. I did love the twist of Suzie wanting a deathbed reunion with her dad not because of love, but because she wanted to watch him die because he's terrible. (However, this does completely undermine what was previously given as part of her motivation for getting addicted to the glove, which was trying to save her dad. See above re: plot nonsense.) But the team stuff was fun! Love everyone scrambling to save Gwen, and Owen holding her at the end -- I'm still seeing them through a lens of mostly-platonic more than romantic. The general vibe with the team pulling together vs. Suzie having basically no one in Torchwood to talk to is really interesting; it's hard to say how much of that is the team having gotten closer over the course of the season, and how much of it is just Suzie not really ever bonding with her co-workers the way they bonded with each other. I mean, I do get more of a co-workery vibe off them early on, as opposed to the chosen-family feeling later on, but the closeness is there under the surface; I'm just not really sure if they've realized it yet. But with Suzie, it's hard to say if the closeness ever really was there. They're all damaged in their various ways, but I feel like Suzie might be damaged in a way that simply precluded her ever really being able to let people in, as the others are learning to. Ianto's visible depression at this point in the show is mostly down to Gareth David-Lloyd's acting, but it's so well done -- his flat affect and thousand-yard stare, especially contrasted against his dry, sarcastic humor when he's not miserable (mostly in season two). The other Ianto-related thing I noticed is that the warmer, more bantery rapport between Ianto and Owen in season two is actually present in this episode to some extent, for perhaps the first time ever. In particular, Owen makes him smile at one point by teasing him (the only time Ianto smiles in the last few episodes, I think, up until he's with Jack at the very end), and offers him the first shot at naming the knife in spite of Ianto's artifact names being genuinely terrible - like, trying to include him a little bit, in a way I haven't seen Owen doing with him before. There's a general feeling throughout this episode that Owen has warmed up to him a bit and is actually reaching out a little. And Ianto and Jack are sleeping together now! I don't know when that happened and I wish we'd seen more of the beginnings of it. It's nice to see Ianto smile, though. Season two 1x08-related spoilers: 

Watching this episode after having seen Owen's resurrection glove arc in season two was FASCINATING, especially for the compare/contrast of the way the team reacted to resurrected!Suzie vs. resurrected!Owen; I mean, the fact that she died in the process of betraying them after becoming a serial killer is obviously a large factor here, and they were somewhat wary of Owen too, but there's just so much more ambivalence in how they deal with Suzie, vs. the way that Owen's death and resurrection actually brought the team closer together, and brought Owen closer to all of them.

But the most interesting contrast to me is how Owen and Suzie, as characters, both reacted to the whole idea of having to survive by killing people, with Jack trying (unsuccessfully) to argue Suzie out of allowing Gwen to die, whereas Owen's immediate reaction to finding out that his survival might be killing people (just random people too, not teammates) was to try to sacrifice himself, not just once but multiple times, starting with a fundamentally horrible euthanasia-type death and continuing on to destroy the resurrection glove himself even though it was likely to re-kill him. Why yes, I can turn any episode discussion into an Owen discussion, even an episode he wasn't especially prominent in.

[khtrinityftw]

Part 11: It All Ended With a Mouse

While the Kingdom Hearts series was conceived as a crossover between Disney and Square, the addition of Final Fantasy characters was a late one and, while welcome, clearly wasn't the main draw. The main draw was being able to play around in the worlds of Disney movies, see which Disney characters get crossed over with one another, and battle Disney villains alongside Disney heroes.

Key word there: WAS. After the KH Trinity, the prominence of Disney became drastically reduced to a genuinely shocking degree. 

In Days, Roxas barely interacts with the Disney characters inhabiting the worlds he goes to, he never has any Disney hero party members to fight alongside, and the only Disney villain he fights is Pete.

In Coded, all of the Disney stuff are pure regurgitated rehashes that are infected with technobabble data nonsense, and in the last chapter it turns out that none of it mattered anyway and was just there to fill time until the KH-original plot took prominence.

In BBS, the only Disney worlds with even minor importance are the worlds of Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, and that importance only comes between awkward re-enactments of the movies' stories with the KH-original heroes shoehorned in. Disney Town is a minigame filler world, and the worlds based on Hercules, Lilo & Stitch and Peter Pan have new stories but they don't really connect with the main one at all and are just there to give the heroes something to do between the midpoint of the game and the climax. There are also no permanent Disney party members in any of the worlds, only occasional guest allies like Prince Philip, Hercules and Experiment 626.

In 3D, all of the Disney worlds are filler that recycle their movies' plots; the only important things to happen all transpire in KH-original locations.

In UX, it's more of the same, with Disney worlds being backdrops for fights and the movies' stories to play out while the actual important plot only happens in Daybreak Town and is solely driven by KH-original characters.

KH3 is the most complicated case, since due to it being such a big release the Disney characters, worlds and elements are given more prominence than they've had in ages and more interaction with the KH-original stuff, but when looking at the world visits only the initial one to the Hercules world has any purpose to the overall story. The rest, regardless of whether they rehash the movie's plot or have new ones, have no in-story reason for Sora, Donald and Goofy to be visiting them, and the things that the Organization members get out of being there are usually incredibly vague and ultimately don't really matter to the climax of the game.

For comparison's sake, every Disney world in the original KH was important to the overarching plot in some way or other, none of the stories in those worlds were direct rip-offs of the movies' but just shared elements with them, and many Disney characters played prominent roles such as Maleficent's alliance of villains and the Princesses of Heart.  Being important to the main plot admittedly meant that some aspects of these worlds and characters went underdeveloped, but that's the main draw of COM: as with all of the world visits being filler rehashes of the first games' with the ties to the main plot removed actually mean that those aspects that went underdeveloped before get to be more fleshed out.

And while KH2 started unfortunate trends by having a third of the world visits rehashing the movies' plots and half of them not connecting to the overarching plot, there were still some obvious exceptions: major advancements in the story transpire in the worlds based upon Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Tron, not to mention at Disney Castle / Timeless River. Even the filler visits usually had a thematic purpose for existing, there was a clear reason as to why Sora, Donald and Goofy were visiting those worlds, and not having members of the Organization in every world was a wise decision in retrospect because it allows the Disney villains their chance to shine and 3D and KH3 have proven how utterly tiresome it is to be met with a monologuing asshole in a black coat in every single Disney world you play around in.

But even outside of the Disney worlds, the Disney elements in the KH series gradually suffered. The KH-original concepts, characters, and storylines used to be created with Disney in mind, providing the "Final Fantasy game set in the Disney universe" feel that they were supposed to. Keys and keyholes are a long-standing Disney signature, hence how naturally the Keyblade fits in a Disney game. Gummi Ships call the Gummi Bears to mind. The Heartless often feel like something out of Fantasia, Organization XIII share direct parallels with the cursed pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean, and Nobodies are basically like grim grinnin' ghosts from the Haunted Mansion (and hey, DiZ's Twilight Town headquarters is outright called "a haunted mansion"!) And just when you think Matrix-esque datascapes are too weird for Disney, the game goes and reminds you that they made Tron. 

Now, however? It's just plain JRPG nonsense, none of it feels like it connects with Disney and as such is usually kept as far apart from the Disney elements as possible. This means that the KH universe now longer feels like a single, unified world like it did in the KH Trinity: it feels like the world of Disney and the world of Square existing separately within the same game and only occasionally crossing over with one another...usually through the Square elements and characters interacting with the Disney ones, but not vice-versa.

Then we have the Disney characters who used to be important but no longer are. Donald and Goofy barely did anything of significant value between KH2 and KH3, they were just there out of obligation. And while KH3 brought them back into prominence, the ending doesn't make me hopeful that this will continue in the near future. Jiminy Cricket also receded into the background after Coded and until KH3. And Pluto hasn't really done anything since KH2, even though he made a much better partner to Kairi than her former kidnapper!

But the most egregious example would have to be Maleficent and Pete. Maleficent was one of the original game's biggest villains next to Ansem and Riku, and she was resurrected in KH2 and given an arc that promised great things for her in the future, alongside her minion Pete who was that game's most recurring antagonist. And yet they have accomplished absolutely nothing since then! Their time as the main villains of Coded proved to be filler, their one scene in 3D was bizarre and inconsequential, and they literally spend all of KH3 on the sidelines looking for a mystery box and never claiming it. Two of Disney's greatest, most iconic villains - turned into a bad joke.

The ONLY Disney characters who have remained consistently important past the KH Trinity are Mickey Mouse and Yen Sid, the former being considered one of the core group of Keyblade wielders and the latter being the Big Good who assembles all the other heroes to fight Xehanort...basically the Nick Fury of the series.

But they got screwed up too! Yen Sid was turned into an unlikable idiot in with his insistence on Sora and Riku taking an exam that isn't really an exam at all in order to prove themselves worthy of the Keyblade Master mantle despite them having already done so, then flunking Sora for falling into a trap that he didn't see coming either, and then not allowing him to help Riku and Mickey save Aqua until he'd unlocked the Power of Waking...only for Sora to eventually go and save Aqua without that vaguely-defined power anyway!

And poor Mickey ended up looking like the biggest asshole when 0.2 BBS retconned it so that he met Aqua in the Realm of Darkness during the original game's climax, knew she was trapped down there, and then did absolutely nothing and told absolutely no-one until it was convenient for him. Anti-Aqua even drags him for exactly this in KH3, and many players agreed with her! This seems like the exact kind of thing that made Disney not allow Square to use Mickey in a large capacity in the original KH! 

Back during the KH Trinity, there was a man in the production team named Eri Morimoto, and it was said that he was famous in the company for his love of Disney. He even was able to stand up to Nomura and tell him if he was doing something Disney-related wrong. But he never showed up in the credits of any KH game following KH2 because he left Square shortly afterward, and it was all downhill for how Disney elements were handled from there.

At this point, the Kingdom Hearts series is just another Nomura series that just happens to feature Disney in it, and that's not the series I signed up for.

[lunahearts]

Some Star Wars thoughts, in no particular order

Preface: I really liked this movie. Spoilers below, obviously, but not many more than what was already leaked. I try to keep stuff vague, so if you like... know a couple of big things that are being talked about (way too much for some reason honestly oh my god) and are trying to decide if you want to see the movie, this should be safe!

Okay first, to get it out of the way... some complaints

Finn should have had more screen time, as usual. I do like was done with him in general, but there should have been more of it, and his biggest hero moment unfortunately felt a little underwhelming. I’m also pretty uncomfortable/disappointed with how he seemed to be portrayed as having like this one-sided thing for Rey that was even framed comedically at times. That being said they end the second to last scene and strongest emotional beat on him and it was very good (and tbh the scene that followed felt more like a stinger to me, as far as I’m concerned the movie closes on Finn finding a family, and a happy ending, and I love that)

The whole thing was jammed with at least a movie and a half’s worth of plot. *looks at tlj* no idea how that could have happened. I think it does a good job with what it has to work with, and tight writing + good set up and payoff make it work most of the time, but... room to process their feelings, characters have not.

The kiss was stupid. It also, imo, was entirely fanservice and if you removed like two shots and replaced them with something platonic GIVE US THE FOREHEAD TOUCH TAKE I KNOW IT EXISTS then I think that Rey and Kylo’s interactions were very well done. It’s not romantic unless you are already looking for it to be romantic. Except for the kiss. Which was stupid and sudden and out of place.

Okay anyway I am gonna gush now

So first of all I just think the plot and pacing of this movie was really well executed. It wasn’t the most exciting or daring of plots, but also it didn’t need to be. The rule of three set up and payoff was outstanding though, and that’s really what carries it. A lot of the time it’s easy to see that payoff coming, or at least see that it is coming, but it mostly feels like being a bit spoiled for a really good story - even if you have a good idea where it’s going you can still really enjoy the journey. And you probably don’t know exactly where it’s going, anyways.

my favorite example of this is something they set up really early about Rey and Kylo’s force bond, and a thing it can do. 

This first time it happens is a super fast “woah holy shit that can happen???” moment.

The second time its a “oh. oh no. it can happen and has happened in the worst possible way”

and the last time is “OH! OH!!! ITS GONNA HAPPEN ITS HAPPENING OH MY GOD.”

The THEMES. Holy shit the themes. This movie 100% sold me on Kylo redemption, as someone who was VERY uh... lets say I was very unimpressed by the idea of it going into things. And I’ll talk more about why I think “redemption” isn’t even exactly the right word, but for now yeah I’ll just say I really liked what they did with Kylo.

BUT ANYWAY THEMES. OKAY. I think it is so so vital and good to have a story so devoted to Doing The Right Thing. But not just doing the right thing. I think the absolute heart of the movie is just... no matter what you’ve done, no matter the mistakes you’ve made, choosing to do the right thing matters. It always matters.

Like okay I really think there’s a shift in how this movie deals with ye olde dark side compared to the first two, bc it’s very personal, and feels very grounded in trauma and fear and a phrase Liz said last night that I loved which is, “the seductive pull of despair.”

If I had to write is as a thesis statement I’d absolutely use that phrase, it would be something like...

“There is never a moment in which it is too late -- generationally, individually, or globally -- to resist the seductive pull of despair.”

But also like the other thesis is just “every good thing you do matters.” Which is probably one of my favorite power fantasies in the whole world.

Like there’s a group of people established at the midpoint of the film, who are just like, People Who Did The Right Thing. And they have been living ever since then taking care of each other, trying to unlearn the way they were raised, trying to resist despair in their own corner of the galaxy.

And like, in some ways it would be cool to just have them there! A nice story, a nice group of people, a nice expansion in the world of Star Wars. But that’s NOT where it leaves them, and very specifically there’s a moment in the final big confrontation where the big nasty man is like “do a thing! stop them!” and it doesn’t work specifically bc of an aspect of these people and the life they’ve built makes it not work. It’s funny and satisfying and a wonderful emotional payoff all at once.

And basically this is why the Kylo stuff works for me. Because it’s really not about him, it’s about Rey and Leia. It’s about Rey and Leia choosing to do good, and how that matters. If Kylo had stayed a shitty evil brat until the end, then their stories wouldn’t have been as powerful.

Kylo “I’m only here to reinforce themes” Ren

Okay but to touch a bit more on redemption, I really don’t think he’s redeemed. Or like, he’s not redeemed because it’s not about balancing anything out, or him going down in history as a Good Man, or other characters forgiving him. It’s about him spending the whole movie saying “you can’t go back Rey, once you do something bad you are bad and you can’t go back home.”

And they Rey does something bad

She does something bad and IMMEDIATELY LOSES HER CHANCE TO MAKE IT BETTER WITH THE PERSON MOST HURT BY HER ACTION

And then she does something good anyway

Because you can always do something good, and you can always go back. Even if you hurt someone you love. Even if you become, for a moment, what you are most afraid of. Even if you can’t unmake your mistakes. You can still do good. You can still make the world better.

And that is why he chooses to change. And that is a good reason to change. To see someone demonstrate that there is always room for kindness? To see that and find a hope you had lost years ago? That’s good shit! That’s what Star Wars is about babey!

Also the banter was back and good and the Trio Content oh my god. Thank you. Finally.

New droid is baby and I love them.

The new lady characters are obviously underdeveloped but I DO love them. There’s a moment at the end of the movie that makes me really hope that one of them gets a spin-off/sequel, and there is ample room for a standalone Poe prequel featuring the other one. I think they have pretty strong characterizations for the space they get.

also one of them gets an extremely good moment with Rey that killed me. Like don’t get ur hopes up for any actual content or conversation but it was one of those “oh I REALLY hope there’s fanfic” moments and I loved it.

I love Rey [redacted] and I will have to write a whole other post about her maybe.

I thought Poe’s arc was cool! It wasn’t what I was expecting but I thought it was interesting and I’m always down for some “ur friends are here for you, you don’t have to and also literally can’t do everything on ur own.

That’s another theme of the film btw and its good

Most of the action scenes were just kinda “eh okay this is a Star Wars movie I guess they gotta do that now. Like fun and flashy but overall without much substance.

BUT I really liked the second lightsaber fight with Rey and Kylo. Good way to mix it up.

Leia...........

Leia good

You are not your blood! You are the family you choose. Thank u and also finally.

I really liked how this movie handled the Sith and the lore/perspective it added honestly makes a lot of Sith stuff in general make more sense to me. It’s one of those cool bits of lore that isn’t exactly a retcon but it is retroactive context that shows everything in different light. Or like maybe that’s always been the context but I think it’s more clear and upfront about it. 

I cried at one part bc there were lots of different ship designs all on screen at the same time and it was like.... wow... star war.... star war good.

star war good

[icedanceupstarts]

JGPF 2019 Preview

We’re officially at the midpoint of the season and junior ice dance has finally returned to us! In case the JGP feels as distant to you as it does us, here’s a quick refresher!

Avonley Nguyen/ Vadym Kolesnik USA

Age: 17/18

Started Skating Together: 2017

Coach: Igor Shpilband and Pasquale Camerlengo

Season's Best: 174.68

Rhythm Dance: Aladdin

Free Dance: Rach 2

Fifth at this event last season, Nguyen/Kolesnik are the top qualifiers at their second JGPF. These two have charisma for days, and it just might carry them to the JGPF title. In just three JGP seasons these two have gone from being the newcomers in the middle of the pack but with loads of potential, to putting up the highest scores of the season so far. Aladdin is a great fit for them in the rhythm dance and Avonley’s dress is absolutely stunning. Would we have personally chosen to construct this program in this manner, including a slowed down cover of A Whole New World jammed in the middle? No, but they make it work anyway with strong skating and so much personality. And the Friend Like Me sections are a real delight. We're interested to see how their performance and interpretation of their free dance has evolved. While beautiful during the JGP season, the program didn't feel all the way there and lacked a sense of building throughout. They have some of the best lifts in the world, at any level, using their size difference to make difficult lifts look effortless. The speed, changes in position, and flow in and out are all just impeccable. If they keep doing what they've been doing, it's going to be hard for anyone to beat them for the gold, either here or for the rest of the season.

Elizaveta Shanaeva/David Naryzhnyy RUS

Age: 16/20

Started Skating Together: 2016

Coach: Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk

Season's Best: 171.07

Rhythm Dance: Bonnie and Clyde

Free Dance: River

The first to actually qualify to JGPF, Shanaeva/Naryzhnyy have really stepped up this year. There was certainly room to do so nationally with last season's top Russian junior dance teams moving to seniors, splitting up, or missing time due to injury, but their big improvements in skating together and in consistency would be commendable in any case. 

Our personal favorite Bonnie and Clyde program, although we still can't believe there are enough contenders for that title that we can actually choose from. It's just really well constructed and a lot of fun, suiting both their individual personalities and chemistry as a team. Their entrance into the twizzles is mildly ridiculous and feels like a seamless part of the choreography. Their free dance is coming along and we're interested in seeing how it's evolved. It was a bit of a mess at the test skates but they've improved at every outing. Last we saw, there was a lot of music happening towards the end, but it's a pretty cool contemporary program with a really badass combination lift. There's a lot of variety in the free dances this year, but they would stand out regardless, and with two other Russian teams joining them in group one for the rhythm dance that can only work to their advantage.

Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva/ Andrei Filatov RUS

Age: 17/19

Started Skating Together: 2019

Coach: Denis Samokhin, Maria Borovikova

Season's Best: 165.59

Rhythm Dance: La La Land

Free Dance: Sign of the Times

We've got to tip our hats to Elizaveta here, the reigning junior world silver medalist with her former partner who has not missed a beat in this new partnership. Of course, equal credit goes to Andrei, who has also completed his first JGP season like he's got years of international experience. They're not the first junior team to find major success in their first season together, but it's still worth noting how quickly and seamlessly they've fit together. La La Land will never be a true fave for us and their styling is a bit sleeker than we typically see with this music choice, but they're just already such a strong team that their talent makes it work. The angst of their Sign of the Times free dance is right up Elizaveta’s alley as a performer and is a great vehicle for this new team. It allows them to go all out on emoting and connecting with each other while not being too complicated a story or theme for them to portray at this point in their partnership. They don't have quite the complexity of some of the lengthier partnerships in this event, but not to the point where it should hold them back if they skate their best. New teams with strong basic skating skills can often show more drastic improvement early on competition to competition compared to some more established teams, so it will be exciting to see how much farther they’ve been able to take their partnership. And it could definitely be to a medal.

Maria Kazakova/ Georgy Reviya GEO

Age: 18/20

Started Skating Together: 2017

Coach: Denis Samokhin, Maria Borovikova

Season's Best: 169.22

Rhythm Dance: Take Good Care of My Baby/Dream a Little Dream of Me

Free Dance: In the End

We should probably note that, for the purposes of this preview, we're using their Junior season's best, because these funky little overachievers have also been competing at smaller senior competitions and intend to compete at Euros and Worlds now that they have their TES minimums. Having to split their attention puts them at a bit of a disadvantage compared to their fellow juniors, but does give them a leg up on seniors so it works out. Since they have no domestic competition, it's a risk they can afford to take without fearing getting lost and buried at Nationals. But internationally at the junior level they are more than capable of contending for podium finishes, and the teams they’ll be facing aren’t training two patterns. You win some, you lose some, and they've clearly decided the pros are worth the cons. Their rhythm dance is the program that suffers the most from their multitasking, but it's still a nice program. Their foxtrot section is especially lovely, but historically they've always had some struggles hitting their keypoints. At their first JGP, their level issues in the RD is what kept them from winning the gold over Khudaiberdieva/Filatov, as they won the FD handily. The free dance is their big strength and already a fan favorite. On paper this program is objectively ridiculous. Absolutely nothing about it should work, and if you just describe it you sound like a crazy person, but it all comes together. From the opening where Georgy tosses Maria over his head just for style, to their performance, to the cartwheels in the choreo steps, it's just incredible. We're not sure there's a way to make skating to a rap cover of Linkin Park sound like anything but the most tragic misfire, but if you haven't seen it yet, you really need to. It's not just acrobatic and interesting and cool, it's impressively emotive as well. They're in their last year of junior eligibility and their maturity level is evident in their skating. If the can get all their levels, particularly in the rhythm dance, while skating their amazing free the way we know they can, some of the higher qualified teams might be in for a nasty surprise.

Loicia Demougeot/ Theo Le Mercier FRA

Age: 17/20

Started Skating Together: 2015

Coach: Karrine Arribert-Narce

Season's Best: 162.70

Rhythm Dance: Your Feet's Too Big/How's Ya Baby

Free Dance: Carmen

A French team back in the JGPF! And they are bringing the traditional French ice dance weirdness. Their first two JGP medals and first trip to the JGPF in their fourth JGP season have made this a very successful year for Demougeot/Le Mercier following their first top ten finish at Junior Worlds last season. They won the rhythm dance at their first event and put up one of the highest RD tech scores so far at their second event helping them snag two silvers. It's almost ballroomy but has that dose of classic French wackiness to keep things fresh. Their free dance, inspired by French theatre on ice or not, we do appreciate a good Weird Carmen and this one’s got it all from the music to the costumes to the choreography. They're in character from the first note of the music and carry it all the way through to the end. What keeps it from just being Weird Carmen is their strong sense of musicality and also vision. We can't say we truly get what they're doing but we're certain they do. Their world standing means that they will be skating in the second group for the rhythm dance which could play to their advantage. With their theatricality and commitment, they're sure to hold their own at this event. It's been some time since a French team has made JGPF, and longer since they medaled, but this could be a weekend for surprises.

Diana Davis/ Gleb Smolkin RUS

Age: 16/20

Started Skating Together: 2018

Coach: Igor Shpilband and Pasquale Camerlengo

Season's Best: 160.17

Rhythm Dance: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat

Free Dance: Always Watching You/Love is Gone

Young, new teams tend to grow rapidly, and Davis/Smolkin are no exception. Last season they were entirely respectable, but still learning each other on the ice and focusing on the technicalities of ice dance. A year and a coaching change later and they've settled into each other and developed some real flair and personality, bringing their performance to a whole new level. While we wish they showed the level of commitment of having cat toe bean gloves or just cat themed choreography in general, their rhythm dance ends up being pretty delightful anyway. They've got some really impressive lifts showing off their strength and creativity in a bluesy free dance. It's a nice change of pace from their rhythm dance while still allowing them to show off their improved performance quality and range of emotion. At their second JGP event, they made a silly mistake on the spin that dropped it to base level, and while they did enough in the rhythm dance to hold onto silver and their JGPF spot, it made things dicier than necessary and is why they're the final qualifier. They absolutely have the opportunity to improve on their qualifying position, or even take a swipe at a podium position. Given the cutthroat nature of Russian ice dance at any and all levels, every little bit counts before Nationals. They're a talented team, and we hope to see them skate to their potential and continue to blossom.

[myspoonyart]

I found some of my old animation work, from when I was making UnderTrial. If you haven’t been following me since before December 2017, it was basically a fully animated review of UnderTale, which was structured like a court drama and had all the main characters in the defendant’s chair, while I played the defending attorney, and my co-writer/best friend played the prosecuting attorney. UnderTale’s crime? Being overrated. Yeah.

I had managed to storyboard about 75% of, rope in a number of talented voice actors on, and even got a dozen cuts at least drafted for. Sadly, because I was in the worst state of my life in December 2017, I had to cancel the project for my own sake, but I still kept all the project files in case they’d come in handy later.

This right here is something which I (and my co-writer) had written for the climax, in which the prosecuting attorney makes a fallacious accusation that UnderTale incites violence in its fanbase by bringing up the story of the fan who baked a needle into a cookie and gave it to an artist who drew Frans fanart. In response, Asriel becomes enraged, absorbs Chara’s soul, which he kept in his locket, and assumed his God of Hyperdeath form. From there, he and the prosecuting attorney would have a big flashy fight wish Asriel using just about every power he has, aside from Hyper Goner.

As for this animation itself, I made this in Sketchbook’s Flipbook Animation feature, which basically gives you only two layers to work with, so I pretty much only got this done by copy-pasting multiple frames onto each other and switching layers every so often. I would not recommend you use Flipbook for anything other than roughs, to be honest. CSP’s animation features are far more efficient. Heck, it’s likely that just about ANY software with animation features besides Sketchbook would be better.

Still, I don’t think this is a terrible piece of work, and considering the loose nature of the movement, I didn’t have to be super accurate when doing this, so it was hardly annoying to work on. However, this was definitely before I really got comfortable with my art style. Asriel’s eye placement is way off from how I draw now, and I still couldn’t figure out how to make the Dreemurr’s mouths look right. However, it certainly beats the time I drew them with potato heads.

Also, quick side-note, I got the idea for the movement of the transformation from Cob in the Studio Ghibli film Tales from Earthsea. It’s not a very good film, and by Ghibli standards it’s probably terrible, but it’s still just as beautifully animated as the rest of them, and Cob’s silhouetted transformation around the midpoint was definitely a standout moment for me.

Anyways, sorry for the essay-long justification for this. Hope you at least find this a little interesting.

[taaroko]

Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Ant-Man

Yay, time for Ant-Man! This one has rather grown on me over the last couple of viewings (not that I ever didn’t like it).  

Hi middle-aged Peggy! (Isn’t it great how many times Hayley Atwell managed to get herself into these movies beyond what the original plan was, out of sheer enthusiasm? Yeah, I’m still bitter Agent Carter got cancelled.)

The music for the logo is awesome.

My killjoy brother says the main reason he dislikes this movie is that he doesn’t think it makes sense that Hank would ever trust some stranger (Scott) with his tech. Um. Hank has been protective of the tech because he doesn’t want it to be abused. But Scott proved he wasn’t a corporate goon by going to prison for screwing over a corrupt corporation. He’s proven himself. Also he doesn’t have the knowledge to make more of the particles, so he can’t steal any of the secrets himself. 

Luis is probably my favorite sidekick in the whole MCU. He’s irrepressibly cheerful, he compulsively makes delicious-looking waffles, he’s a refined wine man and fan of neo-cubism yet also steals two smoothie machines, and when he goes into ramble mode it’s the greatest thing ever.

Anyone who has ever worked food service has met an idiot like Scott’s customer. Also his boss is basically David Brent. Trying way too hard to be cool, but kind of a git and a coward.

Scott’s attitude is super endearing. Very chill, understated reactions to things that annoy him. You get the impression that it’s not so much that he’s a very patient man as that he’s just so used to stuff like Luis’s antics that he’s become kind of inured to it. He’s also able to roll with the punches. Getting fired from Baskin Robbins could’ve made him bitter and angry, but instead he just kind of shrugs and takes that Mango Fruit Blast. He’s not prideful at all. 

I called the tank being real by the second time the keychain appeared onscreen. Chekhov’s Tank!

Hello, Darren Cross, dude who is only not the worst MCU villain because Malekith exists. (How did Malekith manage to have less of a personality than Darren? It’s absurd.)

The ad video for the Yellowjacket is horrifying. Do people actually make ad videos for advanced weaponry? Do they narrate them with movie narrator voices and tidy up the diction to make them sound like wonderful good pieces of technology, but in a not-entirely-convincing way?

How is a hand on a shoulder such a sinister and obvious sign of impending murder?

Cassie is the most adorable little girl ever, and the kid playing her is a really good actress. I love that Scott is a dad. It makes him much more interesting. (Also is he the only divorcé in the entire MCU? Wait no, May is too. I think he’s the only one in the movies, though.)

“He’s so ugly! I LOVE HIM!” AAAAGH. SO CUTE.

I love that all the little details keep coming back. (The tank, the “La Cucaracha” horn.” Just lots of really good callbacks. It’s hard to believe this movie had production issues with changing directors.)

The way Darren kills that guy by shrinking him, and then wipes him up and flushes him, is ridiculously horrific. And the way he looks in the mirror after that is probably the most interesting he ever is in the movie. He knows the path he’s going down, and he’s not stopping.

So it’s not entirely clear. Is Hope dating Darren? Are they living together? Or are they just business partners? I’m confused.

YES LUIS STORY TIME. This is like Kid History, and it’s my favorite thing. Please please please make an MCU recap narrated by Luis, Marvel.

This music is weird and fun. I love it.

Scott parkouring is great. I wonder why he developed that skillset when he was just an electrical engineer. Has he been doing it since he was a kid?

Scott is like the midpoint between Tony Stark and Peter Quill in almost every way. Good at outside-the-box solutions, has engineering skills (but not at Tony’s level), a sense of humor that’s more self-deprecating than Tony’s but less wide-eyed dorky than Peter’s, etc. That’s awesome.

Could you be more transparently evil than using a bleating white lamb for your ill-fated lab experiments?

Huh. There’s a moment where Scott looks in the mirror too. Is that meant to be a contrast with when Darren does it? For Scott, it’s a moment where he resigns himself to failing, even though he caved and did the burglary. I don’t really see the connection, emotionally, to the way Darren looked in the mirror, but I guess one of them is the apprentice Hank rejected, and the other is the apprentice he ultimately chose. *shrug*

Ant-Man perspective is great. The encounter with the rat is terrifying.

You broke Scott’s chill, Hank!

Okay, so Scott’s actual superpower is changing his clothes at the speed of light. It was entirely unnecessary for them to give him such a small interval of time to get the suit on.

“What happens if I throw up in this helmet?”

There were zero bullet ants on the floor in the initial wide shot of the room. Also in the second wide shot. Which takes place two seconds before Scott tries to put his foot on the floor. Did they...forget to render ants in those shots? Or did they forget there were going to be ants there when they filmed from that angle? Gonna count that one as a mistake, because they could not have gotten all over the floor that fast.

They really needed to do more to explain about Darren’s brain chemistry getting messed up by the particles, because as far as I can tell, the first time he ever shrinks himself is on the helicopter at the end. How do these particles make him evil/crazy, exactly? What was he like before? What have the particles done to Hank?

Also they shouldn’t have explained the particles as changing “atomic relative distance” without also explaining that the suit allows you to control your weight relative to size. Because sometimes Ant-Man appears to weigh as much as he looks like he should, but the rest of the time, he’s clearly still 180 lbs in that tiny space (with the reverse problem when he becomes Giant-Man). If he always weighed 180 lbs while being the size of an ant, he would constantly punch through surfaces by walking on them, and if he was always the weight of an ant, he’d be powerless to do anything except be sneaky.

The montages in this movie are great.

Scott uses Hope’s move later. :D And she was totally checking him out.

Huh. Hope and Scott’s conversation in the car happens exactly halfway through the movie, and it’s the turning point. This is when they start being on the same team.

Hank’s revelation about Janet comes rather out of nowhere. I feel like they could’ve woven that in more effectively. It’s also a little exposition-heavy to entirely work on the emotional level.

This gesture by Scott is one of the best things.

I love the crossovers. Crossovers forever! (Seriously, put Thor cameos in future GotG movies and Loki cameos in future Doctor Strange movies. No, I don’t for a second believe Loki is really dead.)

Poor Sam. He missed out on Sokovia just to get trolled by this rando in a shrinking suit.

Hope saw Scott use her move! Hee!

Sinister hand on shoulder!

Okay, Hope’s “I’m at home” line is why I was confused about whether she and Darren were dating and living together. But it occurs to me now that there’s not really an implication that it’s his home too. So I think they’re just business partners. Good. Because Darren being double-crossed by his girlfriend and failing to react on that level would have made him a much worse character than he already was.

Seriously love Luis, and the other two guys are great too. Excellent crew of wombats.

I love the wallpaper in Hank’s house. Also, just, all of Hank’s house. It’s so pretty.

Okay I absolutely believe that Luis was the only guy to ever knock out that huge dude from the prison. He’s been knocking people out with single punches left and right on this job so far. I love him even more now! That’s such a cool little bit of consistency for him.

Is it true that cops use Crown Victorias as their undercover cars most often? Because I’ve kind of assimilated that as real-life trivia ever since theaters.

What was the point of frying the servers if they were just going to shrink the building to nothing anyway?

Kurt and Tip are hilarious. “There was a black guy who looked exactly like me who attacked us and put us in the back of this disgusting van!”

So if the Avengers have spent the last year taking down Hydra facilities, how are there still people in Hydra who can spend billions for Yellowjacket suits?

I thought Hank was going to die the first time I saw this. Now I’m betting this will be a How to Train Your Dragon situation with Ant-Man and the Wasp, where not long after we discover the long-lost mom, the dad gets killed.

Darren’s villain music is the best thing about him. It’s very unnerving.

All the fights while Scott’s in the suit are so much fun to watch.

“Are we the good guys? Feels kinda weird.”

I don’t like that the chain attachment on the tank also gets huge. And how does a tank cushion a three-storey drop?

That Darren is able to shoot ants is very silly and weird. Would’ve worked better if there was buckshot or something. But still. This movie made me care about an ant dying.

Dangit, Darren, you just killed everyone else in the chopper. You suck.

Briefcase fight! I remember how hard everyone laughed when “Disintegration” started playing in theaters. So great.

All the abrupt cuts from epic to insignificantly small are what make these fights so funny and awesome.

Bug zapper! I watched this with my dad recently (his first time seeing it) and he laughed so hard at the bug zapper.

Another tased Avenger!

So I thought this movie was going to be stupid, right up until the trailer got to the bit with Thomas the Tank Engine. Then I knew it was going to be amazing. It’s still probably my favorite moment in the whole movie.

They kinda overdid it with the “back it up” bit.

Giant ant! Poor Paxton.

Did anyone not see it coming from the moment Hank talked about going sub-atomic that Scott was going to have to do it at the end?

The infinite shrink is mesmerizing to look at. I bet this movie was cool in 3-D. (I have glasses, so 3-D is not so fun.)

Hi Janet!

The bottom half of that face in the photo actually looks kinda like Michelle Pfeiffer’s face. Nice work!

Hahaha, I love that Cassie kept the ant as a dog.

MORE STORIES FROM LUIS! The way he blinks too many times after he finishes is what really clinches it.

So yeah, I like me a heist movie, and it was definitely a brilliant decision on Marvel’s part to go small (figuratively and literally) with the next movie after Ultron. It is a mistake to think you always have to escalate your threats in a series. That was the problem for a while with Supernatural, and it’s definitely a problem in shows like Dragonball Z and Naruto too. Ant-Man was the perfect way to scale back and remind us that these movies are a ton of fun. I’m so glad that they did the same thing with the scheduling of Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and I can’t wait for July 6.

I really hope Ant-Man and the Wasp does the same thing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 did, and goes deeper with the characters instead of just getting bigger in scope. Because Ant-Man is one of the more surface-level movies in the MCU. Scott doesn’t really carry a lot of angst, so even though his arc is about proving he can be the hero Cassie sees him as, it’s pretty chill, with just a couple of moments where he loses...hope...(dang it) in his ability to make this work and be the dad he wants to be.

The bigger emotional arc was Hank and Hope, because Hope absolutely carries her angst and bitterness in a big way. They’re kind of a representation of what Scott and Cassie could end up being if Scott doesn’t get his crap together. And Darren is an evil parallel for Scott, obviously. All of the different arcs probably would’ve worked better if they’d spent enough time and effort on Darren to make him interesting. But the lack of depth in all of the arcs doesn’t ruin the movie because it’s a comedy. This is deliberately a light, fun comedy action movie, and it’s great.

Also it has a good and memorable soundtrack, so bonus points.

[calendiles-remade]

Why “s7 of ouat doesn’t exist”

I know OUAT has basically faded from Tumblr’s collective consciousness, but seeing as it’s ending soon, I figured I might as well.

As you may have noticed, this particular statement is currently written in my about page, I stand by it, and I wanted to address it (also I really just haven’t had a good old-fashioned TV rant in ages). Like many others, I hold the opinion that this show peaked years ago (in season 3 honestly, but that’s neither here nor there). But this season was just the literal Worst (as of the time of writing, up to episode 16 has aired), and the last few episodes might make it all worthwhile, but that seems unlikely. Anyway, the full rant is under the cut to save those who don’t care (or disagree) the annoyance of scrolling through it.

Spoilers, obviously.

1) The plot...is literally season one’s plot

Now, the plot of season one was never the show’s strongest, and I found myself way more interested in the flashbacks during that season than what was actually happening in Storybrooke. The thing is though, this season’s plot is literally the exact same thing. Little kid finds their parent and spends an entire season trying to convince them the curse is a thing. Incessantly. And it’s the exact same curse, with the exact same characters being awake essentially (Regina and Gold). I know the thing about Henry dying if the curse is broken was supposed to add extra drama but...it doesn’t in my opinion. Even “kid almost dying” was already done in season one.

2) The timing makes absolutely no sense

Why are some characters ageing while others aren’t? Regina, Hook, Emma, etc. all seemed the same age when they came to the other realm to see Henry, which okay, fine, maybe time passes slower in Storybrooke’s world. I’ll buy that. But that doesn’t explain why later so much time passes for Rumple and Belle? Or how Zelena doesn’t appear to get older when Robin does? Speaking of which, Regina and New Hook didn’t age in the alternate Enchanted Forest either? I honestly don’t understand it, and I’m not sure why they felt the need for such a convoluted timeline. In previous seasons, they used to say the actual year or at least “long ago”, but now time seems entirely meaningless and they’re just doing whatever they want and we’re not supposed to think about it too hard.

3) The relationships

This part may be more a personal thing, but I wasn’t a fan of any of the relationships in this season. Alice x Robin was kinda just introduced to us with no reasoning or build up, which is kinda important if you want people to actually get invested in the relationship. I get that they’ve been showing more of how the relationship came to be in the recent episodes, but you would think they would start off with that instead of tacking it on later. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad there’s finally more LGBT+ and POC representation on this show, but this one just seems forced, kinda like Dorothy x Ruby. It’s like they know a big part of this fandom wanted SwanQueen and this is their meagre attempt at trying to provide f/f relationships even though the best option for that was staring the writers in the face for six seasons.

Regina x Facilier also came out of nowhere, I’m pretty sure I heard about it on Insta and was completely blindsided. Now, I’m not sure about everyone else, but to me generally being blindsided that a ship is coming usually isn’t a good sign. And plus, I generally wasn’t excited about the idea of Regina in a relationship with a villain. Like, after such a long redemption arc, it’s like they’re throwing it away and I don’t understand why. I don’t understand why this show feels the need to pair basically everyone off, I honestly think they should have just let Regina be (honestly what I’ve been saying every time they make her suffer tbh), because it would have been really nice to see her be happy without a man.

And to be real, Cinderella x Henry didn’t seem to have much chemistry either in my opinion. I didn’t actively dislike it, but it just seemed boring and mostly just like the writers wanted to establish this relationship without actually working for it. I feel like that’s the case for all of the romances this season, honestly.

4) Weak villains

Honestly, the villains in this show have never been my favourite, but they seemed especially boring in this season. Lady Tremaine/Rapunzel turned out to not even be the main villain of the season even though the beginning of the season treated her that way. The concept of her character was neat, but I think they missed a lot of opportunities. I do actually think Drizella is a somewhat interesting character, but she doesn’t make the best villain. It seems a bit drastic to cast this big important curse over everyone just because she wants revenge on her mother (which again is a repeat, the never-ending curses out of revenge). She also ends up being “redeemed” or at least regretting her actions. Like, I love myself a villain with complex and interesting motives, but I’m missing a villain who is just pure evil, like Peter Pan was. It makes the stakes higher and I really like seeing the heroes actually face serious problems. While Gothel may sorta qualify, her role in Hyperion Heights is barely existent. In fact, she spent a significant amount of the time so far being trapped. And now we just have Hansel, and I can’t imagine he’s going to be a grand mastermind.

5) Just general boredom

From the plot repeat to the lack of any true threats to the heroes, it just doesn’t really keep my interest anymore. They’ve even managed to make Rumple boring, which I didn’t think was possible. Instead of being an interesting (although infuriating) character, he hardly does anything. Older season Rumple would have practically reduced the world to dust after what happened to Belle, but now he’s just sitting around asking Henry about his book. Even Regina, the main reason I watched this season to begin with, has basically lost the aspects of her personality that made her interesting. They erased all of her darkness, her amazing sarcasm and humour, and just made her a typical hero, which is the furthest thing from what anyone wanted. This season is just generally missing something to keep my attention.

When I started watching, I didn’t expect to be practically begging for this to end, even though I’d seen the fandom fade and heard it goes downhill after the midpoint. Even though season six had a lot of issues, its finale still would have been a much better ending than dragging the story out. The show has just lost the spark that got people interested in the early seasons, that made me fall in love with it a whole three weeks ago. It’s no longer a complex and lively story about defining your own fate and finding happiness in every kind of love, but a muddled mess that’s barely an unoriginal echo of what it once was.

[hopevalley]

My husband and I all but marathoned the Wedding March movies and all we could think about was how it was some bizarre Bill Avery/A.J. Foster Modern AU. Every time the characters were called by their names (Mick and Olivia) I felt like I was being jolted out of the story. Obviously they aren’t Mick and Olivia! They’re Bill and A.J.!

Anyway, the first one was kind of funny. The second one amused. The third one was...pretty dull. I guess a fourth is coming out in June? Overall, they weren’t a waste of time, but they weren’t great, either. I feel like I could write something a little more interesting with the same premise at the helm.

I don’t expect much from Hallmark movies these days. Every now and then you’ll run into a keeper (Follow the Stars Home surprised me in some big ways, back in the day), but for the most part they are... Well, as @whencallstheheart said on a post a while back, “Mediocre is all Hallmark does.” 

It’s true. I recently got SlingTV so I’ve been recording & catching random Hallmark movies on, and there are a lot of them that start off with a decent premise but completely flag toward the midpoint and get boring or frustrating.

I feel like When Calls the Heart falls into this category, too. The premise of the story (the one the TV show is telling, not necessarily the books) starts off in such a fun way. There’s so much to explore! But the further you go into the series the more things make you tilt your head questioningly at the writers. Like, who thought this was a good idea? Why would you do something like that? Why aren’t you taking a look at all of the other interesting things that come along with this premise automatically?

I feel that their movies embody the basic formula they go by: clean TV with m/f romance, 99% white characters, and contrived drama (because what will they do if they don’t have internal conflict all over the place?).

That formula isn’t too bad for cheesy films you know you’re not going to get invested in. I mean, you see the charactes for 2ish hours and you’ll probably never see them again (with very few exceptions). It’s okay to just enjoy the film for what it gives you: straightforward expected “plot” with big issues that wrap up miraculously in the last, you know, 10ish minutes. You know it doesn’t make sense and that nobody resolves huge dilemmas in literal moments, but you’ll never see these characters again; it’s hard to care overmuch about how believable the plot or characterization are. You’re literally just here for something to watch while you eat ice cream or scroll through social media on your tablet.

But when it comes to a TV series, I feel like this formula stagnates fast and leaves the writers juggling Too Much Drama--that is to say...a soap opera. The fans expect more than that. Heck, I expect more than that. I’m not a screenwriter, but c’mon, consistent characterization is important when you’re writing a series. It’s easy to get disappointed with characters who fail to really go anywhere in the writing, who don’t seem to consistently grow with their experiences, let alone learn from them. And at the root of this frustration is the fact that it feels like the writers aren’t learning how to be better writers, either.

Anyway, watching The Wedding March movies kind of reminded me of that. Again, they were okay, but they were only okay because they were movies. I wouldn’t subscribe to a TV show about the characters. Heck, I started this post talking about the fact that all I could see them as were Bill Avery and A.J. Foster from WCtH! I feel like without that backdrop I might not have even bothered to watch the third one at all! 

I also watched Anything for Love since it was on-demand. It was worse by a large margin. A character who was shown to be a staunch businesswoman grabs a phone and pages someone over a hospital’s PA system to confess her love, like...? The film was fine up until that point. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t awful. But that scene...! Who wrote that? It was completely out of character. It was immature and centered on a character who had been trying to prove her capabilities the entire storyline. Hot take, here: it was cringey. Like I could barely look at the screen. Here these writers are thinking it’s cute or romantic or fun, but it’s the sort of thing that would get you arrested IRL! What kind of asshole would mess with a hospital’s PA system for selfish reasons? This woman has no business in a relationship if she’s gonna get stupid like that because she wants to keep the love of her life. I don’t know, maybe go to his house later? Walk around the hospital waiting rooms until you find him? You were just told he was here visiting a patient. Ask which patient/what ward? 

Suspension of disbelief is real and needs to be considered when you’re a writer, and I don’t care if you write a movie or a television show or a novel, that holds. It was like, come on, can nobody see the issues with making this part of a film? With what this one scene does to characters who are otherwise fairly interesting?

But that all comes back to WCtH for me. It feels like the writers over there know one way of writing things and they use it for everything they produce. It's more tolerable in a film but ends up stagnating a TV show.

And I’m over here like, When Calls the Heart deserves better than this? These characters deserve better than to be written as if they’re bit characters on a film nobody will remember in a year.

[jamisonpro]

The Only Sub-Par Episode of Stranger Things 2

If you binged the whole season this weekend like myself, you should know exactly what I’m talking about.

The Lost Sister, Chapter Seven of the otherwise fantastic Stranger Things 2 manages to be wholly disappointing. For a show that consistently sets standards for modern television, this episode reeked of network TV.

It’s as though someone watched only the recap of the first season of Stranger Things and saw that it took place in the 80’s, and thought anything from the 80’s went.

Obviously, major spoilers from here on out.

The initial introduction of Eight was intriguing, as it’s the cold open of the season — showing the otherwise unexplored Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Here we see a group of individuals fleeing a crime scene, and one of the criminals using powers strikingly similar to the beloved Elle only for a shot to pan to her wrist to reveal the “008” tattoo, implying the other ten experimental subjects besides Elle could be explored.

We don’t see hide nor tail of Eight until well past the midpoint of the season, when Elle’s almost entirely disabled mother inexplicably sends Elle to see her violent and vengeful “sister”. What follows is a huge letdown on what could’ve been a huge opportunity for Elle to make major progress as a character, using an entire episode to get there. Instead, we get a cliche ridden, badly acted (besides Millie Bobby Brown), borefest. Where Stranger Things has otherwise made huge strides in subverting typical television/film tropes and expectations, The Lost Sister plays into every one imaginable.

Eight is immediately signaled as a damaging influence for Elle, and the motivations of her crew are thinner than the wall Elle bursts through to get back to the real world from the Upside Down. These characters are shallow and uninteresting, and its immediately clear that they’ll be wholly inconsequential, as with two episodes left afterwards, Elle needs to get back to Hawkins and reunite with Mike. Now, if we had been merely teased with the existence of Eight and other subjects, they could’ve been left as teasers for potential further sequel seasons. Instead, we get a painfully cliche story of a damaging influence trying to use our naive hero for their own means, encouraging them to immerse themselves in anger to power up, and eventually take a life that may not necessarily deserve taking (X-Men: First Class, anyone?). Eight is basically turned into Darth Vader, urging Elle through a story that is so inconsequential for her character development, you could literally remove the episode from the season and Elle’s character would be unchanged (“Oh, mom sent me to a punk apparel store”). This is the biggest test of a throwaway episode.

It’s even more disruptive, because the episode comes right after the major cliffhanger of the Hawkins lab being attacked with some of our favorite characters inside, Hopper in particular on the front lines. And we have to sit through an hour delay for Elle to get a wardrobe change, essentially.

It’s a shame this episode has to mar the otherwise impeccable season, but I can still look at the season as a whole as absolutely fantastic. It was just a shame the extra episode couldn’t have been put to better use. Instead, we got the plot from an episode of the old X-Men animated series. Avatar: The Last Airbender, did this plot better with “Jet” anyways.  

Elle deserves better and I would’ve taken another episode deepening her connection with Hopper any day. This was a real misfire and missed opportunity.