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illuminatedquill · 3 years

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Extracurricular, An Analysis

Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as it’s accomplice.” - Tom Robbins

You know the story. You’ve heard it before, right?

Boy meets girl.

Girl finds out that boy is running a side protection business for prostitutes.

Girl decides to blackmail boy into letting her join his business.

Classic high school criminal shenanigans ensue leading them into more dangerous situations where they are forced to make desperate decisions to stay alive.

Oh, and they fall in love along the way.

Oh? You haven’t heard this one before? Then let me introduce you to this delightful kdrama called Extracurricular.

I watched this one while waiting for the newest Hometown Cha Cha Cha episodes to drop and ended up binging the whole series in two days. There are many remarkable parts of this series: it’s a crime drama, first and foremost, that showcases high school teenagers caught in a cycle of violence and crime, abandoned by the society and adults that are supposed to be protecting them. There are no clear good guys and bad guys in this drama; everyone is cast in shades of grey. Our main leads, Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri, run the prostitution business, and are both from broken family backgrounds. Their actions are morally questionable at best, but the top tier performances from Kim Dong Hee (you might remember him from Itaewon Class) and Park Ju Hyun make you cheer for them anyway. You want them to have a happy ending, despite the horrible things they do. The audience is always reminded that despite how clever they are in staying ahead, their actions have consequences, and they’re just high school kids. The drama never pulls it punches.

But, weirdly enough, it’s also a love story. And that’s the part the really sticks with me until now. (The chemistry between the main leads is absolute dynamite and I could watch ten episodes of them just verbally sparring with each other. They don’t even kiss. They’re that fantastic when together on screen.)

I’m writing this because this is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite kdramas and I have a lot of feelings about our main pairing, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri. I can’t call them a couple (wait, didn’t I just say they fall in love) because their relationship can’t be labelled simply as that. Think of it as something similar to the main leads in My Ahjussi. Two people who should have become soulmates, yet met at the wrong time.

This kdrama is not particularly happy, and while I do encourage people to watch this, I am warning that the subject matter is extremely dark. If you’re sensitive to scenes depicting sexual assault, graphic violence, or anything in that zip code you’ll want to steer clear.

Also, I’ll be diving into spoiler territory in this analysis. So if you want to go in clean, then stop reading here.

Still here? Awesome. Let’s dive deep into the messy, amazing pairing that is Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri. First, let’s do a brief character background on our two main leads, starting with Ji-soo.

Oh Ji-soo is one half of our main pairing and this story starts with him. He lives by himself and has been essentially abandoned by his only parents; his father is a failed businessman who gambles whatever money he acquires on scams and his mother ran away. His apartment is small, sparse, but functional. He owns only a few outfits aside from his school uniform. The only unique item he owns is a pet hermit crab that he takes care of. His life outside of school is non-existent; he has no friends, no one to hang out with and do typical high school teenager activities with. He takes care of himself and lives only for himself and his “dream”: to graduate, attend college, get married, and have kids like a normal person.

But to do that, he needs a large amount of money. He has no other financial means to do so (his father is largely absent, as is his mother), so he decides, at some point, to start up this protection business for prostitutes. The drama doesn’t go into detail about the how and why he came to this conclusion that this was the best way to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief from the get go. Considering the themes of the story (how youths abandoned by society tend to act out in extreme ways to make it in this world), it’s not hard to believe his desperation would drive him to make such a decision.

Ji-soo, despite his shady business, is actually a decent person. There’s a streak of humanity that exists inside him that refuses to go out, despite the increasingly dark and bleak events that start to overtake his life. He’s attached to his hermit crab, cares for his “employees” outside of them being tools to make him money, and doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt. He goes above and beyond what’s required to help out people at the risk of his own life (in particular, Gyu-ri, and we’ll get into that shortly).

What we learn from the first few episodes is that Oh Ji-soo is extremely smart and methodical in how he approaches his life. At school, he is known as a model student - quiet, top of the class in terms of grades, doesn’t draw any attention to himself, always follows along with what the teachers ask of him. Only his homeroom teacher, Mr. Cho, seems to consider his quiet style of existence to be concerning and tries to make him less socially awkward by pairing him up with another student in a new extracurricular club. This leads to the introduction of Bae Gyu-ri, Ji-soo’s longtime crush and future partner-in-crime.

Meet Bae Gyu-ri, the other half of our dynamic duo. Her introduction into the story kickstarts the entire plot, as one of her earliest actions leads to a domino effect that spells increasing doom and tragedy for our main leads. She messes with Ji-soo’s operation at a critical moment and she spends the rest of the drama doing her best to make up for the consequences that follow.

In my personal opinion, she is probably the best main female lead I’ve ever seen in a kdrama. Hands down, no other character exists (currently) that rivals her sheer cunning, wit, and badassery. Gyu-ri is Crazy, capital C, and is the chaos to Ji-soo’s control; the fire to his ice. Despite being the direct cause of half the events that happen to Ji-soo in the drama, he can’t help but need her because of what she offers. They make an incredible team. Her competitiveness, her need to win no matter the odds, helps them survive time and time again.

Gyu-ri is from the opposite end of the spectrum of Ji-soo; he’s dirt poor and she’s insanely rich (always nice to see a reversal of typical kdrama tropes). Her mother and father run a successful entertainment company. Gyu-ri is popular at school, friends with seemingly everybody, pretty, cheerful and gets along well with her teachers. Ji-soo, and the audience, believe from the beginning that she has the perfect life. It’s not hard to believe that she’s just involving herself in Ji-soo’s business because she’s bored and needs an outlet, at first.

We soon learn otherwise. Gyu-ri has more in common with Ji-soo than he initially realizes, in that they’re both trapped in circumstances beyond their control - it’s just that Gyu-ri’s cage is gilded, whereas his is not. Her parents are strict and have her life planned out for her, all without her consent or input, leaving her feeling frustrated and powerless despite her rich lifestyle. A suicide attempt hasn’t done much to change her parents attitude towards her, only serving to further their control over her life.

So, when she learns of Ji-soo’s operation she immediately seeks to angle her way into it. First, she tries to rip him off, believing that he’s an evil “pimp” and thus deserves it. But after spending some time with him, she changes her mind last second and decides to help him out instead.

And, now, let’s get into their relationship, which is one of the best (if not the best) aspect in the entire series.

I need to be upfront about something: the relationship between Ji-soo and Gyu-ri is not exactly healthy. I wouldn’t describe it as toxic - the circumstances surrounding them aren’t exactly the best environment to encourage open and honest communication - but it’s definitely not what should be considered ideal, especially for young adults, and especially for young adults who are dabbling in crime instead of studying.

So, why do I love them so much? If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know that I loathe toxic relationships in kdramas, so I understand if you think I’m coming off as hypocritical here. Why do I like Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri when I didn’t like, for example from recent history, (oh boy, here I go again on my Nevertheless BS) Park Jae-eon and Yu Na-bi?

First, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are way cooler than Jae-eon and Na-bi ever could be. They run a criminal enterprise that involves having a high amount of intelligence, cunning, and daring to do so. Do Jae-eon and Na-bi run a criminal enterprise as a side business? No, they don’t, because they’re boring art students.

Secondly, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri actually progress in their relationship and change their views as they learn from each other. Now, granted, that progress isn’t towards becoming better versions of each other - quite the opposite. But at least they have progress. Jae-eon and Na-bi stayed in the same stupid cycle for the whole series and then decided that it was better staying that way as opposed to trying for something else.

Last, but certainly not least, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are actually interesting to watch for me. The chemistry between Park Ju Hyun and Kim Dong Hee is explosive and they way they spar, exchange looks, and just generally exist around each other on screen is something I can watch forever. I’ve said this before but Han So Hee and Song Kang’s on screen chemistry, outside of their intimate scenes, really didn’t impress me.

Okay, back to Extracurricular. This relationship, man. It’s all I can think about (other than HomeCha’s Du-sik and Hye-jin, but that’s another post). Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are so good together.

I’ve noted before that Ji-soo is methodical in how he approaches his life; he plans out everything ahead, and rigs any situation as much as he can in his favor. It’s brilliant, but when a crisis happens, he doesn’t know how to deal with it effectively. He panics and flounders; becomes indecisive at a time when clear, decisive action is required.

Enter Gyu-ri. She quickly becomes the partner he never knew he needed. When there’s a situation, she becomes invaluable in her quick thinking and wit, coming up with solutions on the fly. It’s not perfect, but it keeps them just one small step ahead of whatever is coming their way.

The only thing preventing them from becoming unstoppable is the lack of communication and trust they have with each other. A lot of that has to do with how Gyu-ri entered Ji-soo’s business - she blackmailed him first, and, when that failed, she strong armed her way into getting him to accept her help. It’s implied in the drama that Ji-soo has had a crush on Gyu-ri for a while (since ninth grade, I believe) and in the first episode he actually gets the chance to spend time with her outside of school on a sort of quasi-date.

It goes sideways pretty quickly because of some shenanigans from his business, but not before she gets to know him and says some pretty touching words regarding his situation. Poor guy is head over heels - even after finding out that she’s the one blackmailing him, his feelings are only dampened, not extinguished. When he catches a glimpse of her family’s situation, he gains a deeper understanding of her and why she acts the way she does. Even more importantly, Ji-soo treats her the same after finding out this information which, to someone like Gyu-ri, means more than if he comforted her about it.

If you want to see a physical representation of how he feels, other than paying attention to his actions, you can see it in him keeping mementos from Gyu-ri. She has an interesting habit of folding bags into origami shapes and giving it to him. Even after the blackmail reveal, you can see that he continues to keep these in a container on his desk. It’s really cute that he keeps these, when it probably doesn’t even matter that much to Gyu-ri.

Towards the end of the drama, Ji-soo prepares to turn himself in to prevent Gyu-ri from being implicated in the crimes they committed. And it costs him almost everything to protect her. Ji-soo, the quiet, nerdy kid, puts himself on the line time and time again to protect Gyu-ri, knowing that it puts his life and his dream at risk to do so. And all for what? For some girl that he thinks doesn’t even like him in return?

Well, let’s talk about that. Because I’ve seen some comments that Gyu-ri was only using Ji-soo for her own selfish gain. And I can agree that was how it was at the beginning for her; she definitely was only interested in acquiring money, like Ji-soo was, in order to achieve her own goal of being free from her parents.

But, oh man, that is not what is motivating her at the end.

It’s actually pointed out relatively early by some of her friends that it’s obvious that she likes Ji-soo more than he likes her. Understandably Ji-soo is keeping her at arms length from him given the whole recent blackmailing, so it would make sense that it looks that way.

Further questioning reveals what she likes the most about him:

“It’s not like I’m crazy about him. He’s fun. And amusing. He’s smart. And there’s a certain charm he has. He also has a wolfish side to him. But he thinks he’s a puppy.”

- Bae Gyu-ri

But, as she gets to know Ji-soo better, you can certainly see that she starts to fall hard for him. As a cover story for why they hang out so much together during and after school, Gyu-ri states to everyone that they’re dating. The reactions across the school definitely imply that this is a shocking development, which means that Gyu-ri hasn’t dated anyone before. So why Ji-soo other than the reasons she herself states?

He challenges her, just as she challenges him. Gyu-ri may be the more dynamic, quick thinking of the pair but Ji-soo is every inch her intellectual equal - just in different ways. She doesn’t seem to be the type to be easily impressed, but you can tell that she’s definitely impressed by Ji-soo’s operation and how thoroughly set up it is. When Ji-soo is frustrated at the beginning by his setbacks, he blows up at another student (knocks him out in a crazy punch) and immediately walks over to Gyu-ri afterwards (who saw the whole thing) to inform her that she is now his partner in crime.

The look in her eyes, and the small smirk she has speaks volumes about her attraction to him in that scene. Smoldering.

And, oh yes, she’s prone to jealousy. Another classmate, Min-hee, gives Ji-soo a present out of the blue (it was supposed to be for her boyfriend, Ki-tae, but that’s another sub-plot) - all within view of Gyu-ri. It’s hilarious how she tries to brush it off. Later, for plot reasons, Ji-soo has to spend more time with Min-hee which only furthers Gyu-ri’s annoyance.

And her motivations stop being entirely about the money and more towards helping preserve the dream that she and Ji-soo share about being free. There’s a scene in episode 8 where it’s revealed that, due to a business partnership with a local gang (set up by none other than Gyu-ri herself in a desperate move), Ji-soo would have to drop out of school permanently to work on their behalf. Gyu-ri overhears this and, despite badly needing the gang’s help in sustaining their own business, immediately terminates the partnership.

All because it would interfere with Ji-soo’s dream.

Man, if that isn’t love.

In the following episode, Gyu-ri, and later on Ji-soo, is kidnapped by the same gang in retaliation for terminating their partnership. Ji-soo comes to her rescue but Gyu-ri is already almost free (again, she’s really, really badass) and is demanding that they bring Ji-soo to her instead of running for her life.

Surviving this latest attempt puts the two in a reflective, vulnerable mood and Gyu-ri asks Ji-soo why he keeps saving her. Ji-soo asks later on why she keeps risking her life to be with him. They don’t say the answer in words but in an almost kiss (yeah, you read that right - almost).

And then, if you aren’t already convinced, Ji-soo crosses his one last remaining line in an effort to keep Gyu-ri safe; he accidentally pushes a fellow classmate down some steps and, instead of helping her, leaves her to die after grabbing the evidence she has on him and Gyu-ri.

Extracurricular pulls off quite the magic trick here, hiding this well done love story in the middle of a serious crime drama.

The real tragedy is that Ji-soo thinks that Gyu-ri views this whole business, and by extension his life, as one big game. It’s something that she takes offense at, visibly becoming upset when he says that.

But even if that were true, he should be assured since Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose.

As they hurtle towards the end and face up to the consequences of their actions, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri undoubtedly lose sight of their original goals and dreams. They do some fairly horrible things to stay alive and ahead of the police who are close on their trail. You can’t really blame them for doing what they did; in the face of a society that has abandoned them, what they’re doing is a logical outcome to gain what they want so desperately and deserve so much: the chance to be free to live like normal, care-free people.

I can’t say for certain that they achieve that. The drama is serious in consequences and, at the end, the net around them is drawing tighter and tighter. I won’t spoil the ending scene for you, because I highly encourage you watch this drama yourself but I will say this: Ji-soo and Gyu-ri seem stuck in an impossible situation with nowhere to go, and no one to help them, with a clock ticking down towards either death or discovery by the police.

But, all the same, I’m always the optimist. They’ve gotten through situations like this before and they can certainly do so again. Maybe not as bad as this one, but not too far out of their league. And, like I mentioned before, Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose. Especially when it comes to Ji-soo.

Their relationship is truly dangerous, as Ji-soo himself notes. Them being together is the source of their problems; they’re too much alike now, as opposed to the beginning of the drama where he stated that they’re too different. Their love is the kind of love where both of them are willing to burn the whole world down if it means keeping each other safe.

I’m a real sucker for those kind of love stories. No one’s a hero here. They’re just kids in high school, doing the best with what they know.

Who are we to judge what is right and wrong? Especially when the one committing the acts are high school kids who don’t know any better and just want to save each other?

Do we have that right?

Do they really deserve that punishment? Shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the society that forced them to act this way?

Extracurricular really makes you think about that. Is it really so outlandish and terrible what Ji-soo and Gyu-ri do to survive when the adults who are supposed to be protecting them, teaching them better, have failed in their duty?

Maybe they really did win at the end. Not so much in succeeding in their goals but in gaining something that not even regular people are likely to find - a partner, a soulmate, someone who will stand by you no matter what.

If you do watch the ending, and are not an optimist like I am, then all I can say is this: whatever happened, they were together at the end.

They were together.

#extracurricular netflix #human class #netflix #kdrama #oh jisoo #bae gyuri #park joo hyun #park ju hyun #kim dong hee

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opbackgrounds · 4 years

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so I was doing some research after watching movie 6...

...and apparently it was originally written as a comedy

Yeah, I was surprised, too

Baron Omatsuri is not my favorite One Piece movie—Film Z has too many of my favorite tropes to be usurped from that position—but I do think it is the most daring. Of all the supplemental material I’ve seen and read, it feels the least...One Piece-ish.

Yes, that includes the noodle commercials.

If you haven’t seen the movie and can stomach a little spookiness, do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Unlike movies like Strong World or Z that have the look and feel of a manga arc, Movie 6 transplants the Straw Hat Pirates into a world that doesn’t feel like a One Piece story, taking risks and exploring themes that would never fit in the manga proper.

In addition to the obvious changes in art and animation style, there are supernatural elements that don’t make sense within the One Piece world. None of the Straw Hats win a fight—Luffy included, although he is heavily implied to have killed the big bad at the end. The moral of the movie, if it can be said to have a moral, is if you lose the people closest to you, the answer is to forget about them and make new friends. The story ends with many questions left unanswered and the main drama between the crew unresolved.

And, if you allow me to get philosophical for a moment, I wish there were more movies like it. As I wrote in my review of Novel A, I don’t go to supplemental material or side stories looking for a repeat of what’s in the manga. Oda has written 1000 chapters of One Piece—why not spice things up a little and try something different for a change?

I know the answer isn’t that simple, and by their very nature not all risks will pan out. There will be people who don’t like this movie because it’s different, both in look and tone. But there’s something to be said about a creator putting their heart and soul into a work and having it show in the final product.

Which brings us back to the original premise. How does a movie go from a light-hearted comedy based on a variety show theme to...this

Baron Omatsuri was directed by Mamoru Hosoda and came out in 2005. To put that into perspective, the movie was in production when the Luffy vs Usopp fight was first seen in the manga. Manga!Luffy had not yet faced the challenge of an inter-crew disputes when the story was being written and boarded, nor did the creative team have the events of Sabaody and Marineford to see how Luffy would react to the loss of his loved ones. They were working without a full understanding of Luffy’s character, and to a lessor extent the character of the Straw Hat Pirates, and it seems like Oda was much less involved In production than has been in movies since Strong World and beyond.

Likewise, Hosoda had just left a tumultuous situation at Studio Ghibli while working on Howl’s Moving Castle, and if this interview is anything to go by (https://instrangeaeonsblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/mamoru-hosoda-on-omatsuri-danshaku-animestyle-interview-part-1/) was going through a lot of personal shit when he was brought on as director. The script he was given was originally written like a variety show—something that was carried over into the various trials seen in the final movie—and meant to be a lighthearted affair after the relatively serious Movie 5 (which I have not seen am thus unable to compare tone).

With that backstory in mind, it’s easy to see how the bickering and backbiting between the Straw Hats early in the movie is a metaphor for Hosoda’s time at Ghibli, which is something he admits to in the interview. Movie 6 feels different than any other One Piece movie because it’s the project of a man who has had to endure the loss of those who he was close with, at least in a professional capacity.

There are moments in Movie 6 where Luffy doesn’t feel like Luffy. More than once a member of the Straw Hats ask him to intervene during arguments, moments Luffy either ignores or doesn’t notice. It’s a version of Water 7 where instead of fighting Usopp, Luffy ignores the underlying differences within his crew, and as a result loses everybody.

The structure of the three trials follows a clear path of deterioration within the crew, the initial goldfish scooping game showing the Straw Hats at their best and inciting the jealousy of the Baron, the ring toss sowing discord among the crew even as they snatch a narrow victory, only for them to be utterly crushed in the third and final challenge as they’re unable help one another survive.

It is somewhat implied that the Breaking of the Fellowship(TM) is magical in nature—that like the One Ring, the Lily Carnation was able to influence the Straw Hat’s thoughts and actions, but this is never stated outright and I prefer the more mundane interpretation: That without strong leadership the Straw Hats fell victim to the manipulative machinations of the Baron, and simply self-destructed as a result. In the end, it’s up to the interpretation of the viewer.

And speaking of things up to interpretation, I love how the Lily Carnation isn’t explained in the slightest. The plant that initially absorbs the Straw Hats looks more like the stem of a devil fruit than a flower, it for some reason rings like a gong when hit, and somehow is able to turn pieces of itself into facsimile of the Baron’s old crew who can somehow move around despite being plans. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and the element of the unknown works so well in the horror-lite setting.

My personal theory is the island somehow managed to eat a devil fruit which manifests itself as the Lily Carnation (which due to the L/R conflation in Japanese, is pronounced ‘reincarnation’, which I think is a nice touch of foreshadowing that may or may not have been intentional).

(Also, I can’t decide if little chewing animation it makes when it’s eating people or the weird bullseyes it makes when shit gets real are the most terrifying thing in the movie.)

Hmmm, tasty.

Anyway, this is getting long, so here are some final thoughts:

1) This movie has some low key fantastic outfits. The Straw Hats all look very cool without being over designed like a lot of recent movies. Big hat Robin is of course a fave, and makes me really want to see her in a Carmen Sandiego getup.

2) Screenshots do not do the animation of the movie justice. It’s very fluid and has a lot of excellent expressions/poses, although I admit the 3D is jarring at times. Do not let the art put you off if you haven’t seen it

3) Also, I don’t think there’s any shading? Like at all? The movie does a lot of cool stuff with color instead. For example, the scene where Luffy initially loses to the Baron his skin goes all grey, and I thought it was because he was fighting at night, but it stays grey even in the better lighting of the underground tunnels and stays that way until he finds out the Straw Hats are still alive, where it returns to his normal color

4) There’s an extended Benny Hill-type gag when Luffy first chases after the little mustache pirate that’s perfectly timed to the music, and ends when Luffy just uses his power to grab him. The comedic timing is amazing and it’s probably my favorite funny moment in the movie, of which there are several despite the overall darker tone

5) The extended jungle shot from Nami’s POV? Very cool

6) I love how from the earliest scenes nothing is as it seems. The opening text is Robin reading the map, but the storm that’s seen on screen is the one that sank the Baron’s crew. Likewise the whole fancy city is shown to be fake panels early on, the goldfish catching game is a trap, etc., etc. It does a good job clueing the viewer in early that’s something’s very wrong on the island, even if they don’t realize it at first

7) I don’t think this type of movie would work in modern One Piece without somehow nerfing Luffy. Horror works best when the protagonist is weak and vulnerable, and that fits best with a pre-Gear 2/3 Luffy (same with the rest of the crew, tbh. I was waiting for Nami to use her lightning stick during the games, forgetting it hadn’t been boosted yet).

8) I like how there are four captains on the island representing different levels of loss—the Baron has lost his crew and wants to destroy all others because of it, mustache pirate lost his crew and is willing to put it behind him to make new friends, Luffy has freshly lost his crew and hasn’t decided what path he will go, and coward dad hasn’t lost his crew yet but is at risk if he doesn’t change his cowardly ways

9) I think the reason why Chopper was the first Straw Hat to disappear is he’s the most likely to play the part of peacemaker. He’s also the only crew member needing rescuing at the end of the goldfish scoop game, when Luffy foolishly puts his life at risk trying to save him from drowning, just like he recklessly charges the Baron at the end of the movie. Except that time there was no Sanji to save him, leaving Luffy to get his ass thoroughly kicked

10) This is a very good Halloween movie, and I’m glad I watched it in October

#opbackgrounds #long post #movie 6 #review #one piece #Baron Omatsuri

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welllpthisishappening · 3 years

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Welllp These Are Books: the April 2021 Edition

I did not read Romeo and Juliet this month. I read a bunch of other books. Like, a bunch. More than one series. Because Big Bang burnout is real and grown adults missing their deadlines is a real good way to stress me out. So, I read a bunch. Good books, very bad books, books that caused limbs to flail. For positive and not-so-positive reasons. Naturally, all those reasons must be shared. Under the cut with occasionally long and rant-prone reviews, as well as spoilers. Beware of spoilers under the cut. Please keep telling me what to read, internet. My library wish list is almost comically long now.

GIVE ME ALL THE WORLD BUILDING AND SNARK AND FIGHTING! WITH MAGIC! AND SWORDS! IT’S MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!

Shades of Magic Series by V.E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

— Picture it, approximately twelve forty-seven am. My husband is asleep. I am reading. The second book in this series ends. And I say, right out loud, at what might now be twelve forty-eight am, HOLY SHIT IT JUST ENDED. Justin thought we were under attack. No man has ever snapped awake quicker. He was not pleased. At least not in the same way that I was about these books. Which I goddamn LOVED. Loved. The world building. The magic. The banter. Rhy and Kell’s relationship. Once more. RHY AND KELL’S RELATIONSHIP. Which I might have cared about more than the romance??? Maybe??? I cannot get over how good this world building was. I know people have quips with it, and that’s fair. I saw the “twist” coming in the first book, and I think trying to preserve that left some plot holes that are understandably frustrating. Because Lilah definitely needed depth perception to fight as well as she did. Also did Schwab really refer to her as a cross dresser in her author’s note? Yikes. She wore a dude’s jacket, like—c’mon V.E. Other than that though. I loved it. Also shout out to @peglegsjones for suggesting this one in my 2020 post and call out to me for taking so long to read it.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. . . . A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first.

— I’ve talked about how little I cared about anything that happened in Shadow and Bone before, but I kept seeing gifs of the Crows in the Netflix show and my brain was like: huh, I could like them. So, after some help from the very helpful internet, I’m happy to report I do in fact like them. At one point, I slunk into the couch. Like that’s how overcome with emotion I was. Kaz ripped a dude’s eye out! For Inej! Matthias loved Nina’s laugh! I would like to hug Jesper. Seriously, this hit all my high points and world building and banter and I lol’ed at “scheming face.” I would like my hold to come through faster on the sequel.

THEY DID NOT CALL INTERMISSION HALFTIME AND MY COLLEGE EXPERIENCE WAS WAY DIFFERENT THAN THESE KIDS

The Off Campus Series by Elle Kennedy

Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice…even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date. All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.

— The first book in this series was free on Amazon. So, I read it. And really liked it??? It was so chock full of cliches and badly written tropes and Garrett probably should have accepted that Hannah didn’t want to go out at the start, but like—he was cute? And as we all know I am TRASH™ for stories set in the same verse, so, like, I just kept reading these trashy college hockey books. Trashy is a compliment here. God, these kids had so much sex. So much. An incredible amount, really. I once had a guy tell me he was physically attracted to me, but not emotionally attracted to me in college. Like, that was my college experience. The first and second books were the best, I think. I didn’t really like Dean that much.

MAYBE IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS A RABBI???

The Intimacy Experiement by Rosie Danan

Naomi Grant has built her life around going against the grain. After the sex-positive start-up she cofounded becomes an international sensation, she wants to extend her educational platform to live lecturing. Unfortunately, despite her long list of qualifications, higher ed won't hire her. Ethan Cohen has recently received two honors: LA Mag nominated him as one of the city's hottest bachelors and he became rabbi of his own synagogue. Low on both funds and congregants, the executive board of Ethan's new shul hired him with the hopes that his nontraditional background will attract more millennials to the faith. They've given him three months to turn things around or else they'll close the doors of his synagogue for good. Naomi and Ethan join forces to host a buzzy seminar series on Modern Intimacy, the perfect solution to their problems--until they discover a new one--their growing attraction to each other. They've built the syllabus for love's latest experiment, but neither of them expected they'd be the ones putting it to the test.

— Ok, I know that sounds bad. Again, I’m a creature of predictable habit and this was the sequel to The Roommate, which I absolutely LOVED last year. But where as the relationship in that one was kind of swoony, this one was...I don’t know, really. Everyone was a well-rounded character and the plot was good, but there was this semi-invisible something that made it difficult for me to get fully on board with the whole story. Honestly, it might be because he was a religious figure?? Also, they got together real quick. Like zero to sixty in twenty-six seconds flat.

I KNOW IT’S BAD, IT WAS BAD AND YET—I CANNOT STOP READING IT???

Too Wild to Tame by Tessa Bailey

Sometimes you just can't resist playing with fire . . . By day, Aaron Clarkson suits up, shakes hands, and acts the perfect gentleman. But at night, behind bedroom doors, the tie comes off and the real Aaron comes out to play. Mixing business with pleasure got him fired, so Aaron knows that if he wants to work for the country's most powerful senator, he'll have to keep his eye on the prize. That's easier said than done when he meets the senator's daughter, who's wild, gorgeous, and 100 percent trouble. Grace Pendleton is the black sheep of her conservative family. Yet while Aaron's presence reminds her of a past she'd rather forget, something in his eyes keeps drawing her in. Maybe it's the way his voice turns her molten. Or maybe it's because deep down inside, the ultra-smooth, polished Aaron Clarkson might be more than even Grace can handle . . .

— Last month I read the first book in this series and it was absolutely ridiculous. This one even more so. The Clarksons are still on the road trip (sans one sibling because she fell in love in a week in the first book) and Aaron was, like, not a root’able character? Very Edward Cullen I’M A BAD GUY, BELLA vibes and his relationship with Grace was so strange. Super rushed again, obvs. Meeting in the woods is weird enough. Professing love forty-eight hours later is decidedly unbelievable. Also there was a kidnapping involved? I totally put a hold on the next book in the series.

COME UP WITH DIFFERENT TRAUMA, I DARE YOU! OR NO TRAUMA. WHAT A CONCEPT!!

The Trouble With Hating You by Sajni Patel

Liya Thakkar is a successful biochemical engineer, takeout enthusiast, and happily single woman. The moment she realizes her parents' latest dinner party is a setup with the man they want her to marry, she's out the back door in a flash. Imagine her surprise when the same guy shows up at her office a week later -- the new lawyer hired to save her struggling company. What's not surprising: he's not too thrilled to see her either after that humiliating fiasco.

Jay Shah looks good on paper...and off. Especially if you like that whole gorgeous, charming lawyer-in-a-good-suit thing. He's also infuriating. As their witty office banter turns into late-night chats, Liya starts to think he might be the one man who truly accepts her. But falling for each other means exposing their painful pasts. Will Liya keep running, or will she finally give love a real chance?

— I had such high hopes for this one. Which is on me, I guess. Because I didn’t hate this one, but it was...not great. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety but I am BEGGING romance writers to come up with different trauma for their female protagonists. Not every woman has to have been assaulted to rationalize their current personality. Doesn’t have to happen. Like, ok, yes it does happen. Far more than it should. But that’s an entirely different story, and I am so tired of female characters getting absolutely destroyed by their past only to have that be their defining characteristic for so much of the book. Until a nice man they were initially mean to shows up and he’s UNDERSTANDING and he CARES and it’s just, bleh. It’s bleh. Tired and predictable and I’m over it.

IN WHICH I SHOULD HAVE LOOKED AT THE COVER

Much Ado About You by Samantha Young

At thirty-three-years old Evangeline Starling’s life in Chicago is missing that special something. And when she’s passed over for promotion at work, Evie realizes she needs to make a change. Some time away to regain perspective might be just the thing. In a burst of impulsivity, she plans a holiday in a quaint English village. The holiday package comes with a temporary position at Much Ado About Books, the bookstore located beneath her rental apartment. There’s no better dream vacation for the bookish Evie, a life-long Shakespeare lover. Not only is Evie swept up in running the delightful store as soon as she arrives, she’s drawn into the lives, loves and drama of the friendly villagers. Including Roane Robson, the charismatic and sexy farmer who tempts Evie every day with his friendly flirtations. Evie is determined to keep him at bay because a holiday romance can only end in heartbreak, right? But Evie can’t deny their connection and longs to trust in her handsome farmer that their whirlwind romance could turn in to the forever kind of love.

— Ok, so I had had this book on hold for so long that I genuinely forgot about it and forgot who it was written by. Samantha Young wrote that one book that I called the worst book I had ever read. Only I did not realize that when I started reading this one. So, you see how this sets us up for disaster. Because this book was a disaster. Everyone was goddamn annoying. And whiny. Shit, everyone whined. About everything. Also, the actual writing was atrocious. I am not usually one to be like “men can’t write,” but at one point I told both @shireness-says and @optomisticgirl that this book must have been secretly written by a man because no woman writing it would be so obsessed with pointing out where her cellulite was. Like, what??? Also the first sex scene? Oh my God, I laughed. Guffawed. The so-called love interest literally asked: “Are we going to have sex now?” And then they just did. It was so bad. Also there was a dog? Who went everywhere with the so-called love interest. And they just never explained that? I thought it was going to be part of some crushing and depressing backstory. Nah, he was just there.

HOLY SHIT THIS WAS SO DUMB I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS WAS A BOOK! A BOOK MEANT FOR YOUNG ADULTS! WHAT IS YOUNG ADULT???

The Queen’s Secret by Melissa de la Cruz

Lilac's birthright makes her the Queen of Renovia, and a forced marriage made her the Queen of Montrice. But being a ruler does not mean making the rules. For Lilac, taking the throne means giving up the opportunity to be with love of her life, the kingdom's assassin, Caledon Holt. Worse, Cale is forced to leave the castle when a horrific set of magical attacks threatens Lilac's sovereignty. Now Cal eand Lilac will have to battle dark forces separately, even though being together is the only thing that's ever saved them.

— Remember last month when I was like: can’t wait for my hold to come through on this sequel so I know what happens? What an idiot. THIS BOOK WAS SO DUMB I CANNOT BELIEVE IT WAS A BOOK. As always in my rage-induced rants, no apologies for spoilers because seriously do NOT read this, but Lilac (legit, that was her name) married some other dude but just kept fucking Cale??? Like she had a secret door? So he could come in and they could fuck?? I just—oh my God. So, all these things kept happening. Magic and bad stuff and horses were killed. Lilac’s mother was the absolute WORST. Honestly the most worthless character who at one point was like “well, my story is over, guess it’s time to leave,” and then just left?? Forced Lilac into a marriage of alliance and no love and then everything evil was defeated in point two four seconds. It happened so fast I wasn’t even sure it happened. So, then I’m like, ok, how are Lilac and Cale going to end up together? Because this is YA and that’s how it’s supposed to work. Only her being married and that marriage requiring an heir is something of a rather large hurdle. Don’t worry! Remember when Lilac and Cale were fucking? Everyone totally knew. Including the king Lilac is married to. Who is somehow like...ok with this? And tells Cale that Lilac is pregnant. ISN’T THAT WONDERFUL! Sure, because now they can lie and claim its the king’s heir. ONLY IT’S CALE’S KID! AND CALE IS COOL WITH THIS! His entire internal monologue during this is about how he realizes he might not ever be able to tell his kid he’s their father, but he’ll be around and that’s good. Wait, what??? But there’s more! Not only is Lilac having Cale’s kid, but the king she’s married to is in love with one of Cale’s spy associates. So the king and the spy are going to go hang out (and presumably have their own kids) at one castle and Lilac and Cale are going to go to another. Lilac and the king never get divorced or annulled or whatever. Everyone stays as is and married as is and—they all live happily ever after? This was presented as a good ending, I swear. What the shit, guys, seriously.

#book rec #book reccs #fantasy recommendations #rom com recs #laura reads books #i am still waiting for people to respond to my emails #and only vaguely stressed out about it #welllp these are books

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onebadwinter · 3 years

Text

Magneto Tropes

Taken from here

Adaptation Dye-Job: In the comics, he has been shown to have had white hair for the vast majority of his adult life, presumably as a side-effect of his mutation. In the films, he's introduced with grey hair (though only because, lacking Comic-Book Time, the screenwriters had to make him the realistic age of a Holocaust survivor) and he has dark brown hair as a younger man in the prequels.

Adaptation Name Change: In the comics, his original name was Max Eisenhardt and Erik Lehnsherr was an alias. In the films Erik Lehnsherr is his real name and the alias he uses is Henryk Gurzsky. To be fair though, Max Eisenhardt was not revealed as his true comic book name until the 2008 miniseries X-Men: Magneto Testament, long after the first X-Men movie was released in 2000.

Adaptational Wimp: To varying degrees. Magneto's power set in the comics varies Depending on the Writer, but among his traditional powers are the ability to generate force fields and electromagnetic pulses, a resistance to telepaths and psychic attacks, and he's a genius in multiple scientific fields. In the film his powerset is scaled back to just control over metallic metals (though after Apocalypse's boost, he's capable of doing so on a global scale and maintaining a powerful forcefield), he needs his helmet to block out telepathy, and his scientific knowledge doesn't seem to be as extensive.

Affably Evil: With Xavier. They still play chess games together a good 40 years into their conflict with each other. Hell, if you are on his side, he is rather chatty and friendly to you.

Antagonist in Mourning: In X-Men: The Last Stand, he sincerely grieves over Xavier's death and cuts off his Dragon Pyro's irreverent talk about the deceased abruptly. As in most versions of X-Men, he and Xavier were very close friends who eventually found themselves on separate sides due to their ideological differences.

Anti-Hero:

Anti-Villain: Has an unquestionably sympathetic backstory and very good reason to believe that humans are out to eradicate the mutant race. However, he is a dangerous individual with few limits on his devotion and what must be done to ensure the survival of his kind. Even his best and oldest friend isn't safe from his extreme methods and beliefs.

The Atoner: Ian McKellen invokes this while discussing his character in the "Double Take: Xavier & Magneto" documentary on the X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-Ray release."The Magneto that you see with me is a man of conscience, and a man with an unhappy life behind him. He's come through a great deal, and isn't taking on single-handedly, or even with the help of his Brotherhood, society as a whole. He's joined up again with his old friend, Professor X, and together, they're going to try to move things forward."

Badass Baritone: Both Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender pull this off.

Badass Cape: Part of his supervillain outfit is his iconic crimson cape.

Played straight in Dark Phoenix, where he makes a point that the Phoenix is dangerous, but his methods involve injuring anyone who gets in his way as he tries to kill Jean.

Subverted in X-Men: First Class and X2: X-Men United, where he seems to join the heroes against a common foe, but is ultimately revealed to have ulterior motives and turns against them in the end.

Badass Longcoat: Magneto typically wears a long black coat in civilian attire, such as his appearance at the mutant hearings in the first film, the attempt to stop Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past, and his Roaring Rampage of Revenge in Dark Phoenix.

Berserk Button: Does not like people who 'just follow orders’. This is heavily implied to be because it was the excuse many Nazi officials gave for their actions during the Nuremburg trials.

Big Bad:

Big Bad Ensemble:

Big Brother Instinct: By the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he had already begun to view Charles as a brother figure. When the Blackbird spiraled out of control, Erik used his body to shield Xavier from injury, and he immediately halted his attack on the American and Soviet naval forces when Charles was shot. Even after they become enemies, Erik continously shows both respect and affection for Charles, consitantly referring to him as ‘Old Friend’. He was immensely saddened by his death in X-Men: The Last Stand, and deeply insulted by those who where disrespectful to him. He would also routinely put his own life on the line to help or save Charles, and the two kept very close in their later years, despite often being on opposing sides of the battle field.

Big Good: Old Magneto shares the role with Charles Xavier in X-Men: Days of Future Past, acting as the wise, protective mentor of the future team. This is in sharp contrast with his younger self, whose bigotry almost catapults the world into an even worse timeline than the one they are currently living in.

Byronic Hero: In X-Men: First Class—morally troubled, emotionally damaged, attractive, and very charismatic about his pro-mutant beliefs. Particularly to some of the impressionable younger characters like Mystique.

The Chessmaster: Invoked several times. He is seen playing Chess with Charles Xavier several times throughout the original trilogy, and references Chess during his attack on Alcatraz, to his benefit as Juggernaut was about to pull a Leeroy Jenkins and would have been depowered in the first wave had Erik not stopped him. Erik (stopping Juggernaut): In Chess, the pawns go first. (the defenders reveal their plastic dart guns filled with the cure serum, leading to the first wave of attackers getting depowered) Erik: Hmm, plastic. They've learned. That's why the pawns go first.

Color Motifs: He dresses up in various shades of red and purple.

Combat Tentacles: He can turn metal cables and pipes into such things, the most notable in X-Men: First Class when he uses a cable to snag the telepathy-blocking helmet and pull it off Shaw’s head, enabling Xavier to take control.

Composite Character: Has Juggernaut's helmet in this adaptation. This makes sense, as this Magneto's twisted, Cain and Abel relationship with Charles (Juggernaut's brother in the comics) is played to the hilt.

Cool Helmet: Wears his famous telepathy-blocking helmet. Technology wired into the helmet prevents telepathic intrusion, making Magneto difficult to control or impossible to find via Cerebro.

The Corrupter: Although he convinces Raven to accept her mutant appearance, he also pushes her into committing murder against human enemies and truly becoming Mystique. Charles believes Erik is a large influence for Raven leaving him.

Cultured Badass: He speaks several languages, passionately discusses philosophy, shows considerable knowledge of politics and foreign cultures, and enjoys the occasional game of chess with Xavier.

Curb-Stomp Battle: Dishes these out to Wolverine on a regular basis. Wolverine's metal skeleton makes him nigh-unstoppable against other opponents but is a huge liability going up against Magneto, who either immobilizes him or flings him away (or both) with ease every time they encounter each other as foes. Even when he faces a time-displaced Logan lacking the adamantium in his bones, Erik still dispatches him and nearly drowns him by impaling Wolverine with metal pipes and flinging him into a river.

Dark and Troubled Past: "Holocaust survivor" is about as dark and troubled as it gets.

Dark Messiah: In X-Men: Days of Future Past, his younger self prepares to kill Nixon while declaring mutant supremacy in front of a live broadcast.

Deadpan Snarker: The biggest one in the series, natch. X2: X-Men United is largely his snark-fest at everyone else's expense.

Death Glare: Young Magneto, portrayed by Fassbender, gives a calm murderous look killing the Nazis and Shaw, and also ripping a filling tooth from a banker in X-Men: First Class. Also, a good stare carrying the RFK Stadium towards the White House in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Demoted to Dragon: He isn't the leader of the supervillain team in X-Men: Apocalypse; this time around, he plays second fiddle to Apocalypse. He becomes The Starscream and pulls a Heel–Face Turn, though.

Determinator: In the '70s, he asks Logan how fighting him for years has worked out for him and Logan responds they're both "survivors" which only serves to motivate Erik to later demonstrate how much more powerful he is than the Wolverine later on when he runs metal pipes through his body and leaves him to drown, muttering contemptuously, "so much for survival."

Disappeared Dad: To Quicksilver. Despite them sharing a few scenes and Quicksilver entering the plot of X-Men: Apocalypse just to find him, Magneto shows no signs of recognizing him.

Dissonant Serenity: He's disturbingly calm, even cheerful, during the scene in the bar in Argentina, just before he murders three ex-Nazi's.

Doesn't Like Guns: His younger self uses guns when he needs to, while the older Magneto sneers at them. This is partly because of his background as a holocaust survivor, and partly because humans rely on guns to fight, and he sees it as a sign of their inferiority. Of course, that's a bit hypocritical when he has the power of magnetism, and those who don't possess such an advantage have to defend themselves somehow.

Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us: His motive in almost every movie is to wipe out humanity before they can do the same to mutantkind.

Emotional Powers:

Enemy Mine:

Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Despite all that he's done, his love for his mother is one of his defining characteristics. Unfortunately, it's also the reason why he killed Shaw in cold blood, truly becoming Magneto.

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He does care deeply for certain characters - in the prequel films most obvously for Charles and Mystique. The memory of the good times he and Charles shared in their youth is enough to make him turn on Apocalypse, while Hank informing him of Mystique's death at Jean's hands sends him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

Even Evil Has Standards: Magneto always considered Xavier a friend and never wanted him dead. In X3 when Pyro says he would have done so if Magneto ordered it, Magneto is clearly angered at the idea. Whatever their qualms, neither wanted the other dead.

Evil Former Friend: Naturally while remaining on Friendly Enemy terms with Charles Xavier, the X-Men and Brotherhood are at great conflict in the majority of films regardless.

Evil Genius: With truly amazing schemes. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he was able to steal a file containing the details of the Sentinels, after reading it over he was somehow able to reprogram them while inserting metal tracks within the bodies.

Extra-ore-dinary: His impressive mutant ability to control metal. Guns are a joke to him and throughout the films he's accomplished feats capable of lifting a submarine from water, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the RFK Stadium, the last without showing any real sign of effort. In X-Men: Apocalypse thanks to Apocalypse's enhancement he's shown ripping practically every metallic structure on the planet apart via control of the world's magnetic field and with Jean, putting the Xavier Institute back together from scratch.

Fantastic Radiation Shielding: His helmet protects him from various mutants' psychic powers.

Faux Affably Evil: If you aren't on his side, he can be downright terrifying and still sound unfailingly polite. When Pyro expresses disappointment that he wasn't the one to kill Professor X, Magneto gives him a rather grandfatherly talking-to...with an unspoken, but very real assurance that the next ill words Pyro speaks of Charles Xavier would be his last.

First-Name Basis: In the films, just like in the comics, he and Charles Xavier always use their first names when speaking to or about each other. Only a handful of others are on a first-name basis with them.

Foil:

Freudian Excuse: A former victim of the Holocaust believing humanity will subjugate mutants the same way.

Friendly Enemy: To Charles Xavier. Their relationship stretches the definition of "friendly" about as far as it will go but it's there. They have the utmost respect for one another and used to be close companions but just about every differing point between them comes from a place of vitriolic and passionate division (to the point both refuse to see a future where the other's point of view can exist, it is a mutually exclusive matter of black-and-white difference in opinion).

The Fundamentalist: Without a doubt believes mutants are the superior species and humans will fight against their extinction.

Gaining the Will to Kill: When he meets Raven in X-Men: Days of Future Past, he appears noticeably distressed before picking up a gun and apologizing then claiming mutants will never be safe with her alive before shooting at her.

Heel–Face Revolving Door: His moral standing across the films has variously been Nominal Hero, Anti-Hero, Anti-Villain, The Atoner, and Well-Intentioned Extremist. Magneto is rarely a straight villain and even more rarely a straight hero, but in the meantime he wavers all the way between the two.

Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: In Dark Phoenix, he starts off as a neutral figure, and then dons his trademark helmet when he becomes an antagonist shortly afterward. He teams up with the X-Men at the beginning of the third act right after his helmet is destroyed in a fight.

Heterosexual Life-Partners:

He Who Fights Monsters:

Hijacked by Ganon: He has a tendency to hijack the plans of the villains of the films in retaliation against them.

Hoist by His Own Petard: Invokes this on so many occasions, such as threatening dozens of policemen with their own guns, using Dark Cerebro to kill all humans after it was just used in an attempt to kill all mutants, as well as killing multiple soldiers by pulling off the pins on their grenades, hurling missiles at ships that just fired them, and using the Sentinels during the DisasterousDemonstration in the past to attack the spectators.

Humans Are Bastards: Believing humans will continue to grow and despise mutants he maintains this belief. Though it doesn't really help his case when he keeps doing actions that make people fear him.

Hypocrite:

Magneto is responsible for the main conflict in X-Men, as he intends to sacrifice Rogue to power a machine capable of turning normal humans into mutants, but is unaware that the artificial mutations are unstable and will kill the affected.

In X-Men: The Last Stand, Magneto builds an army and prepares to attack Alcatraz island, where a cure for mutations is being developed. His efforts lead him to recruit the unstable Phoenix, who goes on a rampage during the film's climax and causes countless deaths.

Magneto shares the antagonistic role with Stryker in X2: X-Men United, but their goals are opposite of each other: the former intends to use the machine called Dark Cerebro to rid the world of normal humans, whereas the latter intends to do the same to the mutants.

Trask, Mystique and a younger version of Magneto are the main villains of X-Men: Days of Future Past. Trask invented the Sentinels, mutant-hunting machines that turned the world into an apocalyptic dystopia. Mystique goes on trying to get revenge on Trask by killing him after seeing the pictures of her deceased fellow mutants. Magneto opposes both Mystique and Trask by promoting his own ideals of supremacy, which only serve to amplify humanity's fear of mutants and push the Sentinel program forward.

In X-Men: First Class upon seeing the mansion Charles grew up in.Erik: Honestly Charles, I don't know how you survived living in such hardship.

In the original X-Men, when Magneto has the X-Men trapped and bound within the Statue of Liberty, he points out a foolish tactical error on Scott's part with withering contempt.Cyclops: Storm, fry him! Magneto: Oh yes, a bolt of lightning into a huge copper conductor. I thought you lived at a school.

He also really enjoys mocking Wolverine in general.Magneto: Why do you always think it's all about you?

In X-Men: First Class, he is originally only able to use his powers when extremely angry. The first two times, it involves maternal separation. However, he can't properly focus it until Charles coaches him to concentrate on happier emotions.

In X-Men: Apocalypse, his power hike into Physical God territory is initially assumed to be Apocalypse enhancing him like the other Horsemen, but Charles contradicts this, contemptuously asserting that all Apocalypse has done is tap into his rage and pain.

X2: X-Men United: He and Mystique team-up with the X-Men to stop a human villain from killing all mutants. Right up until he decides to invert the attack and have all the non-Mutants killed instead.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: He and Xavier unite against the Sentinels that threaten all of mutantkind with extinction. Although he ends up attempting his own plans for mutant superiority and, ironically enough, winds up jeopardizing the plan to save mutantkind.

Dark Phoenix: Magneto initially attempts to kill Jean for killing Mystique, but he and his lieutenants join forces with the X-Men to fight the D'Bari when they come for the Phoenix Force in the climax.

In X-Men: Days of Future Past, while the public and most other characters refer to him and Raven (Mystique) by their mutant code names, Charles and Hank still remain on a first name basis with both of them, and vice versa. This is also presumably true for Alex, who still addresses his former ally as Erik.

X-Men: First Class: He and Charles are juxtaposed in their respective Argentinian bar and Oxford pub scenes. The sober Lehnsherr is all business when he's hunting down Nazis, and he murders three men (including the bartender) in cold blood after taunting his prey. The inebriated Xavier is the life of a party when he and his fellow graduate students celebrate the successful defense of his PhD thesis, and he later tries to flirt with Agent MacTaggert. Producer Bryan Singer gives a very basic summary of their differences in the "Magneto the Survivor" featurette:"Ultimately, they come from different places. Erik Lehnsherr is a victim of the Holocaust, he probably left the war with nothing, and is very much a solitary man, while Xavier had a life of privilege, became a professor at Oxford, was surrounded by peers, has an intimate relationship with Mystique since childhood, so he's quite loved, and therefore quite idealistic, less embittered, and just has a very different view from Lehnsherr."

X-Men: Days of Future Past:

Both past and future Magneto contrast each other in the film. 1973 Magneto continues to move forward with mutant supremacy and attacking Charles and his group, while future Magneto was fighting to protect both mankind and mutants while lamenting his pointless struggles with Charles in their younger years. Past Erik is very much on his own, but his elderly counterpart is a valuable team member.

Past Magneto and Past Xavier were both inactive and isolated in between 1963 and 1973 (the former due to imprisonment, the latter due to depression). Erik shows signs of wanting to repair some of their previous friendship, but a bitter Charles isn't interested for the most part. Magneto tries to kill Mystique while Xavier tries to protect her. Hank remains unwaveringly devoted to Charles, but Erik loses Mystique's loyalty after the murder attempt. In X-Men: First Class, Erik personified "rage" while Charles embodied "serenity," but their roles are reversed in 1973. Xavier is now the one who is full of pain and anger, and therefore has great trouble wielding his telepathy, whereas Magneto is (relatively) calm and controlled, still possessing great mastery over his power despite being deprived of metal for a decade. (We even see Erik adopt a meditation pose in his prison cell, which makes him appear Zen-like.)

Wolverine and the younger Magneto are violent individuals who love Xavier, but whereas Jerk with a Heart of Gold Logan possesses Undying Loyalty towards Charles, Jerk with a Heart of Jerk Erik is quick to betray him, until he finally does the reverse and pulls a Heel–Face Turn in X-Men: Apocalypse.

X-Men: Apocalypse: After he loses his family, he's in so much grief that he's willing to follow Apocalypse, who convinces Erik that he's God, and God has granted Magneto a divine purpose.

The version of Magneto from the second timeline in particular embodies this trope, having changed sides eight separate times over the course of the series.note

Considering that his and Charles' friendship only lasted a couple months, at most, in X-Men: First Class, it was unusually intimate on an emotional level.

Played straight in X-Men: Days of Future Past, with his older self and Professor X (the moment where they're holding hands is the closest that we've seen them since First Class), but averted with their younger selves. In 1973, Charles never once calls him "friend" (although Erik uses the endearment twice), which goes to show how broken their relationship is.

X-Men: Director Bryan Singer explains in the September 2000 issue of SFX:"...the paradox in Magneto's character is that he was the victim and then becomes the aggressor. It's like he's slowly become these people who persecuted him and murdered his family right in front of him. He became embittered. You get angry enough and you start forgetting."

X-Men: First Class: He hates Shaw and wants to kill him, but he eventually embraces Shaw's beliefs about mutant supremacy. It's even spelled out through the villain wearing the same helmet that Magneto is associated with. Justified at the crucial moment because he separates revenge from his ideals, which is why he's able to compliment Shaw's vision while still hating the man to his core. Shaw the man wronged him terribly, but Shaw the visionary is inspirational.

X2: X-Men United: After stopping Stryker's plan to kill all mutants with a fake Cerebro, he decides to reprogram the machine to kill regular humans instead.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: Young Magneto hijacks the Sentinels to attempt killing both Bolivar Trask and President Nixon.

X-Men: First Class features a variation: once Erik kills Shaw, he basically embraces his evil nature and attempts to wipe out the American and Soviet fleets.

Despite claiming to help his fellow mutants, Magneto has no qualms on attacking and even killing other mutants who stand in the way of his anti-human crusade.

Magneto is motivated by his memories of enduring the Holocaust during World War II and believes mutants will be subjected to the same treatment as the Jews in Nazi Germany if they do not fight back. This leads to him falling victim to He Who Fights Monsters, becoming a genocidal racist just as bad as the Nazis.

In X-Men, he is willing to sacrifice Rogue but not himself in the advancement of his cause. Beautifully called out by Wolverine, who tells him: "You're so full of shit. If you were really so righteous, it would be you up in that thing." Erik levitates away without replying, but the expression on his face makes it clear the remark hit home.

At the climax of X-Men: Days of Future Past, his past-self sics a Sentinel on Wolverine and Beast, after a grand speech about how he will protect mutantkind.

In Dark Phoenix he tells Jean about the futility of killing for revenge, and how it never made the pain he felt go away. Then, when he finds out Jean killed Mystique, he almost immediately decides to kill her in revenge - though that could simply be the difference between knowing it intellectually and his emotional reaction.

I-Y

Improvised Weapon: As long as it's metal, Magneto's powers let him use anything as a weapon. He has killed people with such things as a coin and a locket.

I Did What I Had to Do: In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he tells Raven he tried to kill her because he was aware of the impending Sentinel menace and came to the conclusion that the only way to prevent it would be if she was permanently dispatched.

I Hate Past Me: In X-Men: Days of Future Past right before Kitty sends Wolverine back in time, he worries that his and Charles' past-selves won't understand the nightmarish situation in the Bad Future and be able to fix things. Erik: It's not [Wolverine] I'm worried about, it's us. We were young, we didn't know any better.

Ineffectual Loner: Was one in X-Men: First Class until Charles convinced him he could do better with friends of his own, and in the ending he begins building his brotherhood of mutants.

I Was Quite a Looker: He was a classic example of Tall, Dark, and Handsome when he was a young man (and he has aged gracefully over the years).

Jerkass Has a Point: He did make the fair point towards Charles that he grew up with Raven, and shouldn't have entirely claimed responsibility for raising her, which did in part drive her away from him.

Just the Way You Are: In X-Men: First Class, he is able to persuade Raven to his side finding her mutant appearance to be "perfection" in contrast to Charles and Hank, who feel she should look more "normal" to gain acceptance within society.

Karma Houdini:

Kick the Son of a Bitch: Some of his victims include Nazis, Sebastian Shaw and the corrupt, violent slob in charge of his prison cell. He also chained William Stryker back up and left him to die at the end of X2: X-Men United.

Knight Templar: Wants to stop mutant prejudice... by subjugating humans.

Lean and Mean: Magneto seems to have little-to-no fat on his body. It makes sense, given that he's a Holocaust survivor who spent his early life on the road.

Loner-Turned-Friend: In X-Men: First Class when he met Charles Xavier and his group.

Made of Iron: His younger self is quite capable of taking a beating. In X-Men: First Class he gets thrown off a boat by Emma Frost in diamond form and was being thrown across a room by Shaw crashing into mirrors. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he took head injuries from Beast and nearly drowned before restraining him only needing a head stitching after - a head stitching he performed himself while examining the schematics of the Sentinel's and without even twitching at the pain. His older self also survived a blast from Cyclops in the first film, and in X-Men: Days of Future Past continued to protect the group from the Sentinels with a shard having pierced his abdomen.

Manipulative Bastard: Best demonstrated as he convinces Pyro and in the prequel series, Raven, to defect to his side.

Meaningful Name: Erik means "ruler" and Lehnsherr can be roughly translated as "feudal lord" (lehn = fief, herr = master). Magneto's birth name betrays his ambition to rule over humans.

Mook Horror Show: Several films have him performing one.

Motive Rant: Delivers one to Senator Kelly after capturing him in X-Men.Magneto: Are you a god-fearing man, senator? That's such a strange phrase. I've always thought of God as a teacher, as a bringer of light, wisdom, and understanding; you see, I think what you really are afraid of is me. Me and my kind, the Brotherhood of Mutants. Though it's not so surprising really. Mankind has always feared what it doesn't understand. Well, don't fear God, Senator, and certainly don't fear me. (in an undertone) Not anymore.

My Greatest Failure: The death of Xavier in X-Men: The Last Stand, which he directly caused by awakening Dark Phoenix.Magneto: Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you'll ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.

My God, What Have I Done?: X-Men: The Last Stand features him saying the line, when he finds himself on the other side of the Mutants vs. Humans war he's been pushing for, and Phoenix finally goes crazy and starts killing people.

Nazi Hunter: He spends the first twenty minutes or so of his screentime in X-Men: First Class tracking down and killing Nazis. In fact, his reason for joining the X-Men is so that he can find and kill Sebastian Shaw, the mutant Nazi who killed his mother.

The Needs of the Many: In X-Men: Days of Future Past.Erik: Forgive me Mystique, as long as you're out there we'll never be safe.

Never Be Hurt Again: He is both a Holocaust Survivor and mutant "lab rat" which pushes him towards Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us regarding mutant suppression by the humans.

New Era Speech: Gets one in Days of Future Past, delivered on national television before the Presidential cabinet.Magneto: You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is different. Well, I'm here to tell you, to tell the world, you're right to fear us. We are the future. We are the ones who will inherit this earth, and anyone who stands in our way will suffer the same fate as these men you see before you. Today was meant to be a display of your power. Instead I give you a glimpse of the devastation my race can unleash upon yours. Let this be a warning to the world. And to my mutant brothers and sisters out there, I say this; no more hiding, no more suffering. You have lived in the shadows in shame and fear for too long. Come out, join me. Fight together in the brotherhood of our kind. A new tomorrow, that starts today.

Nice Hat: Occasionally wears a fedora while in civilian garb, as shown in X-Men when he attends the hearing on mutants at the beginning of the film and in X-Men: Days of Future Past when he raids the vault for his helmet.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Attacking Mystique at the Paris Peace Conference bought Bolivar Trask a couple extra days and gets Nixon to fund the Sentinel program, but his betrayal and attack on the White House sets up a situation where a mutant is seen saving Nixon's life on live TV. Mystique performs a Heel–Face Turn, Nixon cancels the Sentinel program, and the Bad Future is averted.

Nightmare Fetishist: Everyone in X-Men: First Class, tells Raven that her true form as Mystique is horrifying, but Eric tells her that she is beautiful as she is, and that taking on a more normal looking appearance is wasteful of her powers, and limits her concentration against unexpected attacks. In X-Men: The Last Stand however, when Mystique shields Magneto from being struck by darts containing the Mutant Cure, he coldly abandons her now that she's human, regretfully telling Pyro that she used to be "so beautiful."

Noble Demon: At his fundamental core, Magneto wishes to protect innocent minorities from genocidal persecution at the hands of murderous racists, no matter what it takes.

Not So Different:

Outliving One's Offspring: His daughter is killed by Polish policemen in one of the most heartbreaking moments of the whole film franchise.

Overarching Villain: Magneto is the central antagonist of the first trilogy. In the prequels, he usurps the role of Big Bad from Shaw and Trask, before pulling a Heel–Face Turn at the very end of X-Men: Apocalypse. However, he comes to oppose the X-Men once again in the following film, only to ultimately join their battle against Vuk during the climax.

Parental Abandonment: His father is nowhere to be seen, and his mother is executed before him by Shaw to try and induce his magnetism powers.

Pet the Dog: He was the first person in Raven's life that complimented and truly admired her natural blue form. Also, upon reveal he compliments Hank, although it isn't met with a kind reaction from Beast, who believed he was being mocked.

Physical God: While always immensely powerful, he becomes this in X-Men: Apocalypse, being on the verge of tearing apart the planet (as one character puts it, "destroying everything built since the Bronze Age") while maintaining an impenetrable forcefield. Moreover, Charles implies that unlike the other Horsemen, Apocalypse didn't actually enhance him, he just tapped into his rage and pain, meaning that he had this potential all along.

Power Floats: Can fly by manipulating the Earth's magnetic field.

Pre-Mortem One-Liner: He delivers one to Sebastion Shaw as Charles holds control of Shaw's body."This is what we're going to do. [holds up the coin] I am going to count to three and I'm going to move the coin. One. [moves the coin towards Shaw's head] Two. Three." [puts the coin through Shaw's head, Charles screams].

Protagonist Journey to Villain: X-Men: First Class revolves around him seeking revenge for the murder of his mother and his increasing acceptance of mutant supremacy.

Red and Black and Evil All Over: His outfits typically have a lot of dark red and dark grey. The dark grey is accentuated in the older Magneto's costumes.

Red Oni, Blue Oni: In X-Men: First Class, he is rather hot-headed while Charles is more level-headed. ''Empire'' magazine even color-coded the front covers of their May 2011 issue accordingly.◊

Roaring Rampage of Revenge:

Rousing Speech: On several occasions he's persuaded mutants to follow his cause and fight along himself. Most notably, when he attacked the white house and on a live broadcast declared mutants come out of hiding because they are more powerful than the humans who would try to eliminate them. This is after he discredited the Sentinel program and held the president cabinet at gun point.

Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: In X-Men: First Class, he is the Manly Man to Charles' Sensitive Guy. They display this dynamic in their personalities (Anti-Hero vs. All-Loving Hero) and physique (Tall, Dark, and Handsome vs. Pretty Boy) as well as their philosophies and methods (Pay Evil unto Evil vs. Wide-Eyed Idealist).

Shut Up, Kirk!: Delivered one to Xavier in X-Men: First Class.Xavier: There are thousands of men on those ships. Good, honest, innocent men! They're just following orders. Erik: I've been at the mercy of men just following orders. Never again.

Slasher Smile: He sports a brief one when he rips iron from a guard's body in X2.

Slave Brand: The tattoo number of a Nazi concentration camp he carries upon his forearm, which he has brought attention towards to serve as a reminder for human cruelty.

At the end of X-Men United, he escapes after attempting to wipe out all non-mutants.

At the end of The Last Stand, he sneaks away when the Dark Phoenix awakens and realizes on his own that the effects of the mutant cure are only temporary.

In Apocalypse, he murders a bunch of policemen and creates a magnetic field that caused a lot of damage across the globe, but is let off the hook because he helped kill En Sabah Nur. However, this could be explained by the fact that he's so powerful at this point that there's way to reasonably contain him.

In Dark Phoenix he instigates a battle against the X-Men in the streets of New York, including his ripping a subway train out the ground and using it as a battering ram against the D'Bari stronghold, all in an attempt to kill Jean, but later fights alongside the X-Men to save her after Charles manages to sway him. By the end of the film he's openly wandering the streets of Paris without any repercussions, and even invites Xavier to come to Genosha with him.

The Nazis at the bar in First Class.

The security guards in Days of Future Past when he reclaims his helmet, done while sharply dressed wearing shades and a fedora.

And in Apocalypse, he does it again to the policemen sent to bring him in after one of them accidentally kills his wife and daughter. With a locket.

In X-Men: First Class, when he confronts the villain Sebastian Shaw at the end: Erik Lehnsherr: If you're in there, I'd like you to know that I agree with every word you said. We are the future. But unfortunately, you killed my mother.

In X2: X-Men United, the first thing he does when he gets inside the second Cerebro? Instructs Jason Stryker to simply reverse the polarity on Professor X's mental attack to target humans instead of mutants rather than free Charles from Jason's mind control.

In X-Men: First Class, he hunts down Shaw and his Nazi underlings to exact revenge for the death of his mother. He succeeds in giving the latter ones horrific deaths, but is effortlessly defeated by Emma Frost when he tries to do the same to the former.

In X-Men: Apocalypse, he uses his family medallion to slaughter the whole Polish police squad that has been sent to arrest him after they killed his daughter and wife by accident. He then goes on to kill his co-workers at the steel plant after one of them denounced him. Apocalypse arrives just as Erik was about to kill them, and sucks them all into the floor.

In Dark Phoenix, after learning that Jean killed Raven in a case of Power Incontinence, he immediately grabs his old helmet and heads to New York to get revenge.

Slowly Slipping Into Evil: In the original trilogy, Magneto starts out as a Well-Intentioned Extremist bent on turning regular humans into mutants. Come X2, he instead wishes to commit genocide against mankind, but still cares about mutant lives. But he is at his worst in The Last Stand, where he recklessly chooses to sacrifice his troops in Alcatraz, comparing them to the pawns in a Chess game.

The Social Darwinist: He believes mutants are the superior species towards humans.

Start of Darkness: X-Men: First Class devotes itself to his gradual transformation into the human-hating supremacist he is today, courtesy of his past as a Holocaust survivor and his affinity with Shaw's ideology.

Stealth Pun: Michael Fassbender kept his natural auburn hair for the role in X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which makes him... Erik the Red.note

Super Reflexes: In X-Men: First Class, he's fairly confident he can stop a bullet shot point blank from his head. Later, he more or less holds true to his claim by stopping a horde of missiles fired by the US and Russian army within several feet from the air to him, and deflecting bullets while being shot at by Moira MacTaggert.

Sympathetic Murderer: In First Class, his target being Shaw, who killed his mother and tortured him.

Tailor-Made Prison:

Tall, Dark, and Handsome: In his youth, as shown in the First Class trilogy.

Team Dad: In X-Men: First Class he was the more stern and less nurturing parental figure for the proto X-Men, opposite Charles' Team Mom. This is what makes the "Beach Divorce" scene so much more tragic.

Team Member in the Adaptation: He was never a Horsemen in the comics. This version also forms the Brotherhood by taking control of the Hellfire Club after killing Shaw.

That Man Is Dead:Xavier: Erik, don't join them. Magneto: Whatever it is you think you saw in me, I buried it with my family.

Time-Shifted Actor: He has been portrayed by four actors in three note different stages of his life.

Tired of Running: Inspires mutant followers to stop hiding and accept themselves, while turning on the humans who would target them.

Too Happy to Live: His life in Poland in Apocalypse looks too happy to last as he is spotted and unmasked by authorities and both his wife and daughter die tragically.

Took a Level in Badass: In First Class after Charles unlocks his full potential and in Apocalypse when the titular character gives him a boost.

Tragic Keepsake: When he first met Sebastian Shaw, he was asked to move a Nazi Coin in exchange for his mother's life but was unable to do so and she was murdered. He carried the coin for most of his life until he moved it through Shaw's head, killing him.

Tragic Villain: Possibly the archetypal example.Charles: Listen to me very carefully my friend... killing Shaw will not bring you peace.Erik: Peace was never an option.Erik: Is this what you want from me?! Is this what I am?

Tranquil Fury: In X-Men: First Class, his powers are manifested through anger, until Charles helps by telling him "true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity."

Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Shaw had Erik awaken control of his magnetism by murdering his mother.

Troubled, but Cute: In X-Men: First Class, pre-supervillainy, he is a Nazi-hunting Byronic Hero with an intensely Dark and Troubled Past (involving the Holocaust, loss of his parents, and being a victim of human experimentation) and bucketloads of trauma and cynicism. He also wears a leather jacket on a few occasions.

Villain Has a Point: Magneto believes humans and mutants can never co-exist and fears the crimes of the Holocaust will be repeated against mutants one day. The Bad Future in Days of Future Past shows he's absolutely right; humans have created the Sentinels to hunt down and exterminate mutants, who are being herded into camps to be killed or experimented on en masse. Far before then, however, in First Class the U.S. and Soviet fleets open fire on the assembled mutants at Cuba simply because they are mutants, making no distinction between the ones that just fought to save them and the ones that were trying to kill them. Even when mutants do things right by humans (Mystique saving President Nixon in Days of Future Past), humans still screw them over, as shown in Logan when the mutants are on the verge of extinction again.

Villainous Legacy: He ends up killing Shaw out of revenge, but he fully agrees with Shaw's goal; that is, Mutants needing supremacy over humans to thrive, and carries it over from him.

Visionary Villain: He wants to create a world safe for mutants by any means necessary.

The Unfettered: If it means the safety of mutants he'll kill anyone from the President or even Mystique.

Was It Really Worth It?: His future self ultimately regrets fighting Charles for so long, and wishes he had some of those years back.

We Can Rule Together: An open door he extends to any mutant willing to see things his way, all the way up to and including Professor Xavier himself. Some accept and the ones who don't usually swing to Xavier's point of view.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: He has always been the archetypal example in comics and the films faithfully live up to that. He puts forth a big effort to allow mutants to come out of hiding and gain acceptance of themselves but at the same time opposes humans who would threaten them, believing war is inevitable. His plan in X-Men, is actually rather benevolent and would finally end the division between Mutants and the rest of Mankind, while sacrificing only Rogue to make it work. It's a good plan (though not necessarily one that would work in the long run), it's just a shame his machine doesn't work!

We Used to Be Friends: The whole premise of X-Men: First Class is to show how he and Charles Xavier became friends and then ended up on opposite sides with different ideals.

What the Hell Are You?: In X-Men: First Class, we have the following conversation:Former Nazi Officer: [in German] Who—what are you?Erik: [in English] Let's just say I'm Frankenstein's Monster... and I'm looking for my creator.

What the Hell, Hero?: In X-Men: Days of Future Past, his past self goes into an outburst about how fellow mutants were being killed left and right while Young Charles has been in hiding with Hank. Erik: Angel, Azazel, Emma, Banshee. Mutant brothers and sisters, all dead! Countless others, experimented on! Butchered! Where were you, Charles?! We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you?! Hiding! You and Hank! Pretending to be something you're not! You abandoned us all!

Wicked Cultured: Mags always enjoy a good game of chess with Xavier or listening to classical music.

With Us or Against Us: Concerning the mutants who choose to fight with him or against him, namely the X-men.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Each film of the new timeline keeps piling on the trauma that fuels his rage. In First Class he was a Holocaust survivor who had to watch his mother die in front of his eyes, and worse, it was because he couldn't consciously use his powers at the time. In Days of Future Past the Brotherhood were killed and experimented on by Trask Industries. In Apocalypse, after giving living in peace a chance, his wife and daughter are killed after his cover is blown as a mutant. All of this leads to him becoming an extremist willing to kill countless numbers of people. Highlighted in X-Men: First Class and arguably even more so in X-Men: Apocalypse, since he's quite literally out to destroy the world.

Worthy Opponent: He and Xavier have this relationship. Magneto: Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you will ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.

Would Hit a Girl:

Would Hurt a Child: In X-Men: The Last Stand, he orders Juggernaut to kill Leech.

You Are Number 6: In X-Men: First Class, he outs himself as a holocaust survivor to some Nazis he was amicably chatting with (and planning to kill). When they asked for the names of his parents, being from the same town, he answered that they "had no names—they were stolen from them" before showing his own concentration camp number. Violence ensues.

You Are What You Hate: He hates Nazis due to being a survivor of the Holocaust, but ultimately embraces racism against non-mutants, this is highlighted in X-Men: First Class.

You Killed My Father: In X-Men: First Class, when he kills Schmidt/Shaw despite agreeing with his Mutant Supremacist ideals because Schmidt killed his mother in front of him as a child.Magneto: I want you to know I agree with everything you just said. We are the future. But, unfortunately... you killed my mother.

Younger Than They Look: In X-Men: First Class, Erik is around the same age as Charles (late twenties/early thirties), but the former appears considerably older because Michael Fassbender looks older than his actual age (he has a lot of lines on his face) while the baby-faced James McAvoy looks younger despite there being a only two-year age gap between the two actors. This can be Handwaved as Erik ageing prematurely because of the trauma and starvation he experienced during World War II.

Also, an alias Magneto himself used once, during the "Trial of Gambit" debacle. And one a Shiar spy on Earth used. Not so much a Stealth Pun as a Mythology Gag.

As an older man, however, his reflexes have notably slowed, as shown X-Men: Days of Future Past, when it takes him several moments to respond to and restrain a thrashing Logan - long enough for him to gash Kitty - and he doesn't quite catch all of the X-Jet's shrapnel.

At the end of X-Men, Magneto is locked in a cell made entirely of plastic. He got out in X2: X-Men United, thanks to Mystique giving one of his guards an "iron supplement," actually at least half a pound of the stuff, in liquid form. In real life, this would have given him iron poisoning, but he didn't survive long enough to find that out.

Subverted in X-Men: Days of Future Past. The concrete cell under the Pentagon was not built specifically for him, but simply constructed that way because steel was being rationed at the time. It still holds him quite well, though.

X-Men: First Class: The film ends with him outright proclaiming that he prefers his new moniker: Magneto.

X-Men: Apocalypse: Charles pleads with him not to join Apocalypse, but Lehnsherr has already reclaimed his Magneto persona.

Even when he genuinely tries to find peace in X-Men: Apocalypse, his family is killed triggering an epic Rage Against the Heavens moment.

X-Men: He forcibly places Rogue into his machine, knowing full well that it will kill her.

X-Men: First Class:

X-Men: Days of Future Past: He would have murdered Mystique if it weren't for Beast's timely intervention.

Dark Phoenix: He attempts to murder Jean when he learns she killed Mystique. Later on, he finds himself alone against Vuk on the Mutant Containment Unit's train, uses his power to pick up every remaining gun, and empties them all into her at point-blank range. Thanks to Vuk's innate Healing Factor and getting an upgrade from absorbing the Phoenix, she blows this off without a scratch.

He cracks Emma Frost's crystalline neck after she refuses to cooperate.

He nearly strangles Moira to death with her own military dog tags, although Xavier manages to talk him out of it.

#MagnetoInformation

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aladygrieve · 4 years

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Merlin/Arthur Fic Rec

** - Favourite

FANDOM CLASSICS

Castle (The Rules by Which We Live) by kickflaw Word count: 16,200 Summary: Merlin knows that getting off fastest when he’s got some BDSM porno playing loud on the computer doesn’t mean he’d really like to be that bloke, gagged and bent over and bound. Right? Notes: Modern AU and the best BDSM I’ve ever read.

Destiny That Darkly Hides Us by Nympha_Alba Word count: 63,000 Summary: It’s 1913, the practice of homosexuality is unlawful, so is the practice of magic. When Arthur Pendragon and Merlin Emrys meet as Cambridge undergrads, they’re both hungry for a real and true connection without secrets. For a short time they believe they may have found it. But war breaks out and separates them, and it seems unlikely that they will meet again. After all, what are the odds? Notes: Includes reincarnation!

Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock Word count: 46,000 WIP Summary:In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose. Notes: Modern AU in which Merlin is a chain-smoking med student and Arthur is the womanizing Prince of Wales. Includes several companion stories.

**The Student Prince by FayJay Word count: 145,200 Summary: A modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love… Notes: Because really, no rec list is complete without the novel-length jewel of the Merlin fandom. It’s plotty, beautifully written and perfectly in-character, and is especially dear to my heart now that I’ve actually visited St. Andrews. I highly recommend the podfic, as FayJay is an incredible reader.

REINCARNATION/FINALE-COMPLIANT

Hold My Heart Until it Beats by ingberry Word count: 1920 Summary: Arthur dies and waits for Albion to need him again. But most of all he waits for Merlin. Notes: Great use of the Arthur waits trope.

**Hopeless Wanderer by Magnolia822 Word count: 18,500 Summary: Merlin has been wandering the world for hundreds of years alone; one day a young blond man moves into the flat upstairs. But does Arthur remember? Notes: Still my all-time favourite reincarnation fic.

I Keep Going Over the World We Knew (Over and Over) by Mellacita Word count: 51,100 Summary: When Merlin Emrys is sent on a ‘round-the-world assignment, he begins remembering a life of magic, dragons, and kings. To make matters worse, a strange woman starts stalking him along the way. And that’s before he even meets Arthur Pendragon, whose answer to climate change is going to save the world. Because apparently just saving Britain won’t be enough this time around. Notes: Plotty and intricate and very, very cool.

Let Your Heart Hold Fast by Acavall Word count: 3000 Summary: Merlin waits for Arthur’s return, and the only way to hold on to his memories is to write them down. Over and over, again and again, as history marches by. Notes: Works interesting historical references into the reincarnation deal.

Never Let Me Go by LadyVader Word count: 3500 Summary: Merlin has walked the world for a long time waiting for his friends return. Notes: Great use of the rest of the characters.

Now I Will Unsettle the Ground Beneath You by nu_breed Word count: 42,300 Summary: Merlin’s dreams have always fuelled his art, but they’ve always been abstract and removed from reality. Soon after he meets Gwaine, he starts to see vivid images of a past full of death and magic and love for a King who was ripped from him. Things only escalate further when he spends a weekend in the country with Gwaine and meets his group of friends, which includes aristocrat and It Boy, Arthur Pendragon. Merlin soon realises that no matter how hard you try, one thing is certain, you can’t fuck with destiny. Notes: Merlin’s dating Gwaine but he and Arthur can’t keep their hands off each other. I love it.

Old Love, But in Shapes That Renew and Renew Forever by leopardwrites Word count: 3500 Summary: People accept that an old man might live alone. People understand that he might have lost the greatest love he has ever known. Notes: Fics that deal with old!Merlin are never not going to be gut-wrenching.

CANON ERA

A Bet by juxtapose Word count: 1100 Summary: In which the Knights stumble upon a private moment between the Prince and his manservant, Leon is uncomfortable, and Gwaine decides to make a bet. Notes: All the knights are fantastic in this one.

The Accidental Seduction by Ras Elased Word count: 9000 Summary: Arthur’s a bit dim and a prank goes horribly awry, but in the end this works out to the benefit of all involved. Notes: Almost unbearably adorable.

**Finding Home by riventhorn Word count: 7860 Summary: When Gaius retires, a new physician takes over, one that quickly kicks Merlin out of his room and takes it for himself, Arthur finds Merlin sleeping in the stables..and it’s winter. Notes: Good old-fashioned hurt/comfort with a dash of fluff. Probably my favourite canon-era fic.

**Fools of Us All by adelagia Word count: 11,100 Summary: Merlin accidentally makes everybody in Camelot fall in love with him. Everybody except Arthur, that is. Notes: Cute, funny and very in-character.

Freedom Hangs Like Heaven by derryere Word count: 9000 Summary: It’s happened five times and they don’t talk about it. Notes: The unresolved romantic tension will end you.

The Greater Bond by ravenflight21 Word count: 15,500 Summary: When Arthur is kidnapped by slavetraders, Merlin has only one option: to buy him. Playing Arthur’s master has its drawbacks – but it also has extraordinary compensations. Notes: Fabulous trope that also includes fancy dress. What more do you want?

**A Heavy Heart to Carry by ThursdayNext Word count: 12,561 Summary: When Merlin is captured and injured, Arthur must face up to his own feelings for his manservant as well as the many secrets he discovers are being kept from him. Notes: I think this might have been the first merthur fic I ever read. It’s Cold Outside by ionionie Word count: 2500 Summary: Merlin and Arthur get trapped in a cave on a freezing cold night. How do they stay warm? Notes: I’m such a sucker for this trope it’s actually sad.

**Meteorology by fayhe Word count: 4600 Summary: Character study with spot-on cameos from Uther, Morgana, Gaius and even Kilgarrah. Notes: Best Gen.

So That I Might Be Where You Areby cherrybina Word count: 4600 Summary: When a spell goes wrong, Merlin and Arthur are linked together in an unusual way, which leads to lots and lots of UST. Notes: Not kidding about the UST, which works surprisingly well. **Stars Above, Stones Below by Destina Word count: 46,800 Summary: After the disastrous end of his betrothal to Gwen and the regret of his offer to Princess Mithian, Arthur swears off finding a wife until he’s ready to wed. When Merlin offers himself to Arthur as bedmate, Arthur suggests they hand-fast in secret for a single year of mutual pleasure without obligation. As their year together unfolds, and secrets and betrayals unravel around them, Arthur and Merlin learn there is no such thing as uncomplicated pleasure. Everything they thought they knew can change in the span of a single year. Notes: Another one of my absolute favourites. Winterbloom by Shinybug Word count: 6200 Summary: Deep in the woods in the frozen heart of winter, a careless comment leads to a redefinition of Arthur’s relationship with his manservant. Notes: Emotionally-constipated boys shivering in the cold will always be one of my favourite things.

MODERN AU

A Change of Pace by kianspo Word count: 54,600 Summary: The one in which Arthur works in finances and his suits are various (two) shades of grey, Merlin works in advertisement and has no boundaries whatsoever, Morgana drinks rum, Mithian stages a coup, Agravaine is aggravating, and Elena’s house is amazing. Also, Andy Warhol is mentioned in vain, and Arthur and Merlin fall in love in Victorian era style. Notes: In which Arthur has a structured, ordered, boring life, until Merlin comes along.

This Silly ol’ Dance is Perfect for Two by SlantedKnitting Word count: 80,500 Summary: Arthur is young, gorgeous, talented, and captain of one of the best football teams in England; his life should be perfect. But he can’t keep a girlfriend for more than a few months, and it’s not just because he isn’t ready to settle down. When his most recent girlfriend dumps him, he has a rough night at the pub and has to be dragged home by his neighbour, Merlin. Merlin is an archivist, a Ph.D student, and he hates football almost as much as he hates Arthur. They both have their own reasons for not wanting to spend time with each other, but after that disastrous night, remaining silent neighbors doesn’t seem like much of an option anymore. Notes: Plotty and original. Wicked Game by winterstorm Word count: 42,400 Summary: Arthur’s the King of Camelot…nightclub. He can pick and choose who he wants, and he does – often – no promises and absolutely no repeats. The night he chooses Merlin might just be his undoing. Notes: Slight age difference.

#merthur #merlin/arthur #merlin #bbc merlin #fic recs #fanfiction #made rebloggable for your convenience

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everydisneymovie · 4 years

Text

Review #20: The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men.

Post #23

6/18/2020

Next up is 1952′s The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men.

Enjoyment : [6]

This movie is actually pretty fun. It has a real sense of joy and adventure and it just sorta makes me smile. This is the sort of movie The Princess Bride payed homage to, and if you want a straight forward Robin Hood story this one is perfectly serviceable. There isn’t really any one element that made me like this movie but if I had to pick I liked that there was lots of cause and effect within the story. Robin is a noble gentleman until Prince John takes control and kills his father, Robin and his boys fight back, John retaliates and Robin responds in turn. Because of this dynamic each scene adds onto the next and it’s easy to get invested.

Quality : [6]

This movie ALMOST looks nice. The sets and the costumes are the right level of cheesy. They look like stage costumes and I honestly prefer that over the dirty grimy rags you see in more realistic medieval movies. The editing is basic but solid. There are no crazy effects or creative shots, but the information you need for each scene is shown to you visually or though dialogue and that is great. This does become a bit of problem when several parts of the story are skipped and explained later in dialogue. We see so much of Robins origin story but then between cuts he has his band of merrie men and that would have been a ton of fun to see. The parts it shows are great I just wish they showed more of it.

Hold up : [4]

This movie has no blatantly offensive morals or themes. ‘Steal from the Rich give to the Poor’ will always be a moral I can stand behind. I would also like to point out that Maid Marian was wonderfully written and acted. The fact that she already had a bond with Robin before the movie starts made their romance way more believable and their interactions were mostly free of any toxic romance tropes. Robin randomly acts like a jerk for exactly one scene and it is never brought up again, that felt odd. The other issue is how King Richard is framed as an unrivaled good despite everything being his fault and the only reason he left was to go kill people overseas. Monarchs in movies are almost always shown as an unquestioned good chosen by god. I think this movie has just aged a little poorly, but not nearly as bad as some other Disney movies.

Risk : [5]

This movie feels a bit safer when compared to Treasure Island. Since the morally grey character is the protagonist, they don’t explore his actions nearly as much as Long John Silver. This movie is technically a bigger risk for Disney when compared to the safer more childish movies they made previously, but it also don’t say much with the material given. Several scenes feel added just to fit the original story and some cuts are made for budget reasons even if they hurt the story. I feel like this is really in the middle and I can’t praise or criticize it that much.

Extra Credit : [4]

I was incredibly psyched to see Maid Marian have a personality and already have a relationship to Robin Hood right off the bat. I was kinda dreading the forced scenes of romantic meet cutes. I like some of the tiny details as well. One example is how when the sheriffs men disguise themselves as the Merrie Men, their green outfits are slightly the wrong color. It makes sense that they wouldn’t know the right shade of the Merrie Men’s armor. The best moment in the movie is the scene where Robin Hood has to climb the castle drawbridge before it closes. So much tension is drawn out of that action set piece because of the editing, the acting and the build up. Some action movies fail to draw out that much tension in twenty minute fight scenes. It was great to see true filmmaking techniques transform a single scene into a white knuckled thrill ride.

Final thoughts:

This movie was pretty great. It is not fantastic, since there is a lot of cut corners and a corny tone, but there is always a place for corny in my heart. It felt like a really cheerful stage play and who am I to shame that sort of energy? In terms of a Robin Hood story this is a very solid version. I am 100% confident in saying that there are versions of this same story done way better and done way worse. This would be a good addition to any movie night going for a goofy fun tone. I think this is really a testament to how a movie can tell a good story without too much flash. One of the most interesting parts if how the first half of the movie is more a sociological story than an individual one. Seeing how the people respond to Prince John really sells the world and makes us root for change. The biggest improvement that could be made to this movie would have been more action scenes filmed like the final scene and maybe more time spent on forming the Merrie Men. Also the movie ends rather abruptly and I could have used a bit more wrapping up of plot threads. We never even seen Prince John get overthrown.

Total Score: 25/50

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randomnameless · 4 years

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What do you think about morally grey in three houses?

Hmm…

There has been several posts recently discussing this particular topic, which boiled down to “what is morally grey” and, well, this is an interesting question!

I’d say “grey” is when someone isn’t completely black or white, but has elements of both alignments.

The obvious having been stated, it makes me think about several other tropes, like the “pet the dog” trope or “morality pet”.

Does having good intentions but shit execution means you’re grey? It depends! What is the “shit execution”? Eating babies? Forgeting to put the lid on your pan full of boiling water because you were super busy to, idk, bring pregnant wife to the hospital, so when your old mom tried to add pasta to the pan she burnt herself and died?

I’d say it depends on what are your limits and what you deem acceptable or not and uh, apparently, killing people in prevention they might do something wrong isn’t black enough to dilute the pool into “too black you will need to add 5 liters of bleach to get a clearer result”…

I’ve said it before, but the purple giant deciding to snap his fingers to get rid of half of the population to save the world isn’t, to my tastes, morally grey. It’s still 50% of people dying because someone decided and they weren’t consulted.

If those 50% agreed to it though? It’s immediatly more complicated, not for them, but for the guy/woman holding the trigger - they want to die to save the world, but will you really kill them? (i think this had been adressed in Tales of the Abyss at one point).

Look at Quanism - it has both good and bad aspects.

Quan will cross a desert twice (even if the second time he kind of failed) to save and help his best friend Sigurd, because he might need help and will even accompany him during his various journeys in foreign states. Quan will defend his country (mmh) and his people against Thracian invasions. Quan’s people have Leonster’s best interests at heart.

Quan will also shit on Thracia, put outrageous prices on food exported there, act as the High King of what seems to be a federation of several sovereign kingdoms and often call Verdane people barbarians.

Was Quan a bad guy, or a good guy?

Ultimately, in FE5, Leif refuses Quanism. Given a crapton of circumstances, he finds his own doctrine (well the peninsula is united under his rule, like Quan would have wanted, but Thracians aren’t exiled or relegated to shit like Quan might have done if he had been in his son’s shiny boots).

The Hero ™ isn’t grey, or tries his hardest not to be. Sometimes he manages to do that by disgusting asspulls, sometimes he succeeds by thinking out of the box, sometimes he doesn’t and falls in the grey spectrum - where we can still ask ourselves, is he still the hero, or how does the fact that falling in the grey spectrum impacts him?

FE9 Naesala, and arguably in FE10, refuses to be called a good king or a good leader. He will prioritise his kingdom and his people first, but is perfectly aware that he is not The Hero ™ Tibarn represents. Naesala has good intentions at heart, shit execution and refuses to be called or even thought as heroic. It is heavily implied that he “atones” for the rest of his life, and is willing to be used as a punching ball by Tibarn because of what happened in Phoenicis.

Arvis might have had the best intention, he completely crossed the line. I personally don’t think he knew Manfroy and co would hunt children and go on a murder spree in the 1st gen, but, and this is what is truly fightening, I don’t know if Arvis would have stopped his association with Manfroy if he knew (maybe he would have tried to backstab him to prevent such a thing from happening, but it’s the same dilemna we had with Lyon in FE8, are you really going to work with evil forces to do something because you think you can control them? If you do, then what does that make you?)

Ultimately Arvis tries to redeem himself, by asspulling saving all children and dying by Seliph’s hands - does that make him grey if associating with Manfroy and conquering the continent turned his color spectrum to black? Or was Arvis “morally black” since the beginning?

On the other end of the spectrum, Sigurd’s invasion of Augstria (and Verdane but no one cares about barbarians) feels wrong (at least I felt so). Sigurd is even called on it by Eldingan, and FE4′s biased narrator says that during the occupation, Sigurd’s occupying forces did some shit.

Is his incompetence/reluctance/ignorance that his troops were “doing some shit” in Augstria dark enough to change his color spectrum? Can we hold the fact that he is a knight so he cannot disobey/doesn’t think about disobeying orders even if they are about subjugating a country and removing its king against him? Sigurd grows in Silesse, but then he dies :’(

But still, is Sigurd morally grey? I don’t think so. Maybe after his death he would have been, or he would have retained his knightly values, we will never know. Faced with Lewyn’s dilemna - continuing the fight that will kill many, or going home and letting many die - Sigurd doesn’t know how to answer. But this is a good thing, he might have turned into the Hero ™ who solves problems by thinking out of the box. Or he would have tried to, idk.

Sigurd isn’t loyal good, nope, he goes against orders to protect Shannan. I’d say chaotic good, but it ultimately doesn’t matter, imo, Sigurd’s pretty “morally white”.

This isn’t really on topic though, your question, and by extension the concept of morally grey is actually asking if said character is “moral” or “amoral” by your own standards!

On FE16 :

Boar!Dimitri is an interesting case. Boar!Dimitri wants and will, if Billy isn’t with him, fight until his last breath in a desperate attempt to kill Edelgard. In AM, where we see Boar!Dimitri and interact with him, it’s implied that Boar!Dimitri wants to be a boar and fight against Edel, but he will not force his former friends to join him in his quest. He tries to tell everyone off, saying “they’re too weak” or some liability, but we ultimately see it with Dedue and Rodrigue that despite his tuskers, Boar!Dimitri doesn’t want people to die for him.

Is Boar!Dimitri morally grey? He is driven by his revenge and yet, he will not do “everything” to get Edel’s head. He will not sacrifice his friends for Edel’s death (then of course comes the question “but they’re following him so if pulls a Leeroy Jenkins they will follow” which is right). Still, the fact that he prioritises his revenge and Edel over his people is pretty meh in my book especially since Rodrigue told him that they’re starving etc. Then there’s his useless cruelty dealing with Randolf which sucks. Everything taken into consideration I’d say that, imo, Dimitri’s a light shade of “morally grey”.

Claude isn’t morally grey at all. He desperatly wants to be, but imo, he reads more like Virion (and/or Innes, I totally forgot about him).

Given the dev’s interview and all, Claude will not sacrifice his friends, and puts survival as his top priority. He wants to look like a heartless schemer, ready to do anything to achieve his goals, but just like Virion, in a real life situation? Nope. Claude will escape, and find a way/lament if his friends fell because they weren’t supposed to. With the Innes comparison, I’d say Hilda might be his Gerik - he told/ordered her to get away and escape, she says fig it and stays until the end.

Claude might have been the Hero ™ who thinks out of the box, but there are no boxes in FE16…

Claude’s morally white, he has his ambitions but won’t cross his own thresholds to achieve them. Of course there’s the “it’d be nice if Rhea disappeared” at the end of VW, but, because the plot asked for it or not, Rhea dies at the end of VW. Claude doesn’t have to get rid of her, and even if she didn’t, would he truly do it or wasn’t it a Virion-boast? Would Claude kill the person who sacrificed herself twice to save them, or have her killed? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Also, given from his Flayn’s supports and the scenes where he loses his calm, while he really wants to find answers to his questions and about the true history of Fodlan, Claude will not try to force them out of someone who’s reluctant to tell them. Yes he lost his shit with Rhea, and yet, he didn’t force her to reveal the truth, and even let her go to catch some much needed rest acknowledging she only told him a half-truth, or avoided his question.

Edel? I confess I had a very serious case of bias towards Arvis when I joined the Jugdral fandom and the “for the greater good” motto.

Allying with Thales and pals though, wait, i know I’ve said above that it wouldn’t have changed a thing about Arvis if he knew Manfroy’d hunt children - it wouldn’t have for the greater plot, but to me, Arvis would have fallen into the “morally black” pit way faster than he did. I like my Tumblr username, I like my mooks, I don’t like using them as war assets or the idea of even using them. FFS we’re using feral laguz randoms here, and even Miccy in her “i will do everything to protect Daien” didn’t use them.

She might have started a war, but shows regret for the bloodshed going as far as to lament at Dimitri’s death in CF despite the irony of that map - she knows that what she is doing is wrong, but thinks it needs to be done to build a better future. However, the “starting a war” + “Kostas in the prologue” look like Arvis in his best moments - and he is morally black - but “using beasts as backup” + “giving Emile hunting grounds” and everything about lizards and eradication sets her in the “morally black” spectrum.

Edel knows what are her limits between the “acceptable” and “not acceptable”, but for the sake of her goals, she will cross all of them. But she is no sociopath, or cruel person, she doesn’t enjoy crossing those lines and yet she feels it is compulsory to reach her goals.

i’d like to see an Arvis/Edel support convo

Rhea? I’d say grey, on the grounds of creating someone with the intent for it to be used as vessel is really creepy, but then, transmutation/alchemy/creating artificial sentient lives is creepy in itself and raises a ton of bioethical issues i’m not ready to deal with in this post because it’s already long as fuck and this is crossing beyond fandom discussion. Rhea knows that her experiments are questionable, and she’s ashamed of them but felt they were a necessity - pretty much like someone crossing their moral line and turning “morally black”.

This point is neutralised in game though, because Rhea succeeded and the side Sothis choose ultimately won the war - so yes, Fodlan needed Sothis and Rhea’s homonculi were ultimately key to bring peace/prosperity to Fodlan... IMO, it’s still questionable, even if the game rewards it.

Rhea will not cross all of her lines though, she said the church will go against anyone who targets the students and the monastery, and she means it going as far as to blow her cover twice turning into a dragon to protect the students/Billy and his pals in part 2.

Also, national bias at play, but rewritting history not to alienate thousands of supporters of the side who lost the war is pretty grey in itself. Slowing technological progress? We know the reasons, if the book in the DLC, despite Linhardt’s warnings has to be believed, since the devs said so. Is it something that would count as morally “black”? Idk, maybe? Or maybe i’ve read/watched too much sci-fi stuff where one of the most common plot point is “humanity isn’t advanced enough to know how to use this technology”. It is grey, but Rhea doesn’t fall in the “morally black” spectrum, she’s a darker shade of grey than Boar!Dimitri, for sure, but she’s still, IMO, grey.

This is not to say that Edel’s evil and Claude’s good/whatever the contrary adjective of evil is! Or to say X/Y/Z is a better character than A/B/C!

I love Arvis and Hilda (FE4!Hilda) to death, and I prefer them to Siggy and Eldie. But I also know that they’re not supposed to be liked because they were right or because what they did was the right thing, nope.

Tl;dr : Morally grey, black or white depends on who you’re talking to, and if FE16 brought us something new, it’s that not everyone thinks that doing a certain thing is evil, or, on the contrary, a good thing.

There’s no consensus on what is “good” or “wrong” which can be interpretated in all kinds of worrying (?) ways.

#anon #replies #all kinds of emblem #Jugdral #Tellius #Fodlan #even bits of Magvel #shit it's not legal theory anymore #but fandom theory??#it's interesting though #what makes someone grey?#Anonymous #morally grey this morally grey that #i used to loathe heroes who find solutions that fit with asspulls #i still do towards a certain someone wearing suspenders but i understand i'm not rational at this point #and yet heroes (tm) are the ones who can think out of the box and stop the cycle of choose between crap and shit #i love my trashy velthomers okay #FE16 #Innes values his friends even if he tries to play the jerkass part #Virion will never sacrifice anyone and acknowledges that his tactics suck #worrying ways : apparently preemptive strikes aren't so morally black anymore #I love several tropes like the found family one but also the Gandalf 'run i'm holding them back' trope #Boar!Dimitri is a tsundere?

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beanpolebrianmay · 5 years

Text

Practice

Pairing: Joe Mazzello x Reader

Summary: Joe comes to you for help with a different audition.

Disclaimer: I do not own any people, this is fiction.

Word count: 3612

Warnings: Teasing mention of a daddy kink, slight language (?maybe?), badly written fake movie scripts, and fluffy getting-together tropes are in your future.

…

The paper you held in your hands stared at you – unflinching and eggshell white and creased in the corner where it was held together by a staple. The last page. It was cool until the last page.

“Please, y/n?”

Joe hit you with his big eyes and you blinked, arching an eyebrow at him. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t helped him rehearse for auditions before; in fact, you were always the first one he asked. But this?

“Joe—”

“We won’t even do that part; we’ll stop right before it. It’ll be like any other role I’ve taken on, I swear. It won’t be weird. I’ve done parts where my characters kissed your character before, and it won’t be any different.”

“Joe, these lines are, like, uber-suggestive. And they don’t just kiss. It’s gonna be weird.”

“That’s why we stop before it. Please,” he whined, “you’re an actor too, don’t treat it any differently than taking on a role. That’s all this is, it’s not like I, Joseph Francis Mazzello III, am actually going to say these things to you.”

A small smile tugged at your lips. “Bringing out the full name, huh? You know that I’m not an actor. I acted as a hobby years ago and I do these lines with you, but that doesn’t mean that I’m an actor.”

“Well, as a professional actor myself, I say you are and superiority wins.”

You scoffed. “Not in my house, it doesn’t.”

“Not unless it’s your superiority,” Joe mocked back.

“I will not deny this. But back to the matter at hand, don’t you have someone else who isn’t your close female friend to practice with? An actress crush or something? Like, I’m pretty sure this is the entire plot to a rom-com somewhere out there.”

“No, I don’t, I would have told you if I did. And you’re my lucky charm – ever since I’ve started doing the audition scenes with you, I’ve been more successful in getting the role. Please, don’t make me mess up my mojo.”

You looked away from his pleading gaze and towards the packet in you hands again, considering the possible outcomes.

One: You go ahead with practicing, you say the things in the scene and he says the other things and then you spend the night re-brainwashing yourself until you believe the whole “I’m not attracted to this man” line again.

Two: You don’t practice with him and suffer through his grumpy episodes and your guilty conscience until he realizes his mojo doesn’t have anything to do with you at all, gets the part, and forgives you.

Three: You go ahead with practicing, you say the things and he says the other things and then you feel some other other things and he finds out and all the sudden your whole friendship thing is weird and practically over.

You glanced back at the man across the counter and met the puppy eyes he had trained on you.

Finally, a sigh escaped your lips. “Fine.”

Joe broke out in a grin and maneuvered his way to sweep you into a tight embrace. “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much, y/n. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“I still don’t see why you couldn’t just find a different partner,” you grumbled. But the complaint fell flat with the smile that had inched its way onto your face. “Why is this part such a big deal, anyways?”

“It’s different.”

You let out a short bark of laughter, eyes scanning the words on the page again. “Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. But I mean, why does me practicing with you mean so much to you this time?”

“It always means a lot to me when you practice with me. Because it means that you’re willing to take time out of your day to spend with me and help me be get better at what I love doing. Quality time is my love language, you know,” he grinned, picking up the two packets and shoving yours into your hands. “Now let’s get cracking.”

“That sounds like something my dad would say. Stop being a dork, you old timer,” you tease, following him to the living room.

“Okay, three things. One: my dorkiness is one of my most attractive qualities, thank you very much.” You rolled your eyes but silently agreed with him. “Two: male life expectancy has really risen with the invention of modern medicine, so unless you know something about my date of death that I don’t, I prefer middle-aged if you don’t mind. And three: you know, I’ve been compared to a dad quite a lot in my life. Some of my fans online have even taken to calling me ‘daddy’ a lot, maybe I just have a dad energy?”

You stumbled and choked on your spit at this new information, a laugh bubbling out from under your desperate coughs and Joe pounding on your back with a grin plastered to his face.

“Joseph Mazzello, please tell me that you know what that actually means and you don’t think those fans really just think you have a father-ish personality.”

He dropped his smile and looked at you blankly for a second before breaking out in giggles. “You should have seen your face,” he chuckles, nudging you and turning to walk the rest of the way into the living room. “Are the red cheeks from embarrassment that I totally just got you or are you hiding a dirty little secret, y/n?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” you teased, hip-checking him as you pass to sit in the armchair opposite to the couch.

“Oh boy, would I ever.” Joe wiggled his eyebrows and you laughed, miming locking your lips. He sighed dramatically, flopping down on the couch. “Keep your secrets, then. But I’ll have you know that my character would totally have your character begging to tell mine all her dirty little secrets.”

“My character would be begging to tell her own secrets? Joe, that doesn’t even make sense.”

“It does in my world.”

“No wonder you are the way that you are.”

Joe chuckled, picking up the packet. “Okay, enough banter. This is a pretty short scene, especially with the, er, one part cut out. It’s also a pretty stage-direction heavy scene, so we’ll be moving.”

You nodded and stood up from the chair, reading over the lines. “Okay. You ready?”

“Yeah, let me just look over these one last time.”

You waited until he faced you and took a deep breath, meeting your eyes and nodding to signal the start of the scene.

Seeing Joe fall into character never failed to stir up feelings of intense admiration and pride in you. He really was an incredible actor, and with each role he came to you with, you had the pleasure of seeing the movie before it was made. Never mind that he didn’t always get the role, because it didn’t matter when he was always showing you what the movie could be with him.

This time was no different. Except when he had said that the role was different, he had meant it. Though it was no Fifty Shades of Grey, the film itself was directed towards adult audiences. This role was the opposite of who Joe was. The character wasn’t a villain, just a very focused, very serious and intense character.

So it really shouldn’t have stunned you when his usual demeanor melted off of his face and he fixed you with a heavy gaze. But it did. You felt your lungs constrict and looked down at your paper again in an attempt to escape him, but you could feel his eyes regardless.

“I’m not sure I understand what you want from me.” His voice was deep and smooth and decidedly not the Joe Mazzello you knew, which (and you would never admit this openly to him) he was right in the fact that it made it easier to slip into your character.

“I’m not sure if I understand it either. But it’s not my job to understand it, it’s my job to get it done.”

“I can’t give you what I don’t have though, you’ve got to see the problem in that fact.”

You sighed and swayed your hips as you approached him, his eyes never leaving yours. “I’m not surprised, you know. If I were in your position, I wouldn’t want to give the chip up either. And I’m going to be completely honest with you. I don’t agree with what the corporation is doing, and I don’t want them to get their hands on that tech either.”

Joe looked at you with cold suspicion. “Then why work for them?”

“Because there’s no getting out once you’ve gotten in. It’s a one-way street and if I had known that I never would have joined. But I did, and it still stands to be the stupidest decision I’ve ever made.”

Joe circled the coffee table with you. “And I’m supposed to believe your sudden change of heart?”

“You could, though it would be naïve and quite pathetic, seeing the things I’ve done to you and the people you love. I wouldn’t trust me either.”

Joe’s jaw clenched, and you stopped your circling to hear him. “You don’t know a damn thing about the people I love. You know very little besides the art of murder and blind loyalty.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” you relied in a soft voice, which only seemed to goad Joe on. He took three giant steps toward you and took the front of your shirt in his fist, face close and angry, but you didn’t respond other than to read your lines off of the script.

“Then why are you here?”

“I told you. I was sent to retrieve that chip.”

Joe broke character for a second. “Uh, there’s a sort of fight scene here, but they said to skip over it, so we’ll just continue on? Um, I think I beat you, and now I have you like this?” Joe spun you around and loosely put an arm around your neck in a one-armed sleeper hold.

In this position you knew that he could feel you swallow hard, but with your throat pinched in between his forearm and bicep, there wasn’t going to be a whole lot he wouldn’t feel from that area, so at least you had an excuse.

“Listen here, corporation bitch,” he spit, surprising you with his sudden transformation back into his character, “I’m going to give you an ultimatum. You either get the hell out of my house or I’m going to slice your throat into ribbons.”

“Big talk for a man who hasn’t done anything yet about the killer in his home.”

Joe grabbed a pencil from his back pocket that he had put in earlier – a makeshift knife – and dragged it across your cheek, lips twisting into a forced smile.

“You think I’m playing some sort of game?”

“I’ve been playing games with you since the beginning, I’ve just been waiting for you to play along.”

“Is that what you want?” Joe asked, spinning you around again and backing you up against the wall, his breath against your ear, continuing his trail of the ‘knife’ against your skin. “You want me to play along?”

You swallowed thickly, widening your eyes and breath becoming shallower. You were just a really good actor, of course, none of these reactions were actually real.

“I’m glad you’ve finally joined the program, Mr. Adams.”

“I’ve joined nothing of yours. And I never will. This is my game. My program. And if you want to play then you’ll play by my rules,” he ground out, almost cruelly, like he knew he had you in the palm of his hand. Everything about him was tense with rage and retribution from his fiery glare to his white-knuckled grip that he had on your shirt.

“Anything,” you breathed.

Your noses were almost touching and your breaths were shared between the minimal space between your lips.

“You think you can come here after killing the people I care about and what? What do you want if it isn’t the tech? I’m not supposed to believe that you’re such a whore you’d screw me without anything in return, am I?”

You let out a breathy chuckle. “I’m certain that I would get something in return, wouldn’t I, Mr. Adams?”

Joe pressed you only fractionally harder against the wall as not to hurt you, a slip of the real Joe in the midst of his character.

“You’ve got some nerve, you know that?” As impossible as it seemed, he leaned in closer, but still your lips didn’t touch.

There was a charged pause, which Joe broke by letting go of your shirt and stepping back, laughing awkwardly. “Well, that’s where we end, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you repeated, clearing your throat and cursing the rough quality that the sentence had contained. “Again?”

Joe puffed out a breath, nodding. “Yeah.”

It was your regular routine to go over the script multiple times, except each time you changed the way you portrayed your character to help him acclimate to possible ways other actresses might play the character.

“What’s this movie about, anyways?”

“You’re actually playing the lead character. She’s an assassin retrieval person for this bad corporation but she wants out and my character is like, kind of the antagonist as first because she’s messed with him and his life a lot and he doesn’t like her for that, but ends up helping her in the end. Of course there’s more to the story than that, betrayals and almost deaths and things. I think this scene is one before she turns good and she’s just using sex appeal and passion to get the tech my character has.”

“Nice.”

Joe laughs. “Yeah, for you. I’m just the poor fella who keeps getting duped. The poor guy just can’t catch a break.”

“He doesn’t seem all too logical to be honest. I mean who would actually sleep with their enemy?”

“I mean hey, when the urge strikes,” Joe grinned, anticipating your punch to the arm.

“Keep it in your pants, it’s not that hard.” Joe wiggled his eyebrows at that and you gave him another punch, although you laughed at the unintentional innuendo.

“Okay, ready to go again?”

“Bring it.”

The two of you went over the scene for another two hours, trying out different methods and getting more and more into character. By the time you had both agreed one last time before calling a night, Joe had a comfortable grip on his character and was more natural in his line delivery and actions.

This being said, it meant that he was no longer acting as though you were a china doll, and his grip got tighter and his tone got nastier. You could almost believe that he hated you to the point of crazed, impassioned, yet reluctant attraction.

He had his forearm pressing your clavicle, and in turn your torso, harshly against the wall, yet again. “You think you can come here after killing the people I care about and what? What do you want if it isn’t the tech? I’m not supposed to believe that you’re such a whore you’d screw me without anything in return, am I?”

You gasped in a strained chuckle, as if out of breath and lustful. “I’m certain that I would get something in return, wouldn’t I, Mr. Adams?”

“You’ve got some nerve, you know that?”

It was at this point that you expected him to step away just as he had been doing, but the atmosphere had shifted in the two hours you had been rehearsing. The droplet of sweat beaded at your temple wasn’t from physical activity, and his pupils had been steadily expanding each time he manhandled you against the wall.

“Um—” You swallowed, unsure of how you wanted to end that sentence.

“Yeah,” Joe breathed out. His eyes dropped to your lips and you felt your heart beating frantically against his arm, which was still pressed across your chest, pinning you to the wall.

You swallowed again. “Are you – um – are you sure that you don’t want to practice the scene just once more?”

“No,” he said softly, eyes not leaving your lips, tongue peeking out to wet his own. “Are you sure you can’t help me practice the next part?” He flicked his eyes up to yours briefly, not letting you look away, needing to make sure what he was about to do was okay with you.

“I think I can spare a few minutes of my time.”

As soon as the confirmation left your mouth, he replaced the words with his lips. His arm lifted off your chest and his hands rose to cup your jaw, gently pulling your face to his and eliminating any space that had been left during the scene (aka, not much).

And although his actions were soft, the kiss was anything but. He kissed you with a passion that made you dizzy – though you weren’t sure if it was the passion or lack of oxygen. He pulled away and you both drew in a breath, but before you had time to ask questions, Joe was kissing you again, his hands roving from your jaw to your shoulders to your waist to your hips. His kisses were hungry, and you were giving as much as you were getting, but there was a niggling voice in the back of your head flashing red warning signs of “stop now or forever regret this.”

You tried to ignore it for as long as you could, but when Joe’s lips started kissing down your neck and his body pressed you even harder into the drywall behind you, you knew you had to stop and regroup.

Gently, you pressed your hands against his chest. “Joe,” you whispered into his ear, “Joe, I don’t think the making out against the wall part of the scene was this long.”

“You’re right, they moved to the bedroom much faster,” he panted against your shoulder. “But I’m getting the feeling that you’re not going to help me practice that part of the scene today.”

“Simply astute, my dear Sherlock,” you joked, trying to alleviate the thick tension that still shrouded the two of you. “Is it just me or is it incredibly warm?”

“It’s not just you, I’m pretty sure it was the both of us. Rude.” You giggled and pushed him away from you, sliding down the wall and patting the floor beside you.

“Pop a squat, I think this is one of those things you’re supposed to talk about with your best friend.”

“What, gossip time? Alright then,” he said, sitting down and rolling his head to face you. “So you’ll never believe this, and don’t laugh at me when I tell you because I might just cry and have to gorge myself in Ben and Jerry’s –”

“Even though you’re lactose intolerant,” you interrupted.

“—Yes, even though I’m lactose intolerant. But anyways, you’ll never believe it, but I finally got the courage to kiss the woman I’ve wanted to for a long time today. It was pretty hot, if I do say so myself.”

Your lips parted on another snarky reply when you registered what he had said.

“Wait, what?”

Joe swallowed, but he had already gone this far. “What? I thought kissing your crush was the thing you were supposed to talk about with your best friend.”

“I mean it is, but – Joe what – I don’t understand,” you spluttered.

Joe grasped you by your shoulders and looked you dead in the eyes. “I like you. You are simultaneously my best friend and my crush, as juvenile as that sounds, and the opportunity presented itself and I kissed you and I liked it and I like you even more and I want to kiss you again but I won’t until you say that I can but fuck, y/n, I’ve never wanted to kiss someone again so badly in my entire life and if you don’t say that I can soon I’m going to have to excuse myself to go home and bash my head into the tiles of my bathroom while I take a cold shower –”

“I can’t very well say anything if you keep rambling, Joe.”

“Right. Yes, rambling, right, I won’t do that anymore.”

“I had no idea that you liked me. That’s insane.”

“Like, a ‘wow seeing that singer in person was insane’ or a ‘wow I can’t believe my best friend has been perving on me for the last five years, he’s insane’? Because those are two vastly different kinds of insane and I would really rather be the first.”

You rolled your eyes and shook your head. “Joseph Mazzello, I’ve been trying to deny my feelings for you since about three months after I met you. It’s definitely a good kind of insane.”

Joe’s face lit up. “Wait, you like me too? Really?”

“Really really,” you said, grinning back.

“Does that mean I can kiss you again? Because I think I really need the practice, you know, for the audition.”

“That means you can kiss me again and again and take it from me,” you breathed with a smirk, fingers tugging his collar so that your lips brushed against his with your next words, “you don’t have anything to worry about.”

#joe mazzello #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello x you #joe mazzello fanfiction #borhap boys #joe mazzello imagine #bohemian rhapsody #queen #queen band #fluff #getting together

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awed-frog · 5 years

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When you say romance should be 18 and over do you mean the brand of romance we know today (aka toxic) or romance as a whole? If we wrote healthy romance aimed at younger crowds or presented unhealthy behaviour as unhealthy behaviour in regular romance (for older crowds) would that be a good solution?

Well - I see three questions here, all of them incredibly complex and beyond interesting: should art be political and is censorship ever a good idea and also is the romance genre okay? The answer to all of them, in my opinion, is ‘no but’.

1) Should art be political?

The stupid thing is, art is inherently political, whether you want it to or not, but art that’s deliberately political tends to be awful, and that’s a universal truth both for left-wing stuff and for right-wing stuff. When you willingly create political stuff, what you’re crafting is propaganda, and proganda is generally sad and bad. I guess there is propaganda that’s also good art - Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs comes to mind - but the problem is, not all of us are Victor Hugo.

That said, since whatever we create is political (because man is a social animal) and will have some kind of moral message, yes - ideally we want more art with an ethically ‘good’ moral message than we want garbage, because art (and here I include everything: books, movies and so on) is perhaps the most effective and impactful mind-shaper ever. That’s why Disney is doing its very best to be a monopoly, after all. But: I don’t have a good solution for how to ensure art is nice. I think art is nice when artists are nice, and artists are nice when they grow up in good, healthy societies. So the more a society rots from the inside out, the more likely it is you’ll find art that’s also rotten. I mean, while romance as a genre was always a bit dodgy (see below), what that article was talking about - the rise of the possessive, violent boyfriend and domestic abuse as the great love story - is sort of a recent phenomenon, and goes hand in hand with the deterioration of women’s rights in (Western) society.

(As an aside, I’m not sure I agree (young) women are necessarily misogynistic for reading crap like Fiftfy Shades: I think (young) women are exhausted. Fifty Shades is, more than anything, an ode to undeserved capitalism - the only kind that seems open as an option today. After all, we know trickle-down capitalism doesn’t work and most of us will toil and toil for very little; Christian Grey is the antidote to that, the guy who shows up, basically kidnaps you, and smothers you in a life of riches for which the only thing you must do in return is give up. Having someone else decide on your job, your car, your possessions and clothes, where you’ll live, what you’ll eat and when, whether you’ll take birth control (lol: obviously not), when you’ll see your friends and family plus when and how you’ll orgasm - what women tried to escape for generations is suddenly the dream for many of us - not because of any new political ideology, but because we’re beyond tired. Women, like men, are now crushed in a neverending cycle of bs, underpaid jobs, and are apparently fed up enough in taking responsibility for anything that not only romance and ‘superhuman’ characters are booming, but a very specific kind of subset of that: essentially, slave fics.

Just give up your agency, and you’ll be taken care of and cherished - forever.

I understand a kink is not the same as your actual political opinion, but still - I’m not enthusiastic about this trend, and I’m even less enthusiastic when it gobbles up young women who haven’t had time to experience real life relationships.)

No, I think that in the end, the answer is - if you reverse the rotting of society, automatically - statistically - you’ll get healthier artists and a healthier audience. So, really, the fight is always the same: better paid jobs, better (and free) schools, more opportunities for continued education of any kind, more democracy and transparency, more green spaces and better living conditions.

2) Is censorship ever a good idea?

Sadly, no. You’d think the logical conclusion of what I just said would be, ‘In the meantime, let’s ban the most dangerous stuff’ or something, and while part of me is tempted to support that, censorship has a way of ending very badly no matter how good and noble your intentions are.

(Self-censorship should be more of a thing, though: not everything that goes through our minds deserves to be seen and shared.)

What sucks at the moment is that on the one hand, capitalism is operating its own censorship; and on the other, its desperate search for new markets has led to a disastrous disintegration of actual human interactions.

So, problem one is that we only publish and market what makes a lot of money, and while that’s normal, to an extent, the result today is that everything is ‘almost the same’ as the previous thing (think sequels, prequels, remakes, obnoxious book covers for books that are basically all the same). So if ‘asshole boyfriend who beats you up’ suddenly makes money, it becomes very hard to escape the trope, because what will be offered to you everywhere is exactly that. This was less of a thing back when our main sources of entertainment were shared (movie theaters, the one family TV, school libraries and so on); now, it’s an epidemic, and as we see with Youtube algorithms, a dangerous one, because this obsession with watching and rewatching ‘almost the same’ inevitably leads to more and more extreme stuff.

Meanwhile, problem two is that the more tailor-made our entertainment is, the less we connect to real people. I know I sound about 90 here, but when all family members are glued to a different screen - mom watching the 50th remake of Eat, Pray, Love, dad down the rabbithole of lizard conspiracy theories, big brother now exploring some milk&peanut butter weirdness on Youporn and younger sister 30 fics deep into Stucky high school AUs - what do they have in common? What do they talk about? What can they even learn from each other? Until recently, and for aeons, fiction was shared, and its primary goal was to form a connection between group members. Now, that’s gone. We destroyed it, without even realizing what we were doing, in the space of twenty years. And yeah - I know you can create new communities, but a) these communities are virtual (which means, for the most part: not real) and b) they tend to connect like with like, which is comforting, perhaps, but not very useful. The whole point here is that we need to learn how to feel empathy and trust for those who’re different, and build a community with them - instead, what the internet is doing is isolating us inside our little bubbles, so much so that any minor disagreement is now seen as good reason to break off contact.

Censorship, however, doesn’t solve any of this. For starters, we need more regulation on how big corporations can get, what social media companies can and can’t do and who can access what kind of material. And it’d be great if we could all unplug a little, but uh - fat chance of that.

3) Is the romance genre okay?

Again, just my opinion, but personally, I mistrust it. There are no romance books for men? Instead, books for men feature a Main Character doing stuff and improving himself while accidentally meeting a Sexy Lamp he can go home to at the end of the story. And, well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but isn’t this a healthier way to look at life? While good relationships are very meaningful (or even the most meaningful) part of any human life, if your goal is to get them, they won’t grow right. You shouldn’t be hyperfocused on finding love; I think it’s much better to be like Main Character: you work on your drawing skills, try a new sport, read poetry, defeat evil Russians, thus developing inner happiness and self-confidence, thus leading you towards towards a partner who’ll fall in love with who you are - not a partner who was looking for some empty shell to fill with their own expectations and preferences.

And I know - romance books and movies are full of exciting non-romantic events and stuff - but still, the fact they’re classified and intended as romance does imply that finding a romantic partner is the ultimate goal. Which, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s healthy, and is a particularly inappropriate message for young women. After all, why is it okay that young men are encouraged to go on ghost hunts, study dinosaurs and save the world while young women are taught to wait around for a broken (possibly violent, but it’s not his fault) bad boy only they can fix? It’s messed up, is what it is, and I may be extreme here, but even the tamest, sweetest romance revolves around the same message: that you’re not complete on your own, and that you should focus on relationships as a way to become a better, happier human being.

Now, as much as I love this quote -

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.” — Oscar Wilde

- obviously there’s no direct cause-and-effect here - you don’t read one book and become a mindless Stepford wife - so I’m not saying, ‘no one should read romance ever’. It’s just - as I said in that other post, we should all enjoy diverse stuff. Read your romance novels, but also read the classics, read some philosophy, a random poem, a badly-written thriller - read Stephen King, read how the OED was written, or a Wikipedia article on the French resistance - anything and everything. Because of capitalism, because of this push towards personalized entertainment, we’re being forced and pigeonholing ourselves in smaller and smaller cages, and the worst thing is - we’re comfortable inside them, because this is the awful truth: cages are comfortable, and that’s why we need to get out before we forget what cages are for.

[As a final point: you say ‘if we wrote’, does it mean you’re an aspiring writer? If so, you shouldn’t worry about any of this. You write what you want, you write the stories you want to read. Just remember to get out of your cage as well - experience, discover, grow, read, dare - and then put all that into your books. I’m sure they’ll be great, whatever your favourite genre.]

#ask #books #romance #entertainment #capitalism #ya #fifty shades of grey #narrative tropes #old woman yells at cloud #the end is nigh #i miss the 90s #potentially unpopular opinion

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velvetinewitch · 5 years

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wips list

this functions as a key to all of my wips, including ones i don’t actively write but still work on occasionally. in case you didn’t know, all of my wips include: poc, LGBT+ characters, disabled and non-neurotypical characters, found families, usually fantasy elements because i love magic, and often a little romance (which is usually accompanied by found families or tragedy, but for my romance-repulsed friends, there are still stories with no romance!)

key: *: heavily connected stories >: stories taking place after the events of Faye and Fate (a very distant future)

Closest to Complete (in order... ish)

Painted Cards: a group of teenagers end up criminals after a magical goddess chooses them for greatness. instead of embarking on some epic adventure, they decide to save the world another way: through kindness and coffee. a story about a found family made up of unintentional criminals with trauma that they’ll learn to cope with. mostly written for myself, but also written for the people in my life who needed to see characters like them have a happy ending. a very hopeful, fantasy slice-of-life story.

*Faye and Fate: almost everything i write is exposition or a result of this 5 book series. Aralion Faye resets the timeline so often it all just blurs together. with each new on she creates, she watches the ones she loves die over and over again, as if it’s all a video game culminating up to that game over screen. things always start out so innocently, too; her memories never return until later, so for a while, she enjoys attending a magic school, falling in love, playing pranks, befriending her peers. by the end of the year, the world comes back to remind her that her happy ending is unachievable. between traitors, corruption, fires, and cliffs... this time has to be different. this time she’ll save everyone she loves. is overall a story about heroes of all types. love this series so much abhddvk. magic is based on skills/interests: art, writing, engineering, astronomy, directing, zoology, architecture, makeup art, etc

*Mortals Versus Morals: (this isn’t actually the title but it makes me laugh so it’s being used as the placeholder) Glen is 17, rich, sheltered, and possibly the most lawful good person ever. plot twist- there’s a prophecy predicting his (as well as 6 others’) involvement in the end of the world, and they aren’t on the good side. Glen struggles to balance saving the world from villains while trying not to become a villain himself. includes: road trips and bonding, scenes like the one where the aro-ace friend gets seduced by a nine-tailed fox who runs a Burger King, everyone educating Glen on cultures and respecting pronouns :) as well as the occasional choking angst that comes with a bunch of almost adults getting dragged into the business of gods. did i mention there are gods? there are gods. i do kill a love interest of a protag but then give them TWO romantic partners because i’m not a coward (i feel like the characters who lose a love interest end up in a poly relationship most often in my stories... as a sort of apology to them lmao). also Utah? basically stops existing at some point. magic is based off a deity someone worships, with worship comes borrowed magic. the characters themselves are basically just omnists?

Beneath Our Skin: Sam and Ana don’t know each other. it’s by chance that they’re separated from their class during a field trip, and end of wandering straight into a portal to another world, one with magic. while searching for a way home, they accidentally make their own- in the meantime, they’re gonna find a magician who can give Sam a shapeshifting spell because Sam would really like to transition, even if it’s through magical means, please. written for me and my fake-brother, so lots of being platonically domestic and also sarcastic... this is in a really poetic writing style too.

House of Crabs: this is not the name it just makes me giggle so placeholder time! contemporary, no romance or fantasy or anything (although like one crime is committed but life is life that). here’s the old summary: Siera lives in the mansion of thirty year old Janelle, a woman who has the tendency to take in stray children, granting them shelter despite their tragic backstories or strange personalities. When one of the outcasts, Roy, is confronted by his biological brother, Roy is absolutely horrified by the concept of being dragged back to his transphobic family. The outcasts are dead set on protecting him, even if it requires breaking laws. But Roy's brother doesn't seem that content on harming Roy or bringing him home against his will. Instead, the boy seems more interested in coming out of the closet, hoping that his little brother and his new family can help him learn how to be his true flamboyant self.

>Obligatory Superhero Stories (3 stories): ----Lei is supposedly a civilian, until she arrests the man who ruined her life and accidentally ends up adopting his daughter, Hera. Hera coerces her into adopting her classmate Jason. the two get kidnapped. Lei gets annoyed by how useless she is in saving them, and becomes the first non-mutant superhero. in the meanwhile, the US Secretary of Powers, Victoria, is forced to monitor her progress for a court case deciding whether this is legal, and accidentally falls in love. Hera fucks with journalists and enjoys being politically smarter, Jason attempts to create a ground-breaking technology and blows up hundreds of phones, and Victoria never sleeps. literally. her superpower is just,,, no sleeping. ----Vessa becomes a superhero by accident. it involves art galleries, snow, and unlicensed doctors. now, she operates under an alias, the hero Froze (very creative, yes), alongside her trusted sidekicks. unbeknownst to Vessa, she has a history with the villain she’s fighting, and their teams may be more entangled outside of their aliases than first believed. basically, an enemies to family (and some lovers) story, involving a lot of morally grey shenanigans thanks to a corrupt society. ----there’s a villain on the lose, know as Heart-twist, with the ability to take someone’s darker emotions and intensify them. in reality, Sora is just a teenage girl, with four dear and near friends. it’s been a year since her sister’s boyfriend, a hero, prioritized glorious battle over rescue, and her sister died alone and afraid. Sora is just waiting to make him fall in love with her, so she can repay the favor.

>Paint Me a Picture: dystopian future! roughly 78% of the population is monochromatic, and can only see in shades of grey. it seems petty in plain sight, but jealousy has left the other 22% segregated, separated by a boundary and sinking in poverty. Pristaline is apart of the majority, privileged without even realizing it- her biggest concern is making herself a future in law. a car accident leaves her in a recover home near the boundary, where she accidentally meets Jackson, a color-seeing boy, who calls her eyes ‘blue.’ the encounter sparks a revolution. this is a sadder story- it ends with a girl, watercolor swatches, and a grave.

*Run From Wolves: Elayna is unfortunate enough to be a magic-born in the one kingdom that still prosecutes female magic-borns (to which she says, fuck their religion for saying women shouldn’t have magic). when she and her half-brother Shage are discovered, instead of being executed, Elayna is offered a position beside her brother in the kingdoms prestigious Goddess Guard. the offer comes with a price: they must swear allegiance to the king, and can do him no harm. luckily, a pretty spy from a neighboring kingdom offers Elayna a loophole. includes spirit animals, political intrigue, lesbians, murdering an asshole king, and a secret mystery involving immortality and wolves.

*Twin Kingdoms: there’s an island floating in the sky- two, now, split in half down the center. Melony and Serena have known about the conflict between their kingdoms, but they never really realized it’s intensity until Melony’s older brother close friend betrayed her and seized the throne for himself, pitting her kingdom against Serena’s and searching for war. Melony and Serena are able to escape together, living in disguise and biding their time before they can retake what belongs to them. has a really fun character who’s a villain (she’s the traitor brother’s little sister), gets stuck with an injury, is healed by a girl in an enemy village, and struggles to reaffirm her beliefs while vaguely falling in love. sighhhhhh i miss this series

*Where Shadows Bloom: written during the time of my life where i loved badass assassins becoming queens or princess... despite the trope being looked down upon, i hold this dear to my heart. basically, there’s a period of turmoil throughout the entire planet. on one end of the world, the queen is assassinated by a girl aiming to use her throne to destroy her noble parents, an underground group seeks to end slavery through magical battles and underhanded deals, and an orphan boy is made king. on the other side of the world, a second world war rages, pitting the Gold Alliance (good guys) against the Silver Alliance (bad guys). a princess goes undercover, venturing into a captured kingdom to spy on opposing forces. she’s taken in by an engineer/pilot who helps her stay in disguise as she uncovers the nefarious plot that involves the prosecution of an entire people. it all ties in together.

*Fateless: i really can’t get enough of magic and princesses, huh. ever wonder what Arthurian mythology would be like if it was in my world? Raine’s family has known tragedy after tragedy, from the death of her uncle, then aunt, her brother, and finally, her parents. fate has left her alive to inherit their throne when she comes of age. still, even she is cursed, wearing a ring that burns her with the pain of her people. she doesn’t wince anymore, not even when she watches another witch burn at the stake, and feels the flames crawl up her body, phantom but so, so real. when her kingdom falls, Raine and her most trusted knights are forced to flee into the woods. there, they find a tavern alongside a their road, run by a mysterious woman named Lancelin. there’s something familiar about the woman, something from Raine’s past, and something strange about the way that each of her customers leaves with healed minds and bodies. secretly-enemies to secretly-lovers! as common with me...

#my wips #navigation #long post #faf #faye and fate #painted cards

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sseizonsha · 6 years

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Leon and Survival

Motivations and Guilt as an Agent of Death

The Biohazard universe requires the audience to suspend disbelief, particularly in regards to the protagonists surviving events where others would have died. One could argue that this is merely protagonist armor for the sake of thrills and playing the game, but if you’ll allow me, I’d like to get a little more symbolic and meta about this fact.

Leon is defined most prominently by two things: his tenacity, quick-thinking, and improvisation in the field, and the severity of the loss he experiences when he fails to save people in need. This eventually leads Leon to become the jaded and a little more distrusting version of what he used to be. But what’s most important here is despite this, Leon never loses his penchant for gambling on a snowball’s chance in hell. He never loses his idealism. He never stops believing he can help someone.

If I could let myself be facetious for a moment: Leon S. Kennedy. Leon Sentimental Kennedy. Leon Self-Sacrificing Kennedy. Leon Serve Justice Kennedy. Leon, ever the Survivor.

I have touched on this before in my exploration of Leon’s PTSD, but I really need to stress for anyone and everyone willing to listen: Leon does not take the term “survivor” as a compliment or as something to be lauded, and he prefers not to be referred to as such. At best, he uses it ironically in order to make fatalistic, derisive jabs at himself. The term serves as a reminder of all the people he’s failed and all the innocents he’s lost. This is also why, in Degeneration when defending Claire’s expertise, he omitted the fact that she wasn’t the only Raccoon City survivor in the room.

For Leon, helping others get to safety supersedes everything, including direct orders from top brass on mission; at the root of it, seeing others get out and survive IS his mission. Take, for example:

The important scene in RE2 leading up to and following Robert Kendo’s death, in which Leon shows serious emotional compassion for Kendo’s family and demands that Ada not keep the truth from innocent people. He explains that helping people is the only reason why he’s even here, that he cannot and will not allow her or anyone else keep the truth quiet.

When Leon and Helena are walking through Ivy University and come across the man looking for his daughter. Helena insists that they don’t have time for this, to which Leon responds, “We’re making the time.”

There is nothing more important or valuable to him than another’s life. Therein lies the greatest source of scarring and trauma for Leon: most of the people he stops to help end up dying anyway, and he is left standing over his friends’ and charges’ bodies, asking himself what exactly was the point of it all.

One could argue that this signifies Leon being protected by a force greater than himself. But you could also argue that Leon is that very protective force acting upon others. It is a secondary role, certainly, as his main career and role is to protect and serve and keep others alive. But no less important is this one: in which Leon S. Kennedy assumes the role of a psychopomp in the Biohazard universe.

Greek for “conveyer of the soul,” psychopomps serve a crucial role in most mythologies in that they exist to guide the recently deceased to the afterlife without hitch. It is important to note that many psychopomps do not exist to judge the soul; that they simply guide them to the next stage of passing. They are described as liminal beings: able to pass through both the land of the living and the land of the dead.

Below the read more I will explore these three defining aspects of Leon as a psychopomp. This is already a long post. Take a breather, maybe. Get some water. Get some sleep.

Judgement

One major quality that separates Leon’s character from many of the heroes in the Biohazard universe is that Leon's primary motivation is protecting innocents from villains rather than fighting the villains themselves; his personal stake in this fight is one based on compassion and the need for helping the victims and survivors. He doesn’t waste his time hating the bad guys more so than combating the corruption and greed that they stand for.

It is this nonjudgmental quality about Leon that allows him to see the world in shades of grey. He can empathize with motivations even if he doesn’t agree with them, and it’s for this reason why he can work so easily beside people like Ada Wong, Manuela Hidalgo, and Alexander Kozachenko.

With Leon as a psychopomp, this grey morality works for another reason: that a number of the characters who’ve died and had an impact on Leon all confessed some manner of sin to him before they died. More than that, they all acknowledge Leon in their own way. Below I will list some notable examples:

Marvin Branagh: Arguably the catalyst for Leon accepting his role in this fight, Marvin is first of many people to die in Leon’s line of service to the cause. When the Lieutenant insists that Leon leave without him, Leon refuses and says there’s still time. It is only when Marvin pulls a gun on him to save himself that Leon relents. Marvin names his guilt: “I tried, Leon. But I couldn’t stop it. We can’t let this thing spread. It’s on you now.”

Ada Wong: (subverted) Ada Wong is an entire meta post on her own in regards to Leon’s feelings, but she deserves mention here. The pain of her betrayal, “Why couldn’t you just hand over the sample,” was later exacerbated with the knowledge that she chose (allegedly) to die on her own terms rather than allowing Leon to save her. Ada tells him that “It isn’t worth it. Take care of yourself,” before falling to her supposed death.

Adam Benford: The United States President and long-time friend of Leon’s, Adam was prepared to sink the USA’s reputation into the ground for the sake of the truth and taking responsibility. When he tells Leon this confession, Leon responds with surprise but ultimately with support: “Whatever you decide, sir, I’m with you.” Adam validates Leon and tells him, “I’ve always valued your friendship.” I imagine this is one of the last things he says to Leon before he dies by Leon’s hand.

Luis Sera: Did not intend to die by anyone’s hands, including his own, but his motivations for helping Leon and Ashley are driven entirely by a need to repent. “I am a researcher, hired by Saddler....The sample. Saddler took it. You have to get it back.”

Liminal Beings

Spiritual guides are so powerful in the fact that they have an uncanny ability to travel between both worlds (living and dead) with ease. The most obvious parallel of this is Leon’s sheer luck in getting roped into outbreaks of undead infections and leaving alive and relatively unscathed. Such an existence is a lonely one. While the psychopomp may have companions for a time ( mission partners or innocents in need ), a rare few share his ability to travel between spaces; most often than not, those who follow from one destination must remain behind or move on.

When the psychopomp travels, it is often within a vessel which few can drive or operate, which is undoubtedly symbolic of the soul’s lack of control. In media and story-telling this is actually a trope known as the Afterlife Express. Leon S. Kennedy is often written and played in tandem with vehicular scenes, regardless of whether he is operator, passenger, or witness:

The beginning of Resident Evil 2: In which Leon drives his own Jeep (in full control) and ultimately switches to drive an abandoned RPD police cruiser deeper into Hell; it is subsequently crashed into and destroyed by an oncoming semi. Leon is temporarily trapped in Hell and must survive and find another way out (via the endgame train).

The beginning of Resident Evil 4: In which Leon is being driven by someone else into the countryside Pueblo. He is shown to be gazing out the window, contemplating on prior events. It is a recollection of his life’s past---his---but the ones doomed to meet their deaths are the Spanish police, who up until seemed so deceptively in control of the situation.

RE4: Ada driving the boat to the island. Again, subverted, as Ada does not die but chooses to leave the vehicle on her own terms.This forces Leon to take the controls and steer himself the rest of the way to his next area.

RE4: Mike and the helicopter. He meets and interacts with Leon just long enough to help guide Leon along his path; his death is a subsequent righting of roles. Leon witnessing Mike’s death and promising to honor him posthumously fixes this.

RE6: The start screen and Lanshiang. Leon rides a train with no known conductor steering the rails. The train is empty, save for himself; then with his companion, then with the soul he is sent to fight (Simmons.)

RE6: The plane. The pilot is subsequently killed and mutates into a Lepotica. Because everyone on board, with the exception of Leon and Helena, are infected, Leon is forced to take the controls and land the plane as best he can. Leon crashing the plane and surviving with Helena attests to his ability to move between literal spaces; the corpses and zombies destroyed in the plane crash all move on to the next world.

RE Damnation and the tank: While Sasha drives the tank and steers seemingly to his death against the Tyrant-Class mutant, Leon intervenes.

As a Guide

Beyond everything else that’s been said---and beyond the obvious that Leon’s primary duties are protective detail and getting his charges where they need to go, Leon's presence serves as a reassuring boon to many of the people he comes across.

Leon internalizes the deaths of everyone he fails to save. The main issue with this beyond the way it affects him is that Leon lacks the ability to see the reality of hindsight. Events in which an outbreak occurred (Harvardsville, Tall Oaks, Lanshiang) happened in a large enough scale that containment was nearly impossible. Sterilization was more or less the only way to eradicate the issue at hand. With or without Leon’s self-sacrificing and offers to help, the fact of the matter remains glaringly obvious to anyone else:

Most of the people caught in the chaos of these events likely would’ve died anyway.

Leon stopping to help gave these survivors the chance to last longer than they might have otherwise. He took that snowball’s chance in hell and made it count for what it was worth. The truth of the matter is? Although he is written as psychopomp symbolically, he is first and foremost incredibly and literally human.

From the symbolic, spiritual perspective, Leon is incapable of realizing that it is not his job to stop all of these people from dying---it is simply his job to be there for them so that they are not alone.

#meta.#leon s kennedy #biohazard commentary | ooc.#biohazard #resident evil #long post for ts #tw death #uh.#yeah so this is really long and 'm really proud of it and this is all thanks to luca for their suggestion.#someone tell me I'm good at writing #or someone tell me my love of leon fuckin' kennedy is real.

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animebw · 5 years

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Binge-Watching: Kekkai Sensen, Episodes 7-9

In which I feel myself going back to the same old points, and we start seeing in shades of grey.

Pieces Out of Place

It’s never a good feeling when I feel like I have to keep coming back to the same criticisms over and over again. I try to always have new things to say about the shows I’m watching, new observations to make, so even if I’m not enjoying a particular show overall I’m at least finding different avenues of thought to explore every time. But if I keep seeing the same mistakes, I have to keep calling them out, and Kekkai Sensen, whatever else I might say about it, just cannot escape the gravitational pull of its own lack of context. We’re just one session away from the end of the first season, and there’s still a lot of important setting and character details that I’m just not all that sure about. I have no idea what the difference is between Blood Breeds and the Elder 13, or if there even is a difference, or what roles either of them are supposed to play, or how the villain team led by Katsura is connected to either of those concepts, or what any of them are even trying to accomplish. And as a result, I legitimately have no idea what the stakes of the show’s overall plot are supposed to be. I don’t know what’s at risk, why I should care, who stands to lose, any of that. This is the problem with foregoing context in your story; without context, your audience has no idea how any of the information you throw at them matters, how much it matters, or why it’s even worth mattering in the first place.

It can also lead to the information just being confusing in and of itself; I didn’t realize that White wasn’t actually a ghost until Black’s reaction to the idea made me realize White was just joking around. I guess I was supposed to infer that from the fact that she showed up in Leo’s picture, but considering how eclectic this show’s universe is, how was I supposed to assume that this was 100% definitely a universe where ghosts can’t be photographed? Hellsalem’s lot plays so fast and loose with classic fictional tropes, throwing them into a massive blender and pulling out whatever ideas it likes, that there was no reason to believe this one particular trope still applied. Leo might have just been recognizing that ghosts actually can be photographed in this universe. So it’s not until they actually spell it out in dialogue almost five episodes after the fact that I realized I’d been mistaken about what the intended purpose of that bit was. And by then, I’ve spent too much time wondering how ghosts can go to a hospital, visit the movies, have heart conditions, and so on, and I don’t feel like it was my fault that this information was so unclear to me. That’s Kekkai Sensen’s consistent fatal flaw; it throws everything under the sun at you, but it forgets to give you any sort of guide to navigate your way through the chaos and find the meaning at its core. And without meaning, the only real connection it makes with me is the killer soundtrack, the baller action, and consistent amusement at hearing so many Gintama VAs back to their old tricks in a vastly different context (”I’m always well-behaved.” Listen, I just can’t not hear Kagura in this performance, and it’s great.) Which, you know, Gintama’s fucking amazing, but this show is no Gintama.

Black and White

Thankfully, this set of episodes does give us context into at least one important part of the upcoming clash: Black and White’s dynamic. Or to be more precise, William and Mary’s dynamic. It turns out, William’s kind of a dark mirror to Leo; he also tracked down a being of unimaginable power in an attempt to make a deal for his sister’s safety. I’m guessing their parents were some of the “casters’ who fought to keep the world stable as the whole dimension collision was going on, and they paid with their lives, leaving the kids to fight on their own. But unlike Leo, he actually had the guts to follow through with the deal, and now he’s got one of the Elder 13 (I think?) sharing his body. I particularly like how creepy it looks when these two personalities switch, almost like they’re trading reflections and trapping each other in each other’s mirror (which kinda explains why Leo’s first meeting with Black felt so weird and out of nowhere; he was actually meeting the demon inside him, so it was as jarring for Black as it was for us to hear that Leo met “him” before actually meeting him). I suspect the ultimate showdown is going to occur between Leo and Black as they confront the sacrifices they’ve tried to make for their sisters, and wonder whether the paths they took were even worth it in the end. And it’s gonna get messy, because Black’s deal granted him with time-freezing powers that are sure to make things difficult. Will I end up caring about their struggle? Only time will tell.

Odds and Ends

-Black’s giving me major Haruhi Ouran vibes from this outfit. I see you, Bones.

-”I get called four-eyes.” The Kagura/Shinpachi fusion no one asked for, but we got anyway.

-”A business card?” lolololol

-Is it just me, or is the music kinda too loud? I almost can’t make out the actors.

-It’s interesting how the title cards are integrated into the in-universe fabric of the show itself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done before.

-weLP WHY IS THE COLOSSAL TITAN INSIDE THIS GUY THAT’S FREAKY AS FUCK

-”IF I’M GONNA BEAT HIM UP, IT’S NOW OR NEVER!” I don’t know why I expected any different, honestly.

-”What is it, pube-head?” Wow, Hijikata really let himself go, huh?

-”Castle in the Sky” Ha, jokes on you, I’ve actually seen that movie now!

-That moment when your master uses your own voice to drag you endlessly. Poor Zapp.

-akdsjasdkha the literal power of boners I guess

-”You’re all idle, aren’t you?” “We are!” pfft

-This villain team actually has a fun dynamic. I wish we could’ve seen more of them!

-”That was just an analogy. And I was drunk.” Best dad.

-Ooh, crying black tears is never a good sign.

First season’s almost over. Let’s see what the finale’s got for us... next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #kekkai sensen #blood blockade battlefront

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 5 years

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After

In case you were wondering what Fifty Shades of Grey for the teen set looks like, you’ll have a pretty good idea once you see After. Over-the-top romantic dramas are so not my thing, but I will concede they usually make great comedies. This film, based on the fan fiction of the same name, is a silly soapy bad boy/good girl meet at college scenario dialed up to a melodramatic 11. Does it actually succeed as a romance or is this just a pale imitation of the really terrible adult version? Well...

Honestly, it’s just so much. I can’t take it seriously because it’s so cringey in so many ways. I don’t blame the actors (much) because they’re really going for it, but this is so far removed from any kind of realistic interpersonal relationship that I can’t help but hold my head in my hands and weep.

Tessa (Josephine Young) meets Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin, whom you know as child Voldemort from the sixth Harry Potter) during her first week at college and is both repulsed and drawn to his mysterious bad-boy energy. He likes his coffee like he likes his clothes - black, and he reads F. Scott Fitzgerald for fun so you know he’s deep. Eventually the tension between them is just too much and they become involved, much to the disappointment of Tessa’s wet bread of a boyfriend, Noah (Dylan Arnold) and her mom (Selma Blair). It becomes them against the world until [movie trailer voiceover voice] Tessa learns something that changes EVERYTHING.

Some thoughts that are basically just a running tally of my reactions to every nonsensical thing that happened:

Oh my god I can’t believe Selma Blair is the mom??? God, nothing makes you feel your own mortality like the stars from teen films of your youth showing up as parents in the teen films of today.

In what world do upperclassmen stay in the dorms and get paired with incoming freshmen?

This boyfriend, Noah, has the personality of an egg salad sandwich.

Of fucking course Hardin’s reading The Great Gatsby jesus could there be a bigger neon sign flashing I AM A PRETENTIOUS DOUCHEBAG. Oh and if some arrogant motherfucker told me the end of The Great Gatsby was all a dream while I was naked I would reply “Get the fuck out of my room” rather than debating the thematic elements of the great American novel.

“I only drink black coffee” - god, these line readings are just so wooden and awful. And I feel like I’m playing “bad boy bingo” over here. The fact that he played young child Voldemort in Half-Blood Prince is not helping his stalker vibes.

These character tropes are so simplistic as to be laughable, and they’re all over the place. I also didn’t party in high school, but I wasn’t raised in a bubble, I knew what fucking Truth or Dare was. And why is Tessa dressed like Sarah Plain and Tall? But then on the flip side, I hate that thing in teen movies where everyone is scandalized that she’s 18 and has only had 1 boyfriend and is a virgin. Like - fucking YEAH. CAUSE SHE’S 18. THAT’S NOT WEIRD.

The side characters are far more interesting. Like the roommate, Steph (Khadijha Red Thunder), who is pretty great and also hella gay! I can’t tell how I decide about how the movie treats her queerness though. On the one hand, it feels very ~scandalous~ and Tessa’s mom is all like “sHe’S a BaD iNfLuEnCe” but on the other hand, Tessa doesn’t seem that uncomfortable with it and Steph is one of the only people who it seems like she has a healthy emotional attachment to.

Ok, as reluctant as I am to admit it, I am a sucker for an agonizingly slow almost kiss. And the movie does provide one pretty damn good almost kiss.

Listen, I have taught literature before and there is no way in hell 1) 2 students talk that much on the first day of class 2) you sum up the lecture with “and there you have it - that’s the power of a good book.”

Boys you don’t trust taking you into the woods is NOT ROMANTIC.

Why are his eyes open when they kiss??? Bruno Mars has a whole song about this! It’s fucking creepy!

I do appreciate that Tessa isn’t the typical Bella Swan fainting flower. She stands up for herself, she pushes back.

He’s so fake profound - “the silence is peaceful” - god I can’t with this dialogue.

I love how fast movie breakups are without anyone saying anything useful. All of my breakups have taken an hour MINIMUM but in movies it’s like “It isn’t what it looks like!” and someone walks away, and that’s it.

I don’t understand this scene in the library...college libraries don’t close? That’s like, one of their main purposes? Is to be open all night for studying?

Landon (Shane Paul McGhie) is a precious angel who deserves his own story rather than being stuck in this shitshow.

Has Peter Gallagher ever played anything BUT a rich father with a tumultuous relationship with his asshole son?

ENGLISH MAJORS CAN GET JOBS, YOU FUCK.

Ok, one legitimate shining moment of praise - I am so goddamn happy that they show safe sex and actually show the condom wrapper before the sex happens, not after. AND that there is clear, enthusiastic consent going on all around! More of this in movies, please.

JFC whoever wrote this clearly didn’t go to college - you can’t show one student another student’s work without their permission, it’s a goddamn FERPA violation, you don’t know how ANY OF THIS WORKS. And why was Hardin’s essay so long? Why would you write that whole paper and give it to your professor if it’s really basically just a letter to Tessa? You’d get a zero anyway, because I KNOW that shit did not meet the rubric requirements of your assignment, and now you’ve embarrassed yourself by showing it to another person??

Did I Cry? Not a fucking drop.

If this genre really speaks to you, there’s certainly some things here to like. But overall, I think most of us are better off before we ever watch this particular After.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#119in2019 #after movie #after movie review #after 2019 #josephine young #hero fiennes tiffin #selma blair #shane paul mcghie #khadijha red thunder #movie reviews #film reviews

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ginnyzero · 5 years

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Being a Fanfic Writer is Okay

AKA I love Fanfiction

Fan Fiction, a bit controversial and a bit time worn topic in writing and fandom circles. But let’s face it, fan fiction is older than dirt (Shakespeare anyone?) and isn’t about to go away any time soon. So, we might as well face the pink elephant in the room and address the issue. Besides, fan fiction is really personal to me. Of course, before I get all maudlin about my experiences with fan fiction, maybe we better discuss what fan fiction is, a bit of history and where to find it.

Fan fiction is at its core, a story written by someone who isn’t the original owner of a story. They are simply a fan writing in someone else’s world using someone else’s characters. After that, the possibilities are pretty much limitless and maybe we can discuss some of the more interesting aspects of fan fiction later. Some of our favorite classic stories might be considered fan fiction, Homer’s take on the Trojan War for example. Shakespeare wrote wild interpretations of the lives of British Kings. And modern day published fan fiction would be the books based on favorite television shows or popular games, video, role playing or even board games. A type of visual fan fiction would be the movie Clue! Based on the popular Clue board game. (Sadly not really an action movie, drat.) Star Wars Expanded Universe is a type of authorized published fan fiction. And who can forget the hundreds and hundreds of Star Trek novels based upon the episodes and later expounding upon the universe.

Speaking of Star Trek, the modern take on fan fiction really took off with the introduction of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Before the internet (what a phrase,) ambitious Trekkies created magazines that writers could submit their own stories about the Starship Enterprise and her crew and receive subscriptions of them in the mail. Many of these stories revolved around Kirk and Spock in a romantic relationship, which is still a huge pairing today. Other fandom groups copied this magazine model and later as the internet took off, they created online email groups, forums, journaling sites, chat rooms and individual sites, until someone got ambitious enough to create the first fan fiction archive. And suddenly, there was a place where any writer of any talent could post their work to one place and read everyone else’s work no matter the quality or fandom. And with the introduction of Japanese anime to America, the concept of fan fiction exploded.

And Sturgeon’s Law reared its ugly head. 90% of it is crap.

But that’s okay.

A lot of archives came and went. There are only a few that stayed the course; fanfiction.net, mediaminer.org, adult-fanfiction.org and the baby of the family, archiveofourown.org (AO3). Each of these rather interesting archives have a tumultuous history and interesting backstories, which I really don’t want to get into right now. Just saying, if you have a bunch of free time, want to read some free stories and have some fandoms you really love, then these are the places to go. It might take some time to wade through the truly awful stories to find the gems, but the side effect of fan fiction archives, are fan fiction recommendation lists! These handy lists have the best fan fiction from certain fandoms in the compliers subjective viewpoint! Always a good starting place.

As I said, fan fiction is really personal to me. As it says in my bio, I have no formal education about writing outside some interesting English classes in college. I got a C in research papers and grammar; a B in creating a pitch and an A in narrative storytelling. This probably should have told me something. What I do have, is a very long history and experience in fan fiction. I’m not comfortable with putting my pen name out there, let’s just say I’ve been writing fan fiction for over fifteen years in a variety of fandoms under a couple of different names. And in the beginning, I was one of those probably writing crap. And I didn’t care. I was writing and I was having fun. Writing fan fiction helped me through my bad high school experience (a lot of people have them) and it helped others too. And that was important to me. Is still important to me. I grew. I improved. I got to focus on things in fan fiction that I would never have focused on if I had been trying to write original works. And it helped me churn out idea after idea and see how I could string these ideas together to create good concepts and make better stories.

The greatest thing about fan fiction in my opinion, is that it gets people of every age (I have met as many forty year olds as I have twelve year olds) writing. And when people write, they also tend to read. Okay, so maybe they are reading in this vacuum bubble of fan fiction where 90% of it is crap and they may or may not improve, yet, they are reading and you know, that is okay. Because, let’s face it, 90% of the published world of books is crap too. And let us not get started on this idea of self-publishing. Seriously, anything that introduces a little bit of literacy to the world I’m all for. I’m not going to discourage anyone from taking up a pen or sitting down at a computer or type writer and taking these ideas they have in their head and getting them out there. Because, there is a certain magic to it. Let’s not stifle any form of creativity of the arts here.

Now writing and posting fan fiction are two completely different things. And if someone wants to write a story based on 10 Things I Hate About You (which in itself was an authorized fan fiction of the Taming of the Shrew, which is based on classic literature tropes) and keep on their computer for only themselves to read. That is fine! However, if they want to take that fantastical leap of courage and post it the internet in one fashion or another for the public to see, then that, is inspirational. Posting, which in this case is essentially publishing, something you have created from your heart for others to see and consume is perhaps one of the scariest things you can do. And I applaud them for their courage because the public is not a safe place and you never know what will happen. Now, I will say that a lot of fandom communities can be nice and welcoming. And then there are the communities that are insular and full of drama. And sometimes, publishing in the fan fiction world is like shouting into a canyon and hearing the echo and you might have to shout several times (meaning publish more than one story or more than one chapter of a story) to get any sort of response. Hey, being popular in one fandom, doesn’t automatically guarantee being popular in another fandom!

And that is where the sense of community steps in. Sure, you will probably get a lot of ‘squee, I love it, write more!’ responses, which are good for the ego and the soul. But there will be rare times, where you will meet people who love the same things you do and want to squee and discuss writing. About characterization, and plot bunnies hopping out of control and multiplying and isn’t so and so just hot as this character. And suddenly, one isn’t so alone anymore. You don’t feel exactly strange or like a hermit who sits alone in their bedroom typing for hours at a time. Out there, in the world, there are people just like you, doing the same things. And it is okay. People, as a community who like a certain thing, are being creative and sharing ideas. And that is wonderful. So, the execution of said ideas might not be wonderful, but now, the idea is out there in the universal consciousness waiting to be picked up by someone else, tinkered with and fine-tuned and maybe a better version of it, or maybe one just as bad, will be published to be seen and shared by more people so more interesting and diverse stories can be born. (Or, as it is so easy to see in fan fiction if you pay attention, a new fad of fiction tropes and mish mash of nonsensical ideas put together to create something absolutely crazy but mind numbingly fun that you have to go ‘what the fuck, who came up with this bullshit and how did it become so popular and why wasn’t it me? [Superwholock, Omegaverse, Soulbonding])

Now we could discuss the legality of fan fiction, or some of the crazy views that published authors have about fan fiction (Anne McCaffery, George RR Martin), or some of the awesome things that have happened to people because of their fan fiction and the original creators being okay with it (Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Joss Whedon). Or the crazy things that some fan fiction writers do to take their fan fiction and make it into original fiction (Cassandra Claire, 50 Shades of Grey.) But those could take a couple thousand more words and some of it sincerely bewilders me.

Fan fiction is great. I enjoy writing it. And I also enjoy reading it when I have time. There is nothing wrong with people, in their spare time, writing fluffy and sometimes not so fluffy stories about their favorite characters in their favorite universes. There are a lot more horrible things they could be doing than writing stories about fictional people and posting it on the internet.

Now, when I get published (and I say when, not if because I must believe in the when), as a matter of course and a, for your information, I won’t be reading any fan fiction of my own works. (Though, I’d love to keep track of statistics for it, that would be amusing.) It comes down to the universal consciousness once again. If one of those stories someone writes about my work has an amazing idea and I read it, later forget about it, and then think I come up with it on my own and use that idea, then, well, I could be sued. (It has happened.) It is unlikely that the fan fiction writer will win (there is precedent about this), but I would still feel awful. So it is just better all around if I don’t read fan fiction of my own work. Which for me is kind of sadness, but hey, it is a fact of life.

That being said. I hope that I do inspire people to write their own crazy times using my characters or creating their own characters and putting them in my world, or crossing my world into their other favorite worlds. Because, if I wasn’t so busy writing the original world, I’d probably be doing the same thing. There is nothing wrong with people having a good time and enjoying themselves. In fact, if it helps get them through a bad place in their life, then good for them.

Not that the die hard fan fiction writers need permission from me. But those who aren’t so certain, and maybe worry a bit too much or have been told that writing original is superior to writing fan fiction and believed it. Writing fan fiction is okay. Don’t beat yourself up over it and go out there and have fun. Go on, get your fanfic on!

#fan fiction #fan fic #fan fic history #writing #writblr #writeblr

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