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unstable-samurai · 11 days

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Until You're Mine (Jealous Girlfriend) - smut

Momo x Male Reader

Word Count: 4k

Tags: toxic relationship, jealous girlfriend, non-linear story, possessive girlfriend, first sex, penetration, boobjob, facial

She was awake when he arrived. She heard the door latch turn twice as it was unlocked. There were always two turns, fast and firm. Y/N saw her lying on the couch, watching another animated movie. It was the kind of movie she looked for when she really needed to be distracted, her escape valve or something, so seeing her there in front of the TV close to midnight (it was much later than that, but he had no idea), turned on na emergency light in his mind.

Normally he was the owl of that house.

“Hey baby, why’re you still awake?” he asked. “I said you didn’t have to wait for me.”

“I just felt like watching a Studio Ghibli film. Only that.” She explained without looking at him.

No fucking way it was just that. She was frowning. One of those moments where Momo turned into a bomb and it was up to Y/N to disarm it without it exploding. The problem was that this was an impossible task to do, any wire he cut would result in an explosion. And that was the last thing he wanted. His head was already a battlefield in itself. That damn company party had exhausted his social battery, which wasn’t much anyway. Y/N didn’t have the courage to provoke an aerial bombardment that night.

"OK. Is the film already close to the end? I can see it with you.”

He sat on the left end of the sofa, Momo didn't mind moving his legs so he could have more space.

“Did you have fun there?” she asked.

"Yes. Was cool."

"Just that? No details?" she questioned him quite insistently.

“You’re watching the movie, I don’t want to disturb you. In the morning I’ll tell you everything.”

Y/N had his head focused on the bath he was going to take in a while and how he was going to sink his head into the pillow. No more plastic masks, fake laughs, shallow people, please.

She paused the movie.

“What a ridiculous excuse. It sounds like you were trying to hide the things that happened at the party.”

“No, it doesn’t sound…” He was almost sure of it.

“Yes it does, you bastard.”

“It wasn’t even a party. We were all among work colleagues.”

“I've been to enough parties to know that it was YES a party. Loud music, drinks, pool, snacks. The complete package.”

“It’s a damn modern company, okay? They please the employees and pretend to be cool so that we forget the slavery we are subjected to on a daily basis. You kids had fun on Saturday and you’ll work overtime on Monday, okay?”

“Wait, I made a mistake. In fact: VIP package. They even hired prostitutes. Five star service.”

“Are you high or what?”

He was too tired to read the signs.

“I saw the way she kept touching you. The giggles... As if you were the funniest clown on the planet and she was a fucking hyena.”

Y/N abruptly stood up from the couch. He had finally understood everything. The last spark of his neurons, probably.

“There were no prostitutes. And I wasn't chatting up with any girls.”

"Oh, really?" She stood up too. “Let me refresh your memory, dear: short black hair, horse smile, lilac dress, can't stand alone unless she's supported by a man, small tits... Seriously, I don't know why she decided to wear that dress with cleavage if there was nothing there to show. Someone should tell her the truth. So, does this remind you of anyone, my love?”

The fucking bomb exploded in his hand.

“That was Rachel, a friend from work. How the hell did you see what was going on at the party?”

Momo laughed sadistically. Her wickedly beautiful eyes looked at him with intensity as she asked:

“Are you afraid?”

"No. I didn't do anything wrong to get scared. Did someone record me at the party?”

"Yes. And it wasn't just that. I also saw the stories of those who were at the party and you appeared in some of them in the corners. I saw everything.”

‡

Here's a little overview of this relationship: A year and a half of dating. They met through mutual friends and the first deep contact was delayed, but when it happened it ended up becoming a path of no return. Y/N avoided her as much as he could, not in a way that would be noticeable and make him seem rude. But we were talking about an incredibly beautiful woman, aware of her attractiveness and unfettered by modesty. She was with a group of eight other beautiful and popular girls. Yes, she was elite. High caliber, my friend. Well, he was... quiet, an avid reader, calm and sometimes melancholic, but he loved being with his friends and enjoying them on the weekends, respecting his limits, of course. When he saw Momo for the first time he cowardly ignored her. She looks stunning in front of his eyes, wearing a short denim skirt, a baby tee that leaves her sculpted abs on display and her hair flowing in the wind as she dances. There was no way to predict that the plan would backfire; by not noticing her, Y/N became one of the few guys who didn't try to flirt with her. Apathetic guy, but handsome enough to take risks, the little boy who only swims in the shallow end, a plastic armor he forced himself to wear.

The reason? Momo didn't know, but she wanted to find out.

On one of the many night outs where they bumped into each other, Momo skillfully simulated an intimacy that clearly didn't exist between them, talking to Y/N closely, fake accidental touches, and killer eye contact. Abruptly, intimacy between them was forged and evolved in a short space of time. After a while it was no longer strange when they were among friends and Momo sat on his lap, or when she felt tired and rested her head on his shoulder. And Y/N could play hard to get, but he loved the attention he got from Momo, the controversial “bad bitch” (as some girls who didn't like Momo called her), the most attractive girl he knew was always glued to him, and the sexual chemistry that grew over time intoxicated his ego. Being with her made him feel good and more confident and also… shit, she was more than a superficial person or 'just another one of those teasing girls' like a lot of guys used to think. She had a unique way, attitude and things to say too.

‡

“Were you acting like a stalker all night? Seriously, watching stories of other people trying to see me from the corners is a fucking weird thing.”

“And you've been acting like you don't have a girlfriend all night? I almost called Jihyo to drive me to this party to say a few things to that bitch. But I’m not that kind of girlfriend.”

“What is the reason we are arguing? This shit doesn't make sense. I'm exhausted..."

“Have you forgotten your promise? You told me you would arrive early...”

“I didn��t look at the time when I was there. I thought it was still early when I was leaving the party.”

A cynical laugh escaped Momo's mouth.

“You didn't even bother to look at your fucking cell phone to see the time. What is your problem?"

Y/N sighed. He should have already known that going to this party wouldn't be a good idea.

“You know I only went to the party to establish some contacts with the other branch. The damn job forces me to maintain a good relationship with everyone.”

"Poor boy! Does it also force you to talk to sluts?”

"This again?!”

“A little bird told me you were too close to each other on the couch.”

“Who was this damn person?”

“Why blow the heroine’s cover? Maybe she’ll be there again at the next parties.”

“Would you like it if I hired someone to follow you around?”

"Go ahead. I have nothing to hide, because I have consideration and respect for you, asshole!”

“According to you, I cheated you just by sitting on a couch talking to a co-worker. A colleague who can help me move up in the company as she has just been promoted.”

“Apparently it’s not just at work where she likes to be promoted.”

"What do you want from me?" he asked, feeling defeated.

"You know what I want."

“Honestly, I don't know. God must be punishing me for some sin I committed, that’s the only explanation.”

“Make me your girlfriend or your tormentor. You decide." She took a step forward. “You know I could be with anyone. But I'm with you ‘cause I love you, silly.”

If only there wasn't something genuine about it all.

‡

Being alone with her knocking down topic after topic like dominoes was so fucking enjoyable, the way she laughed, the way she listened to him (Momo didn't interrupt him even during the long pauses he took when he needed to organize his line of reasoning, a mere peculiarity of his but which never went under her radar), the way she could be incredibly silly at times and, even without sharing many common interests, Momo liked having him explain things that were previously uninteresting to her. This attention he received was blinding and addictive. Growing up in a harmful and neglectful home, neediness was his compass and his weakness. But he never showed signs. Y/N was good at disguising it... He thought so.

Their first sex was an unforgettable moment, a path of no return, in the same way that a criminal remembers the moment of the crime that sentenced him to prison. It occurred when they were on a camping trip, good friends gathered, each to their own tent, campfire, marshmallows, snacks, stupid horror stories, and wine. One of the few moments where he felt slightly intimidated around her, as he felt Momo watching him like a predator, and after each glass of wine she became more and more intoxicated, grabbing Y/N from behind and wrapping her arms around him. “It’s very cold here” she whispered in his ear. And Y/N couldn't tell if it was the wind or Momo's velvety voice so close to him that made him shiver.

The hours passed incredibly quickly, eventually everyone retreated to their tents, and eventually there was a slow cessation of the noises of people, finally leaving only the cold whistle of the wind, the rustle of leaves in the trees that surrounded the hill where they were camped and the symphony of insects orchestrated by crickets and cicadas.

He heard sneaky footsteps. It was certainly someone who needed to take a piss and didn't want to wake the others. But the footsteps got louder and louder until he noticed that someone was actually coming to his tent, stopping in front of the entrance. The flash on his cell phone was on (he was reading a book and the damn camp lamp was emitting a horrible orange light), so he pointed the light at the entrance of the tent and saw a very familiar silhouette.

“It’s me, Momo. Let me in!" she whispered. "Quickly!"

Y/N lowered the zipper, opening the way for her.

“What are you doing up?” he asked.

“I was sleepless so I decided to come and check on you.”

"I am well thanks."

She was wearing comfortable clothes. Striped pajama pants, a sweatshirt that was too big on her and her hair loose and messy. Y/N noticed that Momo had removed her makeup. It was the first time he had seen her like that.

"What are you reading?" Momo asked as she sat down.

“Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller.”

"Cool! What is it about?!"

How the hell was he going to explain this?

“About a guy living in Paris.”

"It seems good. Read a chapter to me.”

"How old are you?"

“Don’t be annoying. Let's do it like this: I point the cell phone's flash at the book and you hold it while you read to me. This way we can read lying down.”

Hard to refuse, hard to say 'no' to her.

‡

“You know I love you too, Momori.” he said

Momo was wearing his long-sleeved shirt, she loved that shirt and, truth be told, it looked incredibly good on her. The legs so sensually exposed... Was that still a discussion?

“Sometimes you make me doubt this love, baby. Do you like making me look crazy? I swear to God you love seeing me jealous. When I get like this, does it make you horny?”

“No” he lied to one of the questions.

“You know how I am, Y/N.” One more step forward. She could touch him if she wanted. “And I only ask one thing: don’t talk to other girls. We establish a limit and then cross it, what is the purpose?”

Now closer he could smell her, her body that was warmed by the blanket. Nipples hardened through the fabric of her clothing.

“You look so beautiful...” he blurted out of her mouth.

“But I don’t think I’m beautiful enough for you since you try to be with other girls when I’m not around.”

"Is not true. I only have eyes for you, Momori.”

With a decisive gesture she grabbed Y/N by the collar of his social shirt. A noise escaped his mouth. Slowly she ordered:

“Say you are mine. Say you belong to me.”

‡

He felt her head moving on his chest, he thought she was just looking for a comfortable position, until he was surprised by a kiss on the neck. And another one. And another, and they were getting more and more intense.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he lowered the book, the air escaping from her mouth.

“This book is really interesting and even put me in the mood to do something more fun.”

"What are you talking about?"

He had his hands pressed into Momo's arms, but he made no real effort to push her away.

“I know what you think about me. I know what you want from me. Don’t try to hide it now.” Her voice breathy and wavering. “I want to fuck you so bad, fuck!”

"Here?"

"Now!”

Y/N turned Momo around, placing her back on the floor and then getting on top of her.

“Momo…” His head was a hurricane. Was this really happening? “I've imagined the two of us doing this, but I never thought it could actually happen.”

There was a pause that was filled by a kiss.

“I don’t think you know how hot you are. Other girls were also eyeing you, so I decided to act quickly.”

Y/N lifted Momo's sweatshirt, and was able to appreciate and touch her abs for the first time. Kissing her abdomen was like an achievement, she knew how beautiful it was, that's why she never made a point of hiding it. The soft, slightly sweaty skin met his lips in a mix of sensations.

He lifted her sweatshirt a little more, exposing her juicy boobs. They were big, he knew that, but the first glimpse paralyzed him for an instant, he was amazed, and his hand filled with desire wasted no time in grabbing one of the tits while his mouth sucked the other..

“Oh, Y/N” she moaned.

The cell phone's flashlight went out as they rolled from side to side in the camping tent. Surrounded by the weak orange light of the camp lantern, the senses now seemed more heightened, the touches more intense and brazen, the breathing more labored and an uncontrollable lust, noticeable in several ways, such as Momo's pussy that wet his fingers when he touched her down there.

‡

“I belong to you” he declared. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I am only yours, Momori.”

She smiled satisfied.

"Sit down!" she exclaimed harshly, and pushed him onto the couch. Momo certainly knew how to impose herself when she wanted, the mechanism of submitting him to her will through horny never failed. Sitting on his lap, she said: “You like to make me suffer, you know that? You like having your girlfriend mad so she can have hard sex with you and get you back on track. So depraved, baby!”

It was partly true, although he wasn't consciously acting to make her jealous. The problem was that this wasn't a difficult task, the girl was possessive as hell, so the options fluctuated between becoming a puppy on a leash or floating on the waves of a tide that could occasionally get... Aggressive.

"Do not say that. I don’t like making you feel bad.”

She kissed him, she felt Y/N getting excited down there.

“And yet you hurt me.”

He couldn't refute it, so her tongue had another use; warm and wet, she played with Momo's tongue. She sighed when he lightly bit her lower lip, slowly removing the pressure, enjoying her taste like a professional taster.

“It was never my intention,” he said. “Your jealousy is sick.”

“Living with you is hell, you know that?” she revealed. “But you always make me feel so surrendered." Momo slowly touched her nose to Y/N's. She whispered: "It’s a fucking hell, baby.”

Instead of responding, he decided to dedicate a series of kisses to her neck. Momo loved it, it was her weakness. She smiled while letting out small moans of satisfaction.

Momo stroked his dick and under the fabric of his underwear and pants he was already completely hard, waiting for her. She rubbed her hand on his dick eagerly while he felt her breasts and left hickey marks on her neck.

“Oh baby, I want your cock in my pussy so bad!”

‡

He covered her mouth with his hand while he penetrated her deeply. The friends' camping tents were close to Y/N's, and Momo was moaning loudly, so it wouldn't be difficult to hear her in the silence of the night.

“Shhh! You can’t make noise like that!” he said breathlessly.

“It’s fucking hard. Your dick is really big.”

At one point she crossed her legs around Y/N's waist and he could feel her pussy getting tighter and wetter. Immediately Y/N laid his body under hers, penetrating her with force, feeling her pussy swallow his cock eager for pleasure. She moaned loudly, Y/N sucked on her tongue in an attempt to suppress some of the noise, Momo's eyes rolling back in pleasure as her legs tightened around him, pulling him deeper, as if she could never have him inside enough. Each thrust was an explosion of raw sensation, her insides wetting his cock urgently as he fucked her with wild love, each movement driven by desire that had been postponed for too long.

“Lie on your side!” Y/N asked.

He watched her with burning lust, his eyes fixed on her pert ass, eager to possess her in a different way. With one quick movement, he positioned himself behind her, his cock pulsing with anticipation as he slid in, feeling enveloped by the warm wetness of her wet pussy. He gripped Momo tightly, his hands marking her skin as he fucked her sideways, each thrust sending waves of electric pleasure throughout her body. Momo's moans filled the air, soft and sweet, mixing with the sounds of the wet friction his dick made as it slid inside her. All the touches, the intimate conversations, the looks that met and lost each other when they were in the circle of friends, the jealousy they hid from each other when one of them was talking to someone else, all these things led them to this moment , and now they assumed this feeling… making love.

Momo showed some of her talent when she rode his dick with her back to him, Y/N's body rippling with desire as she rode him with full force. Her hips moved with an erotic cadence, his cock disappearing inside her with each thrust as if he were plunging into a warm ocean. He squeezed Momo's fat ass, guiding her movements as she gave herself over to the frenzy of sex, her moans intensifying with each thrust – fuck if anyone would hear. The tension between them was palpable, the air in the tent stifling as they neared their climax. And then, finally, Momo squirted, her body shaking with the intensity of her orgasm, as Y/N watched her in wonder in the light of the camp lantern, her silhouette writhing with pleasure, so perfect, so sensual that he could fill her of cum at that moment.

Something he didn't do.

Things happened so fast that Y/N didn't have time to put on a condom. Well, truth be told, he DID NOT have a condom in his tent (not the kind of thing you think about taking on a camping trip with friends when you're a single guy).

“Cum for me, baby” she asked, her voice full of lust. “Where do you want to cum?”

“On your tits.”

It was one of Y/N's fantasies, it usually came to his mind when he saw Momo with cleavage. Now it all seemed so intentional...

Y/N stood on top of Momo, his desire burning so strong he could barely think straight. With shaking hands, he grabbed Momo's massive boobs, feeling his hard-on grow as he squeezed them tightly. Y/N wanted to feel every inch of that soft flesh surrounding his thick cock, he wanted to sink into that delicious sensation until he lost his mind. And then, without further hesitation, he began to move frantically, sliding his hard cock between Momo's breasts with great desire. Loud moans echoed through the tent as he gave in to the pleasure of that sensation, losing himself in the sensation of heat and pressure.

“You gonna cum for me, huh?” she asked between moans, making a point of maintaining latent eye contact while smiling naughty.

“Yeah, I'm gonna cum for you, baby! You're gonna make me cum, Momo.”

“please please, cum for me!! Yeah! Cum for your naughty babygirl...” she begged, hot as fuck, while biting her lower lip like a horny bitch.

And when Y/N finally reached the edge he let out a primal groan, his orgasm exploding in a hot shot over Momo's boobs and face. She looked so beautiful like that in the light of the camp lamp. Y/N brushed her face with his dick, making a nice mess on that adorable little face, and she smiled while this happened, Momo smiled until he finished his art, she finished the job by licking what was left on the head of his dick.

Uninhibited from any shyness, thanks to the endorphins his brain had released, he smiled at her, finding her the most beautiful woman in the world, and into Momo's precious eyes, Y/N confessed: 'I wanna love you.’

‡

It's common to look for culprits in a dysfunctional relationship, who manipulates who, the prisoner and the jailer and all that old story. It's hard to admit that sometimes there is a dark pleasure in predicting events, returning to the same place that is your refuge and your sentence. Most people shoot at "emotional dependence", but few dare to target "connivance". Y/N felt like he was part of the second option. Repeat the fucking pattern, see the wheel spin in the same direction, the same trip as before. It's your pit of lies and acceptance, man, you smell the stench and yet you insist on moving forward, it's not much different than a dog licking its own vomit. At the end of the day, no one will tell you that you deserve better.

If you really deserve it.

"I remember what you said to me that night in the camping tent." She whispered, lying under his chest. "When we had sex for the first time. 'I wanna love you'. That's what you said. Your voice was so sweet and calm. I think that's when I realized that my feelings for you were really special."

The two were snuggled in bed, protected from the cold by the blankets, completely naked after having sex. This was always how fights ended, and the question that arose was: what's the next thing, now? An apology? Unfounded promises about how to improve as a person? Affectionate words to dissolve what was said during the fight? It was a mystery box.

"Those were the words? I honestly don't remember the exact words clearly."

"That's exactly what you told me. I slept with you in the camping tent feeling very happy."

"I was happy to be with you too."

"But at that time I didn't realize that you were actually still trying to fall in love with me. You wanted to love me, but you didn't really love me yet."

"I was a little confused at that time."

"What now? Are you still trying to love me?"

"I love you, Momori. but at the same time... I don't think we work together.”

"We agreed to it then. And honestly, does it matter?"

"I don't know. I feel like it doesn't matter anymore."

"Yeah! And look, we're not the only couple to go through problems like this. We're not alone in this, baby. Forget that Hollywood bullshit about perfect couples. It's not real. It's okay for me to stay like this, as long as we stay together."

"We always fix things."

"Making love is a great way to solve problems. That's our formula."

"Come here, my love" he said.

A/N: sorry for any grammar errors 🖖

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churchofthecomet · 4 months

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I haven't watched Leverage in a while, see my last complaint post about their Stuxnet episode. But in the meantime I've been consuming other media, and it just struck me how equal the dynamic is between all of the Leverage characters.

Every character in this show is competent. They each have Their Thing that They Do, and if one of them is absent for an episode, the rest of the team suffers until they get back. I complain about them short-changing Hardison by making the tech stuff unrealistic and incomprehensible (so you can't get a feel for how good he is at it, like you can with Eliot punching people -- although if I knew more about fighting I'm sure I'd be complaining about Eliot's scenes too). But at least within the narrative he is really good at his job, and the other team members know it. Likewise for Eliot, Parker, Nate, and Sophie -- they're each at the top of their respective classes. They have separate specialties and they're amazing at those specialties.

And what's more, the interpersonal dynamics reflect this. Nate is an asshole to the rest of them, but there are FOUR OF THEM so it balances him out -- they can commiserate with each other, sit him down and have a talk with him, threaten to strike, whatever, and their side of the relationship is treated with importance because the team couldn't function without them.

Hardison and Eliot's sniping is just friendly banter, and they know it. Everyone is so supportive of Parker's social problems. Sophie is the one with the most traditionally-feminine skillset, something which might be demeaned in another show (and I have some complaints with Leverage's treatment of her), but she's taken seriously both in-universe and by the show itself. They all work wonderfully together. They balance each other out, and they become more than the sum of their parts.

Contrast this with the dynamics in a bunch of other modern media. Let's grab my favorite punching bag of late, BBC Sherlock. Sherlock is far and away the more useful member of the Sherlock-and-John team. The narrative places incredible weight on his intelligence, and John is stuck in a support role. Sherlock is also mean to John, and since John is one person (without much of a spine for standing up to Sherlock!) it feels utterly abusive. The "friendly banter" isn't banter. The "aww look they really DO care about each other" moments were enough for me when I was 13 or 14, but now it just feels like a cycle of abuse. The dynamic is fundamentally not equal. If I'm watching a TV show and I start to think "man character A really needs like 6 months of therapy to stop hating themself and they NEED to leave character B," when the show's message is "character A and character B are a match made in heaven you guys," the show has failed.

See also Our Flag Means Death season 2 with the relationship between... honestly Ed and the rest of the crew, but mostly Ed and Stede. Ed is the best pirate anyone's ever seen -- the rest of them are pretty good but no match for him. The one guy who had a chance of standing up to Ed and equalizing things got killed off at the end of the season, and Stede (as we've seen) lacks a spine to stand up to Ed. Controversial take but Good Omens might be heading in this direction? They defanged Aziraphale and made him into way more of a softie than the book or Season 1 imply. Meanwhile Crowley is Competent and Right About Everything by comparison. The general pattern here is that couples (or whatever the fuck was going on with BBC Sherlock and John) are worse off. I don't know if it's lasting heteronormativity or "two-person dynamics are hard," but the urge to make sunshine-and-stormcloud pairings where the stormcloud acts like shit towards the sunshine is just... too strong.

Leverage is this rare show that refuses to shit on any of its protagonists. Everyone's in the loop, everyone sees some character development, and it fucking RULES. I wish they could make more TV shows like this in 2024.

#leverage #ofmd critical #bbc sherlock critical #good omens critical #(only slightly)#found families #i need leverage but with like even better politics pleaseeee #i think Firefly is also good at this #or maybe i just thought Mal and Wash were hot? can't tell #i should go rewatch it

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as-i-watch · 8 months

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Maybe it’s just me, but something that left a bad taste in my mouth about how Luffy confronts Zeff is that, since Krieg & Gin aren’t there to present an abusive power dynamic that’s a foil to Sanji & Zeff, that fell onto Garp instead. Which to me (and a non-fan who was watching with me) made it feel like Luffy was projecting Garp onto Zeff and didn’t actually care about Sanji’s problems since he never touches base with Sanji in the episode again, even after it becomes obvious he got it all wrong... which feels weird for a major character’s introduction. And is also is a shame, because Taz knocks it out of the park and worked so hard to prepare for the role.

Same with that argument scene about Zoro fighting Mihawk, to a lesser extent. Luffy being hesitant and then agreeing kinda comes across like he only said yes because he’s reminded of Garp again, so he can have a “oh shit was my grandpa right all along” moment when Zoro’s defeated. Which is certainly a convention of modern tv drama, but the idea that this major character beat only happens so the protagonist can angst about it for a while felt so antithetical to how One Piece treats the crew and their goals/problems.

Yeah i agree. I dont know to what extent it was intentional.

The scene with Zeff really reads like he's projecting Garp, which is also weird bc they never had a rivalry on itself, but rather a more like 'agree to disagree' 'im gonna kick your butt / you wish' kinda dynamic. Neither of them takes shit seriously and thats the charm too

But here Luffy comes across like he actively whant to defy Garp, and in the next ep Garp is so angry about Luffy. So you have scenes like those that have a very different read under that light

The prior figh moment was also strange. It was strange that he didnt support it and then went ok when mentioning dreams. Its true Luffy would change his mind that easily, but something was off

And in the next ep Nami spends a lot of time telling Luffy he has to make the hard choices and be a captain, when actually Luffy supporting the crew's dreams, even in failure, is a big part of it all. But again it doesnt come across like that, thats not the main point they are making. Instead of the 'no matter he lost it was worth it bc he went after his dream' speech Luffy makes outloud, it reads more 'shit maybe im being foolish chasing my dream'

I dont shame any of this, its just the direction they went with, which is different and is part of what adapting to a different platform and a new public was going to mean too

#ask #ask: opla

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therealvinelle · 3 years

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Carlisle wouldn’t want to be human

This really goes for most of the Cullens, Rosalie excepted (I think Edward would last one day without his telepathy and superpowers before this happened (well honestly I think his denial would keep him from ever admitting this but this isn’t an Edward post so we’re cutting this thought short right now before it spirals)), but I see both Edward and general fandom just sort of take it for granted that if anyone offered Carlisle a miraculous human again pill (and I’m just picturing that as some hokey pill being sold on ad TV) he’d praise Jesus and swallow that down immediately, and I’ve to see anybody argue with that so here I go.

First of, if Carlisle were to suddenly find himself human again I have every belief that Aro would materialize and go, “My dear Carlisle has been made a human? How tragic! Never fear, old friend, I’ll fix that for you. Om nom nom.” and then Carlisle would not be human. And I’m only half joking when I say that, because Carlisle has a lot of friends, and while his animal diet is all well and good, if he were to actually do something like this they’d be very sad his human obsession has gone too far and stage an intervention. “We’re doing this because we love you, Carlisle. Now please try not to be too delicious. Om nom nom.” And then we’re back to Carlisle being a vampire again, though with slightly longer hair this time.

More seriously, if Carlisle was offered this miracle pill, then as a doctor he’d probably be less than enthused about it. He was there to see what happened to the Native Americans when the Europeans came carrying brand new disease, and after viruses and bacteria have had 350 years and a globalized planet to evolve, our seventeenth century priest is going to be in trouble. He’s unvaccinated to boot. He also has a completely different intestinal bacterial flora than modern humans do, which I imagine would not be fun for his digestion. This guy would be a sickly, constipated mess.

As for the main reason - why would Carlisle ever want to be human?

Before he’d mastered his thirst, then he’d probably feel obligated to. For as long as he hadn’t mastered it there was always the risk of him losing control and killing somebody. In his early days he certainly would have jumped on the chance. But none of this is a problem anymore.

So, to take the reasons why he wouldn’t say yes in the present day - first of, why would he not want to be a vampire? He is past worrying about his thirst. His vampirism is at this point purely an asset to him. It makes him great at his job. All his friends and family are vampires. If he were to become human again, he’d not just suddenly suck at his job (as I imagine he has incorporated his super senses into his work to the point where he would pretty much have to learn everything anew if he still wanted to be a doctor), his brain would be slow and limited, and he could never see his cherished friends, people he has known for centuries, again. He’d have to start over with another fake identity in a new place, and sure, this time he could stay until he died of old age, but he’d still be lying to everybody he met about his identity. Carlisle is very much a social butterfly, and he’d be unable to form meaningful friendships when he could never get truly personal with anybody.

In other words, Carlisle would be signing himself up for a lonely life of being average if not bad at his work. And his work is incredibly important to him.

Then there’s the fact that as a doctor, modern viruses aside, when it comes to health problems Carlisle has seen it all. He would know better than everybody that even if the modern viruses don’t make him a sickly mess, even if he doesn’t join the statistics of people who die in tragic accidents, he could still get a brain aneurism at the age of 24 and his human LARP is over. And who knows, maybe he had some nasty disease lurking in his DNA just waiting to ruin his life had he lived long enough, such as ALS. But assuming that Carlisle says “I’LL RISK IT”, even if he makes it to an older age, aging is no joke. Dementia, gout, incontinence, the general and inevitable decline of his body - this is the looming shadow hanging over all our heads. For an immortal who has seen countless humans succumb to it, why choose this?

And for what?

So he could have kids of his own, presumably with Esme?

He has a whole family. Rosalie and Edward especially are his children. Just, this guy loves his whole family so much, I can’t imagine he’d throw them aside in favor of some faceless toddler concept. I also don’t think he’d even want kids of his own, but I think that’s for another post. And also mostly a vibe.

So he could grow old with Esme?

Again - why? She’d be just as much an outcast as he, and face all the same health risks (except I suppose for the modern viruses, she hasn’t been dead for that long). I can’t imagine he’d want to sit idly by and watch her either die ahead of schedule, or live long enough to become unable to care for herself.

Then there’s the fact that at most he’d have six or seven decades. To him, that’s just the blink of an eye. And, again, a very unpleasant blink where he loses everything, is less intelligent, and slowly dies.

Lastly there’s the fact that the human he was is dead, his time has passed. Carlisle doesn’t belong in the human world any longer. He interacts with it because helping humans gives him joy and meaning in life, but he’s a man out of his time and this brave new world is not the one he once lived in. He would not in any way belong, and I think he knows that quite well.

Just, the whole idea that Carlisle would want this is founded on Carlisle having some sort of innate worship of humans where being human is inherently better. I’m sorry, but that’s Edward. If Carlisle felt this way, he wouldn’t be turning others into vampires, and he wouldn’t have vampire friends all over the globe. To him, thirst isn’t a problem, and his vampirism means he can save more humans than he otherwise would. The remaining concern would be God, but Carlisle’s life philosophy is that being a vampire is not by itself a sin, so he’s fine in that regard too.

In summation, I think Carlisle is quite happy being a vampire, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

#carlisle cullen #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #note on the intestinal bacterial flora #a study was done on an african tribe whose members were eating the same food as their ancestors had for thousands of years #and a group of regular americans #they switched diets #and the african tribesmembers' gut flora was noticeably decreased after just a few weeks #and as far as i remember this was irreversible change #while the modern americans did not have noticeable change #so if i understand that correctly then this might not be such a big problem for carlisle #but it's still food for thought #and i imagine the transition period would suck #he'd probably just take the easy way out and eat unprocessed organic food #be that hipster #vegan vampire and hipster human #... i'm quitting this 'carlisle's indigestion combat tactics' tag spiral #before it gets weirder #point is this guy would lose everything #he could never see his friends again #and in exchange he gets to give a forced smile and say 'yay. i'm human. yayy...'

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silentfcknhill · 3 years

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FAVORITE SHOWS IN POSTERS

Well, we’re back for another installment of this tagged meme, this time for TV shows! I also stole this from/was indirectly tagged by @jcmorrigan. My taste in shows also differs a bit from my taste in movies, as I tend to like a lot of comedy shows with not as many horror ones. I’m not into shows as much as movies overall, but there are some that I am very passionate about so I picked twenty again. So, here we go for part 2, in order:

1. Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend Of Korra (2005-2014)

I'm including these as one show since they take place in the same universe and tell a continuation of the same overall plot. Altogether this is probably the best piece of media to ever exist, including movies. It has so many great characters and villains especially and some of the most epic sequences, charming humor and heartwarming moments ever. I've never met a person who didn't like these shows, even people who normally don't like cartoons. My dad, who is biased against animation? He loved it. My mother? She loved it, watched it with her multiple times. My grandmother? Loved it. My ex-boyfriend? Loved it. My best friend? Loved it. I dare anyone not to, and I'm so glad it's making a resurgence since it's on Netflix for a new generation to enjoy.

2. Black Butler (2008-2014)

I never was big into anime growing up and only really started watching anime when I was like 16 and above, but this is one of the exceptions because holy shit is it ever dark and epic. I'm not sure I'd really recommend it for kids, it's more of a teens and young adults kind of anime and that's probably why it's so good, because it isn't afraid to explore dark and mature topics and do it with all of the intensity and gravitas required to do said topics justice. It has lots of great characters, and the story of demons who make deals with children who have a dark side is fun to watch play out.

3. Seinfeld (1989-1998)

My dad was a huge fan of this show so I watched it growing up since I was a toddler and it became a classic for me. I've watched thw hole show through at least 8 times, and I'll never stop because it never gets old or boring. It's also my only comfort show when I'm having a panic attack because of one time a few years ago when I was having a drug-induced psychosis episode and watching it calmed me down, so now it's like the opposite of a trigger and whenever I'm having an episode or something I watch it to bring me back to reality. For that reason it's more than a show to me, it's a medical treatment and I'm forever grateful to it.

4. The Good Place (2016-2020)

The big four shows made my Michael Schur all made it on this post (The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Office and Parks And Recreation), either in the main list of the honorable mentions, but this is my personal favorite of the four. It's so funny, quirky, relatable and basically tailor-made to suit my interests. Not only is it an entertaining and wholesome show, but I think watching it helped me come to terms with a lot of things like mortality, ethics, philosophy, religion and my relationships with other people. It gets alot of different viewpoints across and if you're a very analytical and philosophical person like me you'll probably enjoy seeing it all play out. Not to mention, every single character is 'favorite character' material. It's rare you find a show with no filler characters in the main cast, but I genuinely can't choose who is best.

5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013-?)

Another of Michael Schur's shows, this one is just barely under The Good Place and to be honest it was tough to pick my favorite between the two because they're both equally funny. I know it's kind of controversial right now because of the whole law enforcement thing, but I actually think they do a good job of handling social issues in the show and remaining respectful of real-life systemic problems. As for the characters, this is another one of those shows where every single character is gold and I think that tends to be a trend among Schur's shows in general. He produces damn good comedy, and damn good characters. I can't wait to see what they bring next.

6. Rick And Morty (2013-?)

This is unfortunately one of those cases of 'great show, horrible fandom' and for that reason I don't get involved in the fandom even though I love the show. It's a shame because it really is a great show, so funny and, again, such good characters. I think it's a lot more accessible than the fandom likes to claim, so I'm hoping more people will give it a chance and not get put off by the intellectual elitism of the fandom because it does have some of the most entertaining and batshit crazy episodes ever, poking fun of some of the staples of science fiction in media while also poking fun of itself the whole time. Unlike the fandom, the show doesn't take itself seriously and that's enjoyable nowadays.

7. Orange Is The New Black (2013-2019)

While this show is a comedy, it is also a lot of other things and it's probably made me ugly-cry just as many times as it's made me laugh. Well, maybe not as often, but those few scenes (if you've watched the show then you know the ones I'm talking about) made me hysterically sob hard enough to be worth like fifty minor sads. But I didn't even mind because the show is just that good, and it makes you /feel/ something in a real way. Probably because of just how real it gets in terms of telling stories that happen all the time in the real world, sometimes with inevitably tragic endings. But these things do happen every day, and it's important to shine a light on that. It's not just representation for LGBTQ+ but also for POC, the neurodiverse, the poor, and many more. Give it a watch to broaden your perspective!

8. Big Mouth (2017-?)

This is probably the grossest show I've ever seen but by god is it ever funny. Maybe it's because I have an immature sense of humor or something, but I love this show. It definitely won't be everyone's cup of tea and I don't recommend you watch this show with anyone else around because it will get awkward. I think part of its appeal to me is that everyone I talk to who likes it considers it so relatable to their lives growing up but for someone like me who grew up on the autism and asexual spectrum and who was physically an early-bloomer by years, nothing about this show is relatable to me in any way so it makes it all the more crazy and bizarre watching how the people around me must have experienced things. Did y'all really have these experiences with puberty in middle school???

9. Dexter (2006-2013)

I recently heard that this show is coming back for a reboot soon and I'm so excited because this is my absolute favorite drama/thriller show, as evidenced by the fact that it's the highest one on the list so far that isn't a comedy. I love the idea of having a protagonist who is sort of a villain (or at least morally dubious), and the idea of a serial killer who only kills bad people is particularly satisfying for some reason. Maybe because he's the vigilante we all deserve and want in this unjust and evil world of modern times? Idk but the very premise of this show set it up for big things and aside from the ending I think it delivered consistently.

10. Once Upon A Time (2011-2018)

This show took us on some journeys, and you can't deny that. Sure, maybe it didn't always finish what it started and didn't always end in the most satisfying way, but part of its charm is that you didn't care because the experience was just so much fun. They took characters and stories that have been told to death and somehow managed to put a unique and unexpected twist on them, and that alone is admirable. Good twists, good villains, and pretty much every cliffhanger known to man will keep you hooked on binge-watching every episode.

11. RuPaul's Drag Race (2009-?)

A bit different than the other entries on my list in that it's not fiction but a reality competition show, but I couldn't leave Drag Race out because it's just so fucking iconic and perfect. Even when you disagree with the judges or can't stand a certain contestant you'll still be having a good time. It's got the personalities you love to love, the ones you love to hate, and the comedy that's completely meme-able. I mean just how much has this show contributed to pop culture and the internet? More than most of us, henny. I've watched every single season, even the international ones and all of the spinoffs. This show will probably be on for another thirty years when Ru is throwing shade from a hospital bed and I'll still be watching.

12. House (2004-2012)

Some people hate on this show, and I don't get it. I love House. Yes, he's an ass. That's the point. He's supposed to be unlikeable, and that's why I like him. Maybe because I always love the rude, sarcastic, misanthropic jerkass-genius characters for some reason. And I also love procedural shows, so it's a win-win. I also work in the healthcare field so it appeals to me for that reason too, because obviously the whole premise is outlandish which is what makes it funny. Of course it's not realistic for a hospital, so just enjoy the absurdity and don't get too hung up on the details of medical accuracy and professional ethics and you'll be fine.

13. The Office (2005-2013)

The third of Michael Schur's show and the last one that made the main list (sorry Parks And Rec, I love you too but there was just so many good shows to choose from and I saw you last so the nostalgia isn't as strong!) I don't think I need to hype this show up any, it's already a classic and you can't even turn around online without getting hit in the face by a dozen Office memes. You'll have to pry this show and it's relatable characters (especially Michael Scott) from my cold, dead hands.

14. All Hail King Julien/The Penguins Of Madagascar (2008-2017)

Like Avatar/Korra, I also consider this as one show for the sake of this list because it also takes place in the same universe (Madagascar, specifically) and I just couldn't choose one over the other because they're both so perfect. They're funny and I love all the characters (it cut out the weaker links of the Madagascar film series and just focuses on expanding the standout side-characters like King Julien and the penguins). It also delved into some lore, particularly the first show, and even though I didn't also agree with the directions it took (you may have seen me get salty about the ending because I cared too much), I can't deny how much I love it.

15. Bones (2005-2017)

One of the other scarce non-comedy shows on this list, it still has it's funny moments. It's also, like House, another procedural show that involves some medical stuff, but this time on a more scientific and forensic level which is even more interesting. It's nice to see a lead female with Asperger's, too. There's a lot of cop/law enforcement shows where they try to solve crimes, but this one is the best, and I'm saying that as a fan of CSI as well. Don't fight me on this, I'm right. Oh yes, it's corny, it's campy, it's cheesy, but I love every minute of it. Don't watch if you have a weak stomach though.

16. The Simpsons (1989-?)

We all grew up with this show, don't lie. It's been around longer than most people on tumblr have even been alive. Should it have ended seasons ago? Hell yes. But that doesn't take away what the first like 20 or so seasons gave us (there's a lot of argument about when the show jumped the shark, for me it wasn't until much later than the popular consensus). The characters are amazing, but the secret to the show's longevity is that they always return to status quo and there's comfort and nostalgia in that. Bart will still be in 4th grade when you're out there pushing 90. This show is persistent. This show is eternal. This show will outlive us all.

17. Ash Vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018)

Sorely underrated. This show is hilarious, gruesome and campy as hell and I love it. I don't think you necessarily have to watch the Evil Dead movies beforehand in order to get the plot of the show, although it would probably help. In my opinion this show ended way too soon and I'm hoping someday we'll get a comeback because Ash is the reluctant, self-absorbed hero we all need and it's 2020 so at this point there really might actually be a demon-zombie apocalypse and who's gonna save us then if not for the impulsive womanizer with a chainsaw for a hand?

18. Malcolm In The Middle (2000-2006)

Another show I grew up with, I don't think it gets as much credit as it deserves. It has some damn funny episodes and great characters, and it did a lot of the popular sitcom tropes before they were 'cool'. Some other great sitcoms, The Middle in particular, took a lot of influence from this show and it helped pave the way for the future of sitcoms at a time when they were about to make a comeback. If you want a good show about the real experiences of growing up, this is a much more accurate representation of the highs and lows of being an awkward tween from a dysfunctional home.

19. A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Unlike most people I actually liked the movie version from the early 2000's, and I read the books growing up so I was excited when I saw there was a live action television adaptation of it on Netflix because I felt like they cancelled the movie franchise too soon. I was interested to see how new actors would handle the roles, and I was not disappointed. I wouldn't say I liked either portrayal of the characters better or worse, they both added their own twist to it and this show is a great and loyal adaptation to the books, probably because the author was so heavily involved. He knew just when to stick to the books and when to improve upon what he had done with the benefit of hindsight. This show is basically the books, but remastered.

20. Winx Club (2004-?)

Sort of an odd one out on this list, but I really love this show even as an adult and it may surprise you to learn it is still going on and the most recent season came out last year. They take big breaks sometimes in between seasons, but it's still going strong and in multiple countries. The only thing I don't like about watching this show is all the different and inconsistent dubs since the original show is Italian and each dub only goes for a couple seasons so by the time you get used to one set of voices/names for the characters oyu have to abruptly switch to another, but it's still worth it for the beautiful animation and cool characters (especially the villains!)

Honorable Mentions:

13 Reasons Why, America's Next Top Model, American Horror Story, Arrested Development, Bates Motel, Battlestar Galactica, Black Mirror, Care Bears, Chernobyl, Courage The Cowardly Dog, Criminal, CSI, Duck Dodgers, Goosebumps, Kenny Vs. Spenny, Kim Possible, Kingdom Hospital, Lazytown, Lost, Making A Murderer, Mayday, Mindhunter, Modern Family, Monster High, Obsession: Dark Desires, Parks And Recreation, Prison Break, Project Runway, Queer As Folk, Queer Eye, Salem, Schitt's Creek, SCTV, Spongebob Squarepants, The Emperor's New School, The Good Doctor, The Haunting Of Hill House/Bly Manor, The Middle, The Pretender, The Walking Dead, The X-Files, Through The Wormhole, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Unsolved Mysteries, Yugioh

Tagging: @bullet-farmer and anyone else who wants to!

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juiceastronaut · 3 years

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Okay so. I watched Q-force. And I have no idea what I think about it.

Imma just be rambling so I'll break down the characters and my likes/dislikes about them before giving my plot breakdown at the end. Only the main/prominent ones because I don't have time.

Steve Maryweather-Easily the best character out of them, with Deb being a close second. He could've very easily fallen into the trope of being someone who was incompetent but expected the world anyway, but he doesn't. He graduated top of his class, and despite his quirks is a genuinely competent team leader, and wants the best for his team. He wants to prove that he and his team are competent enough to get recognition, and has a genuine faith in the people around him. It was refreshing to see him hold his team in a genuine high regard, where a lot of times it's like "We're shit but lets do this thing now" He's a genuinely well-rounded character, and (and forgive me if this isn't the best way to frame this) it feels like being gay is an important part of his character, without encompassing the whole thing. I thought Benji and his relationship was super cute and I was sad when they broke up. I was afraid he was going to be, like a second but worse Twink with the stereotyping but gladly fell away from that.

Deb-I thought her and her wife were super cute (though I hate how the wife is designed ngl adjafkldajfd). I liked Debs character, but I feel like she had a lot of racial stereotyping that wouldn't be inherently obvious unless you were looking for them, her being the strong one, and also the "mama" type at the same time. No one treated her with disrespect, and her lesbianism seemed to be more authentic but I feel like there wasn't a lot of thought put into what these tropes were and why they were bad. Her being black and making her the mama type, as well as the big strong type could be read as tasteless. Again, I really liked her character but these were some things I noticed while watching.

Twink- You know, I didn't really like him at first, I thought he was the epitome of all the bad stereotyping (though I'm just glad him and Mary didn't get put into the same category). His humor isn't my taste, and it just kinda seemed like someone for half of his lines went "what twitter stan language can we put in here?" And sometimes it was a bit too random for my tastes. However! I do like that his drag was considered important and was an integral part to a lot of missions they went on, and not just "Ah look at that dumb gay trying to find reasons to dress in drag." His talents and expertise were both respected and, save for Buck (which his whole point was supposed to be offensive anyway) no one undermined Twink for his femininity. His back story is also kinda random but did play a role in the missions as well. Still, personally think he's the worst character. Plus, he's French so minus four-twenties amount of points.

Stat-You know, in a show where everyone was stating what letter they were every few seconds I was surprised that I had to look up that Stat was trans. I...liked her character for the most part, except the part where she was fucking a robot. Kinda weird ngl, outta left field, and with her being trans I wonder if her having that sort of relationship is problematic for her. Love her design tho, love me a hacker girl. She's also listed as "ambiguously gay" tho showed to have mostly girl love interests but, okay.

Buck-He's the straight guy, emotionally repressed haha and he's bigoted. Did think it was funny later on when he was more "accepting" but managed to be even more infuriating about it. Tied with Twink as worse character but you know they tried to do stuff with him.

Vee-Really liked me a boss lady, but kinda weird how they bait-and-switched us with her actually being a lesbian, then go "no she's straight tho" in regards to Karen. I thought her and Mary's relationship was cute, wish I saw more of it. But she did feel like a random plot device in later seasons, what with her disappearing and reappearing when it was plot relevant. (Tho she HOTOHOTHOTHOT bikini episode WOOOWEEEE)

....

Okay, so now the plot....which. it had one?

It felt like it was flip flopping back n forth about whether it wanted to take itself seriously or not, and it seemed to decide on serious more towards the end, but then it would have this random plot element that would be so out of left field it would pull me out of my suspension of disbelief. See the whole "Back cracking to unlock memories" plot point. This back and forth on whether it would be a comedy or not I think weakened both categories it tried to play into.

If I had to compare the show to anything it would probably be Futurama, but the thing with Futurma is, its set in the future, so you're suspension of disbelief is allowed to stretch a bit more because all the wacky quirky stuff can be attributed to future shenanigans. Q-force, to my knowledge, is set in the modern day, which makes the wacky stuff that much wacker, because it's set in our modern times, which you apply the rules of everyday life to.

A lot of the problems that I had with Q-Force is, in the attempt to write specifically about the "gay experience" revealed that the writers have really only had a very specific experience of interacting with gay ppl, what I call the "Urban Gay" experience.

The fact they're in West Hollywood, and all the things that were listed as "universal gay experiences" but were only things that you'd be exposed to if you were in the city. I think a flavor of "white gay" can be implemented here too, which Q force has exactly one black woman, who manages to be the only lesbian.

That coupled with the fact that, there's a difference between having Twink naturally being a drag queen, the whole team being gay to some degree, and the fact they interact with the gay community often without Drawing Attention to all of those things and self-congratulating itself on concluding it. Funnily enough, Q-Force had examples of doing this right and doing this right. Right way: In the second or third episode where Mary found that guy with the flash drive to the uranium in it and seduced him in the gay bar. Relevant that it was gay without overtly drawing attention to it. Wrong-Way: Having Pride go on while Girl Boss was trying to take over the world.

And, for the show that promoted itself as representing the gay experience, there were...two gay men, one lesbian, one trans person, one straight guy and...no bisexual people. Also no nonbinary people. Like of course it's unrealistic to include every single identity but you're one bisexual person who appeared for one episode and was promptly blown up. And also showed to be...more off than the other characters, what with the stealing of silverware and all. Just, bisexual people are already forgotten enough as it is and not including them in the show, but you include two gay men just kinda reads as tasteless to me (as a bisexual person, obviously).

Which makes it so weird that Stat was left "ambiguously gay" when she could've easily been bisexual (which still would be problematic because of the robot-fucking but at least you got the B in there somewhere in the main group)

Overall, it tried to market itself as the "be all end all" of what it was like to be gay, but ended up excluding the exact people that get excluded in real-life lgbt spaces. This combined with the indecision with what kind of show it wanted to be managed to make it fall short. If you arent the very specific type of gay person who lives in a city environment and doesn't fit the stereotypes showed you're not going to feel "seen" by the show.

Weirdly though, I didn't hate watching it, and I would probably watch another season if they managed to make one. The parts that did work, I think worked really well, and even the bad parts just read as tasteless, and not actively terrible. If they focused less on making "hey I'm gay" jokes every three seconds and just let each character be what they are I think the show would be stronger for it. And I think they'd find less problems overall if they did that too. In the mean time I'll just be here side-eyeing the whole thing.

Edit: I forgot to mention, and this is a problem a lot of adult TV shows fall into, that because they got the clear to show nudity/sex they felt like they *had* to show nudity and to a lesser extent sex every episode. So just that whole "Haha adult=sex obviously."

Oh! And this generally goes for the whole "shove it in your face" part, but a lot of the characters who are bigoted were shown to be. Very blatantly so. And not to say there isn't blatantly bigoted ppl of course they are but I don't think that's where you see a lot of bigotry nowadays. This was sort of touched on during the show but more of a jokey manner, but I think it would've been more realistic if we had more "girl with a gay best friend" kinda bigotry as opposed to the "I'm literally hurling slurs at you" bigotry, especially since they're in Cali.

#like its a C+ I think #q-force #criticism #like there's a lot wrong with it but I thought it was kinda charming overall #like. you could have all those things that gays like in these characters but to every three seconds go #'i like this thing because I'm a lesbian'#just kinda got old after a while #juicy takes

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kajaono · 3 years

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In what order did you fall in love with Spn, DW and sherlock and why? Also has you fav character changed and if so why? Or rather did you grow to love or hate a character you didn't before throughout the years ?

Hey :D That is a really interesting question.

I grew up without a TV and Supernatural was the show that got me into watching american TV shows. (I watched LOST before that but just from time to time). I watched the first season of SPN on Prime with a student account and the quality was SO bad (internet problems? no clue, it was basically listing to an audio book because the picture quality was so bad), but I was hooked. Because there was no big story arc you could allways watch them in between. And with every new monster that appeared, I was so fascinated. Because i learned so much, it was horror but not too much, a deep brotherly love, the HUMOR! It had the perfect mix of everything. I allways hit next epsiode, wondering what monster they might fight next. Knowing nothing about TV this was even more fascinating for me then for many other people I guess.

Then a friend recommended me Sherlock. I was not really convienced. Modern Sherlock? Can that work? I watched it and was blown away (okay, that has changed but thats another story). It was so celver told, also the visuals were made so clever. I loved the fresh new look (i mean compared with SPN, hello?! xD) the character dynamcis, the humor, but also how they showed Sherlock thoughts. I loved that. ESpecially TGG still has a soft spot in my heart.

Then another friend recommend me DW. I was again not convienced, especially with the very weak first epsiode (which now has a soft spot in my heart). I even got angry for paying money for the DVD, but a few more epsiode and I fall deeply in love with this idiot show. I even refused for months to continue on watching because I was convienced noone could ever be as good as Eccleston. My friend basically had to force me to contunie on watching ‘:D I just love that this show does not takes itself too seriously. The bad costumes and effectes especially in the first seasons where hilarious to me. And RTD is just such a good writer. I love his stories so much!

I think my fav characters stayed the same: Sherlock = John Watson

SPN = Castiel (I am also a Sammy’s girl, my fav epsiode are Sammy suffering)

DW = Donna Noble

But I guess because of the fandom I learned a lot of storytelling and seeing how much the writers can fuck up certain characters... makes me often hate the writers. Especially how the let John beat up Sherlock in season 4 and then act like it was okay? Many people hated John for that, I started hating the writers for it.

So in conclusion, what has changed over the year is my relationship to the shows, especially to Sherlock, because I had unrealistic expecetions and Sherlock showed me how much viewers are worth to certain writers, so these days i favor Elementary of Sherlock f.e.

Thank you for the question :)

#superwholock #supernatural #doctor who #bbc sherlock #ask

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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“Hey bro! Check out this Nike ad!” This was my entry point into a new world.

…

Since Carlos had lived mostly outside the United States, he was able to follow soccer on a level I’d never encountered in my hometown. Back then, before social media and the advent of scarf-wearing Northwestern fútbol hipsters, big-time European soccer was like the metric system: Known to almost all but ourselves. But Carlos knew, and immediately used LimeWire to curate me a massive archive of 1990s through early 2000s soccer highlights. What was I doing in the world without them?

Oddly enough, in trying to inculcate me in soccer fandom, he started not with game highlights, but with the advertisements. Yes, Carlos was an educator and a voluntary footsoldier for Big Apparel. Going in, I had no clue about high-quality, internationally popular Nike soccer ads. The ads, written by the legendary Wieden+Kennedy firm, were miniature movies, films that were often creatively daring but also quite funny. The most popular of these ads might be “Good vs. Evil,” from 1996, where Nike’s best soccer players team up to play Satan’s literal army. The blending of sacrilege, theology and comedy just worked, like a more ambitious version of Space Jam that somehow took itself less seriously than Space Jam.

…

Yes, I know ads aren’t supposed to be high art. I understand that they are the purest distillation of manipulative greed. And yet, they sometimes are culturally relevant generational touchstones. While Nike was weaving soccer into enduring pop culture abroad, it was having a similar kind of success with basketball and baseball stateside. These ads weren’t just pure ephemera. Michael Jordan’s commercials were so good that, as he nears age 60, his sneaker still outsells any modern athlete’s. “Chicks dig the long ball” is a phrase (a) that can get you sent to the modern HR department and b) whose origins are fondly remembered by most American men over the age of 35.

Modern Nike ads will never be so remembered. It’s not because we’re so inundated with information these days, though we are. And it’s not because today’s overexposed athletes lack the mystique of the 1990s superstars, though they do. It’s because the modern Nike ads are beyond fucking terrible.

…

They’re bad for many causes, but one in particular is an incongruity at the company’s heart. Nike, like so many major institutions, is suffering from what I’ll call Existence Dissonance. It’s happening in a particular way, for a particular reason and the result is that what Nike is happens to be at cross-purposes from what Nike aspires to be.

…

For all the talk of a racial reckoning within major industries, Nike’s main problem is this: It’s a company built on masculinity, most specifically Michael Jordan’s alpha dog brand of it. Now, due to its own ambitions, scandals, and intellectual trends, Nike finds masculinity problematic enough to loudly reject.

This rejection is part of the broader culture war, but it’s accelerating due to an arcane quirk in the apparel giant’s strange restructuring plan, announced in June. Under the leadership of new CEO John Donahoe, Nike is moving away from its classic discrete sports categories (Nike Basketball, Nike Soccer, etc.) in favor of a system where all products are shoveled into one of three divisions: men’s, women’s and kids’. Obviously Nike made clothing tailored to the specificities of all these groups before, but now, Nike is emphasizing gender over sport. Gone is the model of the product appealing to basketball fans because they are basketball fans. It’s now replaced by a model of, say, the product appealing to women because they are women.

And hey, women buy sneakers too. Actually, women buy the lion’s share of clothing in the United States. While women shoppers are market dominant in nearly every aspect of American apparel, the clothing multinational named after a Greek goddess happens to be a major exception. At Nike, according to its own records, men account for roughly twice as much revenue as women do.

You might see that stat and think, “Well, this means that Nike will prioritize men over women in its new, odd, gendered segmentation of the company.” That’s not necessarily how this all works, thanks to a phenomenon I’ll call Undecided Whale. The idea is that a company, as its aims grow more expansive, starts catering less to the locked-in core customer and more to a potential whale which demonstrates some interest. Sure, you can just keep doing what’s made you rich, but how can you even focus on your primary business with that whale out there, swimming so tantalizingly close? The whale, should you bring it in, has the potential to enrich you far more than your core customers ever did. And yeah yeah yeah, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but those were birds. This is a damned whale! And so you start forgetting about your base.

You can see this dynamic in other places. For the NBA, China is its Undecided Whale. It could be argued that the NBA fixates more on China than on America, even if the vast majority of TV money comes from U.S. viewership. The league figures it has more or less hit its ceiling in its home country, so China becomes an obsession as this massive, theoretical growth engine.

…

Here’s the main issue for Nike in this endeavor: The company, as a raison d’être, promotes athletic excellence. While women are among Nike’s major sports stars, the core of high-level performance, in the overwhelming majority of sports, is male. Every sane person knows that, though nobody in professional class life seems rude enough to say so. Obviously, there’s the observable reality of who tends to set records and there’s also the pervasive understanding that testosterone, the main male sex hormone, happens to give unfair advantages to the athletes who inject it.

Speaking of which, there’s a famous This American Life episode from 2002 where the public radio journos actually test their own testosterone levels. The big joke of the episode is just how comically low their T levels are. Sure, you would stereotype bookish public radio men in this way, and yet the results are on the nose enough to shock.

As a nerdy media-weakling type, I can relate to the stunning realization that you’ve been largely living apart from T. Before working in the NBA setting, I was an intern in the cubicles of Salon.com’s San Francisco office, around the time it was shifting from respectable online magazine into inane outrage content mill. Going from that setting to the NBA locker room was some jarring whiplash, like leaving the faculty lounge for a pirate ship. To quote Charles Barkley on the latter culture, “The locker room is sexist, racist, and homophobic … and it’s fun and I miss it.”

…

The “Good vs. Evil” ad boasts a “Like” to “Dislike” ratio of 20-to-1 on YouTube. On June 17th of 2021, Nike put out an ad ahead of the Euro Cup that referenced “Good vs. Evil” as briefly as it could. In this case, a little child popped his collar and used Cantona’s catchphrase. As of this writing, the new ad has earned a thousand more punches of the Dislike than of the Like button.

When you see it, it’s no surprise that the latest Euro Cup ad is disliked. I mean, you have to look at this shit. I know we’re so numb to the ever-escalating emanations of radical chic from our largest corporations, but sometimes it’s worth pausing just to take stock and gawk.

…

But today we are in the land of new football, where we take dictatorial direction from less-than-athletic minors. After her announcement, we are treated to a montage of different people who offer tolerance bromides.

“There are no borders here!”

“Here, you can be whoever you want. Be with whoever you want.”

(Two men kiss following that line, because subtlety isn’t part of this new world order.)

Then, a woman who appears to be breastfeeding under a soccer shirt, threatens, in French, “And if you disagree …”

And this is when the little boy gives us Cantona’s “au revoir” line before kicking a ball out of a soccer stadium, presumably because that’s what happens to the ignorant soccer hooligan. He gets kicked out for raging against gay men kissing or French ladies breastfeeding or somesuch. Later, a referee wearing a hijab instructs us, “Leave the hate,” before narrator girl explains, “You might as well join us because no one can stop us.”

Is that last line supposed to be … inspiring? That’s what a movie villain says, like if Bane took the form of Stan Marsh’s sister. Speaking of which, was this ad actually written by the creators of South Park as an elaborate prank? It’s certainly more convincing as an aggressive parody of liberals than as a sales pitch. Why, in anything other than a comedic setup, is a woman breastfeeding in a big-budget Euro Cup ad?

It’s tempting to fall into the pro-vanguardism template the boomers have handed down to us and sheepishly say, “I must be getting old, because this seems weird to me,” but let’s get real. You dislike this ad because it sucks. You are having a natural, human response to shitty art. This a hollow sermon from a priest whose sins were in the papers. Nobody is impressed by what Nike’s doing here. Nobody thinks Nike, a multinational famous for its sweatshops, is ushering us into an enlightened utopia. Sure, most media types are afraid to criticize the ad publicly. You might inspire suspicion that what you’re secretly against is men kissing and women breastfeeding, but nobody actually likes the stupid ad. No college kid would show it to a new friend he’s trying to impress, and it’s hard to envision a massive cohort of Gen Z women giving a shit about this ad either.

Now juxtapose that ad not just against the classics of the 1990s but also the 2000s products that preceded the Great Awokening. Compare it to another Nike Euro Cup advertisement, Guy Ritchie’s “Take It to the Next Level.”

…

Here’s the problem, insofar as problems are pretended into existence by our media class: The ad is very, very male. Really, what we are watching here is a boyhood fantasy. Our protagonist gets called up to the big show, and next thing you know he’s cavorting with multiple ladies, and autographing titties to the chagrin of his date. He can be seen buying a luxury sports car and arriving at his childhood home in it as his father beams with pride. Training sessions show him either puking from exhaustion or playing grab-ass with his fellow soccer bros. This is jock life, distilled. Art works when it’s true and it’s true that this is a vivid depiction of a common fantasy realized.

Nike’s highly successful “Write the Future” ad (16,000 Likes, 257 Dislikes) works along similar themes.

…

The recent Olympic ads were especially heavy on cringe radical chic, and might have stood out less in this respect if the athletes themselves mirrored that tone on the big stage. Not so much in these Olympics. It seems as though Nike made the commercials in preparation for an explosion of telegenic activism, only to see American athletes mostly, quietly accept their medals, chomp down on the gold, and praise God or country. Perhaps you could consider Simone Biles bowing out of events due to mental health as a form of activism, but overall, the athletes basically behaved in the manner they would have back in 1996.

But Nike forged onwards anyway. This ad in celebration of the U.S. women’s basketball team made some waves, getting ripped in conservative media as the latest offense by woke capital.

…

“Today I have a presentation on dynasties,” a pink-haired teenage girl tells us. “But I refuse to talk about the ancient history and drama. That’s just the patriarchy. Instead, I’m going to talk about a dynasty that I actually look up to. An all-women dynasty. Women of color. Gay women. Women who fight for social justice. Women with a jump shot. A dynasty that makes your favorite men’s basketball, football, and baseball teams look like amateurs.”

When she says, “That’s just the patriarchy,” the camera pans to a bust of (I think) Julius Caesar. At another point, the girl says, “A dynasty that makes Alexander the Great look like Alexander the Okay.” Fuck you, Classical Antiquity. Fuck you, fans of teams. You’re all just the patriarchy. Or something.

Nike could easily sell the successful American women’s basketball team without denigrating other teams, genders and ancient Mediterranean empires that have nothing to do with this. Could but won’t. The company now conveys an almost visceral need for women to triumph over men because … well, nobody really explains why, even if it has something to do with Undecided Whaling. In Nike’s tentpole Olympics ad titled “Best Day Ever,” the narrator fantasizes about the future, declaring, “The WNBA will surpass the NBA in popularity!”

…

There are theories on the emergence of woke capital, with many having observed that, following Occupy Wall Street, media institutions ramped up on census category grievance. The thinking goes that, in response to the threat of a real economic revolution, the power players in our society pushed identity politics to undermine group solidarity. Well, that was a fiendishly brilliant plan, if anyone actually hatched it.

I’m not so convinced, though, as I’m more inclined to believe that a lot of history happens by happenstance. If we’re to specifically analyze the Nike Awokening, there is a recent top-down element of a mandate for Undecided Whaling, but that mandate was preceded by a socially conscious middle class campaign within the company.

This isn’t unique to Nike, either. Given my past life covering the team that tech moguls root for, I’ve run into such people. They aren’t, by and large, ideological. Very few are messianically devoted to seeing the world through the intersectionality lens. They are, however, terrified of their employees who feel this way. The mid-tier labor force, this cohort who actually internalized their university teachings, are full of fervor and willing to risk burned bridges in favor of causes they deem righteous. The big bosses just don’t want a headline-making walkout on their hands, so they placate and mollify, eventually bending the company’s voice into language of righteousness.

…

All the guilt and atonement transference make for bad art. And so the ads suck. There’s no Machiavellian conspiracy behind the production. It’s just a combination of desperately wanting female market share and desperately wanting to move on from the publicized sins of a masculine past. So, to message its ambitions, the exhausted corporation leans on the employees with the loudest answers.

There’s a lot of interplay between Nike and Wieden+Kennedy when the former asks the latter for a type of ad, but the through line from both sides is a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Based on conversations with people who’ve worked in both environments, there’s a dearth of personnel who are deeply connected to sports. In place of a grounding in a subculture, you’re getting ideas from folks who went to nice colleges and trendy ad schools, the type of people who throw words like “patriarchy” at the screen to celebrate a gold medal victory. The older leaders, uneasy in their station and thus obsessed with looking cutting edge, lean on the younger types because the youth are confident. Unfortunately, that confidence is rooted in an ability to regurgitate liturgy, rather than generative genius. They’ve a mandate to replace a marred past, which they leap at, but they’re incapable of inventing a better future.

…

Ironically, Nike mattered a lot more in the days when its position was less dominant. Back when it had to really fight for market share, it made bold, genre-altering art. The ads were synonymous with masculine victory, plus they were cheekily irreverent. And so the dudes loved them. Today, Nike is something else. It LARPs as a grandiose feminist nonprofit as it floats aimlessly on the vessel Michael Jordan built long ago. Like Jordan himself, Nike is rich forever off what it can replicate never. Unlike Jordan, it now wishes to be known for anything but its triumphs. Nike once told a story and that story resonated with its audience. Now it’s decided that its audience is the problem. It wouldn’t shock you to learn that Carlos hated the new Nike ads I texted to him. His exact words were, “I don’t want fucking activism from a sweatshop monopoly.” He’ll still buy the gear, though, just not the narrative. Nike remains, but the story about itself has run out. Au revoir.

#ethan strauss #nike #sports #substack

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jimvasta · 3 years

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Vulnerability - that moment when you choose to risk everything for a connection

Lee was single for a long time, not of choice but to protect his daughter from the dangers of when dating went wrong.

Once again, Del was surprised. He had never stepped into a narrowboat before and he did not know what to expect, but a bright, modern, interior was not it. He found himself in a kitchen which was, of course, narrow, but also fully fitted with everything he would expect to see in his flat, including the kettle that Lee flicked on as he walked by.

“Did you remember that I’m going out tonight with the club?” Lee asked of his teenager daughter.

“Yes, Dad.”

“And that you have coursework due tomorrow?”

“Yes, Dad, I’m working on it now.”

“Good girl. Del’s driving so I’ll have a couple of beers, I won’t be back until late. Make sure you and Dizzy both have dinner, I’ve left you food in the fridge. I’m trusting you to behave, can you do that for me?”

“Seriously?”

Del saw the head of a teenage girl emerge from behind a partition further down the boat. She had the same eyes as her father and the same colour hair.

“Dad, you have a better social life than me, this is so insulting. I’ll do my work, watch tv, chat to my friends and go to bed. Yes, I’ll feed Dizzy and make sure he stays with me, I promise I’ll behave.”

Lee smiled and ruffled his daughter’s hair as he stepped by her. “There’s my little girl.” he turned back Del. “I’ll be two minutes.”

“No problem.” Del found himself being stared at as he leaned against the kitchen worktop.

“Are you Dad’s boyfriend?”

“No, no we’re just friends.”

“Oh.” the girl did not sound convinced. “You like him though. Hurt him and I’ll set Dizzy on you.”

Del smiled softly as he decided he liked the girl. “I considered myself duly warned and I have no intention of becoming dog food.”

“Good.” the girl ducked back out of sight.

When Lee emerged in fresh trousers and a clean shirt, Del found it hard not to smile, he looked good in sports clothes but in tailored wear he was model like.

“Fancy a cuppa before we go? We’re a bit early.”

“Why not? Have we got time for a tour? When you said you lived on a boat I wasn’t really expecting this.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know, something a bit more rustic, I guess, but this is luxury apartment type stuff.”

“You’ve gotta live and my daughter needs a comfortable home.”

“It looks comfortable, it’s bigger than I expected too.”

Lee turned away as he made the teas, hiding his face. “It was meant to be a family boat, she was commissioned before I was widowed.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make that awkward.”

“It’s fine. It was a few years ago, I’m used to being the single parent now.”

Del accepted the offered mug and the guided tour of Lee’s unusual home, before they returned to the stern of the boat where they could look out of the garden. “How much time does it take to look after all this?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I just amble about doing bits and pieces when I get the time, it’s a hobby and it pays for itself when it’s harvest time.”

“There’s nothing dodgy in those greenhouses is there? They’re pretty big?”

Lee laughed. “No, just fruit and veg. I’ve had police round to check.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. They get a couple of calls every year from people on the holiday boats who think it’s dodgy, it’s funny really, I don’t mind.”

“It’s nice, I like it. It’s a bit isolated though.”

“It’s peaceful.” Lee corrected. “But now Lilly’s a bit older I can get out more.”

“So you joined the sports club.”

“Exactly.”

“She seems like a smart girl.”

Lee gave another of his perfect smiles. “She is, but she doesn’t have a filter. I heard what she said to you. Sorry about that, she just loves trying to be matchmaker and we don’t get too many visitors so she just assumed,” he shrugged.

“She said boyfriend.”

Lee shrugged again.

“I know you’re gay, I figured that out weeks ago.”

Lee looked Del up and down. “Your Gaydar works just fine.”

“We don’t have to go to the sports social, you know, we could blow them off and go get an Indian instead. Or you could come round to my place for a bit if you fancy it.”

Lee went still. “I, er,”

“Was I reading you wrong? I thought we had a thing going.”

“So did I, it’s just this is the awkward bit and I’d rather not do it on the boat.”

“Do what?”

“Tell you what you need to know before anything happens. This boat is my safe place, it’s where my daughter is, I don’t want her hurt.”

“Okay.” Del spoke slowly, following Lee into the garden.

Lee took a deep breath, making sure he was out of arms reach before he spoke. “Some guys take this badly, if you don’t like it just walk away and I won’t make a fuss or anything.”

“You’re a nice bloke. What have you got going on here that I shouldn’t like?” Del was genuinely confused.

“It’s not what I’ve got going on here, it’s who and what I am. I’m a gay man, I’m also a trans man.”

Del stared. Lee was a chisel jawed, square shouldered Adonis, it hardly seemed possible that most manly man began life as a woman. He was not sure how to react, so he went with instinct. The mug was carefully set down on the mooring block and he took a step towards Lee.

Seeing the advance, Lee took a step back.

“You don’t have to do that.” Del said as he closed the gap between them and reached out.

Lee was cautious, but let Del take his hand.

“You don’t have to run.”

“You don’t mind?” the question was quiet, hopeful.

“You’re a man.” Del responded firmly. “And I don’t see anything here that’s not to like.”

Lee let himself be drawn in for the kiss, relief making him forget everything but the moment. Risking it all by telling the truth he rarely spoke out loud was something Lee always found especially painful. Being rejected was hard, being rejected with violence made any further revelations frightening. Del’s response to him was better than he could ever have hoped.

“Eww, get a room!”

Del nearly choked laughing as Lee shouted back to his daughter, reminding her that she should be working.

“I’m trying, but you’re putting me off. Go on your date already.”

“Sorry.” Lee cringed.

“She’s got a point,” Del was still laughing. “Maybe we should just go on a date.”

“You said something about going out for an Indian.”

“Or coming round to mine.”

Lee hesitated. He knew what he wanted but he could not bring himself to not be over cautious. “How about we go out tonight and you can maybe come round here at the weekend? Lilly’s going out with friends on Saturday.”

Del was more than happy to agree to that.

#fiction #lgbtq #transman #transgender #romance

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madfantheyinablueblog · 4 years

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So I Have Some Thoughts™ About Supernatural:

Okay so I really love all the memes going around about Destiel becoming canon (because holy shit 2012 has literally been giving numerous punches in the gut this past week). But all jokes aside, I do have some thoughts about the show, and why I eventually lost interest.

Now, this is in no way meaning that if you still enjoy the show, you’re not allowed to like it. In fact, good for you! I’m really glad that you’ve continued to enjoy such a long-running franchise, and I’m sorry that it’s coming to a close for you.

Anywho: I loved the show for a LONG time. Like it was part of my childhood growing up. I’ve literally been on Tumblr since 2011 (and was in the SuperWhoLock fandom in 2010 via iFunny and Pintrest). I used to watch it religiously.

I absolutely adored the first five seasons of the show. It was a fully planned story that was well-rounded and executed. But after season five, that’s kind of when the downfall started in my eyes? Like there were plenty of ups and downs since then, but season six was definitely the beginning. And that’s honestly due to the original creators of the show leaving, and because of it moving from a planned five-part story to a simple ‘Big -Bad per Season’ kind of show.

But anyways, I continued watching on and off until season 11 and then stopped. It wasn’t for another year until I picked it up at season 12 again because I loved the concept of showing more hunters from around the world. It was something that really developed the mythology of the show and expanded the world. But then when that dropped off, I stopped again.

I think my main issue with Supernatural is how it has a tendency to introduce really amazing ideas and themes, but then goes nowhere with them. It’s an ongoing issue with the show throughout its entire entire run), but it’s most apparent and obvious when it comes to the show’s cancelled spinoffs.

So far Supernatural has had a total of three planned spinoffs. And they were all cancelled. In order, these were:

Ghostfacers: Originally planned around season 3 of the main show, they not only got a backdoor pilot on Supernatural itself, but they also got their own fully-fledged pilot episode that actually got released! And it was really good! The idea of one of those goofy reality tv ghost hunting shows dealing with the actual supernatural is such a great concept and had a lot of potential to play with the genre. But, the show just kind of vanished into the ether and we eventually got a goodbye to the characters in season 9.

Bloodlines: Originally planned around season 9 of the main show, there was a backdoor pilot on Supernatural itself as well. But unfortunately, it was cancelled due to low ratings on the backdoor pilot. The thing that sucks about this was that the story centred around a man of colour and his family, going into their family lines and their relations to the supernatural world. It took place in Detroit, and had a much darker and grittier tone than Supernatural itself.

Wayward Sisters: Originally planned around season 13 of the main show, there were literally two different backdoor pilots. Both of which got loads of support. But for unknown reasons, it was also cancelled. What really sucked about Wayward Sisters, was that it included an all-female cast including fan-favourites from Supernatural itself. It also had two LGBTQ+ leads in it. The tone was a bit lighter than Supernatural and was more centred around action and fun.

I think what makes me the angriest about all of these is that all of these had a LOT of potential. Not just for loads of representation, but also to flesh out and expand the world of Supernatural. But them being cancelled showcases the show’s and network’s main issue:

They were too afraid to take any risks for the franchise and played it safe.

Instead of attempting to add to Supernatural and make it a larger franchise, they stayed in their comfortable bubble where they knew they would still get views and money. What’s annoying is that two of these shows had plenty of fan support. In fact, Wayward Sisters had tons of fans who desperately wanted it and I can’t even count how many petitions there were to get the show off the ground. But even with viewers voicing their love and desire for more Supernatural, the network ignored them.

Because of this, the main cast and crew of Supernatural seemed to suffer from burnout because they had to keep an entire franchise on their shoulders instead of being able to pass some of it onto other groups.

More on this issue, there’s just a problem with Supernatural not taking risks in their very own show, and ignoring really interesting ideas and themes. The show could have continued to be a modern take on religion as a whole, and playing with the genre itself. But episodes like Mystery Spot, Yellow Fever, Hammer of the Gods, Changing Channels, The French Mistake, and Scoobynatural were far and few in-between. The show would often times take itself far too seriously instead of allowing the writers, crew and cast to have fun with the genre.

There’s also the thing where the network always kept them on an extremely low budget, which didn’t allow the show to go as far as it could have with its story. There should have been epic and grand scenes. But the network instead kept it cheap and safe which really killed the show itself.

It’s just a shame because this franchise has had so much potential to really take off and be something really special. But due to the show being too afraid to go the extra distance, just let the show slowly run out of steam.

I don’t really know how to end this other than saying I just really wish Supernatural would have been allowed to grow and learn as a franchise instead of falling into a soap-opera range of television.

#supernatural #spn #long post #jack rambles #jack watches supernatural #ghostfacers #bloodlines #wayward sisters #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cass #cas #personal

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montagnarde1793 · 4 years

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Ribbons of Scarlet: A predictably terrible novel on the French Revolution (part 3)

Parts 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Style Issues

Stylistically, there’s a great deal of “tell don’t show” in this book, especially as regards the actual politics. The only things that are really concrete are the characters’ romantic entanglements and scenes of violence. This is a flaw that runs so deep that correcting it would mean writing a completely different book.

One thing that they could have done that would have made it somewhat more bearable, however, regards the use of language. In a book written in English but that takes place in France and where all the characters are French, please, I’m begging you, do not randomly (and often ungrammatically) insert whichever French words and phrases you half-remember from high school French class into descriptions and dialogue. It doesn’t give the characters a flavor of being French, it gives you a flavor of ignorance.

The key word here is “randomly”: note that I’m not talking about things like terms of address, exclamations, etc., for which there is an established convention, or terms for which there might not be an exact equivalent in English. No, I’m talking about this kind of thing: “[…] running a hand through his short-cropped noir hair” (p. 352). Please, resist the urge!

Also, this isn’t strictly a style issue, as the grammar is the least of the problems with it, but I don’t really know where else to put it... Each of the six parts opens with an epigraph. Here’s the one for Émilie de Sainte-Amaranthe’s (p. 437) :

“It was a sensual delight for l’homme rouge to see fall in the basket these charming heads and their ruby blood streaming under the hideous cleaver.”

—Archives Nationale [sic]

I can’t believe I have to say this to a fellow historian, but just saying a quote is from the archives is bizarrely and baffling amateurish. It’s like saying a quote is from the library, or from a book or from the internet. Without further information, it’s about as useful a citation as saying it came to you in a dream. Why? Because it tells us nothing about the author or the date or any kind of context and therefore gives us no real way of evaluating it — though the lurid, sensationalist language doesn’t inspire confidence. Since the author of this section more than any other seems to take as a principle of novel-writing that whatever is the most over-the-top makes for the best fiction, I would say sure, why not, but as the authors also apparently want their depiction of “history” to be taken seriously… I mean, what is there to even say?

Writing What You Want to Know

There’s a problem throughout this book with characters talking about 18th France like it’s a place they’ve only read about in books rather than the only place they’ve ever lived and therefore the only reality *they* know firsthand. Now, obviously, the authors, like the rest of us, *have* only read about a 200+ year-old setting in books (or come to know it through various types of primary sources), but good historical fiction should be able to make you forget that, or at least come close.

I can’t entirely decide whether we’re looking at a failure of research here or of imagination — or just clumsy handling of exposition. I suspect it’s some mixture of all three.

Allow me to explain. The clumsy exposition is a result of the aforementioned lack of trust in the reader as well, I suspect, of the few pages allotted to each author, which don’t allow for a more natural immersion of the reader into a world that is entirely alien to them but is made up of both new and familiar elements to the characters.

The research vs imagination issue is more complex. I’m a firm believer in the updated adage “write what you want to know,” but if you’re going to do that, the intermediate step between wanting and writing is inevitably research. And well, there’s research and there’s research. For a novel especially, you don’t just want to be researching what happened, the concrete material facts such as who was present for what event or what a given figure’s relationship was to the people around them, but also people’s mentalities/sensibilities. To plausibly write from their point of view, you also have to investigate the reasons they might have believed what they believed and to take that investigation seriously, whether or not you agree.

This was achieved better with some characters than others and again, I’m not entirely sure whether it’s for lack of research or lack of ability to empathize with certain points of view. Ironically, the chapter on Mme Élisabeth is probably the best handled. The author of that section says she wanted to be “fair” (back matter, p. 12) to her subject and I think she succeeds better than her co-authors, while showing that Mme Élisabeth, convinced of the absolute validity of the divine right of her brother, advocates at every turn for violently repressing the Revolution. She’s allowed to articulate her (frankly pretty abhorrent) beliefs in a plausible manner.

Perhaps the author of this section is just a better writer than her co-authors, but I think there’s more to it than that. I obviously can’t read minds, but from the text of the novel itself as well as from the authors’ notes, I get the impression that we’re dealing with a dual problem of epistemology (i.e. how do you know what you know?) and politics. In either case, it’s not a coincidence if Mme Élisabeth is the best drawn character… and Reine Audu and Pauline Léon are the worst.

First, on the epistemology side: whether consciously or not, it seems to me as if the authors largely started out with the assumption that they already basically understood their protagonists. Sophie de Grouchy is so ahead of her time she might as well be a modern woman, got it, no problem… Reine Audu is an avatar of the “mob,” (the author of her section’s words, not mine, back matter, p. 8), pitiable because of her poverty but with no real politics beyond that of hunger and resentment… Pauline Léon is a “well-intentioned extremist” to use TV Tropes parlance — you would think that label would apply better to Charlotte Corday, but the latter ends up being so saintly she basically converts Pauline Léon (in what is quite possibly the most maddening moment in the whole damn book)… and so on. If I’m right, the authors’ assumptions about these archetypes made them not really feel the need to dig too deeply into the question of what made these women tick, either through research or empathy.

We don’t know much about Reine Audu or Pauline Léon, but there has been a fair amount of research into the beliefs of the popular movement and revolutionary crowds from Georges Lefebvre onward (most of it tending to dispel the lazy stereotypes on display here). The authors either didn’t bother with it or made poor use of it (as is evidently the case with poor Dominique Godineau, who does figure in the bibliography).

The book does Pauline Léon a disservice on both sides, mischaracterizing her beliefs for good and for ill. They make feminism as a contemporary audience would understand it her primary cause and her support for the rest of the popular movement’s program (in which we learn that women and people of color are to be included, but not actually what it consists of...) accessory and easily disposable so Charlotte Corday can be proved right and “radical” men can prove to be the real enemy.

(Which… I could roll with it if the idea was just that men of all political flavors can be misogynists, but as usual, the message is all men are potential rapists (except Condorcet, Buzot, La Fayette and Louis XVI, of course) but the further left they are the rape-ier they get. That’s not how that works.)

Anyway, the point is, these are characters the authors seem to have gone in assuming they understood, either because they found them relatable or because they thought they knew what archetype they corresponded to. The author of the section on Mme Élisabeth, on the other hand, writes that this was a character that it took some effort to understand because the character’s worldview was so different from the author’s and that of her presumed readers. This was also the case to some degree with the author of Manon Roland’s section, who writes about having to grapple with her protagonist’s not being a feminist (a position that this author bizarrely seems to think was rare at the time). Regardless, in both cases, the effort to understand, along with the existence of more sources produced by the character they were attempting to inhabit, produced better results.

But again, I think there’s also a political element. Remember how I mentioned that this book’s main flaw is its feeling of artificiality? (I mean, to the point that the rest of this critique is really just about understanding why it feels so artificial.) One of the moments that felt the most authentic to me was Mme Élisabeth’s extravagant shoe-buying habit, her feeling bad about it and her confessor reassuring her that it’s fine because she hasn’t taken a vow of poverty, after all. And I don’t mean ‘authentic’ necessarily in the sense of ‘historically accurate’ — I don’t know enough about Mme Élisabeth off the top of my head to comment on her shoe collection. But I did think: there, consumerism and guilt about consumerism are in fact much more relatable to the middle class authors and their presumed middle class audience than hunger and privation — or activism relating to socio-economic issues, for that matter. Which is how we end up, here as in a lot of other media, with a relatable royal and revolutionary caricatures.

This is also a good demonstration of how research and imagination or empathy play off each other. Marge Piercy didn’t have more information about Pauline Léon than the authors of this book. In fact, she had less: she writes in the preface of her book that she learned that Léon’s mother was in fact still alive at the time of the Revolution when it was too late to change what she had written. Credit where credit is due, once again, this new book corrects that error.

But in every other respect, Piercy’s version is far superior, because Pauline Léon’s views as well as her experience are taken seriously. This is no doubt due in large part because Piercy herself has been an activist for various left-wing causes. Her activism surely allowed her to relate to her characters, but far from writing a simple projection from her own experience, it allowed her, just as importantly, to entertain the notion that there was something there to be taken seriously. And therefore, that it was worth researching what precisely these figures were fighting for and not simply the question of why people get caught up in “extremism.” That’s why Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe’s chapters are the best in City of Darkness, City of Light, while Pauline Léon and Reine Audu’s are the worst in this book.

Next time: inaccuracies big and small!

#en anglais #French Revolution #Révolution française

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incarnateirony · 4 years

Note

Hey dude! Do you have any recommendations for LGBTQ+ movies in the romance genre that have like a happy ending. I really don't care how old they are. I'm feeling the Gay™ hence I need the Gay™. You feel me?

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII NONNIE

First sorry for taking so long, not only did I have to timeline this :) but :) my computer :) froze :) after writing like :) 2 pages :) and I had to do it again :)

So anyway let it be said, the LGBT dialogue is one of osmosis and shared growth and awareness. Some of these films will be very poorly dated, but as you (thankfully) mentioned that them being old wasn’t a *problem*, expect a lot of old stuff. Because one of the most important things to have under your belt when talking about the LGBT media representation battle is the actual journey from A to B – be that incrementalization, subtextual inclusion, text-breeching features, outright evocative and groundbreaking films at the time (which is what MOST of this list will be) and an improvement in our dialogue; let us never forget that while tr*nss*xual is considered a slur and transgender is proper, tr*nss*xual was at one point the politically correct way to speak it – things like that breach in our growing understanding of the spectrum of human sexuality.

I *WILL* disclaimer these aren’t all romance, so if you explicitly want romance, google them and take a look if it sounds to appeal, but I’m taking this as a general cinema history plug considering what a confused mess fandom conversation about LGBT history in film or modern text as applicable, accepted or not.

Wonder Bar (1936) (I wouldn’t really call this queer cinema, but if you have the time to watch it too, I think it was the first explicit mention of homosexual engagement even if it was fleetingly brief. You might even call it Last Call style. A blink and you’ll miss it plug that was still decades ahead of its time)

Sylvia Scarlet (1936) (Again, I wouldn’t call this queer cinema, but a lot of the community takes it as the first potential trans representation on TV due to the lead literally swapping gender presentation, even if the presentation is… not what we would modernly call representation IMO)

Un Chant d'Amour (1950) (Worth it for the sheer fact that it pissed off fundies so bad they took it all the way to the US supreme court to get it declared obscene.)

The Children’s Hour (1961) (also known as the 1961 lesson to “don’t be a gossipy, outting bitch”)

Victim (1961) (The first english film to use the word “homosexual” and to focus explicitly on gay sexuality. People might look on it disdainfully from modern lenses, but it really helped progress british understanding of homosexuality)

Scorpio Rising (1964) (Lmao this one deadass got taken to court when it pissed people off and California had to rule that it didn’t count as obscene bc it had social value, worth it for the history if nothing else)

Theorem (1968) (Because who doesn’t wanna watch a 60s flick about a bisexual angel, modern issues and associations be damned)

The Killing of Sister George (1968) (by the makers of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane)

Midnight Cowboy (1969) (…have I had sassy contagonists in RP make a Dean joke off of this more than once, maybe)

Fellini-Satyricon (1969) (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS)

The Boys in the Band (1970) (This… this… this made a lot of fuss. Just remember leather)

Pink Narcissus (1971) (a labor of love shot on someone’s personal camera)

Death in Venice (1971) (This is basically a T&S prequel but whatever, based on a much older book)

Cabaret (1972)

Pink Flamingos (1972) (SHIT’S WILD)

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) (The title doesn’t lie, be warned)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) [god I hope you’ve at least seen this]

Fox and His Friends (1975) (some really hard lessons that are still viable today, that just because someone acknowledges your sexuality doesn’t mean they give a shit about you as a person, and that some will even abuse the knowledge for gain)

The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983) (REALLY interesting history look it up, it’s sort of one of those “drawn from own experience” story short sets)

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) (Documentary)

Desert Hearts (1985) (Pretty much the first film to put lesbianism into a good light as a true focus based on a novel from the sixties)

Parting Glances (1986) (the only film its creator got out before his death from the aids epidemic)

Law of Desire (1987) (two men and a trans woman in a love triangle, kinda ahead of its time)

Maurice (1987) (This one’s really interesting, cuz it was based on a book made about 15 years before it, but the book itself had been written half a century earlier and wasn’t published until after the guy died, he just thought it’d never get published Cuz Gay, so basically it’s based on a story written in like, the 20s finally getting screen time. It has a bittersweet but positive-leaning-ish ending without disregarding the cost that can come with it and even addresses class issues at the same time 100% DO RECOMMEND)

Tongues Untied (1989) (a documentary to give voices to LGBT black men)

Longtime Companion (1990) (This one’s title alone is history, based on a NYT phrasing for how they talked about people’s partners dying, eg longtime companion, during the AIDS epidemic)

Paris Is Burning (1990) (Drag culture and related sexual and gender identity exploration as it intersected with class issues and other privileges explored in a documentary)

The Crying Game (1992)( I should correct this that I guess it’s more, 1992 considered, “SURPRISE, DIL HAS A DILL!” – I guess I really didn’t do that summary justice by modern language and dialogue as much as how people in the 90s were talking about that and that’s a my bad. LIKE. SEE, EVEN I CAN FUCK UP MY LANGUAGE I’M SORRY CAN I BLAME THE STRAIGHTS T_T) #90skidproblems – I guess I should call it a trans film. And this alone tells me I should go watch it again to recode it in my brain modernly rather than like circa de la 2000 understanding.

The Bird Cage (1996) (So you mix drag culture, otherwise heterosexually connected lovebirds, and then realize the girl comes from an alt-rightish house and the guy comes from a Two Dads Home and does cabaret, how to deal with the issues OF this conflict when it’s between you and your happiness, even if the fight isn’t even your own as much as it is that of the person you love. The answer is PROBABLY NOT to dress in drag and pretend to be straight, but what are you going to do? – while played for laughs we’d consider modernly crude, the fact that they even dared to approach this narrative was pretty loud)

The Celluloid Closet (1996) (Ever heard of the Vito Russo test for LGBT representation? This is based on a book by Vito Russo.)

Happy Together (1997) (Ain’t this shit an ironic name; a mutual narrative, via chinese flick, of hong kong ceding to china and an irrevocably tangled MLM pairing as a giant mirrored metaphor)

Boys Don’t Cry (1999) (one of the most groundbreaking films about trans identity at the time)

Stranger Inside (2001) (As easy as it is to recoil to the idea of “black gays in jail”, the film makers actually went and consulted prisoners and put a great deal of focus into intersectional african american issues that really weren’t around even in straight films at the time)

Transamerica (2005) (While it made a bit of a fuss for not casting an actual trans actor, it was one of the first times a big budget studio really tried to tackle it which really pushed us forward)

Call Me by Your Name (2017) (since I’ve apparently leaned really heavy old cinema throw in a modern one lmaooooo)

Also honorable The Kids Are All Right (2010) mention for the sake of the fucking title alone.

And to any incarnation of “On the Road” by Kerouac, which

Was originally a book

Released a sanitized de-gayed edition because of the times

Later released the full homo manuscript

had a few film adaptations

Was one of Kripke’s founding inspirations for Supernatural once he left behind “Some reporter guy chases stories” and took the formula of Sal and Dean (and tbh later, Carlo) in a beat generation vibe gone modern as we know it today.

Reading both versions of this can actually help some folks currently understand that when you get confused over some shit (WHY IS CARLO SO UPSET? WHY IS HE ACTING LIKE AN UPSET GIRLFRIEND??? WHY IS HE SO JEALOUS AND SAD WHEN DEAN IS AROUND GIRLS???? WE JUST DONT KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWW) it’s because some big money asshat bleached the content, and sometimes, it takes a while for the full script to come out and again, surprise, it’s been GAY, they just didn’t want to OFFEND anybody. *jazz hands*

Now if you wanna go WAY WAY BACK, during 191X years, a bunch of gender role flicks came out like Charley’s Aunt, Mabel’s Blunder and the Florida Enchantment.

Also where is @thecoffeebrain-blog to yell about the necessity of watching Oz, for the next few hours? But no, seriously, just look into the entire LGBT *HISTORY* of Oz.

Beyond that though I’m gonna stop here cuz hi that’s a lot. I really don’t know how much counts as “happy ending” but if I had to give an LGBT cinema rec list, that’s it as a sum. I don’t really have like, a big portfolio of UWU HAPPY ENDING GAYS because 1. there aren’t a lot of those but 2. to me, it’s not about the ending, it’s about the journey. Be that in flick or through culture and history itself.

If you want more happy ending stuff, you definitely have to look at 2010+, but it’s not like we’re in a rich and fertile landscape yet so honestly just googling that would probably serve you better since I don’t explicitly explore romance genre or happy endings to really have a collection. LGBT life is hard and film often reflects that if we’re making genuine statements about it and really representing it, and we’re just now getting to a point of reliably having the chance at a happy ending. That or maybe someone can add like “Explicit happy endings” lists after this that has more experience in that subgenre.

Also, I can’t emphasize ENOUGH to remember what was progressive then is not what is progressive now, and frankly, what some people think is progressive now they’ll probably look back on what they said and feel really fuckin’ embarrassed. See: “It’s not text because by alt right homophobic dialogue, M/M sex isn’t gay if you do the secret handshake” MGTOW kinda crazy ass dialogue or parallel narratives they inspire that encourage self-closeting and denial based on the pure idea that being gay makes you somehow lesser, so It’s Not That. Like. I am. 99% sure. At least half of the people talking in this fandom. Are going to regret that the internet is forever. And maybe hope hosting servers end in the inevitable nuclear war that will annihilate this planet.

Also, edit: Speaking of mistaken dialogues and words aging poorly, I’d like to apologize from the poor description I rendered “The Crying Game” with, but that really goes to show how deep-seated the issue is we can so casually fuck up identifying a trans narrative as SURPRISE DICK IS GAY when we were all absorbing the content like 20+ years ago and HOW HARD it can be to de-code yourself from that kind of programming because here I am, writing a giant assed rep post and fucking it up because my brain hadn’t soaked that movie since Y2K. Guess what, time for me to go watch the Crying Game again.

#lgbtqia #representation #media #cinema history

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enbyleighlines · 4 years

Note

Would you consider writing Jiang Cheng's response to Nie Huaisang's confession as anpther one of the modern mdzs fics? Maybe with Wen Qing as well since I know she and Jiang Cheng have a relationship too? I cannot get enough of the modern au. I already love the way you write nhs so much and I need them to have a happy ending 😭

Absolutely, my friend! I’m glad to hear you are enjoying them~

—

On the night of his Jiejie’s wedding, Jiang Cheng drives Wen Qing and himself back to his apartment in silence. Both of them are exhausted from the long day, so the lack of conversation isn’t unusual or awkward.

Still, Wen Qing must have sensed something. As soon as they settle in for the night, and Jiang Cheng is about to climb into bed, she speaks up.

“Something on your mind?” She asks, looking up from the book she had been reading. She is marking her place with a finger.

Jiang Cheng knows that if he brushes off her question, that she will simply shrug and go back to reading. She will drop it, and probably not bring it up again. That is just the type of relationship they have. It is casual, surface level... a little cold. They both keep each other at arm’s length, metaphorically speaking. Their bodies can touch but their hearts can not, not for long, not long enough to risk forming an attachment.

Of course, Jiang Cheng also knows that he’s only lying to himself. He has already grown attached. Wen Qing just doesn’t need to know that.

When Jiang Cheng doesn’t immediately answer, Wen Qing folds the corner of the page she is on and sets the book aside. She gives the empty side of the bed a few pats. “Come on,” she says, “Say what you want to say, or forever hold your peace.”

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, but sits down beside her anyway. “Nie Huaisang said something to me today,” he begins.

Wen Qing raises a single eyebrow, and waits patiently.

“They... told me that they like me,” Jiang Cheng confesses, trying to keep his voice tight and emotionless.

“Okay?”

“Ever since high school,” Jiang Cheng continues, “Can you believe that? Holding onto a crush from high school that long?”

Wen Qing snorts, but at least she tries to hide it behind her hand.

Jiang Cheng flushes, remembering that he is still harboring a crush on Wen Qing that had begun in high school. God, he can be such a hypocrite!

“Well,” Wen Qing says, “What did you say?”

“What could I say?” Jiang Cheng counters, deflecting by pure reflex. He feels the guilt he had suppressed earlier begin to bubble back up. “I told them... I didn’t know what to think. I mean, they sprung that on me so suddenly! So I said I’d give them a proper answer later, after I’ve thought things through.”

Wen Qing hums. Even as exhausted as she is, she clearly sees where Jiang Cheng is going with this. “And how do you feel about Nie Huaisang?” she asks, knowingly.

“I don’t know,” Jiang Cheng admits. It’s the not knowing that is messing him up, but he doesn’t say that. “I mean, Nie Huaisang... they’re assigned male at birth? I think that’s what they’re calling it these days. And I’m not gay. So I shouldn’t be attracted to them.”

“But you are?” Wen Qing guesses.

“Is that weird? Am I gay now?”

This time, Wen Qing is unable to hold back her laughter. She giggles into her fist, clutching her stomach with the other hand.

Jiang Cheng scowls and waits for her to finish.

After a moment, Wen Qing meets his gaze again. She’s still smirking, though, that little curl at the edge of her lip that drives Jiang Cheng wild. “If anything, you would be bi,” she corrects him, “Unless you no longer find me attractive?”

It’s a dig at him and they both know it. Jiang Cheng shoves her shoulder, and she only laughs some more.

“So we can rule out you being gay,” Wen Qing teases.

“Will you take this seriously?” Jiang Cheng grouches. “Just answer the question. Is it weird, for me to be attracted to Nie Huaisang?”

Wen Qing gives him another smile. This one is genuine, almost fond. “Of course it isn’t weird,” she says, “You might have a slight attraction to men, or you could just find the concept of androgyny attractive. As much as I wish human sexuality was as simple as movies and TV would have us believe, it’s far more complex than that.”

Jiang Cheng considers that. “Is there a word for... being attracted to androgynous people? As well as women?”

“Probably,” Wen Qing answers, “but I don’t know what it is. I find the concept of labels limiting at best and misleading at worst. But if you think it would help, I can do some research for you.”

Jiang Cheng leans back against the headboard. He doesn’t know if it would help. He supposes Wen Qing might be right about the labels thing. Any time they’ve attempted to put a label on the strange relationship they share, it’s only ever ended in heartache. And, on that note, being attracted to Nie Huaisang isn’t Jiang Cheng’s only problem.

“Hey, Wen Qing,” Jiang Cheng murmurs, “Are you... jealous, at all?”

Wen Qing sighs. “You know I’m not a jealous person,” she reminds him, “Why? Do you want me to be jealous?”

He kind of does, but he won’t ever admit it. And it’s not jealousy itself he craves, exactly, just the confirmation that maybe Wen Qing feels a fraction of what he feels for her. That maybe she considers him a part of herself, something she doesn’t want to lose.

Wen Qing sighs again. “We’re not exclusive, either,” she adds.

Jiang Cheng is painfully aware. He spits, “I know.” And then, “But have you actually ever... slept with anyone else? While the two of us have been a thing?”

Silence fills the room. Wen Qing fidgets with the ends of her bangs. “I’m too busy for that,” she deflects.

They’re both living a lie. That much is clear. Jiang Cheng blows out air though his teeth, and attempts to put his temper and ego aside for the moment. “So is it really fair, then, if I ask Nie Huaisang out on a date?”

Wen Qing surprises him. She reaches out and puts her hand over his, lacing their fingers. “C’mon, don’t they say everything’s fair in love and war?”

Jiang Cheng sucks in a breath. It’s the closest Wen Qing has ever gotten to admitting that there is love between them. He gives himself a moment to savor the little victory. And then he says, point blank, “I want to know if you’re okay with me asking Nie Huaisang out on a date.”

“Yes,” Wen Qing answers easily. She gives his fingers a squeeze. “Will you be okay asking them out on a date?”

“I don’t know,” Jiang Cheng admits.

“What’s holding you back? Be honest. Is it the whole gay thing?” Wen Qing’s smirk has returned. “I hope you realize how dumb that sounds to me. I did the whole gay panic thing back in middle school. That’s child’s play to me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jiang Cheng finds himself smiling now, too. He remembers that Wen Qing was the first out and proud person he ever met. He remembers her wearing bi pride pins on her backpack, and how she was always the first person to put bigots in their place. She’s always been the strongest and bravest person he knows. He loves her so damn much. He only hopes that one day he’ll find the courage to tell her.

“So what’s really holding you back?” Wen Qing asks.

Jiang Cheng’s grin falls. He feels bad saying it aloud, even if he knows Wen Qing won’t judge him. But he says it anyway. “I’m afraid of hurting them,” he admits, “What if things go great at first, but when it comes to... getting intimate, I freeze up? What if I don’t find them attractive under the makeup?”

Wen Qing squeezes his fingers again. “That’s always a possibility,” she tells him.

“And I know I don’t know shit about being transgender or nonbinary or whatever,” Jiang Cheng continues, “but I heard that being misgendered hurts. And what if Nie Huaisang thinks I’m misgendering them, by not being attracted to them?”

“I don’t know,” Wen Qing says.

That shuts Jiang Cheng up. He looks at her, surprised. “What?” He asks.

“I don’t know,” she repeats. Her expression is so warm, so affectionate. “There are no easy answers, Jiang Cheng. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart. But I think it’s a good sign that you thought so much about this. It’s clear that you care about them. So... I think you should ask them out. You clearly want to.”

“I do want to,” Jiang Cheng confesses. He puts a hand to his chest, and is startled to find that his heart is pounding. When did that happen?

Wen Qing leans over and gives him a peck on the cheek. “So ask them out,” she whispers.

Then, she rolls over, turns off the lamp on her side of the bed, and goes to sleep.

But Jiang Cheng stays awake for a little while longer. He listens to his heart beat, and replays the conversation they just had in his head.

His fears and concerns are still there. But somehow, they feel more manageable.

—

It takes three days for Jiang Cheng to work up the courage.

Finally, he texts Nie Huaisang and asks them to meet him for a morning coffee at a locally owned vegan cafe and bakery. He figures it’d be the kind of place that Nie Huaisang would enjoy.

Jiang Cheng choses a table near a window. It makes him feel a little less claustrophobic. And then he waits.

Nie Huaisang arrives right on time, orders a latte at the counter, and brings it with them to sit in the booth across from Jiang Cheng. The nerves are apparent in every move they make, every little twitch of their fingers conveying intense anxiety.

Jiang Cheng wants to sandwich those fingers between his warm palms, and make them stop trembling.

“Good morning,” Nie Huaisang says. It sounds like they tried to sound nonchalant, but instead they just wind up squeaking on the first syllable.

It’s endlessly endearing. Jiang Cheng rubs the back of his neck. “Hey,” he replies.

Nie Huaisang looks down at their latte, and the foam heart on top. They swirl the spoon, distorting the image. “This is a nice place,” they say, “Cozy, and vintage. How long have you been coming here?”

“This is my first time,” Jiang Cheng answers. He doesn’t want to talk about the cafe! But he doesn’t know how to shift topics smoothly.

“Oh,” Nie Huaisang says. They peek up through their feathered bangs. Today, they’re wearing an oversized striped sweater, almost long enough to be a dress, over some leggings. As always, they look incredible.

Jiang Cheng has long found himself uncomfortably enthralled by Nie Huaisang. Their sense of style is— well, Jiang Cheng doesn’t know anything about fashion, so he doesn’t have the right words to describe it. But whatever it is, it looks good. It looks better than good. Jiang Cheng often avoids looking directly at Nie Huaisang for that very reason. But now that he’s looking, he can’t look away.

Nie Huaisang fidgets nervously, no doubt uncomfortable being under the heat of Jiang Cheng’s stare. “So,” they say, “What... have you been up to?”

It’s obviously not what they had meant to ask. Jiang Cheng suddenly realizes that he’s being a total douche for letting this drag on for so long. And so he blurts out, “I wanted to talk about what we talked about at the wedding.”

Nie Huaisang startles. They avert their gaze, and then ask, “O-oh...?”

“You said you liked me,” Jiang Cheng says, and then wishes he didn’t. Surely Nie Huaisang knew what conversation he was talking about! He berates himself inwardly for a moment, and then continues, “I wanted... to ask you out on a date.”

Nie Huaisang audibly gasps. They put a hand to their mouth a second too late to muffle it. “What...?”

“To the zoo,” Jiang Cheng adds, “Uh, you like the zoo, right? You like animals.”

“I do,” Nie Huaisang confirms. Their voice is so very small. Clearly, they had not expected this outcome. “But... I’m confused. You said... you said you don’t like men?”

“You’re not a man,” Jiang Cheng points out.

That gets a huge smile from Nie Huaisang. It lights up the entire cafe. “I’m not,” they agree, with a breathless sort of glee choking their throat. But then, the smile falls. “But I’m not a girl, either.”

“I know,” Jiang Cheng says. He straightens his spine, and tries to channel a fraction of the courage Wen Qing possesses. “I still think I’m straight, but I want to take you out on a date anyway. Maybe that means I’m not really straight, but right now, I really don’t care. I just want to take you to the zoo. And maybe to dinner, afterwards.”

Nie Huaisang looks like they don’t quite believe him. But they nod. “Okay,” they murmur, “I’d like that.”

#asks #livenarrator #mo dao zu shi #sangcheng #chengqing #drabbles #leigh’s writing #mdzs modern au

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deltaengineering · 5 years

Text

Fall Anime 2019 Part 4: also, he has a gun for a head

Beastars

So here’s the CG anime that everyone for some reason decided way in advance would be the best show of the season, more or less by default. I was very skeptical of this for a multitude of reasons. First of all, that is a bad name for a show and you can’t convince me otherwise. It’s actually even worse because you’re supposed to write it in all caps, but I refuse. Second, it has a terribly on the nose conceit in which all sorts of animals live together in a high school setting and it’s all metaphorical ‘n shit. The main character is a wolf but get this, he’s actually all sensitive and quiet! Yeah, this is definitely rated D for Deep. And finally it’s by Orange, the CG studio that got an inordinate amount of acclaim for making Houseki no Kuni, the show that everyone thinks looks great and finally made CG anime worthwhile (actual real fact: HnK does not look great most of the time and CG anime was worthwhile well before it).

But enough about my preconceptions since Beastars is... pretty good, actually. If you ignore the setting, which is indeed terribly on the nose. And there’s not much else to say about the story so far besides it. However, it looks significantly better than Houseki no Kuni because it actually has really good character animation throughout instead of a one-minute action scene with flashy spinny camera tricks every other episode. The directing’s strong too, even if the show conspicuously mainly consists of obvious manga panels. I’m still not too hot on the animal stuff but the general writing seems to be sufficiently competent it would work simply on a character level. So I don’t love it, but it seems solid enough to see if it goes somewhere with its “Zootopia but also Beverly Hills 90210 but also they eat each other sometimes″ plot.

Rifle is Beautiful

Remember the whole “anime about some assorted anime girls joining a club doing an oddly specific activity” thing? This is another one of those, and now it’s about air rifle sports shooting. Except it’s not about air rifle sports shooting because that’s apparently way too violent, so they use rifles that look like exactly like air rifles but are actually based on lasers or really bright flashlights (they can’t keep their bullshit straight between scenes, sorry) instead. I just don’t think “girls doing activities” anime should blatantly misrepresent their subject matter like that, you know? With the possible exception of idol anime that is, ain’t nobody who wants to hear about that shit. Apart from that it’s nothing special, so if you are really into air rifles and wish to watch an anime that’s not about those, knock yourself out. It goes through a whole “club needs 5 members” arc in the first half of the first episode, so I really can’t say where it goes next. Nowhere much, I would guess.

Oh right, there’s one more thing: They frequently render the bodies in CG and the heads in traditional drawings, and they do it every time when they’d actually have to draw a rifle otherwise. It’s a weird effect that I think I haven’t seen anywhere else before, and it’s not great but also not terrible. And it’s the most interesting thing about the entire show.

Kabukicho Sherlock

“Let’s take a bunch of public domain characters and put them into a hip modern setting” seems to be its own genre at the moment, and not only because the BBC did that with S. Holmes, Esq. already. Obviously this show is influenced by that (besides other public domain namedroppers like Bungou Stray Dogs), mostly in Watson and his relationship with Sherlock, but Sherlock-san is rather different here; he’s neither the classic Victorian bohemian nor the abrasive sociopath of the BBC version, and tends more towards a bumbling 90s pop culture version of autism and/or general wackiness here. These two are surrounded by a bunch of campy transvestites for some reason, and I’m not quite sure whether I’m supposed to find this particular stereotype offensive or empowering this week, but it sure is annoying. And it has the same character designer as Joker Game, so if you like chiseled, angular anime men, you’re in for a treat here - even if they tend to wear a lot of makeup and dresses sometimes. I don’t know man, it seems sort of okay-ish for the most part but it’s neither as funny as they think, nor as weird as they think, nor is the murder of the week intriguing at all. Oh yeah, he’s hunting noted public domain character Jack the Ripper. Because of course he is.

Shin Chuuka Ichiban!

I am told this is the sequel to episode 19 of a 52-episode anime TV show from 1997. Okay. I am also told to not dare watch this without the important setup therein, which makes me think I should pay less attention to what I’m told because understanding Shin Chuuka Ichiban and its backstory is not hard at all. Kid is superawesome cooking champion in ancient China and goes around clowning on lesser cooks, got it. It’s not a complicated setup and it’s not a complicated genre either: This seems to be mostly about sick shounen cooking duels. Besides the setting, the main difference between this and Shokugeki no Soma seems to be that SnS goes for ridiculous and Chuuka Ichiban goes for epic - which is to say that it fancies itself emotional as well. Apart from that it’s what you’d expect from a cooking shounen, big moves, big reactions, huge twists and so on. One notable thing is that this show looks really, really nice. Production I.G seems to be establishing a sideline in taking stuff from the 90s and updating it with smoother animation and shinier lighting, while keeping the overall look intact; They did it for Mahoujin Guru Guru, and this looks much the same. Still, I’m just fundamentally not really interested in what appears to be a very straightforward cooking shounen from the 90s.

Assassins Pride

Straight from the Department of Chuuni, we have this light novel masterpiece about a cool as fuck teenage assassin who teleports behind u and nothin personells fools all day. He then meets a princess he’s supposed to off but just kinda decides not to, probably because she seems to be smitten by his m’lady act. Now he has to use his sick skillz to keep them both alive. It’s awful and terrible and no good and also kind of adorable. This truly is the most 13 AND A HALF MOM years old anime in a while, and it’s not even isekai! The writing’s just so amateurish and corny you can’t help but smile when princesses exposit their backstory for no reason while being accosted by pumpkin monsters (without knowing that Awessassin McCooldude happens to be listening in, which is certainly convenient). Or when the episode ends with the man just reading the synopsis of the show out again, in case you were too fascinated by this plot to pay attention to what it’s about. Yeah I’m not going to watch this in a thousand years, but it sure made me chuckle. Your mileage may vary.

Mugen no Juunin - Immortal

Speaking of 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔡𝔤𝔢, another anime adaptation of Blade of the Immortal appeared! You know, the manga for the cultured and historically minded guro fan. The first episode of Blade of the Immortal runs with this and is an arthouse production that someone most definitely directed the shit out of. I don’t think I’ve seen this much directing since, well, Sarazanmai, but “Ikuhara amounts of directing” is pretty much the idea here. And most of the time it even works! The quickly edited, disorienting style gives episode 1 a feeling closer to horror than to a cool swordmen action show, and that really brings out the best in the material, which is grotesque splatter bordering on the comical - It’s somehow a better Junji Ito anime than the actual Junji Ito anime. I think it tries too hard in a few places, but at least it does try.

But then I watched the second episode and that one’s a fairly conventional splatter-comedy swordin’ anime. I am not at all pleased with this development. The third episode was better again and seemed to split the difference between 1 and 2, even if it mostly uses the tricky editing to save on effort in the action – I would much prefer actually readable fights and the wacky mannerisms in the more psychological stuff, thank you very much. Based on episode 1 I thought we might have something special here, but as of episode 3 I’d already merely call it pretty decent. I guess I’ll still stick with it but man, that’s a real bummer.

No Guns Life

No Guns Life is a neo-noir thriller about a guy who has a gun for a head. That’s fuckin rad and exactly the kind of silliness I am totally down for. He also has a gun for a hand, and there’s also some battle nun’s who carry revolvers with two cylinders, so in short I think the title is false advertising. This sounds very wacky (and it is), but it also takes its noir very seriously, down to details more wannabe neo-noirs tend to neglect (like being set right after a big war). The look and feel is pretty excellent, with sharp design and high-contrast artwork, and the music goes all in on the moody saxophone as you’d expect. And there’s some really adorable “look mom, I’m writing” stuff about how Man With Gun For A Head really “needs someone to pull his trigger” and so on (which is, as the astute reader might remember, at the back of his head). It feels like a throwback but then I can’t really think of many 80s/90s shows like this, so it’s actually more like the sort of faux-retro idea Trigger/Imaishi would come up with on a lark. Trigger/Imaishi would, of course, make a far worse anime out of it, so it’s all good. Well, it has some pacing problems and as always it’s a fine line between amusingly camp and not so amusingly camp anymore, but No Guns Life seems to have enough real qualities that it can probably stand on its own even when its conceptual gimmick eventually doesn’t suffice anymore. I give it a two gun’s up.

Hoshiai no Sora / Stars Align

And finally, here’s an anime about middle schooler softboys playing a tennis just as soft as themselves, while being henpecked by the elites on the girl’s team. This is not an “actual” sports anime though: for starters, it’s not based on some shounen manga and is an anime original with quite some staff pedigree instead. It’s also more of a character drama that already goes to some surprisingly real places by the end of episode 1, reminiscent of the recent and quite good Run with the Wind. Furthermore, it looks delicious, with minimalist but distinctive and varied character designs and animation that’s both extremely detailed for a TV anime and also not trying to shove that fact into your face with flashy stunt cuts. In short, this show seems very simple at first glance but every aspect of it just oozes quality. If nothing else, it’s already worth watching just for the excellent ending sequence where the characters show off their “best” dance moves and the chunky student council president dunks on everyone. This one caught me by surprise and it’s an easy pick for most promising show of the season.

#anime #impressions #Beastars #Rifle is Beautiful #Kabukicho Sherlock #Shin Chuuka Ichiban!#Assassins Pride #Mugen no Juunin - Immortal #No Guns Life #Hoshiai no Sora #stars align

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Psycho Analysis: Darth Vader

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Here he is. The big one. The world’s most famous villain of all time, and this is no exaggeration; even people with only a fleeting knowledge of Star Wars, even people who have never seen it before in their lives, probably know who Darth Vader is. The dedicated an entire trilogy to showing how he ended up this way, and an entire trilogy to defeating him, and even after he’s dead his shadow looms over the new trilogy.

It’s really not hard to see why, either; everything about him just screams cool. He’s an intergalactic dictator wizard monk cyborg with a laser sword who has a castle on a lava planet and a space station the size of the moon that blows up planets, and that’s not even getting into the fact that he has the voice of Mufasa. Darth Vader is an icon, plain and simple, and if you think his status is all surface-level, well, this will hopefully show you there’s more to him.

Actor: There are a lot of people who put in the time to bring Vader to life, but let’s just go over the most notable actors. A lot must be said of David Prowse, the man in the suit during the original trilogy; while James Earl Jones’ voice certainly did a lot of work towards making Vader as intimidating and cool as he is, Prowse’s physical presence should absolutely not be understated. He’s the one who does the movements, who walks into the scenes, he was the one physically there, and it really cannot be said enough that he is a key aspect of why the original Vader worked, even if his voice was nowhere near intimidating enough.

Jones, of course, had a voice that was intimidating enough, and while Prowse brought the physical intimidation, Jones brought the vocal brilliance. Vader’s voice is so oft-arodied and iconic, and it’s all thanks to James Earl Jones’ stellar performance. IT’s just absolutely legendary no matter which way you cut it, to the point where even when he’s portraying a freshly-christened Vader who is still in the mindset of a whiny Anakin and screaming a massive NO to the heavens, he’s still awesome.

Of course, that does bring us to Anakin Skywalker, portrayed by Hayden Christensen, and who is the most divisive actor who played Vader, albeit in his pre-cyborg form. I think a lot of the problems Christensen was criticized for while portraying Vader in the prequels was due to Lucas and his poor direction, and not due to any inherent fault on his part, as Christensen is a good actor otherwise. Case in point: any scene in Revenge of the Sith where Christensen does not have to speak and instead has to rely on giving evil glares or just looking intimidating works. I think he does a great job in Revenge of the Sith overall, and his portrayal of Anakin definitely works best in that prequel due to him really selling the frustration of his superiors not taking him seriously or trusting him, which makes his eventual slide into villainy after putting his trust in Palpatine a lot easier to swallow.

Motivation/Goals: Vader’s motivations and goals are not exactly where he shines, as it is pretty standard evil overlord stuff: he wants to crush the rebels, serve his master, and do whatever needs to be done to ensure that the power he has does not get taken away. It’s standard stuff, and even at the time it likely wasn’t a wholly original idea, but part of the reason it probably feels so generic nowadays is that so many people in every art form imaginable – books, TV, video games, and other movies – have ripped Vader off to the point where he almost appears to be a generic doomsday villain if you only look at a summary of his goals. Thankfully, this is far from the case.

Personality: Vader’s personality is where he really shines. Revenge of the Sith paints the portrait of a brilliant, talented young man who is constantly looked down upon and ignored by his peers despite his numerous successes and who is unable to openly be with the woman he loves and who carries his children due to ridiculous rules; is it any wonder he was taken advantage of by a predatory elder and groomed into a psychopath, only realizing far too late what had been done to him? This aspect of his personality has often been criticized by those who hate the prequels, but I think it is important to show that Vader was once a normal, frustrated young man who honestly had good intentions and wanted to protect others, because it helps make his eventual turn away from the Dark Side and redemption at least be a little believable.

Once he truly becomes the Vader we all know and love, he loses sight of who he was and buries himself in the Vader persona. What happened on Mustafar with Padme and Obi-Wan broke Anakin, and so he truly throws himself into the Darth Vader identity. He becomes cold, ruthless, and downright terrifying, with only brief glimpses to the cornier, kinder persona that the man who hates sandf with a passion once had, the moment where he makes a lame pun in Rogue One being the perfect example of the cheesy Anakin of the prequels shining through if only for a brief moment before Vader’s final scene in Rogue One shows that Anakin has once more been suppressed and the terrifying Vader persona is out in full force, with the real Anakin only breaking through in the end to restore balance to the Force.

Final Fate: Vader, in a final act of heroism, picks up Palpatine and tosses him down into a pit to save the life of his son Luke. Ultimately, this means that Vader fulfilled that prophecy from so long ago and restored balance to the Force, redeeming him in the eyes of his son and allowing him to become one with the Force itself and stand beside his former mentors Obi-Wan and Yoda in the final scene. It is a bit cheesy and even a little hard to swallow if you think too hard, but come on, it’s a fun space opera where good triumphs over evil and true love prevails, so just let Anakin have his little redemption.

Best Scene: The scene in which he emerges from the pitch black hallway in Rogue One and mercilessly slaughters a group of rebels with absolutely no effort, washing away decades of diminishing returns and undermining of his threat level in under a minute as the franchise reestablishes Vader as the horrifying threat he originally was.

Best Quote: Can it really be anything other than the (at the time) mind-blowing reveal he drops on Luke in The Empire Strikes Back after Luke accuses him of killing his dad? Say it with me now:

“No, I am your father.”

Some of you probably said it wrong, but I can assure you the line written above is exactly as it was said in the movie.

Final Thoughts & Score: There’s honestly no denying the level of impact Darth Vader has had; I’d say he’s up there with characters like Mickey Mouse and Mario, just an instantly identifiable character anyone off the top of their heads can name. George Lucas struck gold when he came up with this guy, that’s for sure. Is it any wonder that there are so many characters all across fiction who draw inspiration from Vader?

Vader stands tall as one of the greatest creations in pop culture, and though characters that copy him tend to offer diminishing returns – with a few notable exceptions, of course – he definitely is a wonderful source of inspiration, especially when it comes to designing a character who is still interesting and absorbing despite having seemingly simple, cliched motives. And while it is true Vader comes off as a bit cliched these days because he pretty much wrote the book on a lot of the cliches attributed to him and his ripoffs, my point still stands, because even in modern times you’d be hard pressed to hear anyone call Vader a poor villain despite his main goal basically being “kill rebels.”

Vader is a rare breed, and so deserves a rare score. He is the only villain as of now I think truly deserves an 11/10. He is the villain other villains wish they could be. He is the most striking character in the entire cast. He’s so downright cool, is it any wonder his own grandson decided to emulate him by becoming his biggest fanboy?

While Vader does ultimately redeem himself in the end, it serves as a culmination of one of the most profoundly tragic character arcs in cinema, as a wide-eyed idealistic boy full of love, hope, and a sense of righteousness is slowly and surely broken down by the world around him and the very heroes he idolized to the point where he is preyed upon by a predatory authority figure who whispers everything he wants to hear in his ear and offers him something he never got before: respect… and then from there, his life spirals downward ever further, until he ends up being utterly consumed by hatred as he burns alive on an alien planet before the man he considered a friend and a brother, the knowledge that his wife feared him in his mind as he was fried to a crisp; and when he is finally brought back as a cyborg, his first moments awake again are shaken by the revelation his wife is now dead, and he is responsible. And then from his lowest point, we see Vader climb again into the light, extremely slowly, until that final choice he makes where he can either do the right thing as he was always meant to or continue subjugating the galaxy that beat him down and abused him.

The fact he chose to be good in the end despite everything in his life prior, despite all of the crimes he committed, really makes him a far more interesting character than if he had been straight-up evil to the core. Instead, he is the ultimate darkly tragic fallen hero given one last shot of redemption in the arms of death. It’s beautiful in the cheesy, dramatic way only Star Wars can be, and I think that more than anything is why Vader has endured as a cultural icon, because at his core he is everything beautiful, tragic, and cheesy about Star Wars rolled into one awesome, black-clad Sith Lord.

#Psycho Analysis #Darth Vader #Star Wars

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