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elytrafemme · 1 year

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OKAY SO it was where do we go now/wa hala2 la wayn and its this lebanese movie i got assigned 2 watch for cinematography class for the chapter on international cinema and it made me very happy hehe however. i have Thoughts. first off positive ones do you know how nice it was to hear just Genuine Lebanese Arabic in a movie it was SO nice. thats how i talk!! i use those turns of phrases!!! the old ladies remind me of my grandmas!!! the humour is also on Point like it feels very Classic Lebanese humour yk? and theres a great balance between humour and the more serious parts in a way that feels very true to the culture itself? if that makes sense?

less positive points uhhh why did they burst into song out of Nowhere like 3 times its not a musical it felt so. Why Is This Here. the last song where the women are baking is fun though. my biggest gripe with it though is. okay a bit of context so!!! the main plot in the movie is that its about a village thats half muslim half christian and they coexist peacefully and then they start hearing news of skirmishes between the two religions elsewhere and tensions start to rise and each side starts blaming the other for Every Little Thing that goes wrong and it just keeps escalating and escalating. and so the movie focuses on the women of the village devising various schemes to keep the men from fighting each other. its very much denouncing religion wars (which like. Yeah its a thing. my grandpa almost got shot once)

anyways SO all of that to say. the movie ends with the men waking up one morning and all the muslim men find that their wives have taken off their hijab and are praying to the virgin mary while all the christian women are veiled etc. and theyre basically saying well if you want to go fight them for being christian/muslim you'll have to fight me too and it makes them see the error of their ways etc. i. did nawt like this. i feel like theres better ways to get this message accross than basically saying "yeah religion is surface level and you can just violate everything you believe in just to make a point" like its not that they went i Look like them now its straight up they switched yk. like "this is who i am now". idk. left a bad taste in my mouth but maybe thats just me!!

the ending ending scene is the village going to bury a kid that was killed on his way back to the village and . like at the beginning of the movie we see the cemetery and its divided in2 tombstones with crosses and ones without but now the tombstones all look the same. and the title of the movie comes from the men carrying the coffin asking that yk. where do we go now. and i feel like that was a Much better way to get the point accross than the whole switching debacle sobs. anyways yeah!! those are my thoughts . this is so long i am SO sorry

YAY LONG REVIEW TIME!!! omg omg nice! i absolutely adore that, both the language part because that's so important but also the fact that it nails the culture down because? i feel like that's so hard to do with any culture, matching the humor and the specific phrases/customs with the generational trauma / more serious aspects of it. i really want to reconnect with more iraqi media for that reason because i really want to see how a film reflects that kind of thing

God movies where they just do random song and musical segments will never not be funny to me. this is a little different as to my understanding this is more expected in the genre, but watching bollywood movies with my friends was like. okay so there's a dramatic scene going on Oh wait now they're dancing on a shoreline in iceland. for the next eight minutes. this is fine and normal. like its so ABRUPTSDHKFJ

that's honestly a really really really cool concept for the film but i agree in that that's a really weird way to resolve it? i feel like in something like a film talking about religion its important that the religion component isn't entirely lost if that wasn't what the whole point was, does that make sense? like in this context it shouldn't take a person dneoucning their religion when the entire point of the show isn't about losing your faith just about reconciling with other people, it feels irrelevant and like the religion is being centered in the religious wars and not the violence. side note glad your grandpa didn't actually get shot that's a major yikes

man that other ending scene you described though... like imaginably this would be much more impactful if i had the visuals as well and could see this unfold in the film but like. your description even now feels really really emotionally impactful and. yeah. glad it has a good actual ending to it that kind of rounds it out i guess? seems like a good film overall but with some weird quirks and bad parts definitely

ty for the movie review! sorry if my response is scatterbrained im mulittasking rn but this was very cool to read :DDD

#nightmare.ask #ppl into films and cinematography r so cool

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year

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I didn’t do one of these last week because honestly, I had a shit week and didn’t want to do anything except passively consume this media so it could serve as a fleeting distraction. But good news! This week’s been less terrible and I am excited for the new episode.

Thoughts on Taskmaster s15e06, written as I watch it:

- I wish Ice Pie were a game you could buy and actually play.

- Mae and Kiell’s prizes this week are a perfect example of whether things should be judged on effort or achievement. Mae put a lot of thought into theirs – I assume a producer actually put it together, but still, they had to think of how it would work, what to put on it, and the creative idea itself. Kiell clearly just Googled entertaining bathroom accessories and found one. However, playing a piano mat with your feet on the toilet is definitely more fun than possibly brushing your teeth with hand cream. So which do you reward? (Kiell, you should reward the person who followed the remit, but it is unfortunate.)

- Love how consistent Frankie has been in making no effort to have his prize relate to any of the categories. He clearly just grabbed a bunch of stuff, mainly items that could function as wall art, and then found incredibly tenuous connections between that and the list of categories. In this case, the connection being that some people light candles in a bathroom and also light candles when using a Ouija board, and presumably a laminated board would be good in a room where things get wet sometimes. But it’s barely a connection, he just wanted to show people that he has a Ouija board with the Bee Gees on it.

- I expected to be able to follow up the previous point by saying “And here we have a contrast to that, seeing someone who thought long and hard about the category and found something that fits it perfectly.” I expected that because Ivo was next, and he always has something he’s carefully chosen to meet the task’s specifications. Except this time. He just wanted to show people a scale model of the Titanic. Fair enough, that’s pretty cool.

- Contestants have been accused before of using the prize tasks to get rid of stuff they don’t want. Jenny Eclair may be the first Taskmaster contestant to admit to using the prize task to get stuff she does want, not by winning it off other people, but because she can just ask the production staff to procure a prize for her and they’ll do it. The equivalent of putting it on a rider. I’m pretty sure Jenny Eclair can afford a cleaner for a mouth brace, but that’s still quite a funny idea.

- It’s a good thing Frankie Boyle is very unlikely to win this whole season, because it would be a tainted victory, by the fact that he keeps getting over-scored on these prize tasks that are cool but have no relevance at all. I’d love for him to win an episode, though, and would be just fine with it if that over-scoring leads to a win in this one.

- “Imaginary companion”. So, the best friend task from Taskmaster NZ, but in a way that will seem even creepier since they’ve left out the dummies entirely?

Frankie Boyle may make no effort to match prizes to categories, but he’s been pretty good so far in the pre-recorded tasks, at reading the task carefully and matching his efforts to the rules about what you’re supposed to do to win. And then getting indignant when others are rewarded despite failing to do so. I respect that, given that that would be 100% my strategy if I were on there, to the point of sacrificing entertainment for it.

- I know in Taskmaster it’s usually ideal if you see five different approaches to each task, but in this case, I find it quite funny that they were given something relatively open-ended, and Kiell, Mae, and Frankie all chose to do almost exactly the same thing.

- Good God, they are really going for it. Worth remembering that these three do know how to do that. Mae Martin’s sitcom Feel Good was a comedy-drama with a lot of legitimately dramatic – one could certainly say poignant – moments. Kiell’s primary job is as an actor rather than a stand-up. Frankie Boyle did a Beckett play last year. This was a good task to give to that group.

- Watching Mae try that hard to cry is quite amusing.

- Saving Ivo for last again, as he mentioned on last week’s podcast that they do a lot. For a variety of reasons, but few of them involve him doing well.

- I don’t know why, but I’m also finding it very funny to watch Jenny Eclair pretend to trim hedges.

It’s the way you can see several centimetres of space between the saw and the leaves. Like they told her she’s not allowed to actually touch them or it’ll ruin the bushes. And that she has to wear goggles. Health and safety.

- “I’m going to have to get an other imaginary friend now!” sobbed by a middle-aged woman wearing goggles: also very funny.

- Ivo going to the trouble of getting a tiny sponge and tiny car to add to this scene of his tiny friend cleaning cars with him is 1) respectable commitment to the task, and 2) I’m sure he does exaggerate the whole “boarding school boy who could always wanted but failed to have his father love him” persona in his stand-up, but that persona does put another layer on him helping a smaller version of himself work on a smaller version of his car and tell it “I’m so proud of you.”

- Well, Ivo was the only one to not actually kill off his imaginary friend, but may have actually been the most poignant one. Well done.

- Wrote the above point just before seeing this:

Yes, exactly, Greg, that’s what I thought.

- Frankie was over-scored in the prize task, but I think he deserved the five points this time. He really pulled out those Beckett play skills. This episode might finally be his to win.

- Right, okay. This is one of those tasks that makes me immediately want to break down what I’d be thinking about if I had to do it. Tongs, right? You’d have to go to the kitchen and get tongs so you could shake the egg next to your ear and tell which ones are real. If you find a raw egg, boil it. I would definitely involve knives and tongs. Wasn’t this a thing Bob Mortimer claimed he could do, along with the apple thing? Shell an egg in one go? Probably even he couldn’t do it without hands, though. I wonder if he could do it with gloves on.

- And Ivo has put gloves on, solid strategy.

- I’d love to say I’d have a smarter way of doing it than Jenny just cutting it in half, but I can’t really think of one.

- Ivo, not at all for the first time, bringing some Mark Watson energy to Taskmaster. Like when Mark Watson stared at the briefcase saying “I don’t know how to open it, and I don’t quite know what to do if I can’t.” Ed Gamble once commenting on the podcast that in some of Mark’s tasks, he’d just stand around with an aimless look on his face while anxiously considering and rejecting options, and you could see the look on Alex’s face that says… at this point it doesn’t really matter what you do, Mark, but we you to do something. We need you to do something because this is my TV show and it depends on you doing anything at all within this timeframe. That’s what I’m thinking of, when I see Alex tell Ivo:

- Jenny chewing on eggshells is some impressive commitment to Taskmaster. Also, I think her strategy’s not bad. A spoon might help matters, as would gloves like Ivo wore. But it’s not bad.

- Worth noting that no one said the egg had to disappear, Jenny just chose to eat it anyway. But her getting those “crunchy bits” probably helped her score, left fewer bits of shell on the table.

- Even though it turns out that egg was already hard boiled, I wonder if boiling it again would help. Would an egg come apart more easily if it’s wet and has recently been heated and then cooled a bit?

- What the fuck did Kiell find? Was that just put there for this task, or are those tools always there? If it’s the latter, why don’t they incorporate those into every task? That’s the same way I felt in the season 13 task when Sophie Duker used handcuffs – if those are in the shed or whatever all the time, they could definitely be used more often.

- Well, I thought Frankie had a good strategy, dropping them in water to see which is the most hard boiled. And then he immediately just cracked into it with his fingers.

- Kiell got stuck with the raw egg when he cracked it accidentally, but he could still have boiled it before cracking it further, right? You can boil an egg even if it has a slight crack in it. Actually, would have worked even if someone hadn’t ended up there accidentally? What if they put the egg in boiling water, and then just chipped at with a knife while it was still in the water? And then the boiling egg would break apart naturally inside? I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore, I think I’ve stopped making sense but there was an idea there at first. For some reason I’m really interested in finding a proper way to do this task, and the first four contestants have not helped.

- Frankie has made far more egg pieces than I normally would even if I were not trying to keep it together for the sake of a task. To be fair he can’t touch it with his hands, but I think I’d do better than that even with a towel on my hands, and even while not being on Taskmaster, just trying to peel an egg normally. This may not, in fact, be his episode to win.

- Okay, to be fair to Kiell, that seems to have worked a bit. Good job finding the weird tool.

- “You’re looking for a raw egg, because then you can get the egg out in one. You can make a little hole, and then you can blow the egg out in one.” Well, Alex just told me the solution to the task, but I don’t like it. I don’t even really know what he means, how do you blow the egg? This is reminding me of Mawaan thinking he could fill an egg with helium, which I believe we all agreed was bullshit.

- Oh God, Mae, what the fuck? I have suddenly remembered Rob Beckett’s thing where he can peel a banana with his feet and likes to show that off on panel shows. That’s not great. Please stop this. Mae, every other person worked out a way to manipulate the egg with their hands and just not touch it. You are smarter than this.

- And now they are using their mouth. Mae Martin has forgotten about the existence of tools, or even of cloth.

- Mae has remembered that pins exist and mentioned making a pin-sized hole in a raw egg, like Alex said. What are they talking about? Is this actually a thing?

- Okay, now that I see what happened after Mae broke the egg, I realize the raw egg probably is, in fact, better than a hard-boiled one. I was so stuck on getting the egg properly boiled because a hard-boiled egg is better than a soft-boiled egg, because the shell will come off faster. So stuck on that that I forgot how with a raw one, you can just split it once down the middle, and then pour the egg out instead of worrying about splitting it all around the egg. Which is basically what Kiell and Mae both did accidentally. Obviously.

- Ah, I see. I’d thought they’d all be different levels of hard or soft boiled, but in fact, it’s just one raw one and four boiled ones and you want the raw one. Because I forgot about the obvious thing that you can just pour a raw egg out of a shell. I think I now have less grounds for judging Taskmaster contestants for forgetting the obvious, because for some reason I got really into working out the answer on this one, and I still forgot the obvious, which is that you can just pour a raw egg. Sorry I spent so much of this post writing about my theories on egg peeling, everyone.

- Second “Do not touch the astroturf” task of the season. A classic for a reason.

- Mae has found one gold shoe and is looking for another. Pretty sure I’d just put that one on, pick up the ball, and hop on one foot to the bell. Or is that not allowed? It did say “Unless you’re wearing gold shoes”, so maybe only having one on doesn’t count as wearing “gold shoes” plural, even if the other foot never touches.

- I enjoy Jenny having “Why would you do that to someone?” as her catchphrase. Amazing that it took fifteen seasons for that to become someone’s catchphrase, really.

- Okay, now that I actually look at it, hopping on one foot all the way to that bell would be tough. Doable, but tough. Noel Fielding would be good at this. Actually, given that Noel was famously wearing golden boots when he hopped on one foot across the grass, I wonder if this is an intentional homage to him.

- Well done, Mae. Decently impressive athletic achievement.

- Jenny’s having a good time. Turns out watching someone kick a bowling ball is always amusing.

- I might try for being the slowest if I did this task, though that’s a risk. A risk either way though. Find the gold shoes and then wait until the last second of the allotted twenty minutes. At least you can control how close you are to the end; you can’t get right up to the beginning.

- Well, Frankie has the black and rainbow straps touching the green, and those are not gold shoes. And Kiell has not touched it with his hand and knee. That can’t be allowed.

- Hang on, are they just allowed Kiell? Is the argument that he only touched the underside of it and that’s not the green? But I’m pretty sure that still counts as part of it. And they debated in the studio about whether Frankie’s contraption was golden, but not about 1) the fact that the straps were not and they touched the green, or 2) the fact that they were not shoes. Yeah, I want Frankie to get his episode win, but they should both be disqualified.

- Ivo last again.

- Ivo cooking Alex breakfast is amusing, but I think it would be more consistent with his stand-up persona if he instantly took the option of throwing money at the problem.

- He put it down! He put it down on the thing! They’d better not allow that, that was definitely something besides gold shoes and the bowling ball touching the green.

- Ivo’s non-gold shoes have now also touched:

They’d better not even consider counting this one. This should be five points to Mae for doing it fastest, four to Jenny for doing it slowest, everyone else disqualified.

- Ah. I got so caught up in my litigation of this task according to the letter of the law that I forgot the word used was technically “grass” and not “green”. Putting Jenny out of contention as well. And Kiell unequivocally out. And Ivo out for like four different reasons. And in light of those gross violations, Frankie’s are looking less bad. I mean, technically you could argue that the straps are part of the golden shoes that he made.

- The contestants switching sides about Frankie’s shoes in the studio, based on when it benefitted them, was amusing. I’ve been won around, the straps could be part of the shoes. Also, Frankie’s in with a shot at an episode win.

- I’ve managed to avoid mention how hot Mae Martin is for this entire post (for some reason, I instead spent most of it trying to work out strategies for pulling shells off a boiled egg, while forgetting that you can just pour raw egg out of it), but can I throw in one mention of the extent of their focus and competitiveness as they begin the live task? Because that’s pretty good.

- Oh I am enjoying this live task so much. I think they should scrap all the other live tasks and just play this one every week.

- Stage we’re at in the battle of Charlotte Ritchie’s husbands: the look Mae instantly gives Kiell over their shoulder when he fucks up by touching a chair.

- The saga of Mae Martin turning that intense focus on a beeline for one chair, even their high levels of competitiveness not being enough to shove a middle-aged feminist pioneer off a chair, and instantly changing tactics to grab the other chair right out from under Kiell:

Kiell should have had that one based on who was closest, Mae was just quicker and better. I know who’s winning the battle of Charlotte Ritchie’s husbands.

On the other side, we have a somewhat similar story with Frankie having his closest chair taken by Ivo, but reacting quickly enough to get to the next one before Kiell. Well done.

- And Frankie Boyle shares none of Mae Martin’s hesitation about shoving middle-aged women:

I love everything about this screenshot. Taskmaster should sell a poster of it as merch.

- What an image. Every face is perfect. This screenshot, subtitle included, should be printed on billboards to advertise the show.

1) I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Frankie Boyle give off “befuddled old man” energy before, but he might have a bit here, as he sat on his chair and realized he sat down too early.

2) You can see Ivo’s chair move a bit, which means he definitely it on his way past, which means he should be disqualified too and Mae should win.

3) Whether this disqualify Ivo or not, Mae (who has a great facial expression here - Ivo might have been fooled in the split second of adreniline into following Frankie, but Mae was focusing very hard and is clearly aware that they’re wrong) went into this task one point ahead of Frankie, and he can’t beat them anymore, so there goes his shot at the episode.

4) What word did Frankie think got said, in the line “Right in”, that started and ended with the same letter? Or was it just Greg’s delivery, saying it so dramatic made him think he had to move, as can happen when you’re really concentrating and ready to make a split-second decision? Honestly, I love this task. Play it every week.

- To be fair, I guess the round ended the moment Frankie sat down, so hitting the chair afterward doesn’t have to count against Ivo. And a Mae vs. Ivo final sounds like fun, so let’s do this.

- How fucking quick is Mae? They and Ivo were about equally close to the front of the chair when the word “little” got said, so that wasn’t even luck, as it could have been if it had been said while one was in front of the chair and one was behind it. The two of them started with a close to equal chance, Mae was just that much quicker. Fucking hell. Before today, I don’t think I’d have counted “really good at musical chairs” on my list of things that are attractive in a person. But here we are.

- Well, I managed to get to the final task before going overboard with my “screenshotting the entire episode” and “constantly talking about how hot Mae Martin is”. Kept it fairly well in hand before that point. I still can’t believe I forgot that it’s easier to just pour liquid out of a raw egg than to crack a shell off of a hard-boiled one. Fun episode. That egg thing is going to stick in my mind, though.

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xavidotron · 1 year

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Hi Xavid! You want to know a funny, two-ships-in-the-night, interaction between people we would have never known? You reblogged a post from me a couple of days ago, and I ran The Importance of Being Convergent yesterday! I had such a blast playing that I wanted to say hi, and Tumblr is my social media of choice so I was scrolling to make sure you hadn't abandoned your Tumblr years ago, and saw my post and I just thought that was funny.

ANYWAY, hello! I just wanted to tell you how much I love Convergent. I've run it twice now (in February 2020 at Strategicon in LA, what was supposed to be the first of many, whomp whomp) and then yesterday at my house, and I and my players loved it. It's so well written and fun to play -- all of the characters are so inventive and fun and have amazing connections to each other, and I think the gem mechanic is brilliant as a "thing" for them to be doing.

Also, not for nothing, I appreciate how gender neutral and queer-friendly the game is -- it's hard enough wrangling twelve people to get together, much less twelve people in a specific gender arrangement (and doesn't exclude non-binary folks), and my friends circle is definitely one that appreciates being able to love anyone in a game without issue.

Yesterday they ended up elevating Earth above all others, and then Ceranest chose fka Quan Northwind to replace him as Ruler. By far the best moment in the game was when Ceranest and Cleric Alder had just gotten the entire room together for the Questions and were trying to get everyone to vote on the first one, and Cilac yelled "NO! I CHALLENGE MIM KINDRIL TO A DUEL!" And everyone gasped and Mim, who had literally NO idea she was part of a love triangle, was like "Wait, what? Me? Why?" And Cilac pointed to Essap and said "Because she says you mistreat your employee Burl!" So they rolled dice (Mim won, Cilac very dramatically acted out losing), they voted on the Questions, and as they were breaking back up Mim walked up behind Essap and said "Darrad?" and Essap turned around and said "Burl?" and they ran into each other's arms. Truly couldn't have written a better scene.

I don't know if this is something you would ever tinker with again for a publication or anything -- if you'd like I have a couple of very minor things I slipped into the briefing of my second running that I think made it run a teeny bit smoother, but I don't want to give notes if you don't want them.

Anyway, thanks so much for truly an amazing day of fun. I'll definitely be checking out your other LARPs. I think I'm running Bully Pulpit Games' "The Climb" at Strategicon next month (It's not a huge con, 6 players is about all you can absolutely count on to show up, especially as a newer GM without a reputation) but all of my friends who played yesterday said they'd love to do another one, even the people who didn't have any RPG experience at all, so I think I'm definitely going to get the gang back together again.

Cheers!

Sam

Thanks so much for writing! I'm glad y'all had fun! The Importance of Being Convergent is one of my favorite games I've written; it's actually pretty wild how well it's worked over its various runs given how it was written by two folks in a blizzard in 24 hours. It's definitely fun to see how differently different runs can go, and seeing people ham up their ridiculous drama.

I don't know that I'm likely to revise it substantially at this point, but I'd still be curious for your feedback, and if I'm inspired I might add something to the version on Itch.

Anyways, thanks for letting me know, it makes me happy that Convergent is still generating good times and origami butterflies after all these years!

(For anyone who's curious The Importance of Being Convergent is available for free here: https://xavid.itch.io/convergent)

#larp #the importance of being convergent

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yourstormthlaylirahh · 6 months

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A bit late for this because I took the app off my phone for a while and missed the event (I was going to make a bingo this year but oh well) but here are my reactions to the 2024 gmmtv trailers, from most to least anticipated.

On Sale: I have liked every ghost themed drama I have ever watched. I adore Jan. I think while this appears very silly and over the top, it has the potential to have very poignant moments, and I'm holding out for some class commentary through News character 🤞

Pluto's Love: Namtan! Film! Sapphic! Drama! I am very excited! Some hesitancy is felt because I'm always anxious about the treatment of disability in media, so I hope it's not patronizing or disrespectful to the blind community. 🤞

Ploys Yearbook: finally another female led drama. I have high hopes for this, even if it seems like it's retreading plots from other recent gmmtv dramas such as Warp Effect

Kidnap: the plot looks relatively fresh and dramatic. It seems up my alley. Ohm seems to be typecast now.

My Golden Blood: I am really excited for this, corny as it looks and all. A genre romance with Neo and Mond in evil roles, plus a plot pulled straight out of a pulp romance? Sign me up

My Love Mix Up: I'm a little torn on this one, but more positive than negative. I really love Kieta Hatsukoi, and I'm not sure the type of over the top humour and acting from Aoki will translate very well into a thai series. That being said, both Gemini and Fourth are very talented young actors and I think even if not as iconic as the original, their performances will still be enjoyable and heartfelt.

Ossans Love Thailand: another remake? And then another Japanese series but it's a sequel to the thai remake? I'm confused, I think I misunderstood something. I do however have a strong bias towards seeing Earth and Mix together on my screen, I think they act very well together. I also really loved Au Kornprom's directing for MSP

Enigma 2: I guess I need to get my ass moving and watch the first one. The trailer was very artsy

Wandee Gooday: I'm not super interested in the plot based on what we got in the trailer, but I screamed twice, once when I saw Drake and once when I saw Ploy. I love both actors, and I had thought Drake had quit to pursue acting in America so I was pleasantly surprised. I know In Sarin can act well because of Miracle of Teddy Bear (which you all missed out on and should have watched, it was excellent). Also, the scene at the end when he has to stop sex cause he got a cramp from holding his leg up was genuinely funny and relatable. Golf directing is a bonus.

Summer Night: I am a bit letdown, because I initially thought they were breaking up the CPs to put Dunk and Phuwin together in a bl and that would open up so many storytelling avenues for them and other actors, but that seems not to be the case. Regardless, this looks cute and fluffy and I am tentatively interested.

High School Frenemy: it wouldnt be a gmm line up without a homoerotic tale about 2 enemies in some sort of dark school setting. The trailer doesn't give one much to go on, it's a lot of very repetitive fighting scenes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the female characters to get some good scenes which showcase their acting abilities as well as the male characters.

Only Boo: let the record show 'boo' is the most annoying form of endearment in English, why did they translate it this way? The main character is pretty annoying, but to me the trailer got more interesting as it went on, so it should be fun at any rate, and Louis and Book are always nice to see

My Precious: still haven't bothered to watch the movie

The Interest: Yayas character looks wonderful and compelling. Brights looks like a fucking creep, though incidentally those are the characters I think he is best at playing, so hey

The Trainee: I just don't like office settings, I find them uninteresting and a lot of the formalities and etiquette of offices seems really silly and pointless to me. This trailer won major points for seeming to feature a wlw couple, so I'll watch for them anyways, and I got really excited to hear Sizzy so there's that.

We Are: I could barely get through the trailer, this looked really bland to me. I like most of the actors involved so I'm willing to be pleasantly suprised, but I'm not expecting much

Overall, even though there are 7 to 9 series I would say I'm looking forward to, I'm really disappointed overall. A lot of the series are really bland to me this year, so I'm hoping I'm more excited by Pt 2 whenever that is. I want roles for Khao, First and Fah :(

Roles for Mild too, though I know she is a freelancer and not under gmm

#gmmtv 2024 #emilys fandom thoughts

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8o--o8-deactivated20220523 · 8 months

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The tale of two YouTubers making different predictions about the live action adaptations of one piece

There's this one YouTuber who's videos I watch from time to time and he made a video talking about the very first trailer for the live action adaptation of one piece and he was merciless, ripped it a new one in a very funny manner and basically said "yeah this is gonna be awful and everyone's going to hate it", he kept comparing to the Mike Myers cat in the hat movie, overall very entertaining video recommend it

Here's the thing he doesn't usually talk about Anime and he doesn't give a single shit about one piece, he usually talks about shitty horror movies on that channel, that's his thing

literally just made that video for no reason other than that that trailer irked him

Now usually saying "yeah this live action anime thing is going to be Garbo" is a safe prediction, easy dunk but from the reactions of early screenings and journalists it looks like this might be the one that works?

And you know it's all personal taste at the end of the day so if he dislikes it his prediction is still gonna be kinda true and that show might still turn out to be garbage on the same level as Netflix Bebop

It's just I'm going to feel bad for him if that show is received well, because saying "the live action one piece adaptation is going to suck" (removed from all the context we have) is a statement that feels so inherently true, such a no brainer and saying that with confidence feels like such a low stakes situation that I can't blame anyone for saying it

Like can you imagine the level of damage you'd experience if you were a YouTuber who makes Videos where you say "this Media sucks im going to make fun of it" and your takes are genuinely well argued and your jokes are really funny but the video were you said "the live action adaptation of one piece is going to suck" is the one that ages badly and you went out of your way to make that ?

I am being overly dramatic and the guy doesn't really have a big ego so he would probably find it funny but if I were in his shoes there'd be at least a little part of me that would go "goddammit"

On the other hand

There's this YouTuber who makes Videos about Anime usually so eventually he was going to talk about it and he made Videos about live action anime adaptations before so him saying that that show is probably going to be crap is expected

But he didn't do that, a year or so before any kind of trailer or promotional video came out thid guy, who knows what to expect from these, makes a video where he says that the live action adaptation of one piece is going to be the one that gets it right

And he keeps sticking to that opinion, doubling down on it

Now it would be very funny if this person (who knows better he, made a video where he ranked every single American live action Anime adaptation) says the One Piece live action is going to be good and then like everyone else expects it sucks

And I really want him to be right because, can you imagine winning that bet

Saying "The live action adaptation of one piece is going to be celebrated" and being right!?

Like holy shit thats the kind of bet that's so insane I want him to just succeed

So yeah who ever is right there's going to be one I will feel kinda bad for

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lunarticxenia · 3 years

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Moon Signs Pt. 1

My take on moon signs based off people I know! Now personally, I tend to have more strong opinions on my favorite moon signs than favorite sun signs. I feel like moon signs really indicate more about a person’s personality than their sun sign, imo. It does rule emotions and behavior after all. With sun signs I struggle with picking favorites because I do genuinely have people I like of every zodiac sign. I just go by the number of people I like from each zodiac sign. Anyhoo, here’s my view on each moon sign!

Note: These are p long bc I have such strong thoughts on moon signs so I’m splitting it into two parts. :)

🍂 Aries Moon: Ahhh, my moon sign. I won’t be biased though, I promise. So Aries moons based off other people I know is that we low-key got anger issues LMAO. Every single Aries moon I’ve met besides myself has anger issues, with the exception of one person and she still gets irritated easily. Aries Moons are also extremely sensitive, and they tend to be overlooked for that since they’re fire signs. I’ve found that a lot of what they get angry about has to do with their feelings, if they feel they’ve been wronged this really can make them angry as they are super sensitive. They also get angry when they feel like people aren’t listening to them, as they take this very personally. I’ve also noticed that Aries moons are EXTREMELY honest, they will tell it how it is and they are extremely blunt. They don’t like to beat around the bush, and they are very direct with how they feel about something. Aries moons are also extremely passionate and spontaneous especially in relationships; they’re the ones who wanna kiss in the rain and ride horses into the sunset, that is if you can get them to settle down with you LMAO. Nah all jokes, they’re picky about who they want, but once they really fall for someone it’s very hard for them to let go. They’re also so competitive, they will play dirty. My grandpa used to let me win in checkers as a kid, my dad (who’s an Aries moon) NEVER let me win. He said me losing would help build character LMFAO. He just didn’t wanna lose.They also have strong personalities and can be SUPER impulsive. Also, if they wanna do something, they WILL do it. No one is gonna stop them. If they wanna go somewhere at 3am, they’re doing it. Sorry. You can’t stop them. LMAO. Aries moons also love to be in touch with their inner child, my dad is an Aries moon and bought himself an arcade machine out of nowhere LMAO. I also like to collect shells and watch Disney movies to remind me of my childhood. They also tend to change their views and opinions on things a lot, and mind you they have intense emotions about these things. So it can be hard to keep up w them.

🍂 Taurus Moon: Taurus moons are just so calm, it’s scary LMAO. I know a few of them, and even if they’re anxious about something you can never tell. They always have this calm demeanor and just seem so unbothered by everything. Taurus moons also LOVE money and the finer things in life. The male Taurus moons I know work a lot just so they can have a lot of money. One of them literally said to me “Money talks” after explaining to me why they work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day doing two jobs. The crazy thing is, despite doing all that extra work, he just seemed so unbothered about it LMAO. The female Taurus moons I know tend to love really expensive clothes and dressing up. This Taurus moon I work with has such nice clothes and always dresses like she’s on a Vogue cover. Like I said, Taurus moons LOVE money and the finer things in life like expensive clothes. If they aren’t the types to dress up or be workaholics, they desire comfort. They would rather lay in bed and take hot bathes than be bothered to do all that extra stuff. They also might like to eat out at expensive restaurants, and are “foodies”. They also might be big lovers of music and have lots of different music tastes. Also, Taurus moons? STUBBORN. Good luck trying to get them to change their mind on something. Also, despite them wanting all the luxuries and comfort of life, they are SUPER grounded. They do not live in a dream world, they see life for what it is, and prefer to be on the ground than have their heads in the clouds. Also, Taurus moons, I’m sorry, but y’all can be lazy. I work with three of them, and they can be lazy. They will not do more than the bare minimum. Also, their anger is low-key scary. Especially since it can come out of nowhere since they’re calm all the time, you never know when they’re angry and if you catch them at the wrong time... well, rip. They also tend to be introverted- even if they’re social, you will not know anything about them unless you’re besties with them or related to them. Doesn’t matter how well you know them, they don’t air their dirty laundry and keep their private life private. Also one last thing, omg these people sing all the time. They love singing to themselves, every single one I’ve met does that LMAO. Anyway, love my Taurus moons.

🍂 Gemini Moon: Gemini moons love to make people laugh LMAO and love to just sit down and have good talks with people. Their minds NEVER stop working. Good luck trying to get them to stop talking once they know you. They can and will talk about anything for hours. Now, I do admire that, but sometimes I just wanna relax and they won’t stop talking to me LMFAO. My dad’s girlfriend is a Gemini moon and at family gatherings she loves to dance around and try to get everyone else to dance. I find that Gemini moons are very active and love to move around, and try to get everyone to have fun. Definitely the life of the party. They’re super amusing and also love to tell jokes and funny stories. Now not all of them are extroverts especially if they have an earth sun sign. So that is something to consider. My cousin is a Gemini moon and tends to be more introverted, however, once she’s comfortable around someone and knows someone she’s super goofy and loves to make people laugh. Gemini moons also love to learn, they’re always teaching themselves about something. My cousin who’s a Gemini moon just randomly started teaching herself how to do sign language (she’s good at it also)! These people are also SUPER adaptable, they can get along with any kind of personality and can adapt to any situation. I’ve also noticed that they love to playfully roast people and annoy them LMAO. I have noticed that they struggle with reading the room, they tend to just continue to annoy someone and can take it too far, which can get kind of annoying. They’re also extremely curious and are always asking questions. They love to ask random questions without any context. It’s a quirk a lot of them have. Trying to tell a story to them can be frustrating because if you mention certain terms they’ll ask you what they mean LMFAO. My dad was telling a story about how he used surfing to explain physics concepts in class and his girlfriend asked what the concepts were and what they mean. Also, they’re really good at giving advice. These people would make great psychologists imo. This girl I used to talk to (who’s a Gemini moon) actually is becoming a psychologist, so there you go LMAO.

🍂Cancer Moon: Oh Cancer moons...you guys are so sensitive. They feel everything and anything. I haven’t met a Cancer moon that isn’t an empath. They are extremely good at reading other people and sensing their motives. My mother is a Cancer moon, and she’s always been able to tell who’s toxic in my life. She doesn’t even have to meet them either, just based off of stories I tell her, she can pick it up right away. Now, everyone always says Cancer moons are super close with their family and that’s definitely not always the case. The Cancer moons I’ve met have actually had a lot of problems with their family. Now the thing that I’ve noticed with these placements is that despite how toxic their family is, they always stick by them. Even if they’re not close. So I wouldn’t say they’re all super close with their families, but they always stick up for them, which can be an issue if their family is toxic. Also, Cancer moons, SUPER MOODY. I’m sorry but like I’m a Cancer sun and they’re ten times more moody than I am LMFAO. I’ve always said they act more like the stereotypical Cancer than Cancer suns. Also, this is a super underrated placement for humor. Every Cancer moon I’ve met has been super funny. Also, a super underrated placement for anger issues. Everyone says oh yeah Aries moons have anger issues, like yes, BUT HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN CANCER MOON ANGER?! Y’all Taylor Swift is a Cancer moon and wrote a whole album about how fed up she was about the media mistreating her and the whole Kimye thing (rightfully so) but y’all see my point. They can and will fight you. They also tend to be introverted, even if they’re social, (which I rarely see), they would much rather keep to themselves. I’ve also noticed that they’re very nostalgic a lot. My Cancer moon ex used to just randomly go through childhood photos and would show them to me. They’re also EXTREMELY protective over people they love, they will KILL for the people they love. They also love to talk about their dream homes and interior decorating a lot? My Cancer moon ex was OBSESSED with coming up with his dream house and would literally draw out diagrams for me to see. My mother too, she wants to redecorate her apartment and was showing me all the potential furniture that was gonna be put in. Oh Cancer moons, LMAO.

🍂 Leo Moon: Oh Leo moons. You guys can be so dramatic LMAO. Every Leo moon I’ve met is so dramatic; these are the types of people who get up and move around when telling a story and also do dramatic hand gestures. These are the types of people who post a black screen in middle school on Snapchat saying “Don’t hmu.” LMAO. My Leo moon friend gets so mad when I make that joke, but it’s so true. These people are also naturally super creative, the Leo moons I know love to decorate and draw. Even if they don’t do any outright creative hobbies, they have a creative streak to them. It’s weird though because despite them being very dramatic when it comes to them being angry, they struggle with expressing their personal problems to other people. (This however can be changed with other placements, but I’ve found this to be true in many cases). They don’t want people to think that they’re weak, so they put up a tough front to hide that they’re hurting. Also, Leo moons, are indeed the hype friends. My Leo moon friends gas up my Instagram posts so much. They’re also extremely loyal and don’t like to leave people out, they hate that kind of shit. They’re also extremely accepting of others, my Leo moon friend was the first person I came out to, and they accepted me right away. They also love to take pictures of EVERYTHING. Like when you go out with them, they will make you wait before eating your food so they can take video of your food together LMAO. They love to capture every moment, I personally find it very endearing. Also, a lot of people say Leo moons are super cocky. I don’t find this to be true. They can come off that way, but I’ve found they tend to actually be pretty insecure and they try to hide it by coming off as confident. I feel like Leo moons tend to put on a show a lot to hide how they truly feel, which makes it hard to get to know them. It makes me sad because they truly are such kind hearted people and all they want is to feel validation. I also found that they love to go above and beyond to make sure everyone else is happy and tend to put themselves last. I wish y’all didn’t do that, you deserve to be happy too. ;(

🍂 Virgo Moon: Workaholics. That’s how I’m starting this LMAO. My friend is a Virgo moon and works her ass off. She goes above and beyond in school for starters. For this anatomy course we had together, she sent me a whole diagram she made of the human brain on Notability and it was so intricately made. She also works her ass off at her job and takes care of her siblings. I feel like this falls into Virgo placements putting others before themselves. Virgo moons are definitely the types to be like this. They want to make everyone happy and they want to feel useful so they do all these extra things to feel that way. Virgo moons are also super smart, and have the best study methods. Low-key jealous. They have this incredible drive and are always on top of things and have a routine. Also Virgo moons LOVE animals. My friend who’s a Virgo moon, works at a dog sitting business and has 6 pets at home. They LOVE animals. They also like honesty and bluntness; they will provide you with that as well. They don’t like beating around the bush or lying to make other people feel better. You wanna know if you look bad in a dress? Ask a Virgo moon, LMFAO. I’ve also found that they struggle with wanting to be perfect all the time, and struggle with anxiety. As I said, they want to be the best at everything, and this can be a big source of anxiety for them. These people also find themselves attracting people who they want to “fix”. They also give amazing advice and are super reliable. Also, last minute plans? They HATE them. Want a Virgo moon to hate you? Try making spontaneous plans with them LMAO. Virgo moons also have great memories; they’ll remember every little detail about you. Also Virgo moons are the types to take charge in a group project and run the whole thing because they don’t trust anyone. Virgo moons also always appear to be calm and collected, even though many of them frequently deal with anxiety a lot. Also, they’re low-key underrated for humor. They have a very dry and self-deprecating sense of humor LMAO. They also go above and beyond in relationships because they enjoy seeing the people they love being happy.

Anyhoo, this wraps up part one! Also these are just my opinions, so don’t get offended I tried to praise and drag all of them equally <3

Part 2 here.

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strawberrymilkgeorge · 3 years

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Part One. George: the definition of “hello, have you met my friend?”

warnings: none word count: 1568 (not including pictures) *** Bugsy is Y/n’s username! I got too attached to change it to y/u/n so change it in your mind if you’d like :)

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Y/n sighed lightly as she set her phone on the desk in front of her. Her eyes traveled back to her monitor, where George was sharing his screen on Discord as he practiced speedruns. Y/n and Sapnap were on call with him to keep him company.

The cold air around her nipped at her skin, sending chills and bringing goosebumps. She pulled her hoodie closer to her body, tucking her feet on her chair to curl herself in a ball.

"This run sucks," George mumbled. "I thought it was going to be good."

"It would have if the village actually had anything useful," Sapnap commented. "There was a lava pool at spawn and everything."

"What do you think, Bugsy? Should I start over?"

She hummed, squinting at the screen. "Yeah, you should."

He left and started a new run.

"Karl's replies on Twitter are always so funny," Sapnap giggled after a few moments of silence. "He's so formal."

"I love that kid. That's my best friend right there, no cap," Y/n said with a smile. She and Karl had been friends for a few years now. They met through their parents being friends and shortly found out the other streamed and quickly bonded over that as their fanbases grew.

"Did you see Wilbur's response to your tweet?" Sapnap asked. "Man wrote you a letter."

"What did the tweets say?" George asked, half-listening as he focused on his run.

Sapnap read them and George laughed through his nose. "How could you ask for a Minecraft boyfriend while you're literally on a call with us while I'm playing Minecraft?"

"Just keeping my options open," Y/n laughed. "Don't worry, I'm wearing a GeorgeNotFound hoodie as we speak."

"I'd be worried, George. There are quite a few proposals in the responses."

"Shut up," Y/n muttered, a smile on her face that she was glad neither of them could see. "George, you remember my roommate is in love with you, right? Don't upset her by being jealous of boys coming after me."

"You're an idiot," George breathed out in a laugh. "No, she's not."

"She is. Very much."

"No, no, she isn't."

"George," Sapnap sighed dramatically. "Just accept that you can be loved."

"You're both idiots, okay?" George laughed awkwardly. "This seed is terrible," he groaned.

"Wait!" Sapnap yelled. "Village on the left!"

George quickly turned and ran towards the village to loot it. Y/n watched with Sapnap as George found iron and a few other valuable things.

"Oh! This might be okay."

"Bugsy?" Sapnap asked slowly, sounding confused.

"Sapnap?" she replied in the same tone.

"Have you not met Quackity?"

"No. What made you ask?"

"I just saw his response to your tweet."

"Why are you two on your phones? I'm speedrunning!"

"Because you still haven't made it to the nether on any of them," Sapnap bit. "How are you best friends with Karl and you haven't you met Quackity?"

"I dunno. I just haven't. There's a lot of people I have only spoken to through Twitter replies."

"Like who?" George asked.

"Why are we only talking about me?" Y/n asked in slight frustration. She wasn't fond of talking about herself because she wasn't used to it. "This is George's stream."

"Well, now I'm really curious so I wanna talk about this," George laughed. "Who haven't you met?"

"I dunno!" she said, flustered. "Quackity, Wilbur, Dream, Tubbo, Tomm-- wait, no I met Tommy. He yelled at me."

"Wait, wait, what?" Sapnap interrupted.

Y/n paused but neither of them said anything. "What?"

"You haven't met Dream?" George asked, sounding equally as confused.

No one said anything. "No? Why is that surprising. I mean, we've joked through tweets and stuff but I've never played with him or actually spoken to him."

"What about DMs and stuff?" George asked.

"Nope. Dream is just thirsty in my replies like Wilbur," she joked, feeling the anxiety of the awkward pauses seep through her skin and touch her bones. Why were they being so weird about it? "Why is that so shocking that a man with, like, 15 million subscribers has never spoken to me?"

Sapnap laughed. "I'm just genuinely surprised that he hasn't reached out to you before."

"Yeah, me too," George agreed. "He talks about you in a way I thought you guys were good friends. And you're friends with us so I just assumed you were friends with him too."

Y/n laughed, nervous at the mention of being talked about. "Well, he must be a pussy or something because I have yet to receive any acknowledgement from Dream Was Taken besides him occasionally replying to my tweets and Instagram pictures."

George laughed suddenly, making Y/n look at the monitor with George's screen quickly, which wasn't moving. "What happened? Did you find something?"

"No," George's screen began moving again and he started building a portal. "Dream just texted me because he's watching the stream."

"What did he say?" Sapnap asked.

"He said, 'can I join the call? I don't want Bugsy to think I'm a pussy'," George answered, lowering his voice to a mumble before adding, "And something else he'd probably kill me if I said out loud."

Sapnap and George laughed at Y/n's silence. She was only joking, not intending to challenge him to talk to her. Honestly, she was relieved he had never spoken to her because he intimidated her. Meeting people made her nervous and Dream was no different. If anything, he was worse because he was a big deal and he kinda flirted with her sometimes, which gave her butterflies in a way she didn't like.

"I'm adding him to call," George announced.

"Wait, you're not going to check if I'm okay with meeting him live in front of 80,000 people?" Y/n asked with a small, nervous laugh.

"No, because it's my stream. I can do what I want. I can't live another second knowing you two have never talked."

"I think Bugsy's scared!" Sapnap coeed.

"I think so too!"

"You wish," Y/n muttered.

A small sound emitted from Discord, notifying everyone that someone joined the voice chat.

"Hello Dreeaamm..." George dragged out as he navigated the nether. "I made it to the nether, Sapnap. Will you get off your phone now?"

"Yeah, I guess. Hi Dream!"

"Hello," Dream said casually. "Hello, Bugsy."

Y/n lowered in her chair more, pulling her hood up and closing it tight over her eyes. No one could see her but his voice made her feel seen.

Sapnap giggled and George laughed. Dream breathed out a laugh. Y/n responded with a small, "Hi."

"Bugsy, you're such a liar!" Sapnap called out. "You are so scared."

"Shut up, Sapnap!" she chuckled.

"Scared of what?" Dream asked innocently.

"Meeting you," George answered. Traitor.

"Forgive me," Y/n started, sitting up in her seat and pulling open her hood to watch George play, "for being nervous to meet Mr. Speedrun in front of a huge live audience." She decided to joke around to hopefully ease the nervousness under her skin. "I'm just worried he's going to flirt with me again and I'll have to embarrass him in front of everyone by rejecting him again."

They all laughed.

"I mean, you already said Karl was in the lead for being your Minecraft boyfriend, so I really have no shot," Dream said.

"As if I'm letting some girl named Bugsy steal my fiance!" Sapnap yelled.

"Ah!" The attention was ripped away from Y/n as George screamed. Y/n looked at the screen, watching as her friend was getting attacked by a hoard of zombie pigmen.

"Why did you hit one, George?" she teased.

"I didn't mean to! AHH!!" he screeched, making everyone laugh. "STOP ATTACKING ME!"

"George!" Dream laughed. "Just run, you won't be able to kill them all!"

"I'm trying!" George fell in lava and screamed again. His death appeared on the screen and Y/n could hear him slam his desk. "That run was so good until the zombie pig came out of nowhere."

He started a new run and it was quiet for a moment before Dream's soft voice spoke again. "Well, Bugsy. I hope you forgive me for taking so long to speak to you."

"I-I was just kidding about you being a pussy," she mumbled, making him laugh.

"No, it's true. I was."

"Come on, Dream, sliding in my DMs is easy," she joked. "You could have if you wanted to."

"Trust us," George laughed, "he wanted to."

"What?" Dream asked George loudly, making Sapnap laugh.

"Dream, you talk about her all the time. George and I were both led to believe you were already friends based on how you talk about her."

"How I talk about her? What does that mean?" Dream sounded defensive and it made Y/n smile.

"You're always like, 'Bugsy did this' and 'Bugsy tweeted that', and 'I have to do a face reveal before Bugsy does because she'll outshine me'," Sapnap teased.

"Okay, the last one? I never said that. You're lying about that."

"But the rest of it is true?" Y/n teased.

"Look, you play good and your tweets are funny! I didn't come on here to get bullied, oh my gosh."

**********

A/N: this is my first time attempting a social media fic so the theme of this series is gonna be ignore the number of likes/retweets and stuff just know that y/n is a much smaller streamer she only gets a lot of likes and stuff when it involves other mcyt ya know okay fun times

Please give feedback!! I hope you enjoy it!!! I don’t have a schedule right now but I might in the future if this series gets a lot of attention :) as of right now i’ll try to update at least once a week!

#real person fiction #rpf #dreamwastaken x reader #dreamwastaken x you #dreamwastaken x y/n #dream x y/n #dream x reader #mcyt x reader #mcyt x y/n #smau #dream smau #dreamwastaken smau #social media fic #dream social media fic

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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

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Archetypes: Sorting Hat Chats

I’ve been asked about my rationale for naming different primary/ secondary combinations. I did this originally as a tool to help me sort characters - I wanted to see how these types tend to be used, so I could more easily see what subversions looked like. I'll run through my thoughts, but know there’s a lot of variation within each category. But even WITH that variation, I do think that each one has its own specific energy that makes it interesting to talk about. An explanation of the terms I'm using.

DOUBLE LION “THE REVOLUTIONARY”

Pretty straightforward. The Lion primary knows something is wrong, they know it in their bones even if they can’t articulate it, and they’ve got to go out and do something about it. Probably charging at whatever power structure is directly in front of them. It’s unlikely you find a character leading a revolution who isn’t a Double Lion. These guys are intense, inspirational, single minded.

The villain version of the Lion primary tends to be the person who “went too far" or "became the monster they were trying to fight.'' But I think that the much more interesting Lion primary villain trope is the Traitor. Since Lions work from their feelings, and their philosophies can’t necessarily be articulated or linked to individuals outside of them - they can definitely have their head turned while still feeling moral about it.

One of my favorite examples of this Revolutionary archtype is actually Christian Bale‘s character from Newsies. He’s the spark that starts the unionizing revolution, but 100% needs his Badger and Bird lieutenants to keep him focused and keep him from defecting

LION SNAKE “THE ROBIN HOOD”

These guys are similar to the Double Lion - they will recognize a cause or injustice revolutionary style - but Robin Hood doesn’t go up and bang on wicked Prince John’s door. His move is the snake secondary one: confront the problem indirectly. Undermine the regime by stealing tax money and re-distributing it to the poor. Be simultaneously Robin Hood the outlaw and Robin of Locksley the noble, infiltrating and getting information. The Lion Snake is more likely to work within society (or deliberately separate from society) versus just breaking everything down.

LION BIRD “THE LAWMAN / THE VIGILANTE”

The fact that the Lion Bird can either be the Lawman or the Vigilante shows off the very clear hero/villain split you get with Bird secondaries. We also see this with the Snake Bird (simultaneously the Mastermind and the traditional Villain) and the Double Bird (either the Scientist or the Mad Scientist.) This is why I think I had such trouble naming the Badger Bird. I wasn’t leaning into the duality of the Bird secondary enough. The Badger Bird can be the King Arthur, or he can be the Mob Boss, and he’ll look kind of similar either way.

The Lion Bird also has that Lion primary conviction and drive, but they want to follow up on it with investigation, evidence, and plans. I actually think there need to be more stories about Lawmen turning into Vigilantes and vice versa. Because Lion Birds are their Cause no matter what external alignment gets attached to it.

LION BADGER “THE LINCHPIN”

This is my own sorting - although when I came up with this name I still thought I was a Double Bird. The linchpin is the pin-axle thing at the center of a wheel that prevents the whole thing from falling apart, and I think it's a good way of talking about the energy of this combination. The Badger secondary means they’re a lot less single minded than the other Lion primaries: their power comes from being part of a group. They become the emotional “heart” a lot, and have a way of quietly keeping things together just by existing. They can be leaders, but a Double Lion will lead from up front while a Lion Badger will lead from in the middle (if that makes sense.)

I do think it’s really funny that this is a common sleeper villain trope. Peter Pettigrew, Prince Hans, and Randall Boggs of Monsters Inc. all became integral to a group, and then exploit their position within it. They’re kind of the evil bureaucrat. Maybe that's a good trope for children’s media

DOUBLE SNAKE “THE TRICKSTER”

This is another straightforward one. Double Snakes are in it for themselves (and maybe like three other people.) They're going to be clever and tricksy about how they get what they want, and will not mind doing things backward and unofficially. And they won't mind if you know that's what they're doing. There’s something very unapologetic about the Double Snake which makes for very attractive characters. They are consistently voted the sexiest... and when they’re villains they’re fun villains. You know what they want, and what they want is not that complicated. I think that’s a big reason for the appeal of Snake primaries in general. They’re the easiest primary to understand and explain.

SNAKE LION “THE LANCELOT”

I used to call these guys “The Rebel,” which... is too generic, doesn’t really mean anything. So I started thinking about the Lion secondary as the Knight secondary, and I liked that. Double Lions are the Crusader Knight, riding for their Cause. Bird Lions are Grail Knights, riding for their own personal truth. Badger Lions are Champion Knights, here to help the helpless and defend the innocent.

And if that's that case… Snake Lions have to be the Knight Errant, the knight who rides for his lady. It is that simple. Lancelot might be a Knight of the Round Table, but he’s riding for Arthur the person, not Arthur the King. And for his lady, Queen Guinevere. I feel like his dilemma is one that’s common to a lot of Snake Lions: what happens when they’re forced to split their loyalty? It’s tragic, but Lancelot can’t have Arthur and Guinevere simultaneously.

(At least not until my awesome Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot OT3 which I will totally write at some point :)

SNAKE BIRD “THE MASTERMIND / THE VILLAIN”

The classic. We see a little more of the Bird Secondary split, and well… this is your stereotypical villain. They want power. They’re going to use an elaborate plan to get it. There’s a lot you can do with this sorting, but I actually do think it’s fun that whatever you do, this slight undercurrent of villain and/or mastermind… never quite goes away.

SNAKE BADGER “THE LOVER”

The Love Interest sorting. Chances are very good that if there is a love interest (who does not serve some other role in the story...) they're going to be a Snake Badger. Devoted to one person, solving problems by caretaking. This is the Badger secondary who is likely to have the smallest group, which is just going to make them look excessively devoted to their friends. This type is pretty gender neutral, which is fun. A lot of female love interests, but also your Mr. Darcys and Peeta Mellarks.

One of my favorite things about this trope (mostly just because I think it’s funny...) is that if you write a character who is not supposed to be a love interest, but who is a Snake Badger... subconsciously I think people are going to read them as a love interest anyway. Looking at you Jaskier, Horatio, and even Captain Barbossa.

DOUBLE BIRD “THE [MAD] SCIENTIST”

I think that (especially if you aren’t a Bird Primary yourself) your response to hearing a fictional Bird Primary’s motivation is kind of …huh. That seems random. Or oddly specific. You get your Hannibal Lecters, whose entire motivation is... wanting to eat people while drinking nice wine.

Double birds seem especially unusual, just in terms of society. They are Bird secondaries and they interact with the world through gathering data, but their Bird primaries mean that data can literally lead them to any conclusion, no matter how potentially wacky. These guys consciously build themselves from the ground up, and that can make them kind of detached - either in a logical way, or an unmoored way. They're written as either really stable, the rational mentor figure. Or really... not. And that’s how you spot a Bird villain. They’re not after money/power/safety, they’re after something weird.

BIRD LION “THE GRAIL KNIGHT”

This is the trope of Perceval or Galahad, questing after the Holy Grail chalice... which is really just meaning, and truth. It’s a personal quest. Grail Knights tend to ride alone, and a lot of the things that concern them are metaphysical, to do with identity, purpose, things like that. You can have extremely different Bird Lions, but I do think there is a sort of spiritual core there. Doctor Harleen Quinzel sees freedom and truth in whatever the Joker is doing, and then once she recognizes his hypocrisy, has to go build her own meaning.

I actually think these guys are pretty easy to spot because of that Lion secondary. When they change direction, they change direction, and there’s probably a period of despair between the direction changes. I’ve talked about how Bird Lions having a habit of falling apart pretty dramatically, and that’s where this idea comes from.

BIRD BADGER “THE SURVIVOR”

A rare sorting, but an interesting one. I call this one “the Survivor” or “the Last Man Standing” because, well, they seem to be. They seem remarkably stable. This is the Bird primary least likely to be a villain, and maybe the sorting least likely to be a villain. I think what’s going on is that they are grounded and integrated in whatever community they happen to be in (because of that Badger secondary), but they can define themselves and rebuild themselves in the Bird primary way. This makes them uniquely suited to building a new version of themselves for whatever situation they happen to find themselves in.

Maybe a better name for these guys would be “The Adapter.”

BIRD SNAKE “THE ARTIST”

Like all Bird primaries, these guys are inspired by their own projects and their own worldview, but because of that Snake secondary, Bird Snakes have a more easy-going ‘take the world as it comes' kind of energy. They are “the Artist” because everything they do is art: they want to use themselves and the world around them, put all of that towards whatever their Bird primary happens to be interested in.

You can have villains like the Nolan Joker, or the Talented Mr. Ripley, who kind of turn the world into their own personal philosophical social experiment. Or Scotty from Star Trek whose meaning is solely the well-being of the Enterprise. Maybe they just like traveling, and that's all they need. (It's a way for the Bird primary and the Snake secondary exist very happily together, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was pretty common.)

DOUBLE BADGER “THE PEACEMAKER”

Badgers are interesting, because while I think they’re generally regarded as “correct,” they’re also seen as kind of boring. That’s the case with both Badger primaries and Badger secondaries, which means it is doubly reflected in the Double Badger. They often get written as simplistic, the sweet Jane Bennet type who loves everybody and caretakes everybody and just wants everybody to get along.

They are often the targets of what TV Tropes used to call “Break the Cutie.” What could be more interesting than making this character, who wants to be happily part of a community, be forced to build protective models, be all tortured and angsty? I actually think we’re seeing a return of the Double Badger as an interesting character in their own right, with people like Aziaphale, and I'm here for it.

BADGER LION “THE PROTAGONIST”

What can I say? There are a lot of protagonists that are Badger Lions. They want to help the group - so we know they're the good guys - and then they charge and make stuff happen. Lion secondaries are very useful in fiction - you drop them into a situation and stuff just happens. I also think of this as the Starfleet officer sorting - because if you’re a Starfleet officer, either you are the sorting, or can model it really well.

I will say that this is kind of the stock Protagonist sorting, the way that the Snake Badger is the stock love interest and the Snake Bird is the stock villain. There’s just something sort of generic good guy about this one, which is why I want to see it used as a villain sorting more. Badger villains - mostly people who define ‘human’ very narrowly - are insanely terrifying.

BADGER SNAKE “THE ADVISOR”

Possibly “the Power Behind the Throne.” This is another one I had difficulty pinning down. I called it “the Politician” for a while, which unfortunately came off as a little bit more negative than I meant it to, since I think this sorting has a lot in common with Lion Badger, the linchpin of a heroic team. The difference is that Lion Badger takes on that role kind of unconsciously, while the Badger Snake does it very consciously.

Their loyalty is to the group, but their skill set is all about subversion and different ways of going around the group, which is why there’s an interesting contradiction at the heart of Badger Snake. A lot of real life Badger Snakes struggle with feeling like “bad people" and it's too bad. These guys are ridiculously powerful and competent when they are sure of themselves, and I love seeing them in action

BADGER BIRD “THE KING / THE MOB BOSS”

Another difficult one, despite (or because) I really like them. I was calling them “the Architect” because “The City Planner” sounded too boring… but that’s what they do. They’re all about the community but they problem-solve the way all Bird secondaries do, by prepping, and gathering knowledge. I talked more about this in the Lion Bird entry, but Bird secondary seems to have this villain split going on, and that’s what I see here too. This is a controversial love-them-or-hate-them sorting, and I think that’s why. There’s a lot of room in whether or not you see this sorting as villainous.

#sortinghatchats #masterpost #wisteria sorts #archetypes #writing #long post

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khaleesiofalicante · 2 years

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Hi , I was wondering if u have any desi movie or book recommendations which have LGBTQ+ characters. I am new to the community and Idk where to start or look . Old movies, romance novels, panchantantra comics, mythology, I don't mess with the horror genre because I am a scaredy cat but I am willing to try it at this point.

I just want to watch a movie or read a book with good desi LGBTQ+ representation and characters which are not just there to be made fun of and go - ahhhh a queer person , like me maybe not exactly but ur in the community and I recognized you ,even after all this time in the cis het narrative I can still see you ,finally. I shall die in peace.

Sorry for the being dramatic but I am desperate and I am not hiding it. I might not know anyone who is queer and desi personally yet but atleast I will know some in fiction.

...Unless it's a documentary.

P.S if u don't have any recs, do u know someone who would have good recommendations?

I completely understand your desperation. Queer desi media is not something we are used to or find easily, especially content that is not stereotypical and accurately portrays queer storylines in South Asia.

Here are some stuff I've personally enjoyed. My desi mutuals, please add to this and share the serotonin <3

Books

Funny Boy - Shyam Selvadurai (a fave book about being queer and a minority during the pre Sri Lankan civil war period)

The Henna Wars - Adiba Jaigirdar (DESI WLW COUPLE???)

Cobalt Blue - Sachin Kundalkar (AMAZING - also Netflix movie coming up so check that out!)

We are totally normal- Rahul Kanakia (haven't read this one but parental it's very good?)

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali- Sabina Khan (goooood desi muslim queer woman rep)

Movies and TV shows (most of these are from Bollywood)

Fire

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

Kapoor & Sons

Romil and Jugal

You didn't really ask for this, but if you need them, here are some desi queer organisations you can follow on Instagram. They share a lot fo useful resources, stories and information for you to learn more about queer culture in South Asia.

Yellow Dot (Sri Lanka)

The Queer Muslim Project

ILGA ASIA

I'm glad you are trying to find connections in fiction. It personally helped me very much to understand my own identity and my relationship with others around me.

PS - I'm very desi and I am very, very queer. So, please feel free to come talk to me (or ask for any resources) anytime you want <3

#desi queer #lgbtq #just desi things

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babybluebex · 3 years

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Hi! May I request a Tom Holland x reader, where she's Sebastian Stan's younger sister and Seb (jokingly) threatening Tom to stay back to his sister.

Thank youu in advance 😊💕

oh my god i love this concept so much. thanks for the request!!

blood is thicker [tom holland x reader]

➽ pairing: tom holland x stan!reader ➽ word count: 1.6k ➽ summary: see above! ➽ a/n: make sure to check out the social media au of this story on my blog!! thanks for reading!

“Alright, who’s the punk?”

I looked up from my phone to see my brother hovering over my shoulder. “What?”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows at me and titled his head towards me; towards my phone, rather. “Who’s the punk you’re sending kissy emojis to?” he asked.

“Oh my God, invasive,” I gasped. “Why do you care?”

“Umm, I don’t know,” Sebastian sighed dramatically. He was a drama queen, both on and off screen. I didn’t really grow up with him-- he was already in college by the time I was born-- but, as long as I had known him, he had a flair for the dramatic that contributed to his amazing acting. I think people always assume that, because I’m The Sebastian Stan’s baby sister, I too want to act, but that’s far from the truth. “Maybe because I never properly got to harass your boyfriends when you were in high school?”

“And whose fault is that?” I asked. “Why do you think you need to harass my boyfriends?”

“It’s my job, Y/N,” Sebastian laughed. He moved to sit next to me on his couch, and he said, “As long as you’re living with me, I get to be an asshole about your dating life. It’s, like, the whole gig of being an older brother. I gotta protect you!”

“Maybe I don’t need protecting!” I laughed.

“Just tell me who it is!” Sebastian said with a laugh .

I looked down at my screen and the name that glowed up at me: Tommy. Tom and I had met at the Infinity War premier and, while that was a while ago now, we had kept up over Instagram. Eventually, we started dating but, because of how private Tom kept that part of his life, nobody knew yet (except for Tom’s brother Sam, who accidentally walked into an unfortunate Facetime call, so I could bet money that the whole Holland family knew by now). “Tom,” I mumbled, but even the sound of his name made my heart skip a beat.

“Tom…?” Sebastian began. “Do I know him?”

“Yeah,” I said and bit my lip. Sebastian knowing my boyfriend was one thing; Sebastian knowing that my boyfriend was Tom Holland, the secretly-84-year-old British diva, was something else.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow at me. “Not Tom Hiddleston,” he said. “Darling, I love you and I’ll let you do anything, but he’s older than me, I think there needs to be a line--”

“No, you idiot!” I cried and smacked him with a throw pillow. “Holland!”

“Holland,” Sebastian said slowly. “My baby sister is dating Tom Holland… You know, this is weird.”

“It’s just not,” I huffed.

“Why him?” Sebastian sighed. “Darling, it’s Tom Holland! He--”

“See, this is why I didn’t wanna tell you,” I said. “I don’t know why you hate him, but he’s actually very sweet! He’s funny and nice and respectful--”

“And he’s trying to put the moves on my baby sister,” Sebastian said quickly.

“He’s not trying,” I said. “He did. We’re already dating, the moves were made and successful. He’s coming by soon to pick me up, so get your act together.”

“Woah, time out, he’s coming to pick you up?” Sebastian said. “Taking you to dinner, a right proper gent he is.” He put on an accent that was supposed to be like Tom’s, but Sebastian was secretly terrible at accents, so it sounded a bit more like Chris Hemsworth than he intended.

“Just don’t be an asshole to Tommy, please,” I sighed. “Be nice, be-- Ya know. Not you.”

“That’ll be difficult, darling,” Sebastian mumbled, and I landed a kiss in his hair.

“Make an effort.”

The sun had gone down by the time there was a knock on Sebastian’s apartment door, and I jolted from my place in my room (technically, it was his spare room but, when I moved in, it became mine). “Don’t answer that!” I cried.

“Why not?” Sebastian called.

“You’re gonna scare him!”

I bolted out of my room just in time to see Sebastian throw the door open. Tom stood on the other side, dressed in a nice turtleneck and slacks, carrying a half dozen roses, and the smile dropped off his face instantly. “Oh, hi, Sebastian,” Tom said carefully. “Y/N’s here, right?”

“Sure is,” Sebastian said. His back was straighter, trying to be taller than Tom, and he added, “What’s it to you?”

“I was gonna take her to dinner…?” Tom said, but he phrased it more like a question. “Is that okay?”

“Seb, get outta here,” I huffed. Tom’s smile returned to his lips when he saw me, and he presented the roses to me.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Tom told me, his cheeks turning red, and my chest grew warm. He was such a sweetheart, and I wondered how I had ever lived without him.

“Oh my God, Tommy,” I whimpered, and I threw my arms around his neck to hug him tightly. “You’re so cute, thank you!”

“You look amazing,” Tom told me, his hands falling to my waist. “So beautiful, as always.”

“Alright, Holland, let’s think about this,” Sebastian said quickly. “You’re taking my sister to dinner, what else is planned?”

“Seb, shut up,” I grumbled, elbowing Sebastian’s chest. “We’re adults, go fuck off and bother Mackie.”

“I don’t wanna bother Mackie, I wanna bother you,” Sebastian said easily. “And your man.”

“To be fair, you’ve bothered me extensively the past few years,” Tom said. “I don’t get a pass now?”

“Why would you get a pass?” Sebastian asked, his eyes staring holes into Tom.

“I’m your brother-in-law?” Tom said. “You like me?”

“What if I don’t like you?” Sebastian said smoothly.

“Well, I guess we’re fucked, then, huh?” Tom laughed. “I’ll have her home by one.”

“Twelve,” Sebastian stated.

“Half twelve.”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes for a moment, then sighed. “I guess so,” he sighed finally. “Have fun, you goons.” He ruffled up my hair, earning a groan of complaint, and he added, “Wait. Gimme a hug, darling.”

“I literally hate you so much,” I mumbled, but I sank into my brother’s embrace all the same.

“You know I don’t actually hate Tom, right?” Sebastian told me softly. “I’m just messing with ya.”

“I know,” I told him. “You’re too nice to hate anyone.”

Sebastian detached from me and took Tom’s hand in a firm handshake, and he said, “Right, listen, Holland. I wasn’t around when Y/N was growing up and I didn’t get to harass her boyfriends. I’ve got 20 years to make up for and I intend to take it out on you. If you hurt her in any way-- make her cry or leave a bruise, God forbid I spot a hickey-- I’ll hurt you back. You hear me?”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Tom said, and I watched Sebastian’s grip tighten.

“I mean it, Thomas,” Sebastian said, his jaw set. “Treat her right.” He looked at me and winked, and then he said, “She deserves it.”

#tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #sebastian stan #sebastian stan fanfiction #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader fluff #fluff #fanfiction #this is a concept and a half #i love #thanks for the request!#psychkunox

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meichenxi · 3 years

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Hey, could I ask you how you do shadowing? Like the different ways you do it? You mentioned in your tag that shadowing is good and I'd love to hear how you do it! I do not attempt shadowing much so I don't really know what helps, etc. ToT (my studyblr is rigelmejo)

Hellooo! Thank you for the interesting question!

Tbh I think I do it fairly basically - I don’t use any particularly fancy software, but software like Language Learning with Netflix has certainly made it easier. There’s a whole video on how to get the most of it here: [on mobile, link didn't work - How to study Chinese with Netflix! by Chinese Zero To Hero] (I’d recommend checking out all of their videos actually, they’ve done a bunch of livestreams recently and they place a lot of emphasis on shadowing + the course they are trying to sell you is…actually phenomenally good)

(Also, I have to preface this by saying that I have been very lucky in terms of pronunciation: I learnt about 80% of my current vocabulary by ear without characters or pinyin. I have been in China for eight months in total, and while I didn’t speak Chinese for all of that, I was constantly soaking in info on natural sentence intonation. I still often don’t know officially what the tone of a vocabulary item is, especially if it changes tone like 教, 为 or 相, but I don’t get yelled at so I have definitely internalised a lot of those changes. I definitely would have more trouble with this if I hadn’t had that experience - my other areas are waaaay weaker because of this though- my reading SUCKS lmao and I can literally handwrite about ten characters)

Anyway. How I shadow:

1) Quite simply by playing the line, and repeating it with all the emotion it has!! I usually use Netflix or Viki for this. I try to do it as fast as possible, and if I can’t do the whole thing, I ‘chunk’ it: if I were doing the sentence 我们还不知道他会不会来, I would start from the end with 他会不会来, then 不知道他会不会来, and then the whole sentence. Notice that this isn’t breaking it down into words or even grammatical phrases, but intonational phrases: it would be perfectly sensible to just do 会不会来 without the 他 but realistically, since this is a question, it’s likely that a strong stress will be placed on the first 会, and you wouldn’t be able to replicate that without also included the more weakly stressed syllable before.

2) I locate (intentionally or subconsciously) the main locus of stress within the sentence, and I focus on that accordingly. Tones may become less extreme if they are not stressed, and may become more exaggerated if stressed. This is always a good exercise. I accompany this with physical actions - I throw my hands down, I sigh, I groan!

3) I put away the text, and don’t look at the tones or even my computer screen - more on this below.

4) Finally, when I think I’ve got it reasonably accurate, I’ll record them speaking the line into my phone with an appropriate pause for copying and play it back to myself at various points throughout the day.

5) I then go and find other words with the same tone contour to slot in, and copy it again. After that, I find words that are slightly different tonally and pop them in too.

6) I finally do fun things like hold a conversation with myself. This can be really simple phrases imbued with some kind of emotion - 这个女子到底是谁呀？为什么不认识我？应该是新手吧。You can do this either really informally, or very formally, or both - trying to speak in the latter way is very fun! So then it’d be idk something more like: 那位姑娘是何人，来自何处？This is fun because you can really slow down your speech and sound as elegant as you like!! (this will sound stilted if you do it for modern speech, but it’s a very fun exercise)

Choosing your media!!

1) Don’t use donghuas. Seriously. The voice actors usually speak at a ridiculous pace and not with the same range of ‘normal’ intonation

2) Your Chinese is definitely good enough to recognise when anyone is quoting poetry or speaking in a paricularly sexy literary way so, uh…don’t do that. That rules dramas like Nirvana in Fire OUT.

3) Modern dramas and reality TV shows CAN be great, but they can also be quite intimidatingly quick and almost too mushy at times. I’d recommend informal speech in guzhuang dramas more, because they have professional voice actors and extensive sound editing, meaning that although it might be fast and the vocabulary harder, it’s actually much more accessible and easier to copy. You don’t want to be stuck with the awfulness of 50% failed foreigner and 50% 12 year old boy who can’t enunciate properly!!

4) CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON WISELY. I try to find characters that speak in a dramatic, whiny or childish way. This is so important! There’s literally no use copying Lan Wangji unless you want to be able to have that particular cadence and tone of voice you get reciting poetry. Childish/whiny/dramatic characters on the other hand stress some words very strongly, and rush others together - this is great for hearing what actual real speech sounds like. Whininess wins. In The Untamed, characters like Wei Wuxian (not yllz!wwx but just…regular wwx), 一问三不知 Nie Huaisang, Jin Ling, and Jingyi are all great. Also Jiggy, who is just very extra constantly and speaks much slower as well, which really helps. In SHL characters like Gu Xiang are good.

5) CHOOSE YOUR VOICE WISELY! If you are really aiming to copy them 100% (which you should try at least sometimes), you want somebody with your pitch range to sound normal. I have a sort of party trick in Chinese that because I’ve spent so much time listening to women in guzhuang dramas I can change my voice and sound like a) a scheming concubine with honeyed words, or b) the voice of the Beijing metro. My teacher found it hysterically funny. But it’s not my natural voice, and if I speak like that for too long it hurts. The women usually are too high for me, and the big burly manly men too low - so I’d recommend finding a man with a higher voice, or an older woman (like some of the female characters in Nirvana in Fire). Again, sorry that this is mostly the Untamed (I’m just most familiar with it) but the voice actors for Wei Wuxian and some of the juniors (+jiggy) has a higher voice. Likewise Chengling in Word of Honour.

On intonation in general:

- The thing is that whilst shadowing is useful it requires prior ability in a whole bunch of other skills that you can train - it relies on your ability to accurately mimic pitch, emotion and other contrasts. Training this in ANY language, including your native one, will help your ability to do this in Chinese - so I’d recommend spending a fair amount of time practicing shadowing (or speaking just after somebody whilst listening to a string of text, like monolingual simultaneous interpreting) in your native language too. Any training copying accents or mimicking other people is going to similarly help, regardless of the language.

So, with that in mind, further tips:

1) Hum / try to copy the intonation without any words. What this does is force you to pay attention to what the intonation actually is, versus what you may think it should be.

2) Don’t look at the text! Do! Not! Look! At! The! Text! If you look at the characters or pinyin you’re telling yourself ‘ok this is a third tone here’ etc, but you want to override the part of your brain that has gotten into bad habits and is supremely self-confident in how you’re pronouncing the third tone, and actually just go straight back to mimicking.

3) Don’t be afraid to do it with vocabulary that is way beyond your level. Actually, I find this can sometimes be helpful, because you don’t have a prior idea about how a particular tone pair should be useful - and you don’t know which tone you should be producing.

4) Learn vocabulary by ear - listen to a vocab podcast or even make one yourself (I often do this; I record my daily Anki and listen back to it through headphones copying throughout the day - if you’re not confident in your pronunciation you can get Google Translate to do it). Similarly, pick unknown vocabulary out of a longer segment and remember it, trying to internalise the tones instead of figuring out which tone it is.

5) Find emotional sentences, and copy them with emotion. This is SO CRUCIAL!!! We remember things when we relate to them, and when we imbue them with emotion - and it also helps in hearing exactly how an angry second tone sounds, for instance.

6) When you’re copying, look up, and imagine you are having an actual conversation. Carry yourself with conviction and poise!! Really try to whine like wwx or slime like jgy. After a couple of turns copying them, try to turn off the audio and keep delivering it in the same manner.

7) Swap individual words out. Once you have a line properly figured out, swap a word or two that has a different tone pair, and focus on delivering it with the same pattern of stress.

8) Finally, practice doing this in your native language too!! It’s a skill that we don’t use often, and it can be trained. Some people are terrible at it at first go even in their native language, but you can work on it!

About intonation in general:

1) I think a lot of pronunciation problems with people sounding unnatural or stiff ultimately come down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what intonation looks like across different languages. In English we mark it by pitch: and we are so used to the rhetoric that Chinese has ‘tone’ and not ‘intonation’ that we try and focus on blindly copying every single word textbook perfect without listening to how it actually sounds.

2) Chinese does have intonation!!! Except that, unlike English, when you stress a word, the pitch doesn’t change, but the tone contour is exaggerated - basically the only time you will ever hear a full third tone is in isolated or very exaggerated speech. If you have a Chinese friend, get them to record a sentence like the English ‘I didn’t ask her to steal his rucksack’, and put stress on the different elements of it - I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, and so on. Notice and copy how the tones change. When shadowing, you should always be paying attention to where the stress is in the sentence: when you speak by yourself, practicing saying a sentence neutrally, and then with stress on one component, the next, and so on. If it feels unnatural, it’s because you might not have practicised like this before - it’ll get better!

Hope that’s somewhat helpful / interesting!

- 梅晨曦

#chinese #chinese langblr #langblr #chinese studyblr #studyblr #learn chinese #study chinese #chinese vocab #lingblr #askies

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shadynalittlesketchy · 3 years

Text

A Guide to Vampire Media That Isn't Twilight, by Someone Who Consumes a Lot of It

I'm NOT here to bash Twilight, just provide some other fun bloodsucker media for y'all to enjoy :) if you have any recs of your own, hit me with those bad bois!

Vampire Diaries- "a girl is torn between two vampires" is the plot for like 2 seasons but then it improves significantly. it's definitely very CW, but a lot of the vampire mythology is very very cool. and it doesnt hurt that the entire cast is ridiculously attractive. a great popcorn show! CW for blood and violence, parental death, and dub-con scenarios.

The Originals- a spinoff of TVD, but you don't really need to have seen TVD to watch this. It centers around the 4 original vampires (original as in like, the first vampires ever created) as they navigate vampire and other supernatural politics in New Orleans. Much less "teen angst" and much more "evil ancient vampires trying to be civil at dinner without murder" vibes. CW for blood and violence, and lots of spooky occult stuff taking place in graveyards.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer- literally my favorite TV show of all time. In addition to some killer vamps (team spike ftw!), there's weird demons, warlocks, werewolves- anything you can think of. it has great LGBTQ+ representation for its time, tackles social issues, and has a healthy dose of humor. CW for violence, supporting character deaths, vampire sex that destroys a building, and sexual assault.

What We Do in the Shadows- I don't usually rec comedies, but this one is too good not to. Loosely based off of the movie, it follows a group of vampire roomates in Staten Island. It is hilariously funny, and mocks just about every vampire trope out there. CW for copious amounts of blood, vomit, some pretty crass sexual humor, and dead raccoons.

True Blood- vampires in Louisiana, in a world where everyone knows vampires exist. it checks off all of my boxes for morally grey characters and weird supernatural happenings. it's an HBO show, so TW for blood/gore, violence, and soooo much sex and nudity.

Carmilla- technically a web series, not a TV show, but whatever. its lighthearted lesbian vampires, based off of the very old novella of the same name. great if you like vampires without the scare factor. and its free to watch on youtube!

Movies

What We Do in the Shadows- the movie the TV show is based off of. vampire roommates in New Zealand. also very funny, but less graphic violence/sexual references. created by and starring Taika Waititi, of Thor: Ragnarok fame.

The Lost Boys- awesomely cheesy 80's cult classic feat. Kiefer Sutherland with a bleach-blond mullet. it's fun and weird and has a cool aesthetic. it also has the same kind of vibe as the Goonies. TW for gore, and one icky scene with maggots.

Thirst

South Korean vampire drama with dark, aesthetically pleasing religious imagery. The mc returns from a mission trip with intense cravings for sex and blood and struggles to hold onto his humanity. super angsty and dramatic in the best ways. CW for copious blood and gore, spicy vampire sex, and sexual assault.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

a surprisingly good movie! has a fun, steampunk feel to it, and a pre-MCU Anthony Mackie, which is an added bonus. vampires kill honest abe's mother when hes a child, so he grows up to be an axe-swinging vampire slayer AND the president. this is not a movie to be taken seriously, but it is an awesome popcorn movie! CW for parental death, blood/gore, slavery (it is set during the civil war), and children in danger.

Interview With the Vampire

it is about as gay as a movie can get without the main characters actually being gay. it's a long, drawn-out story about a vampire and his life from when he's turned in the early days of america, until the present. the vampire is played by brad pitt, and he shares lots of longing glances and homoerotic blood drinking scenes with tom cruise. it is visually spectacular, even if the story is a little long. CW for blood/gore, child death, and sexual content.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

starring winona ryder and keanu reeves! it follows the book fairly closely, although it is a very 90s movie. it is WILD, but a classic and a lot of fun if you like vampires, or really any kind of supernatural shenanigans. CW for sexual content, and blood/violence.

Books

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

non-traditional vamp book, by holly black (the same one who wrote the cruel prince). vampires live in fancy quarantined cities called coldtowns, and the MC ends up in one inadvertently. its a more dystopian/sci-fi take on vampires, but it still has a lot of traditional vampire fun thrown in, too. plus the cover is just gorgeous. CW for sex and violence.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

probably one of the weirdest vampire books ive ever read, but in a good way. its about a group of housewives who start a true-crime bookclub, but begin to suspect that their new neighbor is a vampire. its a really good female empowerment story, and it also explores white saviorism. CW for sexual assault, racism, violence, and forced pregnancy.

Lost Souls

Poppy Z. Brite's books are like a punk-rock, gayer version of Anne Rice. lost souls has great queer rep, and is funny and weird and heartbreaking all at the same time. it's about the lives of vampires in New Orleans, but it's very unique and unlike any other vampire story out there. CW for blood/violence, sexual content, and sexual assault.

Dark Lover

this book is the peak of smutty vampire romance novels. I usually read books like this just for fun, but its actually well-written and has a compelling story outside of the smut aspects. It's about a half-vampire woman who teams up with a vamp to kill the slayers that murdered his parents. just ignore the fact that the love interest is named Wrath. CW for tons of smut, and blood/violence.

The Beautiful

I would describe this as a classic vampire story- romance between a human and a vampire in victorian-era NOLA, complete with costume balls, mysterious murders, and a secret supernatural club. CW warning for mild sexual content, and violence. (It's YA, so there's nothing too graphic.)

Love in Vein

A collection of vampire short stories compiled by Poppy Z. Brite, but written by a variety of authors. there's some really different takes on the vampire myth, and it's interesting to see it played with in so many different ways. just an fyi- it gets weird af and pretty graphic. CW for body horror, blood/violence, sexual assault, and sexual content.

Bonus! Mini playlist

Bloodletting by Concrete Blonde

Black No. 1 by Type O Negative

Cure by Darling Violetta

Blood in the Cut by K. Flay

Holy Water by Bad Company

Decode by Paramore

Uninvited by Alanis Morissette

I Will Never Die by Delta Rae

Devil Inside by INXS

Death of Me by PVRIS

Hypnotic by Zella Day

Cold Blooded by the Pretty Reckless

Savior by St. Vincent

Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads

Transylvanian Concubine by Rasputina

Virgin State of Mind by Ks Choice

How Soon is Now? by the Smiths

Red Right Hand by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

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fairyhee · 3 years

Text

Chocolate eclairs (pt.1)

“Aren’t you a Valentine’s day hater, though?”

“Only because I don’t have a date and I’m bitter about it, but you can change that.”

🍫optional bias x reader (h/n means his name)

🍫enemies to lovers, kinda slow burn?, flirting (smut in pt.2)

🍫inspired by: 5sos-valentine

[I know Valentine’s Day has already passed but I got this idea while daydreaming a few days ago and I couldn’t help myself. And also maybe I love this made-up celebration a bit too much and I don’t want to accept it’s over. If you dislike cheesy stuff this might not be for you lmao]

When it comes to Valentine’s, people are always either hardcore fans or hardcore haters. While you were definitely part of the first category, you just couldn’t understand how anyone can dislike a celebration that’s meant to spread love. And also, the pretty lingerie, the sweets, the champagne and the sex, hello?? You would have them any day of the year if you could. And if you had someone to celebrate with, in the first place.

As for people in the other category, they could hate it all they want but in your eyes they were probably just painfully single. Not that you weren’t, but you never wanted to let that spoil the fun. So what if you were single? What one can do with a partner, you could very well do on your own. So every year you made plans to do everything you wanted, but on a solo date instead of with somebody else. Love yourself first, right?

So on the morning of february 14th, after you were done with your self-pampering ritual, you stepped out for coffee and pancakes. The plan was that after breakfast, you would stop by the lingerie store and treat yourself to a nice set, then buy some sweets from the french bakery, then go home and get all dolled up for the evening, when you had reserved a table at a pink-themed restaurant, beautifully situated on the top floor of one of the highest buildings in your town. It was definitely among the most popular spots for that day, but you couldn’t care less that you were going by yourself. You could have gone with one of your girl friends, if they weren’t all already taken and spending the day “watching netflix”.

Thinking about the peaceful day that was ahead of you, you had almost reached your first destination. Your favorite cafe held an event today and served red pancakes with chocolate hearts as a special menu, as well as v-day themed coffee cups that you couldn’t wait to take photos of. As you entered the cafe, you spotted a familiar silhouette by the counter. He didn’t have to turn around for you to confirm it was him, because as soon as you heard him order his ice americano, your perfect day was already ruined. It was h/n.

Instead of saying hi, you groaned as you approached the counter. “Who drinks iced coffee in february? You have serious issues.”

He turned around, seemingly suprised to see you at first, but he quickly got to back to his usual self. “Only cool people can drink iced coffee, you wouldn’t understand. And also, a ‘good morning’ would have been enough.”

“It was good until I saw you, so now I can’t say that anymore, can I?” you said while scanning the menu. “One rose lemonade and the special strawberry pancakes with fresh cream, please.”

From where he was standing, you heard a dramatic gasp. “How can you tell me I have issues when you ingest so much sugar from this early in the day? If this is what you have for breakfast, what the hell are you having for dinner?” You wanted to slap that overly exaggerated shocked expression off his face.

“None of your fucking business. Now if you don’t mind I’m gonna walk to my table and go on with my day. If I spend another minute with you I’m afraid it might turn bitter and cold, like you and your beloved americano.”

You were beyond irritated that you had to put up with his shit today, too. You had met h/n at a party during university because of a mutual friend, and you immediately found out you had absolutely nothing in common, except both wanting to excel in your field and to be right at all times. Both of you had strong opinions and just wouldn’t back down. Every time you met, your personalities clashed, and the useless arguments and snarky remarks wouldn’t stop coming. It certainly didn’t help that he was so handsome and so good at what he did (he was a singer in a band) and that everyone else always complimented and admired him, because that made his ego grow and everything just annoyed you even more. Handsome boys always had to be over-confident and you hated that with a passion. The worst part was that he had every right to be confident, but you would never admit that. You weren’t sure what his opinion was of you but you didn’t care to know.

While you were sat at your table, scrolling through your phone and trying to block the previous conversation from re-entering your mind, he just casually sat down across from you at the table, putting down not one, but two iced americanos.

For a few seconds you stared at him blankly. “Can I know what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m gonna try to convince you that americano is the best coffee.”

“Ha, nice try. What makes you think I would even try it? It’s way too cold outside to drink. Haven’t I told you I don’t want bitterness in my life?”

He smirked. “I asked the barista to put 3 pumps of sugar syrup in it so it can be at least remotely drinkable for you. You will also need someone to watch over you, since I expect you to have a heart attack from all the sweetness, so, before you ask me to, no, I don’t want to leave your drink here and fuck off. So since you’ll be stuck with me until you finish your breakfast, tell me, what have I done to make you dislike me so much?” he placed his chin on his left hand and took a sip of his americano. “I’m curious.” rather than annoyed with you, he looked rather playful.

“Wow, you seem to be having a lot of fun interrupting my day. Glad at least one of us is having a good time. If you want me to touch that drink, you better take out at least half of that amount of ice cubes. After that, we can talk.”

You didn’t expect him to actually do what you said, but he stood up without a word and slowly walked to the counter to ask the barista to fix it. He was so tall, that the strings of the heart shaped helium balloons that were floating around the ceiling reached his eyes, so he walked around the cafe shielding his face with his hand. Why did you find that cute all of a sudden? It’s like you had just realized that his height was very attractive to you. When he turned around, you were smiling at him.

He gave you a wide-eyed look while he was placing your drink down for the second time. “Now you’re smiling at me? Did the sugar from those pancakes get to your brain already?”

“It’s just kinda funny seeing you between all those heart-shaped pink balloons after our last argument.” He had argued that all these holidays, like Halloween, V-day, Mother’s day and so on are made up for purely capitalist purposes and people who celebrate just feed into the consumerism. Besides, his social media posts had appeared on your feed the other day, because he had shared a bunch of memes poking fun at the cheesy traditions. “So what are you doing here today anyway, I thought you were a Valentine’s day hater?”

“Only because I don’t have a date and I’m bitter about it, like you said. But you can change that.”

You quickly looked up from your plate to check for any sign that he’s joking, but he definitely wasn’t laughing. His eyebrow was cocked up and an annoying smirk was planted on his face. He looked so hot, it was absurd.

His proposal, combined with your own thoughts, made you burst into laughter. You were annoyed at the fact that you were considering it. “Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself? Of course I can change that, but do you really think I will?” you asked ironically. You took a sip of the iced americano, hoping it would cool down your brain and help you think straight again.

He smiled. “I don’t know, but the fact that I just made you laugh is a good sign. Also,” he said pointing at the coffee, “you just drank that and didn’t complain. You just accepted my drink and I got you convinced it’s not bad, both at the same time. That’s three wins in a row for me.”

Shit, he was right.

“I love it when you talk back to me, so I’m almost feeling sorry I left you without any comeback to that.”, he laughed. “So what other plans do you have today? What else do I have to try to ruin?”

“Oh, just a bunch of uninteresting things. I’m sure a self-proclaimed cool dude like yourself would be bored just hearing about it.” That was it. Your defense had fallen, you were actually starting to like him, but you still wouldn’t admit it, so now you were adamant to prove you were completely uninterested in him and he didn’t affect you even in the slightest. You were even willing to accept him tagging along when you went shopping if he wanted. Half because you wanted to spend more time with him without actually accepting his half-hearted date proposal, and half because you wanted him to think you don’t care even if he tries to bother you.

“Well, I don’t have anything better to do today. You asked me what I’m doing here, I actually simply came to get coffee. So do you mind if I come with you? Annoying you is more fun than doing nothing on a sunday.”

Perfect, you thought. You fake-rolled your eyes. “Whatever. You’ve already ruined my day, it can’t get worse no matter how much you’ll talk. Let’s go shopping, I know men are absolutely crazy over this activity, so let’s see how much fun you’ll have there.”

“Try me.” he said while finishing his drink.

You smiled and, having finished your breakfast, you stood up.“You might want to have another americano to-go, to keep you from getting tainted with my sweetness. Get up, we’re going to buy chocolate eclairs.”

...

part 2

#optional bias #optional bias scenarios #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #oneus scenarios #oneus imagines #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #optional bias x reader #kpop fanfic #bts scenarios #bts imagines

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