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pub-lius · 2 years

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Which actor from any media you’ve seen potrays the most accurate depiction of Hamilton in your opinion

Aw man don't make me choose 😭

It's actually kind of hard to say, bc I've yet to see an accurate depiction from anyone else besides Ian Rose, and his portrayal isn't completely accurate, but its pretty good. So I'll just rank them in order from worst to best.

1. Hal Bidlack. Sorry, guy, I hated your performance. Hamilton was a very enthusiastic and emotional guy, and while Bidlack has the humor to portray his sassiness, I didn't feel there was much more personality to the character. Besides, Hamilton would never say a lot of the things he says.

2. Lin-Manuel Miranda. And no one's shocked. While he has the enthusiasm, Hamilton was much more of a calculates, manipulative politician than the musical portrays. He had many ways of getting what he wanted, and he used people to do that. On top of that, HE WASN'T IN LOVE WITH HIS SISTER most likely. See, Ron Chernow? I can admit i could be wrong.

3. Rufus Sewell. I'm sorry, but not as much effort was put in Hamilton as in Jefferson during the John Adams series. With Jefferson, they had a spot on portrayal. And i guess they had to budget cut out everything about Hamilton. And as much as I love the clothes in this show, I hated his costume more than Bidlack's baggy breeches. Hamilton was a capitalist who wouldn't have adopted republican fashions (such as short hair) until much later in his life. Seriously much later, like if he got a haircut the day before the duel.

4. Steven McCarthy. The Crossing isn't a perfect film, but I've seen worse, and shy, awkward, soft boy Hamilton isn't the worst. Idk why he's doing Washington's hair in 1776 when he has his own artillery company to worry about, but maybe they're just having bro time... before they formally met. But anyway, Hamilton is way too obsessed with himself and battle that he would ever act so skittish, but that's probably a director's thing. He is a bit of a badass in this movie tho so, not bad.

5. Richard Bekins. There's not much the George Washington mini series gets wrong that stands out, and this also applies to Hamilton. I do think they portray him as a bit more innocent than what is morally correct, but at least its not Miranda. I like how they do go in depth on the affair, but I don't like how, once again, "Hamilton is the victim." I do, however, like mostly everything about this portrayal personality wise. Good job, Bekins.

6. Derryl Yeager. Listen, A More Perfect Union is my comfort movie, i don't care if the casting is shit. But i quite like this portrayal of Hamilton, not to mention the inclusion of the Gouverneur Morris Bet of 1787. Whenever I see him come on screen i do a little happy dance. He could have more screentime imo, especially with the whole "monarch" scandal at the convention, but live laugh love, at least he's there.

7. Sean Haggerty. Turn and I have a love-hate relationship, but at least they didn't give Hamilton a psychotic breakdown that never would have happened this time. I'm very glad Hamilton even shows up as an aide de camp, and his involvement in the Benedict Arnold scandal is shown. I also really want to know where they got an actor who looks THAT MUCH like Hamilton. I was stunned. And, on top of that, he acts very similarly to Hamilton, except for the one part where he tells Anna, i think, something along the lines of "if the mob is going to come, let them come!" Dude, bro, Hamilton was KNOWN for trying to stop mobs singlehandedly. He's not very fond of them.

8. Robert Schenkkan. George Washington mini series again, but can you blame me this time??? IT EVEN HAS LAURENS AND TILGHMAN. Aside from the weird timeline where Hamilton joins the staff after Laurens, Schnekkan does a great job of portraying fiesty baby Hamilton, blood lust and everything. I honestly can't think of anything else this actor could have done more.

9. Now there are more people who have appeared on tv as Alexander Hamilton, but these are just the ones I've seen so far. And that leaves us with Ian Rose. He's spot on personality wise. He's got the sass, the humor, the loud, obnoxiousness, even the hand gestures. I don't think I've heard him say anything shockingly inaccurate, and he thoroughly understands how Hamilton argued. I respect the hustle my guy.

10. ...me 😁 just kidding... unless 👀 you should read my fanfic to see if I'm lying 😜 But I wanted to include some writings as honorable mentions, since I interpreted this as mostly about actors/reenactors. My holy trinity is without a doubt Duty and Inclination, Song of Alexander, and Merited Partiality. My Dear Hamilton isn't bad either, ig. I'd also recommend Religious Duty, The Stars Fight Against Us, And still I am grateful, and several others that I must have forgotten to bookmark. But they're all wonderful and amazing and make me CRY AND SOB AND VOMIT EVERYWHERE but anyway

I hope this helps, and thanks for the ask!!!

#alexander hamilton #so many hamiltons #who let him multiply???#anyway im cramping like a motherfucker so goodbye <3 #beware thy ginger

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

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Humans Are Space Orcs, “Black Hole.”

I was walking, I tended to do that when I had to think, and today was a thinking kind of day. I’m not exactly a thinking kind of guy if I am being honest. Most of the time the inside of my head is a wasteland of song lyrics, movie clips, and microwave noises, but right now I had to try and figure some things out.

First and foremost I had been thinking about the spiderlings a lot lately. It hurt e all over to think the things I was thinking now, but it had to be done.

The spiderlings, when it came right down to it, were just kids like toddlers. They were still learning how to interact with people, they were still growing up, and admittedly, I wasn’t doing a very good job at parenting. First and foremost, however, was the fact that they shouldn’t even be on the ship in the first place. Children weren’t allowed on UNSC ships unless there was rescue mission going on, or they were being transported for some reason.

No one else on the ship would be allowed to take their kids with them, so why should I. It sort of wasn’t fair if you thought on it for a little bit.

Number two, it wasn’t exactly fair to the spiderlings either. They needed some sort of education if they wanted to live in this universe as it was, and right now I didn’t have time to sit them down and teach them anything. I honestly couldn’t really do anything for them at all know that I thought about it. I was horrible at discipline and even worse at teaching them the things they should know.

They needed a preschool or something where they could learn how to read and write, though I had no real idea where to do that.

I had been thinking about this a lot lately based on some of the things I had come to realize while I was gone on leave, the number one being that I took too much on my shoulders. N o one here except for me was expected to father and run a ship at the same time.

If anything I was doing the spiderlings a disservice by keeping them here.

It hurt me to say all of that because the aggressive controlling part of me doesn’t want to admit that I can’t do all of it all by myself.

But I can’t.

However, I do know someone who potentially could if she was going to do what she said she was going to do.

A part of my, however, didn’t want to contact Eris.

We hardly knew each other and to ask for favors would be a bit much. Arguably the adaptids were older than she was, meaning that choosing her to help me in this endeavour wasn’t fair to her either, but who else was I going to get to take care of them.

One thing is for sure, they needed a lot of things that I just couldn’t provide, and that meant I was going to ave to let go.

Made me sick to my stomach but there you had it.

I admired it.

I Can’t do it.

I turned the corner onto the bridge my mind made up. I would have to Call Eris when we were out of warp and see if she would take another couple of hybrids.

I made myself feel a little better by promising I would call and visit as often as I could, though it hurt me to think how the spiderlings might respond to me just up and leaving them.

I tried to remind myself that I wasn’t up and leaving them, I was doing what any other father in the UNSC would have to do and that was find them a place to stay and learn and grow and all of those other things, but a part of me still felt horrible.

To take my mind off of that decision, I turned my head towards one of the bridge crew members, “Grab a tablet and follow me.”

They did as told, bot up and followed.

It honestly still surprises me when people follow my orders. Like I expect to have to explain or justify my reasoning to them, but instead they sort of just get up and walk over like that was supposed to be how it worked.

I wasn’t totally convinced.

I motioned them to follow and together we walked down the hall.

I took my first stop in the medical bay where Krill and Katie working quietly to deep clean the med bay while there were no patients to work on.

Krill looked up and his antennae buzzed slightly when he saw me. A frown crossed his face as he looked me over, expecting some sort of injury. I have him a smile and almost winked but then remembered that when you have one eye winking just looks like blinking.

Katie straightened up, “Good morning Commander.” She said with a wide smile.”

That would always surprise me to, when your friends call you by a title.

“Morning Doctor.” I responded in kind walking over with my assistant at my heels.

Krill seemed to relax, “how may we help you this morning, commander.”

I took a seat on the edge of one of the beds and bounced my foot up and down a bit as i thought, “I was just thinking about the ship and how it’s run.”

They looked at each other.

I held up a hand, “Don’t worry it’s nothing like that. I just realized the other day that I don’t really know how things work on my own ship despite trying to control everything all the time, so I am going to go around to all of the departments get and idea of how they work, and what they do, and how they might need my help if anything.” I motioned back towards my assistant, “Lt. McKinnon is going to take notes for me, and then later on I am going to meet with the Jedi council, and we are going to decide how best to delegate and meet the needs of the ship more effectively.”

Katie raised an eyebrow, “The Jedi council?”

“Yeah, that’s what I am calling it, and you can’t make me decide otherwise.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled and I smiled back.

If they thought my idea was dumb, they at least humored me.

As far as my involvement, there really was none, though I had to make sure that everyone was up to date on their medical evals and vaccinations, which was probably a job I could delegate to someone else, or at least give Katie and Krill the power to do, so I would have to look into that later.

I stood from there and together me and my assistant moved to the other departments before slowly coming around to the rec hall where I knew I might find a particular grou pf of people.

Cannon was there as I expected he would be playing pool with a group of other Drev.

Cannon was a good shot while the others were a couple seconds away from poking each other in the eye with the cues, but they were laughing and talking rapid fire in drev, fast eough that I was having trouble understanding just exactly what they were saying.

Cannon leaned over the table and took a shot sending one of the balls into a corner pocket with a satisfying clatter.

The other Drev groaned and he raised his fist in triumph.

I approached once Cannon won the game, and the big guy saw me coming raising the pool cue in greeting like he might raise a spear. The other Drev did the same

“Zhad tsak Hajee lasan jirhaat.”

I raised my hand and returned the greeting.

May your spear be sharp or something similar.

I kept the conversation mostly in Drev for the sake of the clan, “Cannon how are you this morning?”

He lifted his head to me, “Won seven duels and tested some of Chalan’s new weapons.”

I smiled, “Ben busy than I see.”

“I always try to keep it that way.”

Cannon was the defacto clan leader. Technically it was either sunny or I, but Sunny wasn’t reall the clan leading type and I had everything else to run so that gave Cannon most command over the Drev, which is why I was here.

“Just coming in to make sure you guys have everything you need and see if there is anything that you guys need done. Cannon obviouly you are on the jedi council, so you’ll figure this out later, but I want to make sure eveyrthing is running smoothly. Is there anything your clan needs to discuss.”

Cannon tapped his fingers agaisnt his carapace beore pulling me aside by the arm.

“Tatazan is…. Pregnant so, what should I do about that?”

A ton of bricks for Commander Adam Vir.

I blinked blindsides by that afformentioned rockslide, “I uh…. Hmm that is complicated.”

I turned to look at the floor. I suppose it should ahve occured to me that when we took on an entire Drev clan that we were also taking on mated pares. Now the UNSC guidelines about being in relationships didn’t cover the Drev considering that their battle partners were always thir significant other so hiring a Drev would be impossible if the rule was followed.

But I had failed to recognize the ‘mated’ part of a mated pair.

“Well shit.” I muttered

“This isn’t exactly ideal.”

Cannon nodded, “I think it might be best if the child is raised off the ship on Anin.”

“I tend to agree with you there.” I leaned in a bit, “I have been thinking about the same things for the spiderlings.”

He nodded knowingly.

“A ship is no place to grow up.”

I agreed no matter how much child me would have disagreed.

“We can discuss that in meeting tonight, though as clan leader you have the most say in this.”

He nodded his large head, “Where is my sister?” He wondered looking around for where she might be.

“I sent her off to play with making new weapons.”

“Sent her off?” Cannon chuckled in amusement

“Yeah, I think she worries about leaving me on my own, like I am going to set something on fire or something.”

“Have you set anything on fire/” He wondered wryly.

I smirked, “No but I’ve been thinking.”

“For you, that is actually worse than setting things on fire.”

The two of us laughed and I patted him on the arm as I returned him to the pool table and a second round of him kicking everyone’s ass.

Cannon was a good clan leader and had thrown himself into the work wholeheartedly. They respected him, and he got along with them. Not a day went by that you didn’t see him leading the Drev in some new sort of activity to broaden their horizons. I sortof wished Sunny would join them more often. I think it would be good for her to speak her own language and have friends er own species, but I get why she tended to distance herself.

These Drev were from the same clan that mistreated her entire life, and memories lie that were difficult to forgive at times. Still, they had to be better than me, and I worried about her.

Sure spending her time being beautiful and nobley aloof all the time gave her an heir of…. Hmmm how shall I say…. Excitement and intrigue, but still…. I wanted her to be happy.

And as much as the greedy part of me wanted my friend all to myself I recognized that probably wasn’t a good thing.

I’d talk to her later about it I decided.

“Commander Vir to the bridge, commander Vir to the bridge.”

I motioned my note taker to follow, and we hurried back to the bridge taking our seats. The captain’s chair was familiar at this point, but I still couldn’t shake off that tiny moment of thrill as I sat down.

“Report.”

“Warp ends in five minutes, commander.”

My heart pounded nervously in my chest. This was it, this was the big moment scientists had been waiting for forever. A real live real time picture of a black hole. Now it was important to keep away from the edge or risk time dilation, spegetiffication, and instant death.

The kid in me was about to pee himself in excitement, but the Commander in me was intent on not letting everyone die.

I picked up the com on the rest of the ship inviting them to prepare for warp exit, and then told them to get their asses up to the observation deck to see something awesome.

When I put the mic down I was back in commander mode ordering the crew to ready themselves for this moment.

My eyes were fixed straight ahead.

This was going to be insane.

If we came out of this wrong, we could be caught in the event horizon and be….

Goners.

“Exiting warp in ten.”

I prepared to take manual control of the ship breath held trying not to imagine what would happen if we appeared at the edge of the event horizon sailing on a dust cloud of light as we plunged towards our death, a black pit of nothingness.

“One”

The warp drie disengaged, and we jolted violently as the air warped around us.

I slammed back in my seat taking immediate control of the ship waiting for any warning bells to go off signaling extreme gravity,

I took a relieved sigh when there was none and lifted my head to the viewing window.

‘“Ho-ly shit.” I muttered

The rest of the crew gasped.

It was…. Well it was wow.

IIf you guys have ever seen interstellar, I would go so far as to say that was pretty accurate.

From this distance the thing didn’t look so big, but the very marrow of my bones knew what it meant. The massive disk of light and dust that surrounded it slowly spiraling inward towards a pit of nothingness.

The halo ring of light that surrounded it glowed upward as unbelievable gravity refracted the back of the black hole towards the front.

It was like a dark eye in the middle of space staring outward at us unblinkingly as it lurked in the darkness...

This

Was the center

Of the Milky Way.

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lunatic-fandom-space · 3 years

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Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

#rwde #rwby critism #anti mkek #yu gi oh #ygo duel monsters #yu gi oh analasis

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years

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We are in an interesting point in time when the three major Spidey love interests each have solo books.

Amazing Mary Jane by Leah Williams, which is currently up to issue #6

Gwen Stacy by Christos Gage, which is currently up to issue #2

And Black Cat by Jed MacKay, which is currently up to issue #10

In the case of Gwen Stacy it could be argued she in fact has two titles if we include Ghost-Spider by Seanen Maguire, which is currently up to issue #9

I’ve finally caught up with all 4 titles so I thought I’d sort of evaluate them.

In terms of artwork all the titles have decent-great art. Gwen Stacy is the clear winner here but she’s only had two issues so there hasn’t yet been time for new artists to do fill-in issues or pages. Black Cat’s art was serviceable at best at first but between the annual and the artist on the latest storyline it’s stepped up big time. In ontrast I feel Ghost-Spider’s art is perhaps the weakest exempting Black Cat’s initial artist. I can rarely call out art as good or bad so this is 100% subjective. But for my money Todd Nauck’s work is my absolute favourite closely followed by Carlos Gomez on AMJ. Cover art is a whole other kettle of fish. Black Cat and Gwen Stacy win this for me because Adam Hughs is a god-tier artist and J. Scott Campbell is a guilty pleasure for me.

In terms of writing things are far more clear cut.

Black Cat is by leagues and bounds the best title. Once it warmed up in the first 5 issues it’s slapped hard. It’s characterization of Felicia is superb. She’s fun, flirty, confident, but fully capable of making mistakes. She’s well rounded when all is said and done. Maybe she could be moreso, but it’s absolutely a-okay for now. The book’s concept is fun and has a real direction that allows for variety in the storytelling. We can be at the Baxter Building, the Sanctum Sanctorum or Madirpoor and it will never feel jarring. And honestly Felicia was long overdue a spin-off. She is simply the most obvious character to be spun-off from Spider-Man.

In second place I’d put Gwen Stacy and no one is more surprised by that than me. The plotting of the book has thus far been good exempting one kind of major detail. It uses continuity well and does add detail to Gwen and George Stacy and gives us a rare chance to glimpse Jean DeWolff back in action. It’s so far proved to be an intriguing police/crime story. Where it falters is in it’s characterization and it’s relevance. I know I just said the book adds detail to Gwen and George but let me explain what I mean. This book doesn’t go into Gwen’s head, it fills in details we didn’t know about her. How and when did she meet Harry and Norman Osborn? When did her Dad get injured? Who was her boyfriend in high school? When did her mother die? Oh and I guess she cooked for her Dad which I always presumed but I guess it’s nice to have that confirmed.

And whilst it’s…nice I suppose to find this stuff out…it just doesn’t matter. At all. Whilst not as problematic, this book has one of the major problems Sins Past had. Sins Past actually made Gwen Stacy a better character retroactively (and also kind of a worse character but that’s another discussion). But there was simply no point in doing that. She was dead. She wasn’t coming back. Nobody wanted her to come back. Her role was defined through the fact that she died and would always be like that so long as she remained dead. Sins Past in developing Gwen retroactively at least had a little bearing upon the then-present stories.

Gwen’s affair in theory could’ve been an emotional scar for Peter to bear and add an extra layer to his duels with the Goblin. Not that we needed anymore of those, but theoretically it could’ve served that purpose. This absolutely doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what Gwen was like before she met Peter because Peter himself never knew her back then. Fleshing out MJ in this manner or Mysterio or even the Shocker would hold relevance because those characters appear alive in the present, they interact with Spider-Man. Similarly Untold Tales of Spider-Man gave Peter more villains he could duel in the future, plug in plot holes of his continuous narrative and flesh him out a bit more. That matters because again…he’s not dead. Even fleshing out Uncle Ben could possibly have a purpose as he’s Peter’s role model and enduring motivation. Peter strives to be Ben as a man so knowing who Ben Parker the man was can add substance to those moments. But knowing when George Stacy injured his leg or that Gwen ran for class President just doesn’t. It retroactively adds slightly more substance to like 3 issues from 1971. Maybe that’d be an okay back-up story…but a solo-title dedicated to that shit? It’s just pointless, there is no creatively justifiable reason for it to exist.

And that’s before you get to the problem of characterization. As I expected, Gage’s Gwen is total revisionism of the character. Maybe no one is explicitly putting her on a pedestal but literally the only people who don’t think she’s wholly likable are two creepy football players and the explicit villains of the story. Gwen herself beyond this is flawless. Even things we might argue as flaws (her endangering of herself and her friends) is never framed as a flaw, but instead a mark of her bravery and her desire to seek out justice.

It doesn’t help that this is a comic obviously made by and for the Cult of Gwen that never needed to be fed anything else at this point. Their precious Martyr Princess is the star of her own title, she is the super hero in it, the guy she died to motivate instead died to motivate her. Then that version got to appear in 2 cartoons and a movie. THEY WON already, what more do they really need? So whilst the plot is good, the characterization has problems and just on principle the book shouldn’t exist.

Ghost-Spider is similar yet different, ironically mirroring the protagonists of the titles. Ghost-Spider in concept was always very strong. I never disagreed with the title existing. It’s just that Latour and Maguire’s execution is problem riddled. Continuity and characterization is borked. And the current status quo moronic. Gwen visits 616 for school…why? How is that relevant? How is anything she learns going to qualify her for a job in her universe. Even if the skills are practical there would never be any proof of her qualifications, no records. And that’s not even considering how a character who doesn’t goddam live in 616 is embroiled in a 616 event crossover.

Finally there is Amazing Mary Jane. I’ve spoken far too much about this title. I never had a problem with this as a mini-series…but as an ongoing it removes MJ from Peter’s narrative which is asinine. Why remove the best supporting character from Peter’s story? It’s not like she didn’t have subplots of her own when that wasn’t the case. So on principle this shouldn’t have been an ongoing. And in terms of execution…holy shit.

It’s aggressively bad. The plot is nonsense. The characterization is inconsistent within itself let alone when you consider the history of the characters. The best way I can sum this up is that issue #6 is about MJ going into witness protection because she’s a valuable witness to a murder case…where the guy wore a mask…so she couldn’t ID him no matter what…And the guy knows that.

It’s just so bad I want this book to be put out of it’s misery.

What upsets me most is that Marvel CLEARLY put more effort into Gwen’s solo than MJ’s or Felicia’s. The superior characters get less effort (and one of them gets a far worse title) than the worse character who instead gets more effort and 2 titles just to herself.

Can you see why I hate the cult of Gwen?

#Gwen Stacy #Ghost-Spider #Spider-Gwen #Spider-Man #Amazing Mary Jane #The Amazing Mary jane #Black Cat #The Black Cat #Felicia Hardy #Peter Parker #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Mary Jane Watson #MJ Watson

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Toons for Our Times: Ducktales: They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!

At Glomglast, Glomgold Glomturns! Flintheart Hero of Earth Glomgold continues riding his wave of good PR from helping save the earth in the manner you’d expect: With a dangerous attention seeking pr stunt/ferris wheel/half-ased plan to murder scrooge. Naturally Dewey is first in line for it. Meanwhile Webby tries to convince a wound up Penumbra to stay and enjoy earth so she can get a new alien friend who she relates to and her brothers can get a new step mom, while Launchpad is awkward because his coffee with Pennumbra went worse than the one he had with the gas cloud. The Glom Knight Glomturns under the cut.

This one is late for both good reason, I didn’t want to hog the wifi while my nieces were trying to remote school, and not so good I.e.... I entirely forgot an episode was today because I’m not used to the new schedule, as in the past the show’s either aired on saturday like usual for a disney show, or as a cluster of episodes throughout one week, so even if it wasn’t something I was used to, I was tuned to stay in. The new schedule is weird and my brain is stupid is what i’m saying. Now i’ve covered my butt on with the review! This week focuses on Penumbra, and explains exactly what happened to the Moonlanders after Moonvasion. For Penny at least she’s apparently been living in the McDuck hangar, or somewhere near it, and working on rebuilding one of the bigger ships to get her people home. Della, while not missing the opprotunity to point out now Penny’s the one living in HER garage buliding a rocket home, pitches in and we see things have clearly changed. At least with Della, Penny’s let down her guard and now openly considers her her best friend.. and perhaps more because the romantic tension is so thick here you could cut it with a sword. Granted I may have swords on the brain because of this.

Which if your not up to date on your x-men comics, is an event where our Uncanny X-Men, now having their own nation of krakoa where all mutants are welcome, which includes apocalypse so he’s on THEIR SIDE in that shot, must fight ten other mutants in a ritual sword duel with some of the strongest swords in the mighty marvel canon, and loosing means the other mutants, many of whom are the CHILDREN of apocalyspe from centuries ago he thought lost, get to invade earth with a demonic horde. And if NONE of that made you curious, let alone want to read that, I just.. don’t get you.

Back to the gays, yeah the ten sword thick sexual tension is broken by the fact that Penumbra reveals she tried SOME earth culture and did get that coffee with Launchpad, with Della baffled.. I mean look at those abs. Though it’s probably less “Launchpad really?” and more “Why not me first? Is he sexier? Dammit he is. “ It went about as well as you’d expect.. with Penny storming out suddenly saying this is terrible and running off. Eh not the worst first date i’ve seen in animation this year. I’ve seen a woman go on a date with a man conjoined to his ex.. and not like their siblings it’s a medical procedure. Because close enough is pretty fucking insane and let’s keep it that way.

But yeah so Penumbra’s not sold on earth and Della’s attempts to get her to go with the kids, get to that in a minute, fall on deaf ears. But the thing is. her people are. When meeting with gibious and zenith, if you don’t remember the married moon couple we saw back in “The Golden Spear”, Penumbra finds out she’s the only one who wants to go home. Her people like it here...the happy couple even got adorable new outfits, a job with Glomgold in Gibbious’ case, and an adorable new dog named good boy. Look at them.

I would die for either of them. I hope we see Good Boy again. And that the show introduces Bolivar, donald’s dog at some point. Or even his ostrich hortense. I just want the duck to have a pet dammit.

Point is their happy here and while Penny wants to go back to the old routine of them all on the moon and her saving them.. their fine if she wants to go home but.. their staying here. And it’s easy to see WHY they want to: The moon was harsh, filled with monsters and much like us humans right now with earth, they only stayed in their clusterfuck of a home world because they had no way out. It’s probably why Lunaris sold hte invasion so easily: With his pitch they were just taking a nicer world from a bunch of mean asssholes who refused to share it and whose sole representative had seemingly betrayed them. Without any reason to hate the earthlings and, outside of once incident later in the episode, the earthlings accepting them with open arms and forgiveness, why wouldn’t they stay on a nice, sunny world, in a large city willing to house them and give them jobs, with delicious foods and all sorts of fun shit to distract you from the bad parts of living here that the moon lacked.

Penny’s issue is while THEIR lives were miserable.. her’s wasn’t. She was a hero, a super hero really.. I mean she’s dressed like a kree sentry, she protects the helpless and she’s a fearless warrior whose now a fish out of water on a world she never could’ve expected but grows to love. Martian Manhunter, Captain Marvel, the Mar Vell one, Warlock, Adam Warlock and yes their separate characters, Supergirl, not superman because while he is an alien he grew up here.. all aliens who immigrated here and grew to love and protect it and see it as their home. Penny just hasn’t got to the “love and protect it” part yet and while the rest of her people have new purpose, new homes and new lives and still meet once a week to party she finds herself, theri greatest champion an outsider, desperately wanting her old life back but not accepting it’s gone. She can go home but she’d be the one person on a desolate moon clinging to the past. Penny here honestly reminds me of jasper in steven unvierse future: Both are old soldiers who find their empire gone, their entire way of life uprooted and have no way to cope and desperately hoping things will collapse back to THEIR normal, not realizing the new one isn’t going anywhere and is better for their people. They need to move on but their too proud and too scared to try.

However Penny refuses to admit defeat to her people and that she can’t have “earth fun”, and left with no other choices, decides to take the kids up on their offer after all. To explain that we quickly wrap to the top of the episode, where Webby, bored and having trouble finding anyone, finds Penny and after Penny dosen’t want to hang out finds Dewey and Louie. I assume since their absent this episode, Huey is introducing Violet to Gyro, Fenton and Boyd, Beakly is buying groceries, Donald is courting Daisy and Scrooge.. is trying to get fethry’s hands, feet and head out of pickle jars because he thought they’d preserve him and Donald is busy for once so he’s the only one left to do it. Louie and Dewey plan on just laying around and biinging old ottoman empires, I can relate, but the news gives them a better option. A GLOMGOLD OPTION. Oh me mow how i’ve missed this big beautiful man. Seriously Glomgold is easily one of the best parts of the reboot and Keith Fergeuson brings an utterly delightful manic glee to the guy any time he shows up to eat the scenery whole. While I get holding back on him since he had an arc last season, it’s still nice to have him back in all his hammy glory. And naturally being glomgold he has a scheme going: After gifting a rolelrcoaster previously, over water and with sharks because his brand’s nothing if not consistent, he’s now offering the flintferris glomwheel, which is shoddy, dangerous, secretly a plot to kill scrooge, and is very likely to kill a child.. so in other words it’s Glomgold himself roleld into a ferris wheel. Dewey is psyched to go because he let another kid go first for Glomgold’s last PR Stunt/Nightmare and that kid got all the glory and as such is now Dewey’s new nemisis. So after asking his mom “If we can go ride a death wheel so I can get famous’, which of course Della says yes to, our heroes end up taking Penny along. Launchpad drives and gets his subplot for the episode, being awkard around Penny because the date went bad and not sure if this makes then enimies and avoiding her. He tries going to dewey for help, and while Dewey is out of his element, he does actually give good advice to just talk to her.. Launchpad just takes it while he’s driving because it’s launchpad. Thankfully webby can drive. He spends the rest of hte episode getting into shenanigans before, after helping her with the climax, phrasing, being honest and apologizing. And i’m also covering the plot to get her answer out of the way now: Penny admits he’s fine, thery can be fight buds, he’s a good warrior sh’es just “Not interested in an earth..male” her exact words.

I mean.. there’s no real subtly here. Even if she’s not into Della, which all evidence suggests is the case, Penumbra is CLEARLY into women. I mean Frank is basically saying as loudly as his mousey overlords will allow “SHE’S GAY FOR DELLA”. Wether this goes anywhere, I dunno. While Lumity started ramping up this year, that property’s not based on Disney’s classic canon and STILL had to fight tooth and claw to make Luz bisexual and her love intrested a girl. Disney won’t even let this show use Mickey and almost didn’t let them use the rescue rangers, the odds are against them.. but I also never thoguht we’d see violet’s gay dads on screen, or so many previously comics only characters, so frank’s said screw the impossible before. Now probably is no different.

Back to the main plot, and to the return of Glomgold whose great as ever. Glomgold made the moonlanders and some of duckberg think he was soley responsible for saving the world.. how many people besides the non-penny moonlanders think he actually did it is up for debate but he DID genuinely help save the world. Also his scheme to get his company back somehow WORKED despite not being legally binding, as he’s now back in his tower, back to scheming and has an actual assitant instead of a professional career woman he treats like one in a bit that didn’t age all that well even a year later. Gibious is now Glomgold’s sidekick and in a nice contrast to Owlson instead of being fed up with his crap Gibious, buying into Glomgold’s own ego, lavishes praise on his new boss, treats him like the god he thinks he is, and is genuinely sweet and helpful. It’s a nice dynamic giving Glomgold someone who ACTUALLY and genuinely likes him as a person and wants him to suceed and trusts in his insane schemes and leads to some great bits like Gib genuinely calling the safety inspector when Glomgold makes an airquotes remark about it and at the end Glomgold admitting “I can’t stay mad at you” to his new lackey/Best friend. Frankly Glomgold needed a 21 to his Monarch, and i’ts a delight to see it and Paulson and Ferguson have real chemistry. Meanwhile in the A-Plot, Webby tries to get Penny to enjoy earth, first with a street performer she tosses in the water ,as you should, then with a shooting range which ends with her massacering a clownhead to the children minus webby’s horror and tears. We were one more frame away from this really.

Also we get the ducks feeding.. ducks, a gag Frank’s apparently wanted to do for three seasons now, and with Penny being as confused as the audeince. but non of this, including roller skates really works. So while Dewey goes off to get in line to one up his rival, Webby gets honest with Penny about why she’s so invested and this episode goes from good.. to truly fantastic. While webby fangirling over a mighty and gay space warrior makes sense, there’s a personal reason she wants to help here that really tugs at the heart strings: Webby was like her once. Like Penny she spent her whole life honing herself into a weapon, sealed in her own tiny world, For Penny it was her moon village for Webby it was the mansion. And being thrust out into it was .. frightening. We saw webby struggle to adjust in “Daytrip of Doom!” and part of her wanted to plunge back into the mansion and her saftey net at times. But she didn’t.. with the help of her family, and her friends, she found out just how wonderful the world is and how as scary as the world is.. it opened up new parts of her. Duckberg webby was just as great as mansion webby if not better. So Webby wants to do the same for penny and what really clinches the scene is how she does it: a Hamburger, the symbol from the pilot of what webby was deprived of all her life, given to a new friend as a symbol of what the world offers. And it works at first, even without cheese. But then Penny gets a brain freeze, and Glomgold, needing a distraction from the saftey inspector rames her as going beserk because he’s an asshat in every other way let’s add racisim to it.

A chase insues, Penny’s determined to flee.. but she gets a second wind when Dewey, who rushed in to get the first ride and webby get trapped. Sadly dewey’s new enemy gets all the attention, and as we find out is aware he one upped Dewey and brags over it, but Penny has now gone from fish out of water to shark on the hunt, and with Launchpad’s help to get past Glom and Gib, and the roller skates from earlier finally has some earth fun by skating into the air, climbing the Ferris wheel and saving the kids. Penny FINALLY found something she likes about earth; That she can Still protect people, including her people and do what she loved there and the danger here is WAY more intresting.. I mean on hte moon itw as just the usual monsters she was used to. Here she had to rocket into the air, and climb an megalomainics cannon armed ferris wheel to save two adorable children. In short she’s become a super hero and like those I mentioned, has grown to care about earth. So basically this is like captain marvel was an episode of Steven Universe. I likes it. But it’s a nice character arc, as Penny realizes the outside world, and her new friends/future stepchildren, have b eauty and worth. And she will protect their kind, she will protect them. I mean duckberg already has about 4 other superheroes if you count lena, which with that outfit last time I dooo, but frankly with how much disaster it faces on a daily basis, and how much Fenton needed a goddamn break, and with Darkwing leaving for st canard soon, they could probably use her.

So the day is saved, Glomgold is buired in fines but has a new minon, Dewey is dewfeated and Penny is happy again. We end on Penny recounting everything to Gibious and wife, and Good Boy obviously, along with Della who casually admits she really shoduln’t of let her child go but sooths him anyway over his loss. Penny is happy and deciding to stay, and her and her new best buddy laucnhpad are going to go tear the ship apart with her carrying della along. I swear when they finally do do it she’s just going to.. carry a willing della to her bedroom and throw her down on that thing.. everything after is up to you Id ont’ write porn here. Nothing wrong with it just not my bidness. So with a hopeful new future and a neat t-shirt, Penny finally finds her place in the world.

Final Thoughts: A very good, very gay episode that’s just as good as last weeks and gives penumbra a hell of a character arc, while also being an utterly hilaroius episode, from penumbra’s destruction, to glomgold’s hilarious as always antics to dewey’s attention whoring reaching self endagering heights of stupidity and ego, this was a great one and keeps up Season 3′s quality streak. While the plot progression may be slow for now, everything else is at an alltime goddamn high.

Next week, it’s the HALLOWEEN EPISODE BITCHES. Nuff Said. Until then you can check my blog for more reviews, as we have some halloween stuff coming up. Sadly with Loud House going silent, it seems this is our only weekly coverage but expect more reviews of various shows, and some very spooky ooky ones coming very soon including some brucie bonus episodes and until we meet again, go team venture! Play us out glomgold....

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#ducktales #they put a moonlander on the earth!#penumbra #della duck #dellumbra #webby vanderquack #dewey duck #louie duck #Flintheart Glomgold #gibious #reviews #ducktales spoilers

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princesssarcastia · 4 years

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The Rise of Skywalker Review

Well, I actually went to see it! I wasn’t sure that I would, but I’m honestly glad, because now i’ve got thoughts.

The first twenty minutes or so seemed really slapdash and disjointed, like they wanted to set up things for later but didn’t want to take the time to set them up well. Everything was really rushed and shallow for that period.

But! This movie had a lot of poe-rey-finn interactions which I enjoyed deeply. Rey and Poe sniping at each other, Finn and Rey being adorably close and caring, Finn and Poe being adorably close and caring. They feel like they’ve actually spent time together! Excellent.

Leia’s scenes felt a little weird, like they were shoehorned in, but i still miss her so I’m kinda glad for her presence anyway. Having her train Rey, pick up where Luke left off and push her to the finish line, makes me delighted. Yes, Leia is force sensitive!! She trained with her brother!! She knows how to pass on what she learned!!! She built a lightsaber!!!!!! excellent. (sidenote her lightsaber was sick. i loved it. i want one)

I also liked how we got to see some diverse planets and terrain. did they do their best on that front? no. would have loved to see some more weird-ass alien planets, or even weird-ass terrain that actually exists in the real world, but they’re deathly afraid of being like the prequels, soooo.

The whole thing with the “sith dagger” and C-3P0′s memory was a shit storyline. Here’s a magic item that will do everything we need! Give you the location of your navigator thing!! Magically fit against the skyline of the wreck of the deathstar, even though it’s an ancient artifact and the deathstar is constantly battered by incredibly powerful waves on an alien planet! ugh. dumb.

If that droid from the old shipwreck was gonna have that knwoeldge the whole time,,,,,,, why not just let Rey befriend the droid,,,,,,,,instead of doing a “psych! gotcha!” with C-3P0′s memory.

JJ Abrams being afraid to give real consequences to the new trio’s actions was shit. Let them kill Chewie! Let them essentially kill C-3P0! Or leave it out of the equation entirely!!! These fake-outs cheapen emotional responses and motivations of the heroes of our story.

and hey, speaking of cheapening shit, why the ever-loving FUCK did they bring Palpatine back. why. I hate that. I hated that SO MUCH IT WAS SO DUMB. SO. DUMB. so darth vader redeemed and sacrificed himself over nothing, huh?? Anakin Skywalker, dumb bitch to the end, couldn’t even die right, because palpatine was fucking alive the whole time. fuccking hell. any hey, guess what?? Jedi can force-heal people, too! ha ha ha hahahahaha ha h h a stupid anakin for believing palpatine had unique force powers and turning to the dark side, when really, it was a light-side power all along!!! (kill me)

(side note: healing being a power of the light and not the dark is thematically better, but uh. see petty retconning below)

Making Rey his granddaughter is inarguably worse than having her be a true nobody, which was my number one pick. I might even have been fine with it if she discovered it on her own!! But noooo, we need to have Kylo Ren and Luke tell her who she is. Oh yeah, they knew who she was the whole time, lol! Isn’t that cute, stupid women having to be told who they are and what their legacy is.

Which also makes her previous conversation with Kylo in TLJ cheap too! Look, I get it, we all hated TLJ, and Rian Johnson’s choices. But...having Kylo tell Rey who she is twice, in two separate movies, and tell her two separate things each time, and have it be played straight both times, is just. so. dumb. petty retconning of other people’s work is kind of disgusting.

That being said, in this movie I didn’t feel like Rey’s storyline was about anyone but her. I mean, palpatine elements for sure, but except for being told whose granddaughter she was, she was basically in control of her own destiny. I liked that a lot.

Rey’s fight with Kylo on the wreck of the death star? *chef’s kiss*. Amazing. Incredible. Lightsaber duels have gotten so much better and I love them. somewhere inside me my five-year old self is screaming for joy and picking up her toy lighsabers. Ridley and Driver have, unfortunately, very good chemistry in their scenes together, and the tension while they fought was so good.

Poe as a former drug dealer makes me tired. Poe Dameron, who idolizes Leia and had rebellion pilots for parents, was a drug dealer?? You kidding me?? ugh.

Also, if i’m being petty, I hated the way force ghosts could interact with reality.

Lando Calrissian!! Lando I love you. I love you so much. The idea of all those people coming to the Resistance’s aid is pretty cool tbh, and I liked it. I liked Lando playing ambassador and politician for the resistance.

I absolutely hated the ““planet-killing-cannon”“ palpatine’s fleet had. These fucking, fan-pandering morons just cannot let the idea of a planet-killer go, can they? It’s not like a shit ton of ships, the biggest fleet in the galaxy, able to blockade hyper-space lanes and entire planets, would be a good enough threat, oh no. audiences aren’t smart enough to respond to something that complicated, so we need to make it SUPER OBVIOUS, just like in TLJ. “the death star but bigger/portable” is dumb.

Finn finding other defectors was so fucking cool, I love that for him. Also, like, Im pretty sure they were all force-sensitive like he is, which I think is amazing. Confirming Finn’s force sensitivity was the best decision they made in this movie, tbh.

The driving problem of this movie was, in my opinion, the exec and creative teams being unable to stick to their guns with Kylo Ren as the big villian. Twice, people reached out to him for redemption: his father in TFA, and rey in TLJ. Twice, he rejected that offer, and ascended to Supreme Leader.

But instead of letting him do that, they instead turned him back to the light for little to no discernible reason. What, his mother dying finally pushed him over the edge?? You kidding me???? He LITERALLY murdered his father in cold blood. i call bullshit.

And because they couldn’t let kylo be the main villian, they also had to bring back palpatine. Look man, Adam Driver abso-fuckin-lutely has the chops to be a big bad. He’s really good at his job, actually, and I believe he could carry the weight of being the scary leader and face of the dark side. But no, y’all are chicken.

I mean, even though I hated him turning back, driver-as-ben-solo was fucking lit. He was so good for those, what two minutes?? The tension during his rush to Rey??? Him fucking with the KNights of Ren?? His switcheroo with Rey, the way he nods and bows a little when the Knights all step back, knowing they’re about to get their asses kicked?? Oh my god! It was so fun to watch. You could tell, even from that much, he’s a cocky little shit, and would have been so fun to watch for three movies instead of three minutes.

Their kiss at the end when he dies?? boo, hiss, no thank you. Not a fan. I’ll concede their chemistry as actors, but that was not romantic chemistry between their characters. nuh-uh no way no how. gross.

Overall, like a 5/10. Wildly inconsistent. I really liked some parts, and enjoyed other parts out of context, and really hated other parts.

ps— me, watching the ot3 hug Like That™: NOW KISS.

#the rise of skywalker #tros #star wars #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #adam driver #poe dameron #finn #lando calrissian #LANDO YESSSSSSS #cheap choices #jj abrams should be barred from sci-fi/fantasy movies #palpatine #now i get why my dad was so pissed about darth maul coming back every .5 seconds #force sensitive finn #movie review

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terriblelifechoices · 5 years

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peter & ollie is an amazing combo i can get behind 'til the end of time i think

Me too, anon. They’re a lot of fun to write.

Here’s a little bit more, just for you. =)

Ilvermorny Massachusetts, December 1943

Olwen hated Arithmancy. Arithmancy clearly hated her back, if her less than stellar grades were any indicator. She understood the theory just fine. It was the numbers themselves that were the problem. They got all jumbled in her head; it was like they moved, and they were never in the right place when she tried to do her homework.

Introduction to Numerology was no help. She could usually make heads or tails of it if she read every line half a dozen times over, but it would take forever. Fortunately, Olwen had other resources.

She pulled Peter’s notes out of her pack, laying them out alongside the confusing bits of Introduction to Numerology and the crossed out and slightly crumpled mess that was her homework. Peter’s notes were better than a textbook. They were clear and concise and they made sense – even the bits with the footnotes, where Peter had obviously gotten distracted on some research tangent, because he wouldn’t be Peter if he wasn’t distracted by some research tangent. Better still, the numbers stayed exactly where they were supposed to, which Olwen was convinced was a minor miracle.

She was almost finished with her homework when Peter landed with a thump in the chair next to hers.

“Damn it, Ollie, stop stealing my notes.”

Olwen batted his hand away before he could steal them back. “I’m not done with my homework yet.”

“Me neither,” said Peter, sounding grumpy about it. “Because someone stole my notes.”

“You don’t need them,” Olwen pointed out.

“Need has nothing to do with it. They’re my notes.”

“I know,” Olwen said. “Your notes make sense.”

Peter looked at her notes. “Paracelsus preserve us,” he murmured. “Ollie.”

“I know,” Olwen said, exasperated. “That’s why I stole yours!” She had no problems taking good notes for any of her other classes. Dad had drilled the importance of keeping good records into all of them, because you never knew when it would mean the difference between solving a case or letting a suspect walk free. Arithmancy was the only subject where her note taking went a bit … sideways.

She had to admit, her notes looked even more disastrous placed side by side with Peter’s. Hers might as well have been written in Sanskrit. Sanskrit might have made more sense, honestly.

Peter covered his face with one hand. “Ollie…”

“I’m almost done,” Olwen promised. “You can have your notes back after that.”

Peter sighed. “I’d tell you to keep them, but it would only encourage you to keep stealing them in the future.”

“True,” agreed Olwen. “But only because I probably won’t pass Arithmancy without them.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse,” she admitted. It was embarrassing. Galahad hadn’t had any trouble with Arithmancy. Neither did Sammy or Peter. And the worst part was, she was trying. She worked harder at Arithmancy than any of her other classes, and nothing she did made the slightest bit of difference.

Peter gave her shoulder what was probably meant to be a comforting pat. His hand landed directly on the bruise she’d gotten teaching Quincy Adams better manners earlier that morning, and Olwen couldn’t stifle the sharp breath she took in response.

Peter drew his hand away.

“Ollie?”

“It’s nothing,” she said.

“That didn’t sound like nothing,” Peter pointed out. He drew his wand. “Diagnoskein.”

“Peter!” Olwen protested, because casting spells on someone without their permission was rude.

“Who hurt you?” Peter demanded, hazel eyes going bright with rage.

Olwen bared her teeth. “I said it’s nothing.”

“There are handprints underneath your shirt. That’s not nothing.”

“What’s under my shirt is none of your business, Peter Collins.”

“Damn it, Ollie –”

“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t you dare try and treat me like I’m a delicate fucking flower just because I’ve got breasts now.” Honesty compelled her to add, “sort of,” since – as Adams had pointed out just before she’d punched him – hers barely qualified for the term. The fact that they still managed to make people stupid just added insult to injury. It was like growing breasts made everyone forget that there was a person attached to them.

“When have I ever treated you like you’re a delicate fucking flower?” Peter demanded. “You’re tougher than I am! And you’re better with a wand.”

“Faster, maybe,” Olwen said, grudgingly mollified by the reminder. Peter never treated her like a delicate fucking flower just because she was a girl. It was probably a little unfair of her to accuse him of doing so. “Your wandwork is better.”

Peter ignored that. “I don’t care that you got hurt because you’re a girl and I think you’re helpless. That’s sexist and dumb. I care that you got hurt because you’re my friend.” He lifted one shoulder in a defiant half-shrug. “I don’t have many of those, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Olwen had. Galahad and Sammy both worried about it, because that was what older siblings did. Olwen had told them not to bother, but neither of them had listened.

It wasn’t that people didn’t like Peter, or even that he was particularly unfriendly. Peter was easy-going and kind; it was impossible not to like him.

It was just that Peter seemed to think that other people were a lot of work, and he preferred not to have to deal with them unless he had to. Olwen suspected that the only reason Peter didn’t think that she was too much work was that they’d been friends literally from the time they were in the cradle.

“Adams needed to learn some manners,” she said, by way of explanation.

“Of course he did,” Peter said. Peter liked Quincy Adams about as much as Olwen did – which was to say: not at all. “I hope you kicked his ass.”

“Just enough to get my point across,” Olwen promised. Anything else would make her as much of a bully as Adams was.

“Alright then,” said Peter.

Olwen finished the last of her Arithmancy homework in the comfortable silence that followed. She slid Peter’s notes back to him. He looked briefly puzzled, as if he’d forgotten why he’d come to find her in the first place.

“Oh, right,” he said. “You know, you could just ask me for help, instead of just stealing my notes.”

Olwen tucked her homework into Introduction to Numerology, where it would be safe until class tomorrow. “I didn’t want to bother you. Plus, it’s good practice.”

“For what? Your budding career as a pickpocket?”

“Hah!” said Olwen. “Not for me. For you. You need to be more aware of your surroundings.”

“Ugh. You sound just like Uncle Percival,” Peter complained.

“Well, you do.” Peter was too easy to sneak up on. The little ones knew better than to make mischief, for fear of Olwen’s wrath – or worse, Sammy’s disappointed face – but the rest of Ilvermorny wasn’t as well-behaved as her younger siblings.

“I’ll tell you what,” Peter said. “I’ll help you with Arithmancy if you stop stealing my notes. And if you stop getting into so many fights.”

“Wampus,” Olwen reminded him. Fighting was what they did. And, anyway, it wasn’t her fault other people were stupid, ill-mannered assholes who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.

“If you try to not get into so many fights” Peter amended.

“I’ll practice dueling with you, too,” Olwen offered.

“You are literally the only person in the world who thinks that’s an incentive,” Peter said. “It doesn’t matter how much I practice. I’ll never be as fast as you.”

“Maybe not, but you’ll be faster than everyone else.”

Peter considered that. “Deal,” he said, and offered her his hand.

“Deal,” Olwen said.

#my fic #comment fic #Possible 'verse #Olwen Graves #peter collins #The Graves Brood vs. Ilvermorny

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Michael in the Mainstream: The Last Jedi review

It has been a year since I first saw this, and it has given me plenty of time to sort out my thoughts on it. This film was very divisive in my mind, as it has been to filmgoers at large; no two people seem to have the same take on it. Alex of IHE liked it and thought it got better with each viewing; Schaffrillas Productions thinks the movie is really stupid and fails at what it set out to do; and Doug Walker, AKA the Nostalgia Critic, is somewhere in the middle, saying it has some of the best Star Wars has to offer as well as some of the worst. And that isn’t even getting into fan response, with the ever-hyperbolic Star Wars fandom screaming for ages about how this is an utter travesty of filmmaking, and how the whole movie should be retconned, and so on.

Frankly, such hyperbole should just be dismissed entirely out of hand. If you honestly think this film is the worst Star Wars film, or even an objectively bad film in general, you either have lived a very sheltered life or do not know a thing about films or filmmaking. Now, does that mean I think this is a GOOD film? Well… no. I think I most agree with Doug Walker on this; the film has a lot of great stuff, a lot of stuff done better than every other Star Wars movie; but for every great thing, there is an unbelievably awful thing too, balancing out the movie into being a literal divisive work, with half the film being a great Star Wars entry and the other half being a stream of idiocy, fluff, and filler. And the most baffling part is it isn’t even hard to tell which parts are good and which aren’t the awful parts stick out uncomfortably. Say what you will about something like Jar Jar, he at least seemed somewhat plausible within the universe of Star Wars. But the casino on Canto Bright, and the weird space horses? It just feels too weird, too whimsical, too Harry Potter-esque for Star Wars.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As far as story goes, we have this: Rey is off trying to convince the cranky hermit Luke Skywalker to train her, though this is easier said than done, as Luke seems rather content with milking alien walruses and just in general being a hermit to want to help her out. Meanwhile, the rebels are being chased down by the First Order, with Poe desperately trying to take command of the situation and his commanding officer not having any of it, which leads Poe to send Finn on a mission to find a way to sabotage the ships. This leads to Canto Bright as they search for a skilled hacker. Meanwhile, Rey is finding out she has a very interesting connection to Kylo Ren. There’s a lot going on this time in the galaxy far, far away, and it becomes unclear if things will come out on top for the rebels this time around.

So, let’s talk about what works first. The movie’s greatest strength is certainly the cinematography; this is hands down, indisputably, the best-looking Star Wars film to day. There are so many gorgeous, beautiful shots, so many scenes made better by the fantastic camera work. The presentation in this film is just top notch, and so much in this film is just a treat for the eyes. And the beauty isn’t just the shots, the actual lightsaber duels we get are easily some of the finest in the history of the franchise, with Rey and Kylo’s fight against the Praetorian Guards, as well as the final duel between Kylo and Luke on the salt field, moments like this deserve to be held up among the best in all of Star Wars history.

Then we have basically everything involving Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren in this movie. The scenes revolving around these characters are the most engaging and interesting in the entire film. Luke especially is a fascinating character, Mark Hamill giving his all to the performance and showcasing the natural progression from a well-meaning but hotheaded young hero to a jaded, cynical hermit who has, like his master before him, put himself into self-imposed exile due to his failures. Rey and Kylo have an intriguing dynamic, and they get so much focus and development. A lot of the film focuses on Kylo, giving much-needed development, though unfortunately it does jettison a lot of what made him interesting in the precious film. Gone are his tantrums, struggle with the light side of the Force, and emulation of his grandfather… but in comes a performance from Adam Driver that I felt at some points emulated Javier Bardem’s from No Country for Old Men. Yes, Kylo Ren managed to be as terrifying and ruthless as Anton Chigurh.

But of course, there are a great deal of problems, namely anything in he film that doesn’t focus around the three aforementioned characters. Outside of the opening space battle, just about everything with the rebels is a tedious slog of a chase scene, with the First Order apparently never once considering speeding up a little bit to catch up with the rebel ships slowly running out of gas. Despite what some very sad, strange people on the internet might convince you, there’s no overtly political messaging in the dynamic between Poe and Holdo; the only thing there is just really poor writing, where two characters who should be smarter act ridiculously stupid for poorly defined reasons. It’s pretty telling when Leia, probably the only person in the rebellion with a cool head on her shoulders, gets taken out of commission for a large chunk of the film early on.

The film also wastes a lot of characters that were built up to be more important than they ended up being. Phasma is unceremoniously killed (or maybe not) after an extremely brief battle, to the point where reading this sentence will probably take more time than her appearance onscreen in this film. The hacker that Finn and his new partner rose find on Canto Bright, portrayed by Benicio Del Toro, seems like he might end up an interesting morally ambiguous figure, and up until his final appearance he offers some interesting characterization, but then he stabs Finn and Rose in the back and vanishes from the film. Still, neither of the previous examples are anything compared to what happened to Snoke, the mysterious evil emperor figure who corrupted Ben Solo into becoming Kylo Ren. Some have said they didn’t find Snoke interesting to begin with, and that his death wasn’t too bad of a move, but on the same token there is so little revealed about him despite the fact that he is integral to a major character’s backstory that he ends up feeling like a missed opportunity. The fact that he is played by Andy Serkis only compounds my irritation; why get such a fantastic actor to play a wasted character like this? I have much the same feeling towards the disrespectful usage of Max Von Sydow in The Force Awakens; pointlessly tossing great actors into minor, throwaway roles is utterly depressing when you think of what their talents could have added to the story.

But of course, I have saved the worst for last: Rose Tico and Canto Bright. He two go hand in hand, as Canto Bright is where Rose gets much of her screentime and development with Finn. Canto Bright is a very odd locale, featuring a shiny casino and weird alien horses. The whole tone of the place is far too whimsical and jarring for the film it’s in, and it ends up badly clashing with the other scenes. It also ends up hogging a lot of screentime from the far more interesting and intriguing plot with Rey and Luke. The biggest issue, though, is how pointless the entire venture ends up being, as after all they go through, they end up failing miserably, which leads to a lot of the issues in the film’s final third. The whole thing ends up just being a pointless diversion from the more interesting plot and comes off as a way to pad out the runtime with hamfisted morals and glurge.

And then we have Rose, who, in this film anyway, is probably the least likable character in any Star Wars film. She is utterly bland and uninteresting as a character, which is a shame as her sister, a character with limited screentime who only appears in the opening before dying, was far more interesting in the few minutes she was onscreen than Rose is in her entirety. The biggest problem with Rose is that she almost feels like a fan insert character, with how she gushes over Finn at first and gets to kiss him at the end despite the two having rather mediocre chemistry. Said kiss also comes after a moment where she ruins a moment that could have been an excellent culmination of Finn’s character arc and been a hugely subversive and expectation-defying moment, and then utters the most vomit-inducingly bad line in Star Wars history: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love." Nothing about this line works, makes sense, or does anything but make the viewer cringe hard. This is worse than Anakin’s comments about sand, worse than anything in the prequels really, and I don’t think this is hyperbolic in the slightest, since we have had over a decade and a lack of George Lucas involvement to fine-tune scripts and not deliver lines that sound like they belong in a Hallmark special.

Overall, the film absolutely fails to do what it sets out to do: deliver a subversive film that defies audience expectations. Nothing in the film really subverts or plays with audience expectations in a positive way; all of the big subversions come from characters acting as insanely stupid as possible, and they all come from a dull plotline that hogs the screentime from the far more intriguing plotline. The Rey/Luke/Kylo stuff in this movie is easily some of the best and most engaging Star Wars content to date, but it gets shoved aside far too often, and a lot of elements of it seem to be left hanging. Built up elements like Rey’s parents, Snoke, and Phasma are unceremoniously dropped in frankly insulting ways, and at the end of the movie everyone is basically at the spot they were at at the end of the first one.

And that, right there, is my true issue with the film: it all feels very pointless. The heroes accomplish next to nothing, and the overall effects on the franchise are utterly minor. This is a Star Wars film I could almost say you could skip when viewing them for how little it adds… but what little it does add is really good and essential. This is definitely a movie that home viewing will make better, since at home you can skip through the awful Canto Bright and rebel chase sequences to get to the good stuff. The lightspeed ram, the Praetorian duel, Luke and Kylo’s confrontation… all of that stuff is worth seeing.

Ultimately, the film is neither really good nor bad. It’s just a mixed bag that is not nearly as subversive or expectation-defying as a contemporary blockbuster film like Infinity War or even an older film like The Empire Strikes Back. What it does succeed at is delivering a visually stunning film with excellent character dynamics between the three big players. So, it is easy to see why the film is divisive, but it is impossible to see why people could possibly write the film off as the “Worst ever” or “a film so bad it should be retconned.” If you honestly believe this film is so utterly, irredeemably awful, I frankly don’t think your opinions on film are worth much. If you think the film isn’t so good but at least can find a few things to respect in it, well, I find that a far more respectable position than the blind, frothing-at-the-mouth hatred the film has gotten. It really doesn’t deserve it, though it also doesn’t deserve to be held up as the gold standard of Star Wars films either. It does contain some of the worst moments, if not exactly the absolute worst, in the history of the franchise, after all. But on the same token, it contains some of the absolute best, top ten or twenty best moments of the franchise as well. To write the film off or to praise it blindly as a masterpiece are equally foolhardy decisions.

The way this film wraps up leaves me wondering what could possibly be done for the next film; I have no idea where the series could possibly go, and it fills me with a sense of worry and of suspense. The future of Star Wars is uncertain, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned after being a lifelong fan of the franchise, it’s that Star Wars always finds a way to come out on top eventually.

#Michael in the Mainstream #Star Wars #The Last Jedi #Luke Skywalker #sci-fi #Disney #review #movie review

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belizedeservesbetter · 6 years

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Head Over Heels is Fun!

but it is also way too long and a concept that is still very odd to me

Ideally, Head Over Heels is the show for me. It’s three things I really love: Broadway, The Go Go’s, and a central romance between two women.

However, to be quite honest, when they first announced this show was coming to Broadway, I was very confused. A retelling of a very old play set to the music of... The Go Go’s? Who woke up one day and was like, “You know what this old play needs? We Got the Beat and Automatic Rainy Day!” and then got it past so many people and got it approved so much to the point that it is now playing on 44th Street in the ever beautiful Hudson Theater. It blows my mind.

But you know what? I liked it. I had a good time. I had fun. My TodayTix rush seat put me right in the third row of the orchestra, so I had the perfect view.

The best thing about this show is the performances, hands down. The entire cast was 100% game and they gave it their all out there, even to a mostly empty theater on a Friday night.

Bonnie Milligan walks away with the whole show. Honestly she was incredible and sang the hell out of all her songs. She had so much stage presence and I kept wishing she’d come back on stage whenever it was another character’s scene. Her renditions of Beautiful and How Much More were the best parts of the show to me. She’s hilarious and fun and has so much chemistry with Taylor Iman Jones.

Alexandra Socha was also wonderful (and looks startlingly like both Judy Kuhn and Millie Bobby Brown) and was just a total joy to watch on stage. I was also super obsessed with her glitter green high heel shoes. Taylor Iman Jones was also incredible and I loved how Vacation became the lesbian heartbreak song I never knew I needed before this moment. Rachel York was of course excellent as always and during all of Act 2 I became very acutely aware how much like Adam Rapp Jeremy Kushnier sounds like. Whenever Kushnier had a solo I always thought it was about to turn right into One Song Glory.

I was most impressed with Peppermint’s performance. Of course I had seen her on RuPaul’s Drag Race and at various clubs, but I had no idea she’s such a good actress and singer.

The plot of the musical is... interesting, to say the least. And the way they incorporate Go Go’s songs is even weirder and doesn’t really make sense but you know what? I’ll take a heartfelt rendition of Mad About You any day. But at the same time, conceptually it doesn’t work. The show opens with We Got the Beat just so you know that the kingdom of Arcadia has The Beat. What is The Beat? Well, it’s never really explained in a way that makes sense, but they gotta save it!

Likewise, they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel for these Go Go’s songs. Cool Jerk? Really? Automatic Rainy Day too? But no Beatnik Beach? When they started singing Cool Jerk it took everything within me not to laugh because that is the most niche of Go Go’s song and it served absolutely no point to the plot. That’s how I felt about most of the songs, actually. They were just kind of there, especially this really weird and totally useless repetition of the chorus to Skidmarks on My Heart.

I feel like this review has just been me rambling on with no rhyme or reason, and to be honest that’s also how the show is. I was never sure why anything was happening when it did, and more than once I found myself flipping through my playbill waiting to see how many songs were left in an act, which is something I never do. Lust to Love was incorporated in a weird way, and in a musical that is literally about lust and love, I was so confused as to why they used it for a sword duel. And of course the fact that there was a sword duel in the first place was odd. This musical was so tonally all over the place.

Besides Vacation, none of the musical numbers really blew me away. I’m a huge sucker for shadows and silhouettes used in theatre so Heaven is a Place on Earth was especially great, if not ridiculously campy.

The book of the musical isn’t bad, but that doesn’t mean it’s good either. It’s funny, but not funny enough. It’s ridiculous, but not in a good way. There’s a Certain Spoilery Thing That Happens that didn’t need to happen/was only there so Alexandra Socha could sing Here You Are.

The costumes were stunning and beautiful and the way the ensemble’s main outfits looked was really cool.

Speaking of the ensemble, the dancing was great! The choreography was really cool, if not a bit tonally out of place, and Spencer Liff sure loves to put people in lines when they dance.

But at the end of the day, we don’t need Head Over Heels. There was nothing about it that was so amazing that I would recommend it to anyone. There’s nothing about it that made me think, “That was great and I’m glad I saw it.” I’m not better or worse for seeing Head Over Heels, but I would never in a million years pay more than the price of a rush ticket for it. Honestly, if I wanted to hear The Go Go’s, I’d queue up my Go Go’s Spotify playlist, which I’m actually listening to right now as I write this. I don’t know why this is on Broadway, even though I’m happy to report that there is not a single straight character in this show. I just wish that these characters had a better musical.

Oh yeah, and this musical is like two and a half hours long. It does not need to be this long. It should have been 90 minutes with no intermission. A dramaturg needed to take a pen to those script pages and cross them out.

#head over heels #broadway #review #voice

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azure-writer · 7 years

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Not Even The Galaxy [Gray]

Artist: Gray | Word Count: 1.635

Have some fluff and a bit of jealousy from the biggest Star Wars fan in AOMG HAHAHA there will be some tiny spoilers ahead for ‘The Force Awakens’ movie. Hope you’ll like it:)

***

“Hey babe, why don’t you come here and join me?” Your voice managed to fight the beats that surrounded the living room and you saw Sunghwa perk up from his seat, “You’ve been in the studio since this morning.” Then there was a sigh coming from the black haired man, as he continued to mess with the musical instruments in the makeshift studio in the apartment.

“Just one more minute love, I’m starting to feel the beat,” There was a tint of tiredness in Sunghwa’s voice, causing a frown to etch on your face, “You should go and sleep, I’m sure work has been tiring for you.” This time it was you who huffed in annoyance, because when Sunghwa was too engrossed in his work it would have been hard to get him away from it. It was like his ass was glued to the chair with superglue.

“But HBO is going to play Star Wars in 10 minutes! And it’s their first screening for ‘The Force Awakens’,” There was a small smirk on your lips as Sunghwa finally turned around, his eyes showing inner confliction inside of him, “Don’t you want to watch it again with me? I also made popcorns as well.” And bribing the man with food was all that you needed for Sunghwa to step away from the studio, as he made his way to you and hugged your body close to his.

“You always won over me (Name),” Sunghwa chuckled, causing a smile to appear on your lips, “Come on, let’s go and watch it.” You held his hand and lead him to the sofa, where there were throw pillows stacked on it alongside a huge blanket. The bowl of popcorn was set on the coffee table in front of the sofa, waiting to be devoured.

The movie played five minutes later and you secretly watched Sunghwa’s eyes glow in excitement, as he sat comfortably while leaning forward slightly, focusing on the movie even though he already watched it. Soon you found yourself laying your head on his chest when Sunghwa’s high went down, with the blanket giving you warmth and the popcorn bowl on top of your crossed legs.

Rather than paying attention to the storyline like your boyfriend, you found yourself watching the details of every CG effects and also the actors and actresses. Movies would always make you gush in amazement, because the editing could make one’s imagination into realization. And the face of every actor and actress were so different, you found the uniqueness in their facial look and expression intriguing.

“Daisy Ridley really fits the character, her acting is spot on and she really portrayed Rey’s character well,” Sunghwa only nodded as you started rambling, his right hand moving to take a fistful of popcorn from your lap, “And her chemistry with John Boyega really shows, the both of them really made their new character interesting!” And your boyfriend nodded again, but you were used with Sunghwa being like this whenever he was too deep into a film, so you continued giving comments about the actors and actresses.

“And the guy who played Poe Dameron is really cool as well! What was his name again? I think his name started with Oscar?” There was a slight discomfort in Sunghwa as he gave a glance towards you, whose eyes were locked with Poe Dameron’s scene on the screen, “And he’s not that tall, yet he gives off this cutie vibe.” This time it was you who were oblivious to Sunghwa’s huff as the man rolled his eyes at you, and a small fire started in his heart as he shifted in his seat.

“What about the guys from the First Order then?” Sunghwa asked, his voice coming out like a spat more than he liked it to be, “What’s your thoughts about Kylo Ren and General Hux?” And you answered his question without looking at him, as the movie rolled to the scene where Kylo Ren took off his mask.

“Physically speaking, Adam Driver is very tall, and he looked much like a gangster since he’s very buff under those robes. And his face is odd— a good kind of odd— and it’s unexplainable but it makes him look kind of scary. He’s towering but packed with muscles and a ferocious face, I’d probably faint if I were Daisy during their light saber duel.” You finished the comment with a laugh, but in Sunghwa’s eyes you seemed like you were sending googly eyes to the actor who played Kylo Ren, which seemed to boil something in Sunghwa’s heart.

‘You’re just tired, dumbass,’ Sunghwa thought in his mind, although it didn’t help with the discomfort that was growing bigger inside him, ‘She’s just giving her two cents on the movie, no need to be so worked up.’

“And the actor who played General Hux! He played the chill Bill Weasley in Harry Potter, and to be honest it’s quite the shock watching him scream about ending the Republic and destroying planets. Honestly he fits the role pretty good, he’s shockingly good playing such an evil character. And there’s this grace in his steps and how he carry himself, which really suits someone who is an important general. These two evil characters are amazing. J.J Abrams really did a fantastic job on this movie.” At this point, Sunghwa was fuming with anger, yet he tried his best to look blankly to the television, although his fists were clenched and his jaw was tightening.

“Then why don’t you date someone like any of them?” The fury inside of Sunghwa snapped without him having control over himself, as the words that had slipped out of his lips were of declaration for war, “You could have gone for someone who’s cute, or maybe a tall hunk, or go for a ginger head instead!” He had moved from his seat to glare at you, feigning a look of hurt and from what you could see in his beautiful brown eyes: jealousy.

Never have Sunghwa gone mad like this after you spoken your opinions, he would either nod off as a silent agreement or put his own opinions for you. But from how he looked so riled up, from how his eyebrows were furrowed and his eyes looked like he had been betrayed, you may have gone a bit too far. Hell, you did go too far, and what’s worse is you went too far on his favorite movie, out of all the movies in the world! You could only stare at Sunghwa in agape, because the sudden change of situation still took you aback.

“I didn’t mean any of it! You know I never take these opinions seriously,” You started to talk, the nervousness seemingly clogging you to speak, “I just like to take in how every person in movies look very different from each other, how they can somehow merge with their characters, and how the uniqueness in them adds up to the perfectness of the movie! I only like them because they are all so exotic, and I don’t even love any of them.” Somehow hearing your reassurance dimmed the fire in Sunghwa’s heart as he sat silently, suddenly feeling lost in himself for his foolish act.

You took his silence to scoot forward, leaning in to gently cup Sunghwa’s face in your hand, making him take a good look at you. He looked so distraught, realizing that there really was no need for his outburst, but you found the jealousy that sparked inside of him was cute. It brought a smile to your lips and soon a giggle followed suit, although Sunghwa looked like he was about to faint because of embarrassment.

“It’s really cute when you get jealous like that babe-“

“I’m not jealous!”

“Well, whatever you call it,” Sunghwa’s cheeks were flushed pink as he lets out a groan, “But there’s really no need for that. I mean, sure they were hunks or cuties, but in my eyes you’re the perfect one here. None of those top class actors could beat you. So your outburst just now was really cute, but don’t ever doubt my love for you, okay?” You playfully ruffled his hair and grinned widely, as you kissed his nose and made the man flush brighter.

“I just- I really didn’t know what gotten over me (Name),” Sunghwa sighed, finally admitting in his heart that he was indeed jealous, “I could never be like them, you know? I’m too old to grow taller and I can’t even get as buff as Jay.” You sighed, since you’ve seen the damage you made had made him self-conscious of his own body.

“I never cared about your looks when I fell in love with you! Your handsome look was a bonus for me, I guess,” The both of you cackled into laughter hearing this, “But I fell in love with your heart, and please know that I won’t even trade the galaxy for you Sunghwa.” Somehow hearing your reassurance was a great way to calm him down, as he felt butterflies fill his stomach. And hearing yourself saying such a cheesy line made you blush yourself.

“Well I’m glad I’m dating a princess and not someone from the First Order,” Sunghwa leaned in to capture your lips in his, although you were smiling in the short kiss, “Like, wouldn’t it be a forbidden love if someone from the First Order dated a Resistance member?” You could only shake your head, because the Star Wars references were getting a bit too much for you.

“Why don’t we get back to the movie? It’s getting to the fun part.”

“But everything in the movie is the fun part!”

“Sure it is, you dork.”

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