#but I had absolutely zero motivation to because of how boring the base story was
Note
I remember you saying that MAH would've been better as a short slasher, so are there any other books that you think would also have been improved if they were significantly shorter (like if they cut out a lot of filler chapters/scenes)? Or for that matter, are there books that you think would've been better if they were longer than the usual 16-18ish chapters that Choices usually does (to make the story feel better developed and less rushed)?
Bachelorette Party definitely would’ve been better as a mini book instead of a regular length one. And I’m really not sure why that wasn’t something they considered. There was no reason for it to go on as long as it did, especially because it was neither entertaining nor funny. It was just really stupid imo. Courtney was annoying as hell, and her smiling sprite was terrifying. And I couldn’t stand Aisha and that damn briefcase. IIRC, that was the main reason the story dragged on for so long. The best thing to come out of that book was Ash Tanaka, but I feel like people forget about him because he was unlucky enough to be a part of BP.
Witness and MTFL both had the issue of an unlikeable MC. But I feel like that issue wouldn’t have been so pronounced if both books were shorter as well. All Witness MC and Cassian did was screw and argue for like 25 chapters. And they literally had MTFL MC wait until the 100th damn chapter to decide who she wanted to be with. Not to mention that god-awful first person narration along the way.
I think this last one is controversial, but Immortal Desires was also far too long. It just dragged week after week because the first 9 or 10 chapters were the same thing over and over again. Hang out with Cas. Hang out with Gabe. Oh no, our Mom’s sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong so we have to stand trial in front of the council again! Rinse and repeat 🙄 If they hadn’t wasted so much time on all of that, the ending wouldn’t have been so rushed and awkward now that they’ve decided to make a book 2
#choices#choices stories you play#playchoices#choices app#choices ask#maybe ID would’ve been more bearable if I had spent diamonds on it#but I had absolutely zero motivation to because of how boring the base story was#I liked Gabe as an LI but not enough to wanna get extra scenes with him#and I wasn’t interested in making MC stronger through the talismans#all of this said though I still don’t think I personally would’ve enjoyed any of these books even if they were shorter#bc they had more issues that just length#anyway though I don’t think any of PB’s books would necessarily benefit from being longer#of course there are books that I wish had gotten sequels but that’s different#I think there are lots that are at the right length#they should’ve just used certain chapters for character/plot development instead of filler if that makes sense#so basically instead of removing chapters altogether just change the content of them
18 notes
·
View notes
Note
hi! can you tell your whole process for learning japanese on your own? where did you start? what resources did you utilise? how did you find and manage your time and maintain discipline? also, how long did it take you to reach fluency?
I am sooooo far from fluent hahaha I'm stumbling through this language Gromit-style
Ok, so, circa 2014 I was studying Norwegian because I really wanted to learn a secondary language (thx American school system...) and I really liked the cadence/feel of Norwegian. That was my entire reason for studying it, I just liked how it sounded lol. But by 2016 I'd learned enough of it from Duolingo that it was time to move on to more difficult study materials.
Which I could not find for the life of me.
I got frustrated and decided it'd probably be best to pick up another language. Japanese was the one I saw the most since a lot of my favorite artists are Japanese, some of my best inking supplies come from Japan (with Japanese packaging), and there used to be a really good local Japanese restaurant too (RIP). Duolingo had just launched an absolutely shit Japanese course that motivated me to look for better practice materials.
I think I started practicing the kana through just writing them a whole bunch before finding out about Tofugu's hiragana and katakana mnemonics-based study articles. From there I did the three free levels offered by Wanikani. Wanikani is awesome, I learned a lot through that program and wish the full version one-time purchase was more affordable... It's worth it, I'm just broke haha
After a while I lost interest in studying Japanese because it's so difficult/time consuming and tried out reconstructed Classical Latin (HARD!), Norwegian again, and just barely dipped my toes into Esperanto. About a year before I got into Guilty Gear (2020), I picked up Japanese again by refreshing my progress on Wanikani. The Duolingo course still sucked but it had gotten a tiny bit better with its kana study tool, though I dropped it again before long. What helped the most this time were books. I tried out these:
Genki - Not bad. I liked how it broke down parts of grammar. However, it's definitely written for a classroom setting. The topics/vocabulary were all school themed and, on top of feeling like I was missing vital information by self-studying, it just got boring.
Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese - This has a physical version but I read it through the free app/website. Much more advanced than Genki, but made for self-study and as a grammatical reference tool. It went a bit over my head and was too fast-paced, I learn kinda slow... Now that I'm much better at Japanese, I should try it again.
Japanese From Zero - My favorite of the books I tried. Goes slower, made more for self-study, and has some free supplemental materials on their website.
While Japanese From Zero was working great, I was losing interest again because my brain CRAVES variety. Straight up translating stories has helped me more than anything else. Japanese Short Stories for Beginners by LingoMastery was a good investment alongside Barron’s Japanese Grammar by Carl and Nobuo Akiyama and Japanese Verbs & Essentials of Grammar by Rita L. Lampkin to help with grammar concepts Japanese Short Stories doesn't expand on enough. IMABI (website) is also a very good grammar reference guide. It can be a bit dry, but I like that. It doesn't waste time and is very direct.
Lingodeer has been invaluable too. The free version is smartphone app only, but that's fine since I usually study right before bed anyway. It has a 5 minute quiz that's just snappy enough to refresh my knowledge without being so long that my brain gets bored of the repetition. The lesson modules also do a really great job at explaining grammatical concepts. There are some other study tools, like specific ones for practicing grammar and vocabulary, that I like.
Then in 2021 I got into Guilty Gear. Boy, did I get into Guilty Gear. Translating GG books has helped me more than all of these other materials combined (except the Tofugu kana articles). HIGHLY recommend going a little crazy for a piece of Japanese media if you wanna learn the language.
I can't speak it for shit though, to be honest lmao. But I set out learning it to read things so that's fine; there are very, very, few Japanese speakers where I live anyway. What I mean by this is that I don't have any materials to suggest for learning how to speak it or to improve listening comprehension, sorry...
If I'm not currently working on a translation project (which counts as studying!!), I try to do at least one of these forms of practice each day:
10-15 minutes of Lingodeer
Do Anki flashcards until I get bored. There's a deck that's all 60 levels of Wanikani, though Wanikani itself is still better.
Practice kana stroke order for the ones I still sometimes struggle with （ツ、シ、ン、ソ......）and at least 5 kanji
Read something in Japanese. Lately this's been Japanese-English Translation: An Advanced Guide by Judy Wakabayashi
There's a page on my Neocities with some study tools but it needs updated with a few things I've since found that work better:
60 notes
·
View notes
Note
My brain still hurts from the update. I’m just really baffled they thought the new species had anything special enough to be added, so since I’m kinda huffy let me rant a little bit.
Too many of these species just look like a different kind of Nitpicki, and I didn’t even like those to begin with. Their lore? Honestly laughably vague. (Like most of em but they don’t even have any particular intrigue)
Fabremon? Boring, we already have “inorganic species made with magic” with a bunch of companions. In concept they’re too similar to fuwa bozu and in design they’re basically just “small animal in hood”. Their lore? Weirdly not about them? It mentions how Faerilees went to war with chaotic forces and how fallen Allies would be resurrected to fight their friends in monstrous plush bodies, and like, huh??? Absolutely NOTHING on the Faerilee page mentions this shit but here it all is on the Fabremon one! Oh but don’t worry, Fabremon aren’t actually those things, they’re just recreations of that genuinely awful concept using purified gemstones that put a (still sometimes unwilling???) soul into their body! How charming. /s No but really who invented them, because you’d think the Faerilees would, I dunno, hate that???
Speaking of Faerilees, you can really tell this is a species geared towards Minka’s cutesie style because they have zero substance outside of that. Supposedly born from dandelions, their baby forms are fluffy puffs, but they do not have anything to do with dandelions in their design after that. Unlike that weirdly dark mention in the Fabremon page, their own origin is just this fluffy 3 sentences about a child making a wish.
I didn’t realize Galibytes were primates until I read the page. They look, again, like a Nitpicki. I’m really not sure how magic works in Lyth because apparently even though they have cores, they can’t do magic. Cool, glad we’re throwing out another consistent through-line. Glad nobody gets to know whether lyth has consistent worldbuilding or not. (Well, they have magic I guess, they just have so little that they can’t do shit with it) Also? Can I just say? I hate how they name individual species specific magic energy because it’s just dumb terms like “magnet” or “photo”. Personal pet peeve but it just feels so lazy to me because they sound ridiculous. Also why slime…why are they made of slime… “born from a puddle of specialized primordial soup” tells me fucking nothing. They’re apparently not even from lyth, so did they bring their weird soup with them after their world DIED apparently?
Moving on because I realize I’m rambling too long. I think Veela look like companions. They’re so small and simple and they legitimately wild be considered “simple characters” based on the submission guideline’s silly “too chibi means not a fullbody anymore!” Rule. Like, just go look at it. And another good vs evil war species story? Write. Something. More. Interesting. I swear to the gods. It’s just the Haenym lore but worse, because everyone just flat out forgets why they’re fighting. Fun.
Lastly the new companion, Atenilee. It’s a shame it’s the most Lythian like design introduced despite being a companion. They’re apparently artificially made (like literally made of metal or material) which of course you’d never be able to tell anyways. They’ve even got funny subspecies that I do think are cute. Oh well, guess it would be kinda weird if essentially robots were characters of their own.
Bottom line is that I don’t like any of the new lythians and wish they’d just at least make them more interesting or something. Or better yet? Make what species they already had more content already. I have zero hope for anything not made by a staff member shoving in their own creations will ever get more content because I’m starting to believe that Jack’s got no motivation to work on this shit on his own, and staff’s motivation to work on their own self serving content is the only reason they have content at all.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, I’m not actually as annoyed as I probably sound. I just think lyth could be waaaay more fun for more people so easily and they’re just, not doing that. And the fact that it feels like they kinda don’t even care is why I’m upset really. Love my OCs and drawing them is fun, but clearly this group is more focused on their own fun (that they get paid for) than anything else.
Honestly? I'm not sure they even cared about the lore of any of their species to begin with. The new species' lore certainly feels very out of place. And I've never liked Lyth's magic system to begin with because it's....not even a magic system. It's just 'Magic exists' and that's it.
Too many of the species added this year look like they could be subspecies of already existing species.
~Mod Zebra
0 notes
Text
@deadgodjess yeah I thought I was done being peeved about this but I just spent a full forty minute yoga session unable to think about literally anything else. starting a new post because this one has gotten unwieldy but for anyone just joining us this is the tl;dr:
sorry it’s a day later and I’m still thinking about how dirty this godforsaken show [Gotham] did the riddler. why did you have to give him such a tacky ~ooooo mental illness is SCARY!! uh oh I killed my girlfriend by aCcIdEnT!!~ origin story when it would have been infinitely funnier for Ed to just run some numbers re: how many cases would actually get solved without him and come to the completely justifiable conclusion that he can absolutely get away with quitting his job and turning to a life of riddle-based crime.
I'm going to offer my alternative for what I, personally, think would have been a more fun Riddler buildup across Gotham's 4.5 season run. I am absolutely not seeking feedback, this is a thot exercise meant to be enjoyed by me, myself, and maybe like three people that I trust on this hellsite.
anyway having our boy Ed abruptly jump headfirst into the shallow end of the homicidal maniac pool was executed in a way that was not just wildly ableist but also mmmm dumb and boring as hell and really ripped away a lot of opportunities to use this character in a more interesting way, and by "more interesting" I cannot emphasize enough that I mean "ways that I think are funnier."
if I'm being totally honest I think producers/execs whoever got nervous about the show's continuation and insisted on pulling the trigger on Ed riddling out before season one ended in the hopes that having another Batman villain active pre-Batman would help build a little more railroad for this awful show to keep careening along on. this has to play out via the manifestation of a fucking evil alternate personality because, frankly, up until this point Ed has been characterized as pretty much a total sweetheart with absolutely zero ulterior motives and possibly the only brain cell in the entire Gotham City Police Department. he is literally Just Some Guy with hamfisted autism coding and a fondness for riddles who regularly gets dismissed and bullied by his colleagues, all of whom I wish would die in a fire (except for maybe Harvey Bullock because he's really the only man bringing any kind of eye candy to this show, but we're not here to talk about that).
what I'm getting at here is that the writers had a really great opportunity to spend a few seasons showing us how life in Gotham gradually wore down a man who was one a friendly and law-abiding colleague of Jim Gordon's into a little freak in spandex who cannot stop trying to one-up a man dressed as a bat. he actually could have been a compelling foil to Jimothy, whose whole deal is that he's somehow managed to remain The Only Honest Cop In Gotham despite years of horseshit; building on the relationship between the two of them and exploring how their paths eventually diverge could have been really cool and yes, I will be drawing on that in my posthumous script doctor.
as long as we're talking about the Riddler and basically everyone else in the show sans Selina (and... sort of Poison Ivy, idk, I don't like the in-universe age lift and I don't want to contemplate it too much) I think it's stupid that Gotham is basically setting up a universe where all of Batman's iconic enemies are actually more like a bunch of middle aged assholes that Gordon already has decade-old beef with. it's dumb but it's also what I have to work with because if we tweak things any further to make Bruce and all of his future rogues teenagers together I think we're just remaking Riverdale.
sorry we got a little lost in the weeds there, I wasn't originally planning on making that and I don't want to admit how much time I wasted on it. anyway after a little "oh boohoo I'm just a poor little guy I can't believe I did murders" Ed's pretty much straight to bugfuck crazy murdertown with every other villain on this show. everybody on Gotham is like two seconds away from committing homicide at all times except for MAYBE Bruce; pretty much every recurring antagonist is a kill-happy maniac and most of the one-off villains of the week are as well. even the Penguin gaslight gatekeep girlbosses his way through a truly staggering number of people in the first half dozen episodes alone. what I'm getting at here is that dropkicking the Riddler straight into the same mold isn't just ableist or lazy - it's also the very worst thing that writing can be, which is FUCKING BORING. what if, god forbid, we had one rogue bringing a different kind of sauce to the party? in this essay I will -
season one: my pitch here is actually so simple, because I literally just want to keep Ed's characterization the same for the entire season. no abrupt slip and slide into stabbing and/or choking people to death, just a weird little dude who's around and good at his job and has a little mug with a question mark on it. he shows up once an episode for two minutes to crack the case wide open and tell a riddle and the remind the audience that he's around. "yep, that's the Riddler," they'll say. "no need to give him a violent split personality, I know where this is going and I am indeed capable of waiting for that payoff."
season two: now at this point you might be saying "Makenzie wait - is your pitch going to assume that the original storyline of Gotham is otherwise proceeding as it did otherwise? because that's going to get pretty impossible pretty fast if the Riddler has a drastically different personality/role in the show." yeah hey listen man. listen. I don't give a shit about what actually happens in the show. I give a shit about the Riddler. don't ask about this again. this all takes place in an AU where Gotham is a competently written show; I know that's sort of a stretch but bear with me.
anyway season two is when we can start getting some cracks in Riddleboy's chipper little exterior but for god's sake, let's deploy a little subtlety. probably he needs to start getting bullied more - possibly because he's notably friendly with Jim and easier to bully than Bullock, Jim's only other friend. anyway, this is how Ed learns that sometimes fucking people over is okay, actually. nothing drastic, just manipulating evidence here and there to ruin the day (and then career) of some of the biggest assholes in the department and bolster his faves (Jim). I cannot emphasize enough that the first half of the season has to be about this man realizing that most of his coworkers are VERY DUMB and EXTREMELY EASY TO MISLEAD.
come the second half of season 2 we get to see him getting a little too cocky, which will ultimately lead to his downfall. tl;dr being smarter than everyone is fun but still doesn't solve the problem of nobody else noticing or caring that he's smarter than them, and it's really starting to rankle. this will be the point when Ed upgrades to like. full sending his own boss cut-up magazine ransom notes and shit making demands to try and steer the GCPD more efficiently. there are, obviously, subtle little riddles embedded in these letters, but Gordon is the only one who will notice because Gordon's the protagonist and gets to notice things. this will end in a big confrontation, whatever, he's not going to turn Ed in because he believes Ed was genuinely acting in the interest of flushing out dirty cops, but he's also a little bitch so he IS going to tell Ed that he'll turn him in if Ed doesn't resign. Ed goes quietly and with a frankly unsettling amount of glee that someone was finally smart enough to solve one of his little puzzles. personally I love when the Riddler won't really look at or acknowledge anyone who won't play his silly little games I think that's so fun of him.
season three: the first half of season three is actually by far the most fun for me because it involves Ed a.) doing the Riddler thing where he tries to be a private detective for a while and b.) getting mercilessly bullied by all of Gotham city for a bit. you can fill in the specifics of the goofs yourself but suffice to say he's just a plucky little guy investigating some weird ass shit and still getting dumped on a lot in the process. our boy is going to have to learn to get a little unscrupulous.
it's vital that during this half of the season Jim comes to him at least a couple of times to ask for input that frankly none of the useless sadsacks at the GCPD are qualified to provide now that Ed's gone, because they're all doing the equivalent of that John Mulaney bit where they look at a corpse and go "ew! clean it up!" instead of gathering anything useful in the way of evidence. for some reason that I can't QUITE put my finger on it seems important to establish that Jim Gordon is willing to work alongside people who are operating a bit outside the law as long as he believes their intentions are good. and listen - Ed will genuinely help him! but he is also absolutely going home and idly jotting down notes for how he'd get away with exactly the crimes he helped solve.
the second half of season three involves him getting nabbed by Someone and pretty much extorted into helping them work against the GCPD on account of being a former employee who knows exactly how they investigate. what ensues is a series of crime scenes that have an abundance of fake evidence designed to lead the cops in circles that go nowhere - UNLESS you piece together some extremely abstract hints being hidden there, because Ed is sincerely making an effort to alert his old GCPD chums to what's going on. except, oh no, the stress of being held hostage is getting to him and he is SORT OF starting to enjoy how good he is at this and also beating his head against the wall in frustration over how fucking stupid literally every single one of his former colleagues is. he'll get rescued (by Jim) by the end of the season but god will he be bitter by then.
also I said he was being forced to work for Someone and it truly could be anyone in this horseass show but like. come on. it's Penguin. the rest of canon can go to hell but it's so important to me that Penguin still wants to fuck the Riddler so bad it makes him look stupid. it's just hands down the funniest thing that happens in all of Gotham and I wouldn't change it for the world.
season four: alright so Eddie boy starts this season trying to go to therapy about his whole kidnapping and probably PTSD thing but we the audience will realize very quickly that he's getting twitchy and is just purposefully playing with like. MULTIPLE different therapists and giving them all wildly different information to see if he can get each of them to give him different diagnoses. he has absolutely no idea why he's doing this except that it's fun and he evidently can. this man is living on the knife edge he's so sweaty and gross and he wants to do crime again SO bad and is really running out of reasons why he shouldn't.
if this show were written by people I could trust I'd say we could actually do a really thrilling mental health(TM) storyline here focusing in on Ed getting increasingly manipulative and ruled by compulsive behavior. I'd say the crux of his arc in the first half of the season is Jim convincing Ed to check himself in to some kind of mental health facility for his own wellbeing - probably Arkham, since it seems to somehow be the only mental health facility in Gotham despite the fact that it appears to be patterned on ghoulish 19th century sanitariums more than anything. anyway, this lasts approximately one day before Ed disappears from the facility and leaves an elaborate riddle behind, thus ending his arc for the first half of the season.
second half starts as a straight up revenge plot against Penguin because I love when these awful little homos fight with each other, but Gotham being Gotham I think a bit of an emotional roller coaster can ensue. Penguin can definitely convince Ed to ease off and work with him as more of a partner for a bit, but I still want this Riddler to be a murder lite contrast to most of the other villains in the cast so I think that will be the point of contention that ultimately drives them apart. the Penguin CANNOT stop lethally girlbossing; it's his first love.
anyway after that Ed's just fucking with the GCPD for shits and giggles because fuck 'em, am I right? he's definitely got the whole question mark suit Look going by this point; hanging out with the Penguin for too long changes a man.
season five: god I don't even know; there were only 12 episodes and one of them was for the flash forward. he tells some shitty riddles and probably gives Gordon one final helping hand but in a way that benefits him, firmly securing his status as "sometimes useful, always a bastard." all that really matters this still happens to him. this is the last we see of him, dangling next to Robin Lord Taylor in just the least convincing fake gut I've ever seen in god's green earth.
anyway sorry this got so long I'm genuinely appalled and disgusted with myself. I have problems!
58 notes
·
View notes
Text
Dystopian Larry Fic Rec
Inspired by some of the lovely people and fic recers on here, I’ve decided to start making my own fic recs. If you’d like, you can request recs in my inbox and I’ll see what I can do <3!
Please read the ratings and tags to these fics (because some of them are dark or have dark themes) and enjoy!
You Try To Be Everything (I Need) by lululawrence - @lululawrence (NR, 36k)
Wars, and rumours of wars, were nothing new for the world in the twenty-fourth century. The fighting had evolved over the years, and rarely did it involve traditional weapons. A group most widely known as the Southern Powers gained strength amongst portions of the western European continent and spread quickly.
There was a fight the Southern Powers didn’t expect coming from the north of England, though. Resistance came in the form of an organised underground; a group comprised of people with the Touch that did the best they could to enforce a line that would not be crossed. Slowly, that line was moved from the Channel to boundaries further and further north. It seemed only a matter of time before the Southern Powers took over everywhere.
Until that time, people did the best they could to live their lives in some semblance of normality. For Louis Tomlinson, that sense of normality was about to change when his best friend, Harry Styles, goes missing.
Louis embarks on the journey of a lifetime where he uses his newly developed abilities to search for his friend, even when it takes him to places he never thought he would see while surmounting trials he never could have imagined.
-
I loved the way the magic and technology in this fic intersected in such a unique way and the way the world was built was extraordinary!
red hands by reveries_passions - @dystopianharry (T, 132k)
I’ve never told anyone,” Harry murmurs, voice so soft no one else would be able to hear, if it wasn’t just the two of them.
“But you’ve told someone,” Louis says firmly. “And that’s not gonna fucking happen around here. You don’t speak a word of it, or someone’s going to kill you, and we can’t let that happen.”
*
a dystopian au in which harry, an ex-soldier who’s escaped from his government run camp, accidentally stumbles across the biggest rebel movement in the country, and louis, one of the rebellion’s mysterious leaders who appears to hate him, seems to simultaneously have an obsession with keeping him alive. or: harry is wanted for treason, niall hasn’t changed in four years, liam is always smiling, and louis is angry. like, really angry.
-
The plot of this is just *chef’s kiss* in so many ways! I love the way the characters interact with each other and I’m weak for Niall and Harry’s friendship in this.
Love After the End of the World by writing_practice - @mercurial-madhouse (E 158k)
“Wait. Just so I’m clear in me fucking noggin,” Niall says. “An international worldwide takeover is well under way and the only thing standing between having hot showers and a second end of the world is us five fuckers?”
-----
Society shattered when all electricity suddenly cut off across the globe, plunging the world into darkness. Now, Prometheus Industries is the sole remaining supply of power, a saving grace to those who survived Lights Out. As fugitives in no-man’s land struggling to break into Prometheus HQ, death lurks around every corner for Louis and Zayn. Things get complicated when a routine recon falls apart and Louis collides with Harry and his mates Niall and Liam, survivors with their own agenda.
When staying alive is already a constant battle, the deadliest weakness is to be in love. For Harry and Louis, finding each other sits on top of the endless list of What Else Could Go Wrong.
-
This just came out in the most recent Big Bang (that’s still on going so you should definitely check that out) and this fic is so amazing! I think it does a great job of just really immersing you in the world the characters exist in. Love After the End of the World is also a Soulmate AU and I love the way those parts come together. It also has an amazing prologue called PROMETHEUS RISING (M 5k) that I enjoyed immensely set in the same world!
at last, at last by suspendrs - @suspendrs (NR 41k) Locked
“Come with us,” Tommo says, stopping at the other end of the gymnasium, near the doors. “Don’t let them make you suffer any longer. Come with us, and be human.”
Before Harry has even finished thinking it through, he’s on his feet, gaining the attention of every single person in the gymnasium. What has he got to lose, anyway?
Or, Harry is born into a cult in a post-apocalyptic world, and Louis is the leader of the rebel group tasked with the mission of shutting them down. Together, they make a rather effective team.
-
This fic does a great job of making you feel like you’re experiencing with the characters, like I could practically smell what the characters were smelling! The world it’s set in is so cool and the entire fic feels so well thought out and everything is so consistent!
my love will never leave you by we_are_the_same @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed (T 10k)
In a world where memories are used as currency, Louis will do anything it takes for Harry to get better.
-
I loved the idea behind this. Like the entire world is so brilliantly done! And it was all based on ONE word (because of the wordplay challenge). Even though it’s set in a different world everything feels so grounded and realistic and I really really like that about it.
a prayer for which no words exist by Eliane (M 34k) Locked
"Louis is a few seconds away from blowing up a rather important section of the New York subway when he sees Harry for the first time."
-
In this fic the characters motivations are so clear (to the reader) and I love how it goes from Louis accidentally sort of, kind of, kidnapping Harry to them becoming friends then more. I also love how no matter where they are the fic has a real sense of place. This is part 1 of landscapes of war. The entire series is really good!
Who Painted the Moon Black by throughthedark (E 95k) Locked
“People died,” Harry whispers so quietly Louis strains to hear. “People died, and I killed some of them. How does life just go on after something like that?”
Louis shakes his head. “I don't know. It just does.”
Hunger Games AU where Louis Tomlinson is district six's victor from the 69th Hunger Games and Harry Styles is district seven's victor from the 72nd Hunger Games.
-
This fic is a hunger games AU that both people who have and haven't read/watched the Hunger Games can enjoy. I like how it explores the world of the Hunger Games in a way that isn’t explored in the Hunger Games canon. It’s really intense (like the E is for the darker themes and violence) and I enjoy it a lot. There is a happy ending (as the author assures in the tags) and I really enjoy all the struggles that the characters go through.
Nobody Marks You by graceling_in_a_suit @graceling-in-a-suit (T 33k)
“The plan is: we’re gonna put on a play. Now, I see some doubtful faces–” Louis looked around and found zero doubtful faces. Liam looked intrigued, Zayn looked bored, and Harry looked scarily blank. “But this is what’s happening. We’re gonna do some fucking acting, we’re gonna perform our hearts out, and we’re not going to think about anything else. The past, the future; none of it. All we’re going to think about is... “ Niall trailed off, eyeing the bookshelf to his left. He closed his eyes and reached a hand out towards it, running his fingers over the covers before pulling a book out at random. “William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.”
AU: Five assholes stuck in a bunker put on a play.
-
This is one of my absolute favorite fics. I just love the way the characters interact and they way the story is told. It’s nonlinear so you jump around in time and it shows the way the character's relationships change throughout. I’m a sucker for Much Ado About Nothing and though you don’t need to read it to fully appreciate the fic I think the use of the play throughout is genius.
@1dfanfictionbookcovers has a really cool cover for the fic as well HERE
With a whimper by kitundercover @kitundercover (M 132k)
Dystopian AU. Louis has been alone for too long to remember how not to be, and Harry has too much to worry about to deal with a scrawny, wild, stranger.
---
The man grips his arm tightly. “You’re not going to say anything.” It’s not a question.
Louis shakes his head, his body twitching.
“Fine.” Large green eyes survey him before letting go. “It’s cold. Take this. Wear it.”
Louis can’t help another flinch as the man’s long scarf is wrapped around his tender neck, it’s still warm. He touches the soft material. “Thank you.”
The man bears his teeth. “Don’t thank me. Don’t ever thank me.”
-
The thing this fic does really does is showing emotional reactions. Louis’ inner monologue is so well done and I really like the plot of the story.
these bountiful silences by tommoandbambi (T 123k)
they live in a world where they can only say four words per day. harry meets some people that don't want to live that way.
-
I really, really, really, like this plot and the story! The world that the characters exist in is so interesting and I just love the way in which it is a dystopia.
108 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hi Seyary! Hope you are doing well and congrats on the big graduation! I remember you answered a question a while ago about the characters' reaction to Azula being hurt - I was wondering what would Ursa do if she had somehow been there as the latest events unfolded?
Well, anon... well. Thank you very much for those nice wishes of yours and for the congratulations and... :'D
Read more if you really want to know xD
Look... I really don't know if I should spoil? Ursa has always been one of my safest guarded secrets. One of those I keep tucked very close to my heart. Her character in Gladiator is very important to me.
Thus... read at your own risk if you REALLY want to know :'D
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
For starters, it is known that my opinion of Ursa is very complicated, though that of comics Ursa is very straightforward: I don't like comics' Ursa and I never have and never will. She is about the most boring version of the character I could have possibly imagined becoming canon and I just can't be bothered to write her.
... But Gladiator Ursa is quite famously NOT comics Ursa :'D
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Gladiator Ursa is an interpretation based on what little the show gave us on Ursa, mixed in with the turbulent themes that I've written into Gladiator. She's become a very intriguing character for me, and... a fascinating one to write. She is really interesting to explore because of what a complex mess she's gotten herself into. So...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
... the truth is that Ursa would lose her shit.
And by that, I mean she'd likely be even more hysterical than Sokka has been so far, which is saying A LOT XD She's, like I said, a complicated mess of a character here and Azula's perception of Ursa is, admittedly, strongly colored by being a child and not really seeing the full picture when she was that little. Ursa is absolutely NOT blameless in her relationship with Azula and I want to make that completely clear, both through the story and this answer... but that doesn't mean that, in Gladiator, she doesn't care. She, in fact, cares so much that our only direct glimpse of her so far is of an Ursa who has experienced who knows how much strife (okay, I know :'D), and whose sole motivation to do something was the hope of seeing her daughter again. Only, with how turbulent her mind is, she is at a bit of a complicated position and her relationship with reality is... not very good. Thus, she's looking for a child, not for the grown woman Azula already is.
Hence, my answer here is based on assuming you're wondering how an Ursa who has already come to terms with reality would react... but, admittedly, she'd probably come to terms with reality in a single, horrible blow even if she hadn't yet, upon witnessing Azula's fierce battle and very frail state right now. She'd be unable to keep believing her daughter is still a child when said daughter is possibly at the very gates of death :'D Anyway, in either case, she'd be panicking so badly she'd probably be more troublesome than helpful xD not because of any ill will at all, just because seeing her kids getting hurt, especially this badly, is just about her worst nightmare.
Our Ursa has a lot of regrets, so many of them it's impossible to explain them all right here, but Azula is at the core of the majority of them. She wouldn't have much of a clue regarding what to do to help Azula, that much is true... but she'd be right there, ready to do whatever she can for her daughter, probably crying her eyes out 24/7, praying constantly for the best prognosis and for any reassurances that her daughter will heal fully.
... And then Ozai would likely have a heart attack upon coming home and seeing his wife again with zero warning (?) x'DDDDD
Anyway, whether this is or isn't the answer you expected, I hope your curiosity is sated for now, anon :'D
#anon#ursa#gladiator#... hmmm#HMMMMMMMMM#you guys really like playing with fire asking questions like these#but there you go#this is#gladiator spoilers#do not come at me with foul accusations#my critical posts are strictly canon-related#this is Gladiator#this is my territory#and I have certainly surprised people with character interpretations in the past#so what's one more unexpected take? :'D#there we go that's that enough tags#read at your own risk :'D
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Road Trips and Missing Persons (Part 12)
Fandom: Sanders Sides
Relationships: Patton & Virgil, Virgil & Deceit, Logan & Patton, Emile & Remy, Roman & Remus & Janus
Characters: Patton, Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Roman, Logan, Emile, Remy
Summary: Patton was just getting groceries. The next thing he knew, there was a knife at his throat and he was an unwilling uber driver. Virgil’s on the run after the murder of his dad, and it’s not just his paranoia that’s telling him he’s being chased down. He has to get somewhere safe, somewhere he can trust, and all he has is a couple of stories from his dad and a name: “Green Bellow Foods and Dispensary.”
Notes: Secret Agents AU, knives, carjacking, kidnapping, murder mentioned, guns mentioned, pepper spray, blood mentioned, drugs mentioned, explosions (more to be added)
This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve affectionately named it the Goblin Brain Fic because it’s helping my brain actually get motivated for studying. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 My Master Post
Remus sulked in the back of Roman’s car. It wasn’t fair. His brother and his best friend were both in the front seat and had been mocking him for the past 10 minutes and they wouldn’t even put on an interesting music station. Roman had even told Janus about the time Remus had peed on a wasp sting thinking it would work like it did for jellyfish.
“We should play a car game,” Remus suggested.
“Absolutely not,” Roman said immediately.
“Come on Ro, it’s tradition,” Remus said.
“You kill my cows every time!” Roman said. “You could kill Uncle Patton’s cows since he’s always winning, but you always choose to kill my cows!”
“But RooooOOO.”
“No.”
“Fine,” Remus relented. “No Cow Game.”
“Thank you.”
“I spy with my-”
“No, Remus.”
Remus paused. “I’m thinking of an animal.”
“I’m not playing Remus.”
They sat in silence for about 20 seconds. “There’s a Kentucky driver’s license. One point for me.”
Roman chose to just ignore him now.
“Janus you’ll play with me, won’t you?” he asked.
“Remus, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and you’re already annoying me,” was the answer.
“Come on if we’re going to listen to stupid music, we should at least play a game. How about we try to find things outside of the car in alphabetical order. I’ll start. Airport sign! Now you find something starting with the letter ‘b’.”
Does the annoying bastard in the backseat count?” Janus grumbled under his breath.
“No,” Remus replied with a grin. “It’s got to be something outside of the car.”
Janus didn’t respond to that and Remus pouted. He went through a bunch of different car games he knew and tried to make some up, but none seemed to entice either his brother or Janus to play. While usually he might just give up after being ignored for so long, he noticed Janus’s hand start tapping a restless pattern on his leg after only about 10 seconds of Remus’s silence. So, Remus decided to drop the car games and instead just focused on being as annoying as possible.
…
“Theeeeeeeeee…. wheels on the bus go round and round!”
“I’m going to kill him,” Janus said blankly.
“That’s what he wants,” Roman said mildly. “Just ignore him.”
Remus kept singing for a long time. Eventually he ran out of verses, so he just started to make some up. “The strippers on the pole���”
“Oh my god,” Janus said. “I can’t handle this anymore.”
“Seriously Jan,” Roman said. “Just pretend he doesn’t exist, and he’ll eventually wear himself out.”
“In how long?” Janus asked, just the slightest edge of hysteria to his voice.
“It depends on if he’s had any caffeine today.”
Remus kept singing, but Janus and Roman remained resolutely silent on the matter until Remus eventually trailed off.
“This is boring,” Remus said.
Nothing.
“At least change the radio station to something not lame.”
Janus reached forward and turned the volume on the radio station up. Remus sat back in his seat and thought for a few minutes which is when he tuned into the radio station.
“So, if you’d like to request a song, you can call in or send a request through our new app,” the man on the radio said. Remus smiled widely and grabbed his phone from his pocket.
When he turned it on, he had a bunch of missed phone calls and text messages from dad. What? He opened the text messages and they all seemed to be asking the same question: ‘Have you seen your brother?’ Remus glanced up at the back of Roman’s head.
‘I’m not his keeper,’ he texted back.
Then, he closed out of the messenger app and pressed the button for the app store. He quickly found what he was looking for and pressed the download button.
It took a couple of minutes to download and about when it was over, he noticed Janus shoot a look back at him. He opened his mouth, doubtlessly to comment on Remus’s silence. Not wanting to be suspicious, Remus opened his mouth and let out his patented ‘banshee scream.’
“Don’t look at him!” Roman yelled over the sound of Remus’s scream.
“Why is your brother a demon from hell?” Janus asked, hands over his ears.
Remus ran out of air after a moment. There was a beat of silence.
“Can I please kill him, Roman?” Janus asked.
“No,” Roman replied. “Really, just ignore him.”
Janus grumbled under his breath and turned the radio station up even more. Satisfied that they were none the wiser, Remus opened the now downloaded app and quickly found the “suggestions” tab in the menu drop down. He didn’t even have to check the given list of suggested songs to know what he wanted was not on it.
So, he tapped on the button to suggest a different song and typed in the details of what he wanted before pressing send. Then it was just a waiting game and no matter what dad (and everyone else) had always said, Remus was good at waiting games. At least, he was when he wanted to be. Both Janus and Roman were looking resolutely ahead and Roman’s fingers were tapping to the beat of the current song on the wheel despite the fact that they were going over the speed limit to a crazy amount.
The song ended and a man came on the air.
“Hello, hello, hello,” the man said. “We’ll be getting right back to your suggestions on KSS-FM 102.9, but before that for anyone on Interstate 26, there was an accident near the Carlson exit involving a semi-truck full of cows. If you’re anywhere near exit 52, I’d suggest you moo-ve right on over to an alternative route.”
“Fantastic,” Janus hissed, slamming his fist against the dash.
“Hey, whoa, it’s fine,” Roman soothed, but Janus didn’t seem to be listening.
“Fuck,” he said.
“Hey, Jan,” Remus said. “You’ve got your map, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, it’ll be easy to find an alternate route, yeah?” he asked.
“We don’t even know where we’re going!” Janus said. “How the hell are we supposed to find an alternate route?!”
“We know where he was right?” Remus said. “The cows might actually be a good thing. It’ll probably slow everyone down and we can guess what alternate route he might be using.” Janus didn’t say anything. “Here,” he said. “Gimme.” Janus handed over his atlas and Remus peered at it. “Yeah, here, see,” he said, showing it to him. “There are about four likely alternative routes someone might take near where Virgil was the last we knew. Three of them end up funneling into to Lincoln to get back onto the interstate and Lincoln has an ice-cream shop that got burglarized five times one summer, so they put up a security camera facing main street.”
“Please tell me you didn’t burglarize the ice cream shop,” Roman begged.
“You can prove nothing,” Remus said. He hadn’t actually, but he liked the distressed noise Roman gave in answer. “Anyway, I’d say we throw in our lots with that and drive to Lincoln to check the security camera. Even if he didn’t go that way, we can then make another guess based on where the 4th route went.”
“That…” Janus said. “Yeah, that’s actually a good suggestion Remus, thank you.”
“No prob Janny Fanny.”
“And you ruined it,” Janus said.
Remus just gave him the biggest smile he could.
Janus rolled his eyes and turned away from him to look back at the map. He grabbed a pen and circled the location that Remus had suggested. “You’ll want to get off at the next exit,” he told Roman.
Roman nodded. “Got it.”
Remus had actually almost forgotten in the interim about his absolutely fantastic idea until a few minutes later when the radio man announced the next song. Remus could already feel a smile creep up his face as the man snickered a little bit when he started speaking.
“Now,” he said, “we usually wouldn’t play this song, but it does seem… appropriate considering the trucks that crashed on I-26 and the person who suggested it wrote about why he wanted us to play it in the comments.” He broke for another short laugh. “As a sibling myself, I feel sympathy for your plight D-dongmaster-5000. So, here’s for you, stuck in a car while your brother and best friend hog the radio. I hope your road trip goes well.” And then, beautifully, the radio started singing the song of Remus’s soul.
Two trucks having sex
Two trucks having sex
My muscles, my muscles
Involuntarily flex
Remus saw Janus look over at Roman. Roman didn’t look away from the road. Instead, he just said with zero emotion, “Kill him.”
Janus vaulted over into the back seat as the radio crooned:
Two pickup trucks
Making love
American made.
Want to read more? Click below!
Part 13
#sanders sides#remus sanders#janus sanders#roman sanders#creativitwins#patton sanders#virgil sanders#logan sanders#remy sanders#emile piccani#road trips and missing persons#adriana writes#kidnapping#murder mentioned
78 notes
·
View notes
Text
Everything wrong with... Ep 3 - Pretty Woman
*sigh* *big sigh*. I’m back here giving you another politically charged review of a film I like to call a femmeçade:
Femmeçade
/fɛm//fəˈsɑːd/
noun
noun: femmeçade; plural noun: femmeçades;
1.
A genre of films directed by men that forefront yet misinterpret the female narrative and representation on screen.
"Pretty Woman is the worst femmeçade of them all in the way it depicts women as the lesser gender"
(definition by yours truly).
I have to say, I have never felt more compelled, more angry in my entire life to write such a review and tear this film down until there is nothing left but the underlining, prominent misogynistic aspects of this film. I am talking about the 1990s classic, Pretty Woman starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. Now a musical, the film has survived three waves of feminism (if you count MeToo), and yet is still available to access for our entertainment. Even though censorship is less common in the Western World, the only good thing about watching Pretty Woman would be to see how vile and unacceptable it is in the eyes of our modern and ever changing society. It truly brought tears of anger to my eyes to watch such a film and see how its lead was shoved into the spotlight for a round or two of humiliation and prodding by the fingers and eyes of the male gaze. There is A LOT to go through here, so grab a snack and buckle in as I put Pretty Woman to shame.
Let's just start with the title itself Pretty Woman, a pretty lazy title for a film if you ask me. I understand it does what it says on the tin, like any title should, however the irksome thing about the film and title is what it’s selling. The lust and beauty of Julia Roberts as opposed to her character or story for that matter. Stood alongside Richard Gere in thigh high boots with her legs for days, months and years on show. We get it, Julia Roberts is a beauty, but why does a film have to focus on that sole part of her? By doing this it creates the idea that it’s her only asset and BOY does this film do a good job at reminding us just that. They’ve got the man’s vote and supposedly the woman’s seeing as the story is about them or who they’d like to be. WRONG, seeing as the crew behind Pretty Women were mostly men themselves. The writers, cinematographer, director, producers, best boys and gaffers, you name it. So who was this film for if it wasn’t to satisfy at least it's mostly male crew members?
Male satisfaction are the appropriate words to use when we are introduced to our leading lady in close up shots of her bra and knickers. Vivian is played by the highly talented and ordained Julia Roberts. Ever since seeing Erin Brodkovich which bagged her an Oscar in 2001, I’ve been in love with her spirit and confidence on screen. As we all know she is certainly one of Hollywood’s shiniest stars, up there with the elites like Meryl Streep, Viola Davis and Angelina Jolie. Why she decided to sign onto such a film, I would hate to speculate seeing as Feminism was more of a dirty secret than a positive movement back in the 1990s. Many (mostly men, though women too, especially those in the film business) would accuse the movement of threatening the comfortability and fun out of life’s pleasures, like women wearing makeup, dresses and being groped at office parties (sarcasm). However, as we now know, feminism isn’t the demon that the 1990s tried to make it out to be and I hope that Julia Roberts was unaware of feminism back then rather than being a strong opposer of it.
Vivian Ward is a hooker living and working on the streets of LA, the city of dreams as some may brandish it. She lives with her roommate Kit (Laura San Giacomo) and between them they spend their nights trying to scrape enough money for their rent. I’m glad that sex work isn’t as scrutinised as it was back then and another arresting aspect of Pretty Woman is the way it depicts the so called “atrocities” of being a sex worker. The propriety and haughtiness of those who laid eyes upon Kit or Vivian was degrading and dehumanising, simply because they choose to lead a different lifestyle to those around them. It seemed so archaic, almost Victorian like the way people ogled and gazed upon Vivian at the hotel where she was taken in by her male counterpart. Pretty Woman again proves itself to be an anti-feminsit horror show for shaming women on choosing what to do with their own bodies and how they dress. We need to cut this BS out of society ASAP that women dress in certain ways to attract the attention of the opposite sex. Clothes are a form of expression and 9 times out of 10, that expression hasn’t anything to do with wanting to be leered at in public. Enough with the victim shaming as well; asking women what they wore when they were sexually assaulted. Instead let's ask what the attackers were THINKING when they decided to prey on an innocent victim....
One night whilst Vivan is looking for clients, she meets the so called delectable and mouth droppingly handsome male lead that is Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere. I didn’t get the hype at all as I felt Vivan to have enough personality and lust for life to fill both of her and Richard Gere’s character. Edward Lewis was wooden, stern and boring, and despite this, Vivian seems to see more in him beyond her usual hookups. That’s another irritating thing about Pretty Woman. Edward Lewis didn’t have to do FUCK ALL to prove his love or worthiness in the life of Vivian.
He didn’t have to (nor did) change one thing about himself throughout the entire film and that’s not only extremely sexist, but shit filmmaking. Did the writer of completely forget or give up on Edward Lewis’ character arc whilst he was too busy making drooling over Vivian? All Edward Lewis had to do was wave his card around and POOF Vivian was at his knees. No wonder the 1990s shamed feminists because this is the exact sort of crap they were trying to prevent from happening on screen. It may seem like fun and games when Edward Lewis tells Vivian to go shopping, buy herself a new dress for dinner, but in reality this is just a fresh case of misogyny, served up with a side of degradation and bigotry for dessert.
Edward Lewis goes as far to hire Vivian for the week as his...escort? His actual motive isn’t known and we are left as an audience to conclude that it’s because she’s pretty. Again, selling the film title through and through and deminishing the worth of women with each scene. Vivian is never actually asked what she wants, nor do we get to know her seeing as Edward’s inflated ego and wallet covers up most of the screen time whilst watching this film. If you didn’t think this film could get any more horrific is the age gap between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere at the time of filming, to which Roberts was 22 and Gere, 40.
One moment in particular that proved this film to have zero substance to it, is when Vivian eventually gets down on Edward and to my absolute horror, her bra strap is INCREDIBLY and shockingly inauthentically loose. Like falling off loose. Not one woman in the world who chooses to wear a bra; not in China, India, Pakistan, the U.S, Ukraine, Hooker, doctor, astronaut, teacher, hairdresser or not would ever EVER wear their bra strap so loose. An impractical and uncomfortable choice, this tiny infinitesimal yet significant part of this film showed that this film doesn’t care or know how to show accurate female representation on screen and goes against any sense of providing women with strong characters they can use as role models. And all from one bra strap.
The shopping and transformation part to this film had to be the big red thumb that stood out the most from the eternity of this film as AGAIN for the fifteenth time this film has proved itself to be in favour of entertaining those who like to ogle at Vivian as opposed to getting to know her. Edward thrusts his card at her once again (without giving her much choice, a common behavioural pattern associated with sociopaths and abusers) and she goes to Rodeo Drive to essentially pretty herself up for him so that Edward isn’t judged by those he introduces Vivian to.
When Vivian had attempted to go shopping alone on Rodeo Drive in her casual attire, the female employees of one of the stores behaved abominably towards her, classing her as someone who didn’t have the means or appearance to shop in such a place. This film just got even worse as not only do we have the opposite gender dictating the appearance of women, we’re having our own sisters do the same whilst investing in the patriarchal narrative of the way women should be seen in public. At this point you may think I’m going crazy and repeating myself, of which I am doing both, however once you’ve fully taken the time to wake up and smell the patriarchy’s cup of coffee, there’s no turning back. These details become smoke signals that turn into epiphanies and realisations that have you questioning is this really okay? And a Pretty Woman is NOT okay.
Once Vivian has had her transformation (so kindly afforded by the dominant Edward Lewis) she seemingly begins to enjoy her new life as a piece on the side, until she is presented with Edward’s lawyer, Philip Stuckley.
So here’s what we have so far on our checklist of misogyny and anti-feminsit motifs to Pretty Women
A poster and title created in the eye of the male gaze CHECK
A female character whose worth is based on her desirability and propriety CHECK
A mediocre white man who doesn’t progress and gets his way through charm, money and power CHECK
Women who take unkindly to other women because they don’t fit the normalised standards of the patriarchy CHECK
Shaming women for their dress sense and career choices CHECK
Lack of women in general, most of which don’t speak throughout the film CHECK
The list could go on but another motif to add to the list from this film that acts as big shiny wrecking ball that smashes up feminism and leaves its values in the dust is sexual assault. Or attempted sexual assault at that, as when we see Phillip Stuckley’s first interaction with Vivian he says right out that he knows she’s a hooker, whilst running the edge of his sunglasses down Vivian’s arm and suggesting they get together after Edward’s demise back to wherever he came from. EW, this was one of the many moments of the film where I had to swallow my vomit. Phillip attempts to rape Vivian back at Edward’s penthouse suite, when luckily Edward comes in to stop it happening, which was the most decent thing he did the entire film. Edward’s lawyer represented a hoard of men that existed back then and now who feel entitled to a woman’s body, hooker or not. Even though Pretty Woman had dug itself a big enough hole, by the time I got to this part of the film I had been sold on the idea that this film is completely out of line with women’s liberation and empowerment. It’s just one big game to prod and poke at women, seeing how far they can go, which in itself is a metaphor for sexual assault.
I’ll wrap up on the lack of diversity in Pretty Women. Because the world affords white men and women more luxuries and privileges than people of colour, they were at the forefront of this story whilst black and asian minorities were put in the background as butlers, maids and chauffeurs. It makes me so angry that on top of being a whirlwind of misogyny and sexism that such a film would have the audacity to misrepresent minorities entirely and highlight their so called use as servicing white people. IT. IS. GETTING. OLD.
Hopefully you’ve made it to the end of this “review” (kinda) and seen the damaging implications such a film has on our society. On reading Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies curated by Scareltt Curtis, I read that “Books and things reflect what’s happening in the world, Hollywood movies DICTATE IT and MOULD what people think”.
You may think movies don’t matter or a film of the 1990s doesn’t matter, but if we are to learn from our mistakes and progress our movements, we must unpick the past and see it for how it was. Movies are our culture, our representation of what we’ve learnt or seen in the world. I don’t want to see women as sexual objects without their permission. I don’t want to see them being moulded by the patriarchy or by women who support it. I don't want to see women only good enough to be hookers, wives or mistresses. I want women to be the strongest versions of themselves and for films to buckle up and show that shit on screen.
Pretty Woman can kiss my ass and if it’s a film you like in unlike it. Pronto.
#prettywoman#julia roberts#richardgere#movies#hollywoodmovies#90smovies#romcom#cinema#feminism#everyday feminism#feminist
7 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hi Indy! I know Arkhamverse Riddler is definitely your specialty. Do you happen to have a rough ranking of Riddlers that you like from most to least? And which do you think is the most definitive version of the character?
I THINK that’s what my blog description says, anyway
Yes, at all times I have a rough ranking floating around in the back of my mind. It is going to be very long so I will answer the last question first.
For most definitive version of Riddler I’m going to have to go with BTAS. No recurring villain really had a distinct personality from their original (1940s) version, and while I am not knocking Frank Gorshin the 1966 Riddler absolutely was a bit Joker-y. Most importantly (if I am not mistaken, which I could be), BTAS gave Riddler what became his most important trait: his intelligence. Before that he was mostly an average weirdo who wore a green suit (sometimes) and liked riddles and sometimes built puzzle traps. After BTAS, though, the Riddler’s intelligence became the driving force of his character. Batman ‘66 saved Riddler from obscurity, but BTAS made him both relevant and future-proof. Will we ever see a Riddler of average intelligence who doesn’t specialise in computer programming/engineering ever again? I doubt it, and that’s because of BTAS.
Onto the list. It does not include EVERY Riddler ever because I have not read every Riddler story ever, but it should cover most of them (or at least the ones you’ve probably heard of).
1. Anything Paul Dini wrote. This actually covers a few different Riddlers, which would be the first two Arkhamverse games, the most notable PI Riddler stuff, and of course the Riddler from BTAS. Paul Dini can write the Riddler as both being a bad person and sympathetic at the same time, which is actually harder to pull off than it sounds. AND he does it without using backstory as a crutch, which really is hard.
2. Jeph Loeb/Jim Lee’s Riddler from Hush. He only actually appears for two issues, but it’s one of the best Riddler stories merely because it allows him to do all the things Riddler SHOULD be able to do, but can’t because then there would be no Batman comics because he would have ended them. 619C is also, in my opinion, the best Riddler cover of all time.
3. Jim Carrey’s Riddler from Batman Forever. Why would I put him this high on the list, you ask? Because some writers forget that the Riddler is half just in it to have a good time and he doesn’t really care about how other people perceive him. This man is living his best life and he’s doing it in glittery spandex and a light-up jacket. Is he over the top? At the time, no, not really. At the time Riddler kinda just acted like that. And he should be able to do so, in my opinion.
4. Current Riddler (James Tynion IV). While this Riddler has some issues with consistency (though this probably has to do with being shuffled from a main comic story into a Catwoman story), he returns to being almost self-cripplingly paranoid and absolutely losing it when he’s bested, which I think are important traits for Riddler to have. I’m also actually really amused that they gave him the Batman Forever hair.
5. Batman ‘66. While it did likely rescue Riddler from pending obscurity - he actually never appeared in a Batman comic before 1965, and before that was featured in only two issues of Detective Comics - and he definitely checks the ‘charming’ and ‘having fun’ boxes, there isn’t a whole lot differentiating him from the Joker he’s playing alongside. If you watch the Batman ‘66 movie they’re almost the exact same character, just one likes jokes and the other likes riddles.
6. Hush Returns and its aftermath. This stuff is weird and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because it mostly involves Riddler running away from Hush and retcons certain things from Hush, most importantly the part where Riddler got everyone to work together because he gave them what they wanted. Hush Returns (which also contradicts itself during the story) for some reason has everyone angry at Riddler for tricking them and it ends with him getting the shit beat out of him and puts him into a coma for a year, which leads into him getting total amnesia and becoming a PI. That’s the reason it’s so high on the list. The story is weird and makes no sense at all for any of the other characters in it either but it gave us a reason for PI Riddler and that makes it matter. Sort of.
7. Brave and the Bold/The Batman Riddler. I’m putting them both together mostly because BatB Riddler features in I think only one episode and he deserves a mention because he’s adorable. TB Riddler was an interesting experiment into a Riddler that, for whatever reason, never really came into himself as a person and instead sort of enacts revenge for his existence on life. If I remember correctly he’s also pretty low-key about his intelligence, which is another interesting character choice. I respect the things they went for but this Riddler overall gives me the impression of a person who always says no when invited to something but gets upset when people stop asking which, while definitely something the Riddler would do, isn’t really my preferred take.
8. Snyder Riddler (New 52). The problem I have with this Riddler is that I have no idea what his motivation even is. I was told a long time ago that a backstory for him WAS written but didn’t make it into Zero Year because the story was already too long, which is... not a great look for a professional storyteller. And because we don’t know anything about this Riddler, this story consists of a dude who wears green to impress women (which he never shows any interest in), gets the mob to work for him... somehow... and decides to spend a YEAR watching the people in Gotham die because... I’m not sure? If it amused him, sure, I could understand that. But he just seems super bored during the entirety of the story. He doesn’t even seem particularly excited when Batman actually shows up in front of him. Beyond Zero Year his appearances are, to my knowledge, limited mostly to two issues in Batman Eternal, where he’s hiding, three issues of The Flash, where he speedruns Zero Year and is undone by the Flash villains teaming up against him (which I don’t know enough about Flash villains to comment on), and Scarecrow 23.2, where he for some unexplained reason seems to look up to Scarecrow. And then there’s Detective Comics: Future’s End, which is just the worst thing ever. Snyder didn’t write all of these stories, but they are based on his Riddler.
9. Gotham Riddler. I didn’t watch past season 3 so I can’t comment on too much after that, but the arc with Mad Grey Dawn and ‘I knew that you knew that I knew’ was some of the greatest Riddler stuff we had gotten in years and if they had just kept on with that they would have had one of the greatest Riddlers of all time.
10. Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale Riddler. Full disclaimer I haven’t read Catwoman: When in Rome, but I have read The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. The reason I don’t like this Riddler is because he actually bears no resemblance to him. He’s a literal moron who just stumbles around incompetently for the duration of his relevance to the plot. It’s like they decided to make an ironic Riddler who is actually stupid and also for the first time in his life does not have the ability to locate a tailor. I don’t actually understand the point of this Riddler’s existence. He isn’t even really Riddler, he’s just some sort of vaguely Riddler-coloured person.
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
RE: Anne Lister, Manipulator?
I’m still thinking a lot about Anne Lister’s characterization, motives, and actions in the first two episodes, particularly that she has been understandably accused of being manipulative by many fans.
And I do tend to agree, but I can’t seem to hold that against her or find myself disliking the forming relationship for it.
First off, I want to say that I don’t see Anne as a gold-digger, which some fans suggest. While she does foresee a need for investment-capital in the near future if she intends to sink her own coal pits, she herself has essentially just found out that she, too, can be a woman of substantial independent means. She doesn’t need Ann’s money, though it could ostensibly be useful in the short-term, and certainly not harmful in the long-term.
I see her motives as truly and sincerely wanting a relationship with Ann, to have a wife who won’t run off and marry a man as all of her former lovers have done. And this is where it definitely gets a bit iffy for me.
Because we start out with her having zero interest in Ann as a person, basically saying she and her sister are unremarkable. She found her original visit with them boring and had a poor opinion of both of the Walker sisters, and had no real intent to meet Ann until she came calling and she laid eyes on her.
For this reason I see Anne’s interest in Ann, at least at this point in the story, as being not wanting Ann, but simply wanting not to be alone anymore. And you can dislike her for this if you wish, but I simply can’t dislike her for wanting to find a lover that won’t leave her as so many have, who don’t see her as a dalliance before (or after, Mrs. Lawton you scandalous woman!) their wedding but as a true spouse.
And so I think she would have probably tried to get in with anyone who came along who struck her fancy, and Ann happened to be first in line. While I think that Anne’s behaviour to try to start the relationship is manipulative and not what we would want for a perfect mate for Ann, I think the desire is not “money-grubbing predatory lesbian” like many seem to make her out to be, but “lonely woman seeks love wherever she might find it.”
We can say based on Ann’s naivete, lack of worldly knowledge and experience, etc. that there’s a power imbalance between them, and I don’t disagree, but I don’t think this is a bad thing depending on how things develop. We’ve already seen Anne trying to bolster her confidence and teach her about the world. (Regarding writing the letter declining requests for money, she didn’t say “Next time, just let me handle it.” She said next time perhaps Ann would have the confidence to do it herself.)
If Anne continues to bolster Ann in general to handle her life better and be more independent, wonderful. If, however, Anne instead becomes controlling in order only to benefit herself, well, I will become a bit =\ about that for sure.
And the thing is, the way I read it, both could be absolutely in character for Anne as we’ve seen her so far. We can imagine she may wish for a subservient, easily-manipulated wife because she might be able to have more security in her relationship if she knows her wife isn’t going to have a mind to run off. (Again, that “manageable” concept . . .) But I can also see a case being made that Anne herself, valuing culture and intelligence and political thought, would want a confident and smart partner who could share in those things with her. She doesn’t like her home or her life to be plain, why would she want her wife to be?
So I will be interested to see where it goes. I am excited for it. I think it will make a good story either way, especially depending on how far into the relationship the show makes it. IIRC at one point there was so much general discontent about some of Anne’s handling of her tenants that people burned effigies of both Lister and Walker; it would be interesting to see how today’s Walker would deal with such an extreme display. I can’t wait to see the evolution of both women as individuals and as a pair.
55 notes
·
View notes
Note
'#i am so upset at tht about this lol #(mostly cos yeah reality is that. but i'm watchign fiction dudes. gimme some character journeys. gimme development. gimme hope. #this flatline they have serena on just isn't good storytelling. straight up.)' -- i agree. & the idea i hate the most is that moss & the tht crew might have had a boner over whitford joining them & decided to give him what could have been serena's arc. the architect of the damn colonies can turn out decent but serena can't. GOT IT
“the architect of the damn colonies can turn out decent but serena can’t. GOT IT”
this is probably what drives me the most mad about the choices they made for characters in s3. lawrence literally–unequivocally and by his own admission as well as multiple other characters–created THE FUCKING COLONIES: prison labour camps where ONLY women go to suffer excruciating pain and rot from disease and DIE. he also, unarguably and explicitly, created THE ENTIRE ECONOMIC SYSTEM on which gilead relies on for its propagation and survival.
without HIM, gilead would NOT exist. and this isn’t a little thing. it’s like, it literally would have fallen apart without his massive contribution. (sure, maybe they would have found another genius economist with a penchant for brutal misogyny but as it stands, they didn’t have one. and HE STILL helps gilead survive.)
but uwu, he makes jokes and doesn’t do the ceremony and loves his wife so WHAT A GREAT GUY! LET’S GIVE HIM A RELUCTANT REDEMPTION ARC!!!!
i fucking loathe him. and he was shown multiple times even in s3 what he thinks of ALL women, and that isn’t fucking much. he’s gross. “i love my wife” YEAH sure buddy. fuck you. if you truly loved her, you wouldn’t have created an entire system where she gets fucked right over to the point she kills herself. cool beans, dude.
s3 was all about lawrence and june being reluctant allies and her working her dumbass moves on him, and that bullshit handholding at the funeral FOR THE WIFE THAT JUNE BASICALLY KILLED??? please just let me vomit in my mouth a bit.
he is not a good guy. he is not a nice guy. he does not like women. he does not care about them. he’s a pathetic little misogynist that she looks out for himself. but omg look how conflicted he is about the ceremony!!! UWU PRECIOUS BEAN, TOO PURE FOR THIS HORRIBLE WORLD!!
it’s like fandom/the showrunners are just salivating over male characters to woobiefy.
meanwhile MEANWHILE there’s a female character, the second most developed character on the entire show with the second most amount of screentime (prior to mid s3 anyway) and already a foil to june and “villain”esque character theoretically capable of change, but hey, no. let’s ignore the entire trajectory serena was on for the latter half of s2. let’s even ignore early s3 and all that set up. let’s just FUCKING FLATLINE her and make her 100% obsessed with a baby. it’s not like that storyline was already wrapped up in s2 and she’d moved on by early s3.
all so june could have some ~exciting plot of winning over lawrence and oooooh look it’s bradley whitford. what a great guy. he’s so funnieeeee and nice.
it really does feel like they aborted serena’s arc for the sake of inserting whitford into what should have been serena’s journey of gradually coming to terms with her involvement in gilead, her own overwhelming guilt about her involvement (which i would like to point out is LESS than lawrence’s contributions. just so we’re all on the same page). and i know miller has said he “doesn’t believe in redemption arcs” (bullshit. that’s pure bullshit. they exist whether you believe in them or not, for one thing.) but lawrence’s character has been doing EXACTLY that. and all the fandom is frothing about how amazing he is blah blah blah. fucking miss me with that. i will NEVER root for a man who has done that to women and is a KEY player in gilead. he didn’t just help invent it, he CURRENTLY still sustains it. he seemed to have little concern for ANYBODY even at the beginning of s3. yet still he’s a hero. (at least the character is like “oooh i’m not a hero” which kinda sounded totally insincere to me. the same way people throw pity parties for themselves.)
but god forbid a problematic female character portrayed by a fantastic (but lesser known) actress gets the same generosity. and what’s even crazier is that the audience was generally in favor and excited about serena joining june in the resistance prior to s3, and even in the beginning episodes of s3. based on social media anyway.
but no……….
i just….
it infuriates me how they chose to give what could have been a decent character arc for serena to lawrence instead (and to take that from yvonne and hand it over to whitford cos he’s just so great. rolling my eyes so hard.). and everyone is just like “yasss king! we love you!! what great guy for saving those kids!!! yay redemption for lawrence! i love brad whitford so amazing give him an emmy!!!”
i get they need to keep serena around and in some sort of conflict for june.
actually no. i don’t get it. i don’t think it’s necessary at this point to have a female adversary of that degree for june. i think she could easily be a complicated/conflicted ally, or at least not a direct enemy of june’s. the SYSTEM is evil enough and produces enough conflict on its own. june no longer needs the personification of it and neither do we. just… ugh. stagnating the MOST complex character on the show (fight me. serena as a character was more complex and dynamic than june.) for the sake of throwing her in some stupid sideplot that had nothing to do with the protagonist, and made her entire story arc stall into a dead stop was a dumbass fucking move. the whole fred thing dragged her the fuck down cos there was zero acknowledgement or exploration of the actual dynamic of the domestic abuse cycle which was PLAINLY visible in early s3. instead it was just NICHOLEEEEEE!!!!! GIVE ME BABBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MUST HAVE BABBY!!!!!!!!!! every single character motivation serena had in s3 was a fucking sexist trope about women and baby fever. (not that they wrote june much better but this rant is about the shit they pulled with serena.)
there is no depth to any conflict anymore. and what drives me even crazier is that the few scenes with june and serena are still 100 times more interesting because of the pre-existing chemistry and dynamic they still have. but instead we’ve just got the same fucking scene of june/lawrence over and over for 8 episodes. “ooh is he a friend or foe? oh i will manipulate him! he is an ally! oh maybe he’s a foe, or friend, or foe, or friend?! who cares!! look how he lubs childrens! uwu!!”
they seem absolutely intent on keeping serena a villain, to the point of total irrationality. and the only way to do that is strip her character of any nuance and give her a singular and stupid motivation and pair that with a really boring and flat subplot. cos, organically, the character WOULD develop and learn and change, but since they’re fucking obsessed with not giving her anything even resembling “redemption” for some bullshit reason, they’ve thrown her entire narrative arc under the bus and just left her there.
and people wonder why i have no interest in s4. it’s cos of this shit. why the fuck would i be interested in watching yet another season of serena doing fuck all? (ooh a trial? BORING and guaranteed to make no rational sense. back to gilead? what for?! they’re never going to let her change/grow anyway!)… and june being painted as some saint and saviour, despite being not that much better anymore. and Lawrence being lauded as a goddamn hero for doing the very fucking bare minimum for no real discernible reason we’ve seen other than june’s oh so amazing ~wiles. like please.
i can’t stand june anymore. i fucking loathe lawrence (to me, he’s just nick 2.0). i don’t care about fred. moira and emily who? and am butthurt about what they’ve done to serena’s character journey (and can’t see that changing if miller, moss, & co. are so itnent on keeping her “evil”). so s4 doesn’t seem that fun to me.
and the fact everyone seems to have a hard on for whitford, including cast and crew just makes me angry. sure, give this dude all the good shit. take it away from the amazing female actors and just give it to him. why not? THT is male-run anyway and IT SHOWS. he should have been a minor character, not the focus next to june. (don’t even get me started on how fiennes gets second billing in the credits before yvonne cos i am so livid every single time i see taht.)
whatever, THT. whatever. bye. ugh.
wow anyway that was a rant i didn’t expect to make. thanks anon for drawing that out. i think i’ve been sitting on it a while lol.
i have a lot of rage.
#the misogyny is wild#it's like fandom just replaced their desperation to woobiefy nick with lawrence instead#super that's awesome i'm glad that's how this show thinks it should tell a story about women's oppression#just ignore half the women and make them evil!!!#give none of them except the ''crazy'' one any sympathetic storyline#yeah cool#how feminist#Anonymous
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
Writing Advice
I’ve been thinking about posting some writing tips for a while now, but never did, because I thought that I myself am way to unexperienced to give any tips. But thanks to @thecoffeeshopforwriters I’ve decided to see it as an exchange of experiences rather than actually giving tips. So here are some of my “tips” based on my personal writing experience.
1. Try out everything
I often see writers giving tips like “do it like this…” or “never try doing it that way” which is a horrible advice in my opinion. If you want to find your own writing style or see what’s best for you, you have to try out different ways of doing it. Basically every other advice I’ll give you is based on this one, because no matter what you are struggling with while writing trying out different ways will show you which one is the easiest for you.
You don’t know whether you should write character x reader from first, second or third person? Write a drabble – or even an entire multiple chapter story if you want that – for each person and see what you think sound best (not the same drabble of course, but three different ones)
You don’t know whether you should write in your native language and translate it afterwards or write in English right ahead? Try out both. (I’m actually going to go deeper into this topic later.)
You don’t know whether you should write in a quiet environment or need some noises around you? Try out both and see.
This may seem obvious, but honestly, it’s the best thing you can do, especially when you start writing, but also when you’ve already been writing for years.
2. Native Language
This tip is only important for those of you who are trying to write in a language that isn’t their first language (I’m just going to assume the language you’re writing in is English). I see many people giving advice like “Only write in English right away if you want to completely understand the language”, but like I mentioned before I think you should try out every possibility and see what’s best for you, because we all have a different way of writing.
I think for this advice it’s best to share my personal experience with you at first. I used to write everything in German (my native language) at first and then translate it. This always worked well for me, until I saw one of those “only write in English” tips. So I decided why not try it out and I found out that writing in English can be better SOMETIMES.
While writing most writers (at least on tumblr) divide into fluff, angst and smut. This is absolutely important to keep in mind when thinking about which language you should use. Again I’m only going to tell my personal experience with this. I’m usually writing a lot of angst and I have never ever had problems doing it in German. My German is obviously better than my English and writing angst in German has always come to me incredibly easy, way easier than in English.
This absolutely isn’t the case with fluff. I always struggled with fluff in German. Personally I thought those feelings always felt “over the top” or super soppy, but when I wrote it in English I had absolutely zero problem with it, even thought I would have hated the German translation of it.
And last but not least smut. The thing with smut in German is that a lot of the words that sound sexy or good in English sound really cringy or totally “sterile” in German. Honestly writing smut in German sometimes feels like writing an article for a magazine at your gynaecologist. And as stupid as it may sound, I actually wrote it in German, but would often just insert the better sounding English word, because I knew that’s how I would translate it later anyway. This probably isn’t the best solution, but it worked for me.
In the end I can just recommend everyone to think about what their strengths and weaknesses are. Once you know that try writing it in your native language or English (depending on how you did it before) and see if it’s better for you that way. It doesn’t matter whether you translate everything, write it in English right ahead or maybe do a mix of both, as long as you are satisfied with the result everything is fine.
P.S.: I would recommend everyone trying to translate something Deepl Translator. As far as my research went this is apparently the best translator that it currently out there. It translates grammar correctly almost all the time and is really helpful for those who are unsure if they translated something correctly. Even if you want to translate it yourself first you can always use this to be sure you translated it the right way.
3. Location
I’m not talking about where the story takes place, but about where you are while writing. Personally I’ve noticed that I tend to get bored or fall into a routine when I’m only writing in the same place and that this actually caused a lot of my writers blockade.
Here’s my tip whenever you feel like you don’t have enough motivation to write or don’t know how to continue, just move a bit around. I usually tend to write in my room at my desk or on my bed and I think that’s where most of you probably write too. Next time just try to write somewhere else. Go to the living room and sit on the couch or at the dining table. Or if you want to go a step further just go outside. Find a nice bench at a park or go to the library. Maybe there’s a nice café or a bakery near where you live and you can sit there for a while.
Little changes in your environment can really help you to continue writing and even if you don’t feel inspired to continue writing in that moment it will often inspire you and maybe give you new ideas.
I hope that this will be helpful for some of you. Also feel free to add your personal experience or tips
Laura
33 notes
·
View notes
Text
ok so over the... /checks calendar, past five days i have managed to tear through act one of DQXI and hoo boy. hooooo boy.
i fucking love this game *_*
@flutiebear thank you so much for your notes, they were super helpful!! my thing with JRPGs is mostly the turn based combat-- i can get SO BORED with it, i definitely prefer ARPGs where i can button mash things to death. DQXI seems to have found some kind of sweet spot for me tho, where battles are just long enough for me to like. pick a strategy and implement it, and get satisfactory results. sometimes those satisfactory results are just Talc helichoptering an entire group of enemies to death in one swing, which scratches my ‘button mash them to death’ itch :D I definitely like the easier monsters and relaxing while i play too, i’ve literally failed exactly ONE boss battle and that was bc my initial strategy sucked, not bc i didn’t have the muscle to pull it off. and omg, THE NO’S. BEST TIP EVER, THANK YOU.
and, as per your request, thoughts! :DDD full disclosure, i watched a playthrough up through the MMA tournament before I got the game, so these aren’t exactly first impressions. tons of screenshots and rambling below the cut, RIP mobile users :(
OH and because I got it on PC, i literally modded it before I even fired up the game lol. found some nice retextures on the mod nexus and installed the orchestral music overhaul too, it’s nice. The retextures are Wild Side Erik and Chainmail Luminary, i love them and I recommend the hell out of ‘em. Just a heads up so folks know why my Erik and Hero look different :D
ALRIGHT I WAS TOO DISTRACTED TO TAKE SCREENSHOTS FOR THE FIRST PART UP THE TOR but: i love gemma and i would die for her and sandy, and so would Talc. also christ, slimes are the most adorable enemy ever, DQ did a good thing with slimes.
/NERVOUS LAUGHTER
horsey!! her name is Whisper and Talc loves her :D
so, initial Hero headcanons: Talc does not want to be a Luminary. He wants to stay in Cobblestone, and continue spending days at a time alone in the wilderness hunting for his family and culling monsters and riding horses and whittling wood and carving soapstone to pass the time. He knows he’s not Hero material-- he has to work too hard to hold his temper, and he’s too stubborn, and and and (he’s fine-- he just really wants to be like Chalky, but he’s a 16 year old kid who thinks good people ((like Chalky)) don’t have to try so hard to be good people, not a man with 60+ years of experience and time to mellow out. he’ll get there.) So Talc’s plan is 100% ‘Go to Heliodor, explain the situation to the king’s Knights and give them the pendant so one of them can go defeat the evil instead, then go home to Cobblestone.’ and well. We know how that turns out.
the most hardened, you say ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
THIS FUCKER. WHAT IS THIS FUCKER. 47 HOURS INTO THIS GAME AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS FUCKER IS. ARE YOU GOOD? ARE YOU EVIL?? ARE THERE A BUNCH OF YOU, OR IS IT JUST FUCKING YOU FOLLOWING ME EVERYWHERE? TELL ME
THERE HE IS!!! THERE’S MY BOY!! <3_<3
In Talc’s defense, he was trying to open the jars, not smash them. yes i absolutely have to reconcile breaking into people’s homes and smashing their stuff with his character, he’s a country bumpkin who struggles to remember the concept of ‘private property’ and is so stupidly strong from rock climbing and swinging a greatsword around that is is a genuine struggle for him to lay hands on ceramic without shattering it. he’s a bit of a bull in a china shop, and it’s only growing up with Gemma that let him develop a reflex-bordering-on-instinct to be as gentle as possible with other human beings that, unfortunately, does not translate well to inanimate objects.
also... ngl, it took... a minute for that accent to grow on me. that accent, man. more like ‘those accents’ JUST PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT DUDE
talc: you know those days when you’re like ‘this might as well happen, adult life is already so goddamn weird’
also, those SHOUJO SPARKLES. i will NEVER BE OVER THE SPARKLES.
holy shit i love Erik’s expressions and poses so much, he’s so fucking expressive (all the characters are, the voice acting and animation in this game has been a delight every step of the way, but i just. adore Erik’s in particular, everything he does is so endearing to me.)
ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS QUEST NAME, IT COULD NOT BE ANY LESS SUBTLE
little did he know what monster he had created
seriously tho i LOVE the crafting system in this game, it’s a good challenge and a little frustrating when one of the random events screws you up, but SO SO SATISFYING when you finally get your +3. also it works really well with my headcanon that Talc is very much a “show your love by providing the ones you care about with anything they could possibly need or want” type of person. he’s actually very good at anticipating said needs/wants and has a knack for giving his friends things before they even properly knew they needed/wanted the thing. he also has a tendency to...kind of forget that he can get things in return, and gets really flustered and happy when he does get something which also leads to a tendency to treasure and consequentially hoard small dumb things BECAUSE they were gifts.
this is where Talc’s heart starts to go doki-doki-- he's very much a people pleaser, if he can make folks happy it makes him happy. the little bit of trouble is it was pretty much the status quo in cobblestone, and a little bit taken for granted by the time he strikes out-- not by everyone, or all the time, for sure, but getting out into the world and getting a sudden influx of gratitude is like crack for him. Also Erik is Nice and Handsome and was happy to do all the talking in downtown Heliodor so Talc didn’t have to worry about it, so Talc now definitely wants to keep Erik. It’s also hilarious to Talc that Erik is clearly skilled with knives, and yet has zero clue how to dress or cook a rabbit-- he’s very determined to keep the city boy alive (watch me walk this headcanon back in a few days when i finally get his back story and it turns out he lived off the land for years)
oh man, my HEART, MY HEART. even knowing it was coming, playing through this part was rough, especially since now it’s my Talc running around the ruins of the one place he wanted to live out his days protecting. ;_; that was his job, that’s what he was good at and contributed to his home, except for the one time it really, really needed him. he’s more than a little fucked up about it, but it’s a big part of him really leaning into the Luminary role- he can’t stand the thought of it happening to anyone else.
this. this is kinda a big deal for him, after cobblestone. after learning people blame him for Dundrasil, and then feeling responsible for Cobblestone, he’s already starting to have tiny, niggling doubts about ‘oh shit what if i AM some kind of darkspawn??’ Fighting alongside Erik through the Kingsbarrow and getting to feel like he’s helping and protecting Erik helps, and then so does this.
it also plays right into his thing for doing justice-- which, he tries to hold Chalky’s words close to his heart, he does, and his vision isn’t the first time Chalky has had to encourage him to let grudges go. it was the main motivation for the vast majority of his pranks as a kid: make Gemma cry by telling her proper ladies don’t play at catching frogs and getting dirty? enjoy the frog hidden in a jar leaping out at your face, old lady. accuse him of being a darkspawn and throw him and his family in jail? hell yes he is going to help this thief steal your greatest treasure, and love every minute of it.
and now, to wrap things up bc this post is already way too long and i’ve got. the rest of act one to yammer about later:
YES
YESSSSS
YAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSS
in conclusion: this is a good game and a good ship and i already have 300 words of fic sitting in my gdrive <_<;;;
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
Witness: Donda
Creator name (AO3): Donda
Creator name (Tumblr): thatonezombiecosplayer
Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donda
Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?
A: I kind of just tend to find one thing I like, and latch onto it with a deathgrip, though there's not really one specific reason I latched onto Mad Max. The only post-apocalyptic thing I had any interest in prior to Fury Road was a comic called Romantically Apocalyptic, but I wouldn't have called myself a die-hard fan of the genre. I think it was just that Fury Road was such a fantastic movie in so many ways that it really caught my attention, and then when I got involved in the fandom, I found it to be all around a really really great group of people, and they were talking about such interesting things, and I just fell in love and decided this was my fandom home! Since then, I've made some really good friends through this fandom and gotten involved in Wasteland Weekend because of it, so this fandom will always remain near and dear to me.
Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?
A: I really like to take this dark, gritty world, and make it kind of light and fun, honestly. Or at least as much as one can without completely detracting from the reality of the state of the world. I've written a couple of darker or more serious fics, but my favorite things to write involve putting a touch of magic or an interesting little twist into the world, and handling the sillier side of things.
Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?
A: I think I had equal amounts of fun writing my Pocket Sized and Corvus Cormax, because they were just light and silly and kind of intriguing situations for me. I also really really enjoyed writing No Going Back, even though it was on the more serious side of things for me. The prompt just grabbed my imagination, and I was really inspired to write from start to finish. For most difficult, I'll have to go with Consonance, because I am presently stuck on it and have been for months and if you were reading and enjoying that one, I am so so sorry. D: Convalescence got the most hits and kudos overall, but I think that was mostly just because it was posted very early in the Fury Road fandom. Just based on response, I'd say Corvus Cormax was my most popular/successful, and was also my favorite overall.
Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?
A: Hopeful with a bit of humor and sometimes a little wasteland magic. I'm into escapism first and foremost, so the least like our own world I can make things, the more enjoyable.
Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?
A: The idea itself usually sparks scenes in my head, and I build around those. Sometimes I'll be writing along and think of something I'd like to happen down the line, or a scene will just start playing through my head, so I'll go write that, and connect the pieces later. Which can sort of cause problems, because when I go writing all the good bits first, filling in the bits in between that are less interesting can get tedious. When I hit a patch that just leaves me completely stuck, most often running the fic by someone else and bouncing ideas around with them helps me tremendously. I tend to like to write from the comfort of my room where there aren't a lot of distractions, but sometimes I'll write on my phone if I'm away from my computer and bored or inspired.
Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?
A: Honestly I basically always listen to my entire music library on random. It's super eclectic, but I'm so familiar with all my songs that it's basically just background noise. Very occasionally I will skip a song that's not suiting the mood of what I'm writing, but mostly anything goes.
Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?
A: Getting stuck sucks so much and is my most common problem, because sometimes I feel like I have just exhausted all ideas and there's nowhere to go. Bouncing ideas off of other people always helps, but often I avoid that either because I don't want to bother people, or because I'm super protective of my works until I consider them done. I don't know, I just like people to read the work in it's finalized form, as I intend it to be read, and not in some incomplete messy state.
Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?
A: I'm sure my writing has improved, but it's been such a fluid process that I'm not really sure! I guess I've grown and my work has changed in that I've gotten braver in my ideas, more willing to just go for something and not worry about people thinking it's silly or I'm weird.
Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?
A: I'm aro/ace myself, so fandom ships have never been a big draw of mine. I tag a lot of my works with "platonic soulmates" because I've just fallen in love with the idea of Max and Furiosa being very close to each other, but not romantically or sexually. They have a really interesting dynamic, and I like to explore them really getting to know each other completely platonically.
Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?
A: I've explored some headcanons in my writing, and built on ideas in ways that let me sort of see more into the movie, imagine things under the surface beyond the canon, and feel like I know the motivations behind certain characters' actions, even if it's never explained.
Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?
A: My works stand alone for the most part. I've got two series that each consist of a couple fics that follow the same timeline, but otherwise each of my fics is a completely different world.
Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?
A: *Chanting* break canon, break canon, break canon. I like playing with new ideas! Sometimes it's fun to explore some headcanons with fic and build on the movie that way, but I've found that taking the canon and changing a detail and letting it play out from there is the most fun.
Q: Share some headcanons.
A: Immortal!Max is my biggest and most-loved headcanon. I like the idea that he's only sort of peripherally aware of it, too. He knows it's been a pretty long time since the fall of the world, and he's catching on that people who appear his age were born after the fall, but if it even has sunk in that he's not aging and not dying, he actively tries not to think about it too much because that seems like Too Much and he's not ready to face that. He's accepted it as a possibility, but he doesn't put much weight on it. It's just part of him now, and all he can do is live with it.
Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?
A: Eheh... My OCs are basically fleshed out juuuust enough to be believable and I put zero effort into them beyond that, to be honest. They're often only there to help along the story for the canon characters, and then I toss them away and never think about them again.
Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?
A: I don't know if my methods will work for anybody else, but three things: 1) imagine the scene like it's a movie playing out in front of you, before writing, while writing, and while re-reading. It helps me keep track of who is where, what's going on, and it makes any continuity mistakes really jump out at me. 2) really get into your characters' heads, think like they do, and share their motivations for what they're doing and their thoughts at what is going on around them in your writing. I think that helps people relate to them more and get into the story more, and it makes you think about how characters would react in realistic, if not always outwardly reasonable, ways. 3) Proof read like a crazy person. This may be weird, but similar to how I get into my characters' heads when I write, I also sort of get into... well, not my own head, when I re-read my works. I try to put myself in a different perspective, and proof-reading my fics with a different mindset really helps me see things that didn't end up making sense the first time around, or sound off, or might be confusing if you don't already know where I was going with it. If I'm thinking like I was when I wrote it, of course everything's going to make sense and work the way I imagined it. If I throw out those preconceptions and intentions, it can almost seem completely new to me, like it would be to a reader reading it for the first time.
Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?
A: I would love to visit Australia, though honestly when I do, priority number one is going to be bats, weird marsupials, and other wildlife. Australia stands out to me mostly as being this weird giant island where evolution just went fucking crazy. But Wasteland Weekend! Hoo boy am I involved in Wasteland Weekend, let me tell you, and I absolutely love it. I love the themed areas and how they completely immerse you in the world, I love the community (seriously, some of the best people I have ever met) and even though it was originally built on Mad Max, which is generally a pretty violent, hard world, I love the atmosphere people create there: the idea that even if the world ended and society as we know it collapsed, people would coexist, look out for each other, and celebrate life. 10/10, highly recommend, hit me up if you plan on attending in the future.
Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.
A: I've unfortunately fallen out of writing quite a bit for the time being, so no planned projects outside of what I'm currently working on, but boy let me tell you how much I love the one I'm co-writing with Catlady! We've put a ton of thought and worldbuilding into it, and a lot of character development in the works for Max, as well as his developing relationship with Furiosa. It's an AU that really gets my imagination going, and I'm super excited for some of the things we have planned. If you like Fae and wasteland magic and discovering/learning to accept oneself, go check out our fic Forgotten Ways!
Thank you @thatonezombiecosplayer
#Mad Max Fandom Creator Spotlight#Mad Max Fandom Spotlight#mad max fanfic#mad max fanfic author spotlight#fury road fanfic#fanfic author spotlight#donda#thatonezombiecosplayer
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thoughts on the Shoumetsu Toshi Anime before it even airs
The Shoumetsu Toshi anime will air in April 2019, which fills me with both excitement and trepidation...
Warning for long post. And a bit of language. I may have spoiled the bare minimum of the game in order to explain why it is awesome. There are no spoilers for the anime because it doesn't air until April 2019.
NB: This whole post is my own personal opinion. I don’t claim to be an expert in anything anime or game related. In fact, I don't play many mobile games at all, and usually steer clear of anime adaptations of such games because I know how shit they can be. I sincerely hope Shoumetsu Toshi will be different because of the quality of the writing. Also yes I am very biased. And passionate. And this whole thing is written on the assumption the producers actually want to make this anime good and worthwhile, rather than just a quick money-grab. I just have a lot of feelings about this ok.
During Shoumetsu Toshi’s fourth year anniversary, one of the projects announced was an anime! I'm sure everyone playing knew this was going to happen eventually. After all, the game has an all star cast of seiyuu, an amazing storyline, and has been marketing itself for quite a while now (collabs, live concerts, CDs, keychains and more). I have no doubt Shoumetsu Toshi has the potential to become an amazing anime if done correctly, but it will face many challenges on the path to adaptation. Here are some of them.
Too many tamashii
One of the game’s greatest strengths also becomes one of its greatest barriers to adaptation. Shoumetsu Toshi has done an amazing job at creating a huge community of characters (like, an actual city). We get to see their stories unfold and their characters develop bit by bit through various events and quest stages. Within the game, we meet characters that are strong and inspiring, characters with complex relationships, characters that are good-natured and goofy, characters with tragic pasts and so much more. There are characters with stories in this game that will tear your heart to shreds, stories with plot twists nobody saw coming until years later, and stories that were so impactful I had to write a 3000 word essay on it before I was satisfied.
Unfortunately, the anime cannot afford to invest the same amount of time and effort in its characters as the game does. Though we love them, including too many would be detrimental because 1. It wouldn’t fit the tone the anime is going for, 2. There's actually no point because the majority of these don't affect the main story whatsoever and 3. They won't be developed enough for first timers to become invested in them. Especially the ones with more serious stories.
The producers will need to carefully choose which characters to include: characters that are not only distinct and easy to invest in, but will actually contribute to the plot and make the time getting to know them worthwhile. Because one of the worst things an anime can do imo, is bring in a character nobody is invested in, who contributes nothing to the story, has zero character development (i.e. their character is based completely on cliches and tropes) but also gets about 200% more screen time than any other side character, because there is the assumption that they’ll be popular based on their character design alone. That is just lazy writing and is disrespectful not only to the audience, but also the character (I don’t care if they’re fictional, good characters deserve respect too).
I fear there is a very real danger SPR5 could become that. The in-game idol group got a real world debut, and, while I don’t mind seeing promotion in an anime (we live in a capitalist society after all), they shouldn’t contribute much to the overall story, and I will be very disappointed if the anime give them more screen time than they need purely for the sake of marketing.
Complex storyline
If there is one thing I absolutely don't want this anime to get wrong, it’s the story. The Shoumetsu Toshi main storyline is frickin’ amazing. It is an epic quest that spans four worlds, involves characters literally jumping through space and time, and breaks the fourth wall in the creepiest way possible. The creativity that comes with that is my absolute favourite thing about the game, however I acknowledge some heavy changes would need to be made to make it fit the traditional anime format…
I have heard the anime will be an original story, however the PV suggests it will still retain key plot points from the game. Contrary to my general opinions regarding anime-original content, I think this is the right way to go. I think fans innately despise original stories in anime adaptations for one of two reasons: the story will either be too complex for non-fans to enjoy, ruining the reputation of the series, or the story will be too watered down in order to appeal to said non-fans and consequently lose much of what made the original actually great. Achieving harmony is an incredibly difficult balancing act, and part of this involves the series living up to its own greatness. Which very rarely happens. If Shoumetsu Toshi goes for a retelling of say, World 1, it is invariably going to be compared to the original. Also it becomes predictable for anyone far enough into the game. If the producers do want to go the extra mile and make it worthwhile for the OG fans (which is nice in theory but, admittedly, unlikely), they would need to add some meaningful original content that still retains the essence of what makes Shoumetsu Toshi, Shoumetsu Toshi. That is, it retains the same themes and atmosphere, conveys a similar message, keeps all the characters appropriately in character...basically anything that would not feel out of place if it were to be inserted into the original. Luckily for us, Shoumetsu Toshi writers have loads of experience with this. I am talking, of course, about the mountain of ranking quests, side stories and events.
I will admit not every single minor story in Shoumetsu Toshi is fantastic, particularly many of the ranking events, which usually only allow about three stages to tell a story focused on one character. However, what I think the game does do very well in respect to these short ranking stories (and many other events and side stories open to lower level players), is make them accommodating to both old and new players. This is usually achieved by including Easter eggs and hints to a greater plot for the former, while keeping the actual main story for that particular quest straightforward and accessible for the latter. This strategy avoids alienating newcomers and will be absolutely vital if the anime is aiming to appeal to a larger audience, namely the international one who are mostly not even aware of the game. Failure to adhere to this strategy is also partially why many anime adaptations of games have such a shitty track record. They try to pack in too much, usually by explaining multiple complex concepts without devoting enough time to see them properly work in action. The story might take a backburner in favour of the more technical stuff, leaving newcomers confused and bored. Then when it’s time for the climax, nobody actually understands what is happening on screen. “Just play the source material”, actual fans will say, but really, unless the premise or characters appealed to me, how likely am I to invest even more time into a game if I thought the anime was boring as hell?
I do not think Shoumetsu Toshi will be able to showcase its full potential in one anime season. But if the goal of the anime is just to promote the game, there is no need to. If the goal of the anime were to be an actual good anime though, I think the creators would need to take the same approach as the game does for its stories.
Shoumetsu Toshi’s most epic moments are its unpredictable and creative plot twists. The amazing thing is, they don’t just come out of nowhere. This game’s strongest stories are the long ones that build up gradually to spectacular and emotional climaxes, which are possible because characters are given ample time to establish their values and motivations. This helps us as an audience better understand important plot points without the story having to beat us over the head about it, allowing the game to weave a subtle yet sophisticated narrative that actually makes total sense by the end. This means the story needs to be planned out from the very beginning, and will need some time for setup. Which means it won’t truly shine until the metaphorical ‘late-game’.
Stories like these are at a disadvantage these days because, especially with the Internet giving us so much more choice, a lot of anime watchers now tend to drop a show if it fails to impress them from the very start. After about three episodes, the audience should have a good feel for the anime’s main characters, setting and a hint of the main plot. If by then, absolutely nothing about the series appeals to you, you would start to think there are better things you could be doing with your time. Unfortunately, sometimes a show just needs a long time to set up a good story (or sometimes producers dick around too much with filler episodes).
On top of probably needing a slow start, the Shoumetsu Toshi anime is at another disadvantage in respect to one type of audience, because the game does not have an English version. Which means a lot of the Western anime audience will have had no prior interaction with it and don’t know what to expect. They have no idea who the characters are, what the story is, and why its fanbase considers it so much more than just another gacha game. We just have to hope the anime is compelling enough in the beginning to ‘hook’ these newcomers, and make them stay on board long enough to make their time worth it...
A good Shoumetsu Toshi story needs to take risks. I hope to God nobody at that studio makes the executive decision to ‘play it safe’, because the last thing any fan wants is a disappointing anime adaptation with a mundane story even a non-fan wouldn’t be able to enjoy.The writers need to be given complete autonomy and trust to fully realise their creative vision, because that is exactly what is needed if this adaptation wants to use Shoumetsu Toshi’s biggest drawcard to its full advantage.
Animating exposition
This is a pretty minor thing compared to the other two I mentioned previously, but the most iconic thing that sets an anime adaptation apart from the source material is, well, the animation. Visuals and animation are probably the biggest things influencing a new audience’s first impression. Unfortunately, the PV portrayed some pretty lacklustre animation for Madhouse standards and I don’t think people were that impressed.
Good animation is time-consuming and can actually take quite a lot of effort on the part of the director (not that I have that much experience to speak to). Where to place characters in the shot composition, when and how far to zoom in for a close-up, how to best direct movement for maximum impact, but also keeping the scene direction consistent enough that the audience can still understand what is happening on screen. Dynamic scenes are hard enough, but on the other end of the spectrum, how do you animate a static character reciting an information dump in an interesting way?
Shoumetsu Toshi has a lot of talking. It's just something that comes part and parcel with a game of this format. In the game it's alright because you can read at your own pace, and it's important information. Plus they usually keep you engaged by switching up characters’ facial expressions (Shoumetsu Toshi 0 does this in spades) or by distracting you with the stellar soundtrack. I expect the anime is also gonna have a heap of exposition. I mean, from the PV alone I already see at least three expositional characters: Geek, Eiji and Kikyou.
Personally I think expositions are the hardest things to animate. And I don't mean difficult to actually draw and turn into animation, but to actually direct something like that in a satisfying way takes brain power. There are an infinite number of ways to animate characters talking, ranging from the super boring still-image-with-moving-mouth-flap, to using dynamic camera angles to keep the composition interesting, or overlaying a montage of some sort to visually convey the message without having to look at a static character. The game provides only a generic idea of how the scene might play out when animated. While this opens the door to a heap of creative possibilities, I’m concerned that if it comes down to time and budget, or if someone gets lazy, it is very likely we could end up with one hella boring sequence of exposition. Which could be a serious problem if the action scenes aren’t able to impress.
Ahh, you guys have no idea how much I want this anime to do well. There's just so much potential there.
In my opinion, traditional anime can be seen as an incredibly limited medium that must, in the span of about 12 episodes, tell a good story to its audience, invest them in its characters, and keep them engaged for half an hour each episode through pretty visuals/cool animation. If they can’t do that the audience will probably drop the series because they a) get bored, b) don’t care, and/or c) fall asleep. This also means a good anime can’t afford to sacrifice story for character development or vice versa. They need to happen concurrently.
It is not easy to make a good anime, and even more difficult to make one that lives up to the hype of its very amazing source material. As a general rule of thumb, I keep my expectations of game adaptations low, and that is what I said to myself when the Shoumetsu Toshi anime was announced. But then one day I got linked a Shoumetsu Toshi drama CD, and I was blown away by how well they did it. The title is The Vanished Elephant, a literary reference to Murakami's short story of the same name. I'm trying not to spoil but basically, the CD fully utilised the fact we can't see the characters (but can hear them) to craft a mysterious original story with a wonderful plot twist. It works just as a stand alone story, but actual players who are familiar with the characters and motifs immediately get that sense of unease at the very beginning, which is finally paid off with the reveal at the end.
Thanks to that, I can't help but be excited for the anime. If they do fuck it up, I won't be surprised but I will be very, very, sad.
If you have read this far, thank you so much for your time. If you are unfamiliar with Shoumetsu Toshi, could I ask you to please give this anime a chance? And if after its run, it does turn out shit, by all means, complain to your heart’s content (because I will be doing the same).
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
So, let me preface this by saying that I did struggle figuring out food choices and how to get my calories in check. I struggled with a lot. But let me start from the beginning! This is going to be long- so buckle in. Also- get it out of your head that this is a "diet". This needs to be treated like a lifestyle change.
PHENTERMINE
I went to the Weight Loss Clinic in D'Iberville and got the Phentermine. It's not cheap by any stretch, but if you're like me and had zero energy or motivation, and you needed that jump start to get you started, it is worth it. The side effects for me have been mild. I barely slept the first week. They advise to take it early. I was taking it around 7:30-8:00 am. However, even though I barely slept, I did not feel exhausted and worn out the next morning- so there's that. It does make you sweat a lot, and if you're not eating enough, you will get shaky.
WATER WATER WATER
Water is a must, especially if you're taking the Phentermine. It can and WILL dehydrate you super quickly. Either buy a gallon of water to keep with you at all times, or invest in one of those large water bottles off of Amazon.
MEAL PREPPING
I did not wait to start eating better. The Dr at the clinic told me to focus on protein more so than anything else. So I did my research to find out what had the most protein in it. The obvious choices are meats- fish (very good for you, plus it has Omega-3 which is essential for heart health), chicken/turkey, and beef. I'm not a big chicken fan, but it is what it is.
Now, I love fruits and vegetables so paring the sides with the protein meals was not difficult for me.
Most vegetables are not very high in protein- they're also not high in calories. Raw, fresh vegetables anyway. A medium cucumber is about 4 calories. FOUR. WHOLE. CALORIES. For one single raw cucumber! Frozen or prepared vegetables are a completely different story. Fruit, on the other hand, can be high in calories- but the serving sizes are pretty decent.
Snacks were a little more tricky because my favorite thing to snack on is chips. And how many calories are in chips? A LOT. Too much for me to be comfortable giving up 1/3 of my caloric intake for the day, that's for sure. So, I opted for chicharrons and veggie straws.
You can absolutely tailor the meals to your liking- just be mindful of the calories and serving sizes.
Now, let's talk about actual meal prepping. Go ahead and get your eye rolling and sighs out of the way now. I felt the same way ya'll did. Meal prepping takes time. It takes planning. And most importantly, it takes dedication. This is a super important step that you do NOT want to skip if you're serious about losing weight.
For me, it helps when I'm at work because it prevents me from having to go to Taco Bell or somewhere to grab a quick lunch. And don't get me wrong- if you want Taco Bell for lunch, go get it. Do not deprive yourself of the things you want- but work it into your calories. Depriving yourself of the things you like is one of the major reasons "diets" fail. But I digress.
I went to Walmart and bought partitioned meal prep containers.
Just simple containers with clear lids. I'm sure you could find those on Amazon as well- but I didn't want to wait. I also went to dollar tree and got the round containers for my fruit.
BREAKFAST
My breakfast was something simple: cottage cheese and fruit. Some days I had the cottage cheese flips (that had fruit in jelly) and other day I just had a yogurt. Now, I got to Biloxi Nutrition and get one of their meal replacement shakes and that keeps me full all the way through lunch. My favorites are: Banana Nut Bread, Banana Pudding, and strawberry cheesecake. All of the shakes are 220-240 calories so they're great if you're trying to stay under- or if you've blown them on other meals, you could get one for lunch or dinner instead of breakfast. I also stopped going to Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks for a coffee in the morning. If I'm going to eat, I'll grab an iced protein coffee from Biloxi Nutrition. Very few calories and it tastes great.
LUNCH
I cooked all the food for 2 weeks' worth of lunch. I bought chicken and tilapia for my proteins, and black beans and squash/zucchini for my sides. The chicken and fish was cooked in the air fryer with no oil. I did season it with salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, and some Slap Ya Mama! seasoning. I think I may have also put lemon pepper on some of them. I tried to mix up the flavors so I didn't get bored eating them- different flavors meant it felt like a whole new meal.
I also bought some steak medallions and shrimp. I did buy some frozen, premade veggies: broccoli in cheese sauce, a brussels sprout and carrot medley, and some butternut squash spirals.
I bought minute maid brown rice and mixed it with the seasoned black beans. This gave me a little more of a full feeling (carbs make you feel full) and added texture to the beans. Brown rice is better for you than white, but if you prefer white, you do you, boo boo!
The sweet mini peppers are just halved with cream cheese and Everything Bagel Seasoning (I found it at Walmart). Then I just had cut up strawberries and whole blueberries for something sweet. I started eating those with breakfast and that one container lasts me almost all day.
DINNER
Depending on my calorie count for the rest of the day, my dinners vary. This is a spinach wrap stuffed with 2 pieces of turkey bacon, 1/4 of an avocado, spinach, thinly sliced onion and cucumber, Bitten creamy strawberry dressing, and medium heat banana pepper rings. The cucumbers I allowed to sit in red wine vinegar and a little bit of canola oil while I prepared the rest of my dinner. And the peppers are the same as what I do for lunches.
Sometimes I'll have a big salad with a lot of added stuff (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, lots of veggies, chicken, steak, or shrimp, olives, etc).
SNACKS
I usually eat trail mix, or the 100 calorie pack of nuts. I sometimes pair that with fruit, turkey bites, and/or a stick of colby jack cheese. I also enjoy chicharrons (BBQ is my favorite),
CALORIES
So I know I'm talking a lot about calories. So how do you figure out how many calories something has? Well, for starters, it's on the back of most packing along with the other nutrition information. Duh. But I would assume your question would be more along the lines of "How do I know how many calories are in my meal?" This has a simple answer. Get a calorie counter! There are plenty of free ones that you can use. I use MyNetDiary. Some of the options do want you to use the Premium paid service, but for the last 3 weeks, the free options have worked just fine for me. This app will ask you what your weight goal is, and will set a daily calorie intake for you based on your current weight, your goal weight, and when you want to reach that goal. It will adjust automatically based on your entries.
You can also link smart watches and smart scales to it.
On this app, you can track your calories by meal and snack. You can also track your weight loss, water intake, and goals. What I love about this app is it allows you to scan barcodes of the food you're eating and it automatically inputs the calories and nutritional information. AND it figures out the calories for you, based on how many servings you input. You can find the serving size on the package.
This doesn't work for everything, though. There are some things that you can't scan (restaurants, the drinks I get from Biloxi Nutrition). So with these, you can go online and search the calories or you can ask (Biloxi Nutrition has their values listed on their menu boards).
Portion control is imperative. Especially for calorie counting. It seems crazy that you can have only 3 mini pickles per serving- but pair it with a few almonds and a little bit of cheese and beef jerky and you have a low calorie snack and it's not going to feel like you're cheating yourself.
Log absolutely everything that you eat on the app. You may struggle for the first week but you WILL get it. It takes research and practice, and detailing your menu to the things that you enjoy.
GYM MEMBERSHIP
I got active. I joined the gym, and I actually go and work out. The best part of being active and doing workouts, is that it BURNS calories! What's so great about that? Well, let's say that the calorie app said you need 1500 calories a day to hit your goal weight in the time you allotted. You go to the gym and do a moderate workout on the treadmill or bike (or whatever). You burn 400 calories. Your 1500 limit just went up to 1900. Now, that doesn't mean you have to reach that limit- but you now have more wiggle room to eat something that may be a little higher in calories. The gym I go to has a separate app that you can download and scan the QR code on the machine- it automatically logs it so when I go to enter my exercise on the calorie counter, I can just pull the app up and see my total for the day rather than trying to remember it later on.
I don't get crazy with working out. I DO NOT go every day. The general rule of thumb is 30 minutes of moderate activity per day. Some weeks I go twice, some weeks three times. This also varies based on my schedule. However, when I go, I make sure to spend at least one full hour working out (So if I go twice, that's really 4 days; three times is 6 days, etc). So if you can't make it to the gym every day for 30 minutes, on the days you can go, double your time and do light activity during the days you're unable to go. 30 minutes a day seems like a waste to me- so I make it count when I do go.
One thing you have to remember: muscle weighs more than fat. So while you may see the scale rise in number (if you're focusing on muscle building), you will also see your clothing size shrinking. DO NOT let this discourage you! If you're working out and your clothes are loose but the scale says 5 lbs heavier, you're not failing- you're gaining muscle.
Also, learn to go to the gym by yourself, and be okay with the fact that you may not always have a companion to go with you. Sure, it's nice to have someone along with you- but you're never going to get anywhere in life if you're having to wait on someone to be with you in order to do what you want.
APPLE WATCH AND SMART SCALE
I also started wearing my apple watch every day. This keeps track of my heart rate and my step count (which you can also log on the app- I usually don't unless it's a workout day).
I purchased a smart scale that I can link to my phone. When I weigh myself, it gives me other measurements too. I purchased the RENPHO Body Fat Scale Smart BMI Scale Digital Bathroom Wireless Weight Scale, Body Composition Analyzer with Smartphone App sync with Bluetooth, 396 lbs - Black. It connects to my phone and keeps track of everything in the app. It shows me my BMI, body fat %, water, muscle mass, etc. It shows you how much weight you've lost or gained since your last weigh-in. It also shows how much your BMI has decreased and how much your body fat has decreased. You can set a goal on this app as well- but I haven't.
Another MAJOR thing about a scale- you're going to be tempted to weigh yourself every day to see if you've made progress. DO NOT DO THIS! This is a leading factor in why people fail with "diets". They weigh themselves daily- see no changes (or see the scale go up) and get discouraged. I'd suggest no more than once a week- twice if you must. I try to weigh myself every Saturday (since it was on a Saturday when I started this journey and my initial weight was taken the day before). If I want to see how my week is going, I MAY weigh myself on a Wednesday.
Here are some tips about weighing yourself:
Do not weigh yourself daily
Weigh yourself once a week
Weigh yourself in the morning- you weigh more in the afternoon/evening because you're carrying around everything you've had to eat and drink.
Weigh yourself naked. You'd be surprised how much clothes and shoes actually weigh.
Don't get discouraged by the number on the scale- again, if your clothes are fitting looser, then you're going in the right direction.
Also, please remember- you did not get to the weight you are over night and you're not going to lose it over night. If you're looking for a fast, low-hassle weight loss program, gastric bypass surgery may be more your speed.
WHAT I LEAVE YOU WITH...
If you made it to the bottom of this post, CONGRATULATIONS! I know it was a long read with a lot of information. You may still have questions and concerns- you may still be confused and unsure what your next step is. But the fact that you got to this means you're ready to start.
You've crossed the biggest hurdle, which is understanding that it's not going to always be easy to make the changes you need in order to see the weight loss you want. You're taking the first steps to a healthier, happier you.
If you have any questions or need any help, feel free to reach out to me. I will give advice and suggestions if I am able to help get you on the right path.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
wuiqnkx6dce
Untitled
cancerxsms
a lost cause
space-kardi
Space Kardi
little-trouble-girls
mogai coining
paimonial-starss
Requests: OPEN