replies – Page 26 – Just another WordPress site

September 26, 2020

why are you done with lovecraft country? too gore? ;/

Well, kinda, and some other things. Maybe the ask right after yours might help.

And another anon:

Lovecraft country really made Tic a whole ass war criminal. Executed a woman in cold blood. Had a gun to Ji-ah’s face and didn’t even remember it when he saw her days later. Tortured and killed her best friend. I hate this. The first three eps were So good then it all went to hell. They’re doing the same harmful tropes to indigenous and Asian characters that white narratives do. Think I’m done watching tbh.

I was saving this to try to arrange my thoughts but I should probably answer it before I forget them entirely.

I can’t disagree, all that was there and disappointing, in addition to the handling of queerness and WOC three eps in a row, but to me that all’s a symptom of why I don’t want to watch: it’s far more about themes and messages and the plot for that particular ep than it is about the characters organically playing out a story. And that’s just not for me. In the first three eps I thought I could tolerate the distance but apparently it also means this real disregard for the characters.

It wasn’t even this ep after which I thought that, it might have been 4 or 5, I remember being kind of puzzled and telling my friend, we know less and less about these characters, this far more a characters serving the plot than the plot serving the characters kind of show. But I still watched. And the gore and body horror was a LOT but I still watched after 5. But then 6 gave me the same unpleasant feeling I got watching The Terror s2, where it’s like, we’re already in a damn war, and only now focus on these people already suffering so much, this is the only context you wanna tell this story in? I ended up pausing the ep and looking up comments to see what happened and was like, I don’t even know why I’m watching this. I don’t know or really like these characters, however much I like the actors. I hear the next ep is big for Aunjanue Ellis so I might come back for it, and to see the aftermath of the William/Christina reveal, if we get one.

September 23, 2020

When the show found out about Lu and Mei’s relationship, the china crew leader mentions that she found a slip of paper with her handwriting on it, which I found kind of strange because it could’ve been written by anybody from their crew. Do you think they said that to move the story on quicker or were there too few crew members from the China team to have pinpointed it directly to their only astronaut representing the country?

Well, I figured it’s like any handwriting, it can be pretty distinctive? Is that not the case? Especially as Lu’s a talented calligrapher, I’d imagine her writing for an ILY would be prettier than what most people could manage?

September 21, 2020

To think that we had Jamie Chung ready to be a badass queer Mulan. Damn OUAT.

Oh, like, absolutely, damn OUAT, but what do you mean? Has there been an interview where she discussed it or is this just about her being amazing in last night’s Lovecraft Country?

September 20, 2020

If we do get a 2nd season, which I really hope we do! (and to the people reading this that haven’t yet please go watch TBH you won’t regret it) how do you think Blair’s relationship with April is going to change and vice-versa since they both know what’s up now

Oooh, that’s definitely one of the most interesting potential arcs for s2. Like honestly, even in this season, it felt like we didn’t get enough of a reaction from Blair when Sterling revealed they were hooking up. Like, April? April “good girl fellowship leader sex blackmailer whose father they put in jail” Stevens?? I know she was all caught up in the end of the season drama with her own fight with Sterling and Miles and the mama drama but that little reconciliation outside Bowser’s place when they were talking about Miles and Luke and April, how was she not like, okay, but how? When? Why? Sterling’s putting on lip gloss for APRIL STEVENS?

But anyway, I understand that pacing and the season arc had other demands. Fine. Now that it’s a new season, though, and she knows…I think even if initially she thinks April broke Sterling’s heart, that’ll be resolved quickly enough that they can give this new dynamic some time. Something so massive happened to Sterling, to Blair as well but at least her parents are still who she always thought they were. We don’t even know if Sterling will know who her father is. Both Blair and April’ll be on the outer edges of that, I think it’ll give them a chance to create an unlikely bond. Maybe not immediately but at some point in the season, I fully expect the two of them to hang out together without Sterling.

Like, I suppose it’d also be fun drama if it’s the three of them but I can’t see that happening immediately, except perhaps extremely awkwardly in school or maybe even church, with Sterling holding Blair back from going after April. For her part, I think April’ll try to keep up a bit of a front like before, probably more polite and with the knowledge that Blair now knows, maybe dropping it in her concern for Sterling. The worst thing would be for April to barely be included in the eps that focus on the family drama, but given the situation with her father, she still has a major part to play. Once she finds out, I think she’ll be mad at Blair, but most of her ire’ll be reserved for Sterling, who’s the one she actually counted on to be open with her.

Ideally, I’d like for a little friendship to form between them because, like, Blair is honestly the sweetest kid and April has had to put on this facade for so long and underneath is like any other kid. And both care about Sterling so much, they have this major thing in common right off the bat.

September 20, 2020

Just wanted to clarify, as I think I was one of the folks who talked about Sterling thinking this was all a trick by April- I wasn’t thinking that was ever actually the case, more wondering if that dark thought ran across Sterling’s mind when she saw April flirting with Luke. That their whole thing had been some twisted head game April played with her. Obviously that got cleared up later outside. But I think she coulda thought it was a possibility given they were enemies less than a week before.

Ah, I’m answering this so late all the relevant previous asks are weeks old by now, but yeah, I assumed the anon was referring to other comments out there? Your ask hadn’t come across as implying it was an actual trick, just the possible perception of.

And honestly, thinking more on it, since I just giffed the scene where Sterling leaves the lock-in, the way she’s legit angry and going, what’s wrong with you, there’s this genuine confusion at what exactly WAS going on, so it could definitely have been a fleeting possibility, not even necessarily that it was all a trick, but that April was playing weird mindgames with her, the April she knew a week ago wouldn’t have flirted with Luke either.

September 19, 2020

i have never wanted a fic more, than i do stepril!! i remeber reading “childhood friends to enemies to lovers” on fandoms where the characters are like 30 and not even canon. come on fic writers, if we can conjure up childhood/teenage personalities/plotlines for people on their 30s, surely we can do this! please. anyone?

Aww, I’m sorry I took so long to reply but I actually went and checked ao3. When you sent this, there would have been 16 fics in the tag. There are now 91, so that’s not terrible!

But I super get your point, this is ripe for fic, it’s left in that perfect place where they’re separated but it’s the kind of conflict that you can play around and work with. Sometimes canon leaves characters SO far apart it’s like, okay, it’s gonna take 90k words for them to even be in the same room, and other times–and I find this HARDER, where they actually have no conflict at all, they should be together and just…aren’t? Like, how do you handle that in fic? “Hey, we should be together.” “We should.” The end. Post-s1 Stepril, you have so much juicy material, and all kinds of ways they can get back together or carry on a secret relationship, or have April react to Sterling putting her dad in jail (that might take 90k words).

Lmao at your comment about how people write HSAUs for characters in their 30s, or say, when they’re warlords in a dystopian future? I remember getting into discussions about why there were so many HSAUs and wondered if it was just people wanting to write away from canon, but, for example, Glee had a ton where they stayed in school. I think it’s that a lot of fic writers actually have experience with high school, sometimes recent, so it’s easier to write what you know, as opposed to hospitals or mysterious warehouses. Even if you haven’t been to American high school, there’s so much media out there based in it and it’s easier to research. It’s also interesting to write as a stripped down archetypey version of other worlds. The popular kids, the nerds, you slot people into simplified positions and try to replicate their original dynamics with way lower stakes.

Though I guess the really good fic, even if it’s a HSAU, goes beyond the basics, because like, look at the world of TBH. Sterling and April are somehow both the popular kids and nerds, and the stakes are certainly higher than they might be. Even if you start with this relatively simpler setting, people are complex. I haven’t really looked at the actual fics yet, but I assume most are canon adjacent and not like, doctor or rock star AUs.