我要飞Faye

I had wanted to watch Moana, but due to a busier December in 2016 than I expected I didn't manage to escape to the movies until about 26 December. It happened to be a public holiday so there were a lot of kids watching, but since I was alone I managed to score a pretty good seat in the theatre despite buying a ticket just before the movie started.

It was completely worth it, both from a story angle and also from a personal angle. See, Moana was the movie that I wish Mulan had been like.

Some context first - Mulan is a story that is pretty personal to me. It's a childhood story told to me by my mother, and one of the key parts of the story is that Mulan's father saw that she was trained in the same skills as her brother. That was why Mulan decided to take her father's place in the war, and was more than capable of taking her father's place in the war.

Disney Mulan took her father's place in the war because she was rebelling against society's place for her, and she was definitely not capable.

( Spoilers about Moana will tell you more )

THE WHOLE SOUNDTRACK THOUGH. I advise going to see the movie first, but after the movie, I kept listening to the entire Moana album on Spotify and crying my eyes out EACH TIME. EVEN NOW.

GO WATCH MOANA, AND THEN LISTEN TO THE SOUNDTRACK.

I promised my friend my reaction, so here it is.

Captain America: Civil War is a well-designed standalone movie that ties up loose ends nicely. A little too nicely. As if it were a well wrapped present that you open up to find a spoon in it and then you put it in a drawer with your other spoons and then forget about it. Something completely utilitarian, even though it's finely made.

Basically Captain America: Civil War is a wall in Marvel's house. Even though it's a well-built wall, and holds up the structure well, it's still a wall.

Spoilers will explain exactly why.

( We fed ourselves eye candy instead of dinner on a Friday night )

Watch the movie just to marvel at how well it's crafted, then put it away and forget about it. If there's a good adaption of Civil War, this is it, but don't expect to leave wanting more.

In a new post, list ten fic that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” works, or even all the same pairing or fandom, just the fics that have touched you or that stuck with you somehow.

It's pretty interesting how the fics that have stayed with me are indicative of various times in my life. There's a fic from the time I used to read Harry Potter fics to get me through exams. There's fic from my Bleach writing days. And I've got things ranging from gen to straight up smut.

So here in no particular order are the fics that have stayed with me:

1) Who We Are by Persephone Kore
and other fics in the series
Once upon a time I used to intentionally type up all my class notes in my computer so come exam time, I could tell my parents that I needed to study on the computer because ALL MY STUFF IS THERE!!! and in between cramming I would read a LOT of Harry Potter fic, because people in that fandom were crazy enough to write novel length fics on FF.net which means I didn't have to open too many windows (yes tabs didn't exist then).

Who We are, though not quite being a novel, was one of the Harry Potter fics read in those days. It stuck with me because it has my favourite stuff: good Slytherins, better interhouse cooperation and people struggling to do good, even the good guys. The idea of a younger Tom Riddle getting a second chance and Ginny trying to figure out if he deserves it is catnip to me.

2) Means of Persuasion
But taking about novel length stories, I cannot NOT mention this fic from the Transformers fandom. I honestly don't remember which verse it came from (darn comics) but it contains my personal fanon for my favourite characters in the general Transformers universe to me. Yeah, there's a few glaring differences - I actually ship Prowl/Jazz and I'm EXTREMELY fond of all the fanon on Twin bonds, but the rest of it hits the spot. I love that Prowl struggles with the right decisions, and Bluestreak bounces back from everything, even his nearest and dearest reading him wrong. The action is pretty good too.

3) Rain Over Blue Water by The_Starhorse
For twin fic from the Transformers fandom though, I have to go with this fic even though it's just Sideswipe. His view of his identity just resonates throughout the fic.

4) Conflicts of Interest by rageprufrock
I like this story because I love the voice of Connor, which is young and self-absorbed without being annoying. But then again he's Lex Luthor's kid so what do you expect. The Clark Kent bits are bonus.

5) Cities in Dust (shit let's be hardboiled)
If there's a fic that fully captures the spirit of the canon that inspired it, this fic has my vote 200% of the time. It's a Homestuck fic that has colourful chat logs (both content and actual visual colours), great drawings, associated soundtrack and trolls actually being aliens. Also it features my boy Dave Strider and the too awesome to belong to anyone Terezi Pyrope.

6) New Orleans series by silverlining99
I would particularly recommend the first fic because it is HOT LIKE BLAZES (especially when you imagine it all with Karl Urban's Bones) and sometimes I fantasise about having a New Year's kiss that's half as hot. *fans self* Though the second fic has a great Kirk-Bones friendship.

7) Covert fic(s) by Ten
I cannot describe this fic due to it being under f-lock and never been published publicly. But elements of it keep popping up in my own fics and I only wish it was already a trope like the less deserving soulmates' name on your arm thing.

8) Icebreakers by Suppi-chan
Back when I was a wee little fanthing, I saved this fic to a NOTEPAD document and read the heck out of it. Up until now "Kinomoto Sakura was having a tantrum. it was a very small tantrum, and it was being conducted in the privacy of her best friend's room, but still, Kinomoto Sakura was having a screaming, kicking tantrum" is the best way to open a CCS fic ever. I'll fight you on this.

I have pretty much reached the end of fic that I've read YEARS after the fact, but I will link you to two more fics that I pretty much roll around in glee and squee when I see they update:

9) Battlefield Terra
A Homestuck fic where on top of aliens being aliens, there are hot robots and mindreading and cultural misunderstandings and moments of BLAZING HAWT.

10) Life in Reverse
I'm particularly tickled by the bookends of my post, but I had to put this here because the more things change the more they stay the same. I like "bad" guys who make the choice NOT to do bad, and have to struggle with it, and it's also a nod to my current fandom, as it were, of MCU.

In the lead-up to Age of Ultron, the TV here has been showing an amazing number of Marvel movies. I contemplated doing a reactions post, but realised that owlmoose has done a better job than me, following her Mega Marvel Rewatch as linked from metanews.

It also reminded me that I haven't done an Agent Carter write-up, but then I got so distracted looking at sholio's Agent Carter rec post that I don't think I can match it. Basically the Agent Carter show is like Agent Carter herself - packs a great punch even (because of?) its short 8 episode run. I've been letting it punch me in the feels and the squee repeatedly.

I just watched Captain America 2 and it blew my mind. It was incredible for so many different reasons.

You see, Captain America is just like that 2048 game that's been going around. If you don't know what that is, click on the link and be prepared to lose a few hours of your life. In fact, I'll be playing a few rounds with you...

Alright! Back to the review. I found that Captain America 2 was better enjoyed if you picked up some things in Captain America 1. Captain America 1 is just like that number 2 in the 2048 game. It provides some basics that Captain America 2 picks up from.

( Full list and spoilers under the cut )

In conclusion: An awesome movie with lots of continuity that is a bit heavy on the going down because of all the goodies they tried to cram into it. The movie comes together well, but do you REALLY need to dial things up to 2048?

I had high hopes for Pacific Rim when going in. I was a Transformers, and I liked the movie for Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. This movie was directed by Guillermo del Toro, and had to be better than both of those! Plus, two ladies that I like very much, tenebris and himawari liked it a lot. It definitely had to be good, didn't it?

And it was good. It had great action and the visuals were gorgeous. The movie handed about 5 different story arcs and handled them all very well, with each contributing to the entire plot as a whole. The world building was awesome and the logic of the sea monsters/kaiju made sense. The characters were awesome.

But it could have been a great movie.

( Perhaps I bring too much baggage to drift. Also spoilers )

Maybe I gripe because I care too much. As we speak, I already have 3 - 4 Pacific Rim fics planned. Yes everyone, I just might have a new fandom. Mako and Stacker are awesome, as are Herc and Chuck. Don't let anyone else tell you different.


Edit: I forgot to mention the movie made me cry a few times. And some of the fic are already having the same effect too.

Recs!
The best Stacker-Mako fic I've found so far: What Is Built Endures

The best Mako/Raleigh fic I've found so far: Reconstruction Site

So on Wednesday I made the mistake of watching Iron Man 3, complete with Star Trek trailier, and reading Bleach 528 on the same day.

Guys, too many FEELS that I didn't even know how to start talking about it! It was only with the distance of oh, 2 days or so that I started being able to talk about it.

So! I'll start with Iron Man 3, and maybe I will talk about Bleach after 530 comes out or something, because KT likes his major character stuff to try and happen on the multiples of 5 chapters. (I told you I'm a geek, didn't I?)

After missing the Madoka Magica movies due to being in the UK, at least this time being in the UK worked out in my favour. I got to watch Iron Man 3 a full one week before the US!!! Of course, that made reading movie reactions hard, but still... <3

As someone who hasn't read the Iron Man comic books, it's taken me the three movies to realise one thing: Iron Man never quite has his shit together. Someone said that Marvel does flawed characters really well, but I didn't realise how it could work until this movie.

Those who have hung out long enough to see my review on Iron Man 2 know my complaint that Tony never quite got to get to be the superhero in the second movie. That upset me a lot, because I thought that a superhero movie should be more about saving people and making a change to the world.

Tony got to do that in Avengers, which is partially why I like that movie very much. Tony got to be Iron Man, and in a team to boot, and still shine as a superhero. That worked out well for me.

But you know the thing that they say about being a superhero: it isn't all that it's cracked out to be.

( Iron Man without his shit together makes a huge impact, under the cut for ~SPOILERS~ )

All in all, A+++++++++++ movie would watch again! It couldn't unseat Iron Man 1 because I like a good 'donning the mantle' story, but it comes pretty close! If I had to rank the three Iron Man movies from best to... let's not go there, it would be Iron Man 1, 3, 2.

Also FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELS.

There will be fic. I feel it.

I went to watch the new version of Spiderman (aka The Amazing Spiderman) yesterday. The old classmates I was with wanted to spring for 3D surprisingly, so that's what we ended up watching. If you're thinking about it, I'd say don't go for the 3D - it's not that spectacular.

It was quite an enjoyable show. It was a nice retelling and upgrade of the same origin story that we're familiar with. Even the side storyline involving Peter's father was quite intriguing and helped pull some of the storylines along.

Unlike the previous trilogy, you could really tell that you were in New York city in the movie. I might not be entirely familiar with the New York city skyline, but I did recognise quite a few of the buildings. And the streets of New York were closer to what I remember them to be.

Whoever choreographed the fight scenes deserve kudos as well. I liked the fighting style of this Spiderman better, and it made for a good contrast to the fighting style of the Lizard. Plus the police actually got to do stuff, though it was probably more to the bigger role that Captain Stacey was supposed to play.

Andrew Garfield is really cute and Emma Rose was awesome as Gwen Stacey. I loved loved loved that the romantic love interest got to do more than stand around. She was actually quite instrumental in the plot and was Spiderman's equal when it came to the main action. I loved the wisecracks too. Spiderman sometimes as a motormouth, and we got to see it here. I kind of enjoyed that.

But is this my Spiderman?

( My answer )

A quick reaction post otherwise I won't be able to sleep. Avengers the movie was really that densely packed.

( Here on there are spoilers )

In conclusion: I ENJOYED IT, YOU SHOULD WATCH IT. 3D would be nifty, but 2D is perfectly acceptable too.

And maybe now I can sleep given that I got all that out of my head. =)

I love making AMVs, and the lush visuals of Puella Magi Madoka Magica made this a really fun project. Besides, Scarborough Fair is just about my most favourite song ever.



Watch Scarborough Fair on youtube

I am all about the videos lately!