Featherhat

Mulan makes sense if Disney are thinking Hunger Games plus beloved Disney story = win win, Mulan being the most actiony heroine I think. Plus it further opens up the Chinese market everyone is after. I’m guessing they’ll stick with the Disney ending and not the traditional tale. Hera the loving mother to Hercules cracks me up every time. Um yeah pretty much the exact total opposite of everything Hera did to him in the original myths, and all of Zeus’s demi god children.

You know, in theory, I'm ok with people seeking different types of fulfilment with different people (it needn't always be sex you can have a romantic partner you love and still get something different from a Meredith and Christina on Greys type platonic relationship as well, not that any of those characters are mentally healthy) but that option should be on the table for both/all partners if its going to be there for one. So Kody gets 4 different women to fulfil his ADHD needs: Meri teenage sweet heart who can give him peace and quiet, Janelle, more of a buddy relationship who could actually earn money, Christine religious connection, Robyn new toy and *they* get (if they're lucky) 1/4th of a husband and sister wives they don't seem to like very much and an absentee father. The women get told that polygamy is part of suffering so they can get to heaven and Kody is pontificating about his needs?! What about you're kids needs? A man with 4 women and over 20 kids to support who's religion tells him he is the sole head of the family looses the right to talk about being the one who is 100% fulfilled.

I think the term "Queerbaiting" has become over used to have lost any actual meaning but I would pick Sherlock to be a leader that. Almost every single episode has everyone they meet think they are a couple and then the writers (and Watson) scream "no homo", if you have no intention of doing it that's fine, don't bring it up every episode. But they also want the kudos for being "edgy" about it. IIRC it was ComicCon 2013 they announced SwanQueen would never be canon so don't get your hopes up, and I don't think they deliberately tried to bait fans about it on the show until this season. Twitter is another issue, but I can see why they have the urge to "play along" and engage the crack until it goes OTT. It's engaging the fanbase and non threatening to the writers (assuming people realise Granny/Emma isn't likely to appear on screen) and it creates more tweets about the show. It's only when you discover you've been feeding a crazy beast that is now demanding you write their crackship into the show and has no problem spending years harassing you, that you realise it's not always a great idea. And they engage where they should just ignore far too often (or did until recently).

I think he's great. He's just this side of believable as a Dr and a Zombie fan who's willing to take Liv on faith until she has no other choice but to tell him and treat any other Zombie whether they are potentially mass murderers or not. Plus well spoken British Asians exist, and he is not stereotype of either (any) of their cultures so far.

Hunchback freaked the life out of me, but it had remained with me to this day mostly for "scared kid" reason (Frolo shudder). The music is epic though, Bells of Notre Dame, Hellfire, God Help the Outcasts. I actually think this was a big reason I insisted on going inside Notre Dame on a visit to Paris when I was 17.

What's with the objects to #boom thing? It's an actor supporting the thing that 1) a lot of people like, 2) is the main reason he's currently employed but something he has no real control over 3) is basically meaningless beyond his twitter and a small section of his fans. If one fan is entitled to ship a certain ship then other fans and people who create the show are entitled to express their own preferences, although it obviously behoves them to be diplomatic, that whole thing is essentially harmless. If you can't take that, its a wonder that you can watch anything on the actual show that isn't to do with subtext. Or do they only watch the clips? Direct "contact" with actors and writers has definitely changed things in fandom. Once you were lucky if your subtext ship was ever acknowledged in an interview or talked about at a con and it was a big bonus if it was welcomed with a "go for it in your fic" shrug, now everyone is criticised if they don't have a fandom encyclopaedia next to them as they tweet and hastag all possible supporters even if they're Emma/Rumbelle fans. And anyone attempting to use the "diversity" argument as their primary motivation should be asked why they aren't harassing the writers to include Esmeralda/anthropomorphic! Nala next season. The show should switch it up more with Princesses who find their desired Prince as cardboard as he seems to us and Princes who realise that rescuing a Princess in a tower wasn't actually their heart's desire, but it's meaningless when it comes in the sole context of one ship over another. And for the love of god "troll" does not equal "someone who disagrees with you".

I just don't understand the need for Allegiant to be two movies, oh I know its motivated by greed but seriously? Harry Potter made sense, the book is fairly large and a lot of stuff happens which takes fewer pages to write than a movie likes to show. Twilight could have been one but pure profit drove it into two and apparently there were some "better than the book" additions same with Mockingjay, although I was bored throughout a lot of that movie they ended up with a reasonable movie. This? It does indeed make Mockingjay profound and gripping in comparison, even leaving aside the unpopular ending. There's barely enough worldbuilding in Divergent for one movie per book let alone two, and the first movie and reviews for Insurgent haven't given me any confidence that they can make two reasonable movies out of that mess. I agree with the people upthread who said one of the best things about The Hunger Games movies is that we see a large Panem than we see in Katniss's head in the books, especially the Gamemakers bits. With Divergent they kept with Tris the whole way through and managed to make the system and in particular the Dauntless way of recruitment make even less sense than it did in the books.

Most likely t It's Robyn butting in again, just like she's the family history spokesperson and polygamy expert even though (because) she just joined a few years ago. Even the show clarifies which mother gave birth to the child currently being featured and that seems to be the case in plyg culture as well, a lot of the time. They have a relative who helps out for free or a few dollars now and again, and/or she's there for babysitting duty.

Yeah, it's more than likely that at least some of them will end up in polygamous relationships. However sheer statistics say a lot of the boys won't be able to as others will have married all the potential brides. There was a statistic at Centennial Park that said something like 60%+ of their boys don't get married or have to leave to find a monogamous wife in the outside world.

And we have a winner. They spin it around in their heads so it hurts less when they think of it and they can cope with their lives, they can convince themselves that they run the Kody show and Kody doesn't do just whatever he likes. No way Christine can see the footage from the Kody and Robyn kissing when she was in labour and not be upset, not when she's blown a fuse over so many other smaller matters. As for Meri, I could see it either way. Her "sponsoring" a wife into the family giving her an ally against the Christine and Janelle team up seems possible. And she might noto see Robyn as a threat because of her non Kody kids. Or feeling that if Kody wanted a new wife (for the show or in general) that if she pointed someone she picked out, she would be in control, rather than helpless as a new toy got the attention.

I've looked people straight in their eyes and lied (mostly my family on trivial domestic issues) I don't think there is a formula, especially when googling "how to lie convincingly" takes 30 seconds and will produce a myriad of results. Robyn and the rest are liars because there stories make no sense, body language is interesting but unreliable.

His kitchen? As if. Although that's beside the point really. I think Robyn's same sex couple tweet was meant positively from her (or at least to demonstrate a pro polygamy point) but got really mangled by her writing, or at least it seems like that so I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt on that. Like most other people I see no evidence of "bonus moms" on the show. There's no footage of one of Christine or Janelle's oldests sleeping over at Meri's because she has space and they need teenage alone time for example or evidence that the 3 wives who's night it is not "pick up the slack" and help group parent when Kody is not around. When they were in Lehi and before that when the bulk of the kids were tiny, it might have happened more (esp Christine and Janelle's arrangement) but it wasn't happy families then with Janelle leaving the group (but not Kody) forcing him to drive a couple of hours to see her kids, spending less time with the others. I don't blame her for that, but there's no way this parental structure as they've shown us provides more support than monogamous families. Possibly not less in some cases, but not more or better quality. Especially when there always seems to be a Mom on the verge of an emotional breakdown and tension between your sister moms even when they do spend time together.

For all its faults TWOP always attracted people who wanted to write essay posts about their TV shows, which is my thing and one reason why I'm not a fan of the fandom move to twitter/tumblr which don't encourage a lot of indepth back and forth. I'd be interested in expanding this further.

Thing is, slash or femslash shipping has eff all to do with LGBT rights or representation on TV, it's so disingenuous. It's about winning and seeing whichever pair of cute boys and cute girls you personally prefer actually on TV (and winning some more). If it was more SQ fans would have been more supportive of the closest thing this show has to an LGBT pairing and also campaigned for more/better SleepingWarrior and or future Disney characters who had same sex HEAs. But no its devolved into Swan vs Saviour terminology freakouts. In the "homophobia accusation" discussion re Teen Wolf a few years ago I asked someone why they didn't campaign for better storylines for the show's canon gay character. "He's boring and has nothing to do" so they'd rather bitch at the writers for not immediately recreating their angst!fanfic idea with two character who hadn't expressed any romantic interest in each other than better representation as a whole. Right, nice hiding behind social justice for tour personal fantasies. Nor is "sudden bisexual journey" a storyline that TV and fanfic writers have a particularly great track record in. Emma as far as on screen goes is straight or has exclusively dated guys so far, it makes sense that JMO is going to joke about mandatory hot guy kisses. Now if she had said that after she and Regina (or she and Red or anyone else) had kissed, then you might feel miffed, but since her ships on the show are always guys, it makes sense. She plays along with all her fans and reacts a lot better than many people and many fellow actors would. She gets the public equivalent of a misguided fan shoving NC-17 JMo/LP fic into her hands at a con and expecting her to adore it every day on twitter and she still engages no matter her private thoughts. And from the writers side "throwing a bone" or being meta can quickly degenerate from "exploring sub text" to purely WTF? writing. And whilst "queerbaiting" has become so expanded and loaded a phrase as to loose its helpfulness the "meta, meta fandom clicks, oh wait no homo!" is alive and well.

I haven't noticed Jennifer's PR one way or the other really. It's neither universally pro or con. Zoe on HIMYM was probably her most universally hated role, but Cameron had her chunk of fans and I think Emma/Jen as Emma is viewed fairly positively but has her detractors, there doesn't seem to be gooey love bomb PR issues you get with some shows and actors. And her personal life appears fairly unremarkable. If she's a closet lesbian ( and really what are the odds that fans of a subtext pairing would find "sub sub text" in actor interactions.) she's not doing it ostentatiously.

"Think of the Children!!" is the BS get out card of all kinds of crap in this world and often people using it have heartfelt intentions but some people (and some aspects of society in general) use it as a way to mask any protest or outright lie about what is actually healthiest approach. If Meri and Kody divorced because it was Robyn's "turn" to marry Kody, everyone reading about it would have been totally skeeved out. Throw in "children!!!!" and suddenly they have defenders calling Meri a saint. As others have said we haven't heard one single word from David Jessop, not even really via "sources". That might be because he has skeletons to hide, he's been ordered not to by family/religious pressure, he really doesn't care or he really hates the idea of becoming another nationally discussed "Jessop". We don't knoe because it seems no one can even say for sure if the man is still involved in the AUB or not or even what the Kody Krazze's official status is. The Browns don't talk about their religion much it could play a large factor in their lives, it could literally be the gluttonous Mammon of TLC these days and we can't tell for sure. I know which one is more important to Kody though. I've seen far too many religious girls and guys of different flavours freaking out that their "purity" was "stolen" from them in what was a consensual relationship when they thought it would last and it didn't to buy Robyn's version at face value, although she may have convinced herself that it was stolen all along after the divorce. Kody's national TV stated distate for Robyn having another man's kids probably didn't help, and this is probably the result of that legacy. Robyn has exactly what she wants. The legal wife, the spiritual "virginity" and her bills paid (for now) by a TV show and if she can drive the other wives away, well she and Kody will deserve each other.

I just watched 4.5 again in which Ravenswood is first introduced via Spencer and Toby's blue filter road trip and seriously what was the point? It looked nothing like the Ravenswood that would appear on the actual show or even in the Halloween special and the clues they gave had nothing to do with the actual mystery on the show. Even if the show had been successful it would have annoyed me (not a fan of the Grunwald and the story of her on PLL) but knowing it was done for a show that failed out of the gate annoys me.

There's being aware of fandom in general and being briefed on important points by an intern who monitors reaction and then there's unreasonable expectations of involvement. Where does it end, having to read PWP fic of her character in case someone asks her about it? I didn't even know the difference between "Swan Queen vs Saviour Queen" and I'm a fan of Emma (though not shipped with Regina). She knows the shippers exist (boy does she) and she knows the names but she shouldn't be expected to know the minutia of shipping wars, especially as it changes constantly and changes between different sub groups. Occasionally she has to pay attention to watch she actually has to film for the show. Not to mention the other ships that Emma is featured in and their fandoms. And you know for her sanity its probably not a great idea to get too deeply involved in fandom and shows that start to involve fandom issues too deeply on the show tend to have a steep drop in quality for me personally. There's being aware of your audience and then there's pandering to them and I think this has begun happening at least since this season.

I don't know "Supergirl" doesn't exactly have a history of great projects, and she's in a potentially thankless role as "exposition girl". It's a probably sought after pilot but its supporting in the same way Lexie was, a lateral move. Taxi was an actual lead role for her, despite being fairly terrible.

I once knew a Rev who was even more blunt than Reverend Lovejoy, though it was only a "request that we think about it". In smaller more fundamentalist communities I imagine its harder not to give, as said above Mormons have a massive tithing culture and *they know who you are and you are living on their land* a lot of the time. I think it is really hard to judge the Browns religion a lot of the time. I believe Kody's only devotion is to himself and if he still keeps ties with the AUB then it benefits him. I think most of his wives have convinced themselves at this point, even though they may be over Kody as a person. Yeah they Meri/Kody scene was awful. Oh, what, Kody. What if there was a sudden dearth in the number of males vs females and men couldn't find wives and were "being sluts on the street" like those extra "harlot monogamists". Could Meri not save those men like your forefather's preached for "single" women?

I think it probably is a head trip to be in their religion but not really a smorgasbroad of "go up to a man you are attracted to even if he is married and suggest that you meet up for drinks". It seems in a lot of groups much more tightly controlled (by the men usually) than that. *Maybe* that describes Robyn's (and others like her) entry to Kody's "Priesthood" but in Centenniel Park it seems clear that The Elders assign wives to men even though they manipulate the women into thinking they are doing the choosing or that The Elders have received revelation from God. I really don't think most polygamous communities take sexual/chemical compatibility into consideration. Lust on the male end maybe, but its all about popping out as many kids as possible, even if you don't like one or more particular wife and I can't believe they stress compatibility between man and women in marriages where there might be more than 10 women to one man. And its unlikely that 10 other women have been *honestly* asked if they can stand you in the group.

I think I remember someone saying that the "BE Values" were "borrowed" from a Mormon pop campaign, I'm not sure if that has ever been verified or not. But all their stuff on there is seriously ugly and cheap looking. Like you could buy it any place anywhere in the world and it would be considered tacky and cheap by local standards no matter what the local "cheap" rate is. I've seen jewellery that came out of vending machines that was prettier and was almost as cheap looking. They really did expect to have an unrealistically giant mark up because of their name. Now the Kardashians/Duck Dynasty (previously HBBs were about to) etc get away with outrageous mark ups on crappy junk because who they are, but these guys don't have 1/10th of the fame nor marketing minions with 1/10th of an idea of what their fan base might want to buy. And those things were always plastered with logos of the families, not just generic blobs. And exactly no one by a few thousand plyg families can related to "my sisterwife's closet" and a lot of those people, a) hate the Browns and what they are portraying b) can't afford the silly pricing c) can also buy the exact same style in their local stores cheaper and quicker d) hate their sister wives. There is no niche market there. Maybe there might have been for more "wholesome/modest" things but they've really never courted that sector (unlike the Duggars/Bates etc) and it wouldn't fit in well with their current web presence. It's like they think they're still in that brief period in the 90s when domcom was supposed to print money just because you registered a site.

Well Meri's was only "legal Wife's house" because she was legally married to Kody when they bought the plots. That's its only legal significance, all the wives designed their own houses from limited plans and their own/kids/Kody's tastes. Robyn's house now becomes the "legal wife's house" without her having to move across the cul de sac. Meri almost certain retains wife #1 position officially as a way to justify this to herself. Even in the monogamous system she is still unquestionably his first wife, its just that that doesn't generally acknowledge that "spiritual wives" #2 and #3 got passed over so to the state of Nevada Robyn is # . There are some sects that marry everyone in turn and they seem to keep with the order in which they married. Obviously this doesn't mean that in reality wife #7 is the favourite and has "top dog" position ala Abilene Grant or that those involved can't make up their own justifications for "it really is about the power and sex" shenanigans.

Well if Christine was originally correct that they don't kiss before marriage then its a good bet that they ask permission to court to some extent (we know that probably wasn't the case with some of his other wives, or only after the fact). And Kody was a young man hoping to go far in this religion (ie wanted more than one wife) and so had to be respectful etc, and it seems she was well connected esp from a convert family POV. From the footage, it has seemed that Meri wasn't comfortable with more wives but agreed because she did love Kody and had grown up with it as normal. She wasn't expecting Janelle though. That's not unlike a lot of different denominations of any religion though. There are protestants who think drinking and dancing are a sin and protestants who think god doesn't mind about drinking and dancing and even more variations when you go wider. Many Mormon fundamentalist groups treat mainline modern LDS strict rules as "guidelines" or otherwise not as important as other aspects. If the AUB doesn't have a prohibition against alcohol then they aren't going against their rules. I'rs hard to know how much their church factors in their lives at all because they have never discussed it even when their kids attended a church school and they were living in a neighbourhood with many polygamists. Therefore we think its only these assclowns but in reality there *was* a whole community. What's going on now they are in Vegas is even more obscure to untangle. I don't think they hold regular services because Kody looked 100% flailng at basic preaching, but that doesn't mean that they have abandoned that structure, despite Kody clearly doing what he wants. That doesn't seem to be too unusual even in regulated groups like CP if you are an elder man with several wives.

I think Meri is still official wife #1. They've still been sealed the longest and I do think she's being forced to swallow the "it doesn't mean anything, it's just for practical restructuring purposes." The actual favourite with the most power in the group dynamic probably changes in the way CofCinci describes, but I can't see Meri accepting a legal divorce that automatically comes with an official "demotion" in terms of hierarchy, unless she really is on the way out. Where Kody spends most of his time probably hasn't changed too much. It has seemed that that's mostly Robyn and using Meri's as a "retreat" from his other 3 houses with a young and teenage kids. So far we don't know if/when Meri is getting any financial benefit from this "deal", but I wouldn't bet on it, at least not from Kody's POV. He'll have his cake and eat it.