Dandesun

I think most soaps have done a well-written rape story. At least once... possibly more than once... but, unfortunately, somewhere in the late 90s it turned into a plot point and with some writers a damned fetish. Luke/Laura muddied the waters. Roger/Holly handled it well despite the two of them falling in love again later, Holly still bore the scars from that incident and Roger was never made into a romantic hero. He was dark until the end. Todd Manning also remained a pariah to the majority of the town he lived in on OLTL. And even though the writer who penned the Todd/Marty rape did that part of it well, he also had seriously disgusting ideas about wanting to pair them together. He denies it now but it was very clear where he was wanting to go and it was the actors involved (particularly Howarth who left the show) that fought against it more than anything else. I think Eden's rape on Santa Barbara was another that was handled like the violent crime it was. Jack and Kayla is another that was handled well and they have allowed Kayla to always be uneasy around Jack afterwards. And GH even did one where Liz was raped... the only thing is that it was meant to be an anonymous predator and they wound up tying it up with a little bow later on... also that brought the Luke/Laura stuff into the light for their son. Now? It's used too often, too flippantly, too many writers want to shock viewers and then totally go back on it when they decide they like a character or think they've got chemistry with someone or just want to take a character from a horrible place and then turn them into a hero. And that's been an issue for about 20 years now.

For me, if I'm going to watch Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves I'll actually just watch Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It's shorter and funnier and infinitely more quotable. I feel that Prince of Thieves tended to take itself way too seriously. And Costner's accent is all. over. the place. Really, if I were going to watch a more serious Robin Hood piece, I'd go with Robin and Marian.

Love Bull Durham. Actually, that rigid quality works for 'Dances with Wolves' as he's playing an army officer. And I think it works in Wyatt Earp as well. Hell, a lot of his roles seem to fit that rigid quality. It's just that he went through this period where all of his movies were these epic-length affairs... I thought I was going to get hypothermia during JFK that theatre was so cold and the movie was so long. As for Wyatt Earp... I'd just rather watch Tombstone. (Although Dennis Quiad is great as Doc in Costners version.) The only thing worth watching in Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is Alan Rickman.

He's so not engaged. I mean, when he turns off, it is so blindingly obvious that he has absolutely no fucks to give. I wish he'd just leave already. Go be on The Flash full time and save GH some money to buy new color to paint the sets.

Brady does look good but the stench of stupid is so strong with that one that everything behind him looks wavy... like when you look at a hot desert highway. I fully expect to see mirages in the haze of Brady's stupid-stink. Cole has potential although I kept looking at him yesterday and thinking 'wash your hair, dude.' But I'm guessing he's going to turn evil for the sake of JJ playing hero to Paige or something whatever... who cares? Paige appears to have something of a white knight complex herself. She seems drawn to boys who have been up to no good and are trying to turn themselves around. And the thing is... JJ is not some misunderstood boy here anymore. He's willingly fucked her mom twice and grabbed her into another wild kiss today. I'm with Princess Consuela he needs to accept the fact that he's hot for Eve and not Paige and just deal with it because getting all up in Cole's face and punching yesterday... what a bunch of horseshit. I was totally on Paige's side when she kept shoving him away and telling him her life and her choices weren't his concern anymore. Really, they stopped being his concern when he jumped on her Mom. And the fact is, Eve and JJ have way more chemistry than JJ and Paige ever did. It's not like I'm going 'Yeah, Eve/JJ have a real thing going!' Not even close but their scenes have a lot more energy to them than anything between Paige and JJ. But this show... yeah... anyway...

I'm okay with it... I mean, Jean as Phoenix was supposed to be 5'6" and that was in the late 70s so she wasn't exactly diminutive. But over the years with different artists Jean has been taller and more statuesque, certainly. The only thing that might a concern is if Sophie can manage an American accent that's believable. At least I know this girl can act. And, man, do I look forward to the possibility of absolutely no Logan crushing on Jean. And if he does, he'll look like such a creeper (which he was in the books as far as I could see for a LONG time -- sorry Claremont, I don't buy your various retcons about Jean's uncontrollable lust/desire for Logan. I just do NOT.)

Sansa's going to be Jean Grey?! I don't have the words to describe how much this delights me!

No one is as awesome as Jean. Period. She's, like, my favorite. Sam as Dark Phoenix would whisper a lot but I also feel that she would be able to wield significant destruction. I'd be okay with it if she just ate the sun and wiped out Port Charles. She can do that. GH geography, astrophysics and science in general are weird like that. Sam!Phoenix could eat the sun and she'd manage to destroy the Legion of Doom and probably the coast of Bolivia as well.

I stand by the Avengers vs X-Men as the worst. Which isn't doing The Last Stand ANY favors, mind. Now I'm wondering what Sam as Dark Phoenix would look like.

This is just adding fuel to the fire of my love. They've pretty much bet each other on the outcome. If the Patriots win, Pratt has to visit Evans' charity dressed as Star Lord wearing a Brady jersey. If the Seahawks win, Evans has to visit Pratt's charity dressed as Captain America waving the 12th man flag. It's delightful.

JEEEEEEAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!! I kid. Sort of. Look, this is far from the worst thing ever written involving a phoenix. Avengers vs X-Men is still the absolute worst on that front. Not that this is great, mind you.

Laugh a little. Cry a little. Drink a lot.

And that's how they get you!! The one I was part of was online so no poker face required.

Focus groups are ridiculous. I was part of a OLTL one as well and it was frustrating as hell because every time they did a questionnaire you could tell what wasn't going over but they were going to push it anyway. They'd keep coming up with different phrasings and options to make whatever it was a positive response. "How would you rank the pairing of Carly/Franco?" "Would you like to see more of Carly/Franco?" "Would you like to see more of Carly/Franco in a adventurous story?" "Would you like to see more of Carly/Franco involved with family members?" "Would you prefer Carly/Franco to Sabrina?" "Would you prefer Carly/Franco to getting lost in the desert?" "Would you prefer Carly/Franco to dying of syphilis?" "Would you prefer Carly/Franco or watching your family eaten by bears and then dying of syphilis?" "We got a positive response to Carly/Franco from a focus group!"

I was just reading about this on another board and immediately thought of you, Jase, because you were pretty adamant that BB had gotten deep into the substance abuse. Wasn't that basically the reason he left? I wish I could say I surprised by this but... alas. I'm sadly not.

So this whole Jakeson-Patrick-Sam thing seems to be a complete re-do of Todd-Tomas-Blair. Except in the latter case, Todd's 'imaginary friend' was his evil, insane mother who was convincing him to go upstairs and put an end to Tomas/Blair while Todd was determined NOT to make the mistakes he had before. (And Blair declaring love and then fucking Tomas was so beyond out of character for her considering his actions it was RIDICULOUS.) Plus, the scene really were focusing on Blair making the decision to be with Tomas actually being all about Todd, and then Todd downstairs. THIS is Robin playing the role of Jakeson's imaginary friend which was definitely a good thing given everything... while Sam and Patrick are upstairs having developing a somewhat believable friendship turned romance. So... there are definite improvements made believe me. At least we didn't have Robin downstairs after having escaped again and listening to Patrick getting it on with Sam or anything like that. Because... that would suck big time.

My niece and nephews (ages ranging from 8 to 4) were visiting yesterday and I finally got to introduce them to some of the retro games thanks to the Internet Archive. First we played Mixed-Up Mother Goose which they LOVED. The funny thing to me is that they didn't really know all of those nursery rhymes. The oldest, my niece, knew more than the boys but they were all super interested in finding all of the missing pieces and getting them back where they belonged. "Let's look at the map!" It was so fun to listen to them give directions and suggest different routes to things. They had a ball. After that, I pulled up Mixed-Up Fairy Tales. Now, when that first came out in the early 90s, my youngest sister (well both of them really) would play the various games with me. My youngest sister cites Mixed-Up Fairy Tales as a major influence on her love of classical music. (She went on to study and sing opera in college and, since graduating, has consistently worked for various operas and symphonies... on the business side, she's not interested in performing so I'd say she's been successful there.) We kept running into problems with the Fairy Tales, though. The game locked up several times so I may have to go a different route with that one. I ended up downloading Pepper's Adventures in Time and playing it through DosBox and they were loving that one, too. The youngest was more interested in playing airplane with an empty box (he's four, what do you want?) But the older two, 6 and 8, were helping each other out, reading the text aloud, using the Truth button and then asking me for help here and there. It was awesome.

That's exactly what she meant. She specifically said "long-lost daughter" in her tweet. She's been very supportive do True O'Brien and KDP would be the last person to attempt to replace anyone.

This Blair fan who was into Tomas/Blair and worried about Roger's return would say it wasn't so much about Todd as it was about Tomas. While it was a huge relief when it became clear that Roger was invested, Ron completely took every rooting factor away from Tomas and then made Blair into a fucking moron in order to push a completely unnecessary triangle that had no staying power at all. Blair would not have stayed involved with him after finding out he handed Todd over to Baker. Ever. Even hardcore team player KDP said so. Unfortunately, Ron took a decent guy and then decided to give him an "edge" that pretty much ruined him. That's a big problem for Ron... He honestly does not know when to stop. He goes careening over the line without recognizing that upping the ante by increments is better suited to storytelling in the first place. Can he create a good guy? I think it's much like his ability to create a rootable couple: he does it by accident... And then usually finds a way to wreck it completely.

And water is wet.

I'll be honest, when they brought the Russian aspect to the Cassadines I've likened them to the Silver Fangs in Werewolf: The Apocalypse in some ways. They were the leaders of the clans but because of inbreeding to keep the bloodlines pure... there's a lot of crazy in those fangs. But, as I've said before, the Cassadines in general are this strange, bizarre combination of comic supervillains, Gothic/Romantic love stories (Romantic with a capital R -- I'm sure Stefan freaking loved Byron) -- especially since early horror literature were inspired by Romanticism, and full on horror tropes with Elizabeth Bathory and Vlad the Impaler probably held up as family icons. But, also again, they just don't have the opposite faction to go against the Cassadines. I mean, if you're going to have a baby eater like Helena wandering around brainwashing people willy nilly, you need to have the polar opposite heroic faction as well. Fairy tales weren't just about the witch throwing children into her oven, they were about who defeated them through cunning, wit and, oftentimes, goodness. There is no Steve Rogers to combat against Helena's Red Skull, you know? Luke sure as fuck ain't that guy... hasn't been for a long time. Not even close!

My first real love relationship ended when we both went to college... we tried the long distance thing, he started messing around almost immediately and then confessed as he broke up with me over the phone saying it wasn't working and I definitely wanted the details. It was a masochistic move and he only gave me partial information which was for the best, really. It's a no win situation... you want to know because you think what you're imagining just makes it worse but it doesn't really help knowing names and dates and locations. But I was young and it was my first relationship that involved love and sex and all of that. It ended badly (we were off and on again for a couple of years even after that before I finally got sick of the whole thing) but I look back and see it as the price of an education more than anything else. Sometimes, you do humiliating stupid things when you're in the throes of high emotional stakes. I was always grateful that we were far apart so I couldn't do anything truly humiliating like drive past his house all the time or something. Instead, my roommate and dormmates got to experience me feeling sorry for myself way too much but we also found ways to put it aside and have fun all the same. I haven't seen any indication that Paige even knows how to have fun though... she might be well and truly screwed here. The thing that I find rather frustrating is that Paige seems to have this idea that if she knows who JJ slept with she'll be able to put the blame solely on that person and she and JJ can make it work or something... I'm not even sure. In this case, not knowing who JJ slept with is definitely better than knowing. And the fact that they haven't been together all that long and in that scant amount of time they have been off and on and off and on again... my investment just flat out isn't there at this point, and I actually really liked them at the beginning. I suppose it's too much for JJ to go 'WE WERE ON A BREAK!!' when it all comes out, though.

I'm fine with this. I can pretend they're alive and somewhere else... or not. Cole doesn't have to be alive. And I can pretend that Todd never existed in Port Charles and, thusly, never tainted his dick with Carly's cooter. Shut up! Let me have this!! Helena is probably racist. She's certainly classist and any number of other '-ists' out there but she's also evil and so it's not like her behavior is to be applauded. Besides, as others have said, she doesn't save 'boy' and 'girl' for the people of color. She uses it on people she deems beneath her. Which is everybody.

Well, I promise if I run into her at any rodeos or wine parties that I go to, I'll let y'all know. Now I'm a little annoyed at myself for not mingling more at the VSJ Croquet Party but I was up in the VIP area and didn't want to leave the lofty perch. And I did get to meet the dude who originated Britain's Got Talent there. (He owns the vineyard.) Now I'm going to have to keep a weather eye out at these things.

I knew she was married to Michael E Knight for a good amount of time... I just hadn't realized she remarried. Or moved to my neck of California.