#I also think it was an excellent addition to the franchise

[allegoriesandcarpenoctem]

Why did nobody tell me we finally got the female Pinhead we deserved and why did I have to find out she is played by badass Jamie Clayton through a "Becoming the Priest" featurette???

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

man about town interview | spring/summer 2014

for the tweam! click through for my best attempt at deciphering this (maybe impossible to find?) throwback interview

‘’I don’t think I’m scary at all. It was kind of funny watching myself being scary. Because I’m not scary.’’ Says Evan Peters, the up-and-coming up-for-anything actor best known for his extreme roles on American Horror Story, the prestige television series that treats social taboos as map points. For three seasons, Peters has excelled at playing against his offbeat boyishness by amping up his young Malcolm McDowell intensity, with results that fall somewhere between ‘’teen dream in strangler’s gloves’’ and ‘’terrifying Michael Cera.’’ He most recently appeared in American Horror Story: Coven as Kyle Spencer, the good-natured university student who is decapitated and then reanimated with the body parts of his Kappa Lambda Gamma brothers as a temperamental Rocky Horror who beats his sexually abusive mother to death with a trophy.

Over a bold chai tea with stevia, at a restaurant in Venice, California, Peters is lighthearted and dryly humorous, like a young Michael Shannon, with whom he should costar in a successful disturbing family sitcom. He wears black jeans, a well-worn t-shirt under a plaid flannel, and a necklace with a toy dinosaur pendant. He drives a 2004 Pontiac Vibe that he correctly describes as ‘’vintage’’; says that he just feels like growing his longish blond hair into a ponytail, and has a red thumbs-up permanently inked onto the to pof his right hand, that was traced over a nightclub door stamp. At one point, he raises his forearm to show off a temporary tattoo that he received the night before at the castle park family entertainment center in Sherman oaks. ‘’This is a Belle tattoo. It’s not real,’’ he explains playfully of a small portrait of the beautiful young heroine from the animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast. I tell him it’s very pretty. ‘’Thank you. She’s gorgeous,’’ he responds. I ask if Belle is his favorite Disney princess. ‘’Well, I picked her out. There was also Jasmine, Ariel and Cinderella. My other buddies got those.” ‘’What about Belle appeals to you?’’ ‘’She likes the Beast.’’ Peters says.

This summer, Peters appears as the teenage Mutant speeder Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which has proven to be an eventful ??? movie. In October 2012, director Matthew Vaughn – who relaunched the franchise with much needed style and a new cast of young, indie + credible actors – left the film to be replaced by original trilogy director Bryan Singer. As such, fans were already touched when Singer announced that he would retell ‘’Days of Future Past,’’ the seminal X-Men time-travel storyline from 1980, an ambitious plan turned wild when he revealed that both franchises would merge into one. Cut to the 2012 San diego Comic-Con whereby unthinkable feats of scheduling – the sprawling casts of the modern-day first series and the 60’s era prequel (that include expensive names like Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackmon, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Michael Fassbender, and so on). Convened with ??? new additions like Peters to unhinge popular culture. ‘’You think to yourself, ‘’wow, people really, really love this stuff.” And it makes you appreciate it more. It makes you work harder at it.’’ he says about the experience.

Peters’ role in the films is crucial but concise. ‘’It’s a huge, huge opportunity but I always make sure to tell people it’s just one scene. Easy, it's just one scene.’’ Peters says, as if talking down a rearing horse. Quicksilver has already been the subject of film industry chatter regarding lawful usage of the character, who is both the son of Magneto and a colleague of the Avengers, making him fair game for inclusion in both Days of Future Past and the 20n5 Avengers sequel (in which he will be played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass). An Empire magazine Preview of Quicksilver’s costume design was greeted with comparison to Kid Vid, a ‘90’s cartoon form of the Burger King ‘’Kid’s Club,’’ and the news that Peters had been saddled with the Halle Berry “rough wig’’ role. But his fan’s enthusiasm for the project—in which desperate X-Men from a dystopias future try to stave off mutant genocide by altering the present day—is undimmed. ‘’I think it’s the best film of the francise yet,’’ proclaims Peters. ‘’It’s pretty dire. It’s a pretty epic situation. But there’s definitely some humor in there. Its’s just badass, man.’’

Quicksilver is a departure for Peters in some ways if not others. Both X-Men and Horror Story are tight productions that take extensive precautions to protect story lines. Peters says that he did not receive the full script for X-Men until arriving at the Montreal location days before shooting. Horror Story pages are often delivered the night before a scene. The short lead time can demand a ??? almost improvisational acting process. ‘’The minute we get the script, plans are cancelled, dinner is cancelled,’’ he says about working on Horror Story. ‘’Some of it you’re like, ‘Oh shit, I have to do that?’ Screaming and crying, realizing that my whole body is pieced together and I’m not myself? I’ll probably have to work on that.’’

Peters owes his career to television. ‘’I was watching a lot of TV and I kind of wanted to be on the TV and in movies. I love movies and TV,’’ he says, and cites inspirations like Joaquin Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, George Clooney, JIM Carrey, Chris Farley, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, and the millennial teen comedies Even Stevens starring Shia Labeuof and So Little Time with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. ‘’That sort of stuff. I just really wanted to be a part of it and loved acting and performing.’’ He moved to Los Angeles with is mother when he was 15 years old, and steadily won work in television, on shows including Phil of the Future (2004) and One Tree Hill (2008), and in movies like the independent films Clipping Adam (2004), his first big break, and later Kick Ass (2010). Being cast as Tate Langdon in the first season of American Horror Story in 2011 was his tipping point, playing a Skull Boy-faced high school shooter in a latex catsuit who rapes his girlfriend’s mother to please a ghost. He has since become one of the five main players to appear in all three season of the series, sterling company that includes Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe and Frances Conroy.

Now the world gets to enjoy a lighter side of Peters, like when he appeared on a 2011 episode of the G4 networks Attack of the Show and blithely volunteered that he was working a a rap song called ‘’I’ll Tap That Fucking Ass.’’ He laughs off a request to recite a verse. ‘’I can’t. That never materialized. I tried but it was too much pressure. It was just a concept. I was just trying new ideas,’’ he says, and then volunteers a different musical direction. ‘’It’s called ‘Natch Snatch.’ Like all natural snatch. Big bush. Snatch. Cause it’s nice. You know, ‘girl, you’ve got that natch snatch.’ It’s another nice concept. Probably on the same album.’’ Peters laughs in agreement at the suggestion that he is a kook in the best sense of the word. ‘’I get called a weirdo sometimes,’’ he admits ‘’But it’s like, I don’t feel that weird. I don’t feel that different. I look at everybody else and I’m like, ‘’you’re a fucking weirdo, too. You like all of your shit. I like my shit.’’ Why does one have to be weird and one have to be normal? It doesn’t make any sense to me.’’ Meanwhile, he seems to be successfully negotiating his public and private persona. ‘’I’ll try to be myself as much as I can but you obviously can’t be who you are at home in your skivvies eating donuts. You can’t be that.’’ He explains, before confirming that guy exists, with his tongue sort-of-in-cheek. ‘’You bet he does. Yeah, definitely watching New Girl. Crying.’’ But while Peters seems fairly comfortable in the public eye, fame no longer interests him. The development is not unrelated to his intense, closely-watched relationship with fiancée and two-time costar Emma Roberts (on coven and in the 2013 ?? Adult World) ‘’When I was younger I was like, ‘’That would be awesome!’’ now I don’t particularly love it,’’ he says ‘’Emma gets paparazzi a lot, and because I’m with her we get paparazzi, so it’s kind of a weird thing that I don’t love. But it’s so small in the big picture of all the positives that come with this job that I can’t really complain about it.’’ he may be surprised by the attention he and Roberts receive, but he is hardly self-ptying. ‘’Honestly, it’s not that bad. If you don’t set up a Google alert on yourself and go out searching for it then you’re not going to see it. So I don’t see it.’’ Roberts has already endured the Hollywood learning curve that Peters is now experiencing. ‘’She gives me advice, like cut your hair. She likes my hair to look nice,’’ he says, and laughs. ‘’She’s been around and knows the ropes and how to play the game very well. And she has incredible social skills. She can talk to anyone and everyone loves talking to her. I’m not that good at that stuff so she kind of helps me out with that.’’ I wonder what guidance she offers him. ‘’You’ve just got to be personable and talk to people, even if you don’t want to. Put on a happy face and buck up. Grow a pair of balls. Don’t be a little wuss.’’ Petersa says, and laughs. ‘’I mean, she doesn’t say that, but you know what I mean.’’ 

Next for Peters is Lazarus, opposite Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover and Mark Duplass a 2015 feature from director David Gelb, known for the documentary Giro: Dreams of Sushi. Peters describes the project, about a team of brainiacs working magnanimously to reanimate the dead, as a “contained Sci-Fi horror thriller” as it mostly takes place in one laboratory setting. He plays the party animal scientist. Peters encouraging sidesteps the questions of his involvement in the next season of American Horror Story, to be set in 1950 and the present day, for which Jessica Lange is practicing a German accent. ‘’I don’t know what I’m allowed to say so I’m going to say no comment,’’ he says.

‘’At the end of the day it is acting. You want to go with the biggest, weirdest, boldest shit and see if you can actually do it and go there,’’ Peters concludes, ‘’I’m very curious about everything. I feel like I don’t know that much. I’m trying to learn it all and figure it all out.’’

[asaka-lucy-dr-rc]

English version DR:THH Gameplay Log #6

⚠️ Note that this Gameplay Log contains many spoilers, not only for THH but also for the entire Danganronpa franchise.

[Previous #5]

haha, the English version is phrased quite differently, but the fact that the word "real" is still used in the translation gives me a sense of their consideration.

---

It is interesting to think that the translator might have chosen a phrase with the word "kill" in it, even though there are many different ways to translate "空気読めよなマジで". (Maybe I'm thinking too much?) I think the literal translation would be "Read the atmosphere, seriously."

---

I can only say that the translation of the following part is excellent:

In the original, Monokuma suddenly adds the word "クマ(Roman: kuma / EN: bear)" at the end of a sentence, but in the English version, the word "bear" is used to make a joke.

And in the original, Monokuma then starts adding the word "ナリ (Roman: nari / no specific meaning)" at the end of the sentence. Junko (Mukuro) points out that your character is inconsistent. So the original may be a better representation of Junko's personality, which is easily bored, than the translation.

hehe, it's funny to see Sakura involved in this silly exchange.

---

Oh, I was a bit surprised to see the word "脳汁" translated literally. ("Brain juices") I'm not sure why, but it's a word often used by otaku.

---

The translation here is great. In the original, Monokuma was told "わけわからないことばっかり言うな (not to say only/a lot of things that are incomprehensible)", and he gets mad at the Ultimates for saying that, but in the English version, I see that it has been replaced by blabbering. As mentioned above, "ばっかり" is a word that combines the meanings of "only" and "a lot of," so it is difficult to translate directly into a word, but it is replaced by a natural word. (It is already adjusted from the part before this line, but I forgot to take a screenshot of that. Sorry!)

---

Hm, maybe this is normal as long as they speak English, but it is kind of interesting to see that Mondo says the words "I swear to Christ".

---

Oh, again, the addition of the word "hope," which is not in the original text, is also made here. A literal translation of the original text would probably be something like this: "But this school, which I came to with my heart filled with expectation..."

It is interesting that the English translation seems to be trying to mix the word hope as much as possible.

---

I wrote "academy of hope" in my first post, but apparently it is officially correct to write school of hope. Sorry about that!

The prologue is finished and my impression so far is that the English translation looks great and I found a lot of great phrases. It's a great learning experience for me! What is a bit disturbing is that Monokuma speaks much faster than in the Japanese version. The Japanese version of Monokuma speaks more slowly and it sounds more like a teacher, but the English version of Monokuma seems more like an amusement park mascot or something. So far, no other characters seem to be very different in their impressions.

I have a few things I want to draw, so it will probably be quite a while before I post the next one. Thanks for reading!

<To be continued>

[fierce-little-miana]

I have recently watched Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and I have thoughts about it. It's a really good action movie, it's a really good post-apocalyptic movie and I really liked it. Even if I prefer Fury Road. One of the reasons is that I personally prefer "small" stories very cleverly implying a lot worldbuilding than big stories taking their time to clerverly really details worldbuilding. I am always amazed when the first kind of stories manages to deliver deeply compeling and emotionally impacting stories. But there is an issue Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, that I wanted to discuss:

Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa.

I love Anya Taylor-Joy. I have seen a lot of her Tv-shows and movies and have generally found her really good to excellent (most notably in The VVitch, but also in Split and The Queen's Gambit) in all of them. Playing Furiosa was not easy. Charlize Theron had debuted the role and had made it iconic, it's way less confortable to work from this than to have to create the character yourself. Anya Taylor-Joy has the right intensity, the right physical commitment, the rigth amount of rage and is charismatic enough to play Furiosa. And as an actress she did a good job (I still prefer Charlize Theron's take though).

That being said I had issues believing in her Furiosa. To put it simply, Anya Taylor-Joy looks too physically weak to play Furiosa. And I partially blame the way she was filmed for that. First, Anya Taylor-Joy is slightly shorter than Charlize Theron (4-5cm). But while Charlize Theron shared most of her screentime with Tom Hardy who is shorter than her (2cm but still), all of Anya Taylor-Joy significant male co-leads (especially Tom Burke) are significantly taller than her. That makes her looks short all the time. And nothing is done in term of staging to try to rectify that (or it's failing). And sure, Furiosa is supposed to be younger in this movie, but she isn't supposed to be a child by the end of the movie. Just a young woman so someone who have stopped growing. The fact that the movie makes her look short already impacts how strong she appears on screen.

But in addition, Anya Taylor-Joy is just too skinny to play someone who is supposed to be as physically strong as Furiosa. Charlize Theron was not bulky by any means in Fury Road but Anya Taylor-Joy looks extremley skinny all the time (and signifcantly skinnier than all the other warboys that are supposed to be fed like her). Like, look at their right arms in these pictures.

At no point did I believe Anya-Taylor Joy could win or just have a chance in a physical fight against any of her male co-leads, which was something Charlize Theron as Furiosa had no problem making me believe. Even some of her stunts in car chases looked unbelivable (you don't hang for so long from a truck at full speed with such little arms, you just don't).

I don't know if production should have asked Anya Taylor-Joy to gain a bit of weight or muscle before shooting the movie, or simply casted someone who looks less delicate (but it should have filmed her in a way that does not make her looks so short, Anya Taylor-Joy is not a short woman), but I am really sick of big productions casting extremely thin and delicate looking women to play action heroins. Like, when we have reached a point where Charlize Theron (a super model, mind you) looks significantly bulkier (something she isn't), stronger and rougher than the actress supposed to play her in her twenties there is an issue.

This is something that I did not think a movie from the Mad Max franchise (which had given us Furiosa to begin with) would do, and in a way I am really disappointed by it.

[thenationaltreasuregazette]

t do you thinknof them replacing The Wibberlys with a different writer after they wrote both films and the series?

Hey Emmi!

Thanks for your question.

Alright, this might be an unpopular opinion but...I think that was the right choice.

As explored in my initial breakdown of the 2003 script, National Treasure was the result of many creative voices, with the Wibberlys being the final writing team who took the story over the finish line into production. Their voice was an important addition to the project...but it is not the project.

For example, we've also explored just how fundamentally the casting of Nicolas Cage and Diane Kruger affected the tone of the story.

And honestly? I know you don't agree, but to me Book of Secrets and Edge of History are both fundamentally flawed stories, both as sequels to National Treasure and as narratives in their own right. They are missing something, missing some of the quintessential oomph that makes National Treasure special.

After BoS it could have been argued that the sequel was made on too quick a turnaround to fully develop the story--this is incredibly common when movies are popular enough for the studio to want a sequel in short order. The story is, in my opinion, woefully underbaked, but like, I get it. That happens.

It's EoH that confirmed my suspicions that they were not the right team for these later projects. It's clunky. It fails to explore the world in a meaningful way. I want to like Jess. I want to care about the hunt but the story is just not all there for me.

Again, the Wibberlys had a major disadvantage. This was only the second TV show they've created. The other was a USA original that ran for 12 episodes...in 2012 when USA was still in its blue sky era and ran popular shows for as many 22 episodes as they could. Their other show, Common Law, was not the kind of Netflix miniseries 1-season darling we're used to now. It simply flopped.

So the Wibberlys aren't good at writing TV shows. That's, again, fine. It's a different skill set, and I have rarely seen treasure hunts work in ongoing narratives like that anyway? The genre excels as tight one-off narratives. It's hard to keep the excitement going without dragging things out in between clues...something with EoH is incredibly guilty of.

That in of itself does not mean they shouldn't write another NatTreas film.

But they are also not that good at writing National Treasures, because 2/3 of the National Treasure franchise is not that good.

I don't think just because they made the other one means they should get to make every property going forward. Sometimes new voices make stories stronger and bring in new ideas. Yes, sometimes they also make them worse and miss the mark of what was beloved about the original. But again, I think the Wibberlys' followups are already missing that mark so might as well try something different.

That's one of my favorite things about Scooby-Doo, btw. Like Sherlock Holmes and certain other long-running properties, there's just so damn much of it that if you don't like one creative team's take, you can just wait for the next one.

However, while I adore the first Pirates of the Carribean--Can an action-adventure movie be more perfect than Curse of the Black Pearl? Probably not--Ted Elliot was also one of the story-by credits on BoS.

So if you're worried, the franchise is still very much "in the family."

If you wanted more fresh voices, eh, we'll see.

On the plus side, this one seems to be getting plenty of development space, which at least avoids any rushed-to-production problems faced by BoS

God can you imagine Jerry Bruckheimer liking your shit enough to just...wait for it?

So, there you go. That's my take.

Your thoughts?

[eshasunrise]

On Professor Layton Vs Pheonix Wright

No spoilers, but I talk about PWPL for a long time under the cut.

The most frustrating part of Phoenix Wright vs Professor Layton is the way it treats its lead characters. The two do their jobs well, Phoenix is the same goofy, down on his luck lawyer he always is, and Layton is as charismatic and clever as you'd expect, but there in lies the problem. Neither character is really explored to any real degree beyond what's already been established. And I get it; dubiously canon crossover made by two disagreeing companies designed to be an entrypoint into both series. It's better to play things safe, not change too much, and use the best parts of both series against each other. And to be fair, they do that with aplomb. The AA and PL character designs mesh beautifully together, especially after the hard work unifying the main characters. The Puzzles are an excellent addition to the investigation segments, and the court cases do a great job dredging out the minutia of the larger than life story and setpieces.

But Layton is a man with far too much intrigue and nuance to just be the confident windfall, and if there's one thing the Ace Attorney Franchise is good at, it's nuance.

Professor Hershel Layton is a man defined by three things: his gentlemanly demeanor, his love of puzzles, and his willingness to always lend a hand. But the Layton of Lore and the Layton we play as are two subtly different men. Hershel is truly a gentleman, no doubt about it, but he's cautious, aloof, and reserved. He won't meddle in matters that don't interest him or call upon him in the first place. He also never speaks of his past or his family. We know how secretive he is about his lost love, and how he becomes estranged from his children in the near future. This speaks of a man afraid, one who wants with all his heart to be always there, yet frequently is one moment too late. One who can be relied upon, but who ends up falling just short. One who strives to shoulder the burden of others, but ends up taking the praise as well.

A man who strives to be Phoenix Wright.

Phoenix is known to be a bumbling mess of a man, who wears his heart on his sleeve, hinges his bets on bluffs, and is responsible for overturning law and order in his country. Yet the Phoenix we play as isn't that man, despite what he thinks. He's somebody who knows people well, and can tell when someone is innocent, and will put his own life and reputation on the line if it means protecting that, even against his own better judgement. He's a man whose bluffs are more thought out than the carefully constructed alibis of men with more power and time than he'll ever hope to have. He's a man who overturned law, not through excess trust or gullibility, but his willingness to call out corruption while protecting as many people as possible from the fallout of his actions. He couldn't have begun to change things the way he did were it not for the trust and love others put in him, or his dedication to the truth above all else. Phoenix Wright has, without fail, shown himself to be someone to fall back on. Someone who will shoulder your burdens, hell, someone who will take the consequences of your mistakes and victimhood onto himself if it means making sure you can wake up happier three days from now, and refuses to let it go until justice is served. He takes the blame for the Dark Age of Law not because nobody else could; it's easy to point to Gavin, Gant, and Karma, but because nobody else can. He will carry the consequence of horrid people for the rest of his life, egg on his face (or coffee), trudging through hell until a better tomorrow comes, all the while thriving against odds stacked so far against him it's a miracle he's even alive.

That is the man Hershel Layton longs to be, the man he goes out of his way to become every day of his life, and the man Phoenix Wright is by simply being his own goofy, bumbling, easily panicked self. It could be said that, for as soft and kind as Layton is, his drive to be a gentleman distances himself from being the protector he wants to be. For as brilliant as he can be, it doesn't help much when he doesn't have the answer. With all the time he spends trying to help others, he never lets himself move on from, or share, his own pain.

And that's why Luke needs to be framed for murder.

Imagine: a situation that Layton cannot deal with. One he couldn't expect. Set it up so he sees Luke holding the bloody weapon in the body of the scared victim. So caught in the moment he just can't put together any other alternative, try as he might. That's where Phoenix comes in. Immediately knowing Luke wouldn't do such a thing, he takes the case before a case can be made, even as Luke second guesses himself and Layton is sent to testify. He's made to put together evidence pointing directly to Luke's guilt. And just as all seems lost, he turns the question on its head, asks why Luke can't be guilty, and that's when he asks Layton for help with one thing; a puzzle. By reframing this impossible situation into Hershel's field of expertise, removing all elements of trauma and impossibility, Layton reorients himself, adjusts his testimony, and slowly the truth begins to unravel. Press after press, puzzle after puzzle, piece after piece, and just as a dead end seems to be in sight, who else should interject but the real murderer, panicking from how close they've gotten, pointing out the logical flaw, in turn outing himself as the true killer to Phoenix and, more importantly, Hershel.

And you do not hurt Hershel's friend.

A duel of words breaks out (likely a game/framing mechanic unique to this sequel) where Layton takes command of the conversation and trial, pressing the Murderer further and further into a corner until, at one point, he slips. Layton backs off and confidently hands the floor back to Phoenix, who immediately presents the evidence that contradicts the pressed statement. The prosecutor has to object to a confession made out of duress, but at this point, the damage to the alibi is done, and the Murderer can't weasel his way out any more. One more round of testimony, and one more puzzle to present a piece of evidence, and the case is closed.

Afterwards, Layton can't help but cry as he hugs Luke, realizing the man who had been put down all game, whose made himself out to be a fool and jumped to harebrained conclusions to just barely be proven right, was the man who not only saved them, but the man he aspired to be like his whole life. Someone who can shoulder the pain of others until it's light enough to carry. Someone who accepts his own past, and lets it guide him forward without weighing him down. Someone who can stare defeat, even death, in the eyes, panicking all the while, then turn around, point his finger, and demands one more answer, over and over until the truth has come out. Someone who can solve even the most impossible of puzzles, when all he has to go on is a hunch, and trust that it can be done. (I'd also like to foreshadow this by having the first puzzle on Wright's side be a Sudoku puzzle, specifically, one where you have to take a leap of faith at turn one to solve, trial and error-ing the first move with little penalty).

Basically, a game where Phoenix is on the back foot and Layton can support him is great, but a finale where Layton is in a no-win scenario, and Phoenix can see him through by bringing out what Layton can do best, that would be excellent.

[reality-wont-ruin-my-life]

who are your favorite queens and why

I’m assuming you’re asking about drag race queens and not like… monarchy queens (of which I don’t really know any)

SO

I have 3 specific queens who occupy a different level of my heart than the rest of them and those queens are:

JAIDA ESSENCE HALL

Jaida is the first queen who captured my heart when I returned to watching drag race a few years back. She’s both very endearingly dumb and incredibly intelligent (what a dichotomy), she promotes black excellence, uses her platform to amplify sociopolitical causes, she’s drop dead gorgeous, and also just such a well rounded talented queen, among so many other good qualities. No matter what other queens come and go, Jaida will always have such a special spot in my heart.

ANETRA

Look if you don’t know by now that I love her that’s on you, I literally have a gigantic tattoo dedicated to her (which she loved!). Plus she’s my profile photo. I was not the only person who fell in love with her during s15 and for good reason, she’s incredible in every way. She’s so talented, so kind, so smart but still silly, doesn’t cause drama or start fights, and is so fucking attractive holy shit. I liked Anetra fine for the first part of the season, and then I watched the lalaparuza when I was drunk and cried at the thought of Anetra potentially going home and also the psychological ramifications of her losing lipsyncs that we all KNOW she won 😤 anyways I love Anetra so much it physically pains me and if you want more on that you can follow me over at @sexynetra and I will scream and cry about her

NICKY DOLL

Now, Nicky is a new addition to this list. I’ve always loved her, don’t get me wrong. She’s gorgeous and silly goofy and did I mention GORGEOUS? But I loved her the level I love other queens who aren’t jaida and Anetra, on a separate lower level. However!!! Did I mention how gorgeous she is? I started watching drag race France so that I would have an excuse to see new Nicky doll looks, and in watching that, I fell more and more in love with her with every episode. Not only is she the prettiest ever, but she’s witty, smart, funny, compassionate, eloquent, and so so so big hearted. She’s so kind and really tries so hard to make drag race France a good experience for the contestants, and I honestly think she was born to host, she’s the best host of any drag race franchise that I’ve watched, bar none.

~~~~~

I love many other queens, and just because they aren’t in my top 3 doesn’t mean they aren’t incredible and I don’t fangirl like crazy over them, but these 3 hold such a special specific place in my heart and I could talk about them for hours on end every single day (and I do over on my drag race side blog 😉 come join me there, it’s a blast)

Also I only listed drag race queens obviously but there’s so many amazing local queens (and kings) that I absolutely adore, and whether or not you enjoy drag race, I highly recommend going out to your local drag shows and seeing what your local scene looks like, because there’s so much more to it than what is shown on tv!

[alcalexandria]

Cuts, Reshoots and Changes made to Terminator: Dark Fate.

As part of another giant essay I’m working on about the possibility of Dani & Grace being an intentional romance at some point (Edit - that has since been posted, and you can now find it here), I wanted to gather up a reasonably detailed list of Dani/ Grace scenes that we know were changed at some point during production of Dark Fate.

This is mostly a reference for that post rather than something standalone, but you might find it of interest all the same. I won’t spend *too* much time on my extrapolations here, but you’ll probably get the gist of what I’m thinking.

You’re more than welcome to offer your own angle though, similar or different, and like I say I’ll have more on that front soon. Let me know if you can think of any relevant omissions or errors.

So what was changed? Why? How do we know?

There’s quite a bit to this, so I’m going to try to detail it in the order it appears/would have appeared in the movie, and try to explain both how we know it was cut/swapped, and what we know about why.

Again though, note that this isn’t necessarily a complete list of every cut or change we know about – just ones relevant to Dani & Grace, and how else they might or might have been interpreted if things were different. And a lot of these may be minor in isolation, but I include them for the sake of a bigger picture.

First, let’s talk about the Director’s Commentary (available in my country only with the iTunes release.)

The commentary involves Director Tim Miller and Editor Julian Clarke discussing the movie’s production and is well worth a listen – Miller has an obvious passion for the Terminator franchise and its lore, and his theories and ideas are engaging to hear. Clarke explains his thought processes logically, and for the most part, I couldn’t fault him.

… But.

In the commentary, the guys explain they did an entire editing pass to remove moments where Grace and Dani were overtly – in their words - “tactile”.

We don’t know the full extent of this, but the fact they call it an entire editing pass it quite a big deal – an editing pass means running through the whole movie as it’s assembled so far, to reselect cuts and alternate takes, from the many hours of dailies available, while ensuring the flow and continuity is still right.

It’s a significant undertaking and it’s not done lightly at the late stage we're talking here. It represents a lot of work hours by the Editor and Director (and in this case, almost certainly, the Producer)

The reason they give for this is that they didn’t want the audience to know that Grace and Dani have any kind of established relationship in the future – they want it to be a surprise that Grace already knows Dani in her own time.

To me that makes no sense, and I’ll detail why elsewhere - but it is the official reason they give, so I want to start with that preface.

It’s also worth saying, in the spirit of fairness, that they mention doing some (much less intensive) cuts and swaps with Dani and Diego, because the Editor was afraid that what’s normal for Latin actors would be too confusingly tactile for Cool Ranch flavored audiences, who may read it as a little weird and incestuous.

I think that’s silly, but I include it just to give additional context on the Editor’s perspective.

Now, on to the changes.

1. Pharmacy.

Originally the pharmacy staffmember who helps Dani pull Grace onto the street -

- then immediately asked Dani out, which she declines in no uncertain terms.

2. Motel.

The scene with Dani and Sarah has been tweaked considerably from the original. Initially, Dani had been seen crying more over Diego and her dad, this was almost all cut down and streamlined - the reason for the changes given being that test audiences were finding her a bit of a bummer.

But that isn't the only change, and the other isn't so cut and dry.

Source: Booasaur

This image is used to represent the FIRST AID KIT card in the weirdly excellent Dark Fate tie in card game.

Notably - images used in the card game are all promotional images that would have been approved for release by the studio, and the card company would have needed to have them as early as possible so they could design and produce their material.

Promotional images like this are not simply movie stills – they are actual photographs, taken by a purpose-hired photographer, which is why they never exactly align with a shot from the movie. However, because they are taken during the shooting of the movie, they’re clues to cuts we wouldn’t otherwise know of.

Dani never gets this close to Grace in the motel room while she’s unconscious in the final cut, and there’s no ice on her body in this shot, so it presumably sat before Sarah either ice’d or dosed her.

Presumably, also, this fell afoul of the "no touchy" edit pass. But there is no counterpart to this shot in the movie at all, and it's the only one of the card images where this is the case. The image itself hasn't been used in any later publicity releases either, as far as I can tell. The card game is the only trace of it out there.

So it seems like not only was the scene cut, the still itself was "de-approved" at some point later in production.

Additionally – though this is speculation, I’m not the only one making it - from the way scene is edited, it sure feels a lot like the first thing Dani does when she’s let back into the room by Grace after being sent for chips is immediately hug her, and the scene has been chopped around a bit to hide it.

Take a look for yourself, and see where this impression comes from – even though Dani and Grace have dialogue and are the active players in the moment, the camera lingers on Sarah, doing and saying nothing, for a weirdly long time, and for no clear reason.

It feels very much like a cutaway an editor might improvise so as not to show something else, and there are plenty more instances of this later we’ll come back to.

This trick, where we see generic reaction footage of somebody while rewritten/rerecorded dialogue is delivered from offscreen, is usually a last resort, a way to overhaul a storyline or conversation very late in the process.

It is used way more than I’d consider normal throughout DF – often during really major plot points, where you ideally want to make the best of everyone’s on-set performances and dynamism. It will come up a lot more.

We also know the road trip stuff with the three women was cut way down, in this case because a lot of it involved Sarah and Grace being snippier than they really need to be.

*PS – The motel room is pretty much an exact clone of the one Kyle and Sarah hid out in during T1. Keep that in your back pocket for later.

3. South Tunnel Future War Flashback.

We know from Tim Miller that the Future War battle was cut short. The original longer version showed us Hadrell/Quinn having a glorious last stand against the Rev-7s until they killed him, which presumably influences Grace’s decision to be Augmented.

According to Reddit users who were confirmed to have seen the test screenings, this longer version was actually in the cut they saw, albeit with incomplete SFX, so it was still intact even at that relatively late stage.

Remember from above - it’s supposed to be a surprise Grace knows Dani at all. That’s what Tim and Julian have told us, and it’s so important that it was worth time and money to cut scenes that had already cost too much time and money to film.

Here in the flashback we see in the final cut though, we are straight up shown Dani on the rescue stretcher.

And we are very pointedly shown Grace alone attending to her during the flight. Which casts doubt on that.

But the alternate/deleted version of this scene would have gone further, we would also have been shown “The Commander” in the alternate version of the volunteering scene  –

While that alternate scene isn’t as well executed as the one they went with, in my opinion, it’s notable in that it has Grace volunteering much more deliberately. She insists on it, outside the immediate aftermath of battle, and her reasons seem far more personal than her immediate duty to the Commander as a leader – she demands to be Augmented in direct response to seeing the seriously injured Dani in that neighboring infirmary bed, rather than for the sake of an abstract and offscreen Commander.

Now these Future War scenes all need a ton of VFX, and bespoke sets, props and wardrobe that can’t be bought off the rack or recycled anywhere else in the movie’s main present-day storyline, so they’re very expensive. Whatever else you might shoot as a just-in-case, you would not shoot more of this than you had to.

Given she’s bundled up on a stretcher, it would have been trivial to conceal the identity of the injured VIP completely – simply by not shooting her clearly, or covering her head. Natalia Reyes wouldn’t even need to be on set.

But she was - they went to the lengths of having her, having her face visible, putting her in injury makeup, and showing us Grace is uniquely, personally affected by her condition.

Which is... odd, right? A little contradictory?

4. The Train.

Quite a lot seems to be cut from this scene – we know of at least one line from the trailers, (“We win by keeping you alive”) that’s been cut, and one line Miller mentions in the commentary (Grace’s original retort to Sarah was “The only thing you and Mother Mary have in common is a dead son”), but it’s also been changed considerably since the Audition script that circulated early on.

I want to be really clear what we’re talking about here first though.

An Audition script, a “side”, is a very rough placeholder script that is used to test chemistry and emotion. The dialogue in a side will vary from rough to terrible, and sometimes the scene is deliberately misleading, as sides very often leak via the folks who don’t get the part – and indeed that’s presumably why we have this one.

But the general mood of the scene is the important thing. It is usually in the ballpark because that’s what you’re trying to be sure your actor can bring. The side is usually chosen because the particular emotional peak of this particular moment is the Director’s priority – so a side, however clumsy or misleading the dialogue is, represents something that matters so much for this character they’ll cast solely on the basis of it.

This side, which can be Google'd up pretty easily, was used to audition actresses for Dani. It sketches out a Grace who does not know, or claims not to know, Dani or what’s so important about her, and this scene is clearly a tentative bonding moment between them. Sarah doesn't even seem to be present.

In it, we see Dani show concern for Grace’s shoulder wound, before comparing it to a severe shoulder scar of her own that she shows Grace, from a bus crash in Puebla when she was fourteen, and here's an extract -

She touches [her own] scar, gently with her fingers.

DANI (CONT'D)

I'll never eat obleas again.

(Grace studies Dani as she traces the line of the scar with her finger.)

GRACE

You wanted to understand where I come from? You already do.

(Dani's eyes meet Grace's for a moment.)

DANI

My mother told me scars make the skin stronger.

Dani covers her scar with her shirt, then looks out again as the train slows, approaching Nogales.

I mean... if a movie showed you a heterosexual pair of characters doing this…?

But, we'll get to that in a subsequent post.

5. The Truck.

Here's the version of this we saw in the early trailers -

Source: Booasaur

Vs the version in the movie -

This scene, like the motel room, is an homage to a scene with Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor in T1. There are a lot of those.

6. The Crossing & The CBP Detention Centre.

There are a number of major cuts made to the sequence where the group cross the Mexico-US border, but chunks of the original version are visible in the trailers, and the deleted scene is provided in the home release.

Originally, for starters, the Rev 9 managed to track Dani to her uncle’s house, killing everyone there.

He goes on to manipulate the Mexican Federales into actively herding Dani & Co towards the CBP trap he’s set for them. Grace then spots the drone and realizes he’s tracking them, has them ditch their bags and tells them to run for it. She exchanges fire with the Federales in a running battle, and Dani’s uncle is killed.

You can see this full scene here. And actually now that I rewatch it, I'm struck by how effectively sinister Rev 9 is in the first bit, and what a shame that was to lose:  

Miller says the scene was cut down in part because whacking Dani’s relatives threatened to get a little repetitive, and he has a point (her cousin later also dies in the CBP centre), but there are some really valuable character moments in here too.

Before Grace starts shooting, Dani strictly warns Grace not to kill anybody. Which is a T2 callback, of course, but it’s also establishing Dani as taking the initiative, and it makes it apparent that Grace is already treating whatever she asks for as an order.

The gunfight itself isn’t great, frankly, but I do think the movie feels this cut. It cues up the scenes coming after it in a way that just leaves them kinda awkward without. The reason Grace is so fired up and ready to throw down with the CBP when they're caught in the spotlight is because, as far as she's concerned, she’s *already* in the middle of a gunfight; Dani’s “I’m not watching you die” to her is meant to directly address the fact she’s still feeling her uncle’s death, and can’t bear to see Grace get shot now too, rather than just something she blurts out randomly. She’s already seen somebody she cares about die, and she won’t risk it again.

But Dani’s grief at the death of her uncle would also have played into the next bit, too, something which is still in the movie - when Rev-9 drops the drone on them. Dani sees Grace easily break out of her restraints to save her from it, only to be KO’d by the blast.

In other words - having just surrendered to save Grace’s life, Dani has to see her being killed after all, and we see her looking at her lifeless body with a moment of despair. And after binding Grace with a No Kill order so that nobody else will die over her, she now sees that Grace has apparently sacrificed herself to save her.

This pays off – or would have paid off – in a deleted moment later, too. A shot seen in the trailers from when Grace finds Dani in the cages shows us Dani’s clear relief at seeing Grace is alive.

A subsequent cut shot has Grace and Dani fleeing the Rev-9, hand in hand, in slow motion.

Compare this to the much messier, more rushed sequence we see in the movie -

The Federales shootout sequence on its own is a little redundant, sure, but without this bit, the drone stuff is just... kind of orphaned, and pointless. It's a very dramatic splash of fireworks with little consequence. The shot of Dani looking at Grace's body after the blast has no purpose, and the attack has no real effect, so it might as well not have happened.

More than that, this set of cuts make for really messy continuity. There's a big mismatch between them hauling a bunch of presumably very useful gear through the desert one moment, and then abruptly having none a few shots later; and it feels silly to see everyone set out armed to the teeth with guns they never even try to use.

The way Dani’s uncle just dips out to let the cousin lead them the rest of the way in the theatrical cut feels bizarre, and the escape from the CBP centre feels tangibly choppy and not nearly as clearly composed without the moments seen in the trailer, like missing frames of animation.

7. The Plane Chase.

This whole sequence has been totally overhauled, and maybe several times.

The plane battle was originally longer (which I don’t think it really needed to be) but one notable feature is that Major Dean and the EMP grenades all appear to be later additions.

Many people had guessed this anyway - he comes out of nowhere, provides the grenades, and bows out again, without much explanation or grounding outside the few minutes he appears. And the (oddly cheap) looking grenades themselves are destroyed before ever affecting the plot. So it has all the hallmarks of a reshoot that was plugged into an existing sequence.

The original version of the sequence though, seen in the “pre vis” computer storyboard included on the home media releases, had the gang actually seize the plane by force, and physically subdue two crewmembers. The two end up tied up in the hold after one of them hits Arnie with a wrench (he still sports the injuries from this in the film)

When Rev 9 attacks, one of the crewmen is killed by cargo debris; Dani frantically tries to save the other, but he’s sucked out of the breach in the fuselage before she can.

That original version involving the kidnapped crew appears to have actually gotten as far as being filmed – two “injured” Air Force actors who seem to fit the bill are visible in some of the “Making Of” featurettes.

The prop auction blurbs – some notes from it here – seem to suggest Carl used chain brackets as weapons in the fight, which I don’t believe he does in the battle as seen.

Now why does this matter?

Well, because if there were no EMP grenades, then the conversation in the cockpit must have been completely different, since Carl and Sarah don’t have to interrupt Dani and Grace’s conversation to alert them to the damage.

The cockpit scene is a continuity mess start to finish anyway though, which is another a tell-tale sign of reshoots and re-edits - just for fun, for instance, watch out for Grace’s disappearing drink.

It’s worth watching it start to finish too just to see how much dialogue is delivered from a character who is speaking from offscreen, suggesting these lines were written and then recorded in a Sound Booth after the scenes were shot.

There’s a lot of that in this movie, which I’ve mentioned previously, but this scene in particular is rife with it; almost all its key dialogue is delivered from offscreen while we’re watching what amounts to stock footage of Sarah or Carl.

That much ADR/ overdubbing from off camera is a dead give away that a scene has been almost totally reworked.   

And why? Why did it need to be arranged so much?

Well, that brings us to what I think is the biggest change of the movie.

8. "You Saved Me" / "You Raised Me"

The suggestion Dani found and raised Grace from childhood is entirely a post-test screening addition. It was not in the original version of the movie, at all, and this has been confirmed by the Reddit test screening participants. The whole implication comes from a single line and scene which was added after the testing, and at the cost of all that continuity mentioned above.

The scene we see of Dani rescuing Kid-Grace is a reshoot which was inserted in place of another deleted scene, set during the Future War, wherein an adult Grace begs an adult Dani to let her go back and save her. That’s why the Kid-Grace scene has a different look and feel to everything else in the movie, Present Day and Future War, because it was shot way after everything else.

Before I go on, please take a moment to see the scene they cut, and imagine it back in place –

I mean... dang, right?

Unlike Major Dean or the grenades, this scene is not some neatly isolated little island, and unlike the one replacing it, it's aesthetically in tune with the South Tunnel battle. It depicts a post-Augmentation Grace, wearing “Augment” style sleeveless gear, and it’s the source of at least one promotional shot.

It also explains the circumstances Grace came back, lets Dani off the hook for sending her back to her doom, and even ties directly into a significant exchange of dialogue later on; Commander Dani is shown shedding a tear here when Grace asks to be allowed to save her, presumably because she remembers they will be some of Grace’s last words later, too.

The Theatrical Cut also still has the moment later when Grace quotes this scene to Dani’s younger self before she dies, so this scene is actually the foundation for a later one.

So it’s important, is what I'm saying, it’s laying down all the emotional groundwork for Grace’s death and the tragic implications of the movie’s Bootstrap Loop.

It makes the Commander far more sympathetic, gives Grace a ton more agency, and there are lines still in the movie which call back to it.

Without it, we even lose the visual parallel of Grace on her knees to Dani in the present day just as she is in her memory from the future, in the TDE facility.

For now then, let’s just say that I think you would need an excellent reason to pay more money to replace that original scene, especially with a scene that both looks cheaper, plays worse, and lacks the same connective tissue to anything else. And that this reason would have to be something unrelated to the needs of basic storytelling mechanics, or the Director’s preferences.

9. Underwater Battle.

Grace originally fought the Rev-9 underwater briefly, after the plane crash. That’s why she’s so exhausted when she resurfaces and they have to try to climb up the dam, and it’s why she couldn’t come to help the two others when they were trapped in the flooding Humvee.

10. Turbine Room.

Dani originally finished the battle with the Rev-9 pretty much on her own. This was reworked, apparently, to give Arnie “more of a moment”.

You can see images from the original version here.

Which I do believe - but the original flow would have meant Dani screaming at this thing that it’s taken everything she had, before going apeshit and killing it, in direct response to Grace’s death, which is pretty intense.

(Incidentally, I’m not convinced the subtitles are quite capturing her literal meaning in Spanish either, can somebody help me out?

Edit - BeneathTheThunders has confirmed this in the comments, Dani actually says "Killed everything I loved")

11. Final Scene

The playground scene with Grace as a kid is another post Test Screening addition. Originally the movie ended with a rolling road, just like T2, and a voiceover from Sarah.

Along with the added scavenger attack scene, that means it’s probable we never saw Grace as a child in the original version. At all.

Which would make for a quite different narrative bent, especially if the original Future Dani/Grace seen had still been in place.

In Summary.

Let’s consider how different that alternate narrative was.

Remember that Grace rarely, if ever, discusses Dani’s survival in terms of saving the world or winning the war, apart from her freakout in the chopper – her devotion is to Dani, personally, somebody we only ever see or hear of Grace knowing as one adult woman to another. Somebody she knows, somebody she sat vigil over in the Dragonfly and inspired her to become augmented.

Somebody, we hear only from an experienced, Augmented Grace who has saved her, with her exact meaning left to our imagination – when and how or how poetically she might mean that, we aren’t shown.

Remember that somebody, we see then, is a hardened uniformed military Supreme Commander, who nonetheless cries at the prospect of having to send Grace away to danger, something she’s tried “everything in her power” to avoid.

Remember that, back present day, that person’s first instinct when left alone with her unconscious body (after resting her head in her lap in the jeep for some reason?) is to care for her so tenderly it produced the mysteriously memory-holed First Aid Kit image. When reunited with her after being briefly parted, it’s apparently to embrace her.

While being pursued, it’s to designate her terms of engagement, and then surrender to protect her.

And notably, it is also Grace, not Commander Dani, who outlines what’s going to be done about the TDE in the flashback/forward to 2042.

So they don’t behave like either Mother/Daughter or Officer/Soldier. But they are something. And throughout the movie these two were, apparently, so physically close it was worth spending money and losing shot-to-shot continuity and clarity to put distance between them.

And in the end, when Grace does die, literally giving Dani her life with which to fight her attacker (“I’m sorry Grace!”), Dani tenderly touches her face before destroying her enemy, for taking everything she had from her - for "killing everything she loved".

I’m sure you can infer what I’m getting at there... but we’ll come back to that in a future post.

For now, here's what I'd love to know - the original cut apparently ended a little after the dam battle, with a Sarah voiceover on the rolling road.

I wonder what she said?

[opalroots]

Netflix's new Castlevania Nocturne is an indulgent, incredible mess - a review

Following up the original Netflix Castlevania series was never going to be an easy task. Though it had its shortcomings, Warren Ellis' Castlevania redefined what a video game adaptation is supposed to be, and it managed to entice rows upon rows of non-fans through its complex characters and incredibly flashy action sequences. It's a modern classic, and one of the best things to happen to animation in the last decade.

Along comes Castlevania Nocturne, a new series created by Clive Bradley set a few centuries after the end of the original series, already ladened with heavy expectations. Not only was it forced to carry on the legacy of the Castlevania franchise through adapting one of its most popular and beloved games, but it also had to live up to the expectations set by the original series.

I've only barely played the games, but the original Castlevania show holds a special place in my heart. So when the announcement of a followup series came, I was stoked. I read reviews, watched and rewatched trailers, all the stuff. And Castlevania Nocturne was shaping up to be incredible.

Did it live up to the hype? WELL-

I finished the first episode with a bad taste in my mouth- and not in a good way. It's filled with pacing that falters, dialogue that feels unnatural and preachy, and blatant references to the original series and the games that sound like they're going "hey! look at this! don't you remember This Thing That Was Important?"

I think this is a good point to mention that I'm not one of these "Wokelvania" "Netflix is shoving the homosexual agenda down our throats" people. The show takes place during the French Revolution, guys. Of course it has anti-establishment themes. People forget that in the very first season of Castlevania, the main antagonist was the Catholic Church.

In fact, I think Annette's backstory, which touches upon slavery and colonialism, is a very welcome aspect of the show that reflects historical events of this time that aren't as often brought up in media of this kind. Annette herself is also a very strong character in her own right, and while the writers do her a little dirty towards the end of the season, her arc is very compelling and she's an excellent addition to the cast. Don't listen to the racist weirdos guys.

That's not to overshade the other two main characters: Richter and Maria. Both have deeply complex personalities and backstories and the force of their characterisation is felt deep in the plot. Richter, in particular, is a fascinating and incredibly well-developed departure from his predecessor Trevor Belmont. Where Trevor was a tired, depressed man in his 30s, Richter Belmont takes on the more conventional "plucky young hero" archetype. Don't let that make you think he's shallow, though: Richter has a deep, rich character arc and his youthful naivety and lust for life is genuinely captivating. There's no better character to be driving this new plot forward: I fell in love with Richter multiple times throughout the season's runtime. And not just because he's hot.

Outside the main trio, however, the characters grow shallow. Tera, Maria's mother and a mentor character of sorts, has the personality of brown bread, and her purpose in the show's writing is essentially as a vehicle for plot exposition. Save for at the very end of the season (if you know, you know) there was not a single moment of the show where Tera was onscreen that I enjoyed. Her story together with the Abbott (another major character the writers want to pretend is complex) is insulting at best, and her backstory just feels unnecessarily edgy.

This shallowness extends to the cast of villains that the show presents. One thing that the original Castlevania was known for was its excellent antagonists: unforgettable characters like Dracula, Carmilla, and Isaac, who all had deeply human characterisations and complex reasons behind their actions. Compare this to characters like Drolta, whose name I'm struggling to remember not even an hour after the credits have rolled, or Vaublanc, who starts off as nemesis character of sorts for Annette but gets shafted halfway through the series in an admittedly cool but wasteful moment.

As of writing this, I'm not quite sure what to think of the series' main villain, Erzsebet Bathory. Unlike most characters in the show, this one has no allusion to the video games whatsoever: she is a wholly new creation on the part of Bradley and the writers. She's foreshadowed almost immediately as a "vampire messiah", a phrase that makes Bram Stoker spin like a centrifuge in his grave. When she finally appears, she certainly commands respect, but as opposed to the previous series' villains, there is not a single layer of depth to Erzebet's character. She's just evil for the sake of being evil, and that's a real disappointment. She's not bad at being evil- there's a moment at the very end of the season that left me in pure shock and disgust in the best way possible (IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW). She's just disappointing when compared to the masterfully executed villains that defined the original series.

The one exception to this rule of shallow antagonists is Olrox. He appears very early on in the show and acts as a nemesis of sorts to Richter. While not nearly as complex as, say, Dracula, Olrox had my interest early on and only got more interesting as the season progressed, eventually becoming an anti-villain of sorts, without sacrificing what makes him imposing. The effect he has on Richter is palpable and their relationship feels extremely real. As does the relationship between him and another character, Mizrak. And when I say relationship I mean they have gay sex with one another.

This brings me to one of my biggest irks with Castlevania Nocturne. Olrox, the series' so far most prominent and active antagonist, isn't just queer-coded: he's gay. Very gay. And on one hand, wow he's just like me, but on the other, it makes you raise an eyebrow when every single "good" character is either explicitly or implicitly cis and heterosexual. As a queer trans person, it bothers me that the only explicit representation we get is the vampire who murdered the main character's mom and who will probably play a very antagonistic role for the rest of the series. Everything about Olrox's queerness is doomed to fall into all the classic pitfalls we're so used to in media, and so far, we've seen no representation from the "good guys" to counteract it. Olrox isn't the only one, either: Erzsebet Bathory (you know, the woman who wants to Eat The Sun) is also ever so subtly queer-coded, though the show is too busy turning her into a lion to make her explicitly gay. Count your blessings, I guess.

All in all, Netflix's new Castlevania Nocturne is a show of breathtaking highs and devastating lows. The animation is just as on point as it always was, and the new cast of main characters are a fresh new addition to the Castlevania franchise. There are times when the writing feels deeply triumphant and powerful. Other times, it feels slow, repetitive, and at its absolute worst, downright lazy and sluggish. From a rough first few episodes, to a well-paced and exciting second act, to a weirdly staged but deeply engaging ending sequence, I often felt myself losing patience with Castlevania Nocturne. But, every time I did, the show pulled out all its stops to win me over - and it succeeded, every single time.

The series, as a whole, has a sense of incompleteness at its core. It's a first draft of an otherwise excellent brand new story in the Castlevania universe. And now that it's finally found its footing and been renewed for a second season, I'm hopeful future seasons will be able to better live up to the legacy of the original series, even if it'll never quite reach the original's icon status. Netflix please pay your writers.

Thanks for reading.

[minijenn]

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Kung Fu Panda 3

Alas, we have reached the end of the beloved Kung Fu Panda saga (at least until later this year when 4 comes out). I remember seeing this when it first came out, but much like the rest of the series, I didn't remember much about it going in. I did have a few minor issues with 2 during this watch through, so how does 3 hold up?

We pick up with Po and the Furious Five facing another new threat, an old peer of Master Oogway's, the spirit warrior Kai, who is determined to steal chi from all of the masters across China. Amidst this, Po reunites with his birth father, Li, who takes Po back to the hidden panda village, promising to teach him to use the power of chi he needs to properly confront Kai. Throw in a jealous, but well-meaning Mr. Ping, a village full of lovable new panda characters, and a plot about learning to become your best self and embracing who you are, and we result in an utterly beautiful movie with a touching and fantastic story to tell.

So yeah, I loved the hell out of this one. I still think the first Kung Fu Panda is my favorite of the series, it's just so beautiful in its simplicity and its message really spoke to me. But this one is also fantastic, with a lot more focus on the characters and the emotions this time around. Po is always a great character to follow; he's so fun and lovable and I love to see him come into his own as we round out his arc throughout the entire series in such a wonderful way. The Furious Five also get some much needed personality in here, with lots of great quips and jokes from them and Shifu alike. Mr. Ping gets some great focus, I always liked him in the first two movies, and he's just as much of a hilarious sweetheart here too.

As for our new characters, Li is a great addition to the cast; I love how he bonds so wonderfully with Po and they develop such a sweet father/son relationship that's put to the test when a certain revelation happens towards the middle of the movie, one that you can't even blame him for because he just doesn't want to lose his son again. The rest of the pandas are also a lot of fun, very silly and cute and not overstaying their welcome. Kai is SUCH a fun villain too! I will stand by my opinion that this series has consistantly great baddies, probably some of the best Dreamworks has to offer. Kai is hella intimidating, but he also has some hilarious moments too, courtesy of J.K. Simmons bringing his all to the role.

The animation here is next level. Like seriously, this franchise is consistently beautiful, but this one is just gorgeous. There were some moments in here that just made my jaw drop with how utterly pretty they are. The colors are so vibrant, the locations so lively, the characters move so fluidly, especially in fight scenes, and the stylization is so utterly well done that you can just tell so much love and care was put into every last frame. The music is also INSANE. Like seriously, Kai's theme alone goes so damn hard when it doesn't have to, and the rest of the score is so fucking beautiful man, I'm gonna have to listen to it while writing or drawing at some point just to soak it in by itself.

While not as emotionally impactful to me personally as say, HTTYD2, I still got a little choked up at some points here, especially during the climax and its aftermath. The movie also excells with its comedy, with a lot of really fun little jokes thrown in throughout. Overall, I feel like this movie tops Kung Fu Panda 2 because it just feels more... I don't know, focused? Like it doesn't meander and spend so much time on action scenes, it has plenty of that yes, but it also has so many solid character interactions as well. And I loved every second of it.

It's bittersweet to be bidding my second favorite Dreamworks franchise farewell as far as this watchthrough goes, but at least it's going out on an absolute high note (again, for now). Maybe I'll do a drive by review of Kung Fu Panda 4 when I see it, idk how to feel about it based on just the trailers alone, so I'll reserve judgement till then. As for Kung Fu Panda 3, well... it's a masterpiece. Simply put.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Verdict: Oh, to be an asexual panda with two dads

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[lecpenni]

LEC RETROSPECTIVE: ASTRALIS

Man, this one's just sad.

So Astralis have had a very unfortunate history in LEC so far. Rebranding Origen, which wasn't the most successful after 2016, qualifying to worlds in 2015 and making it to semifinals with that early Niels/Mithy botlane, before losing it to G2 and floundering around the bottom of the table until being demoted in 2017, and then being accepted as a partner org for LEC franchising.

After 2019's "superteam" lost in spring finals to the G2 actual Superteam, 2020's "superteam" (also featuring Upset, natch) performed basically ok then went 10th in summer, and rebranded to Astralis heading into 2021. Signing an all new roster going into 2021, they floundered around the bottom of the table, going 9th, tied 7th, then 9th and 10th in 2022. But the rosters always had flashes of brilliance with endearing players like Zanzarah, WhiteKnight who had arguably a top 3 lee sin in the world during that cursed Lane Sin period, and Kobbe who was a reliable rock looking for a team to finally step out of the shadow of his prior glories on Misfits and Splyce and his 2020 on TSM which was a disaaaaster. Well going into 2023, Astralis actually kept a surprisingly consistent core of Dajor in Mid, Kobbe in Bot, and Korean support Jeonghoon, previously known as Execute, who made a strong impression early in 2022 on Pyke and Bard, despite being on bottom CL rosters beforehand. In addition, they retained the same coaching staff, which while not the top tier of LEC coaches, you could do a WHOLE lot worse. The new additions were Finn in top lane, who had a... odd history prior to this. Debuting in 2019 Summer as a sub for Rogue, who had a fairly weak roster at that point, before making Worlds with a similar roster in 2020, and utterly flopping as the EU 3rd seed, moving to NA and joining CLG during their worst years ever, then coming back to EU and joining Excel during their most successful year, and missing out on worlds by getting reverse swept by a Fnatic who had a fair amount of promise. And in the Jungle, 113. I think most people would say he's probably one of the worse jungle prospects in the ERLs, and he certainly didn't impress while on KCorp, often dragging his team down. But, with a good coach and team around him, he could maybe impress. Early on, not many hopes were had for Astralis, who were often placed bottom 2 or 3 alongside SK in tier lists and power rankings, due to the slightly underwhelming pickups of 113 and Finn, Dajor's mostly amateurish gameplay and Kobbe and Jeonghoon probably being elo helled again due to this topside.

But against all odds, Astralis managed to not completely shit the bed in Winter! Overall they went 3-6 in winter, which did qualify them for Groups, barely. Losses to a new G2 and Yike on a carry jungler, vs Heretics with a brave ass Fiora pick, Vitality who actually did well in Winter overall, and BDS left them very unoptimistic going into week 3, but grabbing a win over Excel meant they were at least guaranteed a chance for top 8, with an incredibly dominant Lucian/Nami, and on Week 3, a clutch Gangplank from Finn snatched victory from the jaws of defeat dropping absolute gorgeous barrels that completely annihilated an MVP level Exakick on Lucian, and then the game that would decide if Astralis could make it to groups, vs a slumped Fnatic that would end up missing playoffs for the first time in their history. Astralis, against almost all odds made it to groups. You could argue it was off the back of Excel looking completely lifeless and horrendous, and Fnatic having a ridiculously poor season in a meta that hated them, but nonetheless, Astralis overcame them and a rising SK to make it to groups. Let's Goooo!!!! And in groups they shit it goddamn it. A 2-1 loss to MAD Lions, who ended up being Astralis' bane this season, with a genuinely unique and surprisingly strong Cassio/Twitch botlane (it lost anyways), and a monster performance from Dajor and the Botlane in Game 2, followed by getting a win over BDS who hadn't come into their winning ways just yet, anchored by a Kled from Finn, his previous one-trick, and a really damn good Varus from Kobbe, carrying them through to one last try at Playoffs. Who's their opponent MAD fucking lions goddamn it all.

A quick 2-0 from MAD, focusing a Dajor who floundered all series, and a fairly disastrous performance from 113, despite Kobbe's best effort on Lucian left Astralis in a maybe not respectable, but certainly surprising 5th place. They scrapped and fought their way up and punched up for most of their victories, demonstrating a style that maybe wasn't unlike some Asian teams, with a toplaner transitioned around the map to generate pressure, a roaming mid-jungle and a strongside botlane who made sure they were the stars. But most of all, they showed 0 fear on engaging and taking every little fight they could, to generate any kind of advantage. That made Astralis genuinely exciting to watch, but there was an obvious weak link on the roster, and that was Mid lane. Going into Spring, Dajor was out, and the rumoured Mid was none other than LIDER, a player who was often considered a dark horse for most inflexible player ever. The narrative was always that the man would and could only ever play assassins, an unusual thing in high level play, as most midlaners since 2016ish stuck to control mages, with occasional assasin picks or poke mages as niche counterpicks. But honestly? That was never true. LIDER did play mages as and when needed, the man just preferred assassins in the game, and he was still capable of your Ryzes, (with the meta changes) your Annies, your Aurelion Sols, even an Azir from time to time. Yes, assassins were his specialty, and mostly what he played, but the narrative that his assassins were his only successful picks? Just untrue. Spring began with a rough first week. FOR ASTRALIS' OPPONENTS, THAT IS. Taking games over KOI, who made playoffs last season, and the Champions G2, with a LIDER Irelia, and dropping a game to SK, with a... unique botlane of Veigar/Pyke that did NOT pay off. Week 2 went rougher, losing to MAD (i told you) and BDS, who came in with a clear gameplan and a perfect plan on how to execute every comp, and then taking a game off of Vitality thanks to a strong LIDER Asol, and a fairly bad game from Bo on the inverse. Week 3 began with a new look again, as LIDER got his Zed, and used it to utterly dominate midlane and carry Astralis through, basically securing playoffs for the team. A win over Excel, thanks to a LIDER Irelia, and a win over Fnatic with another LIDER Zed, a JeongHoon Blitzcrank secured Astralis their first 3-0 week, and a shot at the top couple spots of the season, placing 2nd overall. A damn good finish, if i've ever seen one. LIDER brought so much to the team, and they looked incredibly strong going into the next round. Some things hadn't changed, like 113's ability to be exploited, but overall this roster look shockingly strong, and their playstyle had been solidified, and bright eyes looked forward to groups. We begin the group stage against the one and only Fnatic, a genuinely shockingly close series for what should've been 2nd place vs 8th place, but an odd choice with Illaoi from Finn lost game 2, alongside a misguided Zed pick from LIDER, and a game 3 that hinged on the success of another LIDER Irelia, which managed to finally pull out the win after a half hour slugfest. Astralis, to be frank, were bleeding. They didn't look anywhere as scrappy or exciting as in the regular season, and their next series vs Vitality, to qualify for playoffs, well... Remember yesterday when I said this series was the one that showed the Bo That Was Promised, an insane mechanical hypercarry player who could demolish a team and turn them into a chinese tiktok montage? Yeah, Astralis was on the recieving end of that. 113 and LIDER got absolutely FARMED by a wukong, followed by a Lee Sin, and that was a deathblow for Astralis' mental it felt like. They had beat Vitality already once, like, what was this? Their next series, since they had already won the one vs Fnatic, was vs... MAD FUCKING LIONS. I told you they were their kryptonite this season.

And despite a Cassio and Talon (?) from LIDER, 113 got hard exposed and dominated by the mid jungle of MAD, ending their season, once again, early. This was a sad moment. Astralis had finally begun to reach the heights of the roster that was promised to them, but other teams started reaching their heights much faster than they did, and simply outclassed them. Over the break for MSI, Astralis was one of few roster to make no changes. They had a winning formula, the 2nd place in spring proved that, and the formula and strategy was locked down, scrap everywhere, fight everything, get lane dominant picks and move Finn around to every sidelane to make sure you couldn't do anything without worrying about where he was.

Well... Summer came. And this is where their story goes from hopeful rise of a plucky young adventurer, to a tragedy that ends with the adventurer getting beheaded by the mighty warlord at the end. Summer didn't go well. At all. Week 1 began with a game vs Fnatic, the team that they beat in Spring Groups, however now sporting a fashionable new Botlane of Noah and Trymbi, who proceeded to utterly shitstomp them. A game vs Heretics with a shiny new Vetheo and Flakked, who proceeded to utterly dismantle a LIDER Neeko, but ending the week on a positive note with one of the absolute worst earlygames i've ever had the pleasure of watching in pro league of legends, vs BDS. Nuc simply walks into LIDER for about 10 seconds letting him fully stack Lethal Tempo and nearly 1v2 Adam and Nuc. Please watch it, it's so absolutely pathetic and tragic for how the rest of the game now goes. Finn also helps by RPing Peak Shanji (the OMG toplaner known for his AP tops like Rumble) in the toplane vs Adam, and you know what. It's not the worst. It was a fun fucking game, but the fact that Astralis only won because BDS managed to completely annihilate their ENTIRE early game by doing that wasn't a good sign. Week 2 came by, Astralis were sitting tied with 5 other teams at 1-2, so not that well off, but they could be much worse. Right now they could be Excel still sitting at 0-3! First game, vs MAD lions oh for fuck sake why did they give Nisqy Gragas. That's like rule number 1 vs MAD since winter playoffs, don't give Nisqy Gragas. Well that's lost. Game 2, Vitality well this should be better, vitality look lost and helpless in almost every game now! And Astralis do it! Another Yasuo, with a Gragas for Finn in top handily sweeps the floundering Vitality, and Game 3 of the week pits them vs G2 aaaand yeah it goes about as well as you might think. The game's an absolute snoozer with 10 kills in almost 30 minutes, but demonstrates something amazing about G2 and something really bad about Astralis. Unless they're running the pace of the game, Astralis generally flounder. And G2 are professionals at running the game at the exact pace they desire. Week 3 comes by, and Astralis are a bit worse off. Now they're only tied with 3 other teams, and they could still make it to groups, but few people have high hopes for them. Some of the people they're tied against, they face this week, and BDS they've already beaten. This should be easy, right? Well they beat SK, thanks almost exclusively to a LIDER Azir, giving them one step up on the competition for 8th, now all they need is:

Beat KOI

SK Lose another game

Well, next game vs an Excel who got their first 3-0 week and look decently strong, they lose. No biggie. Would've been nice to win, but all they need now is SK lose (they didn't, they beat MAD) and to beat KOI. That KOI game was an absolute shitshow. Comp pulls out an off-meta Sivir and reminds the world why Sivir was the menace it was just after the rework, with a disasterclass from JeongHoon on Nautilus. Well, their season isn't over just yet! If SK lose to Fnatic, the First place team with a dominant insane botlane, an MVP jungler and one of the strongest toplaners right now, then Astralis qualify! Well they get a tiebreaker. But they've beaten SK before, it's doable again! That SK-Fnatic game was a nailbiter start to finish. From a surprisingly Humanoid Xerath, one of the most terrifying 4/4 Jaxes i've ever seen, and a ridiculous carry performance from Mr Sertussy, it was an end to Astralis' season. 9th place. Where most predicted they'd end in Winter and Spring. Afterwards, it's announced that due to Championship points, it's impossible to Astralis to qualify for Season finals, meaning for Finn, 113, LIDER, Kobbe and JeongHoon, that's it. Their season is completely over. Unlike Vitality who finished last, they're done for now. Following this was some truly heartbreaking posts, especially from Finn, which I'll show here in its entirety:

Finn spent most of the year playing at a high level, being massively underrated on Astralis' roster, and even arguably on Excel, and to lose like this is really heartbreaking. As he says, At the end of the day 2 teams have to miss out, this summer split it just ended up being us. Astralis' future is unknown. Even before the split, rumours were abound that the org was planning on collaborating with KCorp and making the LEC spot a joint-ownership between Astralis and KCorp, but that deal fell through. Most of these players deserve more shots, but most teams won't be shopping around for new players in the offseason until worlds in October/November. I do hope the best comes for this team and these players. APPENDED: I finished this post at around 3:30PM on Friday, and a report has just come out about an hour ago from blix.gg (read here on this link) that Astralis are considering selling their spot again, and negotiations got pretty far with Saudi Org, Falcons, who operate a french CSGO (now CS2 i guess) starring KennyS. Riot apparently blocked the sale, not wanting a Saudi investment firm to get in. Blix also says that some ERL teams are competing for the spot, and if it does end like this, man that's sad. Yeah Astralis weren't the best team but they had heart and their players were likeable as fuck, with genuinely cool plays and players across their history, even in the most dire days of their history.

[frenchietoastieboy]

it’s an ace attorney day ig so enjoy my yammering

sometimes i think abt the fact that i never finished spirit of justice and go :(. i played 6-1 and 6-2, got like halfway through 6-3 and skipped it to 6-4 and got to the civil trial in 6-5. turnabout storyteller was absolutely excellent but the rite of turnabout and turnabout revolution just didn’t hook me.

the hd release was my first time playing aa4-aa6 and honestly? i wasn’t expecting to like dual destinies much based on how it’s discussed but i really enjoyed it! athena and simon are some of my favorite characters from the franchise as a whole and their story absolutely carried the game for me. i also think dd has a fun crop of side characters-damian, jinxie, robin, junie, and aura especially. the visual cutscenes were a nice addition too. now, it’s not 5 stars to me-the writing in the monstrous turnabout and turnabout academy can feel especially clunky at times. i think trucy’s also really shafted here which is a disappointment after her arc in aa4.

i think spirit of justice has the same problems as dd, without the incredible characters and dynamics to balance them out. the apollo & nahyuta dynamic just doesn’t pull me in the way athena & simon’s did. i didn’t get as invested in the side characters either, and 6-2 (the magical turnabout) was kind of a letdown. i think aa4 did such a good job setting up troupe gramarye and there wasn’t the same energy here. athena feels kind of shafted here apart from turnabout storyteller as well, and she was a major highlight of dd for me.

idk, just kind of a :( thing to experience for the last game of the main 6. but i think next i might try my hand at the great ace attorney !!

[swetty88]

Steven Universe Future Timeline (Including The Movie) [Long Version]

When I started writing my Steven Universe Future fanfiction, I discovered that dates are very important to me. The day, month, even year. They may be minimal details in most series, but when I write, it's essential to know when the events occur, to have a stable chronological order.

One of the things I highlight about the Steven Universe franchise, in addition to its focus on diversity, love and acceptance, is the continuity in the story. Nothing that happens in the episodes is in vain, the events can be mentioned later. The “unsolved mysteries” thing doesn't count here, I think the crewniverse left some things up to our interpretation, which is fine, it's a good exercise for the mind.

So, keeping continuity in mind, today we will put dates for the events that occurred in The Movie and Future. I won't include the original series because there is already a very detailed timeline on Reddit, made by NubOnReddit. Click here to see the timeline of the original series.

We will consider some important details for the construction of the timeline. Some are based on the timeline on Reddit:

Steven's birthday is August 15 (Canon)

Steven was born in 2001, so he should be 16 in 2017 and 17 in 2018 (Headcanon)

Steven is 16 in the movie, in "Rose Buds" (he mentions it), in "Bismuth Casual" (he mentions it) and in "Growing Pains", the latter is seen in his medical record (Canon)

Snow episodes occur in December, so "Snow Day" occurs in December (Headcanon)

Beach City and possibly the state of Delmarva is a warm place, there's no snow during the end of December and the months of January and February (Peruvian headcanon, I don't know snow)

"Snow Day" occurs on a Monday (the start, snowing), Tuesday (tons of snow), and Wednesday (the snow disappears a little at the end) (Canon)

Little Homeschool's curriculum has a lot of freedom. Apparently you can join the school any day of the year, as seen with Cherry Quartz, Bluebird, and Nice Lapis. So, "Little Graduation" doesn't necessarily take place in June (Headcanon)

There are only a few days between "Little Homeschool" and "Guidance". In the second episode, the GHEM (Gem-Human Excellence Mentorship) program that Amethyst implemented is recent, and it would fit so well if she implemented it at the beginning of school. So the distance between both episodes is a few days minimum to a week maximum (Headcanon)

In "Snow Day", a note on Steven's smartphone says that the third quarter starts next week. It's very difficult to estimate a third quarter when there is a lot of freedom to join the school, when in "Little Graduation" only the Off Colors graduate and when in our world the third quarter is in February in the United States. Since Steven doesn't know what a school year is (seen in "Bismuth Casual"), let's assume that he believes that third quarter means the third month of four months, from the start of school. Also, it would have a more literal meaning (Headcanon)

In "Guidance" and "Rose Buds", Steven is seen eating meat (Pepperoni on pizza and a small piece of meat respectively). Since in "Snow Day" Steven says that he has been a vegetarian for a month, "Rose Buds" must take place at least a month before "Snow Day" (Canon)

There is a distance of at least two months between "Little Homeschool" and "Little Graduation", since it's in that period of time where Sadie starts dating with Shep (in the episode Sadie mentions that they have been dating for almost two months and Lars mentions that they met during the tour with The Suspects) (Canon)

Graduations at Little Homeschool occur at the end of the fourth quarter (or fourth month according to Steven's perspective), so there is a gap of two months with a few days between "Snow Day" and "Little Graduation" (Headcanon)

In "Prickly Pair", Steven took care of his plants the old-fashioned way, without healing spit. Among his flowers, there's a blue campanula, this flower blooms between early and mid-summer (June and July in the United States respectively). So that there is a logical space for later episodes, let's assume that "Prickly Pair" takes place in June, and that a good amount of time must pass between this episode and "Little Graduation" so that Steven has time to take care of his plants the old-fashioned way (Headcanon)

In "Bismuth Casual", actually hours before off camera, Daniel's mother scolds him for his grades of the last exams (from the cram school, according to what I searched, there they prepare for the school exams). School vacations in the United States are usually at the end of May or beginning of June, although according to what I searched, it can also be in mid-June. As the events in "Prickly Pair" occur earlier, the events of this episode will occur before mid-June, a few days before school exams (Headcanon)

In "Together Forever", from Steven and Connie's initial dialogue, we can assume that Connie recently chose which university to enter, and that before the episode she must have visited Steven to leave her brochure at his house. We can assume that Connie is already on vacation at this time, since she has a little more freedom for the aforementioned events to occur and to implement her fifteen-minute break with Steven (which also seems to be recent). Also, in this same episode there are classes at Little Homeschool. Gems don't get tired like humans but I think they will also want their Saturdays and Sundays off (Headcanon)

At the end of "Together Forever", Connie tells Steven that she will call him tomorrow at lunchtime, which she does in the first minutes of "Growing Pains". Also, in "Growing Pains" the Gems went on a field trip and Greg was the manager of Sadie and Shep. Since Greg didn't appear in "Together Forever", we'll assume he was away from Delmarva at the time, and the Gems could have easily left for the field trip in the morning, hours before "Growing Pains" (which seems to be around 2 pm or 3 pm). In conclusion, the events of "Growing Pains" occur one day after "Together Forever" (Headcanon)

In "Mr. Universe", Steven mentions that he went to the hospital two days ago, so the events of "Mr. Universe" take place two days after "Growing Pains" (Canon)

In "Mr. Universe", Greg mentions that his parents are away because they go to Florida Island every winter every year. It's impossible to move this episode to the past because it's part of a chain of successive events (From "Together Forever" to "I Am My Monster" all the events occur almost after the other, if you remove one, the chain is broken). So, in order not to create an erratum, let's say that Greg's parents go to Florida Island in the winter, but a few years ago they started going in the summer as well, only Greg didn't know it (Headcanon)

We don't need to wait a week for the Gems to return from the field trip, most likely after Steven crashed the van, he or Greg contacted them to help them. It could also have happened that Greg called a transportation service to take the van to the beach, but they would have still contacted the gems since it was an emergency. So, the beginning of "Fragments" occurs one day after the events of "Mr. Universe" (Headcanon)

"Fragments" occupies a range of 5 days: Steven goes to the forest and asks Jasper to train him on the first day, Jasper trains him for the next three days, on the fifth day we see Chad Steven (name for Steven Post-Training according to the official consensus of the fandom) and that same day he shatters and revives Jasper (Canon)

"Homeworld Bound" occurs at night of the same day that Steven shattered and revived Jasper, and also takes place at dawn the next day (Canon)

"Everything's Fine" occurs from the morning until approximately 1 pm or 2 pm, a few minutes after the end of "Homeworld Bound" (Headcanon)

"I Am My Monster" occurs on the same day as "Everything's Fine", during the afternoon (Canon)

"The Future" occurs a few months after "I Am My Monster" (Canon)

Despite the usual warm weather in Beach City, this city also has its cold days. Because Connie's outfits in the episode are warmer compared to what she wore the rest of the season, "The Future" takes place between October to early December (Headcanon)

Taking the details into account, let's start with the construction of the timeline:

Steven Universe: The Movie

For greater precision, we will decompose the key events into days and periods (morning, afternoon, sunset, night, early morning):

The detailed breakdown will only be for the movie, for the episodes they will be shorter, don't worry.

Day 1:

Morning (Before 12 pm): From when Steven returns to Beach City (Start) until the end of the song "Happily Ever After"

Afternoon (Between 12 pm and 6 pm): From the arrival of Spinel with the injector until the end of the song "No Matter What"

Sunset (Between 6 pm and 7 pm): From when Amethyst recovers her memory until the moment they plan how to recover Pearl's memories

Night (Between 7 pm to 12 am): From Sadie Killer and the Suspects' concert until after the song "Drift Away"

Day 2:

Early morning (Between 12 am and 6 am): From when Steven and Spinel go to the former's house until the injector explodes

Morning (6 am to 7 am): After the injector explosion until the shot with the main cast on Little Homeworld, before the scene where Beach City is repaired

There is an important detail in the movie: Going by the poster with the date of Sadie Killer and the Suspects' concert, "Day 1" would be May 21. Including the possible year where Steven was born, the exact date would be Monday, May 21, 2018, where Steven would be 16 years, 9 months and 6 days. However, on this day it's not possible for the events of "Day 1" to occur for two reasons:

Connie going to space camp: According to what I found, space camps usually last a week, or 6 or 9 days, also, they are a day and night stay. May is a school month, and since May 21, 2018 was a Monday, Connie should be at school, and I doubt her parents have requested permission from the school. They support her interests but I don't think they would allow her daughter to miss a week of school when they can wait until the vacations to enroll her in space camp.

Steven is 16 in "Growing Pains": Since Future is in chronological order, "Growing Pains" takes place some time after "Snow Day", which takes place in winter. Thus, Steven should have been 17 years old at the time, but his medical record shows that he is still 16.

Fortunately, one of the film's storyboarders (Petersen, I think) confirmed that May 21 was the date when she drew the poster, not necessarily the date of the film. So we can give a slightly different date, taking into account this details:

It must be during school vacations in the United States so Connie can go to space camp.

It must be after August 15, 2017 and before December of the same year, only then can Steven be 16 in "Growing Pains"

In short, putting both details together, the events of the movie can only occur after August 15 until before mid-September.

Don't worry about altering the date on the poster in the movie. In the original series there were slight situations of erratum, such as Garnet asking a question in the episode "Cheeseburger Backpack" in the first season (When Garnet never asks questions, except in her Cotton Candy form) or Connie being affected by Blue Diamond's power in a scene in "Reunited" (When she's immune bacause she's human, this was seen in the rest of the episode and in later episodes). Altering the date of the poster will only be one more moment of erratum.

And guess what. We don't need to alter the poster date much! The 21st is a nice day for the events to occur, so we can say that the events of "Day 1" of the movie occurred on August 21, 2017, which curiously falls on a Monday just like May 21, 2018. The only difference is that it would be during the school vacations season.

Therefore, the events of the movie occur on Monday, August 21, 2017 and Tuesday, August 22, 2017.

For now, I'll skip the time it takes to rebuild Beach City and finish building Little Homeworld. We are going to include them, but to avoid time clashes with some Future episodes, we'll estimate the exact date starting with the episodes with a more precise time period based on the important details that I explained at the beginning. The summary of the initial estimates would be this:

Except for "The Future", all episodes take place in 2018 before August 15, 2018, because Steven is 16 years old

"Snow Day" is the last episode that occurs in 2017, the rest occur in 2018 before August 15 (except "The Future")

"Little Homeschool" and "Guidance" are maximum one week apart

"Rose Buds" and "Snow Day" are at least a month away

"Snow Day" occurs from a Monday to a Wednesday in December. Furthermore, it occurs a week before the third quarter of Little Homeschool

For Steven, and by extension for Little Homeschool, third quarter means the third month of four months

"Little Homeschool" and "Little Graduation" are at least two months apart

"Little Graduation" occurs two months and a few days after "Snow Day", on the last day of the fourth quarter

"Prickly Pair" occurs in June

"Bismuth Casual" occurs shortly before mid-June

"Together Forever" happens a few days after the start of the school vacations, in June precisely.

"Growing Pains" occurs one day after "Together Forever"

"Mr. Universe" takes place two days after "Growing Pains"

"Fragments" has a range of five days. The first day takes place one day after "Mr. Universe"

"Homeworld Bound" occurs on the night of the fifth day of "Fragments" and the early morning of the next day.

"Everything's Fine" takes place a few minutes after "Homeworld Bound" and one day after the fifth day of "Fragments"

"I Am My Monster" occurs on the same day that "Everything's Fine"

"The Future" occurs between October and December

A new detail: To facilitate calculations, let's assume that Little Homeschool started on the first Monday of a month or on the first day of the month. It doesn't necessarily have to start after they finish building Little Homeworld, let's give Steven and the Crystal Gems time to create the curriculum

With this details, we see that the episode with the most precise time period is "Snow Day", which begins on a Monday and a week before the third month of four school months. According to the 2017 calendar, the episode may occur on December 4, 11, 18 or 25. Curiously, the first day of the year 2018 was Monday, January 1. With our estimate that classes began on the first day or Monday of some month, the events of Snow Day occur from Monday, December 25 to Wednesday, December 27.

Fact: The fact that the episode takes place on December 25 doesn't interfere with Christmas. In the world of Steven Universe, Christmas isn't celebrated in the same way as it's here. I don't know if it's true that someone from the crew said that religions don't exist in S.U. (They did say that New Year's is the only holiday), but since in "Bismuth Casual" we saw that Patricia is Muslim, this answer changes. My guess is that, in the S.U. world, Christmas would be celebrated only by Christians and in the traditional way (without a Christmas tree for example). That's why we don't see Steven and the Gems celebrating Christmas.

Returning to the construction of Future's timeline, with our first date found, we can conclude that Little Homeschool began on Wednesday, November 1, 2017. Therefore, the end of the fourth month and therefore, the graduation of the Off Colors takes place on Wednesday, February 28, 2018. The end of "Little Graduation" with the main CGs putting up the Welcome New Students sign and with Steven quit running the school, takes place on Thursday, March 1, 2018, on first day of the new first quarter.

In summary, we have these dates at the moment:

Little Homeschool began on Wednesday, November 1, 2017

"Snow Day" occurs from Monday, December 25 to Wednesday, December 27

"Little Graduation" occurs from Wednesday, February 28, 2018 to Thursday, March 1, 2018

What's next? Estimate episode dates before "Snow Day". We have to consider some new details:

Each episode in this group occupies one day, except "A Very Special Episode", which occurs over two days but may be a few more days apart.

"Little Homeschool", "Volleyball", "Bluebird" and "A Very Special Episode" (both days seen) can occur between Monday to Friday, because they are school days at Little Homeschool

"Guidance" can take place on a Saturday or Sunday, because we see children in the episode when they should be in school then. We can consider the GHEM program that Amethyst created as an extracurricular activity, although gems can also work during classes as long as their schedules don't intersect.

"Rose Buds" takes place on a Saturday or Sunday, because we see Steven and the main CGs without doing something related to school

With this details, we'll make our estimates.

In "Little Homeschool", the school seems to be too new, it gives off those vibes, so the events of the episode could take place in the second week of November, but when? As a classic symbolism of Monday, the beginning of the work week, let's say that "Little Homeschool" occurs on Monday, November 6, 2017.

We said that "Guidance" must occur on a Saturday or Sunday and that it must be at most a week away from "Little Homeschool". This would give us November 11 and 12 as possible dates. And there is something curious here: In the United States, November 11 is Veterans Day, it's a day that commemorates military veterans (living and fallen) who served the Armed Forces during times of war or peace. This date was designated because it coincides with the commemoration of the end of the First World War. In the S.U. world, I understand that there were no world wars, so I doubt this date will be celebrated. However, the gems, especially the uncorrupted ones, are basically that: military veterans who fought in a war millennia ago. In "Guidance" we see these veteran gems working on what they wanted, so, as a reason for honor and a nod to our world, this episode takes place on Saturday, November 11, 2017.

Since "Snow Day" occurs on December 25, "Rose Buds" must occur on or before November 25. November 25th falls on a Saturday, exactly the same month for Steven to go vegetarian for a month in "Snow Day", but "Rose Buds" could also occur on November 18th or 19th and there would be no problem. To give some harmony to the events and the timeline (minimum one episode occurring each week), this episode occurs on Sunday, November 19, 2017

"Volleyball" looks like a Wednesday to me. So, to continue harmony, this episode occurs on Wednesday, November 22, 2017.

As we saw in "Bluebird", every new gem on Earth has a party. But I find it difficult to have a party for each new gem. There are several (especially if you count the ones that come from Homeworld, there would be many parties in a row in the end) and Cherry Quartz didn't have her party in the first episode. Let's assume that Bluebird was very lucky to arrive on Earth in the second quarter, so she had her party as it was also the beginning of the second month of four school months. Therefore, "Bluebird" occurs on Friday, December 1, 2017

If you noticed, in this group of episodes we are selecting a different day of the week for each episode. Now, the remaining days are Tuesday and Thursday, and we only have one episode left, which is "A Very Special Episode" and, fortunately, it shows two days: The episode itself and the lesson of the episode narrated by Sunstone. Since the timeline of the original series on Reddit (my inspiration for creating this Future timeline) a snowy episode is located in mid-December, we will place "A Very Special Episode" between Tuesday, December 5 (first day) and Thursday, December 7 (second day).

Before moving forward a few months, we still have one episode left: "Why So Blue?" What happens after "Snow Day" and before "Little Graduation". From this episode we enter the year 2018 and as "Little Graduation" occurs in February, this episode will occur in January. But on which day? I searched for celebrations in January and found an International Mentoring Day. This day falls on January 17 and its basis is for a person with more experience to share their knowledge with someone with less experience (I don't know if it's explained well, I've never heard this day before). In the episode, Steven and Lapis try to teach two Lapises to not destroy worlds. More or less the concept of the day comes in there. Therefore, the episode occurs on Wednesday, January 17, 2018

And before we continue with Future's timeline, we need to wrap up something pending. We are going to estimate the time it takes to rebuild Beach City and to finish the construction of Little Homeworld, since from Future both are already 100% built.

During the song "Finale" we have 4 shots of Beach City, the first was how it looked at the end of the day (August 22) and the following were gradual advances. I'd say it took three weeks to repair Beach City, but considering Steven has healing spit, he could put a small pinch of spit in a giant tank and all the water would take on healing properties. With a plane or ship, they would dump the water throughout Beach City, eliminating the liquid from the injector and reestablishing the flora. This would speed up the reconstruction of Beach City, allowing Little Homeworld to finish being built shortly afterward (During the movie it was at 83.7%). Additionally, all the gems that live on Earth would help in both constructions, which would shorten the time it takes to repair Beach City.

Putting both constructions together, we will estimate the duration like this:

Beach City was completely rebuilt in 10 days: The flora was reborn in three days with a few liters of water (combined with Steven's healing spit) dropped from the sky. The reconstruction of the affected establishments would last a week, ending on Friday, September 1, 2017.

Little Homeworld finished 100% construction 46 days after rebuilding Beach City: I calculated the days with mathematical calculations. Steven was 14 years, 8 months and a few days at the end of Change Your Mind. To round out the equation, let's assume that construction on Little Homeworld began a few days after Steven turned 15. One year would be equivalent to 80% completed (The remaining 3.7% can be distributed in the following days after your 16th birthday) and using the rule of three simple ((365*20)/80 in our example), Little Homeworld will be finished in 91.25 days. But since it would be a little more than a month after November 1, the date when school starts, this result wouldn't be possible. But we can work around it, assuming that the gems rushed twice as hard with the remaining build or that what was missing wasn't that complicated. This would give us a total of 45,625 days, but we will round it up to 46 days, so Little Homeworld will be finished on Tuesday, October 17. We have a few extra days left, in those days Steven and the Crystal Gems would plan the curriculum, Lars would open his bakery and Sadie Killer and The Suspects would start their tour. In conclusion, everything fits and doesn't alter any assigned date.

Let's see how the dates are going for the moment. We can omit the start date of Little Homeschool, we don't need it anymore:

Movie: Mon 21 Aug 2017 - Tue 22 Aug 2017

Little Homeschool: Mon 6 Nov 2017

Guidance: Sat 11 Nov 2017

Rose Buds: Sun 19 Nov 2017

Volleyball: Wed 22 Nov 2017

Bluebird: Fri Dec 1, 2017

A Very Special Ep: Tue Dec 5, 2017 - Thu Dec 7, 2017

Snow Day: Mon 25 Dec 2017 - Wed 27 Dec 2017

Why So Blue?: Wed Jan 17, 2018

Little Graduation: Wed 28 Feb 2018 - Thu 1 Mar 2018

Now, let's move forward a few months in our timeline. For this second group of episodes let's consider these details:

There's an unbreakable chain from "Together Forever" to "I Am My Monster", this subgroup of episodes is quite connected and when we get here, it will be very easy to find the dates, since we know the range of days of all the episodes in this chain

"Prickly Pair" occurs within a three-day range. Due to the presence of the Crystal Gems in the house during the afternoon on the first two days, the episode occurs from a Saturday afternoon to a Monday morning

"In Dreams" occurs within a range of two days, and since Peridot is present in the house, it occurs on a Saturday and Sunday

"Bismuth Casual" occurs in one day (or rather, in one night). As the cram school exams mention, this episode occurs between Monday to Friday

"Together Forever" lasts one day and occurs between Monday and Friday, because there are classes at Little Homeschool

"Everything's Fine" happens between Monday and Friday because there are classes. Considering the chain that unites the episodes from "Together Forever" to "I Am My Monster", if "Together Forever" occurs on a Monday, "Everything's Fine" occurs on a Wednesday of the following week. Therefore, "Together Forever" can only occur on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, so "Everything's Fine" occurs on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday respectively

Related to the previous information, since "Together Forever", Connie must be on vacation so she can be present in "Everything's Fine" and "I Am My Monster"

"The Future" occurs in a range of two days, the second day would be from five in the morning (because of the almost night sky at the end, compared to the dark sky at the time when Steven and Greg were packing the things from the former). As Connie is present on the morning of the first day and it doesn't appear to be a school day at Little Homeschool, the first day occurs on a Saturday or Sunday and the second day occurs on a Sunday or Monday respectively

With this details, let's start getting the dates for the second group of episodes. We estimate that "Prickly Pair" occurs in June, and school vacations in the United States usually begin in that same month. In order not to clash the dates, we will start by calculating the date of "Bismuth Casual"

We said that "Bismuth Casual" occurs in mid-June, this means that it must occur between Monday 11 and Friday 15. But we have an important detail to consider: In 2018, June 14 was Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim holiday. which marks the end of Ramadan, a celebration that consists of fasting, prayer, reflection and community. And in this episode appears Patricia, a Muslim teenager, so we must choose a date when she can be present without interfering with Ramadan so that she can perform the night prayers (Tarawih). The only date available in the selected week is Friday 15, so we'll say that "Bismuth Casual" occurs on Friday, June 15, 2018.

With our first date of this group of episodes, let's back up a bit and go to "Prickly Pair". Firstly, it can't coincide with "In Dreams" because they both occupy a Saturday and Sunday, so they must be at least a week apart. Fortunately, we have two free weeks in June before the events in "Bismuth Casual", and we also find the date of two episodes at the same time. In conclusion, "Prickly Pair" occurs from Saturday, June 2, 2018 to Monday, June 4, 2018, and "In Dreams" occurs from Saturday, June 9, 2018 to Sunday, June 10, 2018

This is when we enter into an important calculation, the date where "Together Forever" occurs will define when the episodes occur consecutively until "I Am My Monster". Since "Bismuth Casual" occurs on Friday, June 15, there must be at least a week away so that exam week passes and Connie can be on vacation. This data would allow us to calculate that, at least at the school Connie goes to, the vacations have started after Friday, June 22, and from this date, we must add some days so that Connie can decide to apply to Jayhawk, visit Steven and leave a university brochure at home. So what date do we choose? I searched for June celebrations and found that June 27 was designated as National PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) Awareness Day. In "Growing Pains" we saw that Steven has PTSD and Dr. Maheswaran gave a good explanation of the topic, so it would be significant to choose this date as the events of "Growing Pains". As in 2018, June 27 was a Wednesday, "Together Forever" would occur on Tuesday 26, this date meets the details for the estimates, as it occurs shortly after Friday 22 and gives enough time for Connie to thoroughly plan her application to Jayhawk, visit Steven and leave the brochure at his house.

It's time to find most of the remaining dates using the "Together Forever" and "I Am My Monster" chain. With all episodes occurring in 2018, "Together Forever" takes place on Tuesday, June 26, "Growing Pains" takes place on Wednesday, June 27, "Mr. Universe" takes place on Friday, June 29, "Fragments" takes place from Saturday, June 30 to Wednesday, July 4, "Homeworld Bound" occurs from the night of Wednesday, July 4 to the morning of Thursday, July 5, "Everything's Fine" and "I Am My Monster" occur on Thursday, July 5.

Now, the moment of truth has arrived. Let's find the date where "The Future", the last episode of Steven Universe Future, occurred. To make our lives easier, we'll do discard methods:

Because of Connie's outfits we said that the episode takes place in October or December, but when everyone is saying goodbye to Steven like a celebrity at approximately five in the morning, we see that some of them don't have such warm outfits, and since it would be 5 am, It would be colder than usual. So we'll reduce some days and say that the episode occurs in October or mid-November

The episode "I Am My Monster" occurred on Thursday, July 5. To give Steven more time to heal from his traumas (but let's remember that he's not fully recovered, plus when you have PTSD it's more about learning to live with it in a healthy way, because it's very difficult to say recovering from PTSD by complete) and be ready to travel around the country, we'll estimate that "The Future" occurs in November (early or mid), which would be four months away from "I Am My Monster"

One of the possible dates for both days is Sunday, November 11, that is, Veterans Day. We said that the gems, especially the uncorrupted ones, represent being military veterans, and Steven could tell in a similar way, because although he didn't participate in any war, we can say that he put a definitive end to the war between the Crystal Gems and the gems of Homeworld. However, the only healed gems (not counting Jasper) who said goodbye to Steven are Larimar, Bixbite and Blue Lace, there with the group of humans who woke up early to say goodbye to Steven like a celebrity, while others from this group wander around the city as if nothing had happened (believe me, at that time most of the healed gems disappointed me a little). It would be a bit sour to choose this date for "The Future" when only three gems did what the other fifteen should also do and didn't (I think I'll talk about this in a separate post soon). Therefore, Saturday 10, Sunday 11 and Monday 12 are discarded.

One of the possible dates for the second day is Monday, November 5. "Little Homeschool" takes place on Monday, November 6, 2017, so choosing Monday 5 as the date for "The Future" would be symbolic. A year ago was the beginning of Steven's problems that unleashed his pink outburst and now, he is healing from his traumas and began a journey to discover himself.

Do we continue to discard more or go for the symbolism? I think we'll go for the symbolism, plus it's a good day for Steven to start his journey. Finalizing the timeline, the episode "The Future" occurs from Sunday, November 4, 2018 to Monday, November 5, 2018.

With all the dates found, the Steven Universe Future timeline, including the movie, looks like this:

Movie:

Monday, August 21, 2017 - Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Little Homeschool:

Monday, November 6, 2017

Guidance:

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Rose Buds:

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Volleyball:

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Bluebird:

Friday, December 1, 2017

A Very Special Episode:

Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - Thursday, December 7, 2017

Snow Day:

Monday, December 25, 2017 - Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Why So Blue?:

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Little Graduation:

Wednesday, February 28, 2018 - Thursday, March 1, 2018

Prickly Pair:

Saturday, June 2, 2018 - Monday, June 4, 2018

In Dreams:

Saturday, June 9, 2018 - Sunday, June 10, 2018

Bismuth Casual:

Friday, June 15, 2018

Together Forever:

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Growing Pains:

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Mr. Universe:

Friday, June 29, 2018

Fragments:

Saturday, June 30, 2018 - Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Homeworld Bound:

Wednesday, July 4, 2018 - Thursday, July 5, 2018

Everything's Fine:

Thursday, July 5, 2018

I Am My Monster:

Thursday, July 5, 2018

The Future:

Sunday, November 4, 2018 - Monday, November 5, 2018

It took some time to make the timeline, but we did it. The final result seems quite realistic to me, so I consider it a good job.

More:

Short Version

Spanish Version | Versión en Español

[renyen808]

2023 Movies You Need to Watch (Part One)

The year of 2023. What an interesting year it was for me personally. Honestly, I’m done with this year, so instead of thinking about the memories I’d rather forget, let’s go through the best movies of the year!

Scream 6 (Released March 10th)

(Credit: Wikipedia)

Starring: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding

Director(s): Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Scream 6 is the first movie on my list and first horror movie! With the fifth movie being an excellent addition to the franchise, this sixth installment takes us out of Woodsboro and into the city that never sleeps: New York. This movie clearly benefits from the change of scenery, adding suspense in ways that was unreachable for the franchise until this point, like the subway scene with Mindy (Jasmin Savoy-Brown) or the ladder scene with Anika (Devyn Nekoda). The story follows sisters Sam (Barrera) and Tara (Ortega) as they fight against another Ghostface. 

(Credit: Variety)

What made this one stand out to me more is the lack of legacy characters this time around. Courtney Cox returns as Gale Weathers, in a very small cameo, while Hayden Panettiere reprises her role as Kirby Reed from Scream 4 in a much more substantial role. Despite those additions, this is Barrera and Ortega’s movie, with their relationship becoming the main thing holding the movie together. The Ghostfaces (Yes, more than one) are kinda mediocre and predictable, but the motives aren’t, which makes up for it. All in all, an awesome suspenseful film that is a perfect end to a franchise, thanks to Barrera, Ortega, and the director leaving. 

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Released March 31st)

(Credit: Wikipedia)

Starring: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis

Director(s): Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley

An underrated gem from this year is Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The trailers did this movie an injustice, as it was nothing like they made it out to be. Pine and Rodriguez play a perfect platonic pair of friends as they try to survive in this big fantasy world. The story follows Edgin (Pine) and Holga (Rodriguez) as they travel across the world to save Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) from Forge (Hugh Grant). Everyone plays their parts to perfection, and it makes you feel like you’re playing as these characters, and it shows that not everything will go as planned. 

(Credit: NY Post)

There are so many funny moments from the Fat Dragon to different ways Edgin gets out of sticky situations. It also helps that both Smith and Lillis play excellent side characters that add to the awkward dynamic that may feel familiar to D&D players. Along with that, there are fun cameos from different actors that I won’t spoil that made me and my friends laugh. I hate that this film didn’t get more love because it truly is a joy to watch it. All in all, this is an amazing movie that deserves more love, and you should give it a watch if you haven’t, you’ll enjoy it!!

Evil Dead Rise (Released April 21st)

(Credit: IMDb)

Starring: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols

Director: Lee Cronin

Another horror movie that came out this year, and on my birthday, was Evil Dead Rise! This was my first time watching an Evil Dead movie in the theater, and I really enjoyed it, thanks to other patrons in the theater. This movie was brutal, but not as brutal as the 2013 remake. A lot of people were mad about how goofy the movie was, but that’s actually my favorite part! It was like a return to the original Evil Dead, taking it back to its roots. I loved the change in scenery, from a cabin in the middle of the woods to an apartment building on the verge of falling apart. 

(Credit: Variety)

The cold open was literally the best part, shoving people into the deep end and showing what’s to come. The story follows sisters Beth (Sullivan) and Ellie (Sutherland) as Ellie becomes possessed and begins to attack her sister and three children in their apartment. It was so suspenseful and insanely dramatic, to the point where it was laughable in the best way possible. Although, I’ll admit, the ending kind of lost me a little, I was willing to look past it thanks to the performances of the actors on screen. Overall, I say if you’re a fan of the first three Evil Dead movies starring Bruce Campbell, I highly recommend it. If you’re a fan of only the 2013 remake, I suggest going in with a bit of a warning that it is not as intense as the previous remake. 

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (Released May 5th)

(Credit: IMDb)

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan 

Director: James Gunn

The end of a beautiful trilogy. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 not only solidifies the fact that this is the best trilogy, but also Gunn’s reputation as the best director in the MCU. From the very beginning, Gunn perfectly captured the tone of the film, and didn’t let me go until the very end. The story revolves around Rocket (Bradley Cooper) suffering a deadly injury, where Peter (Pratt) and the other Guardians travel to save him. 

(Credit: Space.com)

Throughout this movie, I was so anxious that someone was going to die, but to my surprise, Gunn didn’t kill anyone off. I adore this film so much, and while Gunn has left, I will hold this story and the other two in my heart forever. If you would like to read more about the Guardians from me, please go to my previous post!

The Little Mermaid (Released May 26th)

(Credit: Wikipedia)

Starring: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina

Director: Rob Marshall

Ah, the best Disney remake. Ariel has always been my favorite princess. I wasn’t born when the movie first came out, but coming from Hawai’i, I’m constantly surrounded by water, so how could I not have Ariel as my favorite princess? When I heard that they were remaking it for live action, I was excited. I was even more excited when they casted Bailey in the role. 

(Credit: Screencrush)

Although I am not African American myself, I am a POC, and it made me so happy to see representation. I can see the joy in other girls' faces when they see Bailey performing as Ariel, and it brings a tear to my eye. I never had anything like that growing up and seeing them makes me so happy. If you would like to read more about The Little Mermaid, please read my post below.

Spider Man: Across the Spider Verse (Released June 2nd)

(Credit: IMDb)

Starring: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brain Tyler Henry, Lauren Vélez

Director(s): Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson

The sequel to the highly praised Spider Verse movie has finally been released this year, and it does not disappoint. First off, addressing something in the room, although it is a Part One to another movie, this is a full movie, and it does end on a cliffhanger, but it has an ending! This movie tries to pack so much into its runtime, that I’m surprised it even accomplished being a complete movie! It builds off of everything that happened in ‘Into the Spiderverse’, building off of characters like Gwen and Peter B. Parker, while also making us care about new characters, like Spider Punk and Spider-Man India. 

(Credit: Polygon)

This might be pretty contriversial, but I am not a fan of Spider-Man 2099, he’s too much of an asshole for me to care about him. The only saving grace is that he’s played by Oscar Isaac. Also, Jason Schwartzman as the villain was surprisingly amazing, and his origin story is hilarious. All in all, an excellent sequel that leaves me dying for more!

Elemental (Released June 16th)

(Credit: Disney Movies)

Starring: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi

Director: Peter Sohn

Pixar is still releasing bangers, with Elemental being added to the list. First off, the trailers did this movie a HUGE disservice! It sold it as some whimsical world where elements live together in harmony, but it is a retelling of Sohn’s life story told through the eyes of Ember (Lewis). It is emotional, and it hits me in a certain way, thanks to being raised with Asian parents. 

(Credit: Los Angeles Times)

Ember and Wade (Athie) are both adorable in their own way, and I believe that people just saw this as a Zootopia rip off and decided not to go. It’s not!! They’re two different stories!! Please go ahead and watch it if you haven’t!! You will not be disappointed. With Pixar movies just being shoved into Disney+, Elemental deserves to be on the big screen. 

With that, I’m ending the first part here! Thank you for reading, be on the lookout for Part Two and my review of The Iron Claw, coming out next week!

[desultory-novice]

 DanganRonpa CAN be scary, I think in particular, the creepily directed "executions", thanks to their uncanny animation style, can shake one up a bit to watch. Although 70% of the time, they are so silly in :cough: execution it douses the horror of what's happening on screen somewhat. (The first game's first execution is generally ranked as the most violent, and that's because it was a holdover from when the game leaned way more into grunge-horror.) A few of the murders lean on the grisly side, but I think most are more shocking than "gross." And then there's the pink blood!

Once you get past all that, DR is a very excellent story of not just :cough: hope (...I know...) but humanity and what it means to face yourself and hopefully, rise above. The characters are forced into a killing game, and the mastermind's goal usually leans (among other things) on painting a really nasty portrait of people. How "easy" it is to get someone to sink to this level where they'll murder people they're supposed to cooperate with or be friends.

But what you come away from in each case, generally, is sympathy and a sense of loss. For the victim and the murderer. DR is unarguablly EXCELLENT at turning you around on characters. Making you hate someone you loved, love someone you hated, or circle right back around to your first impression!

I adore DR for its depiction of how our best qualities WILL find a way to shine through, even in our worst moments. That even the death of a "jerk" is a tragedy, to someone, somewhere. Everyone (?) has a story in DR. The world isn't "black and white" despite the presence of Monobear.

It's honestly uplifting and powerful. Some of the best "death game" stories are, but DR still holds a position near the top for its creativity, wit, and message. (Minus points for some stuff that's pretty uncomfortable across a variety of spectrums, though your mileage will vary on that. And there are a honestly a FEW weak characters across the franchise, I'll admit.)

DanganRonpa V3 is one of my favorite video games of all time though - beating out DR2, which was itself incredibly good. (Although 2's protagonist, Hajime Hinata, remains my favorite DR character, hands down. Hinata's just one of those impactful characters who changed my life in a good way.)

...Btw, the anime adaptation of 1 is generally fine, but Dangan Ronpa 3 (anime series, different from the V3 game) is awful, and it is every "bad" thing you've ever heard about DR. It is unnecessarily violent and mean, relishes in how much humanity sucks, goes against the general care DR treated its characters with till now, relies on deus ex machina and "gotcha" moments instead of clever murder puzzles (and absolutely wastes the premise of borrowing from one of my favorite analog games :grumble grumble:) and doesn't add anything to the story or mythos you couldn't already have figured out on your own. It has ONE good (?) character in it and <spoilers> they don't make it. To me, it also weakens the earlier games in a way I can't even get into without spoilers, but a certain reveal turned one of my other favorite characters into one of my least favorite. Apologies to anyone who likes it for having to make it through that paragraph but... no. I even rewatched it recently and still... no.

...

...Darn it, all this talk about DanganRonpa made me go back and binge watch all Chapter 2 of DR The After. Grah! That trial is SO good it's unfair that DR The After is only a DR fan game/doujin work! (Mind you, a fan game with amazing production values. The VA knock it out of the park! And the writing...!)

The twists and turns. The interplay. The final reveals!

Literally a work I'm willing to wait the additional 5+ years it will probably take to finish. (Though I'd love if we could get to at least the beginning trial portion of Chapter 3 sometime in 2023...? :fingers crossed:)

While I'm talking to myself about a fan game very few have likely experienced, have a 30 second sketch of Hatami, Super High School Level Good Boy.

...And yes, I totally ended this post by sketching a character from a DR fan game instead of someone from the mainline series.

[catofadifferentcolor]

Assassin’s Creed II

To say that everything is permitted is to understand that we are the architects of our actions.

As I’ve been reading a lot about the Crusades recently, it seemed a natural progression to try playing Assassin’s Creed for the first time since the franchise began a decade and a half ago.

And my immediate thought on starting the first sequel (beyond the weird front loading of achievements - just following Lucy's instructions gets you 3 in like 10 minutes) is that time travel must exist, as they've heard all my complaints and fixed them for this game.

This game is not only beautiful, but it takes the time to teach you how to play in a fun, intuitive way. Whereas it took me roughly 5 hours of gameplay and an online guide to figure out AC1, I had most of that figured out within 15 minutes in AC2.

Even if picking up a box/body in the game is next to impossible.

Moreover, AC2 is immersive in a way AC1 never quite managed. About half of this is probably the incredible detail that the Ubisoft went into with Renaissance Italy - which, in addition to being visually stunning, tickles all my nerd buttons, even if I've read far less about the Renaissance than I have the Crusades.

But more than that, Ezio's story is compelling. It's visceral and real and if I didn't have RL commitments I'd probably have sat down and finished this game in two days. Which is probably for the best, as five hours is about as far as I can go before the nausea starts getting overwhelming, but even then it's a fight to stop playing when all I want is to know what happens next.

I honestly don't think I've felt this way about a game since Dragon Age 2. Or maybe Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

And while, yes, sequences 12 & 13 seemed weirdly out-of-tune and less thought out compared to everything else before I realized they were included DLCs, nearly everything about the actual game itself is pitch perfect. Revenge is a common motive, yet Ezio's entire arc of knowing when not to take revenge offers a delightful twist on a common narrative.

Whereas Altair felt like a god temporarily made mortal for Desmond to learn from, Ezio feels human - all too human. He makes friends and makes mistakes. He learns from the past but remains fallible. (Beating up the Pope and then letting him live seems like a mistake he'll live to regret, even if it is excellent personal growth.) He builds a home for his family, but is always away. He...

Well. If one walks away from AC1 wanting to be Altair, I think its fair to say I walked away from AC2 wanting to be with Ezio just a little bit.

There are some game mechanics I didn't like - the picking up of boxes and having to return to base to change weapon loadouts, primarily. The business with Leonardo's flying machine was almost too over the top and some of the smaller missions far too frustrating for the payout - but for the most part AC2 was a fun, enjoyable ride. I'd actually prefer it more if the DLC sequences weren't included in the version I downloaded, and if I can find a way to skip those in replays I will - because there will be replays. (There would be one immediately if I didn't already have ACB already installed.)

...I suppose I should say something about the Ancient Aliens arc as well, but frankly it wasn't as big a shock as it must have been originally, as I've watched my brother play parts of these games before so I have a general idea of what is to come. That, and as soon as I realized it was a naked man and woman running somewhere in The Truth vids, the idea of Adam and Eve having escaped from Eden kinda became self-evident. Still wicked cool though.

(Also, still tapping Lucy for Templar plant, because she's far too much follow me with only vague promises for explanations later and weirdly keen on turning Desmond into a fighter. The whole arrival at the hideout felt like an act two Bond woman right before the inevitable betrayal.)

Otherwise 5 out of 5 stars. I can definitely see why people recommend this as the place to start with the Assassin's Creed series. I'm not sure I'm one of them, but I definitely recommend playing this this one.