#I may remake this its kind of shit its my first time doing something like this

[amajorchord]

what !! This guy. He trip and fell in the back of mc donalds.

[extra-vertebrae]

I'm going to sperg about the Silent Hill 2 Remake for a second - two three of my favourite things while making my way through my first playthrough:

First off, favourite boss:

This bitch:

When I got to this room I knew some shit was going to go down there when I would need to come back to open the fireplace. The far wall looked suspiciously barren. I figured it'd be where the smaller Abstract Daddies would appear (by Kool-Aid), since they roamed the halls of the hotel in the original game, and I hadn't encountered them yet in the remake.

A dial up tone all but literally played in my skull when that wall indeed came down, and it wasn't a pair of mini Abstract Daddies that "SURPRISE, BITCH'd" through it. "Is that a fucking Closer? Oh my god it's a MANDARIN." Cue a whole lot of running around trying to process what was in the room with me while I tried to decided if I should use my rifle ammo or not.

Having the Mandarin play a larger role in the game overall was a great choice in my opinion. They are an underrated monster for sure. Big props to the sound design team - I sat in the central room in the basement where there are two of them prowling about, just listening to them move around and growl for several minutes (I may or may not have also been shitting myself). Lots of obvious inspiration / callback to the Glutton for its vocalisations - good stuff!

I do also appreciate the absence of the smaller Abstract Daddies, as they never felt appropriate being in the hotel in the original after killing the boss. The Mandarins are the perfect substitute for a heavy enemy, and honestly, only one Abstract Daddy is enough. The lead-up to that fight in the bowels of the Prison was more oppressive than anything else - deeply disturbing in ways that I believe only really hit if you're already aware of what the Abstract Daddy represents. It was the one fight I was dreading in the remake after playing the original over 10 years ago.

That aside, my second favourite aspect so far, has been this:

When we meet him for the first time, Pyramid Head makes a slashing motion towards James hiding in the closet. When we enter into Blue Creek Apartments in the Otherworld, the suite we enter to is a direct mirror of Wood Side Apartment room 201, including the closet in which James had been hiding - but a colossal slash is now carved into the closet, matching the angle Pyramid Head had swung but a moment before.

Pyramid Head does not have the Great Knife yet at this stage, but still acted, in my opinion, as if he had it. It may be a stretch, as it flies in the face of one of the theories that Pyramid Head only receives the Great Knife when James is made aware of the possibility of ending his own life with the knife Angela gives to him, as it would raise the question of how Pyramid Head would foresee the granting of the Great Knife enough to enact a swipe as if he had it. (However, on the opposite end against this theory, if Angela's knife creates the Great Knife, what creates the spears later?) But, I like the idea and it's become something of a personal headcanon that that is what he's doing. Though I do wonder, if that is indeed what he is doing, what the follow up motion he makes when his arms are pulled back might mean in kind.

The third favourite thing: interacting with bread. Here I am running like my life depends on it (it does), mashing the interact button when my screen is invaded by Bread and a trophy pops for It's Bread. I had a true "???" moment that couldn't be properly processed until I found shelter again, lol.

Either way, a great remake - personally I hope that its success means we may see SH3 be given the same treatment.

I only have two complaints about the remake, and one is more of a quibble wherein I find it very funny that James just faceplants into doors instead of reaching for them as you get closer. Every time he bodies himself into a locked door it's almost like he's surprised it's locked, lmao.

My second complaint is that the game gave me a new catchphrase: "where is that fucking Mannequin?" Mannequins are enemy #1.

[spinnysocks]

Welcome to my Den! 🐾

*remakes pinned for the millionth time :3*

By: @/feathers-fins-and-fangs, @/batsbolts-andboards, @/phantompawz, @/timberbark, @/mollytoons, @/sweetpeauserboxes, @/lookineedsleep

Last updated: 25/09 🌙

Pronouns Page | Boundaries | DNI in bio

Rb'ing for Palestine: @iftheresanythingleft | Moodboard making: @poetryforcoyotes | TLG ask blog: @tlg-confessions

Some stuff about the blogger!

Hi, my name's Spinny! This is my Main Blog! :)

My favoured pronouns shift; in (bold) are my favoured atm! - he/him 🌿 it/its 🌿 they/them 🌿 xe/xem 🌿 ze/zim 🌿 sol/sols 🌿 star/stars 🌿 void/voids 🌿 coy/coyote 🌿 fox/foxs 🌿 yip/yips 🌿 croc/crocs

I prefer interchangeable use of those above, but generally answer to he/it and any of my neopronouns <3

Very queer!! I'm nonbinary, genderqueer, xenofluid, aroace and a fuck ton of other labels that I hoard at @foxsocksvoid :)

I'm an alterhuman, specifically a polymorph! Planning to make a post going into my identity more, but my strongest types are fox, crocodile, coyote and hyena

I am neurodivergent (suspected AuDHD), suspected APD and a maladaptive daydreamer with some other coping mechanism disorders. As a result, I find interacting etc hard so please bare with me. More info in my boundaries ^^

I am a gemini, my birthday is June 6th and I am pagan! Just a creature guy who loves movies and is going into wildlife conservation & management :D

Self-proclaimed Warrior Cats veteran and the #1 Whitestorm fan, but relatively new in the Lion Guard fanbase! Great to be here c:

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Blog Information!

I am an adult but my blog is SFW with strictly NO NSFW. Though I do swear.

Except for this post, I type almost entirely in lowercase!

Please tag me if responding to a comment/any mention, otherwise I don't see it! :c

I repost stimboards which may have auto-playing gifs and art that may contain minor blood or animal death (warrior cats or other art)! I tag these under #tw blood, #tw gore, #tw death, #tw cat death and #tw implied death. I do not tag auto-playing gifs.

IF something ever happens to Tumblr, I'm “spinnysocks” or “ricoofdoom” on everything. I'd probably migrate to discord as well as pillowfort or cohost but Tumblr is my everything so hopefully not!!

This post will likely be updated on a near-daily basis due to pronouns shifting and general forgetfulness.

Other info can be found on my boundaries post / just ask! ^^

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Asks!

Send me asks!!! (/nf) They are always open and I love getting any asks or mentions about anything at all! Send me or tag me as much as you'd like <3

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I am also always open for the character ask game! That has a tag too :)

I'm also completely happy to participate in tag games of any kind! They're so fun!!

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Interests!

Current fixations: Warrior Cats, Clangen, The Lion Guard!

Other fandoms: Madagascar, Watership Down, Night At The Museum, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Space Jam/The Looney Tunes, Ice Age, Kung Fu Panda, Sonic, Shakespeare and Dead Poets Society. Mada and Ice Age are my oldest and I'm very fond of them c:

Games I like: RDR2, WolfQuest, Endling, Stray, Shelter Generations, The Isle, Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Zoo, Minecraft, Roblox and Rain World. I own RDR2, WQ, Endling, JWE, PZ, Minecraft and Roblox while the others are interests (aka my pc is shit and/or I can't afford them lmfao)

General: indie/rock music, kids/fantasy movies, cinema, writing, drawing, more to add :3

Basically, I love creatures, fantasy and animated movies! Please talk to me about any of the above interests if you'd like to, or even ask me if I've seen a specific media! I don't bite!! <3

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My “Random Shit” links!

Watership Down uquiz (my first post :D)

What Species Would You Choose To Be Reincarnated As (poll)

Warrior Cats mass animations playlist

Favourite Character Bingo 2023

The Lion Guard stuff!

Royal Mjuzi! Nduli AU

Young crocs headcannons

Christmastime headcannons

RDR2/Wild West AU

Jumanji AU

Scar's Guard AU fanfic & the Scar's Guard AU post

Warrior Cats AU

TLG Pride Month 2024 (see tag for all posts)

Outlanders Hunger Games sim (see tag for all posts)

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That's all! Thank you very much for reading <3 🐾

[the-s1lly-corner]

admin live reaction to the 2003 TCM movie lets gooooooo going to be one full post rather than a series of reblogs so i dont clog the blog

so like was there ever a reason for changing the family name in this reboot or was it just becaue

i never really thought about it but im quickly starting to realize how different horror was back then as opposed to the 2000s and to now- like obviously things change and evolve but like. tone and style so far feels different

3 miinutes in and theyre getting FREAKY hello!!!!

maybe im the weird one but how the hell can someone be so comfortable getting THAT into a makeout session in the company of friends- like a kiss is fine but these two are literally moaning and fondling each other in the backseat

oh theyre not even friends one of them literally just joined the group

WHYYYYY are you kissing your girlfriend while driving god i hate distracted drivers im glad this is a slasher movie

COOCHIE GUN?

oh!

i know im only 13 minutes in but i do not enjoy this group the group from the og had more charm to me idk

i do not trust this old ass woman

unrelated but i looooooooooove cabin in the woods but i hate that it pointed out the "character types" you see in slasher movies because now im hyper aware of which character is gonna die and which one isnt before any slashing happens

A OPOSSUM :3 YIPEE

whos punk ass kid

can i pet the daaaaaawwwg

sheriffs got some fatass eyebrows god DAMN

random ass pigs in the house??

oh! the sheriffs a creep! i mean obligatory "its a slasher film theres always at least one creep" but like. you know

morgans easily the most annoying of the bunch though

obligatory "hes already been on screen" but this is our first full body shot but woo yeah leatherface mr thomas hewitt let me see why a bunch of people keep requesting you

epvfpmpfvmf the nails on the wall ripping off.. euuuchh... 10/10

this version of leatherface (or really the whole movie) feels waaaaay more brutal than the og and idk how to fell- maybe im biased because i fell in love with the og but i kind of prefer it, but i can see why people may like this remake more

chat can we kill the sheriff

*shoots multiple shots from a gun right next to their head* "you girls need to get yourselves under control!" chat i hate this man so much. like even without the "we know this group is innocent" knowledge id still be hating this dude. so so bad

"i aint never seen no weapon go off without somebodys finger on the trigger" dude how many fucking times do they have to say that she shot herself god damn. like i KNOW logically its because "oh he found a body and drugs, and one of the people is missing" blah blah blah and thats the thought process and thats not something to be treated gently but like. this just feels... too far? like literally making someone sit where someone committed and then making them put that same weapon in their mouth feels like its going waaaaaaay too far

"we got ourselves a killer!" and then its just a group of people scared out of their mind, one just got chased by a dude with a chainsaw and the other is getting his shit pressed and all three nearly got shot in the head ofc someone is not going to think rationally of course theyre going to want anything to get out. that doesnt automatically mean they killed the girl. curse of knowledge for knowing what happened curse of knowing the sheriff doesnt know raaaah raaaaaah divine death blast i still hate this dude so so much oh my god

actually pausing the movie to take a few minutes because the sheriff is pissing me off so much LMAO

hitting the sheriff with another death ray for drinking and driving god if theres anything i hate more than distracted drivers its intoxicated ones. "but hes not drunk" and he still shouldnt be drinking

"so what are you going to do with your tickets" "you can have them" "is that bribery!!! *smashes a glass bottle on the dudes head*" oh my fucking goooooooooood leatherface can you get this bitch.. i havent hated a character this much since carmody from the mist

SLUR MENTIONED/j

the tire flies off as they finally get the car to work be so fucking for real

OH AND HES WEARING THE BFS FACE TOO THATS MESSED UP (i love it)

the tea was drugged wasnt it

chat i deadass have no idea whats going on

I KNEW NOT TO TRUST GAS STATION LADY I KNEW SHE DIDNT ACTUALLY CALL THE SHERIFF I FUCKING KNEW IT

also like... so is it more than brothers this time? og was just them plus grandpa but it looks like theres more here- also baby snatching? hello? also are they still cannibals?

they got bros dogs on the piano

i would like to apologize for calling the kid a punk

maybe its sympathy but maybe morgan isnt so bad i think i just didnt vibe with the group when they were first being introduced. perhaps. i was too harsh

morgan has some balls i think hes my favorite out of the group- blode dude is also cool but i forgot his name.. tbh im starting to enjoy the entire group asides the boyfriend but tbf he got yoinked early

oh hey... thomas cut his leg... just like... side eyes

girl you are hiding in the lockers, hes walked past you. why are you screaming

lmao nvm i forgot she grabbed the cleaver but like wwwhhhhhhyyyyy not just sneak him

oh just casually chopped his arm off with a few swings

also why not just aim for the head? i know "shes freaking out, logic is out the window" but like ?Q?Q???!!?!?

TRUCK DRIVER!?!! JUST LIKE side eyes WOOOO MAMA

theres 10 minutes left of the movie i do not trust the truck driver

MIRRORING THE WOMAN FROM THE BEGINNING?

ok nvm the truck drivers just a dude

OOOOOHOOOOHOOOO THE CAR HOT WIRE BIT WAS SUCH A GOOD TWIST

YEEEEEEEAH YEAH RUN HIM OVER AGAIN YEEEEAAAAAAH

AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

i give this movie a 7 out of 10! i liked it, but not as much as the og- horror wise i think it hit better, style wise i personally prefer the og but i can understand why many would find this version appealing!

[agentnico]

The Gentlemen - season 1 (2024) review

Alright, alright, alright….. wait, McConaughey is not in this one? Oh, well that’s not alright, alright, alright…

Plot: When aristocratic Eddie inherits the family estate, he discovers that it's home to an enormous weed empire, and its proprietors aren't going anywhere.

Guy Ritchie is honestly great. Since way back when he made Lock, Stock and Snatch, he’s consistently churned out top quality entertainment, except maybe the Aladdin remake. I mean I totally get he probably got a superb pay check out of it, but honestly what in the heavens did Guy Ritchie have to do with blue genies I will never know. Regardless, where the man really excels at is when it comes to the British gangster genre. The guy can make swearing sound so poetic and melodic - it’s honestly mad how something so otherwise rude can come off utterly beautiful and delightful like a song. Especially in his 2019 film The Gentlemen, the writing in that movie was so good!! Naturally Netflix caught onto this too as we now how a spin-off series.

Going into the show I was looking forward to it but also cautious, as I was aware this new show was missing the star power of the original film. I mean can you blame me? The movie had the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant to name a few. That’s a solid load of A-listers huddled together. As for the show, the names like Theo James or Kaya Scodelario didn’t instil heavy excitement, especially with James as honestly, I always thought he was a bit of a prick. Granted this may be due to when he played the dickhead in The Inbetweeners movie, and gosh do I feel old with that reference, but he just has that face of a guy that’s so full up his own arse. Again, I’ve never met the chap, he’s probably a lovely human being, but I’ve made this prejudgment in my head and as such when I found out he was the lead of this series I naturally rolled my eyes. That being said I give Netflix props as they hired the original film director Guy Ritchie to create this spin-off and even direct some of the episodes and do a lot of the writing, so of course I was going to check this show out.

Never doubt the Guy should be a new cinematic rule. I’m proud to report that the new The Gentlemen series is a fantastic watch. It’s not the most original show, yet it plays out more-so like a Guy Ritchie’s greatest hits, as it’s got his visual flare and style, with the super cool and smooth fashion choices - honestly Scodelario has a wardrobe change every other scene and each time it felt like she was walking out of a Tom Ford fashion exhibit, and then also all the men wearing their gentlemanly suits dripping with swagger and smoking their cigars and drinking their whiskeys - the whole thing is simply infused with that signature upper-class British gangster feel. Ritchie’s signature syllable-heavy dialogue that just rolls of the tongue is also more than ever present here, and whoever decided to cast Giancarlo Esposito in this show deserves a pay rise, as Esposito’s soft-spoken melodic tone proclaiming the colourful lines of Ritchie’s rich exposition was music to the ears.

The cast here too are super game. Theo James was actually solid as the lead young duke, as he had that manly prowess and was very believable as someone who gets shit done. Kaya Scodelario I thought at first was trying too hard to mimic Michelle Dockery from the original movie, but eventually she made the role her own, and she gave enough mystery to her performance to make us feel uncertain of her true motivations. Daniel Ings as the duke loser-cocaine-addicted-brother Freddy was a lot of fun, however I would say his character became a bit overbearing and annoying in the end, as he constantly made so many mistakes throughout that I honestly kind of wanted him to get killed. It’s as if whenever the show needed an excuse for something bad to happen, they’d just get Freddy to fuck up again. Apologies for my language, I don’t usually swear in my reviews, but also this is a Guy Ritchie project we’re talking about, and he uses the F word every other sentence. So fuck it. In regards to other notable cast members, Pearce Quigley as Gospel John, a leader of a religious gang was oddly creepy yet entertaining, especially when he’d randomly scream certain lines for absolutely no reason. Pure psycho. Peter Serafinowicz and Guz Khan have amusing turns. Lastly we have two British gangster alumni Vinnie Jones and Ray Winstone. These two of course were on a different level to everyone else. Of course Vinnie Jones can be quite cheesy when it comes to acting. One can fondly remember his delivery of the line “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”. But when it comes to Guy Ritchie, Jones and him have always been a great pairing. Here as the duke estates’ caretaker, Vinnie is super reserved yet again super cool. I think cool is a word that can be used and abused when it comes to this show. It’s all so cool! Then Ray Winstone as the leader of the crime family… I mean it’s Ray Winstone as the leader of the crime family! He got that Godfather-level gravitas, only more Cockney, and it was great watching him do his thing.

When it comes to the story, this show is standalone to the original film. You can definitely see the inspiration though with certain narrative beats and story choices being very reflective/similar to what occurred in the film, and then the hidden weed farm under the estate looked like exactly the same set as from the film. But overall this is completely its own thing, and each episode brings more fun crime shenanigans for the characters to deal and navigate through, and it was consistently entertaining. My only complaint is that I’d say the finale a tad anti-climactic. I think with all the roughness and toughness that the characters go through, the ending tied everything up a bit too conveniently and neatly. I get I’m not to expect the most realistic thing as this is Guy Ritchie’s world, but I did want things to get a bit more messy, especially due to the build up. That being said this is a major win for Netflix, and I’m expecting a season 2 to be green-lit soon, as this is a winning package.

Overall score: 7/10

[draiad]

FFVII Rebirth Spoilers Ahead

NGL This is going to be a big ramble but BUT I finished this game a bit ago now and I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. For anyone who is curious I ADORED it. There were a few moments I had frustrations with (Looking at you box throwing mini game) but that aside this game is still a solid 10/10 for me.

Be prepared for a lot of this to not make sense because I am typing as the thoughts come, there is no organization to them. for the TL:DR I liked the game and I am super excited for the answers we're going to get in part 3.

I cannot get over how well they handled the characters in this game. I should have expected it with how good of a job they did in Remake but they managed to absolutely blow my mind this game AGAIN.

That aside the thing I want to really focus on right now is the timeline stuff. I don't really have any solid theories as to how things are going to resolve nor do I have any set in stone mindset for Aerith's current situation but I have thoughts and ideas of how I would LIKE them to go.

I'm very curious about the timeline stuff. The characters who seem to have knowledge of other timelines vs those who don't. Its clear Zack, Biggs and Marlene are aware that there's something going on, not necessarily what but the fact that Marlene and Biggs knew of Cloud while in Zack's timeline makes me wonder what that means for Marlene in Cloud's timeline. I figure the hug from remake imparted all Marlene's with a bit of knowledge? I don't even know and I cannot wait to find out.

I also found the whispers a lot easier to deal with mentally this time around when thinking of them as extensions of Sephiroth and either Aerith or the life stream.

I may be wrong but I also feel like the weapons we saw in this game were the unwoken/larval stages of Ruby and Sapphire. I absolutely adored that sequence with Tifa and it makes me HELLA excited to see her help Cloud piece himself back together.

And then AND THEN we have that whole mess (still loved it all) with how they handled Aerith's death. I'm of two mindsets right now with what happened there. The one that I think is most likely true is Aerith is dead dead and Cloud is seeing her as some coping mechanism. I'm not 100% sold on the idea of it being Jenova manipulating him (though that would be hella dark and I would LOVE it). The other thing that I feel like may be the case is Aerith is dead but in the lifestream and is actively communicating with Cloud. Again not fully sold on it but I suppose we're just gonna have to wait and see. I think next game when we revisit things we're going to get that iconic scene of him lowering her into the water as he finally accepts the truth. Maybe after he recovers himself. All I know is its going to be so heartbreaking and good to watch as the team start doubting him while he spirals.

I think the black materia is going to be a fun game-play element to his skills in the next game too and I am super excited for some sort of Dark Knight Cloud. I feel like we're going to lose him pretty early on in part 3, I fully expect within the first couple of hours of the game the northern crater shit is going to go down and we'll have Party Leader Tifa for a while.

I can honestly say I don't know what kind of ending I want for this trilogy. Part of me wants it to be a reset, for the timeline to return to what it should. Another part of me wants it to be the happy ending for all. Either way I'll probably be happy. I think the only ending that would piss me off is someone wakes up and it was all a dream.

[falsebooles123]

14 GAYS Later: A two week introspective - Diary of a Big Ole Gay 3/19/2023

Hey Whores, Long Time no see. I have been watching an absolutely slutty amount of gay shit. Also I may or may not have binged a bunch of television recently.

(This is the only gif I could find I also watched The Staircase and starteed getting through RE: MIND)

but I have been on a mission to make a dent in my gay watchlist. I'm going to take a bit of a break the next couple of days but I definetly will watch a few more the last two weeks of march, (dear god are there still two weeks left).

Lets see anything else I should add to this diary. Well my dad just got a new apartment and it looks great and my cars been making a rattle noise which honestly gives me anxiety but I have my mechanic looking at it next week so she just has to get through this week. Hopes and prayers folks.

I also have going over the catering work I'm doing next month. Its going to be a lot of work but I'm going to be making very good money.

(God Thats Cute)

anyway whores lets get into it.

First a Girl (1935) dir. Victor Saville

Once again I am not watching VICTOR/VICTORIA, (through also where the fuck is that half and half costume from cause I've seen most of these version of it at this point).

If you don't know what I'm talking about there is a french version called Georges et Georgette, A 50s german remake and of course the classic 80s VICTOR/VICTORIA. If anyone has links to the first two hit a bitch up.

This version is english and can I just say they shit the bed so hard. they add a lot of nonsense to this like she burns a dress? and it adds absolutely nothing to the plot. The other issue is that they either copy a scene from the original but with worse acting or they add what can only be deemed 1940s heterosexual nonsense.

(I was looking for that part of singing in the rain where the audio gets out of sink and the actors are going NONONO YES YES YES)

That being said the original idea of victor und victoria is amazing because its basically epitomizes this early queer cinema trope of dude doing "man tests" to prove that it is fact

... a masquarader..... a drager personer... a dress-crossinger...

Theres something thats just incredible hot about this like top going up to a twink and being like yeah you a dude huh, your one of the boys, huh. You gonna fuck me in my bussy oh what bruh. Huh you man enough or what???

It comes off as like very homoerotic flirting. This one bascially side steps all the best parts of the original and it just made me realize how good OG Victor und Victoria is.

Cat People (1942) dir Jacques Tourneur

Cat People is one of those movies that people talk about being like super queer and it kinda is. Like the whole movie centers around a woman whose afraid to get intimate with her husband because shes afraid that she will turn into a monster and she gets threatened with getting thrown in an insane asylum because of it.

Which while the movie isn't queer in its subtext. That kind of storytelling resonates with a queer audience especially a contemporry one this was right in the middle of the whole shock the gay away and scoop out are brains portion of medical barbarism.

That being said this is about as queer as something like Picnic at Hanging Rock or Carnival of Souls. Its more feminist then anything but you can definetly read or relate to it as a marginilized and queer person.

The Gay Deceivers (1969) dir. Bruce Kessler

OMG This is mandatory queer viewing. This is for the girls and the gays thats it.

tbf I had a hard time getting into the full on camp of it all and thats because I have to deal with my internilized truama and femmphobia.

I get a lot of interal validation from serving you slutty masc realness.

(GOd thats hot)

and going into this film I had a hard time accepting that this was not it fact an attempt to call me a limp-wrist no-dick hippie faggot queer.

(REFERENCES BITCH)

but about half-way through I realized that it fact I was being a big dumb dumb and that I need to embrace the Fae Gays as much as the butch ones. Ands its not that I'm one of those homos who are like ewwwww I don't like it when those faggots... dresss like faggots. But I also have to let go of my own pain of being treated as a sissy and recognize that people do get validation from that.

Dealing with queer gender baggage is a process and can I just say that if your like me once you get over your nancy boy truama this is an absolute queer delight hunty.

also we are getting Bisexual Realness! #Yaaaasssscar. to quote my letterboxd.

I also want to shoutout Elliot in this film, who I'm sorry thats a bisexual honey. He wants dick. This man is walking around his "husband" shirtless with his pajamis bottoms unbuttoned. Ok Fag. fucking his sister to get to him, I see you. Going to gay bars unprompted. Showing up at the queer party wearing nothing but a jock. homo.

Like lets be clear, if this was remade Elliot would've made a pass on Danny. Ok there is a literally a scene were after Elliot fucked this MILF and he was like. Well she was paying my rent I had to say thank you. And Dannys like. Well I'm paying your rent now and Elliot looks him up and down and is like Bet.

What I'm saying is that Elliot was 100% ready to suck Dannys dick if he asked.

Iconic We stan it is on TUBI right the fuck now. Pls watch.

Daughters of Darkness (1971) dir. Harry Kumel

God for fuck sake step on me mommy.

This is one of the first Lesbian Vampire films on this watchlist that features Elizabeth Bathory, the countess who bathed in all that virgin blood you know the one. EB is a motif in a lot of Lesbian Vampire films but we have to remember that this is Pre-1971 which means that we are only getting the earliest Vampire films not the sexy ones like Nadja or Vampyros Lesbos, (there on my general watchlist just not this specific one.)

This one is hot as shit. We're talking just a lot of tittys and fucking and hot people making out. We have dommy mommy, we have toxic lesbian relationships, we have said dommy mommy being a lesbian who enthralls hot women to do there bidding. And can I just say. Mommmmmmy what about me. I want to be your thrall no fairrrrr.

This movie is giving us The Hunger vibes in the sense thats its horny, beautiful, slow, problamatic, and there are lesbians in this that you would just die for.

god women are so pretty, (I say as the bisexual fag who writes about early queer film).

The Wild One (1953) dir. Laszlo Benedek

So fun fact I posted a clip on this on Snapchat with the caption, "Dear god I am so gay" because marlon brando can fuck this bussy

(POV: what this man looks like as I am sucking him off)

and one of my friends, is like "Gay for this Pussy" and the answer is no Sir I am a faggot have you met me. Have you seen how much I suck dick. and yes I am gay for that pussy but not in this context sir. not in this context where marlon brando can and should tell me to get on my god damn knees like the little slut I am. OK.

(honestly we're kinda JO buddies but hes been really weird about it lately and been making it gay. And its like dude I don't want to fuck you. C'mon)

What I'm saying is that this movie has also inspired me to become a faggot biker and I need to buy leather pants. This film is pretty straight but like in a hot way so i'm into it. This was on youtube and while its not neccesarily super queer, (mostly on this list cause Fashion Fag Marlon Brando turned all the boys gay and into leather with this one. Thank you daddy), it is a pretty fun teen movie.

Castle of Blood (1964) dir. Antonio Margheriti

So this is one of those random 60s movies that were going through a po-essence??? Like they really liked Edgar Allen Poe, think tales of terror.

(god I love tales of terror and poe stories in general)

In this one Poe goes to a castle and just witnesses a lot of toxic polycule sheninigans. Honestly I couldn't hold onto the plot. I like it but I had a headache. Theres some lesbian vampires who, its suggested, kiss off screen but then the closeted one stabs the other. Rude.

Also the closet vamp is constantly trying to ride dick to prove how straight she is, and we've all been there honey.

Twelfth Night (1955) dir. Yan Frid, A. Abramov

so there are a lot of different versions of this but luckily for my poor gay ass theres only like 3 or 4 made before the 1970s. Theres a bunch from like 80 and 90, Theres of course the teen dramas like Shes the Man, One of the Boys, Motorcrossed and I am spared that missery.

It is also at this point that I have realized that while Twelfth NIght is pretty gay it is not in fact gay enough. Check my recent text post of ideas to make it gayer.

so let me just say that this was in russian I don't speak it and I was using Youtube Auto-Translate which is like if you went to a foreign country with a shitty friend and they kept forgetting to translate it for you because they were to busy making out with this hot chick they met at the bar.

that being said the tom-follery carried the plot for me. and since 80% of twelfth night is just a B-plot about a ever-growing bunch of assholes pulling a prank on some snob it works. I will also say that this has the most iconic Yellow Stockings reveal out of any of the versions I've seen so far. They were garish and iconic and we stan.

oh also I forgot to mention this does feature on on-screen kiss between two women but the second women is playing a canonically male character in the scene. Real life v V gay narratively techinically straight

Twelfth Night (1969) dir. John Sichel

Yet another version of this story. It was in english so I could here the dialogue but it was pretty poor showings. Honestly this sounds weird but watch te 1955 USSR version its a lot better.

Masculin Feminin (1966) dir. Jean-Luc Godard

God I hated this movie. Paul is a little bitch baby and the only thing that makes this somewhat tolerable is the fact that Godard was like HON HON HOMOSEXUALS en la TOILET.

Yeah this was a two hour sludgefest. Also apparently his girlfriends roommates were LESBIANS??? but let me just say that this film focused on the painfully straight sophormoric pawing of Paul the ur-incel.

Fuck this bitch

Everything Else I Watched

Honestly not much I just watched Life Without Dreams over on Le Cinema Club which was pretty good and a bunch of TV which I mentioned above. I will probably get into a bit more gay films before the end of the month so stay tuned. I'm trying to just get it out from under me so I have room to breathe. On that note I really need to finish filming and editing my new youtube video. Anyway sluts and slatterns. love you bye.

[ajoytobeheld]

Film 2010

January 1st, 2011

Films I thought Were Good Last Year

So….

Lets start with “Cracks,” which I know was released on the cusp of 2009 BUT it didnt make it to my local arthouse cinema until 2010, so for me, that counts. I frequently go the cinema alone because its pointless to socialize in dark rooms and the lack of a normal 9-5 job means there aren’t many people willing to bunk off work to see the daytime showing of a film about psychotic lesbian teachers… (or are there?)

Anyway, lonesome cinema trips are a cathartic experience for distracting me out of what ever bad mood I have found myself in and at that point, early 2010, I had a case of mild heartbreak (emo music! Moping! etc) and this film lifted my spirits. It is a cheesy sentiment yes, but none the less true..

Winters Bone

A film about meth, squirrels and snow. Wonderfully underplayed and I was pretty smug throughout because I snuck in my own penny sweets.

Toy Story 3

I had so much doubt with its lack of Josh Whedon on writing credits and it’s presentation in pointless 3D but luckily it was great. I also think its nice for Tim Allen to have something to do.

Youth in Revolt

Do you dimly remember when Michael Cera was in Arrested Development and you thought “he’s good, i see a bright future for him as long as he doesn’t get pigeonholed as the same character in everything and become really annoying…plus he looks a bit like a dinosaur.” Well, our fears came true. Pigeonholed and more dinosaur like everyday, which is why it was a surprise to me when I enjoyed his dual performance as the protagonist Nick Twisp and the protagonists French moustache twirling alter ego Francois in this well written and silly film. Plus he manages to perform in it without ruining a comic franchise.

BONUS.

The Social Network

Thought it was gonna be okay, but it was actually better then okay and overcame that whole nasty Benjamin Button misfire by Mr Fincher, and I also think its one of the only films i could happily sit through twice in the space of a week.

Fish Tank

I feel there is a theme of cheating in this because once again this film came out in late 2009 but once again it was not avaliable for most Cardiff based mortals to view until 2010. Andrea Arnold has made a few films about put upon women and this film details the dancing ambitions of a girl who becomes embroiled in a very inappropriate relationship with her mothers boyfriend. Step Up it is not. The star of the film Katie Jarvis is much like 90’s star Shola Ama.

Jarvis was “spotted” after Arnold witnessed her arguing with her boyfriend at a train station much like Ama gained a record deal after she was heard singing on a tube. But I have higher hopes for the career of Jarvis.

The Runaways

I double billed this film with something else I cant remember, so that couldn’t have been as good…. Kristen Stewart proves she isn’t all mumbly hair sucking and she kind of rocks this

Kick Ass

This film made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside many many times.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I confess I have not seen the rest of the millennium trilogy but this first effort was a well constructed who dunnit which may have felt televisual but if its good enough to require a America remake for those who cant read subtitles then that’s something….

Whip It

I saw this film when we were trapped in London because of the DAMMED VOLCANO. I was feeling pretty distraught about fate sending me back to Cardiff when I really wanted to be in New York so I needed some escapism.

I swallowed my reservations about this possibly being shit and gave it a go….and its bloody amazing. It doesn’t follow the generic “girl coming of age”  formula I expected plus has a line I can really relate to.

“I didn’t have a Barbie-roller-skates-phase, I had a fat-kid-sits-inside-and-reads-phase.”

The Killer Inside Me

It always feels strange to see a film alone in the afternoon about a sociopath who brutally beats up Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson, but sometimes your just in that kind of mood. Much like “Lust, Caution” I went to see this film based on the controversy that surrounded it, and much like  “Lust, Caution” I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was, and how a few well publicised scenes do not dictate what a film is actually about.  Though Michael Winterbottoms film is brutal and tough viewing it is also very good and at time hilarious, and the horrific violence of those few scenes did not feel like a effort in misogyny from the director, rather an effort in showing how truly unfeeling and narcisstic Casey Afflecks character is. The ending is pretty insane as well.

Monsters

When watching this I was aware of a building sense of unrest within certain fractions of the audiences, they were turning to each other and asking “is this title perhaps a bit misleading? There are definetely less monsters and more soft focus then I was expecting…Shall we sit here and giggle inanely instead of watching the film because we are too stupid to appreciate it? YES LETS.” Loved this film.

Of Gods and Men

I dragged my mother and sister along to this telling them a French film about Trappist monks in Algeria could be a bit of a laugh. Subtle and beautiful and I cried my eyes out like a little baby during the scene soundtracked by Swan Lake.

Other Notable Mentions

Eclipse

Harry Potter

Buried

Another Year

Ponyo!

Worst film Eva

Sex and the City 2

[saltoftheao3]

Goodbye + a few words for the road

(Edited to add: The blog will still be semi-active (mostly inactive) as the founding mod is still around. Thank you Mod Salt for taking over and being an amazing force for fandom positivity these past few years ~ Mod Saltiest)

Hey folks, this blog has been inactive for a while now as my life has been very busy and my interests have changed, so here's me offering official closure at least.

First of all: It has been a fun few years chatting, having debates, inspiring and helping each other out around our shared passion for fanfiction. I really enjoyed this form of interaction and was often moved, amused and empowered by our exchanges. I look back to this entire time with you with a fond smile. Thank you for your kindness, patience and enthusiasm.

And since i'm here, i want to use my reach one last time to share some personal thoughts - please indulge me, i won't bore you.

What is it about writing fanfiction that feels so empowering to so many of us?

When i was a child and young teenager i experienced stories as something closed-off, unchangeable, a product of great minds that, yes, i could and did vicariously enjoy, but of which i was forever the passive recipient. I was allowed in the fantastical playground of a storyteller's mind, but i was there as a guest, i could look but not play. I wasn't even aware playing was an option.

But with fanfiction ... somehow my entire perspective on storytelling changed. My relationship to stories moved away from mere consumption to a desire to make it different, to make it mine. Suddenly there was a space for my previously vague, unformed ideas, and an incentive to explore them.

Confronted with polished, glossy professional stories, I now saw possibilities. What if this character fell in love with the same gender, experienced trivial domestic bliss, came to grip with their childhood trauma? And i could make this possibilities reality through my own writing, bend the narrative to cater to my taste and interests. I was an active participant in the process of creating reality through words. And sure, the product was rough, awkward, mediocre at times - but it was mine, it held something of me. And sometimes it entertained and thrilled and moved readers from all over the world that happened to stumble upon it.

Online communities allowed me to realize that we can reach others, relate to each other, move others, that our voices are unique and interesting, if only we care to speak. A pen, a laptop, and we can make as much fucking sandcastles as we want to, tell the stories we want to tell, that are ours to tell. No one can do that in our place.

And if you've nodded along to this trail of thought; if you agree with this logic and can relate to that feeling of empowerment; then i want you to understand that this can be applied to all aspects of life.

This dreadful, gray concrete wall on your street that fills you with gloom? Why endure its depressing sight when you can grab a spray can and remake it into something colorful and joyful, reshape that wall into something you actually care to look at and that may bring others joy too.

Rewrite that story.

The wasteland next to your neighborhood that's currently hosting weed and trash and that the municipality doesn't want to take care of? Why accept it as it is, if you can envision better possibilities? A shovel, a wheelbarrow, some seeds, a few helping hands, the internet to guide you, and you have the first steps to an urban garden beloved by bees, butterflies and birds, and providing fresh fruit and vegs to you and your neighbors.

Sandcastle, build that fucking sandcastle.

Your workplace where everyone is treated like shit and your rights are threatened? Are you going to accept the narrative that things have to be that way? That there's nothing you can do, except maybe vote? What's to stop you from reshaping your workplace so it caters to your needs? Colleagues at your back, help from the union, and you can bargain for better work conditions, modify the entire workplace. No one is going to do that for you.

Transform the narrative.

The local coal mine that is tearing through the earth to dig up tons upon tons of fossil combustible, actively threatening all life on earth? Can you really accept that as a given, as something no one has might on, except maybe some remote politician? Or can you join a group fighting for climate justice and block the shit out of that mine so it's forced to stop the destruction?

Redesign the entire game.

The step from writing fanfiction to blocking a coal mine may seem far-fetched, but at its core it's a matter of how we interact with the world we live in. See how it all ties into each other? How once you've noticed you have the power to actively reshape things around you, whether stories or your real-life environment, you realize that everything can be changed, and that everything probably must be changed, too?

Listen.

Friends, hard times are ahead. Times have been hard for a lot of us for a long while now. With the climate crisis upon us and world governments eager to maintain this deadly status-quo of economic growth and environmental destruction no matter the costs, it's up to us to take action, fight the powers in place and change the lives we lead. We can't rely on politicians, we can't rely on big business, we can't rely on someone more smart and capable to emerge and fix things. No one's gonna come. We have to start where we stand, teach each other and ourselves what to do, and get shit done.

It will be difficult, and it will be tough and it will be scary, but we have each other, we have this wonderful medium that allows us to find each other all over the planet, hear each other's voices and organize on an unprecedented scale. We are creative, and numerous and bold, and we will be reckoned with. Because help won't come from above, and we have to stop waiting, hoping and campaigning for it. Let's invest our energy where it really matters, and that's not a mere cross on a ballot every few years.

Being an active participant in the fight for a better life, no matter how harrowing that might sometimes be, is so much better than enduring crisis after crisis with only the dishonest voices of the powerful to lead you through them. And the crises will come. Covid is only the start. You will not be forever able to keep your head down and abide the rules, not if you want to maintain your personal integrity. I repeat: keeping your head down will not be an option forever. So why not choose to act of your own impulse?

Friends, change is coming and there will be choices to face sooner or later. Questions that will demand answers. Can I accept the status quo? Can I accept the dominant narrative? Can I accept indignities and injustice, carried out against me or sometimes in my name? Can I accept the climate crisis and environmental destruction taking place under my nose?

Talk to your friends. Find your answers. Find the drive for change.

Friends, the world is yours to shape. The story is yours to tell. Be aware of your own power, and use it for good.

Friends, be brave. The time is now. Good luck on your way.

Love,

Salt

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift Turns on a Facsimile Machine for the Ingenious Recreations of ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’: Album Review

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

By Chris Willman

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

There is no “best actress” award at the Grammys, perhaps for obvious reasons, but maybe there should be this coming year. And the Grammy would go to… Taylor Swift, for so persuasively playing her 18-year-old self in “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” her beyond-meticulous recreation of the 2008 recording that did win her her first album of the year trophy back in the day. It’s impossible to overstate just how thoroughly the new version is intended as an exact replica of the old — all the way down to her startling ability to recapture an untrained teen singing voice she’s long matured and moved on from. It’s a stunt, to be sure, but a stunt for the ages — mastering the guile it takes to go back to sounding this guileless.

There are two different, very solid reasons to pick up or stream “Taylor’s Version,” regardless of whether you share her ire for the Big Machine label, whose loose ways with her nine-figure catalog precipitated this, the first in a six-album series of remakes where she’ll be turning on the facsimile machine. One is to marvel at her gift for self-mimicry on the album’s original tracks, where she sounds as possessed by her younger self as Regan ever was by Pazuzu. The other reason is, of course, to check out the six “vault” numbers that Swift wrote during that time frame but has never released before in any form, which dispenses with stylistic fealty to the late 2000s and frames her “Fearless”-era discards in production and arrangements closer to “Folklore.” Those half-dozen (kind of) new tracks really do sound like modern Taylor Swift covering her old stuff.

But those original lucky 13? It’s the same damn record… which is kind of hilarious and marvelous and the kind of meta-ness that will inspire a thousand more think-pieces than it already has, along with possibly efforts at forensic analysis to figure out how she did it.

It would not be surprising if, as we speak, Big Machine was putting a combined team of scientists and lawyers on the case of the new album’s waveform readouts, to make sure it’s not just the original album, remixed. Honestly, it’s that close. The timings of the songs are all within a few seconds of the original tracks, if not coming in at exactly the same length. The duplication effort doesn’t allow any detours. If “Forever and Always” had a cold open then, it’s going to have a cold open now. If the 2008 “That’s the Way I Love You” had slamming rock guitars with an almost subliminal banjo being plucked beneath the racket, so will the 2021 “That’s the Way I Loved You.” A drum roll to end the old “Change”? A drum roll to end its body-snatcher doppelganger. And if she chuckled before the final chorus of “Hey Stephen” 13 years ago, so will that moment be cause for a delighted giggle now.

Of course, much analysis will be put into whether the new laugh is a more knowing-sounding laugh. And that will be part of the fun for a certain segment of audiophile Swifties who will go looking for the slightest change as evidence of something meaningful. When “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” first came out weeks back to preview the album, there were reviews written that swore she’d subtly changed up her phrasing to put a contemporary spin on the song. And maybe they were right, but, having done a fair amount of A/B testing of the two versions of the album, I found myself feeling like I do when vinyl buffs insist there are significant sonic differences between the first stamper version of an LP and one that was pressed a year later. If you can spot those very, very, very modest tweaks, go for it.

But my suspicion is that if Swift has decided to turn a phrase a little differently here or there on this album, or done anything too differently aside from brighten the sound, she’s doing it more as an Easter egg, for the people who are on that kind of hunt, than anything really designed as reinterpretation. Because the last thing Swift wants most of her fans doing is A/B-ing the two versions, the way I did. The whole point is to have folks retire the OG “Fearless” from their Spotify playlists, right? The Swift faithful were already threatening to rain down damnation on anyone caught sneaking an audio peek at the old version after midnight. What she intended was to come up with a rendering so faithful that you would never have a need to spin the vintage album again. In that, she has succeeded beyond what could have been imagined even in the dreams of the few self-forgers who’ve tried this before, like a Jeff Lynne.

Is there any reason to find value in the new versions if you couldn’t care less about the issues of masters and contracts and respect in business deals that made all this strangely possible? Yes, with the first one being that the new album just sounds like a terrific remastering of the old — the same notes, and you’d swear the same performances, but sounding brighter and punchier just on a surface level. But on a more philosophical one, it’s not just a case of Swift playing with her back catalog like Andy Warhol played with his soup can. It’s really a triumph of self-knowledge and self-awareness, in the way that Swift is so hyper-conscious of the ways she’s matured that she has the ability to un-mature before our very ears. With her vocals, it’s virtuosic, in a way, how she’s made herself return to her unvirtuosic upstart self.

On Swift’s earliest albums and in those seminal live shows — at the time when she was famously being told she “can’t sing,” to quote a song from the follow-up album — there was a slight shrillness around the edges of her voice that, if you lacked faith, you might’ve imaged would be there forever. It wasn’t. That was partly youth, and partly just the sheer earnestness with which she wanted to convey the honesty of the songs. She’s advanced so much since then — into one of pop’s most gifted modern singers, really — that the woman of “Folklore” and “Evermore” seems like a completely different human being than the one who made the self-titled debut and “Fearless,” never mind just a woman versus girl. It wouldn’t have seemed possible that she could go back to her old way of singing at the accomplished age of 31, but she found and recreated that nervous, sincere, pleading voice of yesteryear. And maybe it was just a technical feat, of temporarily unlearning what she’s learned since then, but you can sense that maybe she had to go there internally, too, to the place where she was counseling other girls to guard their sexual virtue in “Fifteen,” or wondering whether to believe the fairy tale of “Love Story” or the wakeup call of “White Horse,” or proving with “Forever & Always” that writing a song telling off Joe Jonas for his 27-second breakup call was better than revenge.

If at first you’re not inclined to notice that Swift has re-adopted a completely different singing voice for the “Fearless” remakes, the realization may kick in when those “vault” tracks start appearing in the later stretch of this hour-and-50-minute album. The writing on the six songs that have been pulled up from the 2008 cutting room floor seems primitive, even a little bit by the standards of the “Fearless” album; there are great lines and couplets throughout the rescued tracks, but you can see why she left them as works-in-progress. But she doesn’t use her youthful voice on these resurrections, nor does she employ the actual style of “Fearless” very strictly. Of course, she feels more freedom on these, because there are no predecessors in the Big Machine catalog she’s asking you to leave behind. Her current collaborators of choice, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, divided the co-producing work on these fresher songs, as they did for the two all-new albums she released in the last year. (The “Fearless” recreations are co-produced by Swift with Christopher Rowe, someone who worked on remixes for Swift back in that era.) They co-produce the vault songs in a style that sounds somewhere between “Fearless” and Folklore”… a more spectral brand of country-pop, with flutes and synths and ringing 12-string guitars and a modicum of drum programming replacing some (but not all) of the acoustic stringed instruments you’d expect to be carried over from “Fearless” proper.

Of the previously unheard tracks, Swift was right — she’s always been her own best self-editor — in putting out “You All Over Me” first, in advance of the album. With its imagery of half-muddy stones being upturned on the road, this song has advanced lyrical conceits more of a piece with the level of writing she’s doing now than some of the slightly less precocious songs that follow. Still, there’s something to be said for the sheer zippiness with which Swift conveys teen heartbreak in “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” which has a lyric that shows Swift had long since absorbed the lessons Nashville had to offer about how to come up with a high-concept song — the concept, in this case, being just to stick the word “mister” in front of a lot of phrases relating to her shallow ex, as if they were honorary titles to be conferred for being a shit, while she employs the “miss” for herself more sparingly.

Some of the remaining outtake songs go back more toward the sedate side of “Fearless”-style material; she didn’t leave any real bangers in the can. “We Were Happy,” the first of two successive tracks to bring in Keith Urban (but only for backgrounds on this one), employs fake strings and real cello as Swift waxes nostalgic for a time when “you threw your arms around my neck, back when I deserved it.” It’s funny, in a good way, to hear Swift at 31 recreating a song she wrote at 17 or 18 that pined for long-past better times. The next song, “That’s When,” brings Urban in for a proper duet where he gets a whole second verse and featured status on half a chorus, and it’s lovely to hear them together. But, as a make-up song, it doesn’t feel as real or lived-in as the more personal things she was writing at the time — and the fact that its chords are pretty close to a slightly more balladic version of the superior “You Belong With Me” was probably a pretty good reason for dropping it at the time.

the 18-year-old Taylor Swift is a great place to visit, but “Folklore” and “Evermore” are the place you’ll want to return to and live, unless you have an especially strong sentimental attachment to “Fearless”… which, sure, half of young America does. It’s not irreconcilable to say that the two albums she issued in the last year represent a daring pinnacle of her career, but that “Fearless” deserved to win album of the year in 2008. Has there been a greater pop single in the 20th century than “You Belong With Me”? Probably not. Did the album also have lesser moments you probably haven’t thought about in a while, like the just-okay “Breathe”? Yes. (I looked up to see whether Swift had ever played that little remarked upon number in concert, and according to setlists.fm, she did, exactly once… in 2018. Because she’s Taylor Swift, and of course she did.) It’s not certain that her duet with Colbie Caillat really needed to be resurrected, except it’s fun, because hey, she even roped former duet partners back into her time warp. But there are so many number that have stood the test of time, like “The Way I Love You,” an early song that really got at the complicated feelings about passion and fidelity that she would come to explore more as she grew into her 20s… and just kind of a headbanger, too, on an album that does love its fiddles and mandolins.

It doesn’t take much to wonder why Swift put up “Fearless” first in this six-album exercise; it’s one of her two biggest albums, along with “1989,” and it’s 13 years old, which does mean something superstitious in the Taylor-verse. In a way, it’ll be more interesting to see what happens when she gets to more complicated productions, like “1989” or “Reputation.” But maybe “Fearless” did present the opportunity for the grandest experiment out of the gate: to recreate something that pure and heartfelt, with all the meticulousness a studio master like Swift can put to that process now, without having it seem like she’s faking sincerity. Let the think-pieces proceed — because this is about six hundred different shades of meta. But, all craftiness and calculation aside, there’s a sweetness to the regression that’s not inconsequential. It harks back to a time when she only wondered if she could be fearless, before she learned it the harder way for sure. What they say about actors “disappearing into the role”? That really applies to Taylor Swift, playing herself.

[hohoz]

The ones that suffer the most

I wanted to talk about this for a long time.

I’m a Resident evil addicted, I finished almost every RE game released and I must say that Capcom made some poor choices regarding Jill and Chris, they are EASILY the most mistreated characters in RE Franchise. 

But let’s explain why is that: 

Jill and Chris are survivors, they had to survive in a mansion with a lot of puzzles and zombies, while looking for items that could help them to progress and find a way to reach Brad. 

When they arrive at STARS Office, they are revolted that Umbrella did all that under their noses and innocents were dying because of that and they explained EVERYTHING in a report - but Irons made that go away. 

In the ORIGINAL RE3 we had this special file (Jill’s Diary) 

August 7th Two weeks have passed since that day. My wounds have been healed, but I just can't forget it. For most people, it's history now. But for me, whenever I close my eyes, it all comes back clearly. Zombies eating people's flesh and the screams of my teammates dying. No, the wounds in my heart are not healed yet...

August 13th Chris has been causing a lot of trouble recently. What's with him? He seldom talks to the other police members and is constantly irritated. The other day, he punched Elran of the Boy's Crime department just for accidentally splashing Chris's face with coffee. I immediately stopped Chris, but when he saw me he just gave me a wink and walked away. I wonder what happened to him...

August 15th Midnight. Chris, who has been on a leave of absence for a "vacation," called me so I visited his apartment. As soon as I walked into his room, he showed me a couple of pieces of paper. They were part of a virus research report entitled as simply as "G". Then Chris told me that, "The nightmare still continues." He went on to say that, "It's not over yet." Ever since that day, he has been fighting all by himself without rest, without even telling me.

August 24th Chris left the town today to go to Europe. Barry told me that he would send his family to Canada and then he would follow Chris. I decided to remain in Raccoon City for a while because I know that the research facility in this city will be very important to this entire case. In a month or so, I'll be joining with them somewhere in Europe. That's when my real battle begins...

For some weird reason this file isn’t available in RE3 Remake. 

But ok, here we see that Chris was doing some investigation - in the RE2RMK  you could see this letter that Chris left in a way that normal people wouldn't understand - the only thing that Claire says is that “doesnt look like him” but how normies would understand what Chris is like is he is not well represented in media ??????????????????

And Jill had all the detective work in her wall. 

So far so good - we understand the basics about them - they are Special police force, the elite, they had a traumatic experience and they survived to tell the story. 

Some problems until now:

Jill had a MAJOR personality change in RE3 RMK- I honestly like most of that, she is a badass in the originals and she is a badass in the rmk but I still dislike the fact that she swears all the time (specially because in RE1, RE Rev, RE5 she doesn't do that) 

We can tell a lot about her personality just looking at her room, but I still miss some stuff (I had expectations - so this is not a real problem. but still) like a Vinyl player (since she is probably into classical music), some letters from her father so new players can understand her origin and why is she so good in lockpicking and more about her dog (she had a pic in the original that could’ve been her boyfriend but it was replaced by a dog in RE2 rmk but in RE3 Rmk there in no dog) 

Okay - after you finish the game the only thing we see is this: 

In my opinion this is Chris since he is always associated with Green colors while Jill is associated with blue. 

So my speculation here is that she found him while in the original we had this: 

This is not a major chance but still is important (lore of course - duh) but the problem here is that while Jill is looking for him - Code Veronica is happening. 

So I can only assume two things, they did not show him because they DON’T HAVE A FACE FOR HIM or I am wrong and that is Jill, but if that is Jill so why there is no decent epilogue like the original ? 

Okay, now we are arriving in the real trouble area

I will do RE5 first and the Wii and Rev1 (even tho those two comes first in the lore) 

RESIDENT EVIL 5 

So before the game was release we had some propaganda, including this: 

So have in mind that Jill was dead, I thought that she died and RE5 would explain that shit. 

But in the beginning we see that Chris is looking for her and have in mind that Chris HAD A MAJOR CHANCE IN HIS APPEARANCE, and I’m not talking about his muscles. 

I will not address Chris in CV since he was good in that game but I the team that made CV also made the original, it had CONSISTENCE. 

Here we have Chris, he’s THE classical american soldier protagonist from Hollywood in the 80′s/90′s and he had some omage to TOPGUN

He also shares some traits with his sister

A major trait here is that HE HAS BLUE EYES, typical good looking soldier from US. 

and now let’s have a look at Chris in RE5...

Yeah... I still hate this face even tho I love his Character in this game, this ugly a** monkey looking mf and he had a lot of steroids

So we have some lore to him in RE5, Jill and Chris went to a mansion looking for Spencer (one of the fathers of Umbrella and the one that was behind project Wesker, he wanted to do this Virus so he could live forever, so RE has a good lore, it’s not just about zombies) but when they found him, he was dead and Wesker was by his side, in a fight Jill sacrificed herself to save Chris’s life. 

Chris started doing mission after mission because her body was never found, and he made a name for himself, he became a ‘legend’ inside BSAA and you can see that in the beginning of RE5.

The reason behind the muscles was probably to fight Wesker mano to mano but still is not well made, it really felt weird playing for the first time. 

So now we have a problem here, there is thing that you use in a narrative that is to make someone strong af powerless, and they did that to Jill. (a good example of this is in TWD- Ricky is a fucking legend and Negan made him powerless in the face of a event) 

Jill was used in a Boss fight and that is it... She is not in the game as a character, she is being manipulated and her whole design was changed, she looks like Nina from Tekken. WTF. - BTW, the fact that Wesker had mind control over her created 1000 fics of sex 

 So that is it, my main problem here isnt Jill itself, but it’s the fact that they used her character as a boss even tho she is the heroine, she never appears in RE lore again until some guy inside Capcom said “Well people are asking about Jill so let’s place a file in Rev2 saying that she is in rehab” 

The only time that she appears again is in a 3DS NINTENDO ONLY game, it felt that Capcom simply don’t care about her character. 

By the way Revelations 1 is a great game and was adaptable some years later for PC and consoles

But you think that this is bad, wait until we arrive at RESIDENT EVIL 6 

When I learned that Jill was not in RE6 I was mad... But after I played that game I said “thank you God” that game was bad, transformers kind of bad, it had bad writing, the lore was all over the place and Chris was the one that suffered the most in this game. 

He was responsible for the death of an entire squad, suffered amnesia and people still wanted him in the command 

THEY MADE HIM AN ALCOHOLIC 

The golden boy of BSAA reduced to THIS. 

By the way, the director said that HE WANTED TO KILL CHRIS IN THIS GAME to SUBVERT EXPECTATIONS - so if you liked Piers now that he died only because of that. 

So now let’s analyse what we know: 

The first 2 main characters are not well represented in media until RE6, they don’t know how to re introduce Jill in the games and Chris was reduced to a normal guy at a Russian bar;

But it gets worse... 

Capcom LOVE Leon, we know that. he is always the hero, he is the protagonist in almost every movie and he is always the cool guy so when he get’s a new model, he looks like this:

But When Chris get’s a new face he look like this: 

WHO DAFUQ ARE U, no offense to the model but he has NEGATIVE JAW LINE.

And still he doesn't look like Claire’s brother, there is no blue/green eyes and he looks younger that he was in 6 (and 6 still uses that ugly character model) 

But let’s go in the lore- we HAVE 0 info on Jill in RE6 / RE7 and no sight of her in RE8 

And speaking of which, they tried to make Chris the bad guy in the trailer so when we play we see “Ohhhh he was not the bad guy, that happened and that is why he did that” 

But still... 

If they are going to do that to his character don’t use this character, shit ! Do something with that Wesker’s son that made 0 sense in RE6 but leave Chris out of this - it really feels that they simply don’t know how to treat him right

And you may think that I may be complaining a lot because of his appearance

But this is him in RE8  

(to me this is some random dude from Russia) 

And this is him in RE:Verse (that is going to be release TOGETHER) 

So this tells me that they have 0 clue of how to handle his looks

Jill got RE3Rmk but it felt like a cheap game compared to RE2Rmk where the original RE3 was SO MUCH BETTER

And this is bad because there are so many new fans joining the fandom only to see 2 great characters suffering from poor director’s choices. 

I’m sorry about this rant, if you like Chris face and looks its okay, really, but dont tell me that Chris from 5/6/8 is the same from 1/CV and if you think im wrong about Jill its fine, but she is an amazing character that could have so much more impact in RE universe (I mean, she never even appeared in a RE movie - animations) 

But it’s sad to see so many characters that receive good representation in media and good games/lore while Jill get’s almost none and Chris is handled like random face guy. 

I was going to talk a little bit more about Rev 1 and RE Umbrella Chronicles but there is no need since Im mad right now and it seems that Capcom has 0 interest in making Code Veronica and Umbrella’s fall after that since their fav boy Leon need a rmk in RE4 even tho RE4 is not that old. 

Bonus:

Fun fact: Chris served in the Air force, so yeah, to me even Tom Cruise looks more like Chris than Chris from the games

[preemshots]

johnny + the nomads lore

alright, i know this is a screenshots blog but i'm going to go ahead and start dropping some juicy lore tidbits as i dig them up. part of what i'm doing outside of just photo diarying is shard hunting, and BOY is there a lot the game likes to hide in those little shards for idiots like me who like to read so we can write unnecessarily accurate fanfiction! 

full disclosure, i know jack shit about the TTRPG/cyberpunk 2020 rulebook except what i read in the wikis. 

so here’s my lore roundup so far of everything i know about johnny joining the nomads

we know johnny likes to narrate v’s quest objectives. here’s the first mention where he says it himself: 

during the voodoo boys quest "transmission" there's a shard in the maglev tunnels beside the ice bath, presumably from brigitte's research into johnny in the first place:

okay, so the timeline is this: johnny joins the nomads after trying and failing to rescue alt. johnny hides out in the badlands for some years. then he and rogue come back to night city and nuke arasaka tower help alt escape the arasaka subnet by uploading liberator to their network once and for all.

this ultimately makes sense. in alt’s flashback, we meet santiago, who is a nomad/connected to nomads, joins rogue and johnny when they're trying to get alt back, and eventually becomes the leader of the aldecaldos. 

part of santiago’s TTRPG lore is that he, johnny, and rogue have to lay low in the badlands with nomads after they storm arasaka headquarters (i am aware the game takes many liberties with the original lore so who knows the full accuracy of anything from the original rulebooks)

ENDING spoilers: in the rogue+johnny storming AHQ ending, it's revealed that rogue has a son while they're prepping for the job. if you eavesdrop on her calling him while you're at the afterlife, you hear her tell her son to (paraphrasing here) "pull over and look at the stars", which immediately made my brain go to: nomad, badlands, santiago = dad? maybe. (santiago also canonically has a son according to the TTRPG lore)

this immediately reminded me of another interesting shard that i believe you can find in multiple locations around night city: “"what REALLY happened in arasaka tower?“

i love this dang shard. at first i thought it was just a cute conspiracy with some juicy gossip (and i love how 99% of the shards that mention johnny in this game are reminding us that he's not a real rebel, he's a poser) but it brings some interesting shit together

one: it tells us where johnny got his hands on the nukes! he and the nomads jumped a militech convoy and jacked some bombs! 

which is never directly explained, even as saburo arasaka is interrogating him shortly before using soulkiller. very nice of johnny to protect his homies like that. 

...or maybe he didn’t. saburo emphasizes that the dead don’t lie like the living do, and we don’t know what exactly arasaka did to johnny’s construct in mikoshi. 

it also explains why the obvious media narrative is that militech nuked arasaka, a nice neat political bow to the end of the fourth corpo wars, which is an entire section of the TTRPG lore that makes my eyes cross when i read it. 

it also makes the star/nomads ending extremely interesting, because i originally believed it was the ending where V’s journey deviates the most from rewalking johnny’s path... which also has weird implications if the johnny’s nomad era is being kept from v. 

(this also leads into my belief that the star ending/the devil ending are narratively two sides of the same coin, but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER POST for another day.)

TWO, just straight up the fact that they turned the raid where they actually obtained the nukes into an action flick BD that pretty much ANYONE could watch. who the hell was doing that?? 

well, who else other than the guy who johnny (optionally) punched the shit out of for filming alt's death: thompson, media guy, and according to rogue, “bad luck”. because you know, recording your crimes is straight up evidence that can be used against you.

during the alt flashback we meet thompson, and just after that in cyberspace before meeting alt, johnny tells v that he has no idea what happened to him and that they never worked together again. 

oh, johnny, you lying bastard man

this is blatantly untrue, and if V even had two braincells and better memory than a goldfish they'd know this--in the first flashback sequence where johnny and rogue nuke arasaka tower, thompson is on the comms as they ride the AV towards AHQ, questioning their plans and use of violence. 

which leaves me with some questions, like where the fuck is thompson, why does johnny keep lying about this, why doesn't johnny say almost anything about how you interact with the aldecaldo clan nonstop throughout the game when he himself may have been a member of the family for some time?? is he continuing to protect the nomad clan that saved his ass? we know that a lot of his flashbacks are unreliable at best, that johnny changes shit up as desired when presenting V with his memories.

in 2077, you can also find that there’s a remake of “badlands raid” in the shard “new release braindances” that is pretty much everywhere. that shard doesn’t add much, but does mention something along the lines of “many people don’t know the ending of the original” which probably means johnny punched thompson out for filming again, or something. 

my running theories: rogue ditched santiago and the aldecaldos with johnny and thompson to nuke arasaka tower, and when johnny died she was stuck looking for (heavily implied by johnny here:) corpo sellout ways to survive.

adam smasher obviously has something to do with this since johnny/rogue's vendetta against the guy isn't entirely clear beyond the smokescreen of "he killed johnny and he sucks". i have done 0 research into this though i'm tired of typing okay

i obviously cannot be certain i have found everything related to this in the game as i’m not even done with this playthrough where i’m trying to pay attention, but i hope this is fun for someone else to dig into. 

enjoy, fellow silverhand freaks

EDIT: additional findings

ALRIGHT I HAVE DONE MORE DIGGING AND I AM BACK WITH MORE NOMAD/JOHNNY FINDINGS. these ones are kind of a bummer but VERY interesting.

there’s a shard called “excerpts from a history of the nomads by bb pires” that goes into detail about how nomads came to be

there’s an interesting quote in it: It's hard to imagine a group less inclined to wandering than farmers, but in fact they were the ones who sparked the age of nomads. Natural catastrophes, crops ravaged by bioplagues, armed conflicts and martial law allowing corporations to speculate and privatize land - all this forced them into a life on the road.

when you ask johnny why he wants to take down arasaka, he begins by referencing this himself!!

it’s a little awkward to imagine a nomad V doesn’t also know what he’s referencing, but hey, V is the fool because we are as players and that’s only one life path... so sure.

johnny also has unique dialogue during this scene about a nomad origin V, telling them that he’s been trying to understand how V thinks, and came to the conclusion that “their family was a crutch” and essentially made them stupid because they always had a safety net (lmao johnny calling v privileged basically)

BUT this also may reference why johnny would find it confusing as hell that V doesn’t immediately share the views he does when nomads, in terms of values, seem to be more aligned with johnny than V is. but once again V is the fool for a reason and this is all my own speculation so YOU KNOW.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, at the end of chippin’ in, when you ask johnny what he meant by letting down his friends... santiago is named directly

i thought this was interesting since the only glimpse of their relationship that we get is seeing johnny meeting santiago via the alt flashback for the first time.

so now it’s obvious that while johnny and rogue were with the nomads their friendship developed, and johnny went on to disappoint santiago in some way by being his normal dickhead self

but HOW? how did he disappoint santiago? is santiago even still alive?? did smasher kill santiago and is this why rogue mentions during chippin’ in that she wants smasher to “settle a score” moreso than avenge johnny??

the only additional hints i have are from this shard, which you can find at the aldecaldos camp: “nomads at ground zero”

i’m just gonna transcribe here and bold for emphasis:

It was no secret that Night Corp offered generous pay and, in some cases, free cyberware and biomonitor upgrades to anyone willing to help clean up the crater of radioactive rubble at AHQ ground zero. Some firsthand accounts recall the incessant ticking of Geiger counters, like the loud buzz of cicadas in summer. In retrospect, we can only guess how many "crater cleaners" lost their lives to radiation sickness shortly thereafter. Both the city government and Night Corp have claimed casualties were kept to a minimum, while providing no official statistics to substantiate the claim. That being said, they have never been under pressure to release such figures. After all, most rescue, engineering, and rubble cleanup teams were not local Night Citizens, but nomads. Surprised you didn't know? Don't be. It is a fact many history courses tend to overlook. The city employed hundreds of nomad mercenaries, primarily from clans in Aldecaldo nation. These nomads were hungry for gainful work and the city needed experts who were not only experienced but brave enough to knowingly put their lives on the line - all so Arasaka could one day erect another tower in its place. But history is not without its sense of irony. These nomads, who so deliberately live outside our so-called "system," came to its very rescue. Not for the first time. And not for the last.

a main theme we find in this game is the idea that the system of corps and exploitation cannot be stopped by grandiose rebellious gestures--no amount of samurai songs, assassinating mayors, or even planting nukes in towers will change things. yet johnny, his friends and mercs at atlantis in the 2020s, including rogue, chose to rebel any way they could, thinking it better than not. johnny criticizes her lack of rebellious spirit CONSTANTLY in 2077.

but ultimately, johnny, trapped in mikoshi, didn’t get to see the outcome of what detonating the AHQ nukes did to night city’s fragile ecosystem. rogue, however, did--and likely watched their former allies, the aldecaldos, be forced to take dangerous work at AHQ’s ground zero (from lack of other opportunities as detailed in this shard), then die from radiation sickness throughout the following decades, all as a result of what she and johnny did to try and fight the system. and she also watched all the former mercenaries of atlantis be hunted down by arasaka.

so rogue sees firsthand what the cost of rebellion is and johnny doesn’t. and nomads, considered the most free of any of the factions we encounter in the game, are the cost.

[mst3kproject]

The Neanderthal Man

Since I'm taking a break from fishmen, I might as well let Bigfoot catch up a bit.  The Neanderthal Man isn't exactly a Bigfoot movie, but it’s along the same lines and its entire starring cast has MST3K pedigrees.  Robert Shayne was in Indestructible Man and Teenage Caveman. Richard Crane was Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! Beverly Garland was in Swamp Diamonds and Gunslinger. Even the composer, Albert Glasser, wrote music for Invasion USA, Last of the Wild Horses, and almost all of MST3K’s Bert I. Gordon movies.

Some little mountain town in the middle of the Sierras (which the Portentous 50's Narrator takes some trouble to tell us is a primeval place where 'the defacing hand of civilization has fallen but lightly') is having a rash of saber-toothed tiger sightings!  At first these are laughed off, but when the game warden himself sees one cross the road in the middle of the night, it's time to do something about it.  The warden shows a cast pawprint to Dr. Ross Harkness in Los Angeles, who is interested enough to come up and see for himself. Local Mad Scientist Dr. Groves pooh-poohs the whole thing, which is enough to tell me that we're not dealing with a local cryptid here.  Somebody is making prehistoric monsters.

So... I may not have actually run out of movies, but I seem to be running out of plots, because this is a remarkably similar movie to Monster on the Campus. The major difference between the two films is that Dr. Blake turned himself into a caveman by accident, while Dr. Groves here is doing it on purpose.

Another difference is that Monster on the Campus' story, while silly, was linear – events escalated in a way that felt logical, and there were reasons why things happened when and where they did.  By contrast, The Neanderthal Man feels like a first draft.  At the beginning of the film, we're dealing with the saber-toothed tigers that Groves has been creating by injecting cats with his de-evolution serum.  We hear about these slaughtering game and livestock, and it seems like only a matter of time before they move on to human beings.  The beginning of the film is quite upfront about the fact that Groves is responsible, too, as it is only mildly mysterious in its depiction of one of the creatures escaping his lab.

Sometimes the saber-tooths are represented by an actual tiger, usually filmed from behind or at a great distance so nobody has to put the prosthetic teeth on it.  They do have prosthetic teeth, but they're only visible in a couple of shots. Imagine being at a bar and some guy tells you his job is sticking fake fangs on real tigers for a caveman movie!  For close-ups, there's a hilarious puppet head that looks like the sort of thing you'd see mounted on a frat house wall as a joke.  The director had the sense not to linger on this in motion shots, but later we see still photographs Groves has supposedly taken of his experimental subjects and they're even stupider-looking than we imagined.

Anyway, this goes on for a while with rising action, as the game warden goes to get Harkness and they manage to shoot one of the animals, only to have it vanish from the kill site when they try to show it to Groves (the movie never bothers to explain how that happened, incidentally. The ending suggests that the creatures change back when they die, but there's definitely no dead kitty cat at the scene, either).  The whole movie could easily have just had the cats and their creator as the antagonists, perhaps even ending the same way as Dr. Groves proves his work to the other characters by injecting himself. That's not what happens, though.  Instead, the story mostly forgets about the cats one we find out Groves has also been carrying on human experiments.

(Before himself, Groves' first experimental subject was his disabled Latina housekeeper.  Another series of photos show her half-transformed into a cavewoman who for some reason is wearing drag queen false eyelashes.  And as long as I'm talking about the movie being gross and bigoted, there's a bit where a woman is violently raped.  This happens off camera, but the audience is not allowed to entertain any illusions about it.)

The problem is that before we see him give himself an injection in the arm, we have had absolutely no indication that Groves has been giving his serum to anything besides the cats! Cats are stealthy, cryptic creatures and if one of those has been seen wandering around killing things, then surely a full-on caveman beating people to death would not be able to stay out of sight!  If what we were seeing were the first time Groves had tried the formula on himself then that would be an explanation, but his notes reveal that he's been doing it for so long that he's on the verge of losing control of the transformation and permanently reverting to a pre-human status, as indeed he does for the climax.  Much like the stupid dinosaur in The Beast of Hollow Mountain, the movie's main monster is given no build-up whatsoever!

There's worse yet, though.  The main characters, Dr. Harkness and Groves' daughter Jan, are barely involved in the 'caveman' part of the plot. They get phone calls about the various murders that Groves is committing in caveman form, and they snoop around the lab to figure out things the audience already knows.  The same story could have been told without them, perhaps with the game warden and the hunter as protagonists, and it would probably have been more interesting. The script also repeatedly has Dr. Groves wander in and bluster about how the tiger sightings are hallucinations and tall tales, which seems a little unnecessary when we already know he's responsible. The film-makers can't seem to decide whether they want us to know that or not.

Dr. Groves wears glasses.  Maybe the reason his primitive alter-ego is angry and breaking shit (although it does politely open and close the window it climbs out of, which made me laugh) is because it can't see. This is also my theory about why the Hulk smashes, and what do you know?  In Avengers Endgame he's got Hulk-sized spectacles and only smashes when he's told!

The direction of The Neanderthal Man can probably best be described as 'serviceable'.  It shows us what's going on, but doesn't particularly add anything to the proceedings.  The 'Neanderthal' mask is immobile and uninteresting, not much better than somebody's Party City Sasquatch costume.  Even the eyes are just painted on, meaning the poor guy in the costume can’t do much because he can’t see where he’s going.

The dialogue is often very strange, with characters talking like they're in a Jules Verne novel. If only one person did this, it might seem like a character quirk – it works for Dr. Groves, for example – but it's everybody. Seeing the cat carcass is gone, Harkness declares, “I refuse to believe in the supernatural!  There must be some logical cause and effect to this unholy adventure!”  Groves' fiancee Ruth berates him for ignoring her, saying, “I want you, the man I once knew!  The good companion, the cheerful friend.  I want the happiness we once found in each other.”  It's bizarre to listen to, and often audibly awkward for the actors.

Monster on the Campus was kind of trying to be about how humanity must choose to evolve away from our inner savage, although the finale didn't bear that out.  There's a scene in The Neanderthal Man in which this movie seems to be trying to go in the opposite direction, saying that we were never savage to begin with.  Dr. Groves is speaking to a panel of scientists about the size of the brain in various 'primitive' species of human.  He points out that by the time we reached Homo erectus we were already working with four times the cerebral jelly of a chimpanzee, and argues that our ancestors would have been recognizably human in their behaviour and problem-solving capacity.

(Amusingly, his chart of human evolution includes Piltdown Man, which was proven to be a hoax literally a few months after this movie's release.  What makes this even more tragic for the writers is that their list of primitive humans seems to be the only place where they actually did any research.)

The problem with Dr. Groves' theory is that he already knows it's wrong. We soon learn that he's been experimenting on himself with his serum for a while already, and his notes show that he knows very well he regresses into a near-mindless animal.  The movie does not even try to reconcile these ideas.  If Groves were continuing his experiments in the hope that perfecting his serum would give him a more accurate reconstruction of ancient man, that would be one thing, but the script never goes there.

So now that we've had two 'man turns into caveman by injecting science juice' movies, of course I have to ask which one is better.  Monster on the Campus wasn't a good movie but it was definitely an improvement on The Neanderthal Man in several respects, and although I don't have any way to find out for certain, I suspect it was an intentional remake.  It's definitely more entertaining and gets bonus points for including the Meganeura dragonfly, but nothing in it is nearly as funny as The Neanderthal Man's fake tiger head.  I guess if you're gonna watch one or the other, stick to Monster on the Campus, but if you're gonna watch both, start with The Neanderthal Man and do them in chronological order, the better to spot the inspirations and references.

Before I go, a fun paleontology fact: current thinking is that the saber-toothed cat's eponymous fangs actually didn't show when it had its mouth closed!  There are zero cave paintings or ancient sculptures of a saber-tooth cat with teeth visible, and when scientists looked at the structure of the enamel in the canines, it suggested that in life the teeth were hidden by big, fleshy, St Bernard jowls.  Google 'smilodon lips' and behold how this looks fully three hundred percent more ridiculous than you're imagining.  I love nature.

[pupuseriazag]

holaaa :D yesterday i saw you reblogged a post about self insert ocs and i was curious about yours! if you wanna talk a little about them of course, sin compromiso 😆

Holisss Pa mi sera un placer hablar de mis bbs y me alegra mucho que te diera curiosidad 🥺🥺💜 So I'll tell you a little about them UwU:

My main self inserts in my OCs are two, my Naruto OC Haruka and my The Arcana MC Luna (Long post ahead)

🌸 Haruka 🌸

I created her around 2008 when I first watched naruto, I was soo into Sasuke I would daydream about ""me"" in the story and how I would also fangirl for Sasuke just like Sakura 😂 Actually, she even started as Sakura's sister/twin (And one of my cousins lended me his naruto clash of ninja game fo the gamecube and I would use a recolor of Sakura to signify "hey thats her :D") Also the name yeah, being similar to Sakura's 😅

Then I kinda drifted away from the idea of her being Sakura's twin and just went with what I wanted to be percieved back there (I wanted to dye my hair red and my fav color was blue so...

....Yeah 💀

That's the only drawing I ever did of Haruka before "realizing" it was a cringy thing to make self inserts and completely discarded her and stopped watching Naruto for a long time 😔

Fast forward 2021, shit happened to me, went to therapy, you know the gig and said "You know what?! FUCK IT. I want to be happy like that again. I'll remake her"

And so I retook the ideas of her and and managed to make a new version of her, one I felt prouder but tryin to keep the same general idea about her, (and some minor hc's I would daydream about once I would remember about sasuke or the series)

I discussed it with a dear friend who is still very involved in naruto and this is her now!

Also I've been actively writing her story as I rewatch naruto and think what she would've done in the series (which... yeah is mostly a passion project and something I'm doing mostly for me and my friends to read about my girl :'3 Its LOOONG and I havent even reached the final fight with Zabusa 💀✋🏻)

Her story at the moment is that both Sasuke and Itachi found her unconscious as a little child in a river nearby the village, and the Uchihas deciding to take her of her instead of leaving her in the care of the higher ups (specially after seeing naruto's situation 😬). And she grows really close to Sasuke, even escaping with him, basically being his right hand.

I'll think about releasing her story if anybody is interested in my bs 😅

🌙 Luna 🌙

Luna is my The Arcana MC and the other self insert I have given much love. When I joined the arcana fandom I was coming out a dark point in my life, and saw how diverse and open the game was to every kind of MC to exist so I said "fuck it" and went full self insert with Luna, even more than Haruka 😂

This is my baby, a chubby, short haired, small and non binary songstress 💜 I was so inspired by other latine artists in the fandom and decided to show a little bit of el salvador with Luna as well 😂 specially in their clothing and making them come from a fictional city-state called Kuatlán. Luna is basically the most close to what I look like irl down, to even the small necklace they wear. I always tried to make them be a representation of both myself and salvadorean culture because damn, there's really not that guanaco representation 😅.

Even in their story I tried to incoporate certain aspects of things that have happened to me (but the majority is fiction in the arcana universe) I have their backstory in my AO3 if you are interested! Its liked in my pinned post uwu. Although I still need to write their childhood and how they escaped Kuatlán to live in Vesuvia... and also this other story I planned about them and Muriel visiting Kuatlán that I never wrote... yeah...

Although I have left the arcana fandom for personal reasons I may do more things about them if I see people interested lol but Luna still holds a space in my heart in how I managed to lend them my appearence and culture to represent 💜💜 (but they will definetly not be the last OC I'll salvadorize 😈😈😈)

That will be all the self ins-

...nevermind theres another one, but we don't talk about Iris

That will be all! Gracias por tu curiosidad en elles :'3

[roserussell]

ℬ - What are your top three favourite movies ( do video games instead ), and why?  

POSITIVE MUNDAY MEME.

I feel like you already know the answer to this?

Kingdom Hearts: Honestly a lot of it has to do with nostalgia but I know that this game (and a couple others I may mention) are my first real taste of clinging on to something that got me in story wise. We all meme and joke about how hard the KH story is to follow and how complicated it really is, and yeah I agree. It’s overly complicated but that’s kind of what I love about it. It’s got all the elements of classic Disney in it too- power of friendship, the undeniable hero... but there’s something about the characters that are amazing to me as well. Roxas’ struggle with his own darkness, Sora’s battle with his self-worth and abilities, Donald Duck being more powerful than a fucking Primal God. You know, the small things.

World of Warcraft: Okay okay hear me out. Before you give me shit about Blizzard this, Blizzard that- I know. I know. Nothing about Blizzard is a great company but I still love WoW. The story used to be wonderful and it was the first real MMORPG that I ever devoted time to and learned how to play. I do sometimes miss it and think about picking it back up. It’s mostly the lore and characters in this one that kept me coming back time and time again. I loved how they developed in front of me, as I played the game. Sometimes I felt like my choices as a player contributed to it.

Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt: Never has a game made me feel so badass and amazing. I know I keep saying the same thing over and over again but the story is just amazing. Plus I’m just good at playing the game. I love that my choices do matter in this game and because of that it changes the outcomes. It makes it so its not the exact same game every time. The characters, like the others, are well written and developed over the span of the game (not including the two previous Witcher titles) that have me so invested in the game every time I play.

Some honorable mentions because it was so hard picking top 3:

Legend of Zelda, Hades, DMC reboot, Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy VII + Remake, Destiny 2. 

[armorsleevedsinglehit]

the huge shippuden music meta

no one asked for this but i’m gonna write it anyway. i’m going to focus primarily on the shippuden soundtrack here, but expect some references to the original series soundtrack as well. also before i begin i know approximately two (2) music so some of my terminology is probably going to be incorrect lol, it’s been a while since college. this is a general shippuden meta but it does focus on the uchiha clan, in particular sasuke and madara.

anyway, to start off, you can pretty easily divide the shippuden soundtrack into a few general categories:

traditional and/or acoustic

electric guitar tracks

some combination of these, plus orchestra hits aplenty

there are a few odd ducks here and there, but no worries, we’ll get to them. and then within these general categories we have a series of recurring character motifs (which can be a bit muddled, because certain themes are used for multiple characters. i assume that naruto (the show) isn’t necessarily scored the way a film would be, and so the directors just slapped whatever dramatic/sad/upbeat music they could find onto a scene, esp if it’s a filler ep, which definitely generates some confusion.) but characters and groups in shippuden DO sort of get their own motifs and themes, so here is my very basic list of those as well:

uzumaki clan and its descendants/allies: “emergence of talents/hyakkaryōran” has a very cool melody towards the end that comes back in “narukami/weeping god” and “shoryu/rising dragon”. we can basically call this the protagonist theme. naruto, sakura, kakashi, jiraiya, most of the konoha 11, and even minato get to claim this one. however, VERY interestingly, narukami is what plays when tobi (as madara) is telling sasuke about the glory days of the uchiha clan... possibly hinting at greater connections between the two clans???????????

akatsuki-related themes: i won’t link a ton of these because they’re super obvious. they’re often full of choir and organ (harkening back to orochimaru’s original series theme); they also tend to be slower. not always, though; look at crimson flames, a slapper if i ever heard one. prime example of akatsuki themes: girei, my FAVORITE bit of the shippuden soundtrack. UGH.

general shippuden themes: things like hurricane suite, heaven-shaking event, etc. most of the first ost goes in here. this category also contains the closest approximation to hashirama’s theme that i could find, experienced many battles and departure to the front lines, which both make me cry lol

there are other fun little motifs and bits and bobs that appear in this soundtrack that i won’t get into here for length (remind me to talk about the angelic herald of death sometime), but it’s a remarkably cohesive piece of work to the point where it gets repetitive sometimes; why are all the super interesting tracks unreleased!!!!??? anyway the purpose of this meta is to attempt to make sense of the way this soundtrack works. we’ll investigate sasuke primarily because i feel that he really ties the whole soundtrack together, and you can extrapolate a lot from the way his theme evolves.

sasuke’s theme (wandering/hyouhaku), yes the dramatic cowboy music theme, is this wonderfully atmospheric track that makes use of the kind of negative space between guitar strums to build up this aura, this Essence of Sasuke. this alone makes it stand apart from other mostly-acoustic pieces on the soundtrack, to me. the whole thing is just humming with this simmering frustration and melancholy and it really gives you a sense of sasuke as this tortured figure who has been severely wronged and experienced the world’s faults firsthand. notably, this version of sasuke’s theme lifts its opening notes (and structure, sorta) from sasuke’s original series theme, which i assume was on purpose. it shows that he’s grown jaded as he got older, i think.

anyway, as the inevitable battle between sasuke and itachi draws closer, we get our first variation on sasuke’s theme: black spot/kokuten. it has the same melody and structure as before, but features heavier guitars, more orchestration, and, in the final bars, notes that previously fell on 1 and 4 but now fall on 1 and 3, which bring a heightened sense of urgency to the whole thing. and more importantly, it ends without resolving itself? it leaves us hanging on this almost call-and-response bit with one wailing guitar after another, before winding the orchestration down and fizzling back down to the level of “wandering.” here we see a sasuke in progress, if you will, working towards a goal that some may find sinister, but he is determined if nothing else, and the instruments match his fervor. it’s roughly analogous to “crimson flames” in terms of intensity, but it’s very distinctly Sasuke.

there are several more variations of sasuke’s theme floating around, but the next one i want to talk about is this one called “sasuke’s ninja way,” apparently, never officially released but relentlessly employed by the anime directors. it takes a more subtle turn than “black spot,” but i don’t see it as a direct sequel to “wandering” for a few different reasons. i think it represents the dilemma sasuke found himself after finally killing itachi and learning the truth about him: the realization that this whole quest for power of his was never really about revenge on one specific person, but rather about reforming the shinobi world as a whole. it’s slower than “black spot,” yet darker, more ominous; it treads the same general path as “wandering” but with added electric guitar, and, notably, choir. recall that choir is often used for themes related to the akatsuki, which i think ties in neatly with sasuke’s motivations at this point. he, like nagato before him, wants to remake the world.

the final iteration of sasuke’s theme, “sasuke’s revolution/junkyousha,” brings it all together. the akatsuki is commonly represented through choir and organ, and this theme starts out with both of these cranked up to the max. this is (pardon the pun) sasuke’s rebirth, if you will. just combine the intensity of “girei,” the anger of “crimson flames,” and the determination of “emergence of talents” and you’re there. seriously: this culmination of sasuke’s character development basically pulls from every single facet of the soundtrack and produces this MASSIVELY rich piece full of anger and rage and hate and fury, while STILL managing to include the twangy guitar bits from “wandering” (which have gone back to 1 and 4!!). we also have someone going ham on a shamisen towards the end of the track, which calls to mind the shamisen solo from “emergence of talents” and other tracks. hinting at an eventual compromise with naruto, possibly?

anyway, i started out this meta trying to find a piece of the soundtrack that could serve as madara’s theme, but i wasn’t sure that one existed. i think the susano’o has a theme, and the uchiha clan has a theme, but....madara just doesn’t?? sure there are unreleased tracks like “legendary uchiha,” but i’d argue that doesn’t really go into his character as much as it just says “watch out for this fucking guy.”

but then i listened to hurricane suite one more time, and i was like HOLY SHIT THIS IS IT. for one thing, it’s long as fuck: this track is a whole journey. it really gives the impression of someone who has lived an impossibly long life and become jaded and cruel and hardened. i realize that the argument could be made that hurricane suite is sasuke’s theme, not madara’s, or that it’s a general shippuden theme and doesn’t represent one character in particular. and yes, i think both of these interpretations are correct. hurricane suite represents what sasuke could POTENTIALLY turn out to be, given his evolution from “wandering” to “black spot” to “sasuke’s ninja way” all the way to “sasuke’s revolution.” hurricane suite warns us that sasuke can (and very well may!) make the same mistakes madara did and end up destroying himself in the process. (the middle of “hurricane suite” GREATLY resembles “wandering.”) and recall that hurricane suite is used in the very first episode of shippuden: the episode where naruto encounters sasuke for the first time, AND- are you ready for this- when madara’s name is dropped for the first time in the series.

this is why i think that, along with it being a general shippuden theme, hurricane suite is also madara’s theme. shippuden as a whole is practically suffocating under the oppressive weight of madara’s presence, right from the very first episode. even before he’s introduced, he is VERY much there. so much of madara’s character is established before he even shows up. we hear so much about him from other characters (kurama, itachi, obito, hashirama), and as such our view of madara changes drastically over the course of the series. and guess what plays when itachi shows sasuke that genjutsu of madara stealing izuna’s eyes?

anyway, in my opinion and in my interpretation of the character, the music fits him perfectly. it starts out all low and choral with these slow ominous drums and deep strings, and this violin comes in that sounds like it’s weeping. we hear something like a heartbeat that grows darker over time, before the music comes to some sort of resolution, an inflection point, and the brass comes in heavy. NOW we’re dealing with the orchestra, three quarters of the way into the song, and we’ve got strings and drums set to a marching pace, more choral chanting, climbing strings and shamisen tumbling down the scales. it sounds like grief!!

and note that yes, this track is used in the very first episode of shippuden, during naruto and sasuke’s first encounter. but it is ALSO used during the scene in hashirama’s flashback when izuna is mortally wounded and madara makes the decision to abandon the clan on the battlefield to take care of him, despite his better judgment and hashirama’s offering of peace. the inflection point in the music represents a very real inflection point in madara’s life: the loss of his last brother. (it always comes back to that, doesn’t it.)