#I wouldn't blame the person who put in TV Tropes here but Nopes' writing

[randomnameless]

For whatever reason, I was skimming 3 Hopes TV Tropes despite the controversial rep about the users editing Fodlan are.

I don’t whatever the person adding this was smoking, but it paints a rather “stereotypical” view on foreigners putting it lightly…

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Eh, that’s Nopes in a nutshell for you, anon.

Sometimes you want to be progressive and depict “other” nations, only to fall back on Grandma’s guide to survive in the “Orient” from the 1810s.

Sometimes IS completely messes up with the message they want to tell (TFW Tellius’ woes originated from Lehran losing his powers when he fucked Altina, but hey, this game is totes anti racism we swear!) and sometimes, you have, well, Fodlan and its self-awareness (who cares about the war, let’s drink some tea and uwu about our cute students, plot be damned! Nabateans? What’s that, a new pastry?) and then, we have Nopes with Mr “those people are so backwards with their outdated values I’ll impose mine by raiding and pillaging their lands and killing their beloved pope whose only sin was to crash on their couch and to eat ice cream, because I hate her guts for some reason”.

That TV Tropers also seemed to have missed Shamir saying Dagda values more “freedom” than Fodlan, even if it means people are free to kill each other, and we are just left wondering what the actual fuck Nopes wanted to say, like, everyone out of Fodlan is a barbarian, per Grandma’s old handbook, or what?

Hell, at this rate I’m wondering if the writers weren’t so full of Hresvelg Grey that they suddenly wrote Brigid and Dagda to have “crap” values, to justify Adrestia periodically trying to conquer them...

“Fodlan should open its borders!”

Looks at Fodlan’s neighbours per Nopes : uh yeah. how about no.

[the-somewhat-rambling-reviewer]

Teen Wolf (2023) Movie Thoughts (Mostly Ranting)

Mainly, I'm disappointed.

First here are the things I'm neutral about/did like:

I honestly thought Liam was Stiles at first. It could just be me, but Sprayberry strongly resembles O'Brien, and Liam came across more like a mature, collected Stiles than a grown Liam in that first scene.

For all the issues I have with Derek's storyline, I did like both the writing and the acting presented dad!Derek. I liked the fact Derek is helping out law enforcement when there's fires being set around Beacon Hills.

Unfortunately, this is pretty much all I liked, and to be clear, mistaking Liam for Stiles is something I'm neutral about. I didn't particularly care one way or another about Liam in the movie, and I was fine with Stiles not being in the movie.

Liam's girlfriend is another thing I'm neutral about. I'm not going to hate on an actress for accepting a job when another actress was done dirty. I didn't dislike this new character, but I didn't see anything that made me interested in her, either.

Now onto what I didn't like.

For all I liked dad!Derek, it rubbed me the wrong way that there was no mention at all of Eli's mother. It seemed pretty clear to me that Eli was Derek's biological son, and so, this is not a case of single Derek adopting a kid, which, I'd be totally down for.

Look, was he married? Is he divorced? As much as I usually hate the trope of dead mothers, is she dead? Did he have a one-night stand, and she handed the baby over with explicit instructions to never contact her? Did he get involved with another horrible woman, and there's a court order stating that, if she comes within hundred feet of Beacon Hills before Eli is eighteen, she'll be arrested?

Moving on, I could unhappily accept complete lack of Corey, but Mason as a cop?

No.

Nope.

Uh-uh.

This is like if Lydia was a deputy.

Bear with the jumbled way I try to express this.

Sheriff Stilinski and Parrish are both intelligent men. In this universe, maybe, BLM doesn't even need to be a thing, because, the justice system is largely fair and about actually protecting people.

If so, then, the police would be essentially a blue-collar job, and I absolutely do not intend to demean honest, hard-working blue-collar workers.

Mason had an insanely high GPA, he genuinely loved science, was a bonafide bookworm, and there were hints he was from an upper-middle-class background.

If he decided on the justice system, he'd be a lawyer or some type of specialist, but I really doubt he'd decide on the justice system in the first place.

He wasn't particularly athletic, and while he wasn't one to naturally challenge authority, he wasn't one who would try to uphold authority, either. Yes, he wanted to help people, to protect them, but he was more, 'let's figure this out so that I can get back to kissing my boyfriend, working on my grades, and learning all this cool stuff about my friends,' than anything.

But moving on, I wish I could have liked the Ethan mention, but it's not great when a person goes to a dangerous place to put themselves in danger without telling their significant other, and it's even worse when they decide to do all this despite knowing that their significant other has big, big problems with them doing so.

Assuming Ryan Kelley or whoever that bare-bottom belonged to was okay with their naked bottom being shown and touched on TV, then, yay for equal opportunity fanservice, but ugh to Parrish/Malia.

Ugh to Malia apparently going by the surname Hale now.

I could have been on-board with Harris' return, but the movie had to frell that up.

I accepted a long time ago that Harris being Jackson's biological father wouldn't happen, but it's canon that Harris showed genuine concern, possibly even affection, for Jackson.

And of course, his motivation is that, like almost all the villains, whether correct in doing so or not, he blames Scott for his pain and suffering.

I wouldn't say Adam Fristoe was bad, he does seem to be a good actor, but aside from all my problems with Harris' role, I felt as if Fristoe was playing a way different character than Harris ever was.

Random, but when I first the line, "They call me Mister Tibbs," I thought, 'But the character is a detective.'

I had a similar thing when Peter referred to Deaton as 'Mister' Deaton. He is a licensed veterinary doctor.

The thing is, I honestly don't think this was a race thing with Deaton, but that's where my mind went.

Finally, onto Allison.

This had the potential to be great, but it wasn't.

Erica and Boyd were never brought up. So, everyone going on about how Allison wouldn't harm a fifteen-year-old boy- how old was Boyd when Chris himself said, paraphrased, 'Caught came awfully close to kill.'? Erica was sixteen when Allison shot an arrow at her whilst she was lying on the ground from another arrow shot.

Whether Allison ever truly felt bad for contributing to Erica's death or whether she was just horrified she became this person she recognised as immoral due to manipulation was, arguably, never made clear in the series.

That could have been explored. Has everything made her a coldly practical person who is determined never to cross certain moral lines and to follow this path of being a warrior, or is she a passionate, empathetic person who is trying to heal from the mistakes she wishes she could take back but knows she can't?

Chris had a line about how he'd kill to protect a fifteen-year-old boy, but whether he actually did hold a gun to Scott's head to get Allison to agree to stop seeing Scott or that was unreliable narration, he did do a lot of other things to make it clear that teenage shifters were lesser in his eyes.

And I'm still convinced, if he could have, he would have locked Lydia in his basement after her fugue state until she either died from a combination of starvation, dehydration, and possibly infection, or until she turned, whereupon he either would have killed her or secretly deposited her in Eichen's.

In the end, it was all about Scott/Allison, not about Allison rediscovering/reclaiming herself.

This is minor, but Scott not knowing what 'wistful' means was stupid. I didn't buy that.

That's all for now.

Fin.