#I'm just saying that if a scene is SO POORLY WRITTEN that the actors have to say uh hold up maybe u shouldn't base ur characterization on i

[jonathanbyersphd]

I h8 u poorly written s3 car fight

[darklinaforever]

My god. What did you smoke to think that was well written ?! At what fucking moment ?! And lol ! If people really think that this kiss will have an effect on the Daemyra couple, people are completly dreaming. That Rhaenyra will have a serious relationship with Mysaria ? Even less ! It is very likely that this stupid kiss will not even be discussed in the future. Also... at one point in the video, the girl tries to say in relation to those who would have reacted badly to the kiss : "But don't straight people also kiss when they are sad ?" THE FUCKING CONNECTION ?!

And the rest is WORST !

Except that fucking yes ! There could have been official sapphic content in HOTD without these shitty relationships that are Rhaenicent and Rhaesaria ! Why ?! BECAUSE THERE ARE CANONICAL LGBTQ+ COUPLES IN THE HISTORY OF DANCE ! INCLUDING SAPPHIC ! But obviously you're not complaining about the non-adaptation of canonical queer relationships which are therefore not doomed to go nowhere or break up like Rhaenicent and Rhaesaria ! Why are you happy with representation that won't go anywhere and the erasure of canonical queer relationships ?! Are you stupid or what ?!

And yes, Rhaenicent is what we call queerbaiting ! Pure and simple ! How can you even dare to say otherwise with such aplomb ?! The writers and actors are constantly contradicting each other about the Rhaenicent relationship ! Open your fucking eyes !

Pigeons, that's what everyone who supports these two shitty ships are ! And no, I'm not sorry to say it, and I will never sorry. Wake up people, damn it !

And you know what could have been good to confirm Rhaenyra's possible bisexuality, even if I don't think she's bi in the source material ? LAENA VELARYON ! HER FUCKING BEST FRIEND ! AND NOT WITH THE TWO WOMEN WHO RUINED THE BEGINNING (ALICENT / yes yes, in HOTD, Alicent is still Rhaenyra's abuser, because Daemon, outside of the OCC strangulation scene, never really abused her) AND THE END OF HER LIFE (MYSARIA) ! BUNCH OF IDIOTS !

Also, instead of fundamentally choosing to make Rhaenyra a bi person when she probably isn't in the book objectively speaking, well just adapt the true queer characters of the dance ? No ?

No one complains that the real queer characters and relationships aren't adapted ?

You prefer that we transform a potentially straight character into bi to make her be in relationships that will go nowhere because she will never leave her man ? Well you really are pitiful.

I'm so tired of the attempts to defend Rhaenicent and Rhaesaria, two shitty relationships that were poorly written in HOTD but when you take Fire and Blood become downright insulting.

Also, another thing I find ironic. The fact of always trying to say in defense of these two ships that we don't care about the source material that is Fire and Blood. Listen to me, you idiot, without Fire and Blood there is no HOTD. So you shut up about the neglect of the source material because you just come across as even more stupid than you probably are. But strangely, to talk about the so-called infidelities of Daemon, present precisely in Fire and Blood and not HOTD of these same fans, well there are people ! While these infidelities did not take place in HOTD and may never take place. And beyond that, at no time have these so-called infidelities been proven. At no time. And if you have a functioning brain in terms of reflection and analysis, it is necessarily probable that these infidelities of Daemon with Mysaria and Nettles are purely false. But of course, the fact is that most of these people are condemning Daemon for something he hasn't done yet and may never do, in the only material that matters to these people, namely HOTD. But strangely, Rhaenyra's infidelitie, no one cares about that. On the contrary, it's apparently great because it's sapphic "representation". Rhaesaria is representation ? An improvised scene that comes out of nowhere and has no impact on the storyline ? Let me laugh. And apparently, Rhaenyra would be justified, because Daemon strangled her at the end of season 1. You know, that other scene that came out of nowhere and made no sense. But obviously, critical thinking is dead in this type of person.

Put Fire and Blood aside if you want to justify these two shitty ships, but the reality is that they don't need Fire and Blood to be bad. They are simply poorly written in the context of HOTD alone.

These two ships make me so fucking sick.

[lemon-dokuro]

Yesterday, I watched Sound Holic's 2007 Touhou fan film, Touhou Project Side Story ~ Memory of Stars.

The plot is about Kaguya's father, the Moon's ruler, coming to take her and Eirin back. Makes heavy use of sci-fi aesthetics and is mostly set in space. Naturally, because it was released before Bogetsusho/Silent Sinner in Blue, all it had to go off of for the state of the Moon civilization and Kaguya's relationship to it were the 8th Touhou game and maybe Reisen's route/interactions in the 9th. It's a little interesting to see the creators' interpretation because of that, but... It was recieved very poorly by the japanese Touhou fandom in 2007 when it came out, you can even find comparisons to the infamous Cookie series. The reception is understandable — it really isn't good. I actually wouldn't call the story or the premise bad, they're just kitschy in a way characteristic of the otaku culture of its time, but they are ruined completely by the wonky presentation and especially the incomprehensible pacing. I don't want to recap it here because the anime isn't even that long or hard to find, but if I did, I'd have a fair bit of trouble. It feels like one of those 90s OVAs that tries to cram 4-6 volumes of a manga in about 40 minutes, so most things happen too fast to have an impact. There's a whole character that makes absolutely no sense because she has too little screen time and too little actually explained about her (Sphere Sieben, the redheaded space commander lady). Sakuya is there for a barely explained reason. Mokou comes out of nowhere in the middle (well, at least that had a point, ridiculous as it was). And considering this, bizzarely, the movie also has a lot of pointlessly drawn-out scenes where not much happens, like they were trying to pad out the runtime, even though there's a lot of substance they could have added. I have no idea what kind of constrains they were working with, but it's not like they couldn't have just written it more tightly. If not better, then, you know, at least. Even though I don't think the general premise and the story are bad per se, they are very unfitting for Touhou. The creators are obviously going for space opera aesthetics, which is a really weird fit for Touhou. They don't even really try to make it fit. Egregiously, Kaguya's presumably biological father, Luna Marius, has a sci-fi-ish western-style name for absolutely unexplained reasons. Of course, that kind of naming difference is not implausible at all, but it's a really weird creative choice, especially considering it's never adressed, not even in a throwaway line or anything. One could say it's emblematic of the work not compromising the conflicting aesthetics in any way. The visuals are often criticized for obvious reasons. They are great to me because I'm an oldschool doujin fetishist, but it's clearly all very stiff, mildly inconsistent, generally amareurish and feverishly oversaturated with bright flashing effects half the time. The backgrounds mostly consist of said effects. A lot of the animations are obviously reused. That being said, the original character designs are pretty well done. The bunny girl looks especially good, the artist absolutely nailed the early windows Touhou design style. Also, naturally, because Sound Holic is mainly a music circle, the soundtrack is decent. It's not remarkable, but there's nothing wrong with it, it's standard for 2007 Touhou arrange tracks. There's not much to say about the voice acting either — standard for doujin anime. The voice actors are inexplicably pretty well-known, but it's not that uncommon to see big names on the most random 2000s doujin projects. That's probably how these people become popular in the first place.

Well, what can I say overall. It's a weird little movie. I can't recommend it, but maybe you'll get a laugh out of it, or maybe you'll like the visuals as much as I did.

Also, that rabbit's names are both mochi types...

[xerith-42]

Some Slightly More Coherent Thoughts about Void Paradox

Riveting title, I know, but this is the quality content I'm sure... 50 of you signed up for? When the fuck...? How are there so many of you?? And in spite of that title, this post is still long as fuck

Anyways I finished Void Paradox and it sure made me feel a certain way. [Cut to footage of me literally screaming anytime Laurance showed emotion in the series]. Gotta say, as a long time Laurance fan, this is really nice to have. I've been going on my tirades about how Jess ruined Laurance for the sake of Aaron, and how Laurance never really bounced back from this character assassination, but I wasn't entirely right. He sort of bounced back?

Well, we got this. I still would have liked Laurance in Love-Love Paradise but I guess I'll take him in this series. And honestly, it's the best Laurance content I've gotten that isn't fan content since... well, since I first watched the show back in 2015 when I was a literal fetus. Every time after I've gone back and watched as Laurance got written poorly from honestly really early episodes sometimes (looking at you Episode 65), and had to deal with the unfortunate truth that he was essentially unimportant to the story Jess decided to tell with both her series, despite being the main character of one of them.

It's so refreshing to have quality Laurance content, and we got a variety of it in this show. He's so expressive, so alive, so emotional. I've always loved Laurance because surprise surprise, the men in my life weren't always the most emotionally vulnerable, so I latched onto fictional men who were as a coping mechanism! Yayyy! And Laurance has always been a very emotionally vulnerable character, at least in the beginning. It's part of the tragedy that is his character arc in Season 2. That Laurance is usually vulnerable, that he's the one who's always willing to talk about his emotions, but the calling is making it harder to open up, and the world has only become crueler to men like him who dare to feel too much.

Wow I just keep sliding into depressing content in this post, I'm trying to praise Laurance's writing in this series. Because it's good. I have my problems with Void Paradox as a whole, but as a showing for my favorite character in the entire Aphverse, a chance at redemption, it's fantastic. As I said Laurance is so expressive in this series, largely thanks to Sebastian Todd being an absolutely phenomenal voice actor who clearly knows and cares about this character. His performance is absolutely excellent and a great high note for this character to go off on.

I cannot emphasize how much I adore every little thing about Laurance's portrayal. The flirtiness, the smug bastard energy, the very sincere and open care, that one scene where he gets super embarrassed and then whimpers that I haven't listened to like eighteen times. The whole thing is great. His dynamic with this alternate version of Aphmau is so good, it's so great to see him bounce off of other characters. I just love it so much.

That scene where he realizes that he's in a similar scenario to the Nether and literally instantly jumps to "If it comes down to it, let me sacrifice myself," I SCREAMED AT THIS. The whole series whenever he angsts over his old world I scream, but that line really hit me. Fuck whatever you say about Laurmau in every universe, the universal truth of Laurmau, nay the universal truth of Laurance is this;

"I would sacrifice myself so you could live in every universe."

That's Laurance! That's Laurance with literally anyone you want!! This is the best characterization Laurance has ever gotten. It's consistent with his character, and I love the fact that Mod Aphmau doesn't even let him finish his consideration of self-sacrifice, she just shuts it down and it's a great contrast to what Laurance is used to. I adore how that's what he jumps to, I adore the fact that he's as clueless as I am about the lore this season, I love the rivals esque thing he's got going on with Jaiden, that was fun. Lotta potential there. This was just a good time. I cannot emphasize how delightful Laurance was in this series. How his delightful presence is the most enjoyable thing in the series, and a literal blessing unto us all.

Wasn't it nice to feel good about an Aphmau series for like.. two minutes. Anyways here's the part where I get a little salty with Jess, as per usual. I'm not going to go too in depth on my problems with Void Paradox as a story because it's mercifully short and a lot of my complaints did come from a standpoint of not knowing any of the lore of Mod Mod World which might have hindered my full ability to understand the larger story.

I can however get VERY salty about the fact that I didn't even know Void Paradox was a thing that had Laurance in it until 2024!! It came out in 2018! How did this happen? Well the answer is very simple, the cause is the bane of my very existence. My Street Season 6 When Angels Fall. [I am shaking with rage]

I know you've likely read how much I can tear into season 2 Episode 95, and oh my Irene can I tear into that episode, but there's a similar but differently visceral emotion When Angels Fall makes me feel. Let's call it a sort of divine rage. And now, I have one more reason to hate it. Because Void Paradox, a series with actual quality content, was released at the same time as whatever the fuck that was, meaning it never had a chance.

For a bit of personal context, I briefly became active in the Aphmau fanbase when this season came out and during the time leading up to it. I had seen every season of My Street, and despite not being the biggest fan of where Jess took the series, I liked a lot of the characters and was invested in where they would go from here. I was knee deep in the My Street trenches when the many many different bombs dropped. Melissa dying but then she didn't but maybe she did and I literally spent hours arguing with people on this, Ein is turning everyone evil, there's a doomsday device, forever potion nonsense is happening, Travis' dad is evil maybe, Aaron is going insane, the multiverse is falling apart, and then Jess just killed the best character in the entire series, dare I say the entire Aphverse, dare I say the entire universe of existence as we know it--

It was a lot. And in all the chaos Void Paradox just... came out. It came out right before episode 9 of When Angels Fall came out. And anyone else who was there during the war... they know what that episode did to us. What it did to me. I wasn't the same after that episode came out. I felt like I had lost a part of myself. Something I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to get back...

And as a result, I and a lot of people didn't see Void Paradox. Looking at the numbers, Void Paradox struggled to get above 1 million viewers for most episodes, while the lowest viewed episode of When Angels Fall sits at a cozy 2.9 million as an established series. Void Paradox is objectively better as a series and deserves to have a second season. We deserve to explore more of the weird ideas Jess clearly had while making it, we deserve to know if a cure can be found, and we, or maybe just me and I'm feeling selfish here, deserve to know if Laurance is okay.

Jess has already taken one comfort character away from me. I'll be damned if she takes another.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

So I was on the descendants subreddit and someone posted how young Ella’s actor was having a TikTok live and someone asked her if qoh had a salon on the isle, and she said yes. So that begs the question, why qoh is in Wonderland when A) she doesn’t exist, she’s all in Alice’s head and B) she’s the ruler of Wonderland when she was on the Isle running a hair salon in Return to the Isle novel.

The more confusing thing is that Young Ella’s actress said that Zellie is Rapunzel’s daughter not teen Rapunzel. Idk if you ask me, I’ll take a actor’s words with a grain of salt. If Disney plus say it’s teen Rapunzel and Morgan Dudley said she’s Rapunzel’s daughter, then someone’s misleading the people on who Zellie is. So because of this, I’m ignoring Zellie’s existence.

Aladdin and Jasmine serves no purpose in the movie and a RoR fan account on twitter said that the boy standing behind them during the scene is allegedly their son. Again, I’m ignoring his presence.

Honestly, this feels like a very poorly written fanfic that just got green lit and cash on a franchise that’s pretty much dead except on tumblr or sometimes twitter.

Please just know, anon, that when I read this for the first time...and second time...and third time...and so on...I reacted each time like this:

I...I...What??? Did anyone catch clips of her saying that or??? Because I feel I need to see this to believe it, because why confuse your audience this badly if true??? All I'm taking from this if again true, is that no one knows what they doing on Rise of Red- we were aware already lol- and that I guess Aziz may be making his return from the deleted pile. Also you don't even need Rise of Red to tell you Disney is trying to make cash of a franchise that should have ended after Descendants 3, just look at the Royal Wedding special where they even imply Carlos' is dead just to now continue with Descendants without having to worry about addressing Carlos.

[e-s-willswriting]

So, You've Seen a Bad Play: An Essay

Yesterday I went to see a show.

It was a student production my friend was involved in. I’ve seen student productions in the past and overall, I have been very impressed with them. They’re a showcase for budding talent and intriguing ideas, even if aspects need to be refined. I can’t say any of the shows I’ve seen are bad (all that comes to mind was a production of Measure for Measure, but it was simply that I hadn’t studied the text itself. The production was great and had intriguing fight choreography).

Part of me felt I would do an actual review of the thing, but for the sake of privacy for those involved, I felt I’d rather not. But I still wanted to discuss it, nonetheless.

It was a small-scale production by someone who was not from an Arts and Humanities background, but a medical sciences background. I really respect when artists incorporate their studies and careers, even those unrelated to creative fields, into their work. In my student workshops I’d read one text about a pilot written by someone who was a trainee pilot, and another time I’d read a book that, even if I didn’t like the text, I loved the details that came from the writer being an archivist and imbuing that into the text. It adds a real richness to those aspects that can only be gained from hands on experience, and I love that. I feared that the work I was going to see might be too technical, that aspects may go over my head, but I hoped to go in and appreciate it even if I didn’t fully get it.

I didn’t get it.

But not for those reasons.

Let me set the scene. I’m sat in the back row on pretty standard fold-up chairs with limited visibility due to those in the front two rows, sipping a complimentary cider that came with the ticket I paid for (much needed). Tiny studio room. The writer gets up, only gives an epilepsy warning and promptly sits back down. I make a mental note of how unceremonious of a welcome that is, if you could call it one, but pass it off. Play begins.

In short, the next hour was an incredibly poorly written production. Character arcs were non-existent, things would be introduced then promptly dropped, they wanted to deal with too many environmental and political messages for an hour runtime and all of them fell flat, scenes were poorly established, and the messaging felt non-existent.

But it’s not like I can’t praise aspects of the show. The actors hard carried the production despite the abysmal script they had to work with. If I saw them in another production, I’m sure they could absolutely kill it. And there were interesting things that could have worked if fully incorporated. There was a musical accompaniment for one (1) scene that was very well done and pleasant to listen to and then she just sat in the corner quietly for the rest of the show not to be used again (like multiple aspects of the script, established and ditched). There was a cool little red beep under one of the characters’ tops to act as their heart. They really tried to do things with what little they had.

As a creative, it feels weird to be a critic. Especially one to a student production. I'm always having to clarify that I understand that making stuff is hard because I do it too. Perhaps I'm only harsh because I'm affirming to myself what I want to see out of my own works. I see a thing, I think ‘this could have been better’. and I think about how I'd apply those lessons to my works. It only comes from a deep love for the medium that my critiques are harsh. I’ll always look for good, even in things I don’t like (even if it’s just ‘I think the concept is cool’) because there’s very few things that are wholly bad. Hell, some terrible things can at least be entertaining, which I don’t deny this production was (if not for the reasons it intended). I am a firm believer that one of the worst things a story can be is boring.

I’m particularly harsh on this production because I sincerely believe it was AI-generated.

What doesn’t help is the show all but confirmed it, with an almost 5 minute long in-universe advert for a hospital. Multiple AI voices (man 1 to woman 2) saying effectively the same thing. All it served was to establish setting.

Here’s roughly how I would have done it, in about 30 seconds:

A man walks out in a white coat. He puts on blue gloves and a face mask, and hurriedly walks off stage as CHARACTER A walks on, nervously pacing the hall of the hospital.

There. Done.

Could my friend have told me it was AI-generated?  Sure. Thing is, they didn’t know for certain, only that they were paid to work in it (thank God) but thus under contractual obligation to finish the production for pay (they’re a uni student, any money’s good!) And by the time they’d told us to get tickets, they’d come to realize just how bad it would be, and it was too late at that point (student productions can be under tight time constraints).

Thing is, I believe one of the core issues of AI is consent, or lack thereof. I believe that as a consumer, I should have had the right to know what content was involved in this production, and it was up to the production itself to disclose that. Just as people deserve to know any potential content warnings and epilepsy warnings for a show and to make the educated choice to engage with that material as a consumer, I think they also deserve to know if a production uses (or is entirely made with) AI.

Sure it's not going to harm them if they're seeing it, but don't they deserve to know? Because what if next door, there's a small self-produced play written by humans that could change their lives and speak to their souls? Don't they deserve to know that it was made by a person, honestly produced by them?

Little on the webpage communicated that it was AI generated, and the text only appears as such now after I’ve seen the play. If I had known the play used AI, and seemingly was entirely written in it, I would have not paid to see this show. Simple as. I want to support shows written by people.

But now I must grapple with the fact that I paid money to see something made with a tool I have extreme ethical complaints against as an artist and consumer. I have seen one 15-minute play (Caryl Churchill’s What If If Only, a quarter of the runtime) and a free production by Mamoru Iriguchi (What You See/What You Don’t See) and I would much rather have paid the ticket price for those shows which I absolutely loved, than to have seen this seemingly AI production once.

And I think that’s why I wanted to write this blogpost. To remind people that as consumers, we deserve to know if a production uses AI machine learning software. We deserve informed choices. AI probably won't leave anytime soon and might significantly help certain sectors, but right now it’s a wild west and often not used for these purposes to sincerely help people and provide accurate information. And there are those that assume that it democratizes the writing process. On the surface, yes. My mum could put in a prompt and get a script. But the love of labour? No. Not now, not ever. AI devalues artistic processes, and it's insulting to a medium that's withstood all of human history to effectively be told that a robot can recreate it.

But no, it can't replicate heart. It can't replicate real human experience.

In a strange way, seeing this production is somewhat affirming. I struggle with writing. Sometimes it’s just the act of getting up to write after a long day or a late night. Other days it’s harder stages (editing for example). At some points it’s having the ideas and having little way to communicate them. At times it’s just the isolation of it all and the compulsion to just scroll through my phone- I’ve written best when I’m working with others at times, even if those people aren’t writers!

Writing for me has been a struggle, and it’s a struggle I’m still overcoming. I’m still discovering who I am as a writer, what works for me, what stuff I want to produce. And there’s those times when I manage a good session, or an idea burns in me like fuel, or I make people’s eyes light up with the stuff I’m producing. That’s when I know the reasons I struggle. It’s because I can’t suppress the urge to make stuff, and I don’t want to live a life I’d regret in not at least trying to make cool things.

I’ll probably make bad things. First drafts and such that aren’t good. I’ve made bad things in the past, absolutely!

But I chose that struggle.

And if this play can exist and be produced, then the only thing really holding me back is myself. Seeing things like this galvanizes me to push on and make the things I care about.

And I will them with my own hands.

[the-owl-tree]

What about My Pride? The uh YouTube series, I think the writer was problematic somehow but that might be a thing to mention and also I’d like to see your thoughts

It's on the list! My shorter, more concise thoughts are that while I appreciate it as very much a labor of love with some talented artists and voice actors on the team, the actual story and writing is disappointing, tone deaf, and downright infuriating at times.

I guess rattling off my issues (spoilers included):

I found the central handling of disability and Nothing's character to be poorly thought out. Needing multiple abled bodied characters to get her moving, it feels like there was little research done in trying to depict a character like her.

I hate that her name stays as "Nothing" and that an abled bodied lion lectures her about accepting it. Terribly thought out scene. I'm a she should've changed her name to Everything truther.

The central gay lion romance that the series is based off is pretty poorly written with very few sprinkles of endearing and fun moments between them unfortunately. Hover is...mean? She's a terrible partner and I was genuinely upset that her not sticking up for her girlfriend all because she missed idk a lion recital (something Hover?? canonically should not give a shit about???) was scummy. it would be one thing if Hover was meant to be in the wrong...but she's not depicted as that?

The two spend so much time apart, you start to get kind of annoyed at how much gay lions were part of the marketing and then the gay lions! weren't there!!

Didn't care for it!!

I actually liked the world and premise. I enjoy unfair and cruel societies, I like the idea of someone working to change the system (though I very rarely see the execution of that I like, very rarely will stories depict the actual necessary actions for confronting a society like this: tearing it down entirely and building something better).

I hate Feather. Them pulling their punch and not killing him was lame.

Nothing's brother being the twist villain should have been set up better, it doesn't hit the same way it could have had the series planted the seeds earlier on. We have no reason to understand why he would act this way, he was doing just fine better? Why not set up tensions when we meet the group of young male lions?

I don't like that the only real importance Nothing holds isn't because of something about her in the present, but the importance of her able bodied past life. Her ending with her wanting to die is...bleak because I don't believe she has recognized her own worth.

Poor handling of abuse. I disagree with the notion that trying to give depth to abusers is in itself apologia, but the show is trying to like....idk how to say this properly but it wants to "both sides" Nothing's mother's treatment of her, ya know? I found it really icky.

Uh I think I could say more but you'd have to give me a specific topic to bite onto or I'll keep meandering lol but I didn't care for the show but I do feel for fans of the show who are stuck on a cliffhanger. I hope the creator releases the rest of the story plan at the very least.

[howsitduud]

Ranking Every Single Piece of Media I Watched/Played/Read in 2024 Part 1

The title says it all, really.

I have kept a list of every single thing piece of media I have watched/played/read this year and now I will rank them all. Everything is fair game with this list, be it movies, tv shows, video games, musicals, plays, books, analog horror series, music albums (if I listened to any). If I first consumed it this in 2024, then it's fair game for this list. The only things I'm not including are Youtube videos because that seems like a lot.

For this part of the list, I will be going through the bottom to top, starting with the worst thing I watched all year and ending with the best. Part 2 is after this, so keep watch.

Megamind vs The Doom Syndicate - 1/10 - Easily one of the worst animated movies I’ve ever seen in my life. It is so lifeless and dull, not just in terms of animation, but also in terms of the writing. Megamind is straight up not the same character he was in the original, Minion’s name was changed for no reason, Roxanne has literally nothing to do except become mayor at the end for no reason, the new characters are annoying, and aside from ONE JOKE, this movie is painfully unfunny. I can’t believe Despicable Me’s low point was better than Megamind’s.

Ouija - 2/10 - Who’d ever think that a movie about a Ouija board would be bad? Imagine every single horror movie cliche you’ve ever seen and heard of done in the most boring, incomprehensibly stupid way. You have now imagined a movie that is a hundred times better than this.

Battleship - 2/10 - I was dreading watching this movie for years and after conquering my fear and putting it on, yep it was as bad as I thought. The characters are ass, the alien stuff takes forever to get going, and the action itself is so slow. I would rather watch actual Battleship gameplay.

DnD: Wrath of the Dragon God - 2/10 - This name is way too good for this movie. There’s a fun moment once every 20 minutes but other than that, it’s bland, generic, poorly acted straight to DVD schlock that has nothing to do with the first besides Domodar being in it.

Christmas Again - 3/10 - I will give this two compliments: The concept of a time-loop Christmas movie is a good one, and there’s sometimes a good joke. Other than that, this movie is a dumpster fire of horrible writing and worse characters. The main character is insufferable, and I just wanted it to be over so I can hang ornaments.

Dungeons and Dragons - 3/10 - Yeah, this movie is bad, what’d you expect. Every single character walks the spectrum between boring as shit or annoying as shit, especially Snails and Ridley, two of the main characters. The only things that gave me any sort of joy was the horrible special effects and Jeremy Irons playing the hammiest villain he’s ever done since Scar. Honor Among Thieves is better + L + ratio.

Power Rangers - 3/10 - Oh, goody, another classic property that had all the charm and fun sucked out of it for a boring, basic, lifeless remake that adds nothing to the franchise. The only net positive here is Billy Cranston, who is the best and I would give my life to.

Transformers: The Last Knight - 3/10 - Well, it’s better than the previous one. It’s still visually bland and the plot is borderline incoherent at times and the acting sucks and the aspect ratio changes actively got on my nerves, but at least Cogman, Nitro Zeus and Sir Burton were fun characters.

Madame Web - 3/10 - Yeah, it’s bad, but like, not that bad. I get a lot of ironic enjoyment out of how stupidly written every single aspect of this movie is and how most actors here just have no interest in actually making a good movie. I will say that Sydney Sweeney does a good job here, and Webb’s powers can make for decent editing and visuals, but this is a perfect “get drunk and watch with your friends” type movie.

DnD: The Book of Vile Darkness - 3/10 - The second best D&D movie, only because some of the action scenes and magic spells were pretty cool and there’s a single character I liked. Otherwise, it’s still a poorly-acted, poorly-written, ugly as hell fantasy movie. It was also impossible to find, so fuck you for that.

Jem and the Holograms - 4/10 - This was a theatrical release and that is the only memorable part of the movie. It’s just your standard generic pop star movie chicanery, with the editors using random Youtube videos and fans celebrating the original Jem show to pad the runtime.

Red One - 4/10 - Not as bad as I was expecting, but it was still bad. Occasionally, there’s a hilariously bad moment or an unironically good action scene (plus Krampus was good), but other than that, this is a self-serious, tacky, unfun action slop with a Christmas coating on top of it.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation - 4/10 - This is exactly what I thought the first movie was gonna be like. It has its moments, namely the mountainside action scene, but this is as bland and generic as 2010s action movies get with none of the personality the first movie had. They don’t even scream “Yo Joe!”

Snake Eyes - 4/10 - The action is surprisingly great, but the story and concept of the movie is so dogass that I can’t bring myself to like it. Whoever thought to make a Snake Eyes movie that has him maskless and talking the whole time while not even bothering to explain why he’s mute later on should go immediately to jail.

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie - 4/10 - It’s just an hour and a half long episode of the show, and not a good episode at that. The villain is annoying, barely anything happens, but there are at least a few fun moments to keep my attention. Also the rubber suits are back THANK GOD.

Maestro - 5/10 - By far the weakest Best Picture nominee this year, but it’s not that bad. Carey Mulligan is good, the beginning is well shot and edited, but all that energy is lost in a painfully average middle and a good end that hits a little too close to home for me. Thank god this didn’t win any Oscars.

Town Hall - 5/10 - The performance I watched had great acting and phenomenal sound design, but in terms of the story, there is none. It’s intentionally vague to fit with any time period or issue. While I like that conceptually, the execution was just not there. Also wild to watch that before election week.

Kung Fu Panda 4 - 5/10 - Incredibly beautiful animation, fight sequences and visual gags wasted on by far the worst script in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. Dreamworks had a mixed bag of a year, but at least they gave us more time with Po’s gay dads. More movies should’ve done that.

MLP: Rainbow Roadtrip - 5/10 - It has some decent characters and songs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this is just a worse version of The Crystal Empire, made even worse since the movie character designs are back, but without the budget to make them look any good.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 - 5/10 - Easily the weakest Mario platformer I’ve played so far, but it’s still a decently fun experience. It’s boring in terms of the aesthetic and overall gameplay, but Coin Rush is a cool gimmick, some levels and worlds are fun and challenging, but the boss fights are fucking awful and worse than the ones in Wonder. Yeah, that’s possible.

Echo - 5/10 - Sure is a show that exists. I liked Maya in the Hawkeye show, and her story is still pretty interesting, but not a lot happens in this show and it makes Kingpin look super weak and unintimidating, especially with that last episode. Like a lot of MCU projects post-Endgame, this will probably get worse the longer I think about it.

MLPEG: Better Together - 6/10 - Never expected there to be a Red VS Blue-style Equestria Girls webseries, but here we are. It’s perfectly fine, but with this being the last bit of content for the most popular My Little Pony generation, I would’ve expected there to be more.

Percy Jackson S1 - 6/10 - The biggest disappointment of the entire year. It’s better than the movies, no doubt about that, but the slow pace of the show and how badly written a lot of the dialogue and characters are make me feel like I’m watching a poor imitation of the books, which would be fine if the author didn’t write for the show. That being said, it’s still Percy Jackson, you’re gonna have to fuck the story up a lot more to get me to hate it.

MLPEG: Spring Breakdown - 6/10 - Rainbow Dash is pretty annoying, not a lot happens until the end, and the pacing is hella off, but Sunset, Sci-Twi and Rainbow Dash going to Equestria was a nice surprise, and the ending with the Storm King was tense and fun.

Star Wars: Hunters - 6/10 - A pretty fun, but not super deep Overwatch clone. Being a mobile game ported to Switch, there’s plenty of graphical updates to be desired and there are way too many currencies and microtransactions to keep track of, but the core gameplay is fun enough to make it good for a “free” game.

Past Lives - 6/10 - I really want to love this movie, but I can’t. I really liked the writing and there were some scenes that hit me emotionally, but I am just not into romance movies at all. You have to have some great filmmaking or talented performers to keep me purely invested in a movie that’s just about romance, but this movie didn’t have those things at all. At least it ends in a super mature and interesting way.

Super Mario Land - 6/10 - Out of all the Super Mario games, it’s certainly one of them. Props to it for being unique with its setting and level design, but it’s super short, super janky, and it doesn’t look that good, especially in comparison to its sequel. You can tell it was a launch title for the Gameboy.

Convent of Pleasure - 6/10 - This is a play about a woman who opens a convent full of just women havin a hot girl summer. It’s perfectly fine and as an early modern feminist piece, it’s pretty good. Madam Happy and the Princess were obvious highlights, but the way the play ends with the secret man who came into the convent is not the best. Make the ending gayer and it would be a 10/10.

Death Proof - 6/10 - Easily Tarantino’s worst movie. The extended cut adds some of the worst directed and acted scenes in his entire filmography, and the Grindhouse cut is better, but there’s still some serious pacing issues. That ending was a fucking 10/10, though. That’s pure Tarantino.

August: Osage County - 6/10 - I read the play and watched a bootleg back in highschool, so I knew what to expect, and yep. This is a decent enough adaptation of a decent enough play. The acting is good, but it feels too awards-baity at times. Also suffering through Benedict Cumberbatch’s American accent is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Robodunk - 6/10 - A cute little indie game about robot basketball. The most striking things about this game is a) the art style replicating stop-motion LEGO films and b) the rogue-lite style of the story mode. It’s not necessarily my cup of dunk, but it’s still fun.

Woman of the Hour - 6/10 - Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut is very simple, but I was pretty much hooked from start to finish. Having never heard of the original story, I was interested in seeing where the movie would go from scene to scene. I will be watching her career with great interest.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit - 6/10 - A pretty great, but pretty dated early Mario Kart. It’s a struggle to get a handle on the steering and drifting, but the maps are still pretty fun, especially Sky Garden and Sunset Wilds. Imagine those courses being fun to play and not missing key elements of their designs wow crazy.

X - 6/10 - Never thought I’d see a horror movie where a horny old lady kills people making a porno, but never say never. This movie is well shot, gorey, but the plot takes a while to get going and I really don’t like a few of the characters. RJ, I get it, but take a look at what kind of movie you’re making.

Pom Poko - 6/10 - A pretty good, if not super well-written movie about raccoons fighting deforestation with their balls. What’s not to love? I would’ve liked some better characterization for our main raccoons, but the story is still fun, and the ending is pretty bleak for a movie like this. That’s not a bad thing.

MLPEG: Rollercoaster of Friendship - 6/10 - It’s pretty fun all things considered, and Rarity being gay for Applejack is always a plus, but the villain hard tanks this special. She’s so annoying, she’s derivative of another villain, and her redemption at the end is rushed.

Drive-Away Dolls - 6/10 - This movie should’ve been called Diners, Drive-Aways, and Dykes, but whatever. This movie is weird, queer, and generally pretty fun. While a lot of the humor doesn’t hit, the characters are fun and likable, the plot is fast and interesting, and the editing is fucking hilarious.

Tales From Earthsea - 6/10 - Better than I was expecting. It’s not a very good movie, since there’s plenty of filler content and the characters aren’t that special, but I did like the worldbuilding and the animation, plus there’s a few charming characters and Willem Dafoe plays the villain, so the choice was made for me to like it.

MLPEG: Holidays Unwrapped - 6/10 - It’s sad that the one of the last things in G4 of MLP was a half-baked compilation film, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. Twilight convinces everyone to not commit crimes, Flim and Flam commit crimes, a war happens outside Pinkie’s home, it’s all pretty fun.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - 6/10 - It’s still fun, creative, and inventive with its humor and visual style, just like the first movie, but the plot is way too unfocused and lame. I could’ve done without the ghost boy subplot or the new age stepdad subplot if it meant spending more time with Mr. Juice and Dolores.

MaXXXine - 6/10 - I watched half of this movie shitfaced so I could be misremembering things, but I enjoyed it well enough. It's fine enough, but it’s really unfocused and turns into a completely different movie by the end. Still, the scene where Maxine almost gets mugged at the beginning made me feel a certain type of way.

Super Mario 3D Land - 6/10 - A good 3D Mario game and a great showcase of what the 3DS is capable of, especially with how it uses the stereoscopic 3D in certain levels. The only thing is that 3D World is just a better version of this game and I was constantly thinking how I’d have more fun playing that game instead.

G.I. Joe: The Movie - 6/10 - Not much to say about it that isn’t blatantly obvious. Animation is beautiful, the story is bonkers in the best possible way, and the villains are some of the best in Hasbro’s lineup. Still, Duke living at the end felt like the biggest ass-pull and feels like a late-stage change more than anything.

Big Cats - 6/10 - It’s a lesbian cowboy erotica, what else do you want me to say? It’s not really that spicy, but the story and characters are pretty solid. I can’t wait to see what the author has in story in the next book or in her Dragon yuri webtoon.

American Fiction - 7/10 - It’s a bit on the pretentious side and the two plotlines in this movie barely intersect, but I still think it’s a great satire and a funny as hell movie. The ending bits slay me everytime I think about them, I can’t believe that’s how they chose to end it.

Another Crab’s Treasure - 7/10 - Crab Dark Souls is pretty fun, but it has a lot of problems. The writing is hit-or-miss, and while the combat and exploration is fun, the game is incredibly buggy. It could just be the Switch port, but I’ve seen other people playing on PC complain about it as well.

Porco Rosso - 7/10 - A solid, but not too special movie in Ghibli’s caliber. It’s pretty funny and I like Porco as a character, but the rest of the characters aren’t that interesting and I really wish everyone in the movie didn’t fall in love with the 17 year old girl. Still, it’s a good time and it made me hungry for bacon.

OPM: Road to Hero - 7/10 - It’s my first time going through the One Punch Man OVAs, and this is one of the better ones. I like seeing Saitama struggling through his earlier days and the ending where he gets his costume is great, but I would’ve loved better villains that aren’t a fish in BDSM gear.

From Up on Poppy Hill - 7/10 - Yeah, yeah the incest scare in the middle is bad, but aside from that, this is a pretty cute movie. The characters are fun, the plot to save Latin Quarter is fun, it’s mostly a solidly fine Ghibli fare. Also Shun’s english voice sounds like Cookie Masterson and that made me happy.

MLPEG: Magical Movie Night - 7/10 - Dance Magic was alright with a great song at the end, Movie Night was really undercooked, and Mirror Magic was great! I wish that we had more time with the last short, but I still had a fun time with this movie/anthology/compilation.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - 7/10 - This movie is rad as hell. I love the action choreography, I love the super cheesy villains, I love the practical effects, I love how this movie oozes 90’s cheese, I love almost everything about this movie. If the last 30 minutes or so were hacked off, I’d say this movie is a solid 9/10!

Hazbin Hotel S1 - 7/10 - I don’t get the hate with this show. Yeah, the edgy humor can be bad at times, but I still thought the setting was creative enough to carry the plot forward. There’s also some great characters, voice performances, and some slick as hell songs, especially “Poison.”

My Neighbors the Yamadas - 7/10 - This is a cute little anthology movie about bits and pieces of a family’s life and that is about it. I do really love the art style, but it’s something that The Tale of the Princess Kaguya does so much better.

The Color Purple - 7/10 - Never seen the original movie before this, so I was really invested in this story and the characters. Great performances helped this movie out a lot, and while I didn’t necessarily need the musical bits, I still loved the songs.

I Saw the TV Glow - 7/10 - I absolutely love not only the visual flair this movie has, but also how deep and in-depth the metaphor about being trans (or queer as a whole really) is. The problem is that I don’t really like the characters or the story and that is a big problem for a movie to have.

The Terminal - 7/10 - A cute little movie, but that’s about it. Tom Hanks does an incredible job, especially during the beginning when Viktor doesn’t even know English yet, but other than that and a couple of cute and well-done scenes, not a lot of this movie intrigued me. The romance subplots weren’t that great, the overall filmmaking isn’t that special, but I liked it well enough.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - 7/10 - What the fuck, this movie was actually good? I mean, it’s not a great movie, but I had a fun time with these characters and the editing and action were surprisingly great. Nothing to do about the hammy writing or the awful CGI, but I still liked this a lot more than I thought.

An Extremely Goofy Movie - 7/10 - Not as good as the first (because there’s no songs >:( ), but still a damn fun movie. I don’t like how Max seems to regress as a character, but Goofy getting his degree and a girlfriend and the respect of everyone on campus is so fun to watch. Also that coffee shop lady gave me gender envy and I’m sad now.

The Girl From the Sea - 7/10 - Not really much to say about this book. It’s fun, it’s cute, it’s got lesbians in it, what else is there to say? I do wish there was more depth to this story, it is a pretty basic coming-of-age graphic novel, but I liked the supernatural elements and Keltie was really adorable.

Jackbox Party Pack 5 - 7/10 - Zeeple Dome and YDNJ were fun, Mad Verse City and Patently Stupid were the highlights of the night for the people I played with, but Split the Room really drags this pack down. Still, one bad game doesn’t hurt the 4 other fun ones.

The Tempest - 7/10 - Holy hell, Christopher Plummer could act. There’s not much to say about this play that hasn’t been said in the past 400 years, so I’m just gonna say I like the magical elements and how convoluted Prospero’s plan is and I fucking hate Stephano and Trinculo with a passion.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure - 7/10 - A pretty good comedy and an excellent showcase of Tim Burton’s talents as a director, since this was his first movie as director. It’s very cute and funny at times, but I personally find Pee Wee to be a kinda annoying character. I also can’t see him without thinking of Paul Rubens’s big adventure to prison.

Mario Party 3 - 7/10 - A decent Mario Party game, easily one of the better N64 games I’ve played. Most of the boards are fun, the duel maps are quick, the minigames are stupid in a good way, and Daisy and Waluigi were added to the series here. What’s not to love?

Challengers - 7/10 - Can’t believe the bisexuals convinced me to watch a tennis movie man. I liked the story and the acting here, but I really wish that Tashi was a more developed character. She’s essentially the lead and all the development she gets comes in towards the end while the gay boys get so much more. Still, this is the best representation of bisexuality, so I’ll take it.

Straight Outta Nowhere - 7/10 - I would consider this to be a masterpiece if I was actually invested in Courage. Never watched more than a few episodes of the show, but I still enjoyed this movie. There are some neat bits of animation, there are plenty of funny jokes, and it’s a great ending to a show I wanna watch someday.

Measure For Measure - 7/10 - Wikipedia says that this play is a comedy, but this is a comedy in the same way that a tomato is a fruit. This is one of Shakespeare’s better plays, but that’s entirely because of the Duke. What a dramatic lil bitch, I love him so much.

A Goofy Movie - 7/10 - This is a really sweet, pretty fun movie about Goofy reconnecting with his son. Max and most of the other characters were fine, but the star of the show is Goofy. I love most of his antics and the way he grew as a character with his son is sweet.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - 7/10 - As someone who’s a casual fan of the newer PotA movies, this is definitely the weakest one I’ve seen. It’s not a bad movie at all, but the characters (save for Racka and Proximus) aren’t as interesting as Caesar or Colonel. Still, the action is great, the story is well-written, and the visuals are top tier.

Smiling Friends S2 - 7/10 - It’s not as good as the first season (mainly because no Glep episode), but it’s still as funny, creative, and visually amazing as the first one. Still THERE’S NO FUCKING GLEP EPISODE IN THIS YOU FUCKERS. Also Doug Walker jumpscare

[instantpansies]

In 1964, arguably the height of their career, the Beatles performed "Pyramus and Thisbe", the play-within-a-play from A Midsummer Night's Dream, for a television appearance. Having been obsessed with the Beatles for my entire life, I was ecstatic when at age 12 the recording appeared in my YouTube recommendations.

Around the same time, I was becoming obsessed with Shakespeare as well. Starting with Much Ado about Nothing, I had read most of the comedies and a good number of tragedies by the time I stumbled across "The Beatles Perform Shakespeare, in colour". Naturally, it immediately became my dream to perform in that play. I wasn't an actor yet, and while I was an okay public speaker I hadn't yet gone through the debate classes and persuasive essay presentations that would force me to get comfortable in front of a crowd. I watched the blurry footage of John and Paul mumbling through archaic lines in yarn wigs, and set my sights on memorizing the monologues.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Pyramus and Thisbe is a play put on by the group of fools, who spend most of the story rehearsing before performing it in the final scenes of Midsummer's. It's poorly written, intentionally so, with the actors flubbing lines, speaking out of turn, and generally doing a bad job of presenting the story. Shakespeare means it to be a moment of comedy to wrap up the romantic drama of the rest of the story. Pyramus and Thisbe is also the myth that inspired Romeo and Juliet, with the plot following very similar beats.

I started acting in high school and it quickly became part of my identity. This isn't a unique experience by any means, but the freedom of being someone else was pretty meaningful for a queer kid who'd grown up in the only liberal family in our conservative christian homeschool co-op. I'd only acted for two years when the de facto leader of our troupe, my best friend, graduated, leaving me to fill the gap. Suddenly I'd become one of the most experienced actors in a group of freshman homeschoolers, most of whom had never stepped onstage.

Our director also ran a co-op of sorts of her own - not the one where I'd spent most of my primary educational career, but a sort of conglomerate of teachers and classes - and she wanted us to present a short play for the elementary classes' fall celebration. She asked for recommendations and I saw my chance, practically shining in the air before me.

Obviously I shouted out "Pyramus and Thisbe!" I gave my elevator pitch. Killed it. We got scripts the next week. Me and that little group of freshmen pulled ourselves together in about a month, and managed to present the archaic language comedically. If I do say so myself. We practiced just once a week, and my actors weren't quite sure what to do with their rather eccentric characters, and our lines weren't fully memorized until the week before, but we made it. We made it, and it was great.

I played Pyramus. I got to die dramatically in front of fifty kids I'd been working with for over a year, flounce around onstage with a plastic sword, and immerse myself in a scene I'd loved for years. It was, honestly, a high point of my high school career. I still have those lines memorized, I still go back to the photos and videos from that fall evening. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I don't really know what the point of this story is. I think it's funny, I guess, how Pyramus and Thisbe keeps popping up in my life. It connects to acting and classic literature and the Beatles and the summers of staying with my grandparents, holed up in their extra room, writing research papers and surfing the Internet. I don't know what it is about Pyramus and Thisbe, but it's important for one reason or another. I hope it shows up in my life again someday, but in the meantime, I'm done. And being done, thus Wall away doth go.

[endiness]

s4 of tua thoughts/review

~

to start with the (semi) positives…

overall, i found the season… entertaining. i'm not quite sure if i liked it per se, but i did find it entertaining and i wasn't that mad about it or how it all ended, or at least the concept of the ending.

i'm so glad that the show focused on klaus and allison's relationship and their relationship with claire. klaus's relationship with ben is by far my absolute favorite relationship in the entire show, but if the show wasn't really going to focus on them in the last season, then i'm glad klaus and allison's relationship really got the focus because their relationship is probably my second favorite.

also, lowkey love the idea of them living together especially with allison still being an actress. it is giving "this happened in a fanfic" vibes. same thing with klaus getting buried alive. like, thanks for the fanfic content 👍 and also thanks for the continued misfits parallels 👍

i loved klaus getting to blow up at everyone. and i also loved allison refusing to be seen as the bad guyTM.

i don't think robbie was given the best material to work with this season, but when he did get good material to work with, he really brought it. like, his acting in the scene with claire when he relapses was great.

the show had me shipping five and lila, negl 🤷‍♀️ (also, i have to say: i cannot take people who say that lila cheated on diego seriously. like, no nope nah. if you are stuck in what more or less constitutes as a pocket dimension for over half a decade facing the very real possibility that you will never escape from it, like. it ain't cheating at that point. sry not sry. it just isn't.)

i think the show ultimately focused way too much on gene and jean for such a short season, but i do have to hand it to the actors for doing a good job.

i thought the fight scenes were pretty good and tbh i really enjoyed just how brutal everyone got to be. like, diego jumping and spinning and manipulating the bullets is a classic. i think the way viktor's power displayed itself this season was cool. same with allison. s/o to klaus for finally getting to levitate, too.

now onto the negatives…

i did not care about, or like, jennifer at all. so the show wasting so much time on her was extremely annoying to me given that the season was so short. also, as someone who almost always absolutely despises "destined for each other" relationships because they are usually incredibly poorly written as writers generally tend to rely on that aspect of it instead of, y'know, actually bothering to develop their relationship… yeah, ben and jennifer's relationship did not escape my disdain. and i think it was such a waste of ben's character for him to have spent so much of his screen time on this completely brand new character and not with his family, which the show didn't do the best job of developing anyway given that this isn't og ben but sparrow ben.

also, i don't even understand the whole thing with jennifer anyway? like, why did reginald not just kill her from the beginning? wouldn't this have solved a bunch of problems? and why was everyone so obsessed with killing ben? didn't reginald say you had to kill one of the two vessels, meaning either ben or jennifer? like, just kill jennifer. literally who the fuck cares about her. 🙄

that klaus's storyline this season was being a hypochondriac, relapsing, sex trafficked, buried alive, and then erased from existence. nobody likes that. especially as most of those things weren't really treated that seriously by the narrative. like, klaus went through a massive amount of trauma in a very short amount of time (like he always does), he never got to deal with it (and while the show hasn't always been the best about addressing klaus's trauma, like! it definitely did a lot better in previous seasons!), and then he was just erased from existence. like wtf. also that klaus was 0% involved with the whole "reginald killed his ben" storyline. again, wtf. 🙃

i still cannot stand viktor 💅

i don't mind the concept of the "erase yourself from existence to save the world" ending, but i feel like overall the show did not do the best job in executing it. like, for one thing, if you're gonna go for that ending, i think it is an absolute must that things need to be character driven as opposed to plot driven. and this season was extremely plot driven. on top of that, i think the show introduced the whole idea way too late. like, things need to be building to that solution and not introduced at the last minute, basically. like, it should've been building to that solution since day one and not, like, what. 10-15 minutes before the end?

also, i feel like the whole thing was so unsatisfying for the characters? like, if you're going for that type of ending… it really only works if it feels like… things were resolved with the characters. and i don't really feel like that. like, i can kind of see it for allison because so much of allison's story was just trying to get claire back and with it ending with the way it did, claire was still alive which was ultimately allison's biggest goal. so i think for allison's story it can be satisfying. maybe not the best ending, but all things considered and taking every other character into account, i think that ending for her works better than everyone else. and i guess sort of the same thing with lila because a lot of her story was initially tied up with her family, too, and she ended up saving them. and kind of five in the sense that, idk, i guess he solved the problem that is the apocalypse, lol. (even though he was also trying to save his family and he didn't get to do that...)

but yeah, for everyone else? like, diego got erased knowing that his wife wanted a break and then cheated on him (i still think it's ridiculous to view it that way, like, as an audience member, but i think it's more understandable from diego's position, obviously, even if i was in the same position i'd be like fair enough tbh.) luther got erased kind of doing nothing all season? like, his story last season was very focused on sloan and that's where his story ended off and then the show just went with completely erasing her and that's that. 🙃 i already talked about klaus, but yeah. that he ends up getting erased after going through highly traumatic things that are never addressed. and, like, ben didn't even get to go out with his family?

just, overall, i don't think it was particularly satisfying for any of the characters because not a lot of the season was that character driven. (plus i think there's also stuff that just does not make sense with the ending. like, claire and lila's kids should not actually exist. allison was erased from the timeline as was lila and diego. their kids should just not exist. i don't care that they were in some kind of time travel subway. they should not exist. also, like, the actual problem was reginald releasing the merigold, so like. i think the focus should've been on stopping him from doing that in the past as opposed to like. we are kind of retroactively erasing ourselves from existence by letting this monster eat the merigold that made us in the first place.)

[destinyc1020]

I dont care about timothee tom comparisons thats whatever, but defending cherry is wild b/c take away the acting for a sec but from technical / filmmakers perspective, cherry was poorly edited with blatant mistakes, a movie that is visually bland with poor choices in terms of cinematography and choices that make no sense to the plot that ultimately is like take a step back and think of film as more than just actors on screen. Script that is littered with sterotypes. A movie that was supposed to cover a topic like the opiod crisis but never once does anything with it nor has any meaningful conversation about it. The first part talks about the linkage between us imperialism and ptsd only for the russos to completely drop the critique of the us military mid way through the film there is literallly a lack of cohesion of what it wants to say b/c the script is muddled and unfocused. No movie is perfect but if you are not even open to actual critiques of the film is wild, is film that has potential but its poorly constructed with numerous plot holes and under developed themes. Its style over substance in this case style lacked any thematic purpose rather its used to tell the audience " hey look we can make an independent film" and visual style is never justifeid. Acting is subjective but I tend to argue that cherry blurs more into the realm of overacting, a more talented director would tell tom to control and to hold some things rather than go all the way to 100

the last 30 minutes border more on parody rather than being an honest representation of someone who is a addicted to drugs struggling with ptsd and geographical/ socio economic displacement. The best scene was him in the hospital after that it blurs into over the top hyper realism and fouth wall breaking which tom struggles constantly throughout.

Like Im sorry why are unafraid to engage in critique, tom is a great actor but cherry was all over the place in terms of acting. Like whenever someone critques him you and your anons are quick to dismiss it and say can people think for themselves well here you go I thought for myself its so dismissive and condesending when you think people do have opinions.

Timmy tom comaparisons are dumb, they go after different roles, timmy has admittedly has had more critical success but as that anon said he knows what works for him.

Tom is a great actor and shines in alot of his movies but his films outside of his performance do have flaws and alot of them are technical such as poor visuals ( uncharted) and mistakes in the editing room ( infinity war, end game) under developed script ( TDATT).

This isnt reserved just for toms films but timmys films as well. You also undercut timmy, you said I want the person with range as in tom but literally timmy, austin, zendaya, florence , anya , keke palmer, kelvin harrison, daniel kuluyaa,dev patel like the list goes on of people with range, I dont understand what you mean when you say range like do you just watch tom holland films or something 😭😭😭 i dont know how you can convincingly say one actor as more range than another based on what. Lee, Elio wonka, paul, king henry, yule is a diverse subset of characters, in the same way that arvin, cherry, peter parker, billy elliott are diverse characters.

Wow...This was a LOT Anon. I see you've already written a dissertation, so I'm not going to add on to this by writing a dissertation of my own. I'll just pick from a few things here and there.

but defending cherry is wild b/c take away the acting for a sec but from technical / filmmakers perspective, cherry was poorly edited with blatant mistakes

What mistakes? Can you list examples?

a movie that is visually bland with poor choices in terms of cinematography

What do you mean by this?? And did it ever occur to you that maybe this might have been done on purpose? 🤔 The movie is about drug addiction after all. I also disagree that the entire movie was "visually bland". Some scenes, maybe?? But I think there were quite a few visually appealing and well-shot scenes in "Cherry". You might disagree, but I felt that these shots in particular were quite nice with the lighting (imo). The Cherry and Emily scenes in particular.

and choices that make no sense to the plot that ultimately is like take a step back and think of film as more than just actors on screen.

Again...if you provide some examples, maybe I can agree with you.

Look, I'm not saying "Cherry" was the best film ever made, but to say it was "horrendously awful" is a bit of a stretch to me.

Tom is a great actor and shines in alot of his movies but his films outside of his performance do have flaws and alot of them are technical such as poor visuals ( uncharted) and mistakes in the editing room ( infinity war, end game) under developed script ( TDATT).

And these might just be personal opinions? 🤷🏾‍♀️ But either way, what an actor has done in the past doesn't always equal what they will do in the future imo.

Maybe one day, a film that Tom does will live up to your expectations, but I just feel like you're being unnecessarily hard for no good reason.

You also undercut timmy, you said I want the person with range as in tom but literally timmy, austin, zendaya, florence , anya , keke palmer, kelvin harrison, daniel kuluyaa,dev patel like the list goes on of people with range,

Ummm....When have I EVER "undercut" Timmy (or any of these other actors you've mentioned above)??? 🥴 I've said plenty of times that Timmy (as well as the others you've mentioned) are great actors!

I dont understand what you mean when you say range like do you just watch tom holland films or something 😭😭😭

Okay, now I KNOW you're just trolling. 😒🙄 How many times have I talked about other movies and other actors here on my blog?? Like, literally ALL the time. I don't just watch "Tom Holland movies". 😒 If anything, I've been one who's always told fans to expand their film and actor horizons and appreciate a wide variety!

I've seen 98% of Tom's filmography though, so that's why I do feel like I have an honest view of his filmography overall.

i dont know how you can convincingly say one actor as more range than another based on what. Lee, Elio wonka, paul, king henry, yule is a diverse subset of characters, in the same way that arvin, cherry, peter parker, billy elliott are diverse characters.

Okay look, I know you're a huge Timmy fan and all, and that's okay! But I think you're misunderstanding what I meant. I didn't say "range", I said DIVERSITY of filmography. There's a difference! I never said Timmy doesn't have acting range. I just said that Tom has a more diverse filmography....and he DOES! That's just a fact.

[forkaround]

Playboyy Ep 5 Trash Watch Part 1

Have I done this for E1 - 4? No. But I don't think I can watch this show without making a post or it's a waste of an hour for me and as much as I want to watch this show I can't keep track of anything at all.

You know most of these actors remind me of Pat from Step by Step, especially the kids club. It's that same slack jawed, plump lips expression.

Wait wait wait this whole thing started because of a comment? A play? A dare? Dude what are guys doing out in the world. We need to keep all the boys under lock and key to make sure they don't hurt themselves.

Nuthyim is the username. The lead character is Nont, twin - Nant. You see the confusion.

Wait I thought this was about hitting on someone to get experience for a play, how did it end up in a red light scene with hoods over their heads??? Keep the boys home.

Why does Nant look like he is scamming people when asking for money?? Why doesn't he ask his dad?? Nont?? They are more likely to give money for mom. Unless it's not for mom in that case Nont being angry doesn't make sense. I feel like he didn't really have to do any of this. Even if it wasn't for mom, Asian families would do anything, anything to avoid a scandal. Okay, so while the characters might not get that the writer should. Otherwise it lacks logic as a story coz we are the audience, we have a birds eye view, it won't land for the audience.

So if Nont has revealed himself now, then what was the 'having sex with anything that moves'? Clearly not part of a plan to find his brother. It's the logic again. Not there.

I'm only 5 mins in and this looks more like a spectacle than a real examination of the story being told. I'm not new to crime dramas and I'm not new to sex worker protags so I know this is poorly written. Simple as that. Like the Soong kidnaps First opening. There for shock value only. This too.

Why didn't he tell them who the third guy is? I suppose since they already fought about Teena it's explainable. But like don't say three things and not show three things. It's incomplete. I'm having a Sheldon moment. Complete the sentence!

STOP SPEAKING ENGLISH. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH! I imagine this is how Italian, French, Spanish speakers feel when someone butchers the language. I couldn't even understand it without the subs. Reminds me of House and Sheldon speaking Hindi.

Also do you feel guilty or not boy? That's your friend who is missing. You do like him right? Did the writer just really love that line?

You know I don't care that it's unsexy, I don't care it's weird, I won't care about the horrible pacing. This show is stupid. And that's where I draw the line. I watch Cdramas, I know pacing issues but never have they turned me off so much.

They are all overdramatic about their relationships and I'm left asking - why do you care??? Why do any of you care??? You clearly are unemotional enough when it was Nant, why do you care about these boys??? Where is the logic??

Are they all Mary Sues? Coz I can't see any other reason for these guys to be so crazy over these kids.

This show could have used color coding clothes. or the pair's name starting with the same letter.

Is Zoey the Mew of this group??? He feels like the Mew of this group.

And that's what I mean that this show is confusing. I had no idea why Zoey was angry with Captain until his friend explained it. Stilted af. It's like someone wrote scenes and forgot the flow.

You know we've seen shows like these. Rich kids being shitty isn't new. Gossip Girl made that a thing long before anyone else. For something small town there is Pretty Little Liars. They did shit to each other all the time. But they made sense. I should clarify - they made sense for what we knew of the characters without losing the pacing.

Anyone else feeling a distinct urge to slap the car boy?

I can't watch any more today. Buh-bye

[average-guy-reviews]

The Little Mermaid (2023)

"The youngest of King Triton's daughters, Ariel, is a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. Longing to find out more about the world beyond the sea, Ariel visits the surface and falls for the dashing Prince Eric. Following her heart, she makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, to experience life on land."

While I do enjoy a good Disney film, and I do regularly use their streaming service, I am far from a huge Disney fan. I find theirs, and others, needs for constant remakes or reboots irritating. Yet something about this one intrigued me from the get go. I can't remember when I last watch the animated version, and it's been well over 30 years since I read the original story. Yet here I was, happily sat front row for the Mouse's newest 'life-action' offering.

Up to this point, the live action remakes/reboots from the company have been spotty. Other than Cruella (and even that was close), I haven't enjoyed the remakes. I have just found them poorly made, badly written, or just NOT live action, Lion King I'm looking at you here....it was just differently animated. It wasn't 'live-action'. With this film though the House of Mouse may have bucked the trend.

With four perfectly cast actors in the main roles of Ariel, Triton, Eric, and Ursula, they have given us a live action adaptation that pays homage to the original yet feels fresh at the same time. It isn't a full shot for shot remake but when it was it was delightful and spoke perfectly to my inner child. The scene on the rock with the wave crashing behind Ariel legitimately had me giddily clapping my hands. Throughout the film there were several moments that sent a ripple of laughter through the audience, and at the end a good portion of the viewers were clapping. It is an entrancing movie that will reignite a sense of childlike wonder in your head, even if only while in the cinema.

Halle Bailey, as Ariel, was exquisite. Her voice is so beautiful, and the changes made to some of the songs she sang were smooth and fitted the film perfectly. Her Ariel was a strong yet naive young woman, and she was fabulous in a role that is so iconic to so many people. I really enjoyed her performance, and I look forward to whatever she does next.

Now I need to be honest here....when I first heard that Melissa Mccarthy was going to be in this film as Ursula, I was disappointed. I don't like her. I genuinely cannot think of a film of hers that I have sat through and enjoyed. She'll never read this, but I'd like to apologise to her now. I was wrong. You were perfectly cast as the vile sea witch, and I don't say that to be mean or sarcastic. She brought out the malevolence of one of the most putrid Disney villains in a perfect way that I just did not expect. She was brilliant, and her version of Poor Unfortunate Souls was perfectly pitched to highlight the two-faced vindictive nature of the character while still trying hard to elicit a little sympathy. It didn't work Melissa you were horrible. Thank you.

Eric, played by Jonah Hauer-King, could have been played by Harry Styles, and I have to thank the casting director for NOT doing that. Hauer-King's Prince is a man of the people that is loved and respected, as well as a man out of place looking for his own direction. It was a delightful performance and easily the most believable of the main four. As for King Triton? The big fish of the seas, the king of the underwater folks, and a tough grumpy fella with a little nugget of gold in his heart? I honestly cannot think of anyone else that would have fit it as well as Javier Bardem. Bravo, sir....

But it's not all seashells and shiny rocks. Some of the CGI was lacking, in design as well as quality.....to me at least. I totally understand why Flounder and Sebastian couldn't look like they did in the animation. They were going for a more realistic vibe, and that's great, but the artistic choices for these characters were not well made. I definitely think they could have put more effort, or thought, into them. The worst CGI 'culprit' for me was Ursula in her giant final form. It just didn't look good and, while it didn't pull me out of the story, it certainly didn't add any more depth to the big climactic scene.

Overall, this is a really solid release from Disney and, again for me, easily the best live action adaptation of an animated classic. It has its issues, but it's a decent movie that I genuinely found myself enjoying immensely. It's getting a solid 7/10 with a recommendation to everyone to give it a go. Hopefully Disney have turned a corner with these adaptations, but let's see what they do with the angry blue alien...

[adamwatchesmovies]

Cinderella and the Secret Prince (2018)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

There's something particularly devastating about watching a bad movie that could’ve been good if circumstances beyond the filmmaker’s control hadn’t mucked things up. Right before the end credits of Cinderella and the Hidden Prince, we see concept art of what the characters should’ve looked like. They look great. As good as anything Disney has put on-screen. I'm certain the voice actors saw these images and got all excited. I can picture the art director/character designer telling their friends and family about this animated fairy tale they were working on and then dying of shame once they saw the final product.

Ella “Cinderella” (voiced by Cassandra Morris) is forced by her wicked stepmother and step-sisters to work as a scullery maid in her own home. When her mouse friends Alex (Chris Niosi), Manny (R. Martin Klein) and Walt (Tony Azzolino) discover an apprentice fairy godmother in the woods (Crystal, voiced by Kirsten Day), Ella gets the chance to go to the royal ball and meets the kingdom's prince. Unfortunately, Olaf (Stephen Mendel) isn’t a prince at all. He’s a puppet of the Wicked Witch (Stephanie Sanditz), who has transformed the real prince into a mouse!

If you’ve had the misfortune of seeing 2012’s Cinderella 3D, this one’s cut from the same cloth. Ugly characters are REALLY ugly but not in an intentional way. The "handsome" prince has his eyes set just a bit too far apart, making him look like he’s a fish man. Cinderella’s mouse friends (well, two are mice, one’s a hamster) are hideous creatures whose size changes from scene to scene. At best, this looks like a bargain-bin knockoff of Tangled. Most of the time, it doesn’t even reach the level of Happily N’Ever After. Some assets were obviously taken from an animation library because you can see their cycles end in the middle of a scene.

Despite the lackluster visuals, you can picture the movie this could've been if it weren’t trying to tell the Cinderella story. When you think of the classic fairy tale, certain elements come to mind: a poor girl forced to do labor, a fairy godmother and most iconic of all… a crystal slipper left behind at midnight. That last one? not in this movie! Instead, we have a quest for a magic ring to restore the not-so-secret prince to his human form. This mission takes over the entire film, which would be fine if it was what we’d signed up for.

As Hoodwinked has taught us, all could've been forgiven if the writing had done some heavy lifting. At several points, it feels like there are scenes missing. One moment, Cinderella and her friends spot a colossal ice mountain all the way across the forest. Seconds later, they’re inside, exploring a cave that looks like it belongs to a completely different film. The characters are thin, unlikeable, or both. At several points, the story contradicts itself. We learn, for example, that the prince was turned into a mouse when he was five years old. When he’s restored to his true form, he suddenly knows how to ride a horse and is an expert swordsman. Did he master these skills when he was a toddler? Then there’s a reveal about the evil witch that makes no sense and an epic conclusion that raises far too many questions. It’s clear some people on the team were trying but they were outnumbered by people who just didn’t care.

You can appreciate a film wanting to take a familiar story in a new, fresh direction but good intentions don't mean anything if the end product is kind of ugly, often annoying and poorly written. Don’t get me started on the one musical number. It’s so bland and generic you'll forget the lyrics as soon as the following line begins. Even for little kids who don’t discriminate, Cinderella and the Secret Prince would be a hard sell. (May 7, 2021)

[hoghtastic]

Hey there! I remember that some had been discussing why most of the younger cast of vikings didn't really progress with their careers. I have just recently rewatched the whole show, and now with some time passed and not as much of a hype I personally felt like often the acting of them was honestly hideous. I noticed that especially with Marco, Ida, Georgia and yes also with Alex. Some of them clearly had some very good and memorable scenes but compared to what Travis did with his character I now understand that a lot of people abandoned or didn't like the show after Ragnars death. Yes, Ivar carried the show like a lot after that but I personally thing that the fact that Ivar just looked hot had a lot of saying with that. Because when I rewatched the show, I thought that with season 5 the story was more often written poorly then not! I know that they were young and didnt have that much experience, but honestly if that is their biggest advertisement for themselves I kinda understand it's hard for them to get new big jobs.

Just my 2 cents, sorry if most disagree, hope no one feels offended. Just thought to myself its almost a bit surprising how my own view changed with a bit of distance form the fandom and hypetrain.

Thank you so much for sharing your opinion, anon! 😊 It's a really interesting perspective, and it's totally understandable that with some time and distance our views on things will change.

If I may also add my two cents, from my experience talking to friends and acquaintances who also used to watch Vikings, people abandoning the show after Ragnar's death had nothing to do with the new actors' skills. They were just really attached to Ragnar as a character and felt really disappointed that they decided to kill the main character, so much that they didn't see a point in continuing to follow the story, as the sons' story wouldn't be the same without Ragnar. So some people gave up right away, not even giving the show and the new cast a chance. It also didn't help that, at the time, only seasons 1 to 5 were available on Netflix, and most people didn't feel like subscribing to another platform (Amazon Prime, if I'm not mistaken) to see the 6th and final season. And while I agree that sometimes the writing wasn't the best, we can't really blame the actors' skills for that either, as they try to do their best with what they're given, I believe. 😅

I also absolutely agree when you said that "they were young and didn't have that much experience", but being on Vikings was already a huge achievement and they could have worked on improving their skills after that. I can only comment about Alex, whose career I've been following the closest in comparison to the others you mentioned, but I'd say that the problem wasn't his performance in Vikings. He showed a huge potential and commitment to the character, even if he wasn't perfect. The problem was what he did after. It seemed to me (based on past interviews) that he got a little picky with which roles he'd accept, considering some smaller ones as some kind of "downgrade" after Vikings. He also didn't seem to have resumed his formal studies or any other kind of education that would help him improve as an actor. And in such a competitive field of work, where good big roles are somewhat scarce, I don't think those were very clever choices. But this is just my personal opinion, of course, and maybe he preferred to prioritize his mental health back then and is happy doing some lighter work nowadays. 😊

[petalsmooth]

Last one has 15.1 million views and it was just a rehash of previous action of season 2 to advertise season 3. People were expecting new footage of season 3. The 12.6 and 15.4 m viewed reels ARE season 3 of Colin and Penelope. The 6.3m reel is just Nicola and Luke advertising their wedding contest. And that drew more than man reels in past with spoilers. Then we have the latest reel that mostly was a Kanthony reel. Francesca seen briefly, Penelope seen briefly, but it's essentially a Kanthony reel.

Now I say upfront I love just about all characters on the show and I plan to watch virtually everything and not just skip to a couple of characters. I don't mind scenes of everyone else. Although still not sold on Francesca I admit. I know all the actors are older, for most part, than their character ages but still having a hard time buying her as an 18 year old debutant. Eloise and Penelope were played by actresses clearly older but they acted younger and the costuming was made to kind of disguise them as women. Case in point Penelope's dresses that were designed with the bodice far higher than would be natural. Or Eloise stomping about throwing tantrums. Whereas they can't use the same tricks for Francesca because they start her out dressed nicely and supposedly ready for a husband.

Anyway I digress....So I have NO issues with the character scenes or showing them or other characters in the season. None.

I DO hold issues with their fanbase. That reel may get to 8m but it's looking like it will top out there for awhile. Meanwhile the couple they claimed was overshadowed by Kanthony and that no one had interest in well cleared 10mil on both their reels for the season and arguably is why the other 15m viewed reel had that many views too. As people thought would have footage of them.

These same people watched this reel and rather than be happy to see their couple married, then turned around and started attacking Polin again saying they had no chemistry and would be embarrassing to follow them. Completely delusional seeing as your couple isn't stacking up the same viewership in the reels.

First off if it were MY favorite couple and finally got to see them happy and married for first time in over two years, I wouldn't be thinking of another couple. Second off, I wouldn't be talking about how unpopular the other couple is when yours is not holding it's own on the view counter. Third...I still find it baffling they are so moronic they chose to create this toxicity in the fandom to begin with, because this show is not BUILT for shipper wars. Again...you get one seaon with your couple and then they move on! If your actors stick around you may be lucky to see them in smaller capacity but the idea it's a blasted competition was started by Kanthony fans. Fans who never DID overtake season 1 in views and early signs are NOT overtaking online releases of Polin clips from season 3. Given this REALITY I'm not sure where you get off even wanting to draw comparisions because they don't favor you at all in cold hard numbers so maybe Shut. Up.

Now. Having said that I DO hope season 3 rights some of the wrongs of season 4 for Kate and Anthony because the story poorly serviced them. Not because the Featherington's took up screentime, but because it was a stupidly manufactured triangle with the animosity between the two characters flimsy at best and Anthony really dragged most through the wringer by stringing along two sisters. As a fan of the actor, I'm hoping for some redemption in how written. His treatment of Francesca there was a start.