#It’s so silly and ridiculous and funny but also has some genuinely good and interesting character moments

[ellascreams]

People have been saying for a long time that the prefect should have a larger role in the events, and you know what? I agree. That’s a large part of why Beanfest: Survival of The Beanest was the best event and all future events should be modeled after it. In this essay I will…

[web-novel-polls]

Trans WN Character Tournament

Last Checked: November 28th, 2024 - Please check the original post for updates

Submissions End: TBD

Rules: 

The character must be from a web novel or an adaptation of a WN (common adaptations like manhwa/manhua may be accepted, just within reason)

They don't have to be canonically transgender. The reasoning can be anything from them explicitly wanting to be a different gender/sex or just vibes 

Just stay away from offensive gender stereotypes in propaganda, especially Western gender stereotypes on Asian characters (Ex: Nie Huaisang being more interested in art and fans than fighting might be a more "feminine trait" to Western readers, but Chinese fans have explained that it actually fits with the male scholars of the time period). 

You can still submit any character, but remember to be respectful & conscientious

Tournament Tag: #trans wn character tournament

Jang Hayoung / Jang Hayeong from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

Gender Identity: Transfem / MTF

Canon Pronouns: she/her (she gets misgendered for a big part of the novel in the unofficial english translation, but when we're in her pov it's she/her)

Submission 2: a woman that got isekai'd into a boy body. learns female swordsmanship, is always correcting people about her gender

Submission 3: She's so fun and silly, unfortunately doesnt get as much time in novel as the main cast, but shes genuinely so funny

Wiki Link

Ling Fengxiao from The #1 Pretty Boy of the Immortal Path

Gender Identity: transfem & nonbinary

Submission:

(tw: transphobia)  i am not claiming that this a good novel by any means & this is kind of nonsense but hear me out: main romance lead of this novel spends like 90% of the time happily presenting as a woman, and this is a vague spoiler but at one point mc and his wife are both "pretending" to be women (ngl i could also submit mc here. much gender to be had but it really has to be unintentional bc of later transphobic plot points) and come across a plant that only blooms valuable flowers when attended to by two beautiful women (ok. whatever) and they're both like "well IM pretending to be a woman but lin shu/ling fengxiao ISNT so she'll carry me across this finish line" and it does bloom! like, it does! the author is like "ohhhh its sickly and this is forcedddd" <- but it does bloom. and the flower spirit that comes of it is fairly explicitly a trans woman, even if she's an object of ridicule. my grasping at scraps theory here is that all of the "you're actually a boy. accept it" said to the spirit is a projection of internalized transphobia. there are three women here but only one of them is willing to say so. if the author was willing to write where the previous characterization led we would have a different story. 

Luo Binghe from The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Gender Identity: Transfem / MTF

Canon Pronouns/Gender: He/Him, Male

Submission: Scum Villain is a satirical transmigration novel where the protagonist transmigrates into the in-universe novel Proud Immortal Demon Way, which is a male-fantasy novel. Some themes/topics include toxic masculinity, not putting people in boxes and the harm thereof, abandonment, motherhood, identity, and there are several instamces of body snatching/changing. During the plot, due to both the toxic masculinity themes and the author poking at gendering in danmei novels, both the protagonist and binghe are described very femininely. Instead of a usually anti-toxic masculinity plotline where instead it talks about healthy masculinity, scum villain basically just says that the mc and ml should instead stop repressing their natural feminity so they can be happy. Also the novel has transphobic parts but somehow they even wrap around to implying that these two are trans women. Binghe is indirectly described as a trans woman (in a transphobic way) dont get me wrong the transphobic parts are transphobic and shouldnt be in there but its still pertinent. After a certain point, binghe is constantly called maiden-hearted, described as a younger sister reaching out to her elder sister pleading for help (the elder sister here is the protagonist) and is described as being very much like his biological mother in appearance and personality, and as a pretty boy. (His mother su xiyan is described as having the aura of a tyrant, cold and ruthless, as well as masculine, especially in comparison to his biological father, who is described as the runaway young miss in comprison to su xiyans wealthy young master. Also binghe is described as physically similar to her, including her tall height, except for his fathers eyes which makes him not too feminine.) Binghes bio father is described as maidenhearted like binghe. Uses his special blood, which is compared to menstration, in text, for many purposes. When asked his gender he refuses to answer (intext the unreliable narrator says that its due to it being a simple and obvious question but unreliable narrator so who knows for sure) and he is also called bingmei, or younger sister binghe to distingiush him from the original timelines toxically masculine, unhappy bingge, or elder brother binghe.

Wiki Link

Mui Lysander from Unlucky Clover

Canon Pronouns: they/them

Submission: Mui is a canonically nonbinary character in Unlucky Clover. Their existence as a nonbinary person is never a focus of the narrative, but rather just an accepted fact about them. They have a complicated relationship with their family but it doesn't have anything to do with being trans but rather to do with their family having unreasonable expectations of them. Mui lives their life happily as a librarian and lends their strength either in defense of books or for their friends. They appear to be feminine presenting but it is never established what their assigned gender at birth was. It is also unclear whether they always present in a feminine way as there is limited art of their character and limited descriptions of their clothes. 

Image Link

Nirvana Moebius from Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint / ORV

Gender Identity: Nonbinary, agender

Canon: pronouns indifferent in canon, agender

Submission Propaganda: a reincarnator that had incarnations of so many genders and entities that identity isn't real to them anymore. 

Ruan Nanzhu (阮南烛) from Kaleidoscope of Death

Gender Identity: transfem & nonbinary

Canon Pronouns: he/him outside of the doors, she/her in drag

Submission: 

This might be considered spoiler-y, but I can't think of another way to bring up important details here. It's part of the premise of the novel if that helps: there are other worlds that the protagonists have to survive for [REDACTED] reasons, and in these worlds there's a certain amount of identity obfuscation—basically, you'll look a little different from your real appearance no matter what you do, but the way that you dress will also affect the appearance that you end up with. Ruan Nanzhu takes every opportunity to dress in feminine ways when they go to these worlds. Yes, there is a secret identity reason behind it, but there's also this clear difference in how Ruan Nanzhu acts as a "man" and a "woman" that it just reads like a form of gender euphoria to me. The novel itself isn't always kind about it (could be that it just depends on the translation you're reading! I couldn't tell you what connotations the original Chinese wording has) but I think it's fairly undeniable that it's a freeing experience for her. So it's not exaaactly canon, but Lin Qiushi (林秋石) uses the right pronouns out loud and in his thoughts as it is signalled to him at the time, so that's nice.

Carrd Link

Shen Qingqiu from The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Gender Identity: transmasc / FTM

Canon Pronouns: he/him

Submission:

he invented xianxia panty liners also he was literally obsessed with a stallion novel that was supposed to be like. be a power fantasy about a cool strong man. I'm not saying he liked pidw I'm just saying he did make the choice to read a stallion novel and was obsessed with Luo Binghe. Sometimes gay thoughts can also be gender envy. SVSSS also looks a lot at like. masculinity and its performance and perception in a way that really slaps if you, like me, think Shen Qingqiu is the Worstest trans guy ever of all time. I'd like to be clear that he is not good representation. He is literally the most dogshit rep. He's homophobic and gay hes transphobic and trans hes the most insufferable trans person youve ever met. He's probably definitely a transmed. Instead of medical transition, sqq got that transmigration transition, and he is absolutely has a weird ass superiority complex about it. also he's a TRANSmigrator its literally right there in the name. Do u see my vision.

Shi Qingxuan from Heaven Official’s Blessing / TGCF

Gender Identity: Transfem / MTF, Nonbinary, Genderfluid

Canon Pronouns: She/Her and He/Him

Submission 1: Canonically switches between female and male forms due to personal preference. Also theres alot of gothic doubling on her plotline as well. 

Submission 2: 

Genderfluid rep Goes by any pronouns depending on form

Trissy from Lord of the Mysteries

Gender Identity: Transfem / MTF

Submission: #1 canon trans character (her class of powers forcefems the user) and war criminal she’s my beautiful blorbo and can do no wrong she should be allowed to kill anyone she wants

Wiki Link

Wu Xie from Lord Seventh (Qi Ye)

Canon Pronouns: he/him

Gender Identity: Transmasc / FTM

Submission: I just think he's neat

Xie Lian from Heaven Official’s Blessing / TGCF

Canon Pronouns: he/him

Gender Identity: Transmasc / FTM 

Submission: He's been trans in my head for so long that it's just kind of part of his character now. 

Yoo Joonghyuk (The Punisher) from Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint

Canon Pronouns: he/him

Gender Identity: Transfem / MTF

Submission 1: 

1. inexplicably fights with the strictly girl-only sword fighting technique. is the only 'guy' to ever learn it and the only other person who is a discipline is a canon trans girl so 2. has an ability where he can become a woman and when he uses it it's said 'it was still Yoo Joonghyuk. No, it was even more than before' ??? there's no cis explanation for that. also he's canonically the hottest person in the entire universe as a woman based on MC's attractiveness rating 2.5 described as feeling 'conflicted' over the gender changing thing when thinking back on it. I THINK he's conflicted bc he likeeeeed ittt 3. whole arc is about breaking free from her chains and gaining autonomy over her own life and story despite what other people think she should be (trans narrative) 4. there's a binary in the universe (incarnation/constellation) to which everyone is forced to confirm to, but there's a special category of people who refuse to be a part of this and carve their own path in life (transcenders). guess what Yoo Joonghyuk is. thats all i remember shjfjsk she's just in general VERY transfem coded story wise 

Submission 2: his girlification canonically allows him to access a level of power he can't as a man (this form is called The Punisher). brokers a deal at one point where he must undergo transformation into a girl for a certain amount of time every day for a week. goes out of this way to hide said girlification from the main character (Kim Dokja)

Wiki Link

Rejected

Nimona from Nimona

Reason: Not from a web novel

Honeypaw from The Exiled

Reason: Not from a web novel (fancomic)

[lovelyrotter]

I read your thing about stridercest. I didn’t super like the ship (I’m more of a lalondecest girlie) but I respect the hell out of the textual analysis you did. Anyway do you have any good fic recommendations? I want to see what you see in it.

oh fuck yeah i love sharing ship stuff especially with ppl who dont usually go here and vice versa for me. its like hell yeah im digging in sand and its fun i love my sand and then i turn around and woah i had no idea there was even MORE sand just behind me ya dig? that might not have made any sense hahaha. its the joy of trading pokemon cards except with ships

but okay heres some of my current faves. bear in mind i read mostly M and E rated stuff but ive got a sprinklin of lower ratings in here too. im also gonna categorize this list by stridercest flavour. theres a lot so this turned out like ridiculously long

anyone else goin through this feel free to link yalls faves in the replies too cause im ravenous. especially if its haldirk. im constantly craving haldirk

guardiancest

doku line terminus & two steps away from the county line by lildogie these first cause theyre my ultra faves rn and i cant get enough of this au. set in the same universe but county line is the prequel. a/b/o verse with lotsa interesting political stuff and also interpersonal dynamics. dave & dirk are there too and are real cute. its also got mysterious time travelling. i really cant sell these two enough like i am not doin these justice

davedirk / dirkdave

if i woke up next to you by bumbly | G, ~2,700 words, complete. SUPER sweet relationship study, made me fuckin melt. this author has really good stuff for other ships too but mind the archive warnings

dont joke about hentai face broctopus transplants im eating cheese n onion pringles here by smrtnik | M, ~1k words, complete. this one made me fuckin melt its so tender. it truly feels like were peeking into their life together. also great title

Stasis State by Caeslin | T, ~3k words, complete. another really intimate feeling one. its so fuckin sweet. mind the tags for typical dirk suicide attempt but its not on screen its moreso the recovery and how dave is affected by it

“stupid fucking bullshit” ad nauseam by anon | T, 13.7k words, complete. REALLY GOOD AU. trans striders, fade to black sex scene. the boys are cute and you can feel how much theyre drawn to each other immediately. wish there was more of this

sometimes the bad guy wins by nutrimercenary | E, ~7.5k words, ongoing. wow. oh wow. ive been looking for a davedirk fic like this for a long time. PLEASE read the warnings and tags but its so fuckin good. a crossdimentional narrative tug-o-war between dave and ult dirk i fuckin love it

got it goin on by bumbly | E, 7.5k words, complete. dirk indulges daves mommy kink after prying it outta him. its cute and funny and sexy it made me smile. their dynamic is sooo sweet

helping hands by ghostlyAnarchist | E, 5.1k words, complete. THIS IS SO GOOD. its got trans man dave and is genuinely one of the hottest transmasc fics ive read so far and boy howdy ive read a lot. slight warning for dysphoria discussion but its not too bad its all just hot af a dick-sucking venn diagram by Elendraug | E, 10k words, complete. first off domestic af. very established relationship and you can tell. its so fuckin sweet. i looove this one. its like the best kind of silly realistic smut its one of my faves of all time

STILL WITH ME by egbert | E, 8k words, complete. dave and dirk strife and then fuck in the bathroom. holy shit this is hot. their want is like tangible in this one

brodave and a!brodirk

hardware by orphan_account | E, ~8k words, complete. dave gets some dick piercings and bro goes insane about them. hot as hell and also features bottom bro which is my fave. its got a couple uses of the r-slur but its also from 2011 so i take it w/ a grain of salt. 2011 and earlier fics are like internet artifacts (/pos)

but you better never pull it by hapaxlegomena | E, 5k words, complete. wow. WOW. sub top bro and dom bottom dave need i say more. this sub bro activates my cute aggression the power play is great mars & murrie's by orphan_account | E, 6.8k words, complete. a!brodirk, omorashi. super hot!!!! alpha dave is sooo embarrassed about his piss kink but dirk wins in the end hahaha. really intriguing which i know sounds funny on an omo fic but read it and youll know. i love this alpha dave

temporal sunset by Plajus | M, 19.5k over 5 chapters, complete. a!brodirk. holy shit what a ride. this one held me hostage and now lives in my brain rent free (bdum tiss sorry). dirk is terminally ill so i know it wont be for everyone but give it a try and goddamn you wont be disappointed. trust me

a swinging pendulum by ghostlyAnarchist | T, ~900 words, complete. a!brodirk time/dream bubble encounter. wow just wow. the want. the yearning immaterial by LPSunnyBunny | E, 1k words, complete. a!brodirk, trans dirk. holy shit!!!!!! holy shit!!!!! hot hot hot!!!!!!! shower sex sensation control!!!!

haldirk

singular by 2x2verse | E, 6.8k words, complete. hal has an existential crisis dirk catches him and then they fuck tenderly about it. genuinely so romantic. im addicted to this kind of haldirk. honestly i just recommend the entire series diagnostics by 2x2verse | E, 2.9k words, complete. i know i just linked this authors whole collection of haldirk fics but holy crap this one in particular. dom/sub electrostim with sensory deprivation, hal is the dom. i LOVE how hes written here. very attentive domming, great details

A Fatal Error Has Occurred by Mortior | E, 42k words, 4/5 chapters. oh mortior my haldirk regent. really fuckin good character writing in an au where hal has an android body before the alpha session is started. read the tags for warnings. the tension between them is insane endangered by Mortior | E, 100k+ words, complete multichapter. holy fuck where to begin with this one. this is a haldirk sensation. post apocalyptic au where androids won the human-robot war. dirk runs into AR. AR takes an interest in him. dirk takes even more of an interest in AR. if youre gonna read any haldirk read this one

"im basically fucking him" series by Elendraug | T & E, all complete. so!!!!! fucking!!!!! tender!!!!! really cute haldirk progressing through their relationship

ridiculously late by cinnamonfreak | E, 21k, completed multichapter. a/b/o au where dirk suddenly presents. REALLY intriguing hal in this one i fuckin love the power play

roboporn by smrtnik | E, 3.9k words, complete. really fun power play in this one. hal is waterproofed externally but not internally. he gives dirk a handie over his open chassis torso. theres also really sweet snuggling afterwards

[kaibutsushidousha]

How would you rank the Pokemon champions and villain bosses?

1) N: The most written character in all of Pokémon.

2) Guzma: Nothing in Pokémon made me feel things as much as first visiting Po Town did. That plus his background tidbits form a very sympathetic loser I care for a lot.

3) Lusamine: The tragedy of her family is delightful on all of its members, but Lusamine is certainly the weakest link to it due to being more of a perpetrator than a victim. I also love both of her designs, with her Nihilego form being easily the second-best-looking Pokémon woman, behind on Valerie.

4) Maxie and Archie: Accidental comedy duo. Their goals are stupid in the most endearing and memeable ways, and their reactions to the consequences of their actions somehow still manage to be a resonating moment. Ranking them separately is silly, but if I had to, Maxie is the best for his general pretentiousness, inside jokes, and being the Jouji voice in Master Sex.

5) Blue: The rival becoming the Champion for 5 minutes is a perfect endpoint of a rival arc and every one of Blue's successors, even the ones that are better characters than him, suffer from not being the one who pulled this off. Raticate-based content is also often good.

6) Alder: A cool design can carry you a long way. Seriously, he nails the wandering monk aesthetic so neatly. Volcarona, Reuniclus, and Chandelure are also sublime picks. And I love how his contributions to the plot are meaningful advice rather than the more distant and professional company that Wallace and Cynthia offer.

7) Rose: Funny anxiety man, arguably cuter and more memeable than the Hoenn villains, only lower than them because of how messily the Galar finale is delivered. Immense bonus points for his part as an accessory to Bede's character.

8) Wallace: Like with Alder, a cool design can carry you a long way. Milotic as an ace is also an immense plus. I suppose Emerald also makes him useful, but if that was a major factor, Cynthia would have been a lot higher.

10) Lance: Having the second-to-last boss become a sequel final boss always has a big feeling of downgrade, but that's offset well enough by making him cool in the Red Gyarados arc and his relationship with Clair.

11) Cynthia: Infodump character for Sinnoh mythology, which is not nearly as interesting as it should have been. Gets some points for the generally great choices of Pokémon and for actually feeling powerful in gameplay.

12) Kukui: Funny professor with a lot of presence but none very memorable. Being the Champion fight, and a surprisingly challenging one, is a big shock, but nothing really amazing on further thought.

13) Archer: Pathetic underling, therefore immediately more interesting than his nothingburger boss.

14) Leon: Dude that game insistently tries to sell as cool but never actually gets to be cool. Only above Steven because he's the one who gets to make the poignant commentaries on Sword/Shield's themes and because he's genuinely good as an accessory to Hop's arc.

15) Steven: Generic champion that never gets to be interesting, but gets points for only having cool Pokémon in his team.

16) Cyrus: Gets points for being memeable but not enough to compensate for how unfun his actual character is. Being soulless by design doesn't make it meaningful when the Sinnoh games are not saying anything about emotion.

17) Ghetsis: Plot device to make N innocent. Only above Giovanni because I like some Pokémon in his team.

18) Giovanni: Just a yakuza boss without any fun projects. The Gym Leader twist was a wow thing on the first run but never amounts to anything, like with Kukui being the Champion fight. Did he ever interact with Silver? Not in anything I played, I think.

19) Diantha: Has the bare minimum story presence and doesn't even use it well.

20) Lysandre: Has one of the stupidest villain plans, made even more ridiculous by the version differences between X and Y, but his aesthetic and delivery are so bad that it manages to make it not funny.

[georgieluz]

hi! I hope you’re doing good and I was wondering if you can cast your mutuals as The Pacific men, women characters too? based off of their personalities? hope this isn’t too much to ask! anyways, have a good day!

hello! it's not too much to ask, i can definitely try to do that!

burgie → @im-chinese-believe-it-or-not this was the first one that popped into my head immediately!! you have burgie's soft caring side where you wanna look after all your friends/mutuals and make sure everyone is okay and feels Seen and heard and validated!! and i feel like you have that warmth and stabilising effect that burgie has on the boys too... when you're not around my dash feels slightly off! but you also know when to be firm and shut things down when people interact with you or others in bad faith! you're not a pushover at all and will stand up for the right thing even if it means you have to put on your "shut up bill" voice. i feel like you spread happiness and safe vibes in the same way that burgie does!

eddie → @hellofanidea because i feel like you have a lot of depth and i just feel like we'd have interesting conversations all the time and you're the kind of person whose brain i want to pick about random topics. you seemed like a Cool Online Person when we first became mutuals but it turned out you're actually super approachable and easy to talk to and eddie definitely feels similar in that way!

sledge → @theflyingfin because you're smart and always interesting to talk to! like eugene, you're open with how you feel about things and you just give me sledge vibes sometimes but not naive!sledge vibes but sledge who has seen some things y'know?

snafu → @aegondluvrs bc 99% of our first conversation revolved around svt and enha's teeth (rightly so) and you definitely have snafu's brand of chaos! also: if snafu was a carat in 2023 he too would have a folder dedicated to lee jihoon's teeth, we're not alone!

sid → my good friend @footprintsinthesxnd! i feel like i'm copying the quiz we did but it honestly felt really accurate to me because you're a literal sweetheart and one of the kindest people around but you're also way more than just that.. you're a great friend and always so supportive when anything has happened, and you're funny and witty in the same understated way that sid is. people probably think you're shy and quiet at first but that absolutely changes when you become friends with them. we have the best conversations and i'm genuinely so glad to have you in my life!!

leckie x lena hybrid → @lewis-winters look, i know i talk all the time about how annoying leckie is, so let me first of all say that i'm not including any of the annoying parts of his personality here... but you do have a similar charismatic intelligence thing going on.. y'know, the type of person you know you would always enjoy having a conversation with no matter what the topic is and whose opinion you would always be interested in hearing on just about anything. lena comes in with that aspect too, but you also have her enigmatic vibes, the kind that makes people wanna be friends with you!

runner → @ep6bastogne bc your posts make me laugh a ton and you're chill but also not at the same time? which is how i feel runner is too.. like he jokes around and winds leckie up and is silly af but he also gives off chill drama free vibes idk like i just feel like you're both the type of friend i would want in my life y'know?

chuckler → @lamialamia because our conversations are either about something ridiculous like sledge's ass flash and leckie's sex scenes or they're about the devastation of war and losing ack ack and eddie or something equally as terrible lmao you feel very balanced to me in that way and i think chuckler is like that too.. hilarious and jokes around but also serious when you need to be! kinda the perfect mix you would want in a friend or mutual!

vera → @hxad-ovxr-hxart because you're very funny but also very sweet! and you have vera vibes (warm and kind but witty vibes!!) and i feel like you're very approachable in the same way vera is too!

sorry if this didn't live up to your expectations anon!! this was a lot of fun to think about though!

[meraki-yao]

thank you so much for your reply <3 i think grief is a good word to describe what i'm feeling. it might sound silly to some but the book has been one of my favourites since 2019 and the 'what could have been?' aspect of the movie's promotion devastates me bc the crew and the fans deserved more. i think im also a bit terrified of ppl moving on from rwrb to nick's other projects meanwhile i can't (and don't want to) do it, ugh it's just a mess of weird feelings and sadness and longing for something we've never had. not to mention how some people already talk about his new projects being upgrades from rwrb. that hurts me on so many levels bc henry is a complex and beautiful character, rwrb is a wonderful story and i genuinely think that even with all the changes they created something amazing.

Glad I could help <3

It's not silly at all. I'm in a similar position: if you've followed my blog you might have seen this but long story short my irl life is a bit fucked up and I was really, really depressed. (still kinda am) July and August, waiting and watching RWRB release became the happiest I've been since January 2022, and in the following months RWRB and the fandom (well, and my sister) nearly became my sole reason for hanging on. So trust me when I say I get the feeling.

I understand your fear, and I'd be lying if I say I wasn't afraid that the rwrb tag will be full of George instead of Alex and Henry, but please remember that liking something new doesn't necessarily always lead to leaving the previous fandom: I know for a fact that me and a couple of my mutuals are going do both. We're gonna be happy to watch M&G (personally not interested in the idea of you but the same applies) but we're still going to make RWRB content. M&G will be a great show but it won't have nearly the same emotional weight to me as RWRB. It's been five months, so those of us who hang around and are active are active for a good reason.

As for the comments about "upgrade", that's ridiculous and a very surface-level assessment. One of my best friends is studying to become an actress and we talk about acting often. Here's the thing: there isn't a thing called "easy" acting. Every genre of acting has its own challenges: for comedy many times you need to sacrifice your personal dignity; Sci-fi blockbusters you need to interact with nothing and make it look believable; even for things like kid shows you need to be hyperactive so the kids can focus and find it entertaining, which can be so draining. M&G is a historical thriller, TIOY is a romance, and RWRB is a rom-com. These are three different film genres, and each set out to achieve different things. For example in terms of relationships: TIOY needs to make the romance believable, RWRB needs to make the romance believe, funny, and be a fair representation of a queer relationship, and for M&G if history serves there's no "true love" relationship at all. You're right: Henry's a complex and beautiful character, and Nick clearly put all his heart into him. But you cannot take Henry's layers of grief, love, fear, and self-esteem, and say it is lesser than Geroge's cold ambition. Funnily enough, while Henry is so careful with his power as the prince, George rose to the same if not a higher level of power and abused it so badly, that it caused his assassination and downfall. A well-written character is ultimately, a human being, and there isn't truly a human being who's "easy to be". So don't listen to those haters.

I'm all ears if you still want to talk <3

[corvuserpens]

So yeah, yesterday I decided to FINALLY watched The Meg bc everyone kept saying it was a silly fun shark movie... AND THEY WERE RIGHT. It was AWESOME.

I went in expecting practically nothing, and it blew me away. The story premise is ridiculous and it totally feels like the director, actors and crew 100% knew that and embraced it! The movie never takes itself too seriously, it practically tells you to just kick back and enjoy it for what it is, which is exactly what makes it so much fun. It's an exciting comedy horror about a giant prehistoric shark in present day Earth, the CGI is dubious but the cinematography makes up for it with some great, well composed shots. For example, when Suyin is in the trench and is being attacked by a giant squid? That in itself is pretty cool imagery, but then you see the Megalodon swimming over her sub with the squid in its mouth in the gloom, illuminated from below?? WOW????

Then the characters are like, surprisingly deep? They have interesting backstories that inform us on who they are and while Jonas is the only one who gets some screen time for his Big Trauma, we later learn that Lori might have blown up a whaler ship for an environment organization and that's how she learned to pilot? And that Suyin had a tough relationship with her dad but they love each other so much that with his dying breath he tells her how proud he is, that she already surpassed him as a scientist and he hopes Meying will grow up to be just like her? And we get all of that with some very organic, short dialog or like 3-4 minute scenes, which is rare these days. Legit good writing where it is most needed, all the more sober scenes are well-acted and so immersive, the characters are so likable I ended up rooting for all of them to survive (except that billionaire whose name I didn't bother to learn, everyone else I remember except him, FUCK that guy). Even the side characters, though flat, were interesting because the actors gave them so much personality!

And, WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S A WHOLESOME CISHET SHIP WITH JASON STATHAM WITH VERY LITTLE SEXUAL TENSION BUT A LOT OF ROMANTIC TENSION?? WHAT IS THIS WITCHCRAFT??? Seriously, I was shipping Jonas and Suyin so hard, their interactions were adorable. How he goes from being the typical Tough Manly Man Who Is Super Competent And Punches All The Bad Guys While Wearing The Same Tough Guy Face All Movie to genuinely caring for the whole Mana One crew and respecting Suyin as an accomplished female scientist in her own right who knows what she's doing and is also brave and headstrong herself... Much 'aww'ing' was done.

Not to make this too long a rant, I love talking about movies I enjoyed, sorry, but a few other small things I liked about it: that Lori and Jonas remained good friends who care and support each other, and want the other's happiness even being divorced, we need more of that! And Dr. Heller apologizing to Jonas and meaning it for saying he was crazy and basically ruining his life (plus Jonas forgiving him in the end), definitely wanna see more of that! Jonas' friendship with Meying, THAT WAS SO CUTE, I COULDN'T GET ENOUGH OF THEM!! The gags were all genuinely funny, I was laughing through most of the movie, and the jump scares got me more than a couple of times (though that might be a fault on my part, I'm a big wussy and I am not afraid to admit it). The action is so. DUMB. But it's the kind that it's so dumb it's good, y'know?

Final note, I gotta say, let Jason actually act more because he's really good and directors keep hiring him to play a stoic emotionless hero when he can do so much more? He has impeccable comedic timing, his line delivery no matter how bonkers, always lands, he's REALLY CHARMING and y'all are wasting his potential imo. Given, I haven't really watched many of his movies after the Transporter franchise, but for example, I loved him in The Italian Job and a couple of weeks ago I started watching Homefront and I was enjoying it because he gets to play a widower with a young daughter in a new town, and now I definitely need to finish it bc I'm a sucker for father/daughter dynamics.

Anyway, yeah, if you like sharks, B-movies or just something fun to watch that will make you laugh, go watch The Meg. It's good enough to convince me to go watch the sequel next August. Can't wait!

[rodolfoparras]

imo, I think most of the ghosts aren't straight or are at least down to have sex with someone of the same gender as them since there's no one else to really fuck💔

There's also a silly guy named Pete, he's so dorky, silly dilf that's very optimistic😋 and there's like a douchbag guy named Trevor🙄 he's definitely my least favorite but he's funny sometimes. He died without pants, like he is literally walking around with his junk hanging out😭 the reason why is strangely sweet but weird also

And Thorfin is smellyyyy💀 not good smelly, like he soaked his furs in wolf pee for hunting so that's tragic💔 but if you like dumb, horrible smelling men, he's your type💪😼

I believe personally that Thor is possibly bi, just because he constantly mentions having orgies, which I'm assuming was just not him with a bunch of women, also considering Nordic culture and their gods, isn't unlikely he'd be somewhat open to queer ppl and such😼

The show is so good, definitely would recommend💪😼 I prefer the American version, there's a uk version and it's not like bad but it lacks some things for me personally💔

also !!! Isaac has a very interesting romance with this British soldier ghost >:3 they're so silly and dksnsns they take forever to open up about their feelings like omg just make out already🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

-🌱

So what you’re saying is in another universe two gay ghosts are having hot heavy desperate gay sex🧎🏻‍♂️

Also from what I’m hearing there’s seems to be lots of different personalities in this ghost show? Can’t say I have seen that before! ALSO THE GHOST WHO WALKS AROUND WITH HIS JUNK OUT HELLO??3?;?; like all the time?? How do the others ghosts deal with that awkwardness 😭

Sugar you just told me a man is dumb as a rock and reeks of piss and then proceeded to ask me if I’d be into it OF COURSE I WOULD god I love my ridiculous men especially those who reek of piss

Tbh I wouldn’t doubt that! Does Thor speak any Nordic language in the show because as someone who is from Sweden that would be cool to hear! Although it would probably be like a much older version of the language

How come there’s two versions of the shows? Is it that popular? But I’ll def check out the trailer when I can! I think it’s strange that the plot is so unique yet I genuinely haven’t heard anything about this show

Isaac and British soldier ghost like 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 or 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 either way I’m all ears and eyes here 👀 👀👀

[talenlee]

Story Pile: Bocchi The Rock

New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: Story Pile: Bocchi The Rock

Deep breath Delightful, charming, lovely anime, great, thought it was funny, songs are a banger, basic premise is really well iterated on, minimum of Anime Bullshit, characters are all well realised and have interesting dynamics that relate to one another and the story is satisfying as it covers a number of small distinct enjoyable story beats and yeah okay, good. Good! Great! I really liked Bocchi The Rock and I think that if you like anxious girls and music and anxious girls who make music, then you’ll probably find the series pretty enjoyable!

I want to get that out of the way first because I don’t think you’d be well-served in any interesting way to see me talk about what happens in Bocchi The Rock! or if you ‘should’ watch it because it is ‘good.’ Anyone can tell you that, and so far, we have yet to find a ‘good’ anime, in part because no anime is good, and in part because the idea of ‘good’ media is silly. Instead what I want to do is talk about the things that Bocchi The Rock made me think about as I watched it, and the ways it made me feel, and why.

I’m jealous of Bocchi.

I’m jealous of Bocchi for a ridiculous reason, because at one point, she saw a reason to want to make music, and turned to her dad and asked if she could, and he went ‘sure!’ and that was it, she could do it. There’s this immensely supporting web around Bocchi that lets the story play out the way it will, and that includes her dad letting her use his guitar for years. We don’t get to see any kind of orientation period, but I assume that around the point she’s playing guitar every day for three years (trust me I’m not spoilering anything after the first minute of the series at this point), he got a clear signal that she was absolutely okay with being trusted with the guitar.

This is a super supporting parent situation of a kid with immense social anxiety, and both the parents understand their kid has needs, and wants to try things and that’s okay. They don’t make her feel stupid and they don’t fight her on her needs for privacy or hiding in the closet to make art and we also know they’d have to be okay with her doing the things she’s doing here.

It makes me think about how when I was interested in trying out music, I was told it wasn’t appropriate for me to try and get into music and then we did some staid recorder playing at school in class. Oh, there’s some painful memories of choir as well, where the whole point was not about learning how to make music but instead drilling, drilling, drilling on specific musical experiences to replicate them right and now I sing my own national anthem wrong.

Gosh, Bocchi’s family are great.

There’s this point where Bocchi talks about her relationship to having a job, and reflecting on the way that jobs are treated and explained to us as we grow up and the sort of ‘oh yeah, you’re going to do this difficult thing for a little bit of money forever and it’s going to suck, forever, and everyone is okay with that.’ There’s this recurrent consideration of what a job looks like for a kid with social anxiety and then how you can feel when you’re pushed to a limit!

I find this really meaningful because even though I don’t think you could make a case that I’m socially anxious, the one thing that makes me clench up inside at the idea of capitalism is when I don’t have time to make and do things on my own time. Watching this series show small moments of a kid dealing with a part time job and then showing how it scales up to the potential of being an adult…

Phew.

And I think one of my favourite things about Bocchi The Rock! It does this really good job of showing you emotional landscapes of a character who is struggling with something that, genuinely does suck, and where her inability to be socially adept makes that struggle into an episode-worthy challenge. It’s not like a 50s sitcom where there’s a hijink of something ridiculous that a socially deft person could address, but instead is a much more relatable example of a real problem that you maybe can relate to, and then putting that problem in the hand of a kid who is really bad at handling that.

And like, that emotional simplicity is big in how the story handles a lot of things too. When Bocchi gets her nickname, I remember lighting up the same way when someone gave me a nickname for the first time when I was… embarrassingly older than she is. It really rings true to me for that idea of ‘oh hey, I am now being given a Normal Highschool Experience, This Rules (And I Had Better Not Screw It Up).’

One thing I couldn’t stop thinking about as I watched Bocchi The Rock though is how it’s this really interesting question of translation. Not translation into English – though you know, I watched it subtitled with a lot of the ‘you know what these words mean’ kind of weeby subtitling that happens (AND I AM SURE THAT IS HOW YOU WOULD TOO, AS WE ARE ALL WATCHING THE OFFICIAL SUBTITLES), but that Bocchi the Rock is a TV series based on a manga, which is itself, primarily about a person who makes music.

I mean, as someone who doesn’t know music at all and sucks at its execution, that already makes me feel overwhelmed but then imagining the task of taking a song that people only ever imagined hearing in their heads, a song that was only ever expressed by how people reacted to it and then making that a character in a series that was otherwise only a ghost kind of makes my hair sweat? Like I don’t even know how to describe how difficult that challenge seems to be.

You’re going to hear people mention the way Bocchi The Rock uses the term Bocchi Time to describe the moments when Bocchi is having little episodes and seeing mixed-media alternate takes on events with claymation or live action footage or peerless 3d graphics or whatever, but that, that’s just good ole disassociation, I have no problem imagining how you could use mixed media forms to do that. But taking lyrics that were only ever written on a page and turning them into key moments of performance in a totally different medium, where people get to hear them?

Aaaaaaaaaaa-

The stakes for this story could not be lower. It is about a kid playing an afterschool band that does not need to succeed or excel with a family who care about her enough to help her with her challenges and overcome that kind of problem and the problems that come from it. The problems she encounters are entirely within her own experience and the overwhelming size of them, the immense impediment of them, is all entirely appropriate to the scale they have as being personal.

There’s a sort of fuck yeah! moment in the language of stories, the moments when you can tell the story is demanding you pump your fist and go fuck yeah! in sychrony with the story. It’s relief, it’s excitement, it’s elation and it’s because something that matters gets to matter to you and it matters and it’s great and, and, uh anyway, the point is

Bocchi The Rock rules.

Fuck yeah.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Anime

[6hundredstrike]

how would you defend badlands rumble vash /gen i haven't watched the movie but i've heard some Things about it (derogatory) and i'm genuinely curious what's wrong with him that would warrant defending like what are his issues

ok heres the thing right. first off i do recommend watching the movie if u get the chance and just going in open minded right. bc i heard a lot abt it too before i watched it and most of it was bad but if u just sit down to watch it and enjoy it for what it is its a genuinely fun movie. but there are Problems.

the main thing that puts people off of it is the way they characterize vash, which i completely understand, bc there are times it genuinely doesnt even feel like vash. if u watched the 98 series, they take some of his more womanizing traits we see there and amp it up to like 1000, specifically w amelia. its. weird, to watch, yes, and it comes across as ridiculously ooc, like hes literally all over her flirting w her touching her its weird!! its smth thats clearly done for comedic effect as is the case in a lot of anime, unfortunately, even tho its. not funny

but if u try to look at it w the perspective of what we know of vash as a character, theres some reasonings we could see for this behavior. given the plot and setting of the movie, vash very likely believed it to be a good idea to stay close to amelia, but also not allow her to get close to him, hence playing up the flirting as reasoning to follow her while keeping her annoyed w him and not thinking any deeper abt why hed be following her around specifically. and w all the bounty hunters around in the movie, vash revealing himself as the legendary vash the stampede would be disastrous. so u could def say hes playing up his pathetic silliness to ensure no one really takes him too seriously which is smth we see in every iteration of vash

like i absolutely agree blr vash is Weird for all that but i also see a lot of it as like. not him being weird for the sake of it like he has goals w doing the things he does. obv no one has to agree w me bc at the end of the day they very likely wrote him how they did in blr to be """funny""" and there werent any ulterior motives at all, this is just how i choose to interpret the movie bc vash is absolutely smart enough to put things together that would lead to him feeling he should stay close to amelia

and i also think the weirdness should not lead to people just refusing to watch the movie, which ive seen a lot of. which is a shame, bc a lot of the things they do w the movie are really good and interesting! it doesnt go as in depth w it as trimax does, bc its only a movie w limited runtime, but blr does touch on some of the main themes of trimax, mostly in regards to vashs rigid morality and the consequences thereof. and i personally enjoyed the vashwood dynamic, it was a lot more reminiscent of their dynamic in trimax than 98 imo

like at the end of the day vash is still Like That in the movie yes but i still think its worth watching and i personally enjoyed a lot of what they did w his character excluding that. i just think hes neat and more people need to give him and the movie in general a chance

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Round-up of queer stand-up specials that were released in December 2023, and that I have watched (I did not set out to make this a specifically queer list, those just happened to be the three specials released this month that I was interested in seeing, and after I put them together in a list I realized, hey, December 2023 has been a pretty gay month for new British stand-up specials):

Leo Reich – Literally Who Cares (December 18, 2023)

I watched this because I am really trying not to be biased against Gen Z comedy. I think of how annoying it is when older people dismiss “Millennial” anything, and I don’t want to sound like one of those people when I say I think Gen Z comedy is all Tik-Tok stars doing prank videos for people with an attention span of eight seconds. So I have tried to watch their specials. The other one I tried this year was Finlay Christie’s OK Zoomer, which is free on YouTube and was better than I’d expected. There were good jokes in it. But also, throughout the hour (well… throughout the 37 minutes, because he wasn’t doing a lot to combat the idea that Gen Z people are performing for such short attention spans that they run well short of a full hour, but that’s just being picky because I think just about the best thing in the world right now is Sam Campbell and he did ten minutes in Edinburgh this year), I found myself working pretty hard to keep my mind open enough to enjoy it. I’d judge something and then stop myself and say, no, come on, this actually is kind of funny, if you’re not so judgemental (not with all of it thought – like I said, I think some of it is genuinely funny).

I’m pleased to say I did not have to do that with Leo Reich. Not even a little bit. There were a few parts that I didn’t love, but I let myself not love them without guilt, because I liked the vast majority of it so I knew I wasn’t just biased against him. Most of it I genuinely, easily, enjoyed.

And this probably should have been the type of humour that would annoy me. A Gen Z child talking about how very Gen Z he is, how the most stereotypical values of his generation are how we all live our lives now. That kind of things annoys me in general (it annoys me when Millennials do it too though, I don’t love any humour that’s too focused on generational stereotypes), and there were a few times when it annoyed me in Leo Reich’s show too. But only a few times, which is impressive given that that makes up so much of the show. I enjoyed most of it.

It makes me think of when I watched Maisie Adam’s show from the year she got married. So much of it was about her wedding, pointing out the sexism and just general stupidity of so many wedding traditions, and laughing at herself for how silly it is that she has to engage in them. And some of the humour got lost on me, because I kept thinking… well just don’t do it then. You’re right, obviously the father giving away his daughter is ridiculous. But you’re not the first point to point out the weirdness of this trend that we all have to follow. Most people have noticed that, and lots of them choose to not do it. You haven’t explained why you’re still doing it.

There were times when Leo Reich’s show made me think that, but about the performative social media obsessions of Gen Z rather than terrible wedding traditions. I appreciated it, when I heard him talk about how it warps people’s minds to live according to what will look best on Instagram. But I kept thinking… you haven’t justified why you’re doing it, though. This would work better if Instagram were something we absolutely had to do, and you’re pointing out the flaws in this system where we’re all unfortunately stuck. But you know we’re not, right? It’s like someone with their arm trapped under an easily liftable rock, doing funny observations about why the rock is so painful. It works best if you give some explanation for why you haven’t lifted the rock.

Obviously it isn’t that easy, obviously social media companies are spending billions of dollars to figure out exactly how to manipulate the chemicals in young developing brains (and older brains, but it’s even more common among young ones) to keep them addicted to it. I know that, and I see it in the teenagers I work with, and because of that, I do find it interesting to hear from the perspective of someone who is steeped in it. What’s it like in there? Why are you doing it? (I guess I shouldn’t condescendingly pretend to be so above it all because I have a Tumblr blog and am also imperfect for many reasons, I know.)

This is one of those extremely confessional stand-up shows, one of those “I’m laying out all my secret flaws and the most fucked up things I’ve done even though they might make me unlikeable, because I’m rebelling against the requirement to paint a sanitized public image of ourselves” shows. And there were a couple of points when I thought he might have succeeded slightly too well in his quest to make himself seem unlikeable. But only a couple.

This post has focused way too much on the negative for a show that I actually really liked. Let me be clear: I really liked this show. I’m being nitpicky about some parts that left me slightly cold, but overall, I thought it was great. It was smart and funny and it had well-shoehorned dramatic callbacks, I always like those. It had an interesting perspective and interesting points. It had ridiculously good production values for a show by someone so young, which makes me think we’ll be seeing a lot more of Leo Reich in the near future, if they invested that much money in filming him.

I didn’t have to force myself to enjoy this. It was good. It was about coming of age as a queer 23-year-old, and relationships, and the ways in which the panopticon of social media will fuck you up. Parts of it were sad. I’ve heard worse ideas than Leo Reich being the future of entertainment.

Jen Brister – The Optimist (December 14, 2023)

From the 23-year-old bisexual single boy, to the middle-aged married lesbian mother. Queer comedy is a spectrum.

I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as her previous special, Meaningless, but Jen Brister is always good, and that includes this one. It was consistent, it felt polished in the way that you don’t tend to get until someone’s been doing this for a lot of years. Everything flowed and cohered.

It was a special about lockdown and about parenting, and about lockdown parenting. Lockdown and parenting are two of the subjects I’ve most often heard people say they’re sick of hearing about in stand-up, they’ve been done to death and everyone is bored of hearing any more. Jen Brister acknowledges this early on, saying she tries not to talk about her kids all the time on stage, because people are always saying they’re sick of hearing about her kids.

But then she proceeds to talk quite a bit about her kids anyway, which is fair enough. She has five-year-old twin boys – at that point, your kids are such a massive part of your everyday life that I can understand why parents have difficulty talking about anything else (in life or on stage). And while most (most, there are exceptions) parenting material isn’t really my thing, I’m glad it’s out there. Because there are a lot of people who dedicate most waking minutes of their life to focusing on being a parent, and it’s probably nice for them to go out afterward and hear comedy that reflects their experiences, that makes fun of the most frustrating and absurd parts of that life. It’s just not my life, so I’m not really in on the joke.

Jen Brister does a better job than a lot of comedians of including non-parents on the jokes, and they did make me laugh at times. My favourite parts of the show were when she veered away from the parenthood stories and into broader topics, but still, as far as parenthood-based comedy goes, I think she does it well.

The trademark anger is still there, and I still think that’s when Jen Brister is at her best. When she’s getting furious about important and unimportant topics equally. Her previous special, Meaningless, had some excellent, searing fury about feminist issues, and also a lot of lighter topics for frustration. This one doesn’t quite hit the searing highs of Meaningless, but it’s still got the anger, about, you know, all of it. Walking around looking at all the terrible people out there. What that’s like. She touches on that.

I’ve said before that I find it funny that NextUp’s “Angry Acts” collection only has seven acts in it, and two of them are Michael Legge. Worth noting that one of them is also Jen Brister. Her show Meaningless is on there as well as on Amazon Prime, it’s worth watching:

Mild spoiler alert, this is one of those comedy specials with a sad bit at the end. I found that bit worked well because I’m already pretty familiar with her comedy catalogue, where (less mild spoiler alert, seriously, stop reading if you plan to watch, this special is free on YouTube and it’s worth watching and if you do then it’s worth going in without knowing the ending) her mother featured quite heavily, so it was a bit of a gut punch to learn that her famous (famous from Jen Brister’s stand-up routines, not actually famous) mother had recently died.

If you don’t already know who she is, I think the sad ending bit might have not quite worked as well as it could have. It could have been built up to more, been given a bit more time to expand. The callbacks were nice, but a bit tacked on, they could have been built deeper into the show. But still, I found the ending interesting.

Susie McCabe – Femme Fatality (December 24, 2023)

I’ll say right now that this was my favourite of the three. I was so excited to finally get to see a full Susie McCabe special. I was introduced to her by Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, where she was a recurring guest, and she was always excellent. So I sought out her other work, and was disappointed to find that while she’s clearly got quite a successful stand-up career going within Glasgow, she hasn’t gotten big enough to have done a lot of stuff that I can easily see from Canada. Apparently she’s a regular compere at The Stand in Glasgow. One time she went on TV and said good things about trans women and then got called horrifying things by transphobes for a while, because it turns out that those people are not actually interested in being nice to lesbians.

Anyway, the point is that I was very pleased to see she has filmed a stand-up hour about exploring her relationship to womanhood, and I was not disappointed. The gender that she’s exploring is being a cis butch woman, which is, you know, my thing. I enjoy hearing people of all genders explore their relationship to gender, but I do connect especially well when it my gendered experience being discussed.

The show’s central topic is a fairly heavy one, which makes it all the more impressive that she keeps the show very light. It’s funny. It’s funny, and at no point does it get sad. It briefly gets serious, particularly at the end, and I guess if I wanted to be nitpicky about something, I could say that maybe she could also have drawn that ending out a little more, made her central points a little more clearly (I see the points she was going for, about the pressure to fit into masculine expectations and how that pressure is on cis men but it’s also on butch women who want to fit in with those cis men), could have explored that a bit. But this show wasn’t really about exploring the deep important points. It was about telling funny stories that come together on the central theme of what being a butch woman is like. And I loved listening to it.

There are other types of identity that come into this show – being Glaswegian and working class. But she never actually uses the words “working class”, she never gets deep into talking about serious stuff related to that either. Just funny stories about what life is like when you’re Glaswegian and butch and working class. It's fun and easy to enjoy. I almost wrote "fun and easy", but of course it wasn't easy to write. But it's easy to watch and laugh. It's warm and accessible (again, I feel like "accessible" is a backhanded compliment, I really don't mean it that way, I just mean you don't have to be a working class Glaswegian butch lesbian to enjoy it).

She gets into her history, her family, her co-workers, her deep, identity-level connection with butchness and lesbianism. The fucked up parts of female gendered expectations, particularly around being skinny and diet culture and intergenerational trauma that gets passed down through mothers indoctrinated with said culture. But she gets into it with such a light touch. She's so likeable and so much fun to watch. Quick to make fun of herself and hold no pretensions.

One of the shitty things about Frankie Boyle's New World Order getting cancelled is that he brought on several comedians I had not seen on any other TV shows - Jen Brister and Susie McCabe are actually both people I was introduced to by that show. Frankie Boyle was single-handedly keeping middle-aged lesbians on our TV screens, and now that he's out of the game, someone else needs to step up because I want to see Susie McCabe on more things.

[moviewarfare]

A Review of “Barbie (2023)”

Barbie is one of the most iconic toys of all time! It genuinely baffled me that it took this long for there to be a Barbie film. Barbie isn't my thing, so I wasn't interested in watching this. It wasn't until the first trailer came out and the global internet cultural phenomenon "Barbenheimer", the release of Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day, that my interest was piqued. So is life plastic, it's fantastic? Or is it just Ken?

Firstly, casting Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie was perfect! She is incredibly charming and earnest in the role. She conveys a naive yet caring nature to her character while being very funny at times. Ryan Gosling as Beach Ken is also perfect casting! He is the greatest highlight with his hilarious physical performance. Every time he is on screen, he brings the laughs. Ryan also conveys a vulnerability to Ken which is surprising. Margot and Ryan have a fun chemistry together! This film has a huge cast with many playing other variations of Barbie and Ken. They are all good in their limited screen time but the stand out is Michael Cera who plays Ken's best buddy Allan. I just love how different he is from the others and how he manages to be so lovable in his limited screen time.

From the first 30 minutes, you will notice the amazing costumes and set designs. Barbieland itself looks like a Barbie toy set brought to life. The massive amount of pink covering the world, the plastic look of all the accessories, houses and cars. Every Barbie and Kens clearly had a lot of thought put into their costumes because no Barbie and Ken look the same. Every costume manages to reflect the type of Barbie and Ken they are. The music score is great and the use of vocal songs was utilized effectively. Special mention to "I'm Just Ken" sung by Ryan Gosling! Some great dance scenes are entertaining to watch with their fun choreography. It is a comedy at heart and there are quite some funny jokes and moments with a surprising amount of great adult jokes. I also love how they poke fun at Mattel and even Barbie as a brand which is a bold move. Despite that, some strong emotional moments with one near the end can definitely tug at the heartstrings.

However, the movie does suffer from some poor execution of certain elements. There is the Barbieland stuff which is enjoyable but the real-world stuff is just not that fun. It is stated early on that Barbie's thoughts are being influenced by someone playing with Barbies in the real world. How does the connection work? how much of Barbie's thought is her own? None of these things are explored, leaving many questions. On that note, certain characters will change very quickly without much build-up to these changes. Due to this, we don't get a true understanding of Barbie as a character, she changes because the film needs some kind of character development. There is also a mother and daughter character in the real world who Barbie meets. One of them is depressed and there is a rift between them but the film doesn't bother to explore the reason for any of that. We also meet Will Ferrell who plays the CEO of Mattel and he is just inconsequential to the story but takes a lot of screen time. He is also over-the-top and silly.

I was hoping for a contrast between the cartoony Barbieland and the real world. However, characters in the real world act just as cartoony and ridiculous as those in Barbie Land. It makes the real-world scenes less impactful when it should have been a big moment in the film. The film is also incredibly preachy about its feminist message that it can be exhausting. Also, the 3rd act has a silly resolution that feels contradictory to the feminist nature of this film. Additionally, every male character in this film are idiotic baby and if that gets under your skin, then this movie is not for you.

Overall, Barbie is a good fun time. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. This film is not going to appeal to everyone with its themes and message. Nevertheless, the movie is just plain entertaining and honestly, it is "Kenough" for me!

For more reviews like this visit: https://moviewarfarereviews.blogspot.com/

[bytedykes]

More ritsu questions!!!! 9 and 11 and 14

hehe yes... YES...

9. Your least favorite outfit of them

already answered this one but to reiterate, his clothes are so #normal i cant really hate any of them <3 they are just not that memorable to me also... genuinely cant think of any outfits he wears beyond school uniform, the orange hoodie, and like. normal house clothes

11. What’s the first thing you think about when thinking about the character?

HN... THE LOANS... as well as all the panels of him being so not normal about spoons as well as how fucking SILLY this boy is!!!!! i love him so much!!! he is so FUCKING silly i could write a fucking essay about how silly he is! everything about ritsu is just so many layers of him being so fuckign WEIRD but being so vehement in his denial of that... he's literally ridiculous. he doesnt even listen to music. kicking my feet and twirling my hair fr

14. Best storyline they had

FUCK EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T LIKE BIG CLEANUP ARC!!! I FUCKING LOVE BIG CLEANUP ARC OK. i think it is so well done. like. the absolute GUILT AND DESPAIR ritsu is feeling, he is being CRUSHED under the weight of what he has done, he beats himself up about it so thoroughly he fucking manifests psychic powers, the thing he has been wishing for HIS WHOLE LIFE. and the cause of all this is because his classmate wanted to frame some guy for licking recorders. what the fuck for real

ok no i have more to say. its been a minute since i watched/read the big cleanup arc so forgive me if this is wrong, but iirc the whole reason ritsu goes along with kamuro's idea is because he wanted to protect mob. and like. its SO INTERESTING because he wants to keep mob safe so mob doesn't EXPLODE! he wants to like, keep mob in a bubble, he wants to bubblewrap him because mob is volatile, mob is dangerous, when mob gets stressed bad things happen and ritsu is scared! but also he loves his brother! he doesn't want delinquents bullying him! and even though he knows it's not like, great of them to frame people for perv things, he does it anyway and that leads to like a month straight of ritsu having the worst most haunted guilty paranoid time of his life lmao

plus in the anime we see more of ritsu being a model brother/student/son before his joker arc, which makes the contrast that much sharper and more impactful when he goes completely off the rails. also like the big cleanup arc is fucking hilarious . local teen goes thru so much stress he gains ability to blow things up with his mind. local teen starts beating the shit out of p- oh my god i just remembered he briefly pretended to be white t poison too how can u NOT love big cleanup arc. LOCAL TEEN STARTS BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF OTHER MIDDLE SCHOOLERS WITH HIS MIND POWERS, all while not refuting the claim that he is his brother's gangster alter ego. like. WHAT!!! he is insane!!!!

on top of that. ON TOP OF THAT. local teen lets an EVIL SPIRIT possess him, which is just so uniquely funny because its RITSU! ritsu who is mob's brother! ritsu who KNOWS about spirits and how dangerous they can be! ritsu who sees a green fart cloud offering to possess him in exchange for being able to bend spoons a little better and goes ALRIGHT BET and just. lets him. he just lets dimple possess him... he just lets him...

AND i also love the resolution to the big cleanup arc. like. yeah the segue into the claw arc is a little ehh and i kind of wish we'd spent more time watching ritsu jokerify himself but the scene where ritsu is so angry and yelling at mob and then mob tells ritsu that he's his little brother and he loves him? and then they hug it out? AGHHH. SO GOOD. literally the siblings of all time i fucking love big cleanup arc. holy fuck

ok and going back a bit it is just. SO INTERESTING to see how the mask unravels. suddenly ritsu isn't the kind, awed little brother who just wants to help mob, who fixes his spoons for him at the dinner table, who checks in on him at night. suddenly we see ritsu being bitter and jealous and resentful and SCARED of his brother and it's all of these conflicting feelings mixing around in his little 13 year old self of a pressure cooker and when that pressure cooker explodes... GOD. its so good. i love that. not even necessarily the reveal of "oh hes a little fucked up actually" itself but the CONTRAST of the perfect mask he wears and then the messy conflicted struggling 13 year old he actually is. like WOAG!!! HE IS SO 13!!!!!

anyway. i love big cleanup arc. thumbs up emoji

[magentaink18]

Although there are a lot of unnecessary sub plots in the redux version of Apocalypse Now, the anti-war message is much stronger (kinda because there’s more instances of needless destruction and displays of America being shitty) but I guess it is also diluted with the goofy sub-plots so it balances out anyways.

Also Chef has unspoken rizz. Man managed to pull a playboy bunny despite completely ignoring her interesting infodump about birds. Well I guess he didn’t “pull” her per se, but they seemed to get along well, like she was being genuine or at least came across that way because if she was putting on any kinda act, we wouldn’t have had the bird monologue but idk man I guess you need to talk about your interests when you can when you’re working for an enterprise that is in place to oppress and dehumanise you. I love bird lady more than anything but Hugh Hefner can eat shit.

This film’s fatal flaw is its overindulgence but the self awareness does take the edge off ,, like the narrative, characterization and general composition is amazingly produced and entertaining while still clearly communicating a serious message. I think the main critique of glorification is often misinterpreted irony. Like many aspects are so hyperbolic (nonetheless accurate to the actual Vietnam War) that they’re meant to appear ridiculous and uncomfortable in order to convey the corruption of the US military

Also funny surfer man go brrrr

Song - Let’s Go Trippin’ (Dick Dale)

I literally never make edits of characters and then the one that my brain decided to make one that ignores the importance of the central message of the film it’s from .

I suppose there’s always the argument that the main cast of characters were drafted against their will and are just trying to get through it. Of course that doesn’t justify everything they do. I’d say the character who makes the least effort to participate is Chef bc he never fires a gun at anyone (apart from the tiger because the poor fella’s terrified). But what I’m saying is that the main characters aren’t into war or particularly patriotic and it doesn’t fully align with their beliefs much at all - they’re just tryna get through it - unlike , say , Kilgore. They are characterised in unique ways in which any pRiDe fOr tHeiR cOunTrY (used to justify corruption) they may have isn’t explicitly there or at the centre of the way they’re characterised.

Me when idiot surfer man who does nothing but fuck up at the expense of other people

Sorry guys my neuros are divergent I need to have a balance of fun and silliness with analysis and critical evaluation when watching this film for the 100th time

They also made Willard way sillier and goofier. I love to see the poor jaded and traumatised lad actually have a little bit of fun. A few giggles for a treat. Just a little bit of clownery to balance out the edginess.

Respectfully, there’s also a significant increase in boobs in the redux version, immediately making it better than the Final Cut /hj

Also also they gave Clean a proper burial and sendoff,,,

Sure, the Final Cut is better in terms of what constitutes a good film but the redux version fucks if you liked the Final Cut for its narrative and characters aside from its more filmic aspects. Not to say there aren’t some elements of cinematography that were left out the Final Cut that go hard as fuck. Like the transition from Roxanne behind the curtain to Willard back on the boat in the mist ,,,, mmmmmmmmmmm

It also ties up a few small minor loose ends and clarifies on a few details

Willard’s from Ohio? *insert Ohio joke here idk man I’m British*

Maybe I’m psychoanalysing Chief too much rn but out of all the characters, the way in which they’re presented, he’s the most likely to have started off as the most patriotic. However, his whole thing is following orders and ensuring order and professionalism is retained so maybe he could just be a fan of those things and not inherently having his motives be that he’s abiding to the rules because he loves his country, but abiding to the rules because he loves rules. Whatever patriotism he may or may not have had is destroyed over the course of the film and meets its definitive end with the death and burial (as seen in the redux version) of Clean. The scene where he folds up the tattered US flag that was previously on the boat and hands it to Willard. Or at least that’s my interpretation since he still made that whole announcement when handing it to him but it just felt as if he was reciting empty lines if anything but idk but he’s an interesting character either way. But damn that scene goes hard and it was good to see Clean get the sendoff he was entitled to instead of his body just disappearing without an explanation :’]

[ashanimus]

Ash Liveblogs MTMTE #4-#7

This is just really nice sci fi writing. I'm coming into this very cold and for all me yelling and screeching about What X or Y is the text and visual and dialogue does a really good job of communicating those things without going into he exhaustive detail I hassle out of my friends

FPFFFffFFF

Well Thats a horrifying question. Why are your hands so irreplaceable, Ratchet?? Rod just got new hands! I'm enjoying these little cultural tidbits about bodies. What can and cannot be replaced, what's considered worse than a mortal wound vs the way that exile and punishment is externalized--like Empurata. Huh.

OH OKAY THIS ONE IS ALL ABOUT BODIES I GUESS

AAAAAAAAAAAA

Huh. I'm just. Really impressed with how these artists get these characters to emote, the very very creative and interesting and compositional solutions to communicating emotions and feeling on these challenging character models

AESFHLDSAFSKJGD

ANCIENT JACKASS

TAILGATE IS EXTREMELY RIGHT TO BE MAD AT YOU.

I am living for this cool ridiculous alien mechanical biology.

Yikes. That's...that may not solve the problem of belonging for you, Tailgate. These are banners of a war thats ended...and that he's being enabled here is quite sad!

This is also fucking devastating. I was, for some reason, NOT expecting grotesque body horror in the robot comic! SILLY FUCKING BAT.

I havent enjoyed a traditional comic in a while and I really love how the medium is used to its fullest to move reveals like this along, this is delightful

Okay @fernacular I see the appeal of old man boyfriend now, this is fucking great

OH OKAY. YOU WANNA GIVE ME COOL COMIC, BODY HORROR, BITTER EXES, HEARTBREAK AND BODY PART SWAPPING AND MAKE ME FUCKING CRY OKAY

@polyhexian @fernacular FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU SCREEEECH IM CRYING IM NOT CRYING aDLFJDAJGk]'

#6

Ah yes. Whirl. Whirl is my favorite so far. And also um. Sir??? Are you actively suicidal right now??? SIR???

All of these robots, ALL OF THEM, have the personalities and socialization of brutalized wolfdogs all stuck in the back of a Volkswagon but DEAR GOD Whirl??? Everyone smacks the shit out of each other! And you out here talking like this!

HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE

aEFJADSLJGLJG

WHIRL ISNT WRONG BUT HOLY FUCK

WHIRL. HONEY. YOUR GUTS ARE ALL OVER THE FLOOR. THEY'RE ALL OVER THE

Okay even the hostage taker is confused enough to demand explanation and Rung you are so useless and also bad at improv

Whirl is a theatre kid.

I'm laughing so hard I can't fucking breathe

And now I'm crying again. I'm just. Drowning in snot over here. Okay. Okay. I am genuinely blown away how this, out of context, would be damn near illegible, but with a little context is horrifying, touching and heartbreaking. He's speared through, Rung is over here genuinely a little touched, jesus christ on a pogo stick.

Okay, not that this is ever relevant to anything and there is more transformers stuff to watch than I could finish in a month of vacation, if I was in charge of anything I'd probably pull Whirl audition sides from this scene--or at least some of them--because even just meeting the character through my friends and these early issues, one of the most compelling things about him is that really interesting tension between his sincerity, humor, gurgly dying delivery and cold intensity. It's really interesting. The artists here use a lot of composition and context and light to make whirl emote and it's such a cool artistic challenge they solve over and over again.

Although in that vein if I was doing any casting of voice stuff for a MTMTE anything I think it'd be essential to cast a bunch of weird character actors, shakespearians and people who had video game experience.

#7

Tarn is a funny name for a robot? Thats a lake?

So pretty...so horrible. What a moody, cold, image.

Huh. Brainstorm has an interesting vernacular

This comic is so insane. Like very little about this seems to pretend to be anything like the stuff that spawned it. It's a transforming toy! And now, fast forward, were talking about the Horrors in an depressing, fully grounded way from the voiceboxes of colorful robits languishing in the post-horizon of a war that destroyed their whole worlds.

Im obsessed with these colors. And the image of all these damn robits around a PYRE. It's so weirdly, awkwardly human and this all just looks so vulnerable and lost. All their weird boxy shape against the organic swirls of fire.

Who TF Is Grimlock--

[emblemxeno]

JP vs. Localization in Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation

(Okay, for real this time lol)

Again, here’s a link to my sources post.

Fortunately, this route follows suit in terms of good localization quality after Conquest. It’s the shortest out of all the posts, since I don’t really have a lot to talk about. Mostly subtle line changes, references and a few key points of information that were cut out. I also went through Hidden Truths and Heirs of Fate to see if I could add stuff from those on here, but there were no big problems that I found.

Once again, the main part of this post will all be put under the cut. If a chapter isn’t covered, it means I didn’t think there were any differences worth talking about.

I’ll use localized names for characters and locations, unless I feel the need to do otherwise.

I’ll be using she/her when referring to Corrin in this post. (I flipped a coin to decide the gender lol)

Also, note that after Chapter 14, the translation of this route on Fateswartable ends, so I mostly relied on the English patch done by Serenes at that point forward. (I also used PegasusKnight.com as a reference to fall back on if I needed it)

Chapter 7

-A minor gripe I have with localization. The JP version compares Touma (Valla) to hell constantly. To jump ahead a bit, I believe in the JP versions of the End of All Sky/Land/Below tracks are even called The End of All Roads Heaven/Earth/Hell. The Vallites are also often called demons in the JP version, and Anankos himself is known as the ‘Invisible Demon Dragon’.

Another cool thing I just thought of too, is a connection to a popular Japanese short story. Zelda fans might be familiar with the story, “The Spider’s Thread”, which inspired the Ancient Cistern dungeon in Skyward Sword.

The beginning of the story has Buddha walking through paradise (heaven), before coming across a pond. The pond is filled with crystal clear water, and covered with water lilies/lotuses. As Buddha gazes further into the pond, he begins to see the depths of hell.

Sound familiar? “Azura is walking through Hoshido, before coming across a lake. The lake is filled with crystal clear water, and when she gazes into the lake she sees the fallen kingdom of her birth. Valla, the kingdom associated with water lilies/lotuses in the game, has been turned into hell itself.”

This association loses its meaning a bit when the comparisons to hell are a bit toned down, as well as when the Buddhist inspirations were kind of supplanted in favor of Greek renames. It’s not supremely important to the plot as a whole, but it’s something interesting I wanted to bring up.

-In the JP version, while explaining what happened in Valla, Azura eventually says “Using the art of manipulating people’s souls, he (Hydra/Anankos) made the people kill each other.” This bit of the people killing each other was cut in localization.

Chapter 12

-In the JP version, when Corrin asks Flora if she knows anything about dragons, Flora says “Sorry, I don’t know…The ancestral dragon of the Ice Clan has already perished and isn’t part of the legend. I don’t know what role it plays, sorry…” Localization makes her response “I'm sorry, but I can't think of anything... They've been gone so long that we don't even have tales of dragons in the Ice Tribe. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more assistance...”

So, the JP version explicitly says the Ice Dragon is dead (I believe Fates’ second artbook mentioned this as well), whereas the localization only says the First Dragons have been gone for a long time.

Chapter 16

-There’s not really much of a problem that I have with what Ryoma says about Corrin “having leadership qualities at a young age” but I wanted to do comparisons regardless cuz the word choice might lead one to different conclusions. In localization, Ryoma says this:

Ryoma: Huh... So she told us the same thing... I don't think it's in Corrin's nature to lie. And there's a leadership quality about her that just attracts followers. I remember being jealous of her as a child, in fact. Even at such a young age, she displayed the characteristics of a ruler. Silly to be jealous of her, right?

In the JP version, Ryoma says this:

Ryoma: Oh... So, she told you the same thing. …Corrin isn’t one to tell lies. She’s been like that since childhood. She’s always genuine and honest... She has this mysterious appeal that draws people to her. Seeing my younger sister with the qualities of being a ruler... Honestly, it makes me feel envious. …What a ridiculous thing to say, right?

Again, I don’t necessarily have a problem with how it was localized, but some might. The localization version might have people think that Corrin somehow was a fantastic leader at such a young age, but JP is more clear that it was about the qualities she had at a young age that would be valuable as a leader.

Chapter 19

-A minor gripe. In the localization, Azura says that Anankos uses his magic to send Vallites to Nohr and Hoshido to stir up conflict. In the JP version, she says he uses magic, along with the help of a body of water. That’s why whenever you fight Vallites outside of Valla proper, there’s a body of water nearby; Hoshido’s lake (and the ponds shown in Hinoka’s CQ battle which are in the capital) for Chapter 5, the sea for BR chapter 11, the burning falls for BR chapter 21, and the city for Rev chapter 13. Similarly, the consequences of being a victim to the curse are described as “turning into sea foam” in the JP version. Localization as a whole kind of toned down how much water has an influence on the story.

Chapter 23

-Probably the pettiest gripe I have lol. As Arete is fading away from Azura’s arms, Azura has a different reaction in localization and Japanese. In localization, Azura says “Mother? Mother!” while a voice clip of her in-battle pain cries plays. In the JP, she says  “*Sob... Sob*…! Mother... Mother...!”, while a voice clip of her crying plays. Her crying voice clip I don’t recall hearing anywhere else.

This is one of the few times in the you get to see Azura express a heavy and heartfelt emotion, since her rough childhood caused her to remain guarded and stoic around everyone. The equivalents to this scene in other routes is her death scene in Birthright, and her crying with Corrin over Ryoma’s death in Conquest; a normally unflinching and aloof character breaking down is a rarity, and indicates that the cause of it is something to take note of for the character as a whole. Localization softened this aspect, and I take issue with it, despite it probably seeming trivial to most other people.

Chapter 24

-When Corrin is questioning the phantom Mikoto, an exchange happens. In localization, part of it goes like this:

Corrin: But this can't be... Are you truly my mother?

Mikoto: I am. Even as a puppet of Anankos, my spirit at least remains my own.

Corrin: I... I believe you.

In the JP version, it goes like this:

Corrin: It can’t be... …Are you really my mother?

Mikoto: Yes... I became an Invisible servant, controlled by the Invisible King... Even so, I am your mother.

Corrin:  …………

Again, a minor thing that I don’t personally have issue with, but replacing Corrin’s silence with an admittance of belief could make some believe she has “reverted” back to being too naïve.

Chapter 26

-While Gunter is relaying his past, an exchange happens. In localization, it goes like this:

Gunter: I ask myself that, every day. I cannot understand the minds of royals. To you all, we commoners are little more than pawns in your schemes... Or weeds to be killed on a whim.

Corrin: That's not true...

Xander: Is that how people view the royalty?

Ryoma: Such an impression would easily breed powerful resentment...

In the JP version, Corrin, Xander and Ryoma don’t say anything. They just remain silent.

Endgame

-Not a major problem so much as a general thing about the game, but I can think of like... at least three memes that Treehouse inserted into the localization. Now I like memes, but there is no better way to date your media nowadays. One of them was Kana’s “That’s dragon for I love you” which tbh, is kind of cute and isn’t the most well known meme so I guess I can let it slide. Another is Felicia saying “I had one job!” when she messes up in the dining hall, which isn’t that big of a deal since the dining hall is very optional.

The last one I can think of is why I put this specific grievance here, and it’s during Corrin’s speech before facing Anankos.

Corrin: We won't back down! This is my... This is our destiny! Ready your weapons! Fight for your friends! With the Seal of Flames... With the Fire Emblem on our side! We fight for our world!!

Yeah, she says “Fight for your friends” which is everyone’s favorite Ike line from Brawl. Now, this isn’t even a totally inaccurate translation either, but it kind of just... makes the moment funny for the player when it’s supposed to be commanding and serious I guess.

But yeah, not the most important issue by far, but something I’d thought to mention. Hell, it’s not even that bad compared to how they made Peri’s, Effie’s and Hisame’s quirks into exaggerated and tired jokes. And the Beruka-Saizo support. Never forget.

-When Azura and Corrin are by the lake and discuss the latter’s plans to rule, Corrin says this in localization:

Corrin: I'm going to make Valla a wonderful place! In honor of the true last king and for Queen Arete. And everyone who fought... I promise to make them all proud.

In the JP version, she says this:

Corrin: I’ll make the Invisible Kingdom (Valla) into a great land. For the previous monarch, Queen Shenmei (Arete)… And for all of my allies who fought beside me. I promise.

So, JP version only mentions Arete as the reigning monarch of Valla. Which makes sense, cuz unless there was some wild “keeping the bloodline pure” shenanigans in Valla, Arete being the Queen keeps in line with what we know about the rest of Valla’s history. Arete was royalty from birth, as was her sister Mikoto. Arete is the one who passed down Lost in Thoughts and the pendant to Azura.