#Rating 7/10

[frownyalfred]

“Hmm, what did I miss on ao3 while I was gone?” It was fic rating. In the public bookmarks of my fics. Again.

[colorful-horses]

greatest line delivery ever

[just7frogsinapeoplesuit]

Saw the Nosferatu remake and it was. Bad. Like exceptionally bad. It is an hour longer than the original and yet we get less information about the characters, setting, and vampire lore. It's baffling that they achieved this. I can, however, see exactly why the script was greenlit. Studios love a cash grab like "what if we remade the original vampire movie but this time it was really a sex thing".

Points in the film's favor:

- The actors all strongly resemble the actors from the original with the exception of Count Orlok but I will get to that later and the costuming is beautiful.

- The sets and a number of whole scenes all resemble the original, as does most of the plot.

- The choice to have most of the nighttime scenes be in black and white was a nice touch.

- All of these are about how it relates to the 1922 film not because I was watching it intending to compare the two but because mimicking the aesthetics of the original aside from Count Orlock dear god is the only thing it did well.

Everything else:

- The film begins with a short scene of young Ellen gyrating on the ground and moaning while staring into the camera in a deeply uncomfortable way before abruptly cutting to the the start of the story. At least they were up-front about telling us that, yeah, we made the sex part literal.

- The acting is bad. The dialogue is bad. We know practically nothing about anyone at basically any point in the story. William Dafoe is the sole exception but he's just a side character.

- There is no sense of time, the pacing is atrocious, and there is no suspense at any point.

- But the suspense music does not stop. It's there to tell us that we are supposed to be Experiencing Suspense.

- This is because, in addition to bad pacing, they removed basically all the exposition and several scenes that help establish suspense and mystery like the ghouls and the vampire book.

- They did, however, add several scenes that are clearly just an excuse to see a boob. We only see a single boob at a time until the final scene, though, which I imagine they thought made it tasteful.

- One of those scenes is villagers bringing a naked girl on a horse to a grave and then stabbing the person buried in the grave, who appears to have been alive. Is there more than one vampire, then? If so, why are they only afraid of the castle? Why is she being presented like a sacrifice when they were just going to kill the guy?

- They waffle between trying to be period accurate and throwing in dialogue that does not fit the setting (like "why is Knock tied to a chair in the basement we are a modern facility" my guy it is 1838 we just talked about the humors tied to a chair is gentle)

- A significant part of the film is spent establishing that Ellen is under the sway of the vampire and has been since childhood, and that it's definitely a sex thing she kind of wants. This is not done well and she is, in fact, unconscious for the majority of the film, but it's at least clear that's what they were going for.

- Thomas meets Count Orlok and immediately becomes a terrified mess for the rest of the film. There is no buildup or even a clear reason, it just happens the second he arrives.

- When he wakes up with a feral-looking bite mark on his chest he immediately assumes it came from the count, the guy he is doing business with, and not one of the count's four enormous dogs. He has not read a book about vampires in this version. There is no basis for this.

- He finds out Orlok sleeps in a crypt because he's frantically trying to escape the castle but then spontaneously breaks a lock to go down into the basement and takes the lid off a coffin. Again, Thomas knows jack shit about vampires. There is no reason for him to do this.

- Orlok's goal from the beginning is to dissolve Ellen's marriage and live with her, I think? He makes Thomas sign some paperwork in a magic vampire language legally selling her to him? The question marks being because this is barely touched upon.

- Okay, so. Count Orlok. Where to start. Christ.

- Count Orlok is one of the most iconic horror characters of all time. It would be very easy to alter his design so it remains recognizable while also no longer antisemitic. You would expect that, in a film clearly trying to match the aesthetics of the original as closely as possible, they would do this.

- They did not do this.

- He has a mustache.

- He has a thick bushy mustache.

- He is Buff and Large and not very pale and also not trying to hide the fact that he is visibly rotting.

- He speaks like someone doing a bad impression of Nandor.

- He is also dressed like Nandor.

- The mustache is brown.

- We do not, at any point, clearly see his fangs.

- We do, however, see his dick. Because he sleeps naked.

- He gyrates sexually while sucking blood out of people's chests.

- Did I mention they gave him a mustache.

- We see relatively little of him anyway. But most of the shots show his mustache more than the rest of his face. Or maybe I was just too distracted by it to see anything else. He has a mustache.

- William Dafoe's character (who is not in the original) is introduced when Ellen starts having magic seizures and then the plague happens and we spend a bunch of time playing Supernatural Medical Mystery Solvers. It's the only part of the film that feels somewhat cohesive and Dafoe is great which, ironically, creates a lot of dissonance between the scenes he's in and the rest of the film.

- The "plague" is not just vampire bites, though. It's also people randomly oozing and vomiting and, in one case, ripping off their own bodice so we see a boob. Why and how? Who knows. But there are lots of rats.

- Two of the four(?)(iirc) people we actually see Orlok kill are small children which is definitely A Choice given how explicit they've made it that Blood Sucking Is Sex. He's killing them to upset Ellen, by the way, who has received an ultimatum that she has three days to willingly fuck him or he'll kill the whole town.

- The climax (ha) of the film is, of course, the butt naked Count drinking Ellen's blood from her chest while they have sex. There is a lot of moaning involved. The long, slow pan-out shot from above his gross dissolving corpse body splayed over her recently-deceased but exceptionally perky breasts is at least reasonably artistic.

- Overall, significantly, devastatingly worse than if they'd just taken the general idea of the original and done something completely new with it. The 1922 film isn't great by modern standards but it has a lot of charm and historical value and the plot actually holds itself together. If you have never watched either and are interested, definitely make it the original.

- He has a mustache.

[minecraft-sideblog-tm]

Okay so it's been about a week since I made the Hermit Permit Request Form uquiz and it's kind of stalled now at just over 100 attempts so I feel obligated to show you that it has a 9.09%* acceptance rate!

*Of those 10 that were accepted, one was me when I tested the quiz to make sure it was possible to get. Then 2 of them were the same person who succeeded and then retook the quiz shortly after to read the accepted screen I think.

(if that was you, hi you were also the first person to get accepted and I loved the dedication lol)

So technically only 8 people got the Request Accepted! screen, since my attempt and their second attempt were both by someone an advantage, i.e.: knowing the right combination of answers to get there.

And therefore REALLY it's a 7.27% acceptance rate, assuming those 8 were all individuals who weren't retaking it after getting accepted. Of course this quiz has a very small sample size, but a quick Google search tells me that the Julliard School of music has a higher acceptance rate than my little uquiz Hermit Permit Office

I am so proud lol

[orange-content-rater]

Hello there! This is a blog where i rate the content of orange in an image. The more orange and better use of orange will net you a higher rating. I have mostly rated images, sometimes videos or text.

Feel free to tag me or use my askbox to submit any of the above categories (please note: i wont be rating a bands entire discography again anytime soon)

An example of rated orange content:

Lots of orange!

Not much content

7/10

Avatar by @brachiowlsaurus (thank you)

Asks are usually open, if not ill like say something or edit this post again i guess idk.

Daily click for Palestine+other causes 🇵🇸 (free!)

Thanks for reading!

[dragonwysper]

Just finished Mouthwashing, after hearing all sorts of snippets of fandom drama about it. I'd stayed away from all that because I didn't have the context, but now I do! So I'm blasting you all with my thoughts.

Long post. Be prepared. Spoilers for Mouthwashing and CW for in-depth discussion of SA below.

So the biggest aspect of the drama side of the fandom that I've been seeing is how the game handled Anya's rape. Some people think it was devastating and properly showed the awfulness of Jimmy, and feel Anya's trauma was portrayed accurately and handled well. Others think Anya was somewhat one-dimensional; she was given a stereotypically female-specific trauma to match the different pain/traumas of the other crew members, and feel the subject wasn't given enough weight and respect.

After having played the game (while also going into it with the knowledge and expectation that it would be about SA), I can see both sides. Though I think my thoughts on everything come from some core details.

Firstly, the core theme of the game is not SA. It's karma. Jimmy is a terrible person who doesn't care about the pain he inflicts on others, as long as he gains something from it. The game follows him as he destroys the people around him, and treats them like fodder to fuel his own goals. We see all of this catch up to him in the end, and he's sortof divinely punished, or overcome with guilt, or whatever it is, because of it. Each person's harm is unique and everybody has their own micro-themes, but the core theme of the game is overwhelmingly karma.

Essentially, this is not a game about SA. This is a game about a terrible person getting what's coming to him.

Secondly, rape as shock content is a common gripe regarding mostly horror movies. It's a quick and easy way to create motivation, so much so that it's turned into its own subgenre of 'rape and revenge' plots. Think I Spit On Your Grave style movies. The other side of the same coin is objectifying the victim, which creates an exploitative feel. The act of the rape itself, and furthermore the shock of it, is more important than the victim and their feelings and trauma. Rape is detached from the lasting harm it causes, and is more something to justify getting up in arms about something/someone rather than a trauma.

And while we do see some of Anya's trauma from SA, Mouthwashing by and large is not meant to be a commentary on SA specifically. Again, it's about how terrible of a person Jimmy is, which makes the SA, at least in part, a tool to make the player hate him.

Ultimately, if Mouthwashing was changed to where Anya faced a different form of harm from Jimmy, instead of SA, it would still be just about the same game. You could still make a convincing game with karma and bad people getting their comeuppance as the core theme. And that I think is the most important realization to have about the subject.

Anya's SA was the first trauma, and the details of the aftermath are what kickstarted the plot, but it was, intentionally or not, a tool to make you hate Jimmy. Because the game isn't about Anya and her trauma. It's about Jimmy and his karma.

I think Mouthwashing is fascinating, and that theme of karma is not something I see done well very often. I think the style of the plot and all the little details that expound upon the micro-themes of the game are extremely well done. And I think it did handle its themes of SA better than a lot of content that discusses it. But it's not perfect, and it falls short of really digging into the true weight of it. It's not a game that makes any real progress on the portrayal of sexual trauma in media. It's cleaner and less graphic than 'rape and revenge' stories, but it ultimately still relies on exploiting the shock of rape to serve a 'bigger' plot.

It's late, I'm tired, and I'm struggling to properly word what I'm feeling, but hopefully my interpretation of nuance comes through.

[c-kiddo]

for people who asked about tmn comic reviews, i put some vry basic vry casual text ones on my storygraph account. just for the cad and beau ones. kind of would like to do more in depth reviews and talk abt all of them and the art etc etc but i know people are a bit touchy about art critique so . i just remembered the beau one is negative about the art so theres your warning

[evanbuckleyrecs]

So I just read this fic and it absolutely BLEW my mind and I can't not share it. I have to tell everyone: GO READ THIS

ashes, ashes, ashes

Written by pinkpeachtea

10,172 words

Rated T

Buck/Eddie, Buck & Christopher, Buck & Bobby, Buck/Tommy mentioned, Eddie/Marisol mentioned

Additional Tags:

Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Pre-Relationship Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, POV Evan "Buck" Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley Acting as Christopher Diaz's Parental Figure, Christopher Diaz is a National Treasure, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ambiguous/Open Ending(for now) - Freeform, (I might make this into a fic), Speculation for 9-1-1 (TV) Season 7, Speculation for Episode: s07e09 Ashes Ashes, Fire, Evan "Buck" Buckley's Apartment burns down, unfortunately he is still in there, and so is chris, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Not Beta Read

"You said you're not afraid of anything," Chris repeated Buck's own words back to him, still staring at him in favor of ignoring the lasagna, "but everyone's afraid of something."

"I am afraid of you not liking my lasagna. Does that count?" Buck asked with a smile, watching fondly as Chris groaned in his newly adapted I-am-a-teenager-and-I-find-everything-annoying tone, before grabbing his fork and taking a bite. "And?"

Chris mumbled with his mouth full. "'S good."

"I guess then I am still not afraid of anything."

———

Or, someone from Bobby's past sets fire to Buck's apartment. Chris is with him when it happens.

[yugiohcardsdaily]

lets hear it for the Bladesman Fur Hire!!!

6/10

[autismswagsummit]

how autism is her

0/10 everyone go home autism has been destroyed forever sorry.

[gimmick-blog-reviewer]

Review requested by @hydra-collector did not specify if vae owned the gimmick blog or not.

Gimmick blog: @theresatmgsongforthat

Gimmick: Providing a song by the band The Mountain Goats that is related to posts, situations, emotions, and/or characters (maybe even blog reviews?).

Gimmick rating: 6/10, interesting and requires genuine effort and familiarity with the subject matter to do. It's a rarer kind of gimmick, I don't think I've seen anything like this before but I wouldn't be surprised if it existed. However, it's niche, it's really niche. The bit wore through for me pretty fast and I found the account just kind of boring. Indie rock isn't for everyone, and I imagine this account does more for the people it reblogs than the people for follow it. People who enjoy the mountain goats are going to know all these songs already, people who don't enjoy them aren't going to be interested.

Blog rating: 8/10, very dedicated to the gimmick. Only occasionally does things other than provide TMG songs, and those other things are typically related to TMG.

Overall rating: 7/10, a respectable gimmick blog. Held back by its niche but nonetheless thriving in it.

Sidenote: When blogs are requested to be reviewed, they will be reviewed slightly harsher. I'm just not going to pull punches when someone asks me to hit them.

[braddourifscareertrajectory]

i feel bad but honestly idek if i’ll finish my emmrich run bc as charming as he is i find the game just…boring, on the second run. the gameplay loop is dull for me (yet also oddly stressful? idk, unfortunate combo lol) i simply do not care about elf lore to any great degree so that’s not super interesting to dig into now i know all the reveals, the borked inquisitor import defaulting to a romanced lavellan is funny but feels mildly insulting lol, the world feels so small despite all the locations for some reason but with little depth to make up for it, i find the hamfisted rook/solas parallels and obvious story preference for relating to and ultimately redeeming solas tiresome…idk. the replay value is very low for me, i’m discovering. ngl if there were more romance content i’d probably power through but idk if i have it in me with how sparse it feels.

ah well. it is what it is. probably time to move onto greener pastures (redoing my stardew valley mod setup)

[metanarrates]

Hiii I see you're playing isat!!! As an orv+utena and more recently isat fan this is very exciting. I love your meta posts. How far are you into isat? Spare some of your thoughts so far?

im on act 4 and I've got some mixed opinions on it! as a certified Timeloop Story and Ludonarrative Mechanics enjoyer, I think the execution in those departments is great! as a certified Character Driven Narrative enjoyer... I can see what the author is going for but I don't always think the execution is fantastic. I like a lot of the characters but the humor and prose/narration/dialogue styles are often grating to me, and there's a strong tendency to spell things out that I think the viewer would be better off figuring out for themself. i also tend to wish that some of the interparty character relationships were more nuanced, because theres stuff there that could be interesting but I'm not sure will ever be touched upon.

isat's concept is difficult to pull off well. I have a lot of respect for the author, because I think there's a ton of fantastic ideas in the game and I appreciate the ambition it takes to tackle something like this. however, starting a game like this in media res creates a difficult situation where I'm expected to immediately be invested in these characters as a found family with an entire unseen adventure's worth of bonding behind them, and their relationships so far aren't compelling enough for me to feel that kind of investment. I feel like there's a lot of gesturing at common rpg party tropes and going "you know, they're like this" and while that's fine, i can't help but wish the developers had found a better way to introduce me to their relationships. it ends up feeling a little unintentionally fanficcy.

that said, the mystery and fantasy elements? the spiral that siffrin undergoes while being trapped in a time loop? the grief and unrest underneath everything? super fun. i'm officially hooked on that. I also think loop, mirabelle, and odile are all wonderful characters and I love seeing them on screen! art, game design, and music direction are also A+. it's a great project! i just think it was something that the author might have benefited from a bit more writing experience in order to make it really shine.

[eternalera]

"you're lucky that you entertain me"

[orange-content-rater]

I dont need it

Oramge!!

Orange is main focus!

Large portion of image not orange

7/10

I dont need it

[scarefox]

Playboyy 🤝 Taming the Bad Boy

too queer, too rough and kinky for MDL BL audience