#Which? Review

[chalkrub]

various art trades from the past month! had FUN as usual

[a-frog-in-a-bog]

article here

[freelanceplatypus]

Dungeon Meshi modern au where both Laois and Falin are food vloggers. Laois is always travelling to remote areas and cultures to try the most "extreme" foods and bring them to light. He's known as the guy who will drink blood and slam a still wriggling bug just to comment on it's nutty flavor. Meanwhile Falin is visiting long-standing eateries and sharing the stories behind local cuisine.

Nobody actually puts together they're siblings (in part due to wildly different viewerbases) until Falin in one video mentions how she enjoys eating insects and the comment section is full of folks asking her to "collab with the bug guy". Her very next video is her and Laois smiling infront of a mukbang style platter of insects and she introduces him as her brother.

[good-pokemon-center-reviews]

[goryhorroor]

slasher horror + letterboxd reviews ii

[gunsatthaphan]

"do you agree? - yes."

[velichorus-k]

I hope me just constantly posting stickers isn't getting annoying but I have SO many ideas and I am an avid sticker enjoyer I'm having so much fun coming up with these lol

Ford and Fiddleford batch! I've got two more batches of 5(?) sticker designs each and then I'm gonna focus on the Bill animatic for realzies :)

[ajaxbell]

Fangs of Fortune (Bai Ze Ling): perfect on pure aesthetics alone, but also it will tear your heart out while being very gay.

I was lured in to this show by Tumblr gifsets and friends on Bluesky talking about how queer and poly this show is. I'm old and I've been in fandom more than half my life. I know how to read queer subtext. I'm also pretty well versed in cdramas, so again, I know how to read subtext. So I went into this ready to, well, read the subtext.

But no this show is just puts the queer it right there in the text. The vague information we have about Chinese censorship repeatedly left me asking, 'wait how are they getting away with this?' Like some of these jokes and implications are just so blatant it seems incredible this show ever made it to being broadcast. It just feels very much like queer media made for queer people even if t's more subtle than something western like Queer as Folk.

Even without the heavy coloring of gay this show is incredible and so much more than I expected from the title and the promo. The premise is essentially the death of the goddess, who governed relations between humans and demons, leads to an influx of demons in the human world. This brings together the goddess's disciple, Wen Xiao--seeking to restore the goddess's power. WX's childhood sweetheart, Zhuo Yichen--seeking to restore the demon-hunting bureau after the powerful demon Zhu Yan killed his father and brother. It opens on Zhu Yan, in human disguise as as Zhao Yuanzhou, volunteering to help the imperial court restore the demon-hunting bureau to quell the chaos. They are joined by Pei Sijing, a retired female general from the rival demon hunting sect, and a very young doctor (and comic relief) named Bai Jiu. It starts off as a sort of monster-of-the-week with a grim Scooby gang doing detective work and fighting monsters. Each major demon has a mini arc that relates to the larger case (restoring the power of the goddess to balance the realms), and they are repeatedly blocked by either the demons or the rival demon hunting sect. Each mini arc also acts as a mirror or parallel story to slowly revealed backstory of all the main characters as well. In true cdrama fashion it's a mix of adventure, intense emotional drama, romance, and comedy. And queer and poly jokes and romance. It also has a kind of manga vibe in the way the comedy is woven into the more serious story, and in the fantastical depiction of the characters and how the story unfolds.

It is also just insanely beautiful. Every single shot is lovely. The costumes, make up, and hair are incredible. The casting director made all the major demons inhumanly beautiful. The sets are spectacular. The effects are nicely done. Every bit of has the vague surreality of a fairytale. The perfection of each shot ads to the manga vibe, as if we're seeing each critical storytelling panel come alive. There's recurring water-based special effects that are just gorgeous. Based on aesthetics alone this show would be worth watching to me. That it is combined with a complex, very emotional story is a spectacular gift to the watcher. A lot of the negative reviews of this complain about the staginess or that it's overly contrived in how each scene is shot. But I think it's gorgeous, works perfectly with the storytelling, and if we criticize art on whether it achieves the goal it intended then this show is doing exactly and perfectly what it means to do and doing it beautifully.

Additionally the acting is also very good, but Neo Hou is the stand out for sure. I enjoyed him in Back from the Brink, especially the later part of the story, but in Fangs of Fortune he's transformed, utterly embodying the role, the way Dylan Wang is Dongfang Qingcang in Love Between Fairy and Devil. Neo Hou has the right look, a slightly uncanny beauty perfect for a gorgeous immortal not of this world. The show does incredible things with his styling between the various looks and personas the role requires. But in acting he somehow manages to utterly transform his face and demeanor to manifest each aspect of the character as story demands changes from him.

There is a lot of crying in this drama. Like early on I joked that there was going to be a character crying a single perfect tear in every ep. Lol nope. Multiple single perfect tears per ep and many outright full on sobbing scenes. This show is just waiting to rip your heart out and you see it right from the beginning. But it was such sweet pain all the way through. Just a truly engaging and utterly wrenching set of intertwined stories.

My only criticism is that the pacing falls apart in the last 3 episodes. But overall the story is solid through the end, though like so many cdramas, it's saved by the epilogue.

You should absolutely watch it if you want the chaotic bi polycule (it's her, her girlfriend, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's boyfriend who is also her boyfriend, their two idiot sons, and her boyfriend's ex-who is also eventually sort of his boyfriend again), or if you want your heart torn out and stomped on. Or even if you just like really gorgeous cinematic things. Also if you watch, please don't skip the ending credits, as they change as the arcs change, and the radiant joy Tian Jiarui has as he dances is an excellent antidote to the emotions of each episode.

[wormzandgutz]

I'm a better character designer than the entirety of the overwatch team /joke

[slushy-sash]

Grrrr mr gallagher... 😳

This drawing was made in collaboration with VEIKK Tablet who have kindly sent me to review their Creator VK1060 Pro. If you're interested, pls click this link for 21% OFF your purchase!

[dammjamboy]

BETTER CALL SAUL!

[mizgnomer]

David Tennant Year in Review - 2023

David’s television, film, convention, charity, and other appearances from 2023, all in one convenient photoset - with extra special thanks to Georgia and her excellent Instagram posts

Please see my [ David Tennant Year In Review tag ] for prior year-end posts dating back to 2014

[anna-scribbles]

what a shame, i can see it all now that we’re through

- firearm by lizzy mcalpine

(chapter 5 of call it even is making me feel bonkers insane. thank u @sha-nwa)

[mutantmayhems]

MUTANT MAYHEM + LETTERBOXD REVIEWS Part 1/?

[welcometogrouchland]

I understand that literature nerd Jason Todd is kind of overblown in fanon compared to it's actual presence in canon (a few issues during his pre (and post?)crisis Robin tenure that highlight it) BUT consider that I think it's hilarious if the unhinged gun toting criminal has strong opinions on poetry

[unpretty]

the last time we had to move i was so fucking sick of dealing with physical objects that i just gave away my entire cd collection i'd been hauling around since high school, aside from the david bowie sound and vision collection. i decided it would be fine because i had all my CDs ripped to mp3 anyway as well as having them backed up to google music using the library upload that was basically their core feature at the time.

lol. lmao.