#also I think the effect in the movie is more obvious than in the show

[ofswordsandpens]

the difference in Percy's water healing power in the show vs the movie is actually kind of interesting because while subtle, in the show the water heals his injury and then his blood is washed away, but in the movie you can actually see the water push Percy's blood back inside his body as its healing him... and I cannot believe I'm saying this but I think I like the movie's depiction of this power more because of that???

[tossawary]

I don't have a solid plot attached to this idea, I don't currently really have the desire to drop everything to go write "The Hobbit" fanfiction, but for a while I've had the idea of *gestures vaguely" some post-canon story (probably some form of fix-it) taking place before, during, and after a grand dwarven opera performance in Erebor.

Because I am absolutely certain that the Lonely Mountain had an absolutely stunningly beautiful Royal Opera House (and plenty of other, less grand performance halls) that, at the city's height, was putting at least one show every single day. Orchestral symphonies, operas and operettas, dramatic plays, dance performances... you name it, they had it and more. The various cultures of Middle Earth evidently ADORE music, dwarves absolutely included. The Company all bring instruments to Bag End to play and sing themselves off before their quest!

Also, beyond the music side of things, with how dwarves are named as master crafters? Smiths and toymakers and magicians? No way that they did not have some of the most gorgeous costumes, sets, and effects on the planet. Dwarves would go WILD with their articulated stage puppets, I know it.

One of my biggest issues with the film trilogy is that it failed to deeply explore the Company as people who had lost their home, beauty and culture included. Smaug not only killed countless people, entire families, and leave many of the survivors poor and desperate, the dragon went on to hoard their heirlooms and life's work and leave these priceless gold treasures UNUSED. It is an additional heartbreak to imagine Smaug tearing through Erebor neighborhood by neighborhood, house by house, so that he could tear out every gemstone in, say, mosaic made by someone's grandmother that sat above the breakfast table every morning. To think that Smaug in the aftermath tore magical lanterns off the walls, the sort that might have been decorated with animals or flowers, to make some daycare walkway just a little more cheery for the children, and in his greed left a dead city in the dark.

The live-action movies put both Smaug and the Balrog in these... absolutely enormous chambers that serve somewhat unclear purposes. The king's treasure vault and a former marketplace, I think? (Moria has been raised by goblins, I can forgive the emptiness.) It's a quick visual depiction of Thror's uncontrollable gold lust to give him a Scrooge McDuck room, sure, instead of anything with an actual organizational system (normally, I assume dwarves are big on sorting their vaults if they have one). Super big columns and hallways and staircases do somewhat effectively communicate the "lost glory" of Moria (I am very fond of these movies!!!), even if I also think it's not as interesting as it could have been. And the other obvious purpose of big, open warehouse-like spaces is 1) it's easier to animate the big creatures moving around in them generally and 2) it allows the films to show off the full-bodied visual spectacle of their big creatures.

But I think it would have also kicked ass to put Smaug in Erebor's former Royal Opera House or something, some enormous theatre decorated across generations. That could be big! The ART (statues, fountains, banners, windows, general architecture) that you could put on the exterior, which has had its face ripped open for the dragon to get inside? The ART that you could put INSIDE (mosaics, murals, and more) as Bilbo sneaks inside? Ohhh, you could include so many potential lore references with thematic relevance!

Also, Bilbo could get jump-scared by old articulated stage puppets or something. IT'S THE DRAGON-! Oh, no, it's some old opera prop. (Yes, we're talking more about an actual adaptation of "The Hobbit" rather than fanfiction concepts now.)

Sure, there's raw material treasure and coins hoarded here in this place, but there would also be musical instruments and toys and household tools and cookware and fancy dishes, wedding jewelry and anniversary gifts and family shrines and festival costumes, fountain statues and street lamps and mailboxes and business signs, and other evidence that people really LIVED here. These are all ordinary objects that Bilbo recognizes from the Shire.

We could tie these objects directly back to objects we saw featured in Bilbo's home early in this adaptation, which he was trying to "protect" from the dwarves during their "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates" song. There are half-burned portraits of people's late parents here too. Did he think that there weren't any dwarves who made doilies or handkerchiefs embroidered with flowers? Of course they made things like that too.

It's perfectly symbolic to, say, place Smaug's bed in an area like the king's throne room. The dragon is now the King Under The Mountain. But I think it would be deliciously haunting to have the throne room of Erebor be empty, the throne half-broken, the silver stripped from the walls and moved elsewhere, because Smaug doesn't care about Thror's old audience chamber. What's a dwarf king to a dragon? He burns the same as all the others. The dragon has instead made his bed in a beautiful public place of art and culture that was for the people, by the people, surrounded by the lovingly crafted belongings of the ordinary people he killed. Gold is gold to a dragon whether it's in a coin or a candlestick.

I think if you really want to sell one of the key messages of "The Hobbit", which in my opinion is: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." then you ought to throw yourself behind EREBOR being a place where food and cheer and song had value, not just the Shire. Thorin isn't lost at the end because he's a dwarf and dwarves don't value such things, but because he as a specific person who makes the mistake of weighing pride and gold over people, and he comes to regret that on his deathbed.

So, back to the fanfiction idea, I think that Erebor had music again in it as soon as dwarves started living in it again. It will take decades and decades before the Royal Opera House is half as splendid as it was before, and there is a performance there with beautiful costumes and puppets and sets comparable to those that came before, some traditional historical show that is part of specific seasonal holiday for dwarves. But that very first winter, when the future still looked grim, I think the dwarves cleared out a small stage and cast the roles of this traditional musical retelling of their history among them, based on who knew the parts best, because they aren't just miners and smiths and soldiers, and there was music again in Erebor that winter despite all the damage that the dragon did.

[mellxncollie]

Part 1 of looking into some of the technical cinematography aspects of the show

(or, why does Dead Boy Detectives look Like That?)

(update 6/30/24: there's now a part 2! check it out here)

Dead Boy Detectives has some interesting things going on with the cameras. You probably noticed it at some point while watching the show. Whether it was the weird blurs or the sort-of-fisheye, there’s something about many of the shots that doesn’t look the way many people expect TV shows to look.  

The main reason why is because it uses an anamorphic lens instead of a spherical lens. These lenses are pretty different from spherical lenses, and the recent rise of anamorphic lenses in TV has not been without some pushback, as viewers unaccustomed to them may find the look weird, distorted, or that it pulls their focus away from the content. Whether you enjoy how Dead Boy Detectives looks or find the cinematography distracting, this post is designed to explain the different effects that the lens has on the show.

This post is very long and very graphics heavy (I made lots of gifs to illustrate my points) so the rest is under a read more.

What is an anamorphic lens and what is it used for?

To begin with, a bit of history and technical info. Say you’re making a movie at most any point before the mid-'90s and you want it to be widescreen. However, the 35mm film you’re shooting on has a smaller aspect ratio (closer to a square than widescreen). You could use letterboxing (black bars on top and bottom) but then you waste the top and bottom parts of the film, and it ends up being slightly lower in ‘resolution.’ The solution: use a lens that records the full height onto the film, but squishes the picture horizontally so that it fills up the whole film frame without any letterboxing. Then, a projector (or a computer) can stretch it out again to display the whole thing in widescreen. The kind of lens that can do that is an anamorphic lens. They've technically been around since before the 1920s but were mostly used between the 1950s and the 1990s.

Up until sort of recently, television networks broadcasted using a smaller aspect ratio that they required shows to be in, and TV shows were not given the kind of cinematography budgets that movies were afforded. Anamorphic lenses are expensive and for widescreen, so they really just weren’t used for TV shows. Instead, a spherical lens was used, which is just the standard lens you think of when you picture a camera lens. 

In the 90s, new flat/spherical film formats came out that allowed for widescreen (one of the popular ones being Super 35) caused anamorphic lenses to drastically drop in popularity. However, there has been a recent resurgence, one that you’ve probably subconsciously noticed in both film and television.

In the last 10-15 years, TV has been given larger and larger budgets. Additionally, the rise of streaming services and the use of phones and computers to watch shows rather than actual televisions has meant that networks have started allowing wider aspect ratios, paving the way for anamorphic lenses to begin to be used for series. 

The history of these lens’ usage means they’re associated with a ‘cinematic’ look. They have a lot of characteristic effects that are not really ‘natural’ and depending on the viewer, this either enhances the experience or detracts from it.

Lots of recent series have been embracing these lenses (to varying degrees of success), including The Witcher, Sandman, Shōgun, Narcos: Mexico, The Mandalorian, Andor and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Doctor Who also started using anamorphic lenses at the switch to the 13th Doctor, so that may be a good reference point. For some of these, it’s a very subtle look, for others, the lens choice is glaringly obvious and overdone (I’m looking at you Sabrina), and sometimes, as is the case with Dead Boy Detectives, it’s really obvious but it remains an effective and compelling choice. 

Why use an anamorphic lens in the 21st century when you could just use a spherical lens?

Anamorphic lenses create a look that some filmmakers desire, whether for their associations with a more cinematic look or their sometimes unusual quirks. In a film and tv world filled with spherical lenses that are nice, clean, and precise, anamorphic lenses introduce some irregularity and character. Making an informed decision on what kind of lens to use can enhance different themes of the work. 

I want to briefly bring up Moonlight to illustrate this point. Go watch the trailer if you haven’t seen it, and you’ll probably see some parallels with the cinematography of Dead Boy Detectives. There’s less of the ‘radial’ look, but otherwise, there’s a lot of the same kinds of things. Moonlight uses an anamorphic lens and it makes the whole thing look dream-like, nostalgic, and a bit like we’re getting into the character’s heads. To me, it indicates that the story is being filtered through people. We’re not detached from the characters, observing them. The story we are watching is personal, emotional, and necessitates intimacy. 

Dead Boy Detectives really benefits from the same visual effects. This is not because it enhances a dream-like or nostalgic quality, but because in the context of the show, it makes it look a bit otherworldly, magical, or otherwise supernatural. Additionally, the constraints of the lens means we get lots of focusing in on individual characters, with nice long looks at their faces allowing for more reflection on their dialogue and reactions.

So, here’s 5 different effects of anamorphic lenses to point out to you all. Starting with the one that allows us to easily identify that anamorphic lenses are being used in the first place.

You’ve probably heard of bokeh before. It's the way the lens renders the direct sources of light that are in the background but out-of-focus. You can see in this shot of Jenny how all the string lights are not circular, but elongated. On a spherical lens, these would be round.

In this next shot of the Cat King, the candles around the floor are all those elliptical shapes. Additionally, lots of other details in the background that aren’t from direct light sources also have an elongated shape. This is sometimes called waterfall bokeh.

Finally, check out this shot of one of the cats. Not only are the lights in the background irregular and elongated, but if you look to the left where the ‘horizon’ line is, there's a series of elliptical shapes where the light hits the edge of the docks.

The bokeh effect is one of those things that just happens because of the lens, and makes it pretty easy to identify that an anamorphic lens is being used. Unlike some of the other effects I’ll mention, I don’t have much to say about how this does or doesn’t add to the visuals.

Breathing is how the field of view changes when you refocus to a subject closer or farther from the lens. While spherical lenses also breathe, there’s a much more distorted look to the breathing that occurs with an anamorphic lens.

Lets start with this shot:

You can see how much the frame widens when the focus shifts from the jar of coins to Jenny. It affects the edges much more than the middle of the frame. Here’s the same shot, but with some of the features outlined (forgive my messy outlining, I used my laptop trackpad) so you can see the movement.

The frame widens when the focus goes from the foreground to the background. It appears like the whole shot is being stretched apart horizontally and compressed vertically.

However, it also does the reverse, narrowing as the focus moves from the background to the foreground.

(also in that last shot of hell, notice how the two points of light in the background elongate into those oval bokeh once they are no longer in focus)

Breathing is a very dramatic way of refocusing, and it forces us to pay attention to different things. In the shot of the Night Nurse, we have a light but the important thing after it turns on is not the light but the reaction that the people have to the cause of the light. In that shot of Niko and Edwin, it’s telling us: listen to Niko. In the shot of hell, it’s not letting us forget what the characters are running from. 

The next effect is the lens flare. You can get a lens flare from a spherical lens too, but anamorphic lenses typically generate strong, horizontal flares. A spherical lens would typically create a more radial flare, with multiple lines shooting out in different directions from the light source like rays from the sun.

We see these all over the show, sometimes they’re very prominent, such as in these shots with obvious light sources:

And sometimes they're a bit more subtle. Take this shot of Edwin, Charles, and Crystal on the dock:

While the lens flare at the top of the frame has a clear source, there’s a bunch of other horizontal lines cutting across near the middle and bottom half of the frame. These likely come from light sources outside of the frame.

Some directors, cinematographers, and other creators really like anamorphic flares. Others don’t. For a show with so many dark scenes that have colorful and dramatic lighting, the lens flares seem to enhance this. They are also a constant reminder of the interaction between the lights and the camera, kind of a fingerprint of the production. Sure, they make it seem more ‘cinematic,’ but I think they also ground us in the physicality of the production. (Kind of ironic given the lack of physicality of the main characters, and also you could consider the flares themselves to be the ghosts of the lights and the camera!)

Barrel distortion is where we start getting into why exactly the show looks the way it does. This is basically a subtle fisheye effect. Because of the squishing and stretching of the footage, anamorphic lenses have more distortion than spherical lenses, and it is strongest around the edges. 

You can see it most clearly in shots that have lots of vertical lines. They are relatively straight in the middle of the frame, but the closer to the edges, the more they are warped.

Looking at that shame shot of Niko in the bathroom, I have set it to stop at 3 different spots. Pay attention to the shape of the edge of the door.

At the start, it’s curved outward, like an open parentheses: (

Then, in the middle, it’s a vertical line: |

Finally, as the door passes all the way across the frame to the opposite side, it curves inward, like a closed parentheses: )

Again, notice how the lines in this shot of the Lost & Found Department change as they move from the outside towards the center. The door has an outward bulge at the beginning but becomes more 'normal’ shaped as it gets further away.

Anamorphic lenses can also have a pretty shallow depth of field and it’s used a lot in this show which is why we get a lot of those centered close-ups, and why we get that ‘radial blur.’ 

The center of the frame is where the actors are least likely to be distorted, meaning its easiest to have just one character in the dead center (pun intended). With a shallow depth of field, the background is out of focus, and since the actor is in the center, the background gets the most affected by the barrel distortion, leading to the sense that the background has been radially blurred. 

This blurred background with a strong, centered foreground really makes objects in the foreground pop. We are then able to really focus in on different objects and characters. It brings immediacy and intimacy. Here, we have nothing to do but consider Charles. He isn’t speaking so we must consider his reaction to what’s being said. 

Also, the further a character is from the center of a shot, the more they are distorted, such as Edwin and Charles in this still:

This kind of distortion definitely lends a more unnatural look to the shots, which definitely supports a show about ghosts and the supernatural. If the subjects are able to see things in our world in a way the viewers cannot, then why display the physical world the way we see it?

Finally, we have focus falloff. This is (like some of the other effects) a distortion that occurs around the edges. Here, the focus decreases the further from the center of the frame even if they’re all about the same distance from the camera.

In this shot of the Tongue & Tail, the sign 'Butcher Shop’ is clear and legible. But imagine if that sign was up in the top left or right corners, where things start to get blurry. We probably wouldn’t be able to read it.

It's also visible in this shot of Edwin. Not only does the floor get blurrier the further you get from the center, but you can see how the rope is less in focus in very top and very bottom of the frame.

The falloff (combined with the barrel distortion) is how we get the really unique dream-like look of the Edwin and Niko scene on the roof in Episode 8. (If you’re having a hard time spotting the falloff here, look at their legs)

When you start looking for falloff in this show, you start to see it everywhere. It’s easiest to spot in the corners of shots, but you can usually see all the way around the edges.

Look at the corners of this still of Edwin, or the way the top and bottom of Niko’s rent envelope aren’t as clear as the middle of it.

Or in this still, look at Charles’ jacket. The arm closest to the center has a much more defined line between it and the background compared to the arm closest to the edge. 

This blur definitely is one of the more noticeable effects in the show, and it’s good at focusing our attention on the center of the frame. It guides the viewer exactly to what we should be looking at. We get tons of centered shots in this show because of this and the barrel distortion. 

The falloff makes the show look softer and artistic, sometimes painterly or impressionistic. More than any other effect, the falloff is what makes me feel like I’m watching a dream or a vision. It puts us into the sensation of being fully immersed in a story.

I would argue that all of these effects (but especially the last two) not only enhace the supernatural aspect of the show, but they help us fall in love with the characters. They focus us on their faces, and encourage us to reflect on their motivations, reactions, and thoughts. The lens is telling us that we are not to take things at face value. It’s not letting us forget that there are multiple people and multiple stories involved, that things are blurry around the edges, and that things are not perfect and clean-cut. 

-----------

Sometime in the next week or so I’ll be working on part 2, where we’ll take a closer look at the cinematography of Edwin’s flashback to 1916 in Episode 1. It's posted! Read it here.

I really wanted to highlight the work of the cinematographers, Marc Laliberté, Craig Powell, and Pierre Gill because it’s clear that there was so much care and intention put into every aspect of this show. 

I’m so glad fans of this show are really embracing the work of different crew members, like the work of costume designer Kelli Dunsmore (and if you somehow haven’t seen @captainfantasticalright's posts about the costumes and other aspects of the show, please go check them out right now. My roommates and I have a kind of 'stop everything, new costume analysis dropped' attitude towards their posts, and their approach to show analysis was definiteily an inspiration for this)

If you want to read more about anamorphic lenses, the article Why ‘Shogun’ (and the Rest of TV) Is Slightly Out of Focus in The Ringer is about Shōgun and the rise of anamorphic lenses in TV (Marc Laliberté also worked on a few episodes of Shōgun) and it's a great place to start.

Finally, I want to first thank @skyvoice for these tags on one of my gifsets for semi-inspiring this post (I was already considering making this but these made it into a reality).

[accio-victuuri]

my thoughts on xz’s spring festival debut and loch 📝

“Every role leaves something in me or takes something away from me. The character of Guo Jing is very powerful. His perseverance and persistence subtly gave me a lot of support and faith later on.” - xiao zhan

just a few disclaimers before i start:

1. i’m a cpf. this is a cpf blog but i also identify as xz and wyb’s career fan. meaning i care about the impact of their works to the general public. i’m tagging this post with xiao zhan on it cause it’s mainly about him, but if you already hate cpfs, then save yourself the trouble and scroll along. if you still read this and wanna say something, do it on your own blog.

2. this is not the place to compare xz and wyb’s spring festival bo debuts. nor is this a place for conspiracies.

3. i haven’t watched loch. i am not well versed in the whole lore behind it.

okay, now i can start 😅😅😅

As soon as XZ was announced to play the role of Guo Jing in Tsui Hark’s new movie — we all knew that it’s a great opportunity and at the same time, a huge responsibility. Legend of The Condor Heroes is a beloved story/franchise with multiple remakes so this movie had to bring something fresh to the audience. Tsui Hark is a celebrated director, but it’s not a guarantee of excellent results. I’m personally not familiar with his works ( yep, cause i’m uncultured lol ) so at the time i was okay, cool. However, i trusted the people both fans and the public who had mostly good things to say.

It was also pretty obvious that this movie will be screened during Spring Festival. It’s a no brainer. A big IP and movie like this should be released during the biggest box office day in China.

You also have Xiao Zhan. The god of wealth. A traffic star who brings in the money and is a talented Actor. He also has a solid and dedicated fanbase.

However, to those of us who are familiar with how the SF box-office works, fans alone cannot sustain it. The key is to capture the General public’s favor to grow the numbers and to get more cinemas to screen your Movie during the SF holiday. They call it “word of mouth” — when people give good reviews, more people will be encouraged to give it a try. If you are someone on SF holiday, you can probably watch 1-2 ( 3 at most possibly ) movies from the lineup. So it’s critical that LOCH will come up as something you would wanna watch based on what you read online ( or offline ) even if it’s not your 1st choice. I was hoping LOCH fans will come in, but i was also afraid cause they will be the most critical. They know the source material, they possibly watched all the iterations, so they will be the toughest to please.

The showing came later than we anticipated but it was fine. Editing and all the special effects always take up most of the time anyway. ✨

Weeks before the holiday, Nezha 2 announced it was gonna join the Spring Festival line up. This alone was a sure bet that this movie was gonna dominate the Box Office. no question. It’s a popular character and a family-friendly film. A first choice kind of movie if you will. There’s also Fengshen Part II with it’s own set of fans and considering how big the first movie earned, you would think they were gonna come back for Part II.

LOCH still prevailed tho, The pre-sale numbers dominated 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

in reality, these are mostly fans. which is not a bad thing at all. having LOCH at the top of the pre sales creates a good buzz around it. if you are someone thinking of what to watch, and don’t know much about the line up, it would be good to pick the most anticipated film 🫶🏼

(this photo does not represent the final numbers before opening)

I wanna add too that this year’s promotion for SF movies is next level. They have really done well in making sure that the public knows what movies are out there for them to watch.

The first day for a movie like LOCH with a big pre-sale will show a small rise because people who wanna see it on Day 1 mostly have bought it already. It was still steady tho, It broke 14 box office records which is mostly for the martial arts genre ✨

There are also mostly positive reviews about XZ’s performance like this one ( i will share more on my blog as they come ) and critics. Which is fine. we know it’s not gonna be all praises anyway. One review that went high up on HS was from Nanfeng daily, which is more of a discussion on the story’s flaws. I won’t share it here anymore, but the article was talking about the weak plot and how the two leads having basically no chemistry. I also looked into this other blogger ( who is pretty consistent with reviews and not just one who popped up lately ) one which I think fairly described the shortcomings —-

The film adapted the content of chapters 34-40 of the original novel. It is a story about the integration of the martial arts world into the post-war world, involving the love line of Guo Jing and Huang Rong + the national war line + the martial arts line. The main part of the martial arts line is the previous situation before the 34th chapter, which is the foreshadowing of love and war. It can't be less, nor more. The question that needs to be considered here is how to explain so many martial arts stories before, flashbacks? Arrange information in the lines? Connect events and insert back? Or is there a more clever method?

As a result, The Legend of the Condor Heroes didn't think so much, and just went straight to the "PPT". The first hour was a long, fragmented and incomplete account of the story, and the two leading actors took turns to read the narration to tell the previous story. This is not called The Legend of the Condor Heroes, but "Reading most of The Legend of the Condor Heroes in x minutes".

This is not enough. I don't know if Tsui Hark is taking revenge on someone. It's already a PPT, and the two protagonists are reading letters to each other in the air, with narration superimposed on narration. The audience is like a class in the first half.

AGAIN. I haven’t watched the movie but I think, i get where this going. It seems to me that the screenwriter should have done better. Xiao Zhan can only do so much hard work and bring in talent, but if the story is all over the place, it’s gonna be hard to market to a random viewer.

As of writing, LOCH is on HS and the topic is about the supposed deleted scenes. Getting rid of those didn’t help the flow of the story obviously. There is a post going around that talks about that I will partly share below:

In the original script, Guo Jing's expedition to the west and return to the south are closely integrated. The complete character arcs of all the main characters in the movie, the Western Expedition is also in the film.

The film has spent a lot of effort and resources to visualize Wu Mu's will, war, and animals. The essence of the play, this entire section was taken away for review, and a lot of the plot needs to be reviewed later. The dubbing of the previous part continues, and some memories and inserts of the previous part are added. The broadcast becomes even more fragmented, resulting in incoherent plots.

Guo Jing experienced the suffering of all living beings in the war, and Huang Rong's role of leading the Beggars' Gang is gone, and the early adaptations make it even more miserable.

Some of the character arcs are incomplete.

Then it goes to talk about the cuts ( censorship ) caused by sensitive subjects that may cause diplomacy issues.

We still have a few more days for things to take a turn and I will update this blog for that. LOCH can also run even beyond this season and get more Box Office numbers. I have to admit this post i’m making is premature cause we are only days in, but by experience, the early days will usually tell you what’s gonna happen moving forward.

( as of writing, nezha leads with 1.5 billion and loch at 500 million )

A few more points:

• The film was promoted heavily around Tsui Hark being the director. It didn’t live up to expectations and this is why some negative reviews are coming. This is such a big production with lots of moving parts and it seems like it didn’t all fit. Some antis are saying that XZ fans are “blaming” again but this time i guess it’s valid. i’m not saying XZ was perfect either, i’m sure there is room for improvement but he can’t fix the story.

• 🍤🍤🍤 were too confident. it’s not a secret that I have no love for these sea creatures but they were boasting a lot. AND NOW HERE WE ARE.

this has always been my frustration. the karma is getting them. but is also directly affecting XZ who worked hard on this film. who didn’t tell them to do these nasty things. i also see people who wouldn’t even consider LOCH cause at some point 🍤🍤🍤 were rude to their bias before.

it’s like, people wanna see the 🍤 fandom fail. not xz. just the nasty 🍤🍤🍤 who offended a lot of people online at some point.

my god. they really don’t deserve XZ 😭😭😭😭

• the issue of unfair screening times and slots are also being brought up by fans. all i have to say is, welcome to the spring festival clownery. welcome to the movie world, you all must be new here. it doesn’t mean people can’t complain and be frustrated. what i’m saying is LOCH isn’t the first movie to experience this. it happens every year. it happens every big film holiday. this is not the land of dramas where streaming and rating works. Movies are different. if there is anything I learned, it’s more vicious.

• some are also complaining about cinemas refunding their tickets saying there is technical issues. only to find out that they are replacing the showing for a different movie. this is so shady 💀 but again, it’s all about the money. T___T

• the theme of the movie is also not popular at the moment. TH was saying it’s time to bring back films & stories like this again. I found this article that explains my point:

Jin Yong is an idol of previous generations. In their eyes, he has gradually become a tall but distant statue. Tsui Hark's embrace of Jin Yong's IP again is an outlet for the film market to seek a breakthrough in the predicament. He tried to add mainstreaming, genre innovation, traffic stars and other means to revitalize Jin Yong's IP. There is a logical component, but there is also the possibility of success and risk.

The younger generation of audiences who are not Jin Yong fans have not actually broken off their understanding of the martial arts spirit, but they have chosen new works as carriers. For example, the audio novel "Snow Sword" labeled as "martial arts novel" has been played 2.92 billion times on a certain platform, which is far more than the number of audio books of Jin Yong's works. To some extent, the "traditional chivalry" written by Jin Yong is quite different from the "cool martial arts" that the new audience likes, which combines magic, games, and VR.

In fact, from the pre-sale results to the current box office results, it can be seen that the market and the audience still have high expectations and sufficient space for martial arts themes. The altruistic spirit and noble character naturally carried by the martial arts spirit will still make young people curious and have a strong desire to follow and imitate. For the filmmakers, the difficulty of the creative challenge is far greater than the market opportunity-the care and empathy for individual growth, the assumption of social responsibility, etc., still need the work to provide a new interpretation.

After Jin Yong passed away, someone said, "It's not the end of an era, it's the beginning of an era." What this sentence means is that the spirit of martial arts will never become obsolete, but it needs to be updated from time to time. In addition to constantly exploring new forms of expression of martial arts, we must also strive to find new soil for the spirit of martial arts to land. Only in this way can the spirit of martial arts remain high and vigorous in the hearts of generations.

• the goal for xz ( and wyb ) is to be popular and liked by the general public. having a solid solo fandom definitely has it perks but situations like this — they should have a good reputation. the movie/drama must also be exceptional for it to “get out of the circle”. a movie they make should not be “a movie for fans” but for everyone to enjoy.

Let me wrap this up with some good news tho, because international fans can make a difference. To the countries that are going to have screenings, you can contribute by watching and sharing your reviews! 💕 it’s the essence of fandom, to enjoy the content and be happy with the experience. it’s too easy to get caught up with the competitive nature of the SF movie season cause it’s a favorite topic on weibo, but it’s better to celebrate Xiao Zhan’s Spring Festival Movie debut 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I have absolute faith in XZ’s strength as an actor and that time will tell us the truth. right now, the black propaganda is strong cause they have to manipulate public opinion really quick ( i’m not saying all negative reviews are antis but you know what i mean & viewers are expected to be extra critical of XZ cause of how famous he is! ). His talent will shine through. He will have more movies/dramas that are gonna be better than this and we are here to support him. Box-office numbers is not the measure of XZ’s success in playing Guo Jing. I haven’t seen it but knowing XZ’s care for the characters he plays, seeing the training he went through — he did him justice.

-END.

[ultrone]

𓂃  ⊹ jackielot dating deaf!reader 🧏🏻‍♀️

they've been putting in a lot of effort to learn sign language for you. lottie even convinced her parents to hire a private tutor. initially, you thought it was unnecessary, as you could teach them yourself. however, they insisted, wanting to learn it faster and properly.

whenever they learn a new phrase or word, they eagerly rush to you to show you. and it’s painfully obvious how jackie subtly directs your conversations to "casually" drop the new sign she's learned 😭😭 you think it's cute though, so you refrain from teasing her about it.

besides sign language, the three of you have developed a silent language to communicate more effectively. it includes gentle taps, specific gestures, or a certain number of squeezes. it's become so intuitive that even your girlfriends use these signals between themselves, sometimes even when you're not around, without realizing it.

they're having a bit too much fun with the sign language tho, especially during exams. "i'm not helping you cheat, jackie," you discreetly signed back at her, being cautious so the teacher wouldn't notice. jackie pouted at you but couldn't hide her silly smile.

they’re also practically forcing the other yellowjackets to learn it as well. while some of them are lazier or barely friends with you, they've managed to get all of them to learn at least ten basic words to communicate with you, even if it's just to say hi.

so far, shauna is the most advanced, likely because she spends a lot of time with jackie. you suspect your girlfriend probably put up a fight to ensure shauna learned this much. nevertheless, you're grateful because now you can have intermediate conversations with her, and you have to admit that sometimes it's nice to sign with someone other than your girlfriends.

jackie's love language is physical touch, which makes her incredibly content in your relationship. you often depend on her touch or gestures for communication when you can't rely on lip-reading or hand signals, and jackie is more than happy to comply.

on the other hand, lottie leans more towards words of affirmation, but this hasn't posed any challenges in your relationship. she consistently expresses her affection through little notes and messages, even jotting down love notes and doodles in your school notebooks.

once, you woke up and found your hearing aids were not on your bedside table. turning to jackie, who was peacefully sleeping next to you, you noticed them sitting on her bedside table instead. that's weird, you thought, not recalling leaving them there. as you picked them up, you realized jackie had adorned them with cute little stickers.

they’re very patient with you, never getting annoyed or frustrated when you ask them to say things again or speak more clearly for you to read their lips.

when watching a movie together, they always ensure the subtitles are on, so you don't have to strain to read everyone's lips all the time.

jackie has this habit of telling you that she loves you by tracing the letters "I L Y" in the palm of your hand with her index finger, giving you a soft kiss afterwards and fidgeting with your fingers.

lottie always keeps her arms protectively around you, whether it's draped over your shoulders or wrapped around your waist. when she wants to get your attention, she softly squeezes her hand around you.

when you're feeling stressed, she often soothes you by gently stroking your eyebrows with her fingers in a repetitive motion until you drift off to sleep.

they're frequently curious about your perspective and thoughts on certain things, recognizing that your experiences might differ from theirs. they often ask you how you imagine certain things would sound, sometimes out of genuine curiosity and other times playfully teasing you.

“who do you think has a sexier voice? and don’t lie just so that lotts doesn’t get upset,” jackie quipped as lottie rolled her eyes.

they're incredibly protective of you, never allowing anyone to mock or disrespect you in any way. not that anyone dares to, considering their popularity in school as members of the yellowjackets.

most of the time, you fall asleep by lying on top of either one of them, resting against their chest, or in any position that lets you lay your ear against their heart, so you can feel its steady beat.

they're constantly debating whose turn it is to cuddle you. so now, they take turns each night. while you lie on one's chest, the other cuddles you from behind, letting you feel her gentle heartbeat against your back.

[fetchen]

skye riley? more like GAY riley- an analysis

so, i’m a very hyperfixated autistic lesbian with a weird gender and that definitely influenced how i thought of and perceived skye’s dialogue and actions as a character. regardless, i feel like my analysis is pretty okay. i’ve spent at least the past month thinking about smile 2 and i never miss a chance to drive home how important it is that a character can be read as queer in a canonical sense. maybe this is just me being that one friend that too woke but that is what i do best! i want to talk about it. :3

i think the people i’ve seen drawing and talking about skye in a more “queer” way are mostly just…headcanoning with no reason behind it. now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. it’s a thing i do pretty often. there is, after all, a beautiful kind of fun in being able to see yourself or your community in a character you love. with this analysis, what i want to do is give some insight as to why i personally have taken to the idea of skye riley as a queer coded character. i want to take note of skye’s traits, dialogue, inspirations, etc. i want to show that media can be interpreted in different ways and that my own interpretation is just one of many that can be seen in skye riley and smile 2 as a whole. here, i’m giving my headcanons reasons- citing my sources, i guess. so here’s what’s up.

to start with, the most obvious example, i would say, of skye’s queerness is her relationship with the character named gemma, her ex-best friend. to me, their relationship is just like…super gay. there’s really no other way to describe it. gemma is the person that’s emotionally closest to skye throughout the entire movie. skye values her relationship with gemma over her relationships with quite literally anyone and everyone else. skye has no pictures of herself with anyone else but gemma in her apartment, she has no other contacts with an emoji in their name (excluding those for business reasons), and she feels incredibly comfortable hugging and kissing gemma; things that all may seem small but, really, show how close skye considers gemma to be. she doesn’t give anyone the grace or consideration she gives gemma. skye hurts the most when she realises that the gemma she’d been interacting with wasn’t real. she wants gemma back in her life more than anyone else she’d lost. she cares about gemma the most, she thinks about gemma the most, and she loves gemma the most. skye doesn’t show any desire to have paul, her dead ex-boyfriend, back in her life. no- she only shows guilt over the car crash that she caused and that killed him. in all of her interactions with paul, at least with the visions of him she has in her head, she doesn’t like him, let alone love him. she had no passion nor intimacy with him and the movie is clear about that. she doesn’t want him back, she just wishes what happened hadn’t happened. she just feels an immense amount of guilt over her actions that night. truly, we see that she pays very little attention to the men in her life which is a mindset i think a lot of lesbians (including myself) have.

not only that but gemma and paul have some parallels as well. i don’t think many people notice how gemma and paul both haunt the narrative of the movie- meaning that they themselves are barely present but they have quite a large effect on the story and/or the story’s characters. skye lost gemma and paul at similar times- in fact, skye’s falling out with gemma occurred only around two weeks before the car crash that killed paul. both gemma and paul were people that skye kept close to her and they were also people that skye hadn’t seen in at least a year during the time when the movie took place. let’s not forget that the gemma we see skye interact with in the movie isn’t real. we only see the real gemma having a real interaction with skye once- twice if you count their text messages. i cannot hammer it in enough that the gemma we see in the movie is not real. and once you really understand that, you also begin to understand the difference between how skye viewed gemma and how skye viewed paul. now. the curse uses skye’s grief against her, generating hallucinations of both paul and gemma to manipulate her. what’s the difference between these two hallucinations? only one speaks. when skye begins to see paul, she sees him bloodied and bruised, a reminder of his death. but he remains silent. the entity doesn’t bother trying to give skye hope when it comes to paul. but when it comes to gemma…it’s a much different story. the fake gemma is more than skye’s memories of their fight. the fake gemma is made up of skye’s memories and thoughts about gemma as a whole. the fake gemma speaks directly to skye and gives her everything she wants. it makes skye think that gemma has forgiven her with no questions asked and that gemma believes skye when she says that something isn’t right. given that the entity is like a parasite, relying on only its hosts thoughts, emotions, and memories to generate these hallucinations, what we can gather from fake gemma vs. fake paul is that, ultimately, skye valued her relationship with gemma far more than she did her relationship with paul. in the present, she told the fake gemma that she loved her and meant it about the real gemma. in the past, she’d told the real paul that she hated him and meant it about the real paul. i find it telling that the movie chooses to show us the ways in which gemma is similar to paul, someone skye supposedly loved romantically, and when we see the ways they’re different in their relationship with skye, we see that it’s mainly about how much more willing skye was to love gemma the way she was supposed to have loved paul.

furthermore, she’s also surprisingly gender non conforming in a sense. in the movie, it’s not as obvious as her disregard for men but in my opinion, it’s shown through her costuming and some of her dialogue. to me, her most interesting line in this case is what she says after she finds her dressing room trashed. she argues with her mom and says, “i am not in the headspace to put on a fucking dress and play dancing monkey in front of a room full of strangers!” and i’ve not really seen anyone talk about this line even though i think it’s actually very telling about how skye perceives her own identity. consider what it means to skye to “play dancing monkey.” using what we know about her, i would say that playing dancing monkey means being inauthentic solely to entertain others, something that skye finds stifling. she does not want to be used. with her wording, she compares herself to an animal. now, i think that’s something of a different conversation but the takeaway in this case is that skye does not want to be someone she’s not or do things she hates in order to please others. and what is it that she specifically says here? that she’s not in the headspace to put on a dress and play dancing monkey. and so, i want to point out that she specifically says that she has to be in the right headspace to put on a dress- that is, to perform femininity and to be a spectacle. this line shows us that femininity is not generally something skye enjoys expressing for herself. rather, it’s something she has to psych herself up for and that doesn’t come incredibly naturally to her. and that brings me to what does seem to come naturally to skye.

when skye has control over her own image- that is, her own makeup, her hair, and her outfits, she often chooses to dress in clothes that give her a bulkier silhouette and are less form-fitting. she chooses to wear little to no makeup. there’s never a moment when skye chooses to wear a dress or wear noticeable makeup if she’s not under scrutiny. she chooses to be androgynous and with that one line we looked at earlier, we see that it’s about more than just physical comfort.

i also want to talk about one of her most glaring traits that indicate her queer gender identity: her hair. i’ve seen other people talk about skye hypothetically liking women and one of the main responses i’ve seen was “just because her hair is short?” combined with a type of facetious tone. and while i’ve surprisingly never had that response to my endless weird gender skyeposting, i want to say that yeah, skye’s hair is part of her queerness…but not in the way you might think. no, i don’t think that skye is gay because she has short hair. but…i do think her hair is part of a queer reading of skye as a character. hair is kind of a big thing in this movie. skye goes through a big hair transformation: from long and black to short and blonde. skye tugs at her hair when she’s anxious and as her anxiety worsens, she pulls more and more of it out. hair is important. and in the cultural context of the movie’s production, skye being a woman with short hair is kind of just…inherently queer. by cutting her hair short, skye defies a patriarchal beauty standard. by that metric, skye inherently becomes a little bit more queer. as far as we know, skye wasn’t told by anyone to cut her hair short. she very well could have kept it much longer but she didn’t. she chose to go through with this radical change. so not only is the cutting of hair typically symbolic of letting go, something skye was desperate to do, but her new hairstyle can also be seen as her effort to be a little more masculine while keeping her safe enough to not arouse any real suspicion.

so no. i don’t think skye having short hair makes her gay but i do think that her hair being short is definitely supplemental to her being read as queer.

it’s also not at all lost on me how common it is for queer celebrities to struggle with their sexuality/gender identity, how common it is for there to be stories about it, and how often closeted queer celebrities turn to poor coping mechanisms like drug abuse. skye’s character and story is so deeply rooted in the pressures of the music industry and how they can affect a person. her struggle with inauthenticity and feeling stifled by an image she’s been forced into but doesn’t enjoy is one that a lot of queer people know and can relate to heavily. while i’m sure smile 2 wasn’t written with a queer skye riley in mind, skye’s story and its themes can surely feel so familiar to queer fans. not only that but a very important part of skye’s character is the fact that she feels that there is something deeply wrong with her. she’s surrounded by people who don’t see her, don’t understand her, and make no effort to do so which leads to her always feeling out of place and like she is broken on a fundamental level. she has nobody on her side and, as a queer person in a cisheteronormative society, that is often how it feels when you have no support system. skye is a person who is under constant scrutiny and pressure to conform to what the people around her want from her without considering what she might want for herself. she goes on a short rant in which she essentially calls herself a “deeply broken person” and expresses that she’d thought success would fix the things that were wrong with her before coming to find that that just wasn’t the case. and guess what: so many celebrities who came out later in life express feelings of entrapment by their industry. so many queer people express feelings of somehow being “wrong” just for existing as queer. i know that as a queer person that struggles with mental illness, i feel incredibly seen by the character of skye riley. i feel like that’s the best part.

i would say, broadly, that smile 2 is really a story of poor mental health that’s been left to marinate too long. it’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of not asking for help and having no support. but it’s also a story of feeling trapped by the expectations of others. i think there’s something a little beautiful in that, as odd as that sounds. like i said, skye’s story can certainly feel incredibly relatable to queer fans when watching the movie through the lens of a queer reading. the movie’s themes aren’t exclusive to queer people and queer characters but they certainly can be meaningful in that way.

it personally makes me really happy to know that i can say that skye riley, this character i love, is queer and have genuine textual reasons for why i think that. it somehow feels so right. and i hope with with this analysis, i’ve made my reasons clear.

basically, i love skye riley a lot. and if you’ve gotten this far, i’m sure you do too. thanks for reading :-)

[grimesgirll]

“do you have any weed?”

“why? you wanna get stoned, baby?”

you shake your head eagerly. the sanctuary is not for the faint of heart. negan may have let you hang around his wives’ quarters while he toyed with the idea of adding you to his collection or sending you home to alexandria at a price, but that didn’t mean you were shielded from the absolute shit show that this place turned out to be. a joint is the least he can offer.

“you’re a little pothead, huh?”

you snort. “as opposed to being a big drinker?”

negan shrugs. “pick your poison i suppose.”

“do you smoke?”

“not since before this shitstorm all went down.” negan admits, resting a large hand on your thigh as you sit, legs long on top of him on the leather sofa.

“well, maybe you should have your goons bring up a half and some backwoods, and we can relax a little,” you burrow into him in an attempt to appeal to his physical motives.

he doesn’t pretend to be unaffected by you digging your ass into him and leaning back for a kiss. he halts you with a finger to your lips. “you really are a little pothead, aren’t you?”

“i hope it’s not obvious,” you retort, relaxing into him.

the leader takes the opportunity to slip his thumb into your mouth, pushing past your pillowy bottom lip. “i might be able to work something out. if you can ask nicely.”

a week ago, you would’ve spit in his face but now you’re more than ready to beg for a joint. tongue lolling around the pad of his thumb, he retracts the digit to let you open your mouth and put on your best sultry voice and ask negan, “negan, can you please have your men bring us some weed. i think it would really calm my nerves.” you quiver your lip for extra effect. “i’d do anything.”

negan is whistling before you can get another word out of your mouth, “baby, anything you want. whatever you want to get you settled in.” he promises against your ear.

suddenly, he’s cupping your face, giving you one of his signature overpowering - overwhelming kisses, leaning into your open mouth and then he’s up again and on his way out the door.

with a creak of a hinge you hear, “hey, dwight! ready for today’s mission?”

your cough has negan snickering at you. “what?” you sputter, smoke creeping from your mouth.

negan sat you down in the conversation pit of the common area after all his wives retired to their bedrooms. you didn’t get your own bedroom - yet, negan had threatened. a rolling tray with two pre-packed blunts and a shiny silver lighter sitting pretty, just waiting for the two of you to get straight into it.

“i thought you were a hardened stoner, sweetie, a little joint has you coughing already?” the man teases

rolling your eyes, you take another hit, not bothering to angle your exhale out of negan’s face.

a man of his word, negan had slapped dwight’s ass and sent him on a sanctuary wide search for something for you two to light up with. the sanctuary, being the cesspool it is, is rife with reefer and even some vanilla flavored tobacco rolls. you can’t fault negan for coming through, and you’re thankful he did as you indulge in another soft puff.

wanting to try something, you offer the blunt to negan.

he waves a hand at you. “not my thing, honey.”

you tilt your head with curiosity. “are you sure? i think you could benefit from a hit or two.” the raised joint remains in the air. “only if you want to, though.”

“fuck it. why not?”

and that’s how you lose over thirty minutes of your life caught up in studying negan’s face and fumbling through hazy conversation - at least on your part. a hand digs into the squishy blue leather of the seating beneath you. the unhinged part of you is placidly observing every inhale and exhale that the man offers for your viewing.

“wanna watch a movie?”

he’s breaking the new silence that’s developed since you melted into the couch, however. you also know what that’s code for but you’re nodding and following him out of the conversation pit and to the bedroom towards the entertainment center anyways.

the sanctuary is technically your prison but with every passing day, you grow more and more complacent. negan moving you in with him was supposed to be a temporary punishment - the price to pay for returning daryl to alexandria, the result of what happens when you fuck around and find out with negan. why would you risk even more punishment by running when he’s letting you order room service marijuana to his quarters. that’s some shit you weren’t doing everyday back in alexandria. the day will probably come soon enough that you’ll have to patch together a plan to ditch this place, but for now you’ll just build trust and your strength for when you eventually make your escape.

your high has you cozy on the couch and before you know it, you’re more than comfortable in negan’s lap.

“i think i like you baked, baby,” the man whispers between kisses into the skin besides your bra strap. the crisp white oversized button up you’d been wearing is conveniently strewn on the floor and out of negan’s way.

“let me make sure you don’t have cotton mouth down there.” negan’s fingers fall below your waistband. “mhmm, course’ not.” he doesn’t need to dip a finger into your messy entrance to see how soaked you are with how saturated the upper crotch of your panties are.

grinding yourself all over his lap, your self control is slipping faster than he’s undoing his belt.

“baby, i think you’re wetter than usual,” he remarks with a finger between your silken folds and the other hand finishing off his belt. you smirk until your face begins to blush with how his firm finger works you open, tag teaming with his thumb to torture you from the inside out.

the crimson creeping onto your face at the thought of him being between your legs routinely enough to notice a difference burns you. you don’t want to let it slip that smoking renders you wildly horny, so you just allow yourself to tilt your head back and let him do all the work.

your stresses are fading with each press of pleasure negan is inflicting on your clit anyways. it’s effortless to let the sheen sweat and the glowy, lightweight combination of marijuana and euphoria engulf you.

how sensitive you are scares you for a moment but the overwhelming pleasure is more than enough to have you jolting your hips and canting backwards into negan. fucking yourself on his fingers.

“fuck, next time i’m gonna have to make you look in my eyes for that next time.”

that earns him an eye roll. “you like seeing me all ditzed out?”

“i don’t want you any way else,” the salt and pepper haired bastard declares.

he wants you just like this: sprawled on top of him on the bedroom futon with a finger or two buried inside of you. the sounds you’re mewling are more than enough to have him rock hard against your ass and disregarding how truly loud you are. that is until he can’t move past your words.

“you already want my cock, darlin’?”

negan is grinning ear to ear from needy request against his ear. he’s more than happy to grant you your wish and flips you over onto the firm, scale-like leather.

“yes, negan,” you reply dreamily, fingers towing his short hair.

“you want it like this baby? you want me to fuck your high ass into the couch?”

is water wet? are you wet right now? is that even a question?

you nod like when he first asked if you wanted to get stoned. “yes, negan, please! you know you stretch me out sooo good.”

“do i?” a playful haze consumes his face.

“yes!” your breath hitches as he moves your hair out of your face to envelope your lips, biting your bottom lip before inviting his tongue inside your mouth. it’s then that you feel his massive cock poking at your slippery wet entrance.

precum coating his head, negan rests his dick against your hair covered mound, tucked against your clit in a manner that has you strategically gyrating your hips to access any sort of friction.

“i’m ready. you’re ready.” negan notes, toying his head up and down your slit. “wow, what they say about drying up and all that is bullshit.”

“c’mon, i thought - thought you were gonna fuck me.” you hum and direct your doe eyes at him.

mustering up the energy to bat your eyelashes at him has his cock lined up with your seeping hole and suddenly negan is nowhere near holding back.

the sanctuary’s leader grinds your gears but he also grinds his girthy cock against your clit so poignantly pestling pleasure just on the way in. the sensation of every detail, ridge, and texture of him cramming your taut walls has you breathing erratically into his shoulder.

“you’ve got this, honey.” he presses a purple kiss to your collarbone. “i know you can take this cock better than you think you can.”

negan is right but god, the stretch is still something you’re getting used to. thick and long, negan has a hard cock to take with an even more impossible personality to stomach. that cock fucks you nice and deep enough to at least temporary take your captivity off of your mind, so you don’t mind it. you actually yearn for it - in your core.

that heat that’d consumed you before returns and fluctuates and flickers with the older man’s vigorous pace. every snap and thrust has you clenching and digging crescent shaped marks into his skin.

little bursts of lightning snap inside of you as negan doesn’t spare you his fingers. resuming their pace on your clit as if you hadn’t just come on his fingers a minute or two earlier. you’re not ready to let go quite yet but you can already feel the pressure mounting as negan angles his hips to brush against every part of your interior anatomy. it’s like he’s fucking sightseeing - one of the locations being your cervix, already

“mhm,” you’re mumbling beneath him.

“god, i don’t think i’m ever gonna get tired of stuffing this pussy.”

“love when you stuff me.” you breathe. that weightless feeling starts in your core and without warning, you flutter around the thick cock inside of you, constricting and tightening as he bumps against that same spot he’d been stimulating on the way in with, now with his fingers meddling in an effort to push you over the edge.

“can’t wait to creampie you. fuck, it’s worth all the plan b.”

you’re too sex distracted to feign concerned. negan could come in you as many times as he wants - as long as he keeps up the mind bending rhythm that has you babbling and on the verge of forgetting your name.

“god, you got me so close already tonight, girl.” the man’s hips are already stuttering, so much that you’re swiveling into him.

“negan, negan,” the name leaves you lips as a cry.

“just like that, say it again,” he commands and fists a handful of your hair, forcing eye contact.

his eyes focused on your lust blown pupils, you offer him some more figure eights so he’s won’t be the only one who contributed to your soreness tomorrow. struggling with raspy, lust addled breaths, you moan, “come in me, negan.”

and that’s all the permission the sanctuary’s fearless leader needs to completely fill you up. your pussy maintains an unrelentless death grip on his cock at the same time. the needy vortex between your thighs sucks negan in.

a corresponding climax is washing over you, complimenting the warm come oozing from your freshly stretched little hole. god, the full body bliss you unlock once your core gives in numbs your bottom half. your face must be numb too because you’re smiling like an idiot.

wow, he really creampied you. the aforementioned promise of plan b placates you enough to shut up and accept your orgasm, happily accepting the kisses he scatters in his post-sex glow along your newly relaxed nipples and up your throat.

“damn, we’re gonna have to get stoned together more often, baby.” negan places another soft kiss on your forehead. “don’t think too hard while i’m gone, sweetie.”

with that, he’s paying your ass a squeeze as he shifts off the bed. you stay belly down despite the rustle of clothing and the door hinging open.

too tired to care what negan‘s up to, you tug down the large fleece blanket on top of the futon and bunch it around you. your brain is too fried to prioritize getting to bed right now. if negan is nice enough, he’ll move you to bed later like he did the other night after you fell asleep in his arms in the conversation pit.

you’re smirking when you hear negan greet dwight, who you can imagine is sitting in the common area, stopping in to do a quick tune up on negan’s in home arsenal.

“hey, dwight! you ready to roll some more magical blunts?”

[tallerthantale]

I think it's time to stop fixating on arguments with the active Good Omens fandom.

Yes, the efforts to keep Good Omens 3 that don't mention the allegations are immensely frustrating. But I don't think it's coming from people who disbelieve the allegations or don't care about them. I think it's coming from people who are taking it for granted that Good Omens 3 won't happen with Gaiman attached beyond IP holder. They think the only two possibilities are Gaiman removed as far as possible or outright cancellation. From their perspective it doesn't seem necessary to mention the allegations, they think Gaiman is already a full blown pariah who's career is in shambles.

That is not how these things work. The allegations still don't have widespread media attention, and he still has countless ongoing publishing deals. The bubbles we are in are very aware of the allegations, but those bubbles are largely made up of people who are terminally online. The wider world is still broadly unaware.

While I would prefer it if efforts to salvage Good Omens 3 consistently made their support explicitly contingent on Neil Gaiman's public sacking, I think there are more productive uses of time and energy then getting into flame wars about it. Overwhelmingly the Good Omens fandom is onboard with efforts to metaphorically launch Neil Gaiman into the sun. They are more allies than adversaries. Let them have spaces to keep talking about their blorbos, don't go into those spaces to accuse them of not believing the allegations or not caring about SA survivors.

Gaiman's ability to maintain wealth, power, and influence is far more connected to his public appearances and publishing deals than it is to a show's fandom that already wants him axed (but forgets that they still have to say that because they think it's obvious.) I don't like the organized 'stream the show more' efforts, but the IP residuals off of additional streamed views are typically very small compared to book sales.

If the goal is to take down Neil Gaiman's ability to use his career to access victims, the primary objective is shutting down public appearances. No convention appearances, no teaching workshops, no book signing events, no speaking engagements. I don't think those sorts of things are likely in the near future, as the current PR strategy looks like an attempt to lay low and avoid the Streisand effect. However, if things do start blowing over in the future, public appearances might start creeping back, and they can be met with in person protest.

The next objective IMO is no new TV / movie deals, no new publishing deals. The general public scandal will suppress new deals for a while, but it won't hold up if the story is only circulated in the fringes and then forgotten about. The methods of raising awareness need to focus on bringing the message to people who haven't heard about the allegations yet, and that's going to mean going real world about it. Leave stickers on power line poles, on bus stop shelters, on bookshop shelves, on shopping carts / trollies. Ask your local news media to cover the story.

The challenge target if those main objectives hold is cancelling current publishing deals. That won't just be about calling on publishers to drop Neil Gaiman, it will also be about calling on people to stop buying his work, so that the publishers have a capitalist justification for dropping him. Always remember, you are not appealing to their better nature, you are appealing to a spread sheet.

The target audience for the 'stop buying NG books and comic books' message is people who haven't heard about the allegations yet. It is not the terminally online wing of the Good Omens fandom, which is already in favor of not purchasing from him.

Current publishing deals are not an easy target. Boycotting efforts are notoriously difficult to organize effectively, and there are plenty of objectively terrible people widely known as such who still get published. Some thoughts I have on it are starting with foreign language publishers in regions where Gaiman isn't as commercially successful, or seeing if local book stores are open to not purchasing more of his books. Keep in mind though, as with any boycotting push, you are asking the most vulnerable people to make the biggest sacrifice. A locally owned small bookshop has the most to lose by not stocking a popular author. Stay kind and respectful.

Edit Note: A previous version of this mentioned a specific user. They have asked to be removed from the post.

[classicanalyzer]

Skeleton Crew - Very Interesting, As An Astrogation Problem

"The truth! The truth is, I'm just like you! Okay? I'm lost. I'm alone." Jod Na Nawood

Episode 3 continues to keep the momentum and peak quality of the premiere up!

We finally got to see KB's parents (I love that they're her moms), and it will be interesting to see why her moms put cybernetics (one of the functions is a life monitor, and apparently, she needs medical needs) in KB. I wonder if the cybernetics might be due to an accident or a birth defect. I love how KB stands in for people with disabilities. I hope we get to see more of Wendle's story and maybe even some backstory for him.

I love that KB got the most focus after the first two episodes didn't really go into her. I love the subtle insult about the chances Job isn't a Jedi given her knowledge of the Jedi is from the OR Era when the Jedi were much more numerous.

Similar to the Acolyte, I really appreciate the show for not trying to delay the obvious mysteries like making it clear Jod is Captain Silvo and how he's intending right now in the story at least to try to find the treasure on At Attin. Also that Battle Droid asking if they won totally gave me Jedi Survivor vibes with another Droid asking that same question haha.

I really love the visual effects, especially the owl alien Kh'ymm later on. The budget for Kh'kymm visual effects is on-par with the movies, and honestly this show has a lot more movie quality than Ahsoka.

Jod needs to respect droids and soon. SM-33 is always a gem and he has a good keen on Jod's untrusty nature. I'm glad we got to see how Jod is a genuine Force-user (Jude Law has already confirmed he is genuine about his Force-sensitive status). However, Jod might be old enough to have been around during the Clone Wars, which would make his prejudice against droids make sense.

I really love that Kh'ymm is an actual good being, and she thinks Jod kidnaps the kids when we know it's the opposite case. However, she is right that Jod does have ulterior motives. It's nice to see some genuinely nice beings in this galaxy. Also, her Observatory looks so amazing.

At Attin, one of the Jewels of the Old Republic is definitely from the actual Old Republic which makes me pretty excited. I thought we would need to wait until the MMO dies to see Old Republic content but I'm glad we're also starting to dip into the Era. I like the concept of hiding away certain worlds akin to time capsules unaffected by the outside galaxy. I'm going to guess those Jewels were destroyed by the Sith, the Nihil, the Clone Wars, and definitely the Empire. The more I think about it, At Attin and the Jewel world are the equivalent of a Fallout Vault. It makes me wonder if there's smth more malevolent to the world: What is At Attin's experiment lmao.

It's so weird in a good way to see the kids not know about what's going on since their isolation such as not knowing about how rough Coruscant got it post-war and Alderaan's destruction...God that's going to be awkward when the kids know what happened to Alderaan and the wars since their isolation. Can't wait for Wim to learn about Order 66.

My theory is whoever the Supervisor and the govt is that they have some access to the outside galaxy and they might've taken some things from what's going on to spin it into their own ideas (like Soh's Great Works to describe part of the Great Work of keeping the Barrier up).

I love and find it hilarious how KB and Fern end up turning Jod's idea of being partners and whether he works for them. Such a power move by those kids and I love to see it haha. While Jod didn't tell the kids the complete truth, I think he is telling the truth about him feeling lost and I hope we get to see his character development over the series (I'm a sucker for the heart of gold character growth, especially during this time where we need those feel good stories). I wonder if he really is a Jedi dropout or a former Padawan. I can't wait for Episode 7 to give us more on his character like Jude Law promised.

I hope Neel gets to be more independent over time, and this is hopefully the first step. God, I love how the Onyx Cinder looks after looking at the brick abomination of a "ship" that is the Trailblazer, haha. It also feels weird to see the kids firing on NR ships, but I like how the X-Wings pilots were worried about the kids. I also like how they were using ion shots since they weren't trying to destroy the ship but disable it. I hope we see more of Kh'ymm haha. I also think the ruined world in the trailers could be one of those destroyed Jewels of the Old Republic.

"He got us this far. But I don't trust him. Not really." KB

"What did he tell you? 'Trust your gut'? Use your head. Get the truth. And if you ever need help, you can call me anytime." Kh'ymm

[alexanderwales]

Movie Review: Upstream Color (2013)

I watched Primer when it came out on DVD. It's one of the few movies that, when I finished, I immediately watched a second time. I loved it. It was dense and opaque, and benefited greatly from a second watch, which made the whole thing slot together like a nice little puzzle. It was filmed on a razor-thin budget, with one of the main characters being a writer, director, producer, and editor. I immediately put Shane Carruth on my (then short) list of directors to watch.

So I've been meaning to watch Upstream Color, his second movie, for a full decade now. The reviews for it were never very good, and every Primer fan I knew of said that it was no Primer, and I guess I had other stuff going on for literally a dozen years. I keep a "to watch" movie list, which is usually 20-30 movies deep, and other stuff kept taking priority for one reason or another. I wanted to be in the right mood for it, that was definitely part of it. So I watch a movie every two or three days, something like 100 movies a year, and that means that since Upstream Color came out, I have watched more than a thousand movies instead of watching it.

Spoilers Follow

Let's start with the obvious: Upstream Color is no Primer.

I think that I could fit the story of Upstream Color into a single paragraph. It's not complicated. When we start any movie that my wife doesn't think she'll like, she goes to look up the synopsis and reviews and trivia and stuff, and she quoted me a review that said it was an "opaque mess", and ... I don't agree with that, but I can see where they're coming from.

Here's my plot synopsis:

A man (credited as "Thief") discovers some worms that can be used to induce a hypnotic state. He uses them to hypnotize a woman, Kris, and makes her give him her entire net worth while under hypnosis. When that's done, he leaves, and she writhes around under worm control until being summoned by some music by a different, unconnected man (credited as "Sampler"). The Sampler takes the worm out of her body, implants it into a pig, then releases her. She wakes up with no memory and her life is shattered. Later, she meets Jeff, who had the same thing happen to him, they fall in love, they have a psychic connection to these pigs, they gradually get more in touch with what happened to them, then they go kill the Sampler and rescue the psychic pigs.

I don't think that there's anything in there that anyone could be confused about. The movie spells everything out. There are one or two plot beats aside from that, but this is about it.

It's how the movie does this which is unusual. It's taking show, don't tell to its limits, almost never with dialogue that clarifies anything, and its scenes muddle into each other, with none of them feeling like they last more than a few seconds. There is essentially no grounding, even when it felt to me like there should be, and the movie doesn't ever really stop being a visual tone poem. I found this grating in the first five minutes, then got used to it, and eventually started to find it grating again. I guess my best point of comparison is Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, which I thought was more effective but also did grate on me a little bit.

When a moviemaker does something like this, particularly an auteur (or would-be arteur) like Shane Carruth, I always start by assuming that this is part of the point, that we're being fed the plot one way instead of another because it ties into whatever is going on thematically. And here ...

Where I thought it was most effective was the sequence when the baby pigs were being drowned, since we're almost required to have that whole thing be done with Kuleshov effect, cutting back and forth between the pigs and Kris and the pigs and Jeff. It's a nicely evocative little bit of cinema, even if I didn't think that it emotionally landed for me. Where it's less effective is when we really would have been better served by just having some straightforward exposition, or more standard filmmaking, but I guess if you're committing to the bit, you're really committing.

So what's the story about? What's the analogy, what's the theme?

Kris and Jeff are drawn together because of the psychic connection from the worms/pigs, but also (in my opinion) because they've both been victims of this horrible thing that's happened to them, their entire life having been torn down by some thief, then made to believe that they were somehow responsible. So they've got the psychic thing going on, yes, but they also have parallel traumas, and the same sort of gap in their lives. I think this what I'll call Thesis One, the shared bond of trauma.

Another major thing that struck me when watching the movie was that both our protagonists seem insane from the outside. They have this weird connection to each other that no one could understand (though they don't seem to have friends or family or anyone to talk to who could find it weird). They mix up their memories, and sometimes fight about that. They have bouts of irrationality, paranoia, anger, grief, with no explicable-to-them source. They feel like there's somewhere they're meant to be, but they try to follow that sense, and it leads them nowhere. To me, this immediately said "mental illness", so I'm going to call this Thesis Two, the terror of knowing that something isn't right with you, but having no idea what it is, having this internal feeling inside of you, patterns of behavior that make sense at the time. This movie is basically not shot like a horror movie in any way, and does not use the language of horror films, but I think it does share a lot thematically with the subgenre "mental illness horror" where the protagonist thinks they're crazy. That our two protagonists seem intensely codependent helps push that line.

Lastly, at least some of the movie is about personal identity and meaning, though I'm not sure that I would called that Thesis Three, mostly because I don't know what it's trying to say about personal identity. Clearly both Kris and Jeff are attempting to construct meaning in the wake of what's happened to them, and their identities bleed together with their overlapping memories, but this is just not fulfilled very much, and some of it is wrapped tightly in what I'd call the mental illness stuff.

Even if I'm reasonably confident in what literally happened in the film, and what it's about, there are a few things that don't really click for me.

In a normal film, I would expect that the sequence goes:

woman gets hypnotized and wormed

life is ruined

lots of strange thoughts and adventures with another man who is equally crazy

revelation that she's not crazy after all

revenge and catharsis

But in Upstream Color, the Thief and Sampler are implied to be operating entirely separate from each other. There's a little gap which can't entirely be closed through inference, but it's implied the Sampler incidentally pollutes the water with dead worm-pigs, the organism infects plants, those plants get (totally be coincidence?) taken up by exotic plant foragers, then bought by the Thief. So the Thief and Sampler apparently don't have any relationship with one another.

And yet, it's the Sampler, who removes the worms from people and puts them into pigs, that gets killed in the end. Yes, he was the one to kill the Kris-pig's piglets, but ... I don't really understand this narrative beat. Do they assume that he was the Thief? The Thief gets away with it, and all we see of him in the end is that he's sadly shaking his head because the magic worms are all gone.

I mean, yes, the Sampler is a creep who uses his psychic connection to peep on stranger's lives, and yes, most of these people (seem to be) victims of the Thief, and it's fucked up to not give them information or closure. But if the Sampler and Thief are unrelated, which seems likely to me, then it feels like the Sampler is taking bullets better meant for the Thief? Or is it just because he killed some piglets?

And what does that mean?

I am, moreover, confused about what the function of the Sampler is when compared to what the themes are. Does he tie in with the mental illness angle? No, not really. Does he tie in with shared bond of trauma? Only in that he's preventing people from getting closure, I guess. He's a voyeur, a failed artist, some of this ties to personal identity, but again, it doesn't feel like a strong thesis, it just feels kind of random, especially since we have virtually nothing to go on as far as the Sampler's motives or history. He seemed to me like he was mostly just an artist, with the sounds of nature as his primary art and the experiences of other people as his secondary "art".

I'm going to give my hot take on this movie now, which is that I would have liked it a lot better if it were more traditionally structured. The opening five or so minutes really made me think that I would have been better off leaving it on the to-watch list. The "piecing together the location of the Sampler and getting revenge" stuff was super rushed and kind of nonsensical, and offered no catharsis, only confusion.

Overall, I would say I didn't like the movie. I think it was trying too hard to be deep (for me this is a very high bar to clear), and didn't benefit from the experimental aspects, and would have been better if it at least had a stronger idea of what it was trying to say.

I will now go read some reviews, and maybe that will help something click for me. Hopefully I haven't missed anything major.

[betterbemeta]

I understand that everything about scale in The Transformers (any series, comic, movie, etc.) is bad.

I do. I really understand. I accept it. I have no choice to.

But it drives me insane.

A consistent sense of scale is what helps us understand objects in space. Including objects that are characters. We can understand how heavy they are, how tall they are, what spaces they can move through and which ones they can't, what their perspective is, and what a typical human perspective is of them.

This is actually the thing that makes the live action Transformers movies 'work'-- they aren't always consistent but because human characters and environments keep the same scale and establishing shots of most of the characters include that scale, all of the explosions and fights and "wow!" is relative to actual live-action human beings.

But when that isn't the case, the scale in transformers is often relative. Robots that are 'large' (Bulkhead, Lugnut & many other Decepticons, etc.) are scaled bigger than robots that are 'small' (cassettes/minicons, robots that are motorcycles, Bumblebee, etc.) and some robots that are 'important' are given a relative size that has to do with conflict that they face. The most obvious examples of that last one are Optimus Prime and Megatron, who are both often Large but may have different relative sizes as the key trait here is actually 'important'-- Optimus Prime is usually Large in relation to his team but never Large enough to win against Megatron without a Struggle to His Limits (or more heroic means like the power of teamwork etc.)

Relative scaling also applies to human characters who tend to be 'as small as giant robots make you feel.' Especially if they're a child. Which is... okay, but the whole point of Robots Being in Disguise is that they sampled a human environment with scale and are taking it with them. We SHOULD be able to assume their altmode, if it's an effective disguise, can also be a way to measure scale. But this isn't the case; TFA has a lot of weirdly sized buildings and almost all of TFP takes place in barren environments, or in Ships and Bases where the scale changes around surreptitiously.

Space robots don't have to be exactly the weight of whatever earth thing they transform into and sometimes that's totally impossible but who-is-more-massive is kind of important when your show has so many physical smackdowns. Relative mass can take us pretty far, but it can't take us all the way. Sir Isaac Newton IS the deadliest son of a bitch in space! Much more exciting confrontations can happen when we have a better understanding of what physics are possible even if we don't adhere to realism perfectly. Sort of like how drawing from life can make fantasy illustration more effective and imaginative.

And even outside of confrontation, if any characters want to interact with each other or their environment, we as an audience get SO much information based on their scale and sense of mass. Optimus Prime Has You In His Hand is more powerful if your mutual points of view are consistent. We can tell which robots can easily shake hands or hug, who can use a shipping container as a convenient thing to lean on vs a dumpster, how 'far away' stuff is for different characters, how much energy they have to use to cross a distance, and more.

Even Weird Stuff is better if we care a little bit more. In TFA, Blitzwing drops directly out of the sky if he transforms from a plane into a tank midair. We assume this is just because tanks can't fly, which IS funny. But what size of tank does he become? Is it a realistic size for a main battle tank in the modern day? Does he put on 52 tons when he changes from something the size of a F-15 Eagle to something more like an Abrams tank?? Instead of that being some kind of oversight or mass displacement thing what if we leaned into it and used this thinking to make even funnier jokes?

Many MANY mecha shows are very detailed about the specifications of their robots, which lines up with how people who are in to real life vehicles (and military technology...) obsess about the numbers. We don't need to go that far, but Vehicles and Technology are one of THE autistic things to care about and yes, I know, most of this material is 'for kids.' But who do you think is memorizing all of the Facts about Trains or Planes or Trucks out there? Why do kids care about vehicle robots, is it really just haha hot wheels vroom vroom or are some of them actually interested in what there is to like about real, non-imaginary giant metal constructs?

It drives me bonkers that the 'toy' aspect of Transformers where 'who cares, its toys' overtakes a lot of the things that help imagination play with toys in the media that's kind of the starter-imagination-play-scenario WITH the toys. Just a littttle bit more effort into consistency and leaning into showing it off would absolutely blow people's minds with what's now possible for action figures beyond vaguely bonking against each other.

[chaifootsteps]

I think there's an argument to be made in favor of showing the reality of what Angel deals with on the day to day, both on the gear he wears and the SA he faces from Val.

but these kinds of scenes can very easily be exploitative; used for cheap shock value & end up fetishizing that abuse by presenting it as titillating. it's long happened to female characters where the violence becomes an excuse to show them brutalized or with their clothes ripped off and given how often Angel is sexualized it can just as easily happen to him.

Addict managed to communicate a whole history of sexual abuse committed by Valentino with just a forced kiss and a hard cut to Angel having a breakdown in his room. The scene focused on Angel's emotional distress rather than the act itself, so it avoided objectifying him further and was still effective

this is part of a wider pattern already established by Helluva Boss, where abuse is treated in the least sensitive, most sledgehammer blunt and cartoony way possible.

going by HB, abusers are:

always obvious and easy to spot,

they're complete monsters devoid of any life or interests of their own,

they have no inner lives whatsoever because they only exist to hurt the victim (Stella stays around the house despite not liking Stolas, Crimson wants to force Moxxie into a gay marriage despite being homophobic - to the guy who put his son in prison in the first place!!) - they're inconsistent and unknowable,

they abuse their victim openly in front of others everyone goes along with and tacitly approves of it (Stella's friends happily laugh at her jokes disparaging a demon prince who could kill them all despite knowing he's in earshot)

they cannot be easily stopped even when they have far less power, either in magic or social standing, than the person they're abusing (Stolas and Stella, again)

they hang around long past when they should despite the cast having ample reason to proactively do something to stop them (everyone leaves Crimson alive despite killing all his minions, Stolas knows Stella has ordered a hit on him but probably still lets Octavia spend weekends with her??)

they are fundamentally Bad People. None of the 'good' characters can every be called out for being abusive, what they do is funny - because they are fundamentally Good People. It doesn't matter how many traits Stolas and Stella have in common, he is Good and she is Bad. It also doesn't matter that Stolas sexually coerced someone for a season and a half, neglected his daughter and abused his servants, and barely feels bad about his own infidelity. He is Good so anything he does can be excused. Same with Loona - beating people is bad, but it's OK for her to give her dad a black eye and beat his head in with a picture frame, because she's one of the Good Guys. Same with Blitzo demeaning Moxxie constantly in the workplace - it's funny when he calls Moxxie fat, it's abuse when Mammon does it to Fizz

Abusers are fundamentally Other from Us, and we never need to examine our own behaviors as long as we know we are fundamentally Good.

like how is any of this making the world a better place? or advancing the understanding of abuse? it's an embarassingly dated and in places actively harmful depiction of what abuse is or isn't (I don't even want to get into the bad takes I've seen surrounding Stol/tz and what coercion is or isn't, but you can probably add that to the list too)

if the Angel scenes are as brutal as they sound then the rating should be an 18. I don't entirely blame Viv for that, I know sometimes ratings boards have a weird habit of treating works that have LGBT content as somehow 'more adult' than movies with straight up rape and SA scenes in them (though HH is both, so idk how literal bondage gear didn't up the rating), but I hope against hope there's some kind of trigger warning for this somewhere, and it isn't just dropped on the viewer's lap in order to shock them further with the world's bluntest and most graphic animated scene of SA it can

This. All of this, every word.

[tiphprince]

hello 😞

um can you explain the reasons you like snape?

Hi!

Sure.

I can't in fact remember when I started liking Snape, it happened as I was growing up with the movies, though I do know that by the time Half-Blood Prince came out in 2009 he was already well established as my favorite character, as I had friends take photos of me near a cardboard cutout of him at the cinema (I was 13 at that time).

So, I can't pinpoint what is the one thing that made me like him. However, I know that I started really loving his character more deeply when I read the books right after seeing the HBP movie. I discovered just how different he was in the books, and how much better his character was.

To answer your question... I love everything about him, including his many flaws.

He's hilarious, he has some of the funniest lines in the series. His sarcasm made me laugh as a young teen, even and probably, specially because it was directed at teenagers of the same age I was.

He's mysterious, for 95% of the series we have no idea what he thinks, what he's doing and why he's doing it. We just know that something is going on, but we don't know what. It makes him intriguing and makes you want to know more.

He's brave, and selfless. He risks his life on a regular basis once Voldemort gets back, he agrees to mercy kill Dumbledore, effectively getting himself branded as the second most hated man in the country and even by people who at minimum respected him (colleagues he'd been working with for 15 years, people who saw him as a friend), and he expects nothing in return. He dies a gruesome and painful death, though thankfully not alone, knowing that everyone who'd ever liked him, that everyone in the whole world, despises his guts because he had to do what no one else could to save thousands of lives.

He's petty, and cruel. I won't teach anyone anything by saying that Snape is a bully as a teacher, and that he enjoys it. Yet, this is also one of the reasons I like him, because it creates an amazing juxtaposition with the previous point. He's a hero... and an asshole who makes children cry. He will do everything in his power and more to ensure that his students are alive and stay that way, but damn if he won't crush their spirit in the meantime as well.

He's skilled. He's a potions genius, who was rewritting recipes as a teen. He invented spells also as a teen, both being things that even Hermione never attempted to do. He thinks outside the box, and he's an excellent duelist, but he relies on his intelligence more than rough power and fighting prowess.

He's traumatised. Snape has one of the worst childhood/backstories of the books. He was abused as a child by his father, grew up watching him abuse his mother, he lived in such extreme poverty that the Weasleys would look like the royal family to him. Then he got to Hogwarts, and we can see how excited he is to finally go somewhere he won't be forced to hide who he is, to be somewhere he belongs... except he meets his future bullies on the train and reality catches up to him fast.

He's "relentlessly bullied" for the next 6 years ish, with no escape. And yes, teenage Snape was no saint, he was no angel, but no child deserves this kind of torment. Every single day we hear of teenagers killing themselves because of bullying. As an adult he shows obvious signs of trauma from what the Marauders did to him, and it's very sad to see.

I need to stop at one point because I don't think you were asking for a whole ass novel about Snape, but there's so so much more to say about him. I'll just link to @said-snape-softly's answer to a post recently that was asking roughly the same thing, where they explain why they love Snape and added a lot of great metas to help you or anyone else better understand his character.

[mumpsetc]

Genuinely Asking, (Not sarcastically! This ask comes across as bitchy unintentionally But Im genuinely asking) what do you think the themes of ii are. What the purpose of the story is. Im utterly confused by what you take from each episode. What You analyze and what you don't. Even more so how you think this obvious trick 'ending' Is good at all for the story theyre telling.

Because It feels as though you deeply misunderstand What ii is going for. What its supposed to be. Especially since you called the Relationships petty and useless? Or how you call s3 unimportant (I dont prefer s3 at all, i dislike it in fact. im a huge s1 fan. But to call it uninteresting Is confusing Now that we know what we know.)

So Im curious, What Do You think ii IS about. Why you think adam and justin and brian spent 13 years on this passion project. Because if it was for money, like you've said, why not animate for a Youtube Content farm. Why bother working on this and keeping a plot twist hidden since 2013. Why Would you go into the animation industry specifically siting II as inspiriation for it.

Not what YOU think ii should be about. You've talked about that plenty of times. What IS ii about. What Is the story trying to tell. What is the common Story beats between every single ii contestant, Civilian, and Host.

Now This is an Interesting Ask, and Thank You for Asking It I Enjoy Thinking About Stuff Like This. I Will Be Getting Personal in Response Because I Think This Ask Deserves as Much

To Address a Few Things Off the Bat: I Am a Very VERY Biased Source for a Multitude of Reasons. I Have Been Watching the Show For 8 Years and In That Time Have Picked Up a Lot of Personal and Fandom Related Baggage So I Have a Hard Time Looking at a Character Like Fan Without 8 Years of Feelings Towards Him. Also @ Your S3 Point, I've Actually Been Rewatching Recently to Properly Contextualize It in the Story as Well as View It as a Finished Product. I'm Only 3 Episodes Into That So I Can't Say Much on That Front Currently Other Than a Lot of My Older Opinions on It are Outdated and Also Made When I Was Very Very Angry Haha!

Finally on the General Disclaimers Thing, My Taste in Media is Really Weird in Part Because Inanimate Insanity. I Was Into ii From 13-15 and Then 17-Now. When I Got Back Into it at 17 I Made the Decision to Start Watching Movies and Reading More Books Because I Didn't Want to Limit Myself to ii and Stagnate in My Tastes. This Resulted in Me Seeing a Lot of Things Professionally Known as "Huge Fucking Bummers" and Generally Preferring Bittersweet or Unhappy Endings.

I Like the Fake Ending Because That's What I Typically Enjoy Across the Board. ii Having an Everyone Dies and Mephone Loses Everything End is What Appeals to Me and My Own Interpretation of the Series So I'm Happy. It Might Be Vapid and Emotionally Base But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I Think I'm Allowed As Much.

To Answer Your Actual Question Though, I Think The Themes of ii are

Existing in a Place Like ii is Damaging for Yourself and Others and Takes a Toll on Your Interpersonal Relationships

An Allegory for Being an Artist in General

There's a Few Others Floating Around Like "Forgiveness" and "What's Real on ii?" But These are the Two I Think are the Most Present and Effect Everything, and I Vastly Prefer the First Over the Second. I Think The First Encourages Interesting Character Dynamics and is At Play With Several of My Favorite Characters (Suitcase, Cabby, Apple, Marshmallow, Paintbrush). The Artist Thing Was Always There But I Just Never Really Cared for How They Executed It.

I Get What the Story Is Going For and Can Probably Atleast Make a Ballpark Swing at It's Ending. Its Steven Universe/Pixar Influences are Worn On Its Sleeve and I Get the Point I Do I Do I Do I Promise But I Just Don't Care for That Sort of Thing Anyways. Is That Unfair Towards ii? Yeah.

On Why I Think ABJ Made This? I Can't Say. I Try to Avoid Speculating on Them or Their Intentions Anymore Because I Think the OSC Treats the 3 of Them Very Strangely and I Don't Want to Be Involved With That. I Disagree With Your Sentiment That You Can't Milk a Passion Project for Money and I'll Leave It at That.

Finally, You Asked Why I Cite ii as an Artistic Inspiration Despite How Much I Dislike It. This is Funny Timing Actually, It's My Senior Year in College And We Had to Do an Assignment Breaking Down Why We Animate At All and I Did Talk About Inanimate Insanity for Mine (For 20 Minutes Too). It's a Show That Means a Lot to Me Because It Has Had an Immense Influence on the Direction My Life Has Taken. It's a Very Right Place Right Time Situation for Me and No Amount of Logic Can Override My Very Emotional Outlook on ii.

I've Been Such a Long Time Fan and I Got So Much Wrapped Up in This Goddamn Cartoon and That's Why I Talk About It, I Got a Lotta Thoughts After 8 Years. I Can Admit a Warped Perspective But This is a Casual Thing I Do for Fun, and I Trust Everyone Reading My Blog to Be Smart Enough to Come to Their Own Conclusions.

[thatfilthyanimal]

tw: stalking, grooming, pedophilia, sexual abuse, past suicidal thoughts

I've recently been made aware that Dupsy is still talking about me and is now going to random Megamind fans that don't know me and telling them to avoid me. I'm also aware that they're doing this in the Ruby Gillman fandom. I have no words to really describe the level of discomfort this brings me, but I will attempt.

First of all, all the "grooming" allegations were thoroughly debunked and proven to be bullshit. I can't believe I have to even say this. I'm a victim of grooming and sexual abuse myself. It's extremely traumatic and life-altering shit, and never something I would want to inflict on someone else. I feel like it should be obvious, with the measures I took in the server to ensure no child is exposed to such things. I was recently diagnosed with PTSD due to the shit that happened to me when I was growing up, and between processing that in therapy sessions and stomaching transitioning in a near-constant hostile-to-trans-people online social media hellscape, I am tired.

I love Megamind, more than anything, and this is known and obvious to anyone who's met me. This movie saved my life when I was extremely suicidal and planning to end my life back in 2010. Watching the movie when I did gave me something to focus on, a distraction, and a responsibility as a fandom member that helped distract me long enough to get out of the planning mindset I was in. Had I not seen the movie, I do not think I would have stuck around. I will leave it at that.

And moderating fandom spaces for Megamind has been lovely! I adore this fandom. The people in it are extremely talented and sweet, and just so damn nice, like by default. I say this all the time but I've never experienced another fandom space quite like it. There are usually bad eggs in fandoms, and perhaps -I- am said "bad egg" to some, but genuinely this one is special. I have always felt that way, even when the bad eggs show up and make a stink. It has always felt worth being here for, to me.

And while I hate to give Dupsy the satisfaction of knowing they hurt me, I need to be honest-- it's been rough. I stopped talking in my server, I locked up on most of my friends and stopped talking even in DMs. I still struggle with severe anxiety in the server and have talked to Dal on various occasions about transferring the server ownership to him. He's been very patient with my freakouts and super understanding, but it's still hard. This WAS a place I felt safe, for over ten years! And now it feels like any minor can just say I'm a groomer or a pedo or whatever with ZERO consequences, just because they're mad, just because these are words that make people go "oh shit" and listen, and man! It's not ok! And this coupled with the fact that trans people are often called groomers just for existing, just… man! I'm tired. I'm so tired.

There are real, severe, damaging effects to these claims being thrown around so casually. It's hurtful to me, as a victim of sexual abuse, because when I came forward to people about what happened when -I- was a minor, I was told I "wanted it" and "asked for it". It was made to be my fault that I was abused, and I internalized it for years. It nearly killed me. I cannot stress enough how important it is to not use claims like pedophilia and grooming so lightly-- these are VERY damning terms to use on people and should be reserved for people ACTUALLY HARMING OTHERS. Being mad I banned you from the server is not "abuse" and using my Customer Service Voice to be nice to you and then being obviously tired of you when you were banned is not "emotional grooming". What the actual fuck. ALSO. This was well over a year ago! Why am I still having to post about this? Why are you still TALKING about me? And yet again I ask, where the HELL are your parents?

Anyway, if you've been wondering why I've been so quiet these days and struggling to socialize… honestly? It's this. I hate that this is what did it. I know people trust and believe me, I know the fandom backs me up regularly and I appreciate them all so much for it. I see it, but I never know how to respond. You guys continue to make this fandom feel safe for me even when my entire brain is screaming to run, and I appreciate you so much for it.

Kids deserve to be trusted when they tell people they've been hurt and I hate that the recent proshipping discourse or whatever you want to call it, this culty all-or-nothing shit, has a bunch of minors growing up feeling like EVERYTHING is something to call rapey or predatory, with apparently little room to distinguish when REAL abuse is happening to them. I don't blame anyone for believing Dupsy, and it's honestly better they DO believe all unproven claims of abuse by default, just to stay safe-- but man, it has consequences that follow people, and really should not be a thing to just throw around because you're mad at someone. I just can't believe they're STILL going around and reaching out to strangers telling them to avoid me… like, what the fuck.

I will be ok, I always am eventually, but I needed to say something, because it's honestly been a while since I've said much of anything.

Keep being kind. <3

[wasted-women]

ROUND 1C, MATCH 3 OUT OF 8!

Causes of Death & Propaganda Under the Cut:

Tara Maclay

Cause of Death: Shot in crossfire

Propaganda:

Ok so idk if she actually counts but I'm submitting her and please throw her out if not. Here's why I think Tara was fridged: the sole purpose of her death was to further the plot and cause pain to other characters. Now, because it's Buffy, these other characters were women. So her death was only to cause pain to her girlfriend (ex-girlfriend? They were broken up but mending) Willow, cause her to relapse into magic, and then make her essentially the big bad of the season. All of this was then to cause Buffy, the protag, to have to fight her best friend and be told she needed to either stop her or kill her. So while Buffy and Willow are both women, Tara's death was solely to cause them pain as significant other and protagonist and to further the plot. (It's also bury your guys and Joss Whedon sooooo). Tara literally was killed sloppily for no other reason than as a plot device in a desperate "well we already killed our protag and brought her back to life, how do we raise the stakes from here" ploy necessitated by crappy writing. If she doesn't count, again please throw her out, but I feel like she counts as fridging esp when looking at how Joss Whedon rights Buffy in this season to essentially bc a self insert of man pain but as a woman.

this is the only lgbt example I can think of but it definitely counts imo. link to death scene here (scene starts a minute into the video, with obvious trigger warnings for death and blood and gunshots): https://youtu.be/01NxsKojYyM?si=dxZvcvOhp3x6S8ha

Stuffing a woman in the fridge is one thing, but stuffing a queer woman who was one half of a beloved same-sex couple on a TV show famous for its strong female characters for the sake of drama while enforcing negative LGBT+ stereotypes in the process is really something else.

Her girlfriend, Willow essentially plays the role of the man in the relationship. Tara dies to facilitate her villain arc. Xander is also sad about her death and he is a man.

Mako Mori

Cause of Death: Exploded in a helicopter

Propaganda:

The Mako Mori test has been proposed as a "better" version of the Bechdel Test (which I'm well aware of the bechdel tests point and common misuse) she has a full, rich arc that is not romance oriented in the first movie. Also she pilots a giant robot. In the second movie she's textbook definition fridged.

Daenerys Targareon

Cause of Death: Stabbed by her lover for becoming a tyrant

Propaganda:

I'm just. I can't believe she hasn't been submitted yet. Classic example of end game fridging, where she *had* to be killed by her male lover to bring him pain and Man Tears TM. Clearly it effects him (sad) more than her (dead). Now obv Dany had a whole plot prior to this, but her death itself is such a classic example of fridging that I have to submit her, it legit only happened for a stupid "plot" to bring Jon ManPain. It was a death so stupid that GOT, what once was a cultural touchstone, isn't talked about except in how bad the end was