#and they didnt seem like they had any budget issues

[babieken]

oh BY THE WAY (not that anyone cares but) just because i didn’t complain about the music video (love me a little) doesn’t mean i didn’t have any complaints.

for example. what happened to the girlies laying in the water with shownu????? i thought for SURE we were gonna get female dancers at SOME POINT. But they were literally NEVER SHOWN AGAIN. EVER.

[friedoats]

Okay so i finished NAtLA

Im gonna be talking about what i think could have been done better, my few nit picks where i was ready to throw my tv out the window, the stuff that made me go what the hell, and the 2 things that i felt like they did really well/better than og, and shit that had me laughing

And before i go any further if i were to sum up everything wrong with this the main and biggest issue with this remake is that there is a common theme of them making shit up that a, completely disregards the og world building. B, give us no reason for the deviance. And c, just putting in cheap plot devices or shit that doesnt do anything for the story.

With that aside for what it was i liked it. it was okay, it definitely met my expectation of being average and mediocre.

Could have been better

Episode run time/plot set up had a choppy flow. So all the episodes average out to about 50 minutes and we got 8 episodes this season, they obviously would have to merge or cut episodes no matter what. The flow was especially weird with ep 3&4 the ones scened in omashu, where they combined like 3 episodes from the original and just-was not put together well and they definitely could have paced the story better. I honestly think-in my personal opinion-it would have been better if they had split the 7 hours down to 20-25 minutes each episode. that would have given us about 17 episode rather than the 8 40-50 minutes that each episode was, i think it would have helped their pacing

Why the comit celebration with the air nomads? Like why are they celebrating that comit? Is it culturally significant to them, if anything it seems like something only the firenation would celebrate, what significance does the comit that strengthens firebenders that only omes by once every 100 years have to the airbender? In the og it was multiple sycronized attacks on each temple if im recalling corectly, but yeah comit festivle at the air nation just was a tad bit weird for me

For yue im just mad the didnt save their cgi budget to give us floaty ghost yue, we were deprived of spirit yue and i detest that, other than that i apreciate she had the option to not go through with the aranged marriage, they would have written her as a character better, it just felt, a lot more surface level than in the og.

Huh/it happened

Why'd they take aangs shirt off in the first ep? I know they did it to show us his sick tattoos but, bro is seriously in the southern water tribe please give him his shit back while he's passed the hell out

I have...opinions about them physically showing us the genocide of the airbenders because on one had, we didnt see that in the og and its and intresting exploration of what we knew but hadn't seen, on the other hand, genocide... idk if it was necessarily an okay thing to portray the way that they did, it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth (but thats kinda the point of it(genocide is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable it should feel wrong)) but yeah it was definitely a decision that they made.

I was ready to throw my phone

My only complaint about Suki is just the fact that they made her shy??? Like that felt so unnatural not having her talk to sokka for a whole 20 ass minutes (closer to five but it felt like 20) and not to mention the scene where shes teaching sokka i-i dont have words it was just horrible. it was so ooc for suki and i cant even think of a reason why they would do it, like, the audience doesnt gain anything from her not talking besides cringe 10,000 and it doesnt do anything for the plot whatsoever or narrative, someone was just like, "what if she didn't talk lol because outsiders are in her village and that water tribe guy is cute". The reason that sokka and suki worked was because she was just as if not more head strong than him, and she's really not the kind of person to have a crush at first sight. Just felt ick. Give me season one misogynistic, sexist sokka, let him have caracter development of getting his ass beat and his standards thrown back at him torn to shreds

Let sokka be problematic

I threw my phone

The only being able to talk to the previous Avatars via avatar statues makes no fucking sense and i have no clue what the hell possessed them to make them think it was a good idea to do that. First off how in the hell would they have figured it out (people in atla world)? There would have been a point at the beginning of the avatar cycle where mfs were not making statues of them, and then they did do it and some avatar was just like lemme meditate under this previous avatar and see what happens-it just agh. Second of all at some point avatar statues are going to be destroyed whether by time or intentionally at some point there will be avatars that will just never be reachable or wholly forgoten. It also just feels like a cheap plot device to get them to go places and we dont really gain anything from it.

Okay the spirit episode with hei bai, was just... a mess. And im chunking this all together, number one the fucking, ahhdhdhg, it makes me mad just thinking about it, the fact that katara and sokka got "pulled into" the spirit world with and was just bad. Bad storytelling. Bad writing. And they fucking knew it, and they knew that we would know that they were pulling shit out of their ass with it, they acknowledged that in the fucking show, they had sokka and katara say "hey how did we get in here with you" and aang just shrugs and says "idk" and it actually has me griping at my scalp and pulling my fucking hair out. that was first draft kinda stuff and the fact that it made it into the final fucking product has me raising my fucking fists to fight whoever made that decision. Numero dos why was yue there (yes i know that they gave an explanation but still why, it served no purpose it did nothing) number 3 sokka should not have a face aang should not have a face, koh the face stealer. he steals faces, specifically when people show emotion. Thats what makes him scary, not the memory bullshit whatever that was . It was just weak.

Kataras whole bending arc, nothing more needs to be said, actually basically her whole character in this.

Okay i really liked this

I really liked how they casted Azula. Spesifically that she looks her age, she looks young, because she is, even though shes definitely trying to be/apear older. And i like that they made her also just as much a victim of ozai's abuse as zuko(dont get me wrong love og but this is a good expansion of the narative for an adaptation) not to mention durring zukos agni kai shes not smiling, she looks conflicted, glad its not her, but thats her brother. and shes still is a genius in bending and her personality has been moulded to not be a target for ozai and vying for his aproval its obvious that she aware that ozai's wrath could also be turned onto her and had learned from zukos mistakes to not get the brunt of it. Just a good exploration of azula over all

Appa looks so cute! They did my boy good and Momo! Adorable truely 10/10 except the part where they nearly fucking killed him, that was unnecessary and he shoud have a part of the moon or ocean spirit in him like yue canonically speaking but ig.

Other coments

Half the budget was spent on wigs lol i have nothing more to say on this

I think we could have stood to have a bit more mention of sokkas Insticts

That was just a whole ass regular kayak at the end and it had me on rolling on the fucking floor

I felt like i was reading a fan fic written buy a child that doesnt actually like the source material and only read the spark notes

Side note

I didnt add a lot of stuff that i originally was going to bc its kinda obvious and were things that i felt like i couldn't add anything to

[svankmajerbaby]

not to keep sinking into a monster high shaped hole or to bring that wednesday series topic again but yknow since i had to see dull memes about the avatar sequel stuff guess this is my revenge

anyway. millar and gough who are the actual showrunners of the netflix wednesday show, not tim burton, and who wrote and produced the series, also produced and wrote the monster high movie so many people were pissed off by at first and slowly, i think? they came around to. and i find this interesting bc these are two franchises/properties which i see a lot of similarities between but that in the end i feel like should be treated as different things bc of their respective tone and general audience.

monster high in general is meant for younger kids especially now that it has softened its image to relatable instead of aspirational, which to me is fascinating from a marketing toy line perspective. the addams family was alwys meant as skewing older. i really assumed that the series would be about riverdale/teen wolf/supernatural level horror/suspense/adult content, and having a meaner edge and really much darker humor. in the end bc of the need to have stakes in the netflix series a lot of the humor was softened in a way that it doesnt really appeal to me/becomes a character quirk of wednesday instead of something that its normal inside this universe, the sort of casual cruelty and cartoon logic of the 90s comedy movies cant apply when you also have to be worried about characters dying tragic deaths and there are harry potter-esque mysteries and drama going on. that change in tone to me was what really killed it, it took away what made the addams interesting and left it at a level in which it was purely aesthetic surface. im not saying its completely unenjoyable, after all it has millions of fans who seem to vibe with it. im just saying that it doesnt really carry the spirit or the tone of the 90s movies, or even the 60s tv series, which was more focused on comedy overall and was much better at it.

with monster high the movie though, i think the gothic magical high school mystery works much better since it already has a few animated movies that have that sort of tone. the franchise itself works with issues of adolescence and therefore identity, self-acceptance and friendship (issues that the wednesday series wants to give to the protagonist, to varying degrees of success). and i find it really interesting that ive seen so many posts that say something like "oh the outfits are so bad, the fashions all wrong, why didnt they get actual cosplayers", etc. i dont expect everyone to know this but tv movie budgets, especially channels like nickelodeon or disney channel or the like, are pretty small even compared to streaming movie budgets. they usually recycle sets and costumes from other series by the same production company/costume company in the area, and between preproduction and shooting there is barely any time or budget for customized pieces. this isnt an excuse as much as reasoning. and apart from that there is also the nature of the new generation which is more focused on relatability and being appealing to a wider demographic than the first generation, which was more aimed at shocking and calling attention to itself. in that sense im kinda happy with what they went with, the clothes looks kinda cheap but it also looks like what kids in the 14-15 year range would believably wear to look cool and that remains accessible while also being fashionably easy to identify and distinguish themselves and their tastes. the actors are all Very Much covered in makeup and wigs but there is a difference in the styling of the generation 1 dolls/fanart/restylings that make them look much much older, and that would probably spark more controversy that mattel might not be super keen on rn. so unless they literally went the riverdale route of hiring actors in their mid to late twenties to portray fourteen year olds, dress them in miniskirts and risk losing that 8 to 11 year old audience to upset parents, what we ended up with is next to the best we could have hoped for.

apart from that, what im most curious about is how they will touch upon the issue of the two worlds in conflict, monsters and humans. the wednesday series didnt quite work it out in a way im satisfied with, partly bc of burtons and burton properties' own difficulty applying crítical thought to the very concept of "outcast" and marginalization, and partly bc of a tendency of wanting to apply allegories and analogies to these matters. you want to create meaningful comparisons to real feelings of alienation to emotionally appeal to the audience. but also you as a writer have no real experience reading about real actual marginalized identities and just have a general idea that things were bad and people are angry and people protest about it and also that the Teens™ are complaining in social media using new terms you can stick in the mouths of your characters. in that sense monster high's aim at the younger audience saves them from embarrassing themselves too much, which i cant say the same for wednesday (or the winx netflix series, and a bunch of other teen-aimed media, for that matter). so what remains for the monster high franchise is to figure out how to properly handle something like the idea of the two worlds of humans and monsters needing to find some common ground (something i think its really cool in the way it could be sparked by clawdeens new status as a werewolf being half human half wolf), though its the sort of thing that the writers of future iterations should be careful about and really just not be afraid to shake things up a bit and defy their own narrative status quo. like not be scared to have characters like claire the goth girl from that one animated movie, or the jekyll/hyde kid that was also technically half "normie", to explore further aspects to the idea of identity and marginalization that have a much more appropriate home in something like monster high.

[jurassicsunsets]

sauropod emojis, as rated by a palaeontology student

apple:

not a bad start here overall! this is recognisably intended as a brachiosaurid, and the skull shape and overall profile are pretty good (though they look a bit juvenile-ish). points off, though, for the inaccurate hands - rather than elephantine columns, they were more shaped like lima beans in cross-section. yes, really. they also only had one claw per hand (it was on the thumb). also points off for having the external fleshy nostril located on the dome of the skull; while this is the position of the bony external nostril, there is evidence that the fleshy nostril was probably located at the tip of the snout. its dead eye haunts me

score: 7/10 solid attempt

google:

google clearly went for a cartoonier approach, and to my view it served them well. still recognisably a brachiosaur - the shape of the skull and overall proportions make it resemble Europasaurus, a type of dwarf sauropod that lived on an island in what is now eastern europe. which immediately ups its score in my book. however, it falls victim to the same issues with elephantine hands as did the apple one, and as such i can’t give it a perfect score.

score: 9/10 friendly!

microsoft:

this emoji cleverly avoids any scientific inaccuracies by being extremely cartoony. i like the use of single colours rather than gradients. a little too simple for my tastes though. i can’t tell what find of sauropod, if any, it was intended to be - a brachiosaur, because of the upright neck? a mamenchisaur, maybe? i have little to work with.

score: 6/10 just too vague

samsung:

i don’t like her at all. clearly a brachiosaur - sensing a common theme - but something about it is just unpleasant to me. the body seems too fat, the limbs too short, the tail too noodly, the head too pointy. also messes up the hands again.

score: 3/10. please leave.

whatsapp:

at last, an emoji that bucks the brachiosaur trend!! this is clearly not a brachiosaur. in fact, it looks like a possible Cetiosaurus-type deal. whatever it is, it’s charming. the nostrils are at the end of the snout as they should be and - is it? - can it be? - it is! the hands are anatomically correct! each clearly has one claw, located on the thumb, and though we can’t see well, they don’t appear to be elephantine. i love them a lot.

score: 10/10 only shooting stars break the mold - oh god im so sorry i shouldve phrased that differently--

twitter:

a classic. what it lacks in detail it makes up in simplicity. it has pleasant lines and an appealing silhouette. it’s extremely vague and not based off of any real genus, and the tail is far too short, but for some reason this doesn’t bother me too much. 

score: 8/10. exquisite

facebook:

hm. hmm. a lot of anatomical though was clearly put into this; overall the body form looks like a plausible sauropod. the proportions look a little weird, sure, but that seems to be perspective - after all, most sauropods were gigantic beings. beefy boys, if you will. its nostrils, upon close inspection, are correctly placed; however, its hands and feet are all messed up. i guess the real conundrum for me is that it seems to be a mish-mash of sauropods - remove the braciosaur-like domed skull, and it would be a great fit for an Apatosaurus. 

score: 8/10 i’m conflicted

joypixels

what in the hell is joypixels? and what in the hell is this? i just...the hands and feet are plantigrade, meaning that the ankles touch the ground, when actual sauropods were digitigrade - walking on their toes. the shoulder and hip muscles aren’t there, and instead the limbs are just awkwardly connected to the body. it reminds me of a turtle, and not in a good way.

score: 4/10. uninspired and dull

openmoji:

they didnt try. nor will i.

score: 0/10 make an effort

emojidex

every emojidex emoji i have ever seen has just been awful. this is no different. this looks like a stereotypical loser from a meme, but as a dinosaur. the contrast between the decently moderate level of artistic detail put in and the blatant disinterest towards making it look like an animal is staggering. just awful.

score: -3/10 i just cant care enough about it to rate it lower

emojipedia:

excuse me? what the fuck? what the fuck is this? this is the main character from the low-budget ripoff of the good dinosaur. the head looks like a Corythosaurus  and the body looks like barney in leapfrog stance. the gradients just make me feel a little sick. it’s awful. look at the hindlimbs and tell me that any love was put into drawing this. it’s like how a dinosaur would be drawn on tom and jerry but like, the bad charmless ones made in the 90s that were trying hard to emulate the originals. the hands look like green snowboots.

score: -500/10 i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you 

[quitealotofsodapop]

MvA assorted headcanons

General:

So many years together has made the core monsters inseperable. If something affects one member, it affects the group.

All. The. Monsters. Are. Family.

It takes Susan a while to understand inside jokes and past incidents because of being the most recent addition.

There are Other anomalous creatures kept in Area 5X, but they are either non-sentient and/or are too dangerous to be kept around the more human-friendly monster group.

Area 5X is so gotdang big because they were expecting a lot more kaijus like Insecto to crop up. Sadly not many have surfaced to justify the space.

There’s a hangar in Area 5X full of wrecked UFOs. Some are spacecraft wreckage while others are stuff like weird meteors (Susan’s is in there), and at least one alien creature that got crystallised upon entering Earth’s atmosphere.

There’s significant difference in staff employed at different points throughout the past 50 years. There are far more women on the Area 5X worksheet than back in the 50s, and the guards are generally more sympathetic towards the monsters. Many modern staff members have been reprimanded or let go for failing to uphold secrecy, or for unnecessary cruelty towards the monsters.

Budget cuts were a legitmate concern up until the Battle of Golden Gate Bridge. The facility was far more barebones and sterile before the government had to formally recognise Area 5X’s importance. There have been a lot of redecorating at the facilty since the fat checks started coming in.

Putting individual characters under read due to length.

Susan:

Enjoys many hobbies considered stereotypically feminine; baking, sewing, cosmetics, etc...

Grandparents and extended family are farmers or are atleast connected to the business. Modesto is the agricultural centre of California after all. Her parents were the first of their generation to go against the mold and seek out white-collar careers.

Studied cosmetology in school and was working at a beauty salon to save up for her and Derek’s wedding.

Is very athletic and grew up doing a number of physical extracurriculars like cheerleading, dodgeball, and roller-derby.

Grew up being teased for being the shortest kid in her class/family. They still tease her for it.

Greatly fears causing collateral damage and/or harm to others through her size.

Has issues with anxiety, worsened only by her new job as “savior of earth”. She wishes for a confidant to tell her worries to.

Married life with Derek was doomed to fail. Susan had a plan in place for what came after the marriage, and focusing 100% on Derek’s career was not it. There’s also the line from Derek’s mother about Susan being “the weatherman’s wife”, implying that she was to be the homemaker and not have a career of her own. It’s possible that Susan was planning to settle down and have kids with Derek, but the lack of control she had in moving to Fresno implied that more was going on.

Is currently “taking a break” from love and dating, despite gaining many new admirers.

Tries her best to return to Modesto to visit her family and friends whenever possible, though work often keeps her away for weeks at a time.

If she retains her height-shifting abilities as in the series; Susan goes through really bad “growing” pains.

Link:

Was frozen in his relative late-teens during a cold snap. Got shifted around until he ended up somewhere in Greenland before being discovered by modern humans. Post-thaw he went a bit wild, swimming frantically back south to try and find his old enviroment.

Was one of many scrappy youngsters in his troop, with a number of adoptive parents. The strongest ruled the troop, and Link was fairly weak in comparision to the leaders. He had gotten into a fight the day of his freezing (over something silly in hindsight) and swam away to sulk. When he didn’t return after the cold snap - the troop accepted that he had likely died out on his own.

Likes to freak out humans by making up weird biology facts about his species and ones he’s fought against - like joking about laying eggs or having his tail dettach and regrow like a lizard. However there’s some things he has to ask about, because he doesn’t have medical knowledge or words to describe something.

A lot of his macho behavior came from imitating the guards who kept watch on him. 1950s violent military alpha males aren't a very good role model for someone who doesnt know what societal norms are yet. Link was a lot more insufferable back in the day but chilled out as he began interacting with other walks of life.

Has a high paternal instinct and immediately becomes softer around kids and smaller animals.

Has body language similar to a cat/alligator. Slaps his tail when angry or in deep thought. And yes; Link purrs/rumbles when happy.

Loves monster movies - especially the ones where the monsters “win”. He cried when he saw “Beauty and the Beast” and then immediately booed loudly when the Beast turned human.

Does Not Trust doctors or scientists due to bad past experiences. Will only go to Dr Cockroach and Monger if he ever gets hurt/ill. Gets stressed fast if he has to be in a waiting room or doctors office.

Link had no idea what gender indentities or orientations were until recently - he did come from a pre-human civilization that really didnt mind/care about the schemantics. It took him some time to wrap his head around it. He identifies himself as bisexual after much thought and many hours alone on the computer.

Don't press him about his body. He's built different from humans and cis people. He will punch anyone who doesnt respect his or anyone elses identity.

Has been in love before. It didn’t end well.

Will occasionally wear clothes, but finds it a challenge to find anything that fits him. Will give any shoes he finds to Dr Cockroach and BOB to eat.

The best driver/pilot out of all the monsters.

Dr Cockroach:

True name is Jaques-Yves Herbert. Prefers to just go by "Dr Cockroach" because he dislikes the association with his birth family.

Picks up human languages very easily, although not as quickly as he can understand animals.

Parents were a mixed scientist couple. His father was an aggressive “Strong British Man” that would beat him son down for not following orders or for not meeting his standards for a man. Dr C turned down both chances to attend his parents funerals.

This man isn’t straight. He probably uses old-fashioned slang when asked about romance such as; “I am Uranian” or “I wear a green carnation”. It took Susan a few times to realise what he meant, as she is used to a more open minded enviroment.

Got the idea of transforming into a cockroach from reading Franz Kafkas “The Metamorphosis” as a child. He sympathized with Gregor’s abusive situation, and began considering the possibilties of how one could survive better as a creature like a cockroach.

Studied in biology and entomology in the Uk before moving to the states to follow engineering. Obtained his degree in Dance as a “side gig” in University.

Has been barred from free access to the coffee maker/machine due to overnighters. Once stayed awake so long that he forgot the letter “R”.

Owned a terrarium of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches throughout college. He mourned each of them when his roommate’s iguana got into the tank.

Was a "beatnik" back in the day and still kinda is. Embraces and encourages modern counterculture as he himself was not given such acceptance in his youth. He has however shamefully eaten his old Lenny Bruce album.

Hasn’t actually aged physically since his transformation. He attributes this to the fact that certain athropods can’t age physically beyond maturity. Link is very jealous.

Has obtained more degrees while in captivity, as Monger allowed him access to research and learning materials. He has however had his allowances revoked for previous escape attempts/doomsday devices.

Does still enjoy human food, but the cockroach instinct of "eat detritus" tends to overrule his eating choices. Can’t cook either.

Ironically a terrible driver. The damages from previous drives has made Monger restrict him from operating even a razor scooter.

BOB:

Pretty much considers himself human. Was created by them, raised by one (Monger), and talks like one. Gets sad when he's reminded that no other humans are blue blobs like him.

Absorbed some dna from the scientists present at his "birth", leading to his eye, speech, and omnivorous diet.

Doesnt actually need to breathe (as he can just absorb oxygen through his mass) but the fact that humans Do means that BOB thinks he has to as well.

Shares some physical characteristics with tomatoes/nightshade plants, as he is technically half tomato. He refuses to eat tomatos for this very reason, considering it cannibalism.

Attracts garden pests looking for a tomato plant. This unwittingly makes BOB a pretty good bug zapper.

Still retains his "mental broadcast" ability from "BOB's Big Break" although at a more subtle level. He tends to parrot the things he accidentally "eavesdropped" on.

Is empathetic, and can tell when others aren't doing ok emotionally. Will flop down on someone who’s really sad to comfort them. No brain, only heart.

Best cook out of the monsters. If he doesn’t forget what he’s making at least.

"Whats a gender? Can I eat it?"

Insectosaurus:

Core body is that of a Japanese Silkmoth, although she ended up being spliced with other animals present on the island during her initial mutation; namely ants and ground squirrels.

Eats over a literal ton of mulberry leaves per day. Also enjoys oranges.

Secretly wishes to be more humanoid.

Was only able to pupate and transform due to physical trauma. It seems that her transformation was like a “power-up” that required her to be in geniune distress for it to activate.

First language is Japanese. She learned it from the intial recovery team, and later developed an understanding of English from years in Area 5X.

Goes into torpor in cold weather. Pretty much impossible to wake her up for missions during Winter, as she needs to “rev up” before becoming mobile.

Still very much Link’s best friend. Still enjoys sports, chicks, and beer.

Monger:

Full name is; Warren Rex Monger.

Is very protective of the monsters and will defend them to the death.

Pretty much raised BOB (as seen when BOB was a baby blob in “Night of the Living Carrots”), and considers him his “freaky gelatinous son”.

Has a reputation of being a “control-freak” due to his aggressive overseeing of the monsters’ containment. This toughness is partly because of incidents that occured without his knowledge. Lets just say some scientists have been wedgied/fired for running experiments on the monsters without Monger’s approval.

Has a very “Ron Swanson” emotional response and view of the world. Crying is acceptable only at funerals and at the Grand Canyon (if he hadn’t lost his tear ducts in the war).

Has been married multiple times. Will not confirm or deny if he is currently seeing anyone.

Invisible Man/TiM:

Legit got out but no one at Area 5X is sure how. He suffered a geniune medical emergency and disappeared after surgery. The other monsters were informed that he died from complications to deter them from getting escape ideas.

Is able to be detected in Infrared light. Dr Cockroach managed to rig up goggles to view TiM in case of injury and to foil pranks.

Was a scientist working on an invisibility potion for the military and used himself as a guinea pig. Hasn’t actually been able to replicate his results since - thinks the effect may have been caused by a genetic abnormality.

Dr Cockroach and him are massive rivals. Both actually met eachother pre-transformation through a CalTech expedition. This makes the pair one of few people that have seen the others human face.

Is 100% naked. Was forced to wear clothing once this was discovered.

A massive prankster and a cynic. Him and Link were a force to be reckoned with.

Has revisted the facility multiple times and has started a number of ghost stories.

Any additions are welcome! I proably have alot more to dump about. Might make one of the alien characters from the series

[xenosagaepisodeone]

ok 3.0+1.0 longpost -_-

it’s difficult for me to describe how I feel about 3.0+1.0 as a film because it’s artistic vision is just a 25 year cultivated response to the otaku fixation on nge. this film hardly feels like it can stand on it’s own feet as a coherent story -- it’s constantly introducing and reinterpreting symbols, contexts and concepts in order to lay down some kind of grounded world while also wanting to be evocative of the freeform flow of feelings occurring in EoE/Ep25/26. if this movie was it’s own thing and just living in the shadow of it’s predecessor, I could probably live with it and maybe even say that I liked it, but it’s flip flopping on if it wants the metanarrative to drive the story or if it wants to erect a new mythology of Eva altogether completely squanders maximizing the potential of doing either. what were left with is a very cowardly iteration of the message at the end of nge -- “human connections are important, even if they can be painful” becomes “ if we show you what you wanted to see for the past nearly 30 years, will you grow up now?”

"Defeated" feels like how I would describe the ethos of this film.

reiQ’s farmer adventures were cute, but in a way that felt bittersweet- because this character is not actually rei. not simply because she is not ayanami, but because she carries no actual development from her previous iterations like the other characters of rebuild. reiQ answers the question of “what if rei was actually as moe as she looks in official art” but forgets to pull the rug out from beneath you to unveil the depths of her turmoil. while Ayanami would say “I am not your doll to control”, reiQ has almost every aspect of her character dictated to her by other people - and this is depicted as fulfilling and human (because Anno wants you to get a job and have kids). not even her name is her choice. her sudden death only exists to serve as a motivator for shinji. I wanted to believe that this was some commentary on how a relationship without pain and loss cant exist, but it seems unlikely as rei (1, 2, 3, Q, Ayanami, lilith, etc) does not have an arc in this film. also the TV production quality of the village segment made it feel like I was watching a 12 episode sol as opposed to an actual film.

funnily enough, my feeling towards reiQ made me feel retroactive distaste towards 1.0 and 2.22. I’ve never thought rebuild was good, that much has never been a secret. 1.0 and 2.22 however carried enough over from the original series that it felt like the original characters were picking themselves up and getting better. I was happy seeing asuka, who had previously spent 26 episodes and a movie being miserable, open herself up to happiness. I was happy seeing rei connect more with shinji. even if the characters had to become simplified versions of themselves to find their own peace, it didnt feel thatbad. I didn’t realize until 3.0 came out how little this tetralogy had to it beyond puppeteering iconography and hoping that fans find meaning in it. 3.0 and 3.0+1.0 carried the same conviction of 1.0 and 2.22 of showing you characters you like doing things you wished they did, but with the support of the original series environment withering away to unveil half baked ideas, convoluted plots and meaningless regurgitation of every meaningful image this series has produced. seeing rei stripped even farther than her bare bones as reiQ put into focus what I thought I appreciated about 1.0 and 2.22.

there were a few times throughout this movie where I was trying to figure out what it was that anno was trying to say. as stated in my op paragraph, the film does carry it’s own simplified message about how important it is to grow up and face the real world, but this message largely betrays the framing. its cowardly. the pain that shinji experience does not come from the Other anymore, it is all self inflicted. learning to endure hardship simply became a matter of overcoming your own feelings, because now everyone else in your life effortlessly accepts you. there are 3 girls with who dont have any problems anymore and a solarpunk empire that would be all over you if you simply stood on your own two feet. there is no asuka experiencing hedgehog dilemma with shinji, there’s only asuka who exists so shinji can learn how to confess to a girl. there is no misato constantly subjecting shinji to a interplay of projecting her issues onto him and attempting to mother him (with varying degrees of success), there’s just shinjis step mom who accepts that she is responsible for him (which feels GREAT to see but feels bad when you think about what it sacrificed to get there). for a guy whose complicated relationship with otaku culture has bled into his work, you would think that idealistic fantasy of the real world wouldnt be the crutch of the delivering his message. when I say that “defeated” is the ethos of this film, I mean that it is so lacking in purpose compared to its predecessors that it wears itself thin trying to superficially have something for every conceivable audience while throwing out the meat of why people liked those things in the first point.

I was surprised to see that it was gendo who survived as the most introspective part of the film. i’m conflicted towards how I feel about a gendo redemption arc, but I feel as if his instrumentality sequence itself was decently shot (I hate having to compare it to ep 25/26 but it lacks the artistic flare for such a big budget film) and very well articulated. there’s a beautiful story in here about realizing your parents are people and parents realizing the responsibility they owe to their children, but I wish it could have been explored in a different film where characters are less held back by their established canon. honestly watching this whole sequence made me wonder if anno is still friendly with goro miyazaki LMAO

I was largely uninterested in the fight scenes, I think the only one that genuinely made me feel something was the one towards the end where asuka turns into an angel. the poor fight choreography coupled with weird shot composition and the overbearing usage of cg makes fight sequences overbearing and kind of difficult to decipher. cg fights are largely 1 eva vs a swarm of enemies that take up the screen, all of them having the same line weight which just ends up making all parties involved look like a mesh of colors. there arent real stakes for the most part either, asuka and mari tear through waves of enemies with effortless precision accuracy in a way that isnt visually or technically impressive.

believe it or not, I don’t actually dislike Mari. Mari enacts what Anno sought to do with the Rebuilds -- to destroy Evangelion. Mari (literally!) falls out of the sky into the story and is not gripped by the pain of the hedgehog’s dilemma as she exhibits her adoration for most things. her romance with shinji is intentionally analogous to how anno perceives his relationship with his wife -- that she saved him by encouraging him to live in the real world. the actual, textual ridiculousness in her character is softened when you realize that she’s just another component of his 4 movie long exhibition of telling everyone his life is better now that he’s successful and has a hot and talented wife.

is it worth complaining about all the crotch or ass shots. i think we all feel the same way about it. anyway i have more thoughts but these are my loose ones.

[anyonghalimaw]

house of the dead remake thoughts

THEY DIDNT FIX ANY OF THE TYPOS FROM THE SWITCH VERSION LMFAOO like obviously that wasnt make or break for me but MAN LOL it was an Experience seeing “anty-aliasing” and “happend” like come on man did you guys not have the budget to turn on spell checker in google docs

sound design and foley is absolutely delicious. its got proper effects for each environment (reverb for large areas, there was some gunshot echo even) and u can FEEL the impact of each bullet. i noticed it had proper ricochet foley for every material too (it sounds different if u hit metal vs rock etc) even the footsteps have proper foley for whatever ur stepping on and ofc the gore sound effects were fuckign great they sound really juicy

gun gameplay is fucking fantastic with a mouse n keyboard i dont have a switch coz im fucking poor but it seems like such a better experience than the dogshit gyro controls everyone was struggling with on the switch version. outside of an actual lightgun a mouse is the best option to play games like this so who fucking knows why they released it on the switch before the pc. THE AUTO RELOAD FEATURE IS ALSO SUCH A LIFESAVER

THE GORE. i loveeee taking chunks out of these fucking things just blowing their heads off seeing their entrails spill when you blast their torso watching their fucking arms fall off n whatever its fucking great. i love that you can keep unloading your mag into them even after they fall down its so fun

new ost is obviously nothing compared to the original but ofc i dont blame the music team for this they tried their best to capture the spirit of the original even with the legal hurdles they had. im gonna install one of the mods to replace it with the original soundtrack and see how it changes the experience

THE LIGHTING IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE SWITCH VERSION. its way more atmospheric and honestly captures the kinda gothic feel a lot? the lighting on both hangedman fights is especially delicious

the issue from the switch version where the textures were garbage and everything looked like it was covered in petroleum jelly is mostly fixed i believe? i cld see the fabric texture on rogans jacket really nicely after magicians fight

MAGICIANS FIGHT TAKES TOO FUCKING LONG. I HAVE BORDERLINE CARPAL TUNNEL AFTER FINISHING THAT SHIT. hes way easier to hit than in the first 2 games but i feel like that takes away the fun of it :( the death animation on him is fucking great tho it really looks like the fire inside of him is like bursting out that shit was so much better than what they did in all the other games

a lot of enemies in general take way more bullets to kill than their counterparts from the original game which is kinda bullshiet. and sometimes they keep attacking you even when their head is blown off like. ok thanks. that sucked

the animation on the enemies was pretty great for the most part but man. i miss chariots waggle dance. that was where the challenge of hitting his weakspot came from plus it was motion captured instead of animated by hand in the original! but i do like that they had the hermit fucking fall on its back and its legs curled up like a real spider that was hilarious. but the animation on the scientists that u have to rescue SUUUUCKS its so. stilted like babys first blender animation

THE CUTSCENES WITH ROGAN WERE SO FUCKING GOOD. it actually made me think Ok yea this guys cool and kindof a badass im pretty sure the animation budget went to him instead of the rescue npcs 💀

overall i enjoyed it who is fucking surprised of course id love it. chariot my boy in my heart forever

[atsumiye]

Yeah let's have it lol. And it might be small to others but it's big to you so it still matters.

STOP HJSAFGHGDIQWUOHGUBHA i love you thank you!!! you are very sweet for saying that <333 i love complaining to people!! this is fun and i switched to my computer so i could type more and faster lmao long rant ahead

OKAY OKAY lets start with the fact that i couldnt fall asleep last night no matter how exhausted i was. ill blame it on pre school jitters but it was annoying bc i am not a morning person. right so i have to go to this place thats like 30 min away from me by bus for my ONE class so i had to wake up extra early too so ofc!! i was tired!!! and i knew it would happen so i planned everything and set it all up so it would move a bit faster in the morning (SOB i am someone who takes 15 minutes to like put on socks in the morning if im tired) also!! i just got back to my apartment like a few days ago so everything is still in suitcase (im lazy) so i knew i would need something or whatever and so i planned for it. ANYWAY everything was going okay UNTIL i put on my outfit i was so excited for. okay listen i bought this sweater right before covid happened and its so cute and never got to wear t so ive been pumped and i purposely laid it out flat so it wouldnt wrinkle and then this morning IT WAS SO WRINKLY and then i put on these pants that i love that literally fit last week and they were like falling down and i couldnt do anything about it bc i didnt want to be late and my hair was straightening properly so i looked dumb I WILL ADMIT THOUGH my makeup and jewelry looked poppin. get to the bus only to find out that this deal the used to have of like 3 months of free bus rides for quite cheap NO LONGER EXISTS so now my budget for the month is all out of wack too. now, my friend told me to wait for her only for her to SHOW UP LATE and then get MAD AT ME when i told her i would go by myself to class. SCREAMS and we arent even done. its still only 8:50 am at this point. we get to class and i realize I DONT THINK I UNPLUGGED MY STRAIGHTENER i live alone so this??? is an issue. so im concerned the whole class and then my teacher tells me i have 3 weeks to make a 20 page thesis <333 and wouldnt give us good examples of what kind of topics to pick <333 now class ends early so thats a plus and me and my friend decide to go eat lunch later which is something to look forward to but i get to the bus station and start waiting with some friends but there is a ton of traffic due to construction so we waited for 30 minutes, in the cold, for a bus that NEVER SHOWED UP. so my friends decide we should walk home. and im so panicked thinking about how i might have almost started the biggest fire in world history i agree. AND on the way once we start walking this guy i used to LIKE a lot literally ignored me this morning so i made sure to say hi to him when i walked past him and he was so dry :l and im over my little crush on him but??? you cant IGNORE ME??? anyway back to the walking home. BABE ITS AN HOUR AND 15 MINUTE WALK AND I START SWEATING. and my white shoes got really dirty. then i say goodbye to my friends and he tries to hug me but i realize i have like a mini lake underneath my sweater so i dodge him and look like an idiot <333 then i embarrass myself over text to my hopefully soon-to-be boyfriend. but i get home and my straightener was unplugged so all was good but then i wait until 3 pm for my friend to answer my texts about lunch only for her to go eat lunch with her parents :D without telling me :D and ive been starving for hours :D then!!! this lady who was supposed to help me clean my kitchen CANCELLED AGAIN. so i took a nap and woke up late and now i wont be able to sleep. as i said this may seem so insignificant but it kept piling on and these are only the things i can remember <333 there was definitely so much more <33

and honestly this is truly how my days go like one time i went to go get coffee and came home to the police bc the mafia set a car on fire near me <33 this is how my life runs <33 me and my near death experiences <33 ANYWAY this part was kinda unrelated but i felt like it needed to be added. so if you made it to the end of this without wanting to claw your eyes out thanks <333 and if you want any more story times pls let me know i will literally talk about them any day any time akgduewd

[ouyangzizhensdad]

i meant white/western audiences are slow to understanding the subtext rather than asian fandoms, when i was a kid i remember most asian countries didnt even have "kiss scenes" in movies or dramas, for us the "subtext" was normal for straight couples too (I've seen a few white folks think cql is a story abt 2 straight friends). the issues with the poor production and it has shit production coz of the budget but the drama wasnt supposed to be a big hit. also like how u just made it the "idol drama"  as if most kdramas and cdramas arent full of idols. I mostly agree with ur cql fandom hate too but to me it seems like u sometimes just want to prove that cql is worse than it is just coz the fans it brought in. I dont blame u either, I've seen some shit metas and the cql fans who hate the novel and call the writer homophobic are also funny. What makes me irritated is that the amount of hate cql gets on here is equal to the amount of hate novel gets, when the drama made alot of things possible for asian LGBTQ audiences. This is the first drama that my gay asian friend (who isnt out) watched with his parents and got them to fall for all the ppl and support the couple. Novels have our imagination in them but dramas need to make a lot of ppl happy and also keep censorship at bay. for me personally cql seems like it made it possible for alot of closeted kids be comfortable talking abt a gay couple with their parents, as novels are limited to a fandom. (Like I've not read a single harry potter book but I've watched 4 of the movies 😚)

I'm not trying to attack u but I'm trying to tell u that just coz the drama brought in a shit ton of weirdos in the fandom it still helped alot more ppl than u can imagine...

Hi anon, 

One thing where we seem to be of a different opinion is that criticising cql as a work of fiction, or highlighting the political economic context surrounding it, in no way negates what it can mean for people. I personally consider that these are completely different matters. These things often have nothing to do with the inherent quality of a thing, or even how good “queer rep” it is--they are relative to people’s specific and personal experiences, or a particular moment in the media landscape. All the things she said holds special meaning to me because it was the first time I got to see two women kiss on tv and it felt revelatory. I vividly remember sitting cross-legged right in front of the tv and refusing to come eat until the end of the music videos--at a time when I could not articulate why I was so fascinated by it. I know that this song is still meaningful for a lot of queer people my age, even if many people hate it for being a straight gaze fantasy. Regardless of what it personally means to me, I’m not going to argue that the music video is a masterpiece, or be blind to the reason why the kiss was included in that music video. CQL is very meaningful to your gay closeted friend, and allowed him to discuss wangxian as a gay couple with his parents, and that’s absolutely great. But I personally think it’s a little bit far-fetched to suppose that the same couldn’t have been said of any other live adaptations of a danmei novel who didn’t shoehorn in a het romance: if the timing had been different, perhaps the first drama with romantic subtext between two male characters he would have seen with his parents would have been Guardians, or the incoming adaptation of TGCF. Hell, H2O was so popular that they might have just watched that one together as well, even if the subtext “romance” is between two side characters. 

Let me be clear as well that I am not trying to argue that MDZS is this groundbreaking piece of fiction wrt “gay rights” or queer representation in China that changes minds and sways public opinion. It’s one of many danmei novels--it just is one that has a lot of literary merit. I simply think it’s disingenuous when people in the western fandom claim that a subtext romance is better “representation” than a canon gay couple who get their happily ever after. CQL is more impactful because it is mainstream, but it does not mean the representation it offers is inherently better. It is also ridiculous sometimes because the hurdles faced by a danmei authors vs the government-backed media giants who benefit financially from putting out censored version of their stories is just..... not something that should be ignored in my opinion.

Asian audiences being more used to romance depicted through subtext does not, at least in my opinion, negate the power of heteronormativity or compulsory heteronormativity to influence readings of that subtext by a portion of the audience. Chinese people are absolutely creative and innovative in the ways in which they manage to circumvent censorship, but a webseries financed by a media giant is not going to be a transgressive attempt to pull the wool over the censors’ eyes--at the end of the day it needs to be a safe investment. 

You seem to suggest that I am hard on CQL for being an idol drama but do not bring the same criticisms to other idol dramas. I find this weird because it’s not like I’ve ever praised an idol drama, and I know I haven’t because I simply don’t think they are competent works of fiction (although sometimes the camera work and editing is at least competent, compared to cql where the production quality is kind of poor). The closest I’ve come to doing that is praising My Mister, which is not in any way an idol drama, but which I suppose features an idol (IU) in the cast. When I said the first jdrama I watched was Hana Yori Dango, that was not an endorsement of how good it was--because honestly it’s one hot mess barely held together by the chemistry between the two leads--it was just a statement of fact. 

I am very critical and judgemental, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think that equates to “hate”. Yes, most of my discussions of CQL sprout from existing discussions within the fandom. But most of my posts indirectly reference or respond to something I saw. What’s the difference between me addressing a common novel fanon and me addressing a common opinion on cql’s virtues? 

TLDR; a work of fiction being significant to people is something to recognise but it should not preclude being able to discuss that work critically, especially wrt how it executes its story since the inherent quality of the work as art has no direct correlation with its impact, be it on individuals or on a specific media landscape. Moreover, the impact of a work on queer people or on the social perception of queer people is not inherently proportional to how “good queer rep” it is: it has usually more to do with the context (ie people don’t remember Brokeback Mountain because it was the best movie with a gay love story ever made until then--there was more at play). 

[juni-ravenhall]

my opinions on mistfall!

under a cut bc spoilers and/or not everyone wants to read :D 

overall experience: 

its fun that there IS a sso cartoon now even if its not exactly amazing quality, and im happy to see if there will be more series or movies after this. it was fun to watch and see sso things in cartoon form too and i wish that we had more already (of sso animation in general). imagine if there had been a ssl cartoon? i also kept thinking throughout this, that it wouldn’t be hard for me myself to make an animated series with around the same length episodes and in a similar quality to this (aside from voice acting and music production), which made me feel a little inspired.

favourite scene:

skye taking photos of blaze and hanging out

positive points: 

i like the background art a lot, i think the style of it, and the colour schemes, helps give the series a specific vibe that fits for an sso series in my opinion. 

i like the concept art (i assume) illustrations which we saw in the recipes and other posts on sso ig, i think it looks a lot better than the characters in the series, but thats normal for concept art!!

the music is really good quality (whether or not its your taste, the quality is good) which is ofc bc its sso - theres already good music and not something they only did for the cartoon but something they care about in all of the starstable media. 

i think skye is a nice character (despite the series’ overall low quality writing) and i like her design. i also think rania’s cartoon design (visually) is cute.

skye and rania being a teensy bit gay (minus points for sso if they dont end up really gay in later canon)

i like that blaze wasnt actually like... mean or anything to skye, and i like that shes a mare since typical stories like this usually have stallions. but i just like that there wasnt really any “ooh difficult horse” things between skye and blaze in the current time of the story, blaze actually was sweet to her most the time. blaze seemed pretty charming whenever there wasnt “omg fire” drama. 

the animation itself (not meaning the details of the drawings or scene timing, just the actual frame by frame / puppet movements) was fine! not amazing, but absolutely fine.

points i have constructive criticism for, which doesn’t mean that i expected more from the series, but that we’re all allowed to discuss the quality and our opinions of media regardless of the target audience, budget, etc:

the writing was childish and rushed - this is not to be rude, but a matter that affects a lot of “media for girls / kids”, and a topic talked a lot about by Lauren Faust (creator of the FiM reboot of MLP) who wanted to show that a show about rainbow ponies “for little girls” didn’t have to be badly written, and could be engaging and interesting. if you watch the older MLP cartoons and compare to the first season of FiM (where Faust was still on the team) you can see a huge difference in quality of the storytelling, characterisation, etc. Mistfall, so far, did not subvert any expectation in the quality of what typical “cartoons for girls” are like, and is reminiscent of stuff like “The Ranch” (french horse cartoon) which imo is so bad that its hard to watch. (and ofc... that goes for a lot of “cartoons for girls / kids”, but doesn’t have to be like that.) in order to improve on this, the writer has to study more on storytelling and study from better writers.

on the topic of being rushed: no, it’s not an excuse that the episodes are short: - you have to ADAPT your storytelling and writing to the length of the episodes, not do a bad job and blame the episode length. being able to adapt to different types of media is a necessary skill if that’s what you work with. this comes down to proper planning and structuring the story and writing in a way that works for the length of the episodes. i don’t think that was overall done well here (at times it was okay), and bc of that, it feels rushed and has exposition thrown in your face instead of being shown through better storytelling. the classic thing with exposition is “show, don’t tell”. this is what the writers/directors should study, or pay more attention to. 

the timing (length of shots, length of scenes, or parts of shots, etc) was rly bad at times and overall unimpressive - this comes down to the skill of directors and editors. to improve this they have to study more on the topic. bad timing and pacing can really ruin a good scene or a good story and make it feel disconnected and hard to immerse in for the audience.

the artstyle of characters and horses is fine at times, but appears very low quality at others (skye’s childhood scene really bothered me bc her kid-self had really badly drawn eyes in my opinion). this, like everything else on this list, is ofc something that appears in almost every single “cartoon for girls” that ever existed. to improve on this, most likely it’s not a problem with the artists but with the budget and the production timeline (allowing the artists more time to produce better quality art and animation), and it can also be a problem with the art direction, if the art directors aren’t very skilled or experienced (i don’t say that they aren’t, im just giving examples of what could cause these problems.)

the character design for all characters that aren’t skye, rania, or blaze was very lacking. none of the not-main-3 characters looked interesting or fun to look at, they looked very dull and like the most boring NPCs you could think of. even though its understandable that the mainest-main characters would have the most interesting designs, that doesn’t mean everyone else has to look that boring. this is an issue with art direction or character design. i think most likely there was just very little time (equals money) put into designing the other characters.

the horse design could be improved for a cartoon that focuses on horses this much. like, horses are a big part of the selling point here, so make sure that their designs and art/animation is good. at times even blaze looked awkward and uninteresting, as did the other horses.

“alonso” looks nothing like sso alonso and i don’t like that they used his character if it’s not going to have anything to do with him. they should have given this character a different name if they wouldn’t make him seem like he had anything to do with the sso character aside from being a male ranger. (also in the game he’s like 22 or something, skye is 15...?)

why did they add a “he’s cute” dumbass fucking stupid hetero comment for literally no reason other than adding a dumbass fucking stupid hetero comment?

considering that they “can’t confirm whether a sequel is happening or not”, it seemed very meh to throw in druid cult magic stuff and not really connect to it and now the series ended? you would have expected to find out more about the cloaked people, the runes, the magic that the ranger guy did, and blaze’s magic in general, and skye herself, why her mom is “a witch”.... thats a lot to throw in while saying that you can’t say if there’s a sequel coming to answer all those questions. (it wouldn’t have been a criticism from me if they said “we’re working on season 2″ or “there will be a comic book that continues the story” or anything that told us that these questions, in this particular iteration of a story in jorvik, will actually be answered. - and i assume they ARE working on the continuation of the story, but i dont agree with that they’re not upfront about it, when they left so many questions unanswered.)

at times rania’s blindness was handled stupidly and i think they should have gotten more consultation from actual people with visual impairment, but i think its still good to HAVE a blind character in the main cast and that it’s not a big dramatic story thing but just an everyday thing. at some points it was fine though; and i personally don’t think the scene with rania being able to see blaze was necessarily a problem - because - a lot of blind ppl can see sharp contrasts in light and dark, and this seemed relatively realistic to me when blaze is on fire. (however, the way it was drawn as if she could see the whole shape of blaze and skye could be criticised for sure, and makes it feel more like “i can see because of magic” and not “i can see bc THIS MARE IS ON FIRE”). 

personal opinion which i said before, but i don’t think rania’s voice fits her at all, and it’s not the voice actor’s fault (i’m sure they’re lovely) but the casting and the directors. from the sso character, rania would seem a lot more lively, quick and adventurous, and not as calm and gentle as she appeared here. she seemed a lot too sort of motherly or just adult, instead of an adventurous teen who runs off on her own to do whatever she feels like. compare in-game rania going “MC, thats a jorvik wild!!!” and alonso going “stop talking nonsense” (paraphrased), to Mistfall rania going “jorvik wilds are really rare...” (calm, sort of disinterested, doesnt seem like she cares that much about adventures)

the voice acting overall was meh. i see this as a direction problem, not an individual voice actor problem (and the writing didnt help - it’s hard to provide good quality acting with a poor script unless you can just toss the script aside and improv, if you have good actors). it felt childish and uninteresting at most points and generic low quality for “cartoons for girls”. from a voice acting perspective i think skye had the best result. anyway, the way to improve this is for the director in charge of voice acting to not direct the actors to perform in this childish manner. (again, refer to cartoons with better writing and better voice acting, that have a very similar target audience.)

ok, i think that was everything that i wanted to write about for now, might think of more later lol

[regrettablemeasure]

otp tag.

tagged by @solasan​, thank u!!!!!   tagging: @ritualism​ and @editoress​ i think all my other Wayhaven ppl have been @’d already

PENNY AND FELIX EDITION

DISAGREEMENTS.

who is more likely to raise their voice?

i neither! penny if i had to choose, but shes usually p good at keeping cool. and felix doesn’t seem like a shouty person anyways.

who threatens to leave but never actually does?

N/A

who actually keeps their word and leaves?

N/A

who trashes the house?

N/A

do either of them get physical?

N/A

how often do they argue/disagree?

i think their first disagreement is in book 2 when Felix got hurt during Sanja’s rescue. Penny feels super guilty about it and is worried Felix is brushing it off when he has a right to be upset. She’s kinda haunted by that whole situation and the choice she had to make. Other than that, they definitely never really argue. At most in the beginning Penny was just kind of oblivious/flippant because she’s socially awkward lol

who is the first to apologize?

both lmao

SEX.

who is on top? who is on bottom?

Felix is a little top  you cant convince me otherwise

any kinks?

not really

who has the strangest desires?

i think they’re mostly just cute in bed without anythnig crazy going on

who’s dominant in bed?

  FELIX!! in the cute ‘i got this’ kind of way. Penny’s shy so definitely not her.

is head ever in the equation?

duh

if so, who is better at performing it?

felix has the charisma but i think penny has the technique

ever had sex in public?

 they did almost fuck in nate’s library 

who moans the most?

Penny!  Felix thinks its cute

who leaves the most marks?

FELIX LOVES HICKIES. hes sad that they don’t last super long on him, but she tries anyway.

who is the more experienced of the two?

I think they’re pretty even actually

do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’?

latter

how long do they usually last?

im sure it varies

rough or soft?

soft!!

is protection used?

YES. penny is ON that shit. Though she wouldn’t be against having kids one day.

does it ever get boring?

nah they’re too cute and in gross cuddly love. Does felix look like he’d EVER get bored of the detective

where is the strangest place they’d have sex?

it didnt  happen but again, nates library. Penny was secretly kinda into it 

FAMILY.

do they plan on having children / do they have children?

 I don’t think either are seriously considering it for a while but Penny is a good 50/50 on it!

if so, how many children do they want/have?

just one, maybe two.

AFFECTION.

who likes to cuddle?

Felix! Penny’s a little more standoffish in general with physical affection, but she does love cuddling Felix. If he wants to cuddle she’s p much always down for it.

who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places?

Felix. Have you heard what that boy says

who struggles to keep their hands to themself?

Felix! Though only in private. He know’s Penny’s shy and its cute to do it when shes working or something. He likes playfully distracting her.

how long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable?

Probably for a good while, though Penny has a tendency to get antsy. Usually it just means her getting up and him happily following after her though

what is their favourite non-sexual activity?

video games! She showed him Animal Crossing and it was over

where is their favourite place to cuddle?

on the couch!

SLEEPING.

who snores?

Penny...

if both do, who snores the loudest?

Not loudly , but again penny.

do they share a bed or sleep separately?

they share a bed!

if they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart?

depends!

what do they wear to bed?

Penny wears pj shorts and a cotton shirt, pretty simple. Felix is probs similar

are either of them insomniacs?

Penny DEFINITELY is. Thankfully Felix doesn’t sleep a lot so she’s rarely disturbing him!

can sleeping pills be found by the bedside?

YEP. Especially after book 1, she started having nightmares.

do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side?

Felix is a koala.

who wakes up with bed hair?

Penny. Felix somehow always looks fucking perfect and she’d be jealous if she didn’t think it was so charming.

who wakes up first?

Penny. Even if Felix is just lazing about, she’s one of those responsible people or something.

who prepares breakfast in bed for the other?

Felix tried. keyword being tried. 

what is their favourite sleeping position?

Penny sleeps on her side and Felix clambers around either with one leg over her or spooning her usually.

do they set an alarm each night?

Penny does!

who has nightmares?

Both :(. Hard to tell with Felix how often for him

can a television be found in their bedroom?

Penny doesn’t have a TV

who has ridiculous dreams?

Felix for sure. Sometimes involving stuff pertaining to the Echo World and Penny is like ??? and he doesn’t know how to explain it.

who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed?

Felix

who makes the bed?

Felix, because he insists. Penny goes back and straightens it out

what time is bed time?

 bed by 1

any routines/rituals before bed?

felix insists on brushing their teeth together bc he thinks its cute (penny does too). its how she first actually got a glimpse of his fangs

who’s the grumpiest when they wake up?

neither! though felix DOES complain.

WORK.

who is the busiest?

penny. felix is  busy keeping himself from dying of boredom

who rakes in the highest income?

n/a

are any of them unemployed?

n/a

who takes the most sick days?

Penny, though very rarely. She usually saves them for days where she wants to work from home because the office got too overwhelming.

what are their jobs?

Vampire Agent vs Police Detective

who sucks up to their boss?

 Felix tries to charm Rebecca. Rebecca just sighs.

who is more likely to turn up late to work?

Felix. Got distracted

who stresses the most?

PENNY. though she usually takes things in stride, she’s a little up tight.

do they enjoy or despise their careers/occupations?

Penny is fine with being a detective and doubly fine with being an agent.

are they financially stable?

yeah!

HOME.

who does the washing?

Penny. We know what Felix’s stance is on laundry considering he hides his socks in Mason’s hamper.

who takes out the trash?

Felix , and he acts like a hero

who does the ironing?

Penny! She wears nice clothes that definitely would require ironing. 

who does the cooking?

Penny is a serviceable cook, though she tends to cook the same things. And sometimes still eats like a (healthier) college student because she doesn’t have the energy. Felix LOVES using it as an excuse to order food.

who is more likely to burn the house down just trying?

Felix.

who is messier?

Felix. More just disorganized

who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor?

Felix. Again, boy clearly hates laundry

who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere?

Neither. Unless Felix yoinked the keys - then they could be anywhere.

who answers the telephone?

FELIX. First ring, always. 

who mows the lawn?

city slickers for life so neither

who does the vacuuming?

both. felix likes doing it and danciing

who does the groceries?

Penny because felix will bring back a bunch of things they didnt need

who takes the longest to shower?

Penny. She uses so much water

who spends the most time in the bathroom?

neither!

MISCELLANEOUS.

is money a problem?

nah theyre secret agents

how many cars do they own?

just penny’s little clunker

what’s their song?

waterfalls coming out your mouth // violet hour (especially this one) // sugar

do they live in the city or in the country?

small town

do they own their home or do they rent?

penny’s renting but wouldn’t be against owning a little flat somewhere

do they enjoy their surroundings?

wayhaven is home and comfortable for penny! she was actually falling out of love for it before she got promoted, now she feels protective over it and the supernaturals shes now aware live there.

what do they do when they’re away from each other?

felix goes insane waiting until they can meet up again. penny is often thinking abt him but is eager to get work done so she can do it even sooner

where did they first meet?

abandoned warehouse in book one - though the first meeting SHE remembers is him kissing her on the hand... romance...

who spends the most money when out shopping?

i feel they both are pretty similar! Theyre Fashionable, though Pennys really good at budgeting.

who’s more likely to flash their assets?

listen it doesnt happen in canon but if you do the combat training route with felix he fucking puts your hands up his shirt

any mental issues?

penny has anxiety and has been diagnosed as autistic since she was, like, 12. felix clearly has some shit he’s not letting himself fully mourn but OKAY BUDDY

who finds it amusing when the other trips over? 

penny laughs when felix trips just because he’s like a beautiful ragdoll and always ‘saves’ himself in really funny ways. felix is such a prince charming i think he’d see her tripping more as an excuse to be dashing and handsome at her and save her from face planting than laugh. 

who’s terrified of bugs?

penny definitely isn’t. could see felix losing his shit over a spider.

who kills the spiders around the house?

PENNY. doesn’t kill them though.

do they have any fears for their future?

Penny’s worried that loved ones might get put into danger due to ... everything. Verda found out about vampires and wasn’t hyped, so she’s worried about their friendship and his saftey most of all. She’s also worried about making ‘tough’ choices like the one at the end of book 2. It’s not a pleasant dilemma.

their favourite place?

Penny’s apartment!

who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner?

felix FOR SURE

who pays the bills?

both, but penny set it all up on autopay bc felix would forget.

who’s the tallest?

Felix! He’s like what, 5′7-5′9? penny’s 5′3.

who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other?

Both! Penny’s shy when doing it but she loves felix’s reaction because he’s always super excited.

who wanders around in their underwear?

neither

who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio?

felix. duh

what do they tease each other about?

everything! penny teases felix over how energetic and goofy and ~suave~ he is. He teases penny over being bashful - but she actually teases him more! He teases her over ROMANTIC stuff.

who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times?

Penny. The waistcoat, Felix. Why. No

who crushed first?

FELIX DIDDDDDDD. Penny got flustered but is very :/ at relationships bc she struggles socially and the only serious relationship she had prior was fucking BOBBY. So she straight up doesn’t trust that felix is being genuine at first. Also she’s a lil bit oblivious.

any alcohol or substance related problems?

nope!

who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am?

neither

who swears the most?

probably felix, though I don’t think he swears a lot either?

[ac-liveblogs]

Ac a few months ago :3h is way better than fates! Ac now: Fates is better than 3h. Ah how the white clouds consume us (i agree btw. 3h would be leagues better if it didnt lock its plot behind a 20-30 hr slog. It drains the soul so much that no amount of good characters or writing can make it up.)

Yeah, so like… I said that when I was still in Azure Moon, right? Because I’ll stand by that. Azure Moon is better than Fates. 

But Azure Moon by itself is better than the rest of 3H too, and I’ll stand by that.

There’s a reason in multiple route games that the route splits tend to come early on.. I understand that 3H wanted to show multiple perspectives on the same occurences, but they seem to have traded artistic vision for basic replay value. As soon as I realised GD’s White Clouds was going to be almost identical to BL’s, I lost a lot of enthusiasm and trudged through the rest of Academy Phase in a very bad mood. 

By Black Eagles I’d lost my patience entirely. 

Fates has a lot going for it that 3H straight up doesn’t. Forget the early route split, Fates also boasts three very, very different story modes instead of reusing the same content for half the damn game. Two of those story modes have completely different casts, so we get completely different supports - Revelations mashes the two casts together, but we get a whole bunch of new character interactions out of that, too. 

3H will make a handful of maps and spin them around or drop you in different corners to make them feel unique for different quests (almost all of which are the same no matter which route you’re in, btw), but Fates actually just has a shitton of different maps. I understand that’s probably a budgeting issue, but it does the game no favours. Also, Fates had very different classes depending on which game you chose, too. 

Everything about 3H feels virtually identical. You know how you look at Hoshido and Nohr’s very different aesthetics, classes and weapons and get an idea of two very different cultures? Yeah, we don’t even get that much in 3H. All the differences between the three nations are basically informed attributes, it sucks. 

I don’t care about ~lore~ I have to read about in the goddamn library, just… make each country actually feel interesting and unique? Is that too much to ask for? 

Like, YMMV on Fates’ writing, but none of the routes in Fates ever gave me as much brain damage as Crimson Flower. Sorry, people complained about Garon being generically evil, but the Agarthans get a pass??

And the issue is that White Cloud’s biggest problems could’ve been avoided if they just made each house more goddamn unique. Load us down with unique paralogues for each country that can’t be accessed in any other route (there’s like, what, 5 unique ones?). Lock character recruitment to keep supports fresh across playthroughs, and for god’s sake don’t let us see supports for characters we haven’t even recruited!

Anyway, I’m going to find the fan translation for Fates that came out before the localisation at some point, because apparently the localisation absolutely bastardised it. We’ll see if that’s any better

[hedwigsimagines]

Bon voyage - Malta

There was the tiniest air of sadness when it was revealed that they would be making another series of bon voyage. Don't get me wrong, the boys were all so excited and grateful when they were given the chance to go to malta but once those feelings settled they realised that they would be apart from us for their entire break. All the talks you and V had about how you would go to the beach and teach him how to paddleboard could no longer happen as you’d be in different countries. Mine and Jin's plan of just being in each others company was also out the window. None of us were dating but we were such a huge part of each other lives that it would be hard to say goodbye for even the length of a trip. What the boys didn't know however was that their director had pulled us to one side to have a chat. He was well aware of this issue and wanted this trip to be as memorable for the members as possible since they didn't get breaks often. He offered us an earlier flight into malta as a surprise to the boys on the condition that we weren't filmed. Even though the Army loved us, it was in the best interest of us and the boys to keep hidden, which we totally understood considering some fans were too protective over them. Trying to hide our excitement we said our ‘sad’ goodbyes to everyone two days before they were due to leave. Though V insisted you stay with them until the very last second you remained strong and pretended that you needed to give them time to pack.

 In reality, me and you rushed to our apartment just down the road to pack for our flight in less than 24 hours.  It upset me to see Jin slightly tear up saying goodbye and you couldnt help but get a pang in your chest when V pouted at your goodbyes. Over the months we had spent together it was no secret that we had gotten closest with V and Jin. Everyone around us would mistake us as couples but none of us agreed despite all your and v feelings for each other and jin and mine. We kept our act up even as we boarded the plane, getting the directors to keep the boys busy so that they wouldnt question why we didnt reply straight away due to being on the plane. Though we were best friends we had our separate music and did our own thing to occupied on the journey.  I slept for the most part and you read or binged Netflix. Malta heat hit us straight away and it sunk in where we were. It took everything not to post a pic or Snapchat for fear one of the 7 would see it. They would be joining us in just over 24 hours so we made our way to the hotel to unpack. The flight really took a toll on us and we didn't really want to venture out without the guys so we opted for a girly evening with malta take out, loud music, face masks, the lot! Picking the rooms was a challenge. There were four rooms (one isn't shown in the episode as it would have given away that we were there). 

As we were settled in with a plate of food my phone lights up with a skype call…from Jin. Me and you both panic because there was no way we could let it just ring (they would get suspicious) but we clearly weren't in our house. You quickly run out of the room and come back with a massive duvet. You throw it over our heads and tell me to answer the call. All the boys are huddled around Jin, staring into the screen with our darkened faces visible. When Rm questions our setting you calmly explain that we had made a fort and that we were currently in it. The duvet covered any evidence that we were elsewhere and they seemed to believe us, though at one point a malta ad for skincare blasts loudly from the tv and I had to make a dive for the remote. They just wanted to check on us before they slept ready for their flight and we assured them that we were both perfectly okay. You kept looking at V who had a glum expression on his face. You knew that he had to join later on the trip and you wish you could be there to comfort him as he dealt with family problems. J-hope asked what presents we wanted from malta and we played along, asking for shells and loads of pictures. Jk promised to get us all matching malta tops and Jimin said he would try to smuggle malta food through the borders. Everyone eventually and regretfully said goodbye, leaving suga with Jin's phone as he went to the toilet. He makes sure no one is in the room before bringing the camera closer to him and whispering “I know where you really are”. The look on our faces makes him laugh and he says quickly that since the crew weren't inside the BTS house 24/7, they needed someone on the inside to make sure none of the other members found out. He reassured us that no one else knew and goes back to a normal conversation just as Jin walks in to get his phone back. We’ve had a tad to drink and it's gone straight to our eyes so we leave the call and head off to bed. We put everything in room 4 for the time being and sleep there until the boys arrive. The next morning we are up bright and early to get some food to stock up the fridges. The boys get an allowance for things like food and everything but we don't have a budget, so we decided to help them out on things we were certain they wouldn't consider buying like washing up liquid and shampoo. We also travel to a big outlet for a few more clothes since we don't anticipate the heat of malta and knew that dragging 7 males around a shopping centre would be absolute chaos.  ————TIME SKIP ————

We get the news that the boys have touched down in malta and try to think of a plan to surprise them. Since V isn't with them, you decide to save your ‘surprising’ for when he arrives, meaning that you come up with a simple way to surprise the other lot. You call suga secretly when you know he’s away from the others and tell him to get Jin into room number two where I’ll be hiding and waiting. Rushing around, we clean the house up so that it's not obvious someone is already there and when we hear the sounds of voices outside the hotel we get into position. I hide in room two and you wait on the porch out of sight. In our places, we hear the boys enter and their voices echo around the large living room. We’ve been with them so much that we can tell that its j-hope who leaps up the stairs and jimin that follows with lighter steps. They inspect every single room except from room 4 which they are told is the staff's room and off-limits which they respect. Suga lingers a little longer in each room to see if he can spot either of us but even he can't see any trace of us. After they have excitedly run around the whole house, they gather in the front room to decide on who sleeps where. When you know the coast is clear you sneak into the kitchen and boil the kettle. None of the boys seem to notice the sound from the front room and you get ready for your surprise. You wait a few moments then in your most casual voice ever you call out “who else wants a tea?”. The boys freeze in their places. They were used to you calling that back at home but there was no way that they all imagined it in their heads at the same time. None of them move, they are actually a bit scared that it could be a ghost. When no one replies to you, you smirk knowing how scared they must be. Since no one wants to check the kitchen for ghosts Jk decides to reply as a joke “ Me please?”. When you shout back an “okay!” Everyone in the room loses their shit. J-hope jumps into Jks arms while jimin, who is sat closest to the kitchen stares motionless at the source of the voice. Rm is counting staff and tells everyone that it's not a staff member as they are all present. After a couple more minutes you give in , too excited to keep the secret and walk calmly into the living room. “one or two sugars?” you ask calmly and everyone roars in surprise. J-hope and Rm run up and tackle you into a hug. Jk claps in pure surprise while suga laughs hysterically.

 No one can really formulate a sentence other than “What, how, why?” as they stare at you in disbelief. J-hope clings to his chest and in fake annoyance tells you that he legit thought he was talking to a ghost. You perch a seat next to him and giving a knowing look to suga who explains he was in on it. Among all of this, jin looks around as though searching for something or someone. You put on your acting head again (you’re surprisingly good) and look sadly at him. “Faith really did want to come,” you say comfortingly “But there were too many things going on”. He smiles kinda sadly but insists that he understands, after all you’re there and that's amazing! They try and get you to tell the story of how you got to malta but, knowing that you cant without mentioning me, you suggest they pick rooms now and you can talk over dinner. You also make them swear not to tell V and they all pinky promise. Jin is a bit quiet and you lot all try to get him to perk up. Suga tells him that maybe room number two is the best option for him so that he can stay up later in peace to skype me at night. It seems to have worked since he takes the bait and chooses room number two. I've been hiding in the wardrobe for a little over an hour now and you’ve had to come in with some cut up apple so that I don't die in the heat of the cupboard. As Jin sits on his bed with his back facing me I quietly creep up behind him and put my hands over his eyes. He obviously thinks my hands are jimins and lets down his guard for a brief moment to tell “jimin” that he wished I was there. It's only when i let go of his eyes that he turns around and his jaw hits the floor. He looks at me then to the, now open, wardrobe with bits of apple inside, then back to me before engulfing me in a huge bear hug. He is totally silent and we stay there for a while in a big ole hug. RM comes in to check on Jin and when he sees me he shouts “NO WAY!”. You hear this and gather that I've come out of hiding so a hint that the boys should go to Rm.

 For the second time, the guys are dumbfounded and super excited. Jimin slings an arm around you playfully and ruffles your hair with his hand (He is the ONLY one that can just about get away with this for you). Jk joins in with mine and jins hug and tips the three of us over on the bed which creates a massive bundle with everyone. We all sit up, now all on the double bed overlapping limbs and i notice Jin secretly wipe a few tears from his eye but his smile tells me those are happy tears. We stay on the bed for the whole story of how we ended up in Malta and tell them that room 4 was actually our room. Suga makes a joke about how I may as well move my stuff to room 2 with Jin and you stay in room 4 to share with V which makes the three of us (excluding V obviously) blush slightly. But Jin says its a great idea and I can't help but grin that the male i have feels for actually wants to share a room with me. They are filled in on the rules that we are not to be filmed as best as possible for safety reasons and that the editing team is good enough for us to still join in and be edited out later on. No one has really noticed that time has passed so drastically until Rm, whose shoulder you are leaned on, looks out the window to see the Sun beginning to ever so slightly set. It triggers a wave of hunger in all of us and as we get up and stretch, we divide jobs up in order to make dinner. With it still being light outside you , Jimin , Jk and Suga go and explore a bit and get some fresh air while me , j-hope ,Jin and RM go in another direction to get food for later.

SO I made up a whole Tae story for my best friend and wanted to share it with you so if you want another part feel free to ask! Writing isn't my strong point so its more of a casual story ? 

[miscellanasaurus]

Everything Wrong With Vrain`s

Despite saying that i wouldn't post during holidays until i`ve completed my course work with the newest season of Yugioh Vrains Airing tomorrow ,and being a huge yugioh nerd, `ve decided to publish a draft that`s been in my inbox for a while and this will serve as the perfect segway into other franchise`s ,i`m also hoping to start a weekly volume review on MHA Vigilante`s and Chainsaw Man, though this blog will still primarily focus on MHA Content .

First i want to discuss why Yugioh Vrains is honestly my least favorite spin-off from the franchise  and how the series could change this for the better by breaking it down into basic point`s and after the seriese ends i will then make a post onto how i would of changed it so without further ado let`s go.

*FYI i dont hate the show i just believe it fails to live up to it`s potential.

(1) The Animation

Now i`m not usually bothered by animation i think that as long as the story your conveying is good then it only has to be half decent ,however thats a seprate issue entirely. Yugioh Vrains has a constant and repetitive background.  

Throughout the first series yugioh vrains uses this baland background of a generic city in 80% of it`s duels only to be replaced in season two with generic clouds a  problem that could easily be fixed by animating the field spells instead of leaving them lying there like continuous spells Arc-V may have done the same but it had action fields for the first season ,turbo dueling for the second apocalyptic wasteland for the third and a jungle as well as a castlke for the fourth a wide enough variety to prevent it growing stale ,the jury`s still out on turbo dueling though, though i understand that vrains has a animation budget and as such this point is more of a nitpick on my part though still valid.

(2) a lack of world building 

Yugioh as a series tends to have very little world building in comparison to other anime and manga`s however it`s better then non all we know is that it takes place in a worl where VR is a thing, big deal, they dont expand on this by highlighting real world issue`s again not that i`d expect them too but in a sociaty with VR thats more bright and vibrant then the real world you`d want a series to explore the psychological aspect of that and who better a vehicle to do that then Aoi? a character seemingly dissatisfied with normal life who then goes on to become a charisma duelist? Literal Data Pirate`s, Black Markets all that good stuff that could be easily translated into the series and yet isn't. 

(3) a lack of direction 

Yugioh Vrains seems to have a troubled production as the original tagine for vrains implied that Yusaku would be more like Aichi from card fight vanguard    when VRAINS was first announced the director said the series was about ‘taking a step forward and trying’ and how Yusaku tries out dueling and made friends a premise seemingly played with in his introduction to the card club but seemingly dropped at the last minute instead we get a plot involving cyber terrorism , though i do enjoy the knights of hanoi so i guess it wasn't a terrible decision,  this isn't the only instance with plot points being built up only to seemingly be dropped and never spoken about again such as the fated rematch between blood Sheppard and Soul Burner. and lets not forget about Aoi`d development

She`s constantly forced through a miriad of character developments that the writers put on her as they have no idea how to build her up from what`s already established so they just give her a new character and say that`s development.

(4) a boring main character.

Yusaku is a boring main character the series built intrigue around him by being this virtual batman-esq character but there`s nothing else to him beside`s his trauma, and granted that was a point of the 1st season and it ended with him growing past it however he still lacks any real human emotion except when the script demands it making it rather jarring when he does.

To end off this rather long and tedious post Vrains has a lot of production problems and it`s not there fault but that doesent make it excusable. i enoy the series at points but i`m not invested in any of the characters and honestly if this series didnt have the marketability of Yu-Gi-Oh backing it then i believe it would be cancelled. 

[saints-row-2]

film watch day 31: Every Halloween Film

happy Halloween today i watched every Halloween film currently available to me. i couldnt get to rewatch Halloween 2018 but i already wrote about it a couple of weeks back so feel free to revisit that post. anyway, i watched ten Halloween movies today. It took around 17 hours. i started at 11:15am and im writing this now at 6 am.

so lets get to the post. for the most part i went in chronological order, except i chose to start with Rob Zombie’s remakes because i knew if i didnt id be finishing the day by watching them at the break of dawn and the idea of doing that was so fucking putrid to me that i decided to get them out of the way first.

Halloween (2007)

i hate this fucking movie. i mentioned in an ask the other day but im happy to repeat here, i dont hate the idea of expanding on Michael’s backstory. like the fact is we largely know his backstory, the issue is how this film chose to portray it. the original Halloween is frightening because its based around the idea that the seemingly safe, quiet suburbs are not as safe as they seem; you can be on a street youve known your entire life, only a few metres from your own home, and still at risk. the whole idea of showing Michael as a murderer when he was six is to tell us that anyone could be a threat, that our conventions that all killers are a particular kind of person is false.

Halloween 2007 says fuck that, we know what serial killers are, and theyre those poor kids who come from shitty neighbourhoods and have abusive parents and mothers who are sex workers. everything that Halloween brings to the table is fucking tedious, played out, and massively uninspired. it wants to bring us the truth about why Michael is like he is, but Rob Zombie’s only understanding of serial killers is in the cliche and exploitative. he has nothing honest about human nature to show us, only the exact same stories that have been fed to us by crime and horror movies past.

this film is incredibly loud and in fucking constant motion. even on steady shots of still scenes the camera constantly shakes, and in every other scene its always whirling around from tracking shot to panning over the scene to just idly zooming in and out of nothing. Zombie’s favourite shot is to have something large and out of focus in the foreground -- like some plants -- and to shoot the characters standing about six feet away muttering to themselves. every single fucking shot in this movie lingers too long, every scene drags a little longer than it needs to. this film moves with the pace that i would describe as “family guy gag”.

and this film is so loud. people are always talking or screaming, largely about nothing important or interesting. theres always music, but it never particularly adds anything; for reasons i fail to fucking understand the entirety of the original theme plays over mostly uninteresting tracking shots of a minor character walking around yelling filler lines about nothing.

the writing is horseshit. everyone in this film is vile, no one talks or behaves like real human beings. almost every exchange in this movie is the characters saying the exact same thing back and forth inanely, frequently punctuated by screaming FUCK as loudly as possible and talking about sex in a way that 40 year old men really really wished teenage girls talk about sex. Halloween (2007) is thoughtlessly gross and mean and nasty, disconnected from any kind of human sensitivity and empathy. it wants to be complicated and to be deep but its crushingly simplistic and stupid. the only thing that redeems it is that its not Halloween II (2009). speaking of which...

Halloween II (2009)

jesus christ this movie is so fucking boring. Halloween II is two hours long but feels like its about twenty hours long. i felt like i was watching this film for twenty days and twenty nights. i was trapped in an eternal purgatory with this movie.

i really cant fucking emphasise how boring this film is. endless scene after scene of nothing of consequence happening, uninteresting death scenes that add nothing, and Michael wandering around doing jack shit. Halloween II fucking made Michael Myers boring, and im saying this as someone who (as i repeat once every 8 seconds) has a tattoo of him. this film couldnt hold MY interest in two of my favourite characters of all time.

the big fun new addition from the first movie is the presence of Michael and Laurie’s mother as a kind of weird goth ghost guiding Michael to kill. i dont know why Michael had to be Jason Voorhees and be a mommy’s boy all of a sudden, but this addition brings absolutely nothing of interest to the film or to his character. its meant to be symbolic of fucking... something im sure, but it feels meaningless. somehow Michael and Laurie are both able to see and interact with this ghost and the ghost has an agenda to do... something? it feels about as intelligent and coherent as the bullshit cult of thorne shit from 6, but a lot less fun. at some point Michael Myers apparently has mind control powers?

not to repeat myself a hundred fucking times but this film is insanely unpleasant to watch. every scene someone is screaming, generally wailing “fuck you bitch” at anyone in their vicinity. this is two hours of people howling swear words at each other and not infrequently making rape jokes. Rob Zombie loves rape jokes! almost as much as he loves putting sexual assault in his movies over and over again for no reason.

there is nothing to enjoy in this film. theres nothing to gain. there is too much slow-mo and far too many strobe lights and absolutely nothing of any intelligence or grace. Halloween II is a thirteen year old boy in a korn T-shirt calling his mom a bitch while he draws zombies on  the back of his homework, which he will get an F for because the only thing he wrote was “reading is for faggots”.

Halloween (1978)

what the fuck can i say. this is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, if not the greatest. its one of my favourite movies. its forty years old and still just as chilling and frightening as it ever was. it has some shot composition and cinematography thats up with the best ive ever seen, all while being shot on a budget of $300,000. it does more with less than just about any film, launched the slasher genre, shot Jamie Lee Curtis to stardom and created a pop culture icon that stayed strong for decades. its a masterclass in tension and suspense, a lean-cut perfectly paced film with heaps of atmosphere and character.

i love this film with a frantic passion that makes me unable to talk about it in a particularly helpful way. i cant “review” Halloween. I love this film beyond reason and sense and you either get it or you dont.

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween II is largely one of the less remembered entries in the franchise; its a decent enough movie, neither matching up to the highs of the original or the lows of the later films. its a pretty enjoyable little film, created under the logic of ‘well the first one did well, lets do the same thing again’. Carpenter wrote the script but didn’t direct, and while the film has a solid story, the directing lacks his signature flair. its hard to pinpoint, because the film is generally fairly well-shot, but lacks a kind of eye for shot composition that Carpenter made look easy, doesnt have as much patience for suspense.

on its own merits, theres still some great shots and great scenes in the movie. and a lot of really cool kills; II got a lot more creative with what Michael was capable of, and i think the boiling water drowning kill is rightfully pretty infamous.

this was the last Halloween movie Carpenter wrote, and it was the film where the idea of Laurie and Michael being siblings was introduced. and believe me ill defend this fucking decision to the grave. adding the human connection between Michael and Laurie gives a whole other layer to their relationship thats so fascinating to me, and i love that other films try to expand on the themes of family. in general, deciding that this film would continue to focus on Laurie and not do what later slashers did with bouncing around between different casts was a great fucking move, ironically for a franchise that was intended to be an anthology.

quietly exploring the aftermath of the first film was a good idea for a follow-up, and i especially really enjoy Loomis’ role in this movie, and his discussion about who Myers is. the biggest disappointment for me personally is that Laurie lacks a lot of presence in this film. Curtis is great, as always, but the movie dawdles on some side characters who are too disconnected from her to get a sense of what shes going through.

all that being said, Halloween II is decent. the ending is really great, with some really powerful shots. Michael bleeding from the eyes of his mask after Laurie shoots him is one of the best fucking images in horror and him swinging blindly as Laurie and Loomis slowly orchestrate his death is a fucking amazing scene. i have an immense fondness for this movie, with all its flaws. it brings a lot of really cool concepts to the table, and i think it deserves some appreciation.

heres a question tho; where the fuck were Laurie’s parents. theres a suggestion theyre missing, but theres no explanation why and we never hear from them. did michael kill them too? hello? mr and mrs strode? your daughter just fucking killed a guy and all her friends are dead. where the fuck are you.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III is infamous as being the Halloween movie that isn’t about Michael Myers at all. when it first released it was wildly unpopular and remained so for quite a while, but has had a surge in popularity over the last few years. i think just about every horror critic i know now considers Halloween III one of the best in the franchise. and to be fair to it, its a great little movie. not a slasher at all but rather a conspiracy thriller, Halloween III is all about the mystery of what the Silver Shamrock mask-making company are really up to, and why people are disappearing. its a weird and creative little movie, with some really fucking great practical effects that turn it from just being a thriller to being an all-out horror film. it has a few too many ineffective jumpscares and some of the plot twists are kind of disappointing and feel a little too much like the easy option -- and then others are so wildly bizarre no one would see them coming because theyre fucking completely out there. but i kind of love that sort of nonsense in a horror movie. like lets just have a fucking good time in here for once in our fucking lives.

Halloween III is not a perfect or even a really great movie, but yknow, fuck it. the idea that only perfect films are worth watching is dumb. i appreciate the weird shit this film tried and i think it deserves a lot more respect than what it got; if it had been released under another title it probably would have gone down as a classic instead of being derided for years, you ask me.

now things start going rapidly downhill

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Halloween 4 is when Jamie is introduced as the new final girl; Laurie’s seven year old daughter, after Laurie herself died off-screen in a fucking car crash. the decision to kill off Laurie came from Jamie Lee Curtis decided not to return to the character and instead of recasting her, they went with just having her… die. off-screen. in the franchise where the previous two movies were about her triumph and determination to stay alive. like its the casual thoughtlessness of this that, the idea no one would give a shit a character returned, that in my eyes epitomises how fucking little anyone cared about this franchise going forward.

man the idea of Laurie dying completely irrelevant to Michael… thats a lot. anyway continuing on his quest to erase anyone related to him, Michael starts targeting his niece Jamie for the three movies in the franchise. this is where the series started rapidly losing any grip on reality. while Michael always had some kind of superhuman elements to him (he took six bullets to the chest and survived in the first movie) these became increasingly wildly exaggerated. now hes crushing peoples skulls with his bare hands shit like what the fuck. first of all do that to me and secondly, it was this kind of slide into unreality that let the supernatural elements of the series creep in further until you end up with the shitshow that is Halloween 6. like it was the decrease in the impact of violence and human life that really fucked this franchise over.

this film is not great. its a definite decline in quality after 2 and was on the slippery slope downwards. it has some high points, primarily in Dr Loomis. Donald Pleasance is a better actor than most movies deserve and brings gravitas to a role that in the hands of a less capable actor would be laughable. his sincere plea to Michael at one point to just kill him instead of going after Jamie is honestly fucking tragic.

outside of that, the film isnt massively interesting. Michael himself isnt particularly threatening or engaging, and his mask looks like shit in this film. the characters in this film are largely very stupid, also, which doesnt help anything much.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

if theres a Halloween movie people talk about the least, its this one. II has the sibling twist, III is the black sheep, 4 is the return, even 6 gets talked about for its troubled production history. no one has anything to say about Halloween 5. and thats mostly because there is fucking nothing to say about Halloween 5. it is a relentlessly fucking dull movie that pads out its 100 minute run time with endless unnecessary scenes of shit that does… nothing. this film is dull in a way that i find incredibly detestable. i cant even watch it through a haze of impassioned anger like i can with the also incredible dull Halloween II (2009). its just fucking boring. every single scene drags like its trying to walk on two broken legs. the plot is so bare bones its nonsensical. it constantly adds new characters and new elements but all that does is makes it more incoherent and confusing. watching this movie i literally found my fucking eyes glazing over in my skull. if this film was edited correctly it would be twenty minutes long. i cannot fucking emphasise enough how much of relentless slog it is. Halloween 4 was dull but even that had the lifeline of ‘some cool ideas’. Halloween 5 is nothing. Halloween 5 is puddle dirt water.

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

if Halloween 5 is puddle dirt water Halloween 6 is just a fresh hot glass of piss. there are two versions of Halloween 6, the director’s cut and the theatrical release, and both are wretched. this film went full ham with introducing the supernatural elements, telling us that Michael was his whole life psychically controlled by a pagan cult called the Cult of Thorne in order to make Halloween scary again or summon the devil or who fucking cares. this movie is fucking insufferably dull, totally absurd, and wildly unsympathetic. i loathe Halloween 6 and every terrible, stupid plot decision it makes. Paul Rudd defeats Michael Myers by drawing druid symbols on the ground and Michael just gives up and lies down. theres a baby that does nothing and serves no purpose. Halloween is apparently banned in Haddonfield, which makes this more closely related to Footloose than Halloween i think. this film takes itself incredibly seriously while spouting nothing but total fucking bullshit drivel and i dont believe that anyone involved in this movie, from the cast to the cameraman to the guy who served the lunch had any faith in this movie outside of the vague hope it might make money and i wish this movie had been burned at the stake. also i hate Paul Rudd.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

oh thank fucking god finally some good fucking food. Halloween H20 took the decision to retcon all the sequels (except II) twenty years before Halloween 2018, proving that everyone knew 5 and 6 were fucking mistakes.

this film loses a lot of the Halloween feeling in favour of making a more generic late 1990s/early 2000s style horror. theres nothing particularly interesting about the way this movie is directed or shot, the music is largely very generic, it has a generally uninteresting glossy quality to it that studio movies always do. its very obvious this movie was inspired by Scream and it looks a lot more like Scream than it does Halloween. all of this makes me kind of sad, but other films in the franchise have proved that other directors generally are not capable of imitating Carpenter’s style so maybe its better they dont really try.

what H20 does so well, and the reason i love it so much, is that it explores the relationship between Michael and Laurie, which is something im endlessly fascinated with. this was the first movie to have Laurie shake off her fear and rise up against Michael, and while it doesnt do it with quite as much depth and intelligence as Halloween 2018, it still has a fucking good crack at Laurie’s character, and its still powerful watching her turn on the man who terrorised her for years. Michael is great in this movie too; while he has a terrible mask, watching him back on his shit as a furious force of nature who wants nothing more than to destroy anyone who gets in his way.

honestly i kind of enjoy having a Halloween in a different style; theres something fun about seeing characters recontextualised and done with justice and empathy. most of the Halloween sequels before this one (and after, looking at Resurrection) are shallow, unconcerned with any kind of emotional depth or personality. and while a lot of the stock filler characters in H20 who are lined up for the chopping block arent that interesting and dont particularly standout, watching Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance and seeing her interplay with Michael is enough. and most of the side characters arent particularly annoying, which is more than i can say for half this franchise.

this film also has what is one of my absolute favourite endings in a movie ever; the final confrontation between Michael and Laurie has a particular interaction between them that i absolutely adore and that alone is enough to make this movie one of my favourites.

H20 isnt perfect; it weirdly feels like a blueprint that Halloween 2018 would later refine into a better movie, but the idea its going to be completely disregarded for Halloween 2018 in the future makes me a little sad. in the face of so many fucking mediocre and awful Halloween sequels it did the right thing in trying to focus on what actually mattered; the connection between Michael and Laurie, although i dont feel like it succeeded in making Michael as scary as 2018 would much later. that said, the shot where Michael and Laurie just stare at each other through the glass of a window? that gives me chills every time. and hearing the Halloween theme kick in as Laurie marches off into the school with an axe looking for Michael is so fucking triumphant.

i love H20 even if Michael’s mask looks like his hair was dunked in a bucket of water and then gently blow-dried. i have no idea why it looks so fucking stupid in this movie. why is it so hard to get Michael’s mask right. you wouldnt think it was that fucking hard. anyway, i really fucking love Laurie Strode a lot, which didnt help to make Resurrection any easier to swallow.

Halloween: Resurrection

so whats the obvious thing to do after you have a movie where the power and emotion all comes from the emotional catharsis of seeing a woman get her vengeance on her tormentor? you, uh, make a sequel in which she is immediately defeated and pointlessly killed after its revealed her victory at the end of the previous film was entirely false, and then you never return to focus on her and instead introduce a horde of entirely uninteresting stock characters. yeah, makes sense.

Resurrection is fucking incredibly stupid, in the kind of fucking hysterical way only really bad horror movies can capture. theres absolutely nothing of Halloween in this other than the presence of Michael, who just as easily could have been replaced with anyone or anything. the story has a group of people on a reality show staying in the Myers house to… stay there? its not entirely clear what the challenge is meant to be, other than to just be inside the house, which i imagine gets to be pretty dull viewing pretty quickly. theres no suggestion theyre like, hunting for ghosts or something along those lines, theyre just… looking at stuff.

Michael slopes around this movie like he doesnt fucking understand where he is or whats going on, an entirely out of place relic of better times past while the cast cavorts around him doing nothing of interest and having no plots or characterisation to speak of. the film has exactly two or three funny moments, including the legendary ‘Michael Myers getting electrocuted in the dick by Busta Rhymes’, but youre way, way better off just looking that up on youtube instead of watching this movie. there is an hour of pointless plot development about characters no one cares about until Michael starts fucking killing people. this movie shouldnt exist and we should all go back to pretending it doesnt.

and thats it. thats all the halloween films. i can die now.

[patriotsnet]

Why Do Republicans Want To Take Away Health Care

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Why Do Republicans Want To Take Away Health Care

Democrats Republicans And Your Health Insurance

Why some Republicans are skeptical of the new Senate health bill

Shereen Lehman, MS, is a healthcare journalist and fact checker.;She has co-authored two books for the popular Dummies Series .

Healthcare reform has been a contentious political topic in the U.S. for many years, and is shaping up to play a major role in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. What does each party want? Let’s take a look at how the priorities of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party;could impact your health insurance.

National And State Level Coverage Losses

Because the economic crisis stemming from the pandemic is driving millions of people onto coverage programs supported by the ACA, CAP estimates that approximately 3 million more people stand to lose coverage from the health care repeal lawsuit than the 20 million previously estimated. According to a March 2019 analysis by the Urban Institute, full repeal of the ACA would cause enrollment in Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program to fall by 22.4 percent and enrollment in individual market coverage, including for the ACA marketplaces and other insurance people purchase on their own, to drop by 35.4 percent.

The economic stress of the pandemic has pushed the United States into a recession. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the unemployment rate in the second and third quarters of this year will average 15 percent higher than it was during the Great Recession. At an unemployment rate of 15 percent, 17.7 million people would lose employment-based health insurance coverage, according to a recent report by the Urban Institute. With access to ACA coverage options, most of these people would find new forms of insurance. Urban estimates that 8.2 million would end up with Medicaid/CHIP coverage, and 4.3 million would gain coverage through the ACA marketplaces or other private coverage. About 5.1 million would remain uninsured.

Table 1

Doubling Down Again On Health Savings Accounts

Bolstering health savings accounts has been a very popular reform idea among Republicans, and that enthusiasm is clear in the RSC plan.

The plan proposes to increase how much an employee can contribute to a health savings account. Currently, an individual can contribute $3,500 and a family can contribute $7,000.

RELATED: Premiums on benchmark HealthCare.gov plans decline 4% for 2020: CMS;

A 2018 bill that passed out of the House but didnt make it through Congress increased the contribution cap to $6,650 for an individual and $13,300 for a family.

Now, the RSC plan wants to increase the figures again, this time to $9,000 per individual and $18,000 for families, in line with a proposal from libertarian think tank Cato Institute.

The RSC plan would also expand health savings accounts so that they could be used for a number of health services and products that currently must be paid for with after-tax dollars, the plan said.

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The Health Care Repeal Lawsuit Could Strip Coverage From 23 Million Americans

Tomorrow, the Trump administration and 18 Republican governors and attorneys general will file their opening briefs with the Supreme Court in California v. Texasthe health care repeal lawsuit. The lawsuit, criticized across the political spectrum as a badly flawed case, threatens to upend the Affordable Care Act and strip 23.3 million Americans of their health coverage, according to new CAP analysisabout 3 million more than was forecast before the coronavirus pandemic. The anti-ACA agitators who initiated the health care repeal lawsuit, backed by the Trump administration, continue their attempts to dismantle the ACA, including its coverage expansions and consumer protections, amid the pandemic, during which comprehensive health coverage has never been more important. Millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and job-based insurance due to the current economic crisis are relying on the insurance options made possible by the ACA to keep themselves and their families covered.

Is The Supreme Court Likely To Save Obamacare

The Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Conservative justices John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in two hours of arguments to be unwilling to strike down the entire law a long-held Republican goal.

The courts three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety and presumably would form a majority by joining a decision that cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it.

Leading a group of Democratic-controlled states, California and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are urging the court to leave the law in place.

A decision is expected by late spring.

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Republicans Really Hate Health Care

Theyve gone beyond cynicism to pathology.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

Of all the political issues that divide us, health care is the one with the greatest impact on ordinary Americans lives. If Democrats hadnt managed to pass the Affordable Care Act, around 20 million fewer Americans would have health insurance than currently do. If Republican-controlled states hadnt refused to expand Medicaid and generally done as little as possible to support the act, national progress might have tracked progress in, say, California so another 7 or 8 million people might have coverage.

You obviously know where I stand on this political divide. But Im starting to believe that I misjudged Republican motives.

You see, I thought their behavior was cynical and strategic: They opposed Obamacare because they thought there was political mileage in scaring people about change, and also in denying Obama any successes. Oh, and their donors really hated the taxes on the rich that pay for the ACAs subsidies. And right up through 2016 they could hope to convince voters that they had a secret plan for something much better than Obamacare.

Indeed, all of these things surely played a role in GOP health care strategy. But at this point theyve clearly lost the political argument. In 2017, Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare made it clear to everyone that their party didnt have any better ideas, and never did; everything they proposed would have devastated the lives of millions.

The Real Reason Republicans Couldnt Kill Obamacare

Democrats did the work, Republicans didntand that says a lot about the two parties.

Adapted from The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage, St. Martins Press 2021.

The Affordable Care Act, the health-care law also known as Obamacare, turns 11 years old this week. Somehow, the program has not merely survived the GOPs decade-long assault. Its actually getting stronger, thanks to some major upgrades tucked in the COVID-19 relief package that President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this month.

The new provisions should enable millions of Americans to get insurance or save money on coverage they already purchase, bolstering the health-care law in precisely the way its architects had always hoped to do. And although the measures are temporary, Biden and his Democratic Party allies have pledged to pass more legislation making the changes permanent.

The expansion measures are a remarkable achievement, all the more so because Obamacares very survival seemed so improbable just a few years ago, when Donald Trump won the presidency. Wiping the law off the books had become the Republicans defining cause, and Trump had pledged to make repeal his first priority. As the reality of his victory set in, almost everybody outside the Obama White House thought the effort would succeed, and almost everybody inside did too.

That was no small thing, as Republicans were about to discover.

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The Healthy Could Buy Less Expensive Policies In Some States

Obamacare requires insurers to provide an array of health care benefits, including maternity, mental health, prescription drugs and substance abuse. This comprehensive coverage, however, jacks up premiums and provides services that some consumers find unnecessary — think, a couple in their late 50s who aren’t having any more kids likely don’t need maternity coverage.

The bill would allow states to waive this federal mandate, which would allow insurers to offer skinnier plans that offer fewer benefits with lower premiums.

Do you have a pre-existing condition? How will the GOP healthcare bill affect you and your family? Share your story: Text/WhatsApp us on +1-347-322-0415

Opinion: Democrats Are Lying On Health Care

Republicans Aren’t Campaigning On Healthcare â They’re Hiding From It (HBO)

In November of every even-numbered year since at least 1970, the biggest lie in American politics has been Democrats claiming that Republicans are going to take away your Social Security. Republicans learned to live in a defensive crouch and to try to avoid mentioning the words Social Security. Now the new lie is about health care, mostly that Republicans are going to take away coverage for;preexisting conditions.

As usual, the truth is very different. The Senate Republican Policy Committee explained in a May 2017 paper that under the Republican-backed alternative to Obamacare, the American Health Care Act, no one will be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Even if you are skeptical of Republican talking points, you dont have to look very far to find objective confirmation. According to FactCheck.org, Sen. Schumer was wrong to say, as he did on the Senate floor April 28, that the bill goes back to the day when insurance companies could deny coverage to those with preexisting conditions.

Democrats cant accept that the hallmark of the Obama years Obamacare has been a flop and is being taken apart piece by piece. And they will do anything to use the health-care issue against Republicans. No lie is too big.

Republicans dont want to take away your health care or leave people with preexisting conditions without coverage. If Democrats will lie to you about this, they will lie to you about other things.

Read more:

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Why Do Republicans Oppose Obamacare

Patrizia Rizzo, SEO Reporter

11:10 ET, Nov 11 2020

Patrizia Rizzo, SEO Reporter

Invalid Date,

REPUBLICANS have campaigned against Obamacare ever since it was signed into law in 2010.;

But with a change in presidency ahead, the Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including;key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Why Is The Affordable Care Act So Despised By So Many Conservatives

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IT HAS been called the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed, as destructive to personal and individual liberties as the Fugitive Slave Act and a killer of women, children and old people. According to Republican lawmakers, the sources of each of these quotes, the Affordable Care Act , or Obamacare, is a terrible thing. Since it was passed by a Democratic Congress in 2009, it has been the bête noire of the Republicans. The party has pushed more than 60 unsuccessful Congressional votes to defeat it, while the Supreme Court has been forced to debate it four times in the acts short history. Obamacare was also at the heart of the two-week government shutdown in 2013. Why does the ACA attract such opprobrium from the right?

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Opinionwe Want To Hear What You Think Please Submit A Letter To The Editor

Despite what they say on television about protecting the most vulnerable, one by one the Republican senators are all getting in line behind Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. We don’t yet know who that is, but we can assume how he or she will vote on Obamacare.

People with pre-existing conditions like me are again terrified of losing our insurance, this time in the midst of a pandemic. We’ve lived through years of scary uncertainty and now months of sheltering in place. Enough is enough. We are all health care voters now. We’ll see whether our wavering senators are health care voters, too.

Laura Packard is a Denver-based health care advocate and cancer survivor. She is the founder of Health Care Voices, a non-profit grassroots organization for adults with serious medical conditions, co-chair of Health Care Voter, and runs the pharma accountability campaign for Hero Action Fund. Follow her on Twitter:

States Allowed To Add Work Requirements To Medicaid

What is it? Medicaid expansion was a key part of the ACA. The federal government helped pay for states to expand Medicaid eligibility beyond families to include all low-income adults, and to raise the income threshold, so that more people would be eligible. So far, 37 states and Washington have opted to expand Medicaid.

What changed? Under Trump, if they get approval from the federal government, states can now require Medicaid beneficiaries to prove with documentation that they either work or go to school.

What does the administration say? “When you consider that, less than five years ago, Medicaid was expanded to nearly 15 million new working-age adults, it’s fair that states want to add community engagement requirements for those with the ability to meet them. It’s easier to give someone a card; it’s much harder to build a ladder to help people climb their way out of poverty. But even though it is harder, it’s the right thing to do.” Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Washington, Sept. 27, 2018

What’s the impact? Even though HealthCare.gov and the state insurance exchanges get a lot of attention, the majority of people who gained health care coverage after the passage of the ACA 12.7 million people actually got their coverage by being newly able to enroll in Medicaid.

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Republicans Stop Giving A Sh*t About Babies Once They’re Actually Born

Republicans are generallyÂ;pro-life, and mostÂ;conservativesÂ;believe that life beginsÂ;at the moment of conception.

They see aÂ;fetus not as part of a woman’s body, but asÂ;a human beingÂ;who doesn’tÂ;deserve to die throughÂ;abortion.

In last week’sÂ;Republican debate, nominees Â;the viral and controversialÂ;videoÂ;of a Planned Parenthood official allegedlyÂ;discussing the sale of fetal organs.

Republicans used the video asÂ;a springboardÂ;to discussÂ;limiting — and, in some cases, completely prohibitingÂ;– a woman’s access to an abortion.

In fact, Republicans areÂ;so committed to protecting the lives of the unborn that there isÂ;an entire page on the party’sÂ;websitededicated to the importance of upholding its reputation asÂ;the “pro-life party.”Â;It says:

The Republican Party must continue to uphold the principle that every human being, born and unborn, young and old, healthy and disabled, has a fundamental, individual right to life.Â;Like Abraham Lincoln, we rely on the Declaration of Independence for our authority to assert that every individual human being has a Creator-endowed right to life, and that it is the duty of government to protect that right.

Cool.

Besides the obvious “my body, my choice” liberalÂ;perspective on this, which says that what a woman decides to do with what’sÂ;in herÂ;body is up to her,Â;there’s a massiveÂ;problemÂ;with the Republicans’ pro-life platform.

But why don’t they give a single sh*t about that baby once it’s actually born?

Paul Ryan Has Dreamed Of Slashing Medicaid Since His Keg

Paul Ryan

Republican Paul Ryan, like most other members of the U.S. Congress, is a millionaire.

Christa Patton is 68 years old. She is frail and no longer able to leave her home. She lives on a fixed income. Patton told Van Jones on a recent episode of his CNN show “The Messy Truth” that she would not be able to eat without the Meals on Wheels program.

Paul Ryan is the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. By his own account, in college he used to hang out with his friends and drink beer while sharing his dreams of cutting Medicaid. When Ryan was 15 years old, his father died from an alcoholism related heart attack. Ryan and his family then received his father’s Social Security survivor’s benefits. Ryan used that money to attend college. This was not the only money that Paul Ryan received from the federal government. His family built its wealth from receiving government contracts.

Like his idol Ayn Rand , Paul Ryan has combined meanness, cruelty and callousness toward the weak and the vulnerable with gross and unapologetic hypocrisy.

Republicans like Ryan along with the millionaires and billionaires who comprise Donald Trump’s Cabinet and inner circle literally want to take food, shelter and health care away from poor people like Christa Patton. Today’s Republicans view these Americans as useless eaters to be disposed of by means both passive and active.

Social psychologists have shown that, in effect,;poor people become;invisible to the rich and upper classes.

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Premium Subsidies And Affordability

The ACA’s premium subsidies were designed to keep health insurance affordable for people who buy their own coverage in the individual market. Premiums for individual market plans increased alarmingly in 2017 and 2018, although they were much more stable in 2019 and 2020, and rate changes for 2021 appear to be mostly modest. But premiums for people who aren’t eligible for premium subsidies can still amount to a substantial portion of their income.

The individual market is a very small segment of the population, however, and rate increases have been much more muted across the full population .

Democrats have proposed various strategies for making coverage and care affordable. Joe Biden’s healthcare proposal includes larger premium subsidies that would be based on the cost of a benchmark gold plan and based on having people pay only 8.5% of their income for that plan . Biden’s proposal would also eliminate the ACA’s income cap for premium subsidy eligibility and provide subsidies to anyone who would otherwise have to pay more than 8.5% of their income for a benchmark gold plan. This would eliminate the “subsidy cliff” that currently exists for some enrollees.

The 2020 Democratic Party platform calls for a “public option” health plan that would compete with private health insurance carriers in an effort to bring down prices, and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60.