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txttletale · 1 year ago

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I know copyright and intellectual property is bullshit, but how do I tell that to someone who's convinced that it protects small artists?

tell them about bill mantlo, creator of rocket racoon, whose brother has to start gofundmes to pay his medical bills while marvel makes millions off that character's merch. or to gary friedrich, creator of ghost rider, who sued marvel for using the character at a point where it should have returned to him, lost, and was then counter-sued for selling merch including sketches for fans at conventions. or alan moore, who vowed to never work with DC again after he was screwed out of owning watchmen. or the archetypal examples of this phenomenon, jack kirby (co-creator of iron man, captain america, ant-man, the hulk, and a fuckton more characters) who of course was also screwed out of any ownership, or jerry siegel and joe shuster, who spent decades fighting over the copyright to superman, a character they created and sold for $130 as desperate struggling artists and who then went on to make millions for DC comics.

or if they're not a comics fan, why not talk to them about robert kurvitz, head writer of disco elysium, who through an extremely suspect purchase lost the rights to the world of elysium, representing his life's creative work. or to hideo kojima, who was forced out of konami, keeping absolutely no rights to his iconic metal gear franchise, and had his demo for Silent Hills made into fucking vaporware that nobody can download anymore!

or about the time that disney used threats of legal action to put a stop to such nefarious infringement of their copright as 'being painted on the walls of a daycare' or 'being put on a child's gravestone'.

the thing about copyright is that it has to be enforced in court. a 'small artist' -- even ones who are independently successful and considerably wealthy -- can simply not afford to fight a protracted legal battle while paying top legal talent. disney and marvel and any other big media company, however, can fight as many legal battles as they want for as long and have the legal fees be a drop in the bucket. companies that can afford lawyers and can afford to, if it really comes down to it, lose a lawsuit -- that is, companies with millions of dollars to spare -- are simply above copyright law. this is not a bug--this is a feature. this is the system working as designed.

#ask

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zzthekaiju · 2 months ago

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The GREAT MONSTER HUNTER RANKING! Part 2

And now we start to get to the beasts that are actively trying to kill you.

This part is dedicated to the invertebrates of the monster-hunting world. The Neopterons (big bugs), Carapaceons (big crabs), and the Temnocerans (big spiders).

Now, I'll be real here. If there was ever a case of this franchise just leaving money on the table, it would be how they've handled Neopterons, the single most underrated monster type in my opinion. There are thousands of bugs in the world, and how many large monsters does this franchise have based on them, as of now? A grand total of two. That's...it. Granted, there are plenty of other monsters that take cues from insects, but it's not the same, I tell you!

But enough grousing about "shoulda, coulda, woulda", what big bugs do we have? Well, before we get into that, let's look at the small ones ("small" being relative, most of these guys are about as big as dogs).

The Neopterons:

"NO NOT THE WASPS! NOT THE WASPS! AAAAAGHGHGHGH!!!"

Vespoids are, as the name would imply, really gnarly-looking wasps. They have heads almost shaped like lizards, and they used to be absolute Hell on any hunter trying to carve/gather in peace. But other than that...they're just annoying. It is neat though how in earlier games you could attract a Vespoid queen, which is about twice as big as a man. But they don't do that anymore. Darn. 3.5/10.

"I think I stepped on a bug."

Hornetaurs are the more interesting small neopterons by virtue of being based mostly on Hercules beetles. Neat little buggers, but that's all they are. They can barely even fight back despite being the size of small dogs. 5/10.

"It's-OW-so-OW-pretty-OW!"

Bnahabra were something of a successor to the Vespoids during the third generation, and really, they were superior. That weird alien-looking head adds so much character to what could have just been another flying nuisance. It kind of reminds me of the spiny orb-weaver spider's abdomen, so that's a plus. 6/10.

"Not so ant-isocial."

Altaroths are this world's answer to ants. More specifically, honeypot ants. Those gnarly mandibles, that odd crest, and the fact that their abdomens change color based on what their recent food was make this more than a worthy successor to the Hornetaurs. It does make me wonder what an Altaroth queen looks like, though. 6/10.

"Rolly pollie, holy cannoli"

The Konchu may not be getting any fans based on how they affect hunts (armoring monsters on top of knocking hunters over makes for a nasty pest), but they've got some neat looks at least. They're pill bugs mixed with the sensibilities of trilobites, and that's just cool. Also, I'd like to note that when they latch onto larger monsters, they're not doing that to be nice. That's them sucking their blood like parasites. Think on that for a bit. 7/10.

"And I'll form the he-PLEASE FREE ME FROM THIS HELL!"

NOW we can talk about really big bugs. There are only two large Neopterons as of now, and they're both really cool! Case in point, the Seltas/Seltas Queen. And yes, the queen is the larger monster in that pic. You see, these beetles have a rather...twisted sexual dimorphism going on. The male is a person-sized flying terror that isn't terribly hard to kill by monster standards, but the female is beast that's as big as and even looks like a tank. The queen releases a pheromone that attracts the male, which is then snatched up by that gnarly tail and essentially brainwashed into fighting by the big lady's side, acting as a sort of biological combining mecha. And if the Seltas can't fight, his involuntary mate smashes and eats him.

Yikes.

Putting aside that horrific biology, the Seltas wins points for its appealing colors and its mecha motif, complete with mechanical sounds and even weaponized exhaust that inflicts Soiled status. Even the armor set you craft from it seems to have been inspired by more than a few robot animes. 8/10. Would have been a 9, but I just feel THAT bad for the small Seltas. And you thought mantids had a hard time monkeying around with love. Speaking of...

"THAT INSECT MADE THIS IN A DUNE!!! WITH A BUNCH OF SCRAP!"

Ironically, for a type so underutilized, the Neopterons had the honor of one of their own being the True Final Boss of Monster Hunter: Generations Ultimate. And sure enough, they brought in their best.

Ahtal-Ka is already a winner by virtue of being a giant mantis. ANY mantis monster would be in the top ten for me. Once again Capcom, GIVE US MORE NEOPTERONS PLEASE! Anyhow, it's not just a cool bug, but it's also got a neat Egyptian motif with its color scheme and ornate head crest based on what the Pharaohs wore back then. Gold isn't really my color, but I like what they were going for. The purple eyes help it stand out even more.

And as it turns out, there's a reason you outta fear this bug like it was a Pharaoh. You see, by itself, it's already a strong beast. It's main asset is being able to create sticky webs that it can use to lasso debris straight into your face. This includes, but is definitely not limited to, ENTIRE WHOLE DRAGONATORS (which are basically huge pointy weapons typically used against Elder Dragons). But nothing compares to its secret weapon: its intellect. The Ahtal-Ka is, at its heart, a tinkerer of all things. And it has laid entire human settlements to waste with its magnum opus.

That.

This is the Empress' Throne, named so because the Ahtal-Ka made it from its web and whatever scraps it could find. And it's about the size of a building. The monster uses its webs to pilot it from the inside, manipulating its limbs like a puppeteer on crack. And if certain descriptions are to be believed, this isn't even the biggest this bug can make its creations.

So yeah, the smartest monster around is a giant Egyptian mantis that goes grocery shopping in ruined civilizations so that it can make giant robots generations ahead of whatever we're lunking around. 9.5/10. That is all.

And now, we move on to a type that's literally just "giant enemy crab". And you do indeed have to attack their weak points for massive damage.

(Funnily enough, there are Carapaceons in MH: Frontier that take cues from arachnids, but this isn't a Frontier ranking, is it?)

The Carapaceons:

"Hunter, me boy, just want you to know that I'll be pickin' you out of me teeth! Ag, agagagagag!"

To start, there is the Daimyo Hermitaur. It's pretty much the standard for Carapaceons going forward. And what a standard it is. That being a huge hermit crab that eschews the typical shell and instead uses the skulls of larger, deadlier monsters. That's cool AND naturalistic! In Daimyo's case, its a Monoblos skull (which seems to exist these days as a grim reminder that Mono ain't going to feature in the new games, lol). This, combined with that terrifying face shaped to look like a mouthful of teeth, make for a strong first-impression! And a side-note, but whenever it gets mad, I just love how it makes an odd "come at me, bro" gesture before attacking.

Also, it shoots beams of pressurized water from its mouth. You'd better believe how lethal that is. 8/10.

"It slices, it dices, and makes unmarked graves of you all!"

If the Daimyo is the heavy-hitting shield, the Shogun Ceanataur is the blood-soaked blade. It's positively wicked look owes its lot to the ridiculously long raptorial limbs it has. They're apparently so sharp, they can cut through even the toughest of armor sets. Sure enough, fighting one and getting hit by Shogun's unsheathed blades will win you the bleed status ailment. And while most Shoguns wear a Gravios skull for a shell, there's one deviant that uses the skull of a Glavenus, and even fights like one! Daimyo may be imposing like a fortress, but Shogun is the sort of fast-striking warrior that I argue leaves more of a lasting impression. The only reason I don't rank it higher is because I was...not happy to find out that it's not shooting concentrated beams of water at you. That's pee...yeah. 8/10.

"Horrors on stilts!"

We've seen crabs rob the corpses of big monsters to empower themselves. But none have taken it to such ridiculously huge literal heights like Shen Gaoren. Even to this day, this is the largest non-Elder Dragon monster in the franchise. It's so tall that hunters can barely come up to the first segment of one of its legs. Sure, it doesn't do a whole lot of fighting, but it doesn't have to. It's main fortification on top of an already well-armored body is the skull of a Lao Shan-Lung. In other words, an Elder Dragon. And it can even shoot concentrated balls of acid from that skull's mouth! It's safe to say this big crab has a major amount of presence, helped in no small part by its design being mostly based on the spider crab. Bring it back in the next game, please! 9/10.

And finally for this part, we come to the giant spiders. A type that, surprisingly, has been steadily getting bigger with each new generation. There's even a new one coming in Wilds. But for now, let's look at the two we've seen so far.

The Temnocerans:

"So...what shall I wear today? The one that died screaming, or the one who never saw it coming?"

It's safe to say that the first Temnoceran ever seen came in literally swinging. Nerscylla is already a threatening monster by virtue of being a giant spider. But then you factor in those huge purple spikes, its ability to swing all over the place, a pair of extendable serrated mandibles all the better to slice you with, and a minor detail about it WEARING THE SKIN OF ITS FAVORITE PREY. Specifically, the Gypceros. And for those who fought that Bird Wyvern in previous games, it would be cathartic if it weren't so horrific. Still, it makes for cool monster, so there's that! 7/10.

"Every day is Take Your Kids to Work Day"

Nerscylla may be a good standard giant spider, but in my opinion, we may never beat Rakna-Kadaki. This is easily one of the most creative giant spiders I've ever seen in a piece of media. I say this due to how they went and designed its head. Because the mad geniuses at Capcom decided to base this monster off of the pelican spider.

Yup, it's real. And it ain't the one getting lifted.

These spiders are characterized by having small bodies yet surprisingly long necks and/or fangs. The Rakna-Kadaki also has that, albeit its body is positively huge. And what's more, the head attached to that long neck looks less like an arachnid and more a demon out of Hell. Sure enough, its main inspiration was the yokai (a Japanese spirit/demon) known as the Jorogumo, which is a demonic spider that pretends to be a beautiful maiden to seduce prey. Rakna doesn't need to rely on seduction (though it might have done that before eating its mates). Instead, it utilizes its own explosive breeding habits to create enough loyal young known as Rachnoids that it can use mostly as grapplers to move more quickly across the ground. Oh, and IT BREATHES FIRE AND COMBUSTIBLE GAS. I don't know about you, but this might be the most metal giant spider ever conceived. And it's just so fascinating to even think about. Whoever proposed "monster pelican spider" deserves a raise. Let's do an ant-mimic spider next! 9.5/10!

Next up, the Bird Wyverns!

Index:

Herbivores

Neopterons, Carapaceans, Temnocerans

Bird Wyverns

Flying Wyverns

Piscine Wyverns, Amphibians, Leviathans

Brute Wyverns

Fanged Beasts, Fanged Wyverns

Elder Dragons

#monster hunter #monhun #monster hunter world #monster hunter rise #monster hunter wilds #ramblings

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iam93percentstardust · 2 years ago

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one of the things that really bothers me about modern franchises, and in particular over the last 5 years or so, is their refusal to commit. what i mean here when i say this is that it's not uncommon for a major franchise to make a decision, whether about the plot or the characters, that should have had huge, world-changing consequences... and then just never address that again or worse, immediately go back and undo it. and i'm gonna pick on star wars and the mcu here because those are the two big franchises i'm into at the moment (and i think they're kind of the worst at this), but i don't want you to walk away from this thinking that this is solely a disney thing. i've seen this happen with game of thrones and supernatural and plenty of other non-disney franchises. spoilers ahead, you've been warned:

in ant-man & the wasp quantumania, scott and hope make the life-altering decision to stay behind in the quantum realm and defeat kang instead of going through the portal to return to their world. this should have been a huge meta decision for the mcu, and when i first saw it in theaters, my immediate thought was wow, what is this going to mean for the mcu going forward? are we going to get a movie/miniseries about scott and hope helping to rebuild the quantum realm? how are cassie, janet, and hank going to react to the losses of their loved ones (in some cases, for the second time)? is cassie going to become the "first" young avenger because she has to take her father's place among the team lineup (and i only say first because as of this moment, none of the other young avengers introduced to the franchise are official avengers yet)? except nope, because less than 2 minutes later, cassie had fixed the portal that had broken way back at the beginning of the movie and brought scott and hope back.

and it felt like such a cheat. i was so disappointed in that theater, not as someone who was invested in these characters on a personal level (because yay, cassie gets her dad back!), but as someone who has spent years investing themselves in the story of the mcu. what was the point of wasting screentime on scott and hope accepting their new lives in the quantum realm if it was just going to immediately be undone? the entire scene could have been cut to scott and hope making it back bare seconds before the portal closed and it would have had the same emotional impact. there was nothing added by making scott and hope (and us) think that there was no way back only to rip the rug out from under us and go "gotcha! you really thought we were gonna give this movie a sad ending? haha! you're so dumb!"

and this isn't the first time the mcu has done this. one of the biggest complaints about endgame was the decision to set it five years in the future with no consideration for how that would actually change the setting of the mcu. characters were brought back to the exact place they disappeared from with no consideration for how things might have changed in the interim five years (like planes that weren't in the air anymore, buildings no longer standing, even just something as simple as a chair being unoccupied). and then the mcu didn't even really have the courage to address how this would have shaped the world other than a few jokes and making the bad guys in the falcon and the winter soldier people who cared about how the world had screwed them over during the blip.

and things like this happen over and over and over again. the accords are put into place in civil war, but by the time we get to she-hulk, they're gone with no explanation because, as best as i can tell, the writers didn't want to have to deal with the worldbuilding that went into the accords. gamora is killed in infinity war, but heaven forbid quill not have an emotional investment in a film he appears for maybe 10 minutes in so now she's back in endgame. steve got to go live in the past with his ex-girlfriend (which is in itself a refusal to commit after the mcu both gave her a different husband and had the woman herself tell him to move on) but we need to establish that messing with timelines is bad because that's what the entire next phase hinges on so actually his ending was predestined and it's only everyone else who can't change time. whoever took this entire town and also wanda hostage and forced them to live out a sitcom fantasy is bad and needs to be stopped but wait, it's actually wanda and she can't be the bad guy yet, we need her for doctor strange 2, so actually everyone's going to defend her now and say that no one else could ever possibly understand her grief. thor has decided to accept responsibility as king of asgard, but we can't use him for any more movies if he's stuck in asgard, so actually he's decided to pass it on to someone whose entire leadership capability is developed offscreen. i could list more examples but this is making me angry, so let's move on to star wars instead.

with star wars, i look at first the oft-quoted meme, "somehow palpatine has returned." yeah, i shouldn't really need to go into detail on how that counts as a refusal to commit but. the last jedi was a study in how johnson refused to commit to anything that abrams had laid down in the force awakens, but rise of skywalker was almost like abrams had looked at the franchise and said "screw you for taking it away from me, i'm going to come up with the most bullshit stuff just to spite you for doing that in the first place. and i'm going to start by undoing the most important plot point of the first trilogy: the emperor dies." and yeah, disney's kind of tried to salvage this by dropping hints into the bad batch and the mandalorian about cloning, but that only really works if you're watching the franchise chronologically and not considering that both of those series came out after rise of skywalker.

and then there's the mandalorian, my sweet summer child, who is, in my opinion, the worst at backtracking their plot points. i'm not entirely convinced that any of the higher ups for this show really knew what they were doing when they started working on it and i'm not convinced that they know what they're doing now. yeah, there's the tie-in to the last season of clone wars, but the mandalorian has managed to walk back pretty much every single major plot point it's had. din is this legendary warrior who can't be beat, but no one will watch this show if he defeats everyone too early, so he's constantly getting beat up (tbf, sometimes some of the fights he loses makes sense like the krayt dragon and the mudhorn, but a lot of them don't. at all). moff gideon is dead, no wait no he's not, now he's imprisoned, no wait no he's not, now he's definitely dead, you can totally believe us this time guys. grogu can use the force and must be placed with the jedi, but wait, the only person still actively teaching the way of the jedi is luke and all of his students will be brutally murdered ten years from now, and we can't have that, everyone will be mad at us for killing off such a cute character and no one will buy baby yoda dolls (and also we have to set up luke's character degradation from hopeful, believes-in-love cinnamon roll to "i'm going to kill my nephew") so in between seasons let's have grogu decide to go back to din (and don't even get me started on how frustrating it is that a casual mandalorian watcher also had to watch book of boba fett to understand why grogu is back). din has the darksaber now which makes him king of mandalore, that's totally going to be important and what the entire series has been building up to, right? wrong! he might have spent the first two seasons making connections, learning about the world outside his sheltered upbringing, and demonstrating the various qualities that would make for a good leader, but the entire third season will be about din realizing that actually he's super unworthy and the darksaber should actually go to someone who... saw an animal in the water.

and it's really, really frustrating as a viewer! because how am i supposed to get invested in any of these plot decisions when they almost always get reversed? why should i care that mj and ned have forgotten peter when ant-man 3 has shown me that they'll remember him the next time they're all on screen together? why should i care that tech is dead when half of the last season of clone wars was about how echo was actually alive? if none of these decisions have any permanence, then where are the emotional stakes? why should i watch your movie if all you're going to tell me is that nothing matters?

#and also i want to make a point that the early mcu did permanent stakes really well #iron man 1 ends with tony announcing that he's iron man and that's something that still resonated years later #the entire second film hinged on that one moment #loki falling into the bifrost is what leads him to the chitauri which is what kickstarted the avengers #steve is woken from the ice and the first organization who presents themselves as someone to trust is shield #which sets up the betrayal he feels in the winter soldier #these moments resonate throughout the first two stages and the decisions the characters made MATTERED #so you can't help but get invested because what if it's the wrong decision???#anyway i'm frustrated with the state of franchises #alle talks #long post

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dalesramblingsblog · 10 months ago

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I know we've been commenting since The Star Beast on the irony of Russell T. Davies taking Disney money and using it to say trans/gay rights as part of one of the biggest British television events of 2023/2024, but I think Dot and Bubble fully opened my eyes to something I've been quietly contemplating since at least the time of The Giggle.

I am genuinely convinced, knowing everything I know about Davies' comments on the state of the BBC and the kinds of art he's been making of late, that Series 14 is a brilliant and purposeful piece of artistic subversion that has taken Disney's money to not just say trans rights, but to actively comment upon the cold, empty yawning abyss that is modern MCU franchisecrafting.

Time and time again, the show has returned to the idea that that sort of "artistry" is completely anathema in a cosmic horror sense to the very fabric of Doctor Who. The Toymaker is an arbiter of rules and continuity, who threatens to turn Doctor Who into a knock-off of The Avengers before everything collapses back into a game of catch with the Doctor in his underwear.

73 Yards is quite explicitly about the loneliness, emptiness and futility that accompanies human beings trying to impose rational, ordered frameworks and narratives on a fundamentally chaotic and strange universe. The very fact that the episode exists in a media ecosystem where hackish YouTubers will be falling over themselves to make "Ending Explained" videos for it *is part of the point*.

And then we have Dot and Bubble, where the modern glut of franchisal/social media (and the two are often close to interchangeable, as proven by this very blog post) is explicitly shown to have an anaesthetising effect that insulates people from real-world suffering. But it's more than that, because that same anaesthesia ties into expressions of actual, direct racism that are so baked into the foundations of that media and who it tends to uplift (white, conventionally attractive and implicitly straight people) that they become indistinguishable from said suffering.

After years of Doctor Who trying its hand at being a generic MCU-esque property and fans creating mockups of Phase-esque release timelines with a million spin-offs focusing on the Wacky Adventures of Miss Evangelista or whatever other bullshit fandom constantly clamours for, here is an era that puts its foot down and says "Actually, the foundational elements of that brand of media consumption are materially connected to the constant racist or sexist backlash you see against the casting of Ncuti Gatwa or Jodie Whittaker or Kelly Marie Tran."

And it is absolutely, positively, 100% correct.

How, then, does Doctor Who resist the creeping power of this monolithic cultural entity? In a world where studios seriously try to argue for the artistic worth of tripe like Morbius or Madame Web or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, what is the appropriate response?

The same response that it's always had, the thing that it's been doing for sixty years. Getting people to learn how to run down corridors from hokey aliens, hoping against hope that those people don't turn out to be massive fucking racists and telling them exactly where they can shove it if they are, and instilling the children of the world with a healthy dose of fear and light-hearted humour.

Welcome back, Doctor Who. God, I have missed you.

#doctor who #dale's ramblings #fifteenth doctor #ruby sunday #ncuti gatwa #millie gibson #s40e5: dot and bubble #russell t davies #dw spoilers #doctor who spoilers #also i just realised that this episode dropped on the first day of pride month just for maximum synergy with #soulless corporate culture's masqueradng as friendly inclusivity and connection #hello rainbow capitalism what are you doing here

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disneytva · 11 days ago

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youtube

The Chatterleys take Barry on their island vacation, but he seems to have a dark secret.

Judy Greer (Marvel Studios "Ant-Man" franchise) guest stars as Rhonda. “Cocina Island” NOW available on Disney Channel and streaming summer on Disney+.

#Kiff #Disney Kiff #Nic Smal #Lucy Heavens #Disney Channel #Youtube

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call-me-liquid · 6 months ago

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Lily can't keep her own "Sympathetic" Villains rules Straight: Anthony Gramuglia edition

See Crim's edition for the rules and outlines. Here we go.

Lily's Response to Ant:

Lily's probably going to get a significantly worse score on this one because me and Ant I think have similar media diets. We begin:

1. In the book, 100% he is THE villain. The movie not as much. Still though, I think movie Hammond more than fit's Lily's criteria. -1 life found a way

2. We already went over this (yes I am still writing p.3 of my Magneto post.) -1 Anthro cow delivering your children

3. Kyubey's keeping the universe from ending Lily. How could you get closer to having a point than that? -1 timeline

4. See Crim's post. He does fail #2. Again though, by Lily's original parameters this was a valid entry. But I have to give her the point. +1 spider gets it's legs ripped off

5. I bet she thought this was clever. -1 gate keeper.

6.N/A

7. I don't even know what she's talking about here. -1

8. Del Toro sends his regards. -1 Nerdy fish man.

9. LILY HASN'T SEEN THE BROADWAY SMASH HIT PLANET OF THE APES THE MUSICAL, STARRING TROY MCCLURE!? For shame! -1 (has anyone else watched that movie recently? I'm not saying it's aged poorly, but like, it is profoundly unintentionally hilarious, watching it in the modern day. I know this was like, the whole thing back then-- leading men who were too cool for school, but Taylor is such a fucking asshole. Cornelius is the real hero of the film, and everyone bullies him for not matching their lunatic energy. #justiceforCornelius #GeorgeTaylorisoverparty)

10. N/A (Trekkies don't try me.)

11. N/a

12. N/A (I mean I feel like I've probably seen the whole Mummy franchise just through memes at this point but. Lily's reasoning here is fucking asinine though-- as per usually Ant us uniquely getting her goat.)

13. This is actually the first example that breaks rule #3. Sorry fam I love Elfen Lied too, but it's a bit of a hot mess. +1 dead puppy

14. Scar is a dead ringer to Lily's criteria. She straight up just didn't have a pot to piss in, so she just wrote "no." -1 Dwarf in a flask

15. For the record, my boomer mom has seen Ghost in the Shell. The movie anyway. -1 body on loan

16. I watched this as a kid but can't really remember anything about it, so, I gotta put it as N/A.

17. This might actually be the first time I've seen anyone else memtion this movie . . . But still. -1 burnt wheelchair

18. Not plus ultra. -1 for all

19. Oh fuck off Lily. Glass houses. -1 jutsu

20. Sai, Crim and Ant spoke pretty extensively about this one. -1 angry hair raise

21. This one too. -1 demon pig

22. Yes she is. -1 dad

23. See Crim's list. -1 Prisoner 24601

24. N/A

25. Read ANY book, Lily. -1 absent godly parent.

26. I've only read the first one. N/A

27. Lily's reason here is bullshit but I haven't seen Columbo either. N/A

28. Why not Lily? -1 Jimbo

29. YES SHE FUCKING IS LILY. Just because in a modern context her story is a lot more tragic doesn't mean she isn't intended to be a villain. Lily made up the rule "has a point," but if they have an iron clad one she just declares them not a villain. -1 head

30. OBJECTION! NOW YOU REMEMBER VILLAIN AND ANTAGONIST ARENT TRUE SYNONYMS FOR EACH OTHER!? -1 Lily if you could just ONCE try to engage with a media discussion honestly.

31. N/A. I'll get around to watching it.

32. Not in Dracula Untold. -1 Damn Luke Evans looks like he was cloned from Orlando Bloom. I can't tell those two apart.

33. DIFFERENT DRACULAS. HOLY SHIT. -1 Lily this rational is so piss poor it's embarrassing. Even for you.

34. N/A

35. Isn't he in Kingdom Hearts? -1 Ah Ha Ha Ha

36. Another non-surprise. -1 traveler on his way home.

37. I haven't played enough Kurby to know why Meta Knight is a sympathetic villain. N/A

38. I've played enough to know Lily's right on this one. +1 Deddeddeedeeededededeeedede

39. A) several characters on both Crim and Ants' lists have been protagonists. B) IT'S FUCKING COMMON POPCULTURE KNOWLEDGE DONKEY KONG WAS THE ANTAGONIST IN THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BOTH MARIO AND DK. -1 Lily I'm fucking shocked you don't know this. Genuinely. That's saying something, considering it's you.

40. Solid Lily continues to be the worst one. -1 LIQUIDDDDDDDD

41. Yes she is. Her point is the magic is what keeps her fucking family safe. -1 gift

42. You'd probably like this movie actually, Lily. Not the book, but. Or maybe not, there's no incest lesbians I guess. -1 sexy tree

43. I'm going to give Lily the point to maintain consistency that mind-manipulation doesn't count as "a point." Before he put on the crown he's not really even an antagonist, so. He IS an example of a sympathetic villain, however. +1

44. THERE ARE OTHER ANIMALS ON THIS LIST. Another one who's spot on, so she can't figure out how to even pretend to argue against it. -1 Beauty who killed the beast

45. GODZILLA ISN'T LITERALLY A NUKE. -1 pop culture jokes don't substitute proper media analysis

46. The Kaiju Lily. Her name is the title of the film. It's not Ant's fault You're too lazy to Google shit. -1 Viking Relic

(Biollante would have been my personal pick for sympathetic Kaiju. And her dad. She would have broken Lily's first rule since she's probably not aware of exactly what's happened to her, but. Her father at least fits Lily's criteria. A lot of the Kaiju are sympathetic though.)

47. This is a perfect example as to why Lily's rules are ridiculous. John Kramer is, in my opinion, outrageously unjustified in what he does. He follows her rules though. Having a bad point is still having a point. How "well written" he is wildly different depending on the movie, but because he's at least well written sometimes I'm counting him. -1 foot

48. You haven't read Paradise Lost Lily. I know you haven't. -1 Satan crying for everything he's lost

49. God Lily I wish you'd actually read something for once because this is an even better example as to why your rules are a joke. -1 Facist Worm King

50. This is a specific example. -1 tears, it's a waist of good suffering.

LILY'S FINAL SCORE: 19/50

38% - F

Got wrong: 24

Got right: 2

Removing the ones I haven't seen:

19/39

48% - F

Removing the ones Lily hasn't seen:

15/37

40% - F

Removing the ones we both haven't seen:

2/26

7% - F

#lily orchard #lily orchard critical #anti lily orchard #lily peet #lorch posting #lily orchard stuff #youtube #eldrich lily #liquid orcard #anthony gramuglia

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leresq · 7 months ago

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Thunderbolts trailer (not using the asterisk) looks cool, nice to see Marvel going back to the Winter Soldier era of political espionage superheroes that served them relatively well, however I have noted something. Here is every movie or show you will need to have watched to understand where every character comes from.

Yelena Belova: Black Widow, Hawkeye (to understand Hawkeye you need to watch the entire Avengers saga as well as the entire Daredevil saga)

Red Guardian: Black Widow

Bucky: Captain America The First Avenger, Captain America Winter Soldier, Captain America Civil War, Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Ghost: Ant Man and the Wasp (Ant Man prerequisite)

Taskmaster: Black Widow

John Walker: Falcon and the Winter Soldier

That's 8 movies or shows at least you will need to watch to understand this one, some of which only feature the characters in Thunderbolts as an aside but are still important to the lore. That is insane. I am a casual MCU fan but for anyone who has less of a grip on the franchise than me it's not worth it, especially since who knows if it's even going to be good. This is why everyone loved Moon Knight, it was completely disconnected from the rest of the universe and frankly I hope it stays that way. Interconnected universes were fun when there was only 9 movies, now there's way too many for any normal person. You can't even watch most of these movies without previously watching the other 15 because they have easter eggs and plotlines and jokes tied into the other pieces of media.

#thunderbolts #mcu #marvel #black widow #yelena belova #hawkeye #red guardian #winter soldier #taskmaster #bucky barnes

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antvnger · 9 months ago

Note

Shrek Forever After (Shrek 4) came out may 21st 2010.

Oh!

Oh wow, that long ago huh? Gosh, I’m behind on that.

#ask scott lang #scott lang #ant-man #anon asks #shrek 4 #shrek franchise

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tobiasdrake · 2 months ago

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Alright, let's talk financials for Brave New World.

At a reported budget of $180m and applying the budget x 2 rule-of-thumb, Brave New World would need to hit about $360m to make back profit. Is it going to pull that off? Uh. Yeah. Obviously. Where have you been? This is an MCU movie.

We only have opening weekend sales to go on right now, which means we can't account for quality measurements like word-of-mouth and repeat showings until next weekend. Opening weekend is a measurement of a film's hype train. How well it was marketed and how much pre-existing anticipation there was going into it.

Hype drives opening weekend, and then audience reception drives the week-over-week drop.

Brave New World saw an opening of $88.8m. That slots the film's hype train just above Thor: The Dark World and Dr. Strange, and just under Spider-Man: Far From Home and Guardians of the Galaxy.

"Wait, isn't Thor: The Dark World terrible?" Yeah, but it sold. It made more money than two out of three Iron Man movies and all three Ant-Man films. The hype train coming out of Avengers 1 was insane.

In fact, that's a problem that a lot of Phase Four and Five movies have had to deal with, on top of the real-world political and social complications. For a lot of people, the MCU ended in 2019. It's done. Story's over. What are we still doing here? And that's a significant point of negative hype.

This film itself occupies a bit of an awkward space. It's kind of a franchise entry into the Captain America series but it's also kind of the first movie of a brand new Captain America series but then it's also kind of not that either because a Disney Plus series exists. And then, separate from that, it's kind of the direct sequel to an unrelated character's movie from almost twenty years ago.

It has a bit of an identity problem.

And also potentially a "Perception of Continuity Lockout" risk. That is to say, you don't need to have watched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to understand this movie. But you might think that you have to. This is the Problem of Disney Plus that the entire MCU is reckoning with. The perceived threat of Required Homework in an entirely different medium is, in and of itself, a negative hype factor.

When trying to put asses in seats, it doesn't matter if you need to have watched these other things. It only matters whether you think you do. That's what will make or break the sale. And Brave New World seems like you need to have seen Incredible Hulk and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to enjoy it, one of which is the MCU's second-worst selling film and the other is a TV miniseries paywalled behind a subscription service. So that's not great.

So, there's a lot of negative hype factors working against it. Consequently, it's not really surprising that Brave New World opened at #3 on the Captain America franchise charts.

Civil War: $179.1m Winter Soldier: $95.0m Brave New World: $88.8m First Avenger: $65.1m

That's not great... at first glance. But Civil War is an Avengers movie and made Avengers dollars because of it so get that shit out of there. If Robert Downey Jr. showed up as a resurrected Tony Stark to costar with Anthony Mackie and they brought all the Avengers in and also Wolverine was there, this movie would break a billion too. That is what we call an outlier.

Winter Soldier: $95.0m Brave New World: $88.8m First Avenger: $65.1m

So. Yeah. With the sockpuppeting Avengers movie out of the picture, things look a bit different. It's no surprise that Brave New World's hype train underperformed that of Winter Soldier, but it didn't underperform it by much. With all this negative hype working against it, it still landed in a fairly respectable position. Other movies in its ballpark made between $600-800m, which is a reasonable zone of expectation for Brave New World too.

A lot is going to hinge on how it breaks out week-over-week, once people have a chance to talk about the movie and decide whether they like it or not.

#marvel #marvel cinematic universe #captain america brave new world

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