#but that just makes the character less accurate to the source material

[meet-me-at-box5]

i would totally get into cosplaying, but i have a bit of a personal problem: i wear glasses. it’s not like i can just take them off, i have very bad vision that isn’t even perfect with my glasses on (i have 20/25 vision in my left eye with glasses). there aren’t that many characters i can easily cosplay with this obstacle. either my face needs to be completely covered or the character already wears glasses. plus i mostly like period pieces/classics/fantasy media, making the glasses a bit out of place and i’d need those circular wired frame glasses. it’s just a nuisance. not to mention most of the cool and recognizable characters i know of don’t have glasses.

[ondeemand]

Transformers One Review

For the sake of convenience, I’ll be referring to the characters as their new names (Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee) instead of their old ones (Orion Pax, D-16, B-127).

Also, I didn’t grow up with Transformers, so this will be mostly from an outsider’s perspective. I can’t tell what possibly was or wasn’t a retcon or how accurate to the source material it was, but I think the background info on their world held up very well and they were able to explain it clearly to new viewers like me. It definitely would have hit harder if I grew up with Transformers and knew more than just facts from cultural osmosis, but I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

Notes/Things I’m Neutral On

Very weird to hear my name (Dee) being said throughout most of the movie by Chris Hemsworth’s bad American accent.

Also, I forgot that Megatron has transformed into ground vehicles before. I only ever knew him to turn into a jet, so I was kind of confused that he was a tank in this movie. I hope we get to see him get upgraded to a jet in the next one, but the tank is still cool.

Pros/Things I Liked

Simple but effective color theory with their eye colors. Main good guys have blue while Megatron has yellow, sitting between good and bad. Still a friendly color at first, but slowly turns closer to orange and then fully red as his anger and hatred consume him (and after he met the red-eyed Starscream, a cowardly man who ends up enabling Megatron‘s more violent/aggressive tendencies)

○ Also I don’t know if I was just seeing things, but it looked like Megatron’s eyes got more yellow whenever he looked at Optimus which is so sad and so gay.

I really thought they were gonna push a romance between Elita and either Bumblebee (goofy manchild x competent woman trope) or Optimus (male lead x female lead, blue x pink), but I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t. Sadly, there’s still time for it in future installments, but I can dream.

Not to be gay, but spider woman sexy. Airachnid was so obviously evil that it was funny, but I can’t fault Sentinel for having her around because I, too, would want a deadly goth woman to be my right-hand lady. They felt like the evil, less developed versions of Mustang and Hawkeye. I am in love.

The animation is gorgeousssss. The environments, the character designs, the fight choreography, the transformations, the lighting, the texture, mwah mwah MWAH STUNNING!!!

○ Sorry, I’m never gonna stop talking about this. The way they were able to make square/blocky figures move so fluidly was fantastic (and proof of concept that a fully animated Minecraft movie would have worked). ○ The camera angles were also great for framing both the dramatic, intense, and/or high-action moments like fights or chase scenes, while also adding a lot to the comedic moments. Like when the camera stays tracking Optimus’ face when running through the forest, only for him to suddenly fall down a cliff neither he nor us saw coming, only to then zoom out to the perspective of the guards below, showing them stumbling and falling. ○ The contrast between the mechanical and organic elements on the surface were really cool, and the way it was introduced was able to convey this idea that organic life was this strange, alien thing. ○ The way the surface just rebuilds itself into these jagged, blocky terrains was really unique and interesting! It felt like a glitched computer model because of its rougher shapes which really added to the fear and hostility of the surface.

90% of their jokes landed and they landed hard. The bit where Optimus looks like he’s about to transform and then just fucking books it is incredible. The audio and camera work help add to these as well, like the music building as Optimus pretends to transform, the camera zooming in close to different parts of him, only for all background noise to cut out as it shows Optimus running away. I won’t name every joke and quip I found funny or we’d be here all day, but they’re certainly a highlight of the movie.

I love Keegan-Michael Key, but I wasn’t a fan of him as the comic relief character of Toad in the Mario movie. When Bumblebee showed up I got a little nervous, but I really loved his performance of the character.

I really liked the midpoint pep talk about hope. That’s a really nice reason that Optimus is the leader despite not being as skilled as other people. He has the hope for a better future and it was a core part of his character from the beginning, and I really like the idea that a leader is someone who can envision a brighter future no matter what.

Alpha Trion transforming was SICK AS FUCK!!! I love that he was more animalistic when the rest of the cast become vehicles. His final fight was so cool, and it actually made me kind of emotional to see him at the end with the rest of the Prime ghosts.

The stabbings? The beheadings?? The branding??? The way Megatron tore Sentinel in half and then ripped his heart out on-screen holy shit???? This movie was incredibly brutal and I loved it. It’s such an interesting phenomenon that children’s media is allowed to be about as graphic as they want as long as it’s against robots, even incredibly sentient ones like in the Transformers series.

○ I watched the 1986 Transformers movie for a class earlier this year, and while it also had a lot of brutality in it’s fights, the new movie felt more intense. Part of this could be attributed to me watching the 2024 movie on a big screen vs the 1986 movie in my living room, but there are other reasons as well. The 1986 movie had more upbeat songs playing over the fights, specifically songs like The Touch and Dare, which helped keep the tone lighter and more exciting. The 2024 movie didn’t have anything like that, allowing the action, while still cool and exciting, to take on a more serious tone. This is also emphasized by the graphics of the movie being 3D instead of 2D. While the 2D 1986 movie is a stunning masterpiece, people still view it with the idea in mind that, since it’s a cartoon, the stakes and story will be less intense. The 2024 movie being 3D with very detailed graphics and lighting already has more visual intensity. The characters are still these bright, poppy colors, but they can come across more moody and dark due to the environments, lighting, and textures that the 3D medium more easily allows. And while the painted backgrounds and cell shading of the old movie are great, the CGI backgrounds are a lot closer to realism, so the harsher elements like metal and rock, which make up a vast majority of the environment and characters, look real too.

The way Megatron’s hate consumed him to the point where he started acting more villainous and, while not entirely similar to Sentinel, still ended up hurting innocent people was tragic. Trying to push away and deny everything about a person only to wind up being just like them. This was perfectly shown in the end credit scene where Megatron is branding himself and the new Decepticons with Megatronus Prime’s face. To him, it may be him reclaiming the traumatic experience and literally using it like a badge of honor, as well as thinking he’s honoring Megatronus Prime. But in reality, he’s just inflicting the same trauma done to him onto others, just like Sentinel. Such a cool way to show how every villain is the hero of their own story.

The doomed yaoiiiiii I’m never gonna get over them. The only other Transformers media I’ve consumed is the 1986 movie, which kills off Optimus Prime in the first 25 minutes and Megatron becomes Galvatron, so I never knew the depths of their homoerotic relationship.

I’m a sucker for “the hero and villain used the be friends (and maybe even lovers?)” trope, so Optimus and Megatron’s relationship and the general premise of the movie was already a slam dunk for me.

I’m also a fan of legacy stories like Avatar and She-Ra. While this movie didn’t get as in-depth with the concept, I enjoyed that they played with the idea of legacy and taking up the mantle of the former Primes.

I absolutely loved the end message that Optimus gives us. Hope, freedom, and autonomy are incredibly important things to learn, and as a trans person who very much wants to keep control over what I do with my body, I really resonated with that last one. I think it’s really cool that they included a message like that in this children’s movie about robots that turn into cars.

Regarding the message of autonomy, I love that it gives the term Autobots a new meaning. Auto meaning “automobile”, since they transform into cars, and Auto meaning “self”, as they are now fully their own bots with control over themselves.

Cons/Things I Disliked

Mid vocal performances from everyone except Brian Tyree Henry and Keegan-Michael Key. And as I mentioned before, it was hard not to focus on Chris’ attempts at an American accent, not to mention how recognizable his, as well as Scarlett Johansson’s, voices are.

The plot felt a little disjointed in the first 1/3-ish.

○ Good setup with the main characters being an oppressed working class with one dreaming of better things and the other hesitant to fall out of line or take risks. But then suddenly there’s a race, and then they’re in it, and then they lose, and then their leader wants to promote them. At first it feels like there are hints that he’s a scummy celebrity-type and that meeting their hero is what will spur on the disillusionment with their society. But then some random douchebag that doesn’t like them reassigns them which goes against their leader’s command, and that’s how the plot kicks off? ○ Also, Elita’s involvement felt kind of rushed/hand-waved. They all get stuck on the surface, but instead of trying to make her way back to report them like she was saying she would for the past few minutes, she makes a complete 180 and heads the expedition herself. ○ It all just felt a little strange, but once it got going the rest of the plot felt fine.

Megatron’s descent into “evil” felt kind of rushed. I understand that he feels betrayed and I really love where the character ends up by the end, but it felt like a real 180 without a lot of build up.

Some jokes fell flat or felt annoying and kinda cringe. That’s the territory of children’s movies though, so par for the course.

TLDR

Overall, this movie was a really fun watch and I’d love to go see it again. While some parts fall a little flat, the movie is lifted from mediocrity by its many Pros. From the stunning visuals, to the quick humor, to the tragic origins of two friends driven apart by their ideals, I’d recommend this movie to anyone interested in animation or the Transformers brand.

8.82/10

[annabelle--cane]

it's fascinating to me the way that different social media platforms result in different types of fandom behavior. while s5 of tma was airing, I spent a good amount of time on tma tiktok (I log back in about once every two months now, going back to in-person school after a year a half of lockdown seem to re-blanace my brain and made me once again not really enjoy the format) while still using tumblr as my main socmed, and while there was a lot of overlap in the fan culture, some things were notably different.

tumblr tma fans had near-encyclopedic knowledge of the source material, but it was kind of an ongoing joke for tiktok tma fans that everyone binged the whole show in a week-long fugue state and lost memory of about 35% of it. tumblr has virtually no character limit and allows posts to be passed around by users indefinitely, which lends itself to fairly in-depth meta analysis being made and shared until most any fan could say "the time and space discrepancies at hill top road? psh yeah, I know all about them, I've read seven scrupulously cited posts that lay out all the details." for the entire time that s5 was airing, tiktok videos could still only be a minute long, and I know from a lot of personal effort that there's only so much you can fit into a one minute script that you also have to memorize and record (and cc manually with tiktok text stickers, as they didn't add the caption feature until april 2021) if you want the process to take less than four hours of your one mortal human life. and then you only see the video if your following or fyp algorithm shows it to you. there were a few tma meta-ish videos that got popular because other people would make their own videos referencing them and tag the account so their followers could see what they were talking about, but it's much harder to circulate content you like there. several times I saw people post videos saying "I got into cosplay to film some [agnes or annabelle or gerry or another secondary character] and I just realized I have no idea what their deal actually is 💀".

a thing that tiktok tma fandom was definitely better at than tumblr tma fandom was accurately remembering certain pieces of characterization and the flow of certain scenes. I've seen a bunch of posts on here where someone is trying to argue a point with excerpts from the text ("x character is nicer than you all give them credit for" "x character is so mean to y character in this scene" "z theory can't be true because y character said a line that disproves it") where the argument only holds up because the poster has gotten these excerpts from a transcript dive and hasn't listened to the episodes they're from recently, because while the text alone can be construed to mean one thing, the way it's delivered on-podcast clearly intends another. tiktok, being an audio and video based medium, allows audio clips to be shared around a lot, and cosplayers would often all make videos acting along to the same show clips of juicy interpersonal drama, and so tiktok fans, though they may have had less overall memory of what characters said, always had a better grasp on how they said it. an average tiktok tma fan might not have remembered melanie's subplot about war ghosts, but they would know the nuances of how the way she talks to jon changes between mag 28 and mag 155.

[lazywitchling]

[This is a fictionalized account of something that was communicated between myself and J, my familiar spirit. For storytelling / convenience / communication's sake, I will write it out as a conversation with words as if he were a person standing next to me, but the reality of it was less tangible and more... woo-woo. While dialog is fictional, the message that was communicated is accurate.]

--

I had my recently purchased copper pendulum in the pocket of my work jacket, and was fiddling with it in stolen moments in between stocking the walk-in cooler. I wasn't divining with it, just playing with it like a fidget toy. I had a theory about the conductivity of copper being good for communication with spirits, and judging by how apparent J was making himself, the theory was pretty sound.

"Some materials are easier for me to touch than others," he said. "Metal, stones, sticks, feathers, seeds..."

"Natural materials," I summarized.

"Sort of, but not always." It didn't exactly explain much, and my confusion was evident. So J continued with an explanation. "Show me what's in your pockets."

I pulled out two of my pocket trinkets, knowing which ones he meant. In one pocket, a small potato that had fallen onto the deli floor. A good thing to have on me to absorb unwanted 'bad vibes', of which there were many in retail. In the other pocket, a plastic d20. Not a nice one, just the generic blue one from the starter kit, so that I wouldn't be sad if it fell out of my pocket.

J 'pinged' the potato first. A nice spiritual reverberation, a sharp crack like a heeled shoe hitting a marble floor. Then he pinged the d20. A dull thud, more like a boot in mud.

"So... natural materials," I repeated.

Head shake. He indicated a wooden crate on the shelf I was stocking, then gave me an image of one of the plastic action figures on my bookshelf at home. "The action figure is easier to touch than the crate."

He'd lost me now. I was trying to figure out what the copper pendulum had to do with an action figure.

"It isn't necessarily the materials," he explained. "Natural material is one factor, yes. But narrative is also a material."

"So... my Caduceus Clay figure isn't magically resonant because he's made of plastic, but is beause he's also made of story?"

Somewhere in woo-woo land, I got the sensation of the little bell and woosh sound of a character level up in an RPG, and approval from J. The idea started clicking into place less like a slow conversation now and more like a file upload.

I had a plastic Yoda figurine that I found in my basement. He had long ago lost his robe and walking stick. The painted details on him had started to fade a long time ago. But I decided he was my Lucky Yoda, and I carried him in my pocket for every theatrical production I was part of all throughout college. When one of my cast mates was nervous about their role, I would pass Lucky Yoda off to them. 'Here, take Lucky Yoda. He'll help.' Soon enough, people would ask for him for comfort, or start asking about him during tech week to make sure I was going to remember to bring him. On days when I forgot him, the production was worse, even when I didn't mention to anyone that I hadn't brought him.

Was Lucky Yoda more or less powerful than a four leaf clover would have been? Common advice I had seen from other witchy sources said that the closer an item is to its natural state, the more powerful it will be. A tree has more power than a log which has more power than lumber which has more power than a picnic table. By this logic, Lucky Yoda should have been far removed from any sort of magic. But there was no denying that he had an effect on myself and my cast mates. (Whether or not this effect was magical or psychological is not something I'm here to debate. Believe me or don't. I'm not your priest.) A clover would have had more 'nature' magic to it, sure. But Yoda had story, and that story gave him power. J might not have been able to 'ping' Lucky Yoda as well as a clover just by nature of its materials, but the narrative of him was something that J could ping.

The ethereal concept of 'story' seemed to have a more concrete physical substance in the world of spirits. And I am reminded of the folklore that angels or fairies cannot be creative, and that the ability to create is uniquely human, a little spark of the divine in us. And in the world of spirits where everything is intangible, why wouldn't the intangible nature of a story be just as concrete as everything else in their world?

"Now you're getting it."

I found myself standing stock-still in the cooler at work, staring blankly at a half-unloaded cardboard box of packaged soup while the vaguely blob-like form of a spirit bounced happily at his student's understanding.

I shook my head off and got back to unloading. "So... story: good conductor. Copper: good conductor. Plastic: bad conductor."

"Plastic without care and creativity, yes." J gave me the image of a flimsy, shitty, plain dollar store pencil box. One of those ones where the plastic didn't form correctly, so there's little bits of sharp plastic that you can break off of the edges. "If there's anything you don't want me to touch, you can put it in one of these. But don't put stickers on it, otherwise it starts to get easier."

"I think I get it. Thanks! Here, would you like some soup?" I place a plain plastic container of soup up on the shelf.

"Ha ha."

[endiness]

"Epic fantasy has responded poorly to too much oversight from above. I think that was The Witcher’s problem. You had that visionary: It was Henry Cavill. And they didn’t want to listen to him. So, well, there you go." — Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, anyway, just a friendly reminder that Henry Cavill massively over-exaggerated how much of a fan he was of the franchise and how much he knew about it as he hadn't even read the books when he first sought out the role because he thought that the books were based off the games (and for some reason despite proclaiming himself to be such a lorebuff, he ~curiously never bothered to check them out; he can't have ever googled or wiki'd the series, either, despite finding out that Netflix was making the show from the internet, because if he had, then surely he would've learned that the games were actually based on the books and would've read them; and somehow he also ~curiously never noticed that the first thing credited in the games is Sapkowski and the books.) He only read the books after Lauren told him about them and even then, he only read the series once right before he was cast in 2018. He also only ever really played the third game and even then, he never played the DLC for it.

By his own admission, he also didn't actually do any research or preparation for the role because, as established above, he hadn't read the books when he first sought out the role, he only read the series once after Lauren told him about the books, and he's really only played the third game.

"I asked my agent to put me on the spot and wanted to meet Lauren as soon as possible. I didn’t even need to prepare specially for the role. Because I breathe, I experience this universe every day. I’ve already had many opportunities to think about this character when I was playing the game. My preparation was already done before the casting even began!"

Henry Cavill was also directly responsible for a lot of the show's deviations from the books, or he at least had a hand in them, and the idea the he was such an advocate for the source material is actually just a massive pr campaign he ran against Lauren, the writers, and the show to deflect from his own responsibility for those changes and because he was mad about how he was co-lead with two women and the general prominence of women on the show.

He fucked up Geralt's characterization in S1 and made it inaccurate to the books by cutting his lines and either saying nothing or just grunting instead — often leaving his scene partners in the position of not knowing what was going on and if he was going to say his lines and even having to take his lines just in order to move the plot along. (Half of Geralt's dialogue was cut in the S1 finale, btw.)

"Henry tends to cut his lines, say less, which means I have to say more. So I had to improvise quite often." — Joey

Then in the press for S2, Henry Cavill started heavily pushing the narrative about how important adhering to the source material is to him and how much he advocated for a more book accurate, verbose Geralt — and not only did he virtually never take any responsibility for how it was due to his acting choices that happened in the first place, but he also lied about the whole thing and tried to act like Geralt was never originally written as being verbose and blamed Geralt's lack of dialogue on Yennefer and Cir's prominence — which can't be true as confirmed by Lauren. (Yennefer and Ciri's scenes were actually the ones cut in S1, btw.)

He tried to act like he was inspired by Doug Cockle's performance to make up for the lack of Geralt's dialogue — which can't be true because he only decided to use his "Geralt" voice in January 2019 but filming for the show started late October/early November 2018 and meanwhile he started cutting Geralt's lines from the pilot episode.

And he tried to act like the lines he was cutting weren't even really that important anyway so it didn't really matter that he was cutting them — which can't be true as confirmed by Joey.

Whenever Henry Cavill went on about how important adhering to the source material is to him in the press for S2 as if Lauren's vision of the show was somehow contradictory to that and the books, he was actually just mad about the prominence of women on the show. (Ciri is the main character of the main book series, btw, and women move the plot forward in the books in massive ways and are absolutely integral to the story.)

(In the press for S2, he also went on about how important men being three dimensional characters is to him as if women being three dimensional characters on the show somehow came at the expense of the male characters.) (Also, here's a quote from him during the press for S2: "I believe that real men are very sensitive. They are very capable of doing things which can be violent, if possible, or necessary. But at the same time, they are incredibly capable of love and caring amongst men and towards children and family and all sorts." Weird that he doesn't specifically list women as people that real sensitive, violent men can be loving and caring towards and reduces them to just being part of "all sorts." 🤔)

Henry Cavill also fucked up Geralt and Jaskier's friendship — beyond, y'know, just cutting Geralt's dialogue in scenes with Jaskier. (Imo given everything he's said, I think it's likely a lot of the dialogue he was cutting in their scenes was any, all, or most affirmation on Geralt's side of things that he cares about Jaskier and that they're friends and, in general, just any positivity toward Jaskier and their friendship .)

"In the books, they are very, very close friends. That is so obvious. They speak to each other fondly. The opportunity is different in this story because Jaskier turns up and he’s not an immediate player straight away. We sort of had to show that essence of Geralt and Joey playing the complete opposite, which creates a wonderful dynamic. If I were to play it more directly like the books, it wouldn’t quite have the same sense of two fated friends. They’d just be like, “Hey, buddy!” Instead, Geralt cares deeply for Jaskier, whether he wants to admit it or not."

He cut a sex scene between Geralt and Yennefer in S2 because he didn't understand Geralt and Yennefer's characters and their relationship dynamic as it absolutely would've been in character of them to have sex after reuniting.

"We wanted it to be emotional rather than sexual. It was really, really important and we had to lean away from what was originally on the page. […] That's not how they behave. How they behave is they just want to be with the person and emotionally recognize their existence again in that shared space."

He nixed even the idea of Geralt and Triss just platonically finding comfort with each other — which is what happens in the books.

"The thing that was important to me, which we took directly from the books, is that Triss asks Geralt to spend the night with her and, in the books, he actually says yes once she says just basically lay with me, nothing is going to happen. Henry felt very, very strongly that when we were playing this scene he still believed that his one true love, Yennefer of Vengerberg, was dead. He was still mourning her. So he didn't actually want to go that extra step and have them have any intimacy whatsoever." — Lauren

He didn't want to play Geralt struggling with fatherhood in any way in S2 nor with any character flaws and only positive character traits (because he was overcompensating for how he fucked up Geralt's characterization in S1 and was embarrassed that redditors were dunking on him for it and that even the show was completely harmlessly making fun of Geralt's "grumpy snowman" characterization) — all of which resulted in the domino effect of Yennefer's betrayal, Eskel's death (which in itself led to Vesemir trying to create new witchers and Lambert's harsher attitude toward Ciri), and Voleth Meir being the big bad of the season.

So yeah, anyway, a friendly reminder that the conspiracy theory that Henry Cavill ragequit the show because he just cares about the source material oh so much and he's the only one in the cast and crew to know anything about it and he's the only reason why the show followed the books in any way whatsoever is, actually, just a conspiracy theory based off nothing more than Henry Cavill saying that he cares about the source material while all of his actions and everything else he's said, as established above, proves otherwise. 👍

[dead-enby-detective]

To continue my comparison of the Dead Boy Detective show and the Doom Patrol episode with them in it, I wanted to talk about the exploration of Charles’s aversion/fear of water in Doom Patrol, I thought that was an interesting way to give him some more depth in the short time frame (especially since we get to see more of Edwin’s depth with his pain being used to open the door to the afterlife and Larry reaching out to him to discuss his feelings for Charles).

In the scene above Charles has to work himself up quite a bit in order to cross the lake and continue their case.

DBD Charles, in comparison, doesn’t seem to feel the same way about water.

In episode 2, he’s delighted by the enchanted ocean container.

In episode four, he even calls the view “pretty brills” while staring out into the ocean.

He doesn’t hesitate to run to Crystal when she’s dangling over the ocean.

He walks on the ocean side later (probably partially to ensure she doesn’t try to throw herself into the ocean) and even walks toward the water without any fear.

And when the Night Nurse has him relive his memories she sends him to the lake.

To me he seems more confused, maybe frightened because he doesn’t know where he is or what’s going on and than is far more scared when he gets attacked by the boys again rather than afraid of the water itself.

Then after the Night Nurse lectures him he’s angry,

and willing submerges himself to get away.

Then when he returns he, in his anger, sends her over the wall into the water.

To me, if he was afraid of the water, he’d be less likely to want to go towards it, or he’d at least hesitate before putting his plan into motion.

In my first post comparing and contrasting the Agency from the two show, I said the Doom Patrol Boys feel far less reactive to violence, especially their own. They doesn’t seem scared of it or using it themselves. But while DP Charles isn’t afraid of violence, though it did cause his death, he is afraid of water, which also played a role in his death.

In the DBD show Charles is scared of violence (especially his own) - as violence impacted him greatly in live with his abusive father and bullies but doesn’t seem to be of the water which also played a part in his death.

It’s very interesting to me which parts of his death the writers focused on for each show, the DP writers focused on the water/hypothermia and the DBD writers, the bullies.

As I said in my first post, obviously there’s far less time to explore the boys in the Doom Patrol episode than in the Dead Boy Detectives show so that absolutely could have been part of it.

I haven’t yet read the comics so I’m unsure which version of Charles’s fears is more accurate to the source material, if there’s an exploration of it at all.

It makes sense, in the Doom Patrol episode to show his fear of water. It naturally introduces his death, just as the door to the afterlife being opened by open naturally introduces Edwin’s experience in Hell.

The actor handles it really well. Just as the DBD actor handles his fear of violence really well. Both feel natural and important within the context of their shows.

Additionally, I tired looking up to see if Charles’s father was also abusive in the comics and I couldn’t find anything (please let me know if you know otherwise) and according to his wiki Charles actually died from burn injuries - though he did have to spent time in the icy lake as well.

So it’s definitely interesting that both shows focused on the hypothermia from the lake rather than the burns and it makes sense that if there’s isn’t a major storyline about his father in the comics that DP Charles has less negative feelings about violence than DBD Charles and thus, going back to my first post, reacts differently to it even though he too was bullied to death.

It’s incredibly interesting to me to see how the same character can be played/written in two very different ways based off the same source material and the ways the writers chose to focus on their traumas and fear differently.

What do you all think about how the shows chose to handle Charles’s fears?

[anotherlibrocubicularist]

Pjo movies: exist

Pjo fans: the movies are shit for inaccuracies like the actors' ages, Percy and Annabeth's romantic chemistry too early on, Annabeth's hair colour and many changes in scenes and plots from the books

Rick Riordan: hates on the movies (despite him never having seen them in the first place) and promises an adaptation more faithful to the original source material

Pjo fans: thrilled

Pjo series: exists

Some pjo fans: the actors look nothing like the characters we grew up with (and with the pace things are going, will be way older than the movie actors should the series continue beyond s2), there are Percabeth romantic scenes added in the first season that weren't there or weren't romantically charged in the books, Annabeth isn't blond (and with the way the fans treated the movie actress I am side-eying that not more people were upset Leah didn't go blonde), and many things were changed from the books

Rick Riordan: I'm the author, these are my decisions, deal with it.

Other pjo fans: the changes are great, just stop watching if you don't like it.

Some pjo fans: stop watching show

Pjo show: ratings go down, won't make it past s3 or 4 (my prediction, but still)

This is a more or less humorous take on what I've witnessed in the pjo fandom when the series ws announced to when it aired. Personally, I think Rick shot himself in the foot when he hated on the movies for not being faithful to his work and got the fans' hopes up for a more book accurate adaptation that he ultimately failed to deliver. He would've probably received less backlash and the fans would've been more open to changes if he hadn't hated on the movies for exactly that, changes to his source material.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/766688842914938880/wait-soif-the-only-things-making-companies-censor?source=share

So I've been keeping half an eye on the NSFW AI chatbot and image generation scene (because it's funny watching how fast they flare up and burn out), and the app store and payment processor thing is really evident here

Horny AI image generators can't go in app stores. Full stop. It generates pornography, there's no really getting around the artistic merit stuff, and anything that generates believable photographic styles can actually spit out literally illegal images (digital content which is indistinguishable from a real life photograph recording of a living child) if it's good enough. Users only have minimal control over if what they generate will comply with the ToS; if you ask a bot to give you an image of a "cute boy" it might give you a heartthrob pop star, a generic smiling toddler, or a shota with a huge dick. If the shota is against the ToS, you are now breaking a rule that you have no control over.

And becaues it's AI, it can't actually be filtered. The robot doesn't know what it's looking at, it can't generate an image and then make a judgement call about how that image applies with the ToS because it doesn't know what a ToS is and all it knows is that the image it generated from the "cute boy" prompt is the kind of image that is associated with the caption "cute boy".

App stores and the big payment processors don't want to deal with that mess, so these platforms will have apps that can be downloaded from their website or from discord, and weird sketchy ways to pay, like crypto or some small payment processor that you've never heard of and that sounds like a phishing scam.

Horny image gen platforms tend to be very short lived, and either rebrand as SFW platforms or completely shutter after only a few months. It's funny, but the tragedy is that this happens because of poorly moderated NSFW images, not because the images it generates suck.

****

Text does a little better, since it's copyright laws, not "we can't let people pass off recordings of child abuse as digitally generated art" laws that AI text tends to violate, and "horny is bad" as a social more is applied more strongly to visual material than to plaintext.

The bigger text platforms, like Google's Bard, have filters in place that will refuse to show NSFW text, and they're more or less accurate. The smaller platforms, which most of the "talk with your anime waifu" chat platforms are, have stupid insane garbage filters on what text users can enter, but not on what the chatbot generates. So you can prompt "describe her sexy vagina" and get "I'm sorry, I want to keep people safe so I can't talk about that", but if you type "describe her petals" you get a graphic description of a vagina from a bot that obviously has a mountain of het erotica in its database.

There are some text-only NSFW chatbot platforms that seem to be chugging along just fine with paypal, but they have strict rules about what images can be uploaded as avatars. Some will allow users to make sexually explicit loli bots, but won't allow any images of young characters, sexual or otherwise, anywhere on the site. Many text-only platforms don't seem to be in app stores, though. Paypal is fine with them but Apple isn't.

It's a weird, weird, little microcosm of the internet, and an interesting insight into what's going on with payment processors and app stores in re the pressures placed on websites.

****

The takeaway from all this (aside from the fact AI is amusingly ridiculous) is that text-only sites like AO3 and or Literotica are probably just fine, while sites that host images, like Tumblr, are under more scrutiny.

--

[always-a-king-or-queen]

there are literally so many reasons why we don't need a third Narnia adaptation

first of all, while they might not be the most accurate, the Disney movies are actually so good and, in my opinion, still manage to capture the heart and soul of the series and what it's truly about. The characters are each perfectly portrayed; the Pevensies act like actual siblings and yet love each other dearly and would die for each other even through all the petty arguments; the music creates perfect atmosphere and emotion and never fails to make me tear up or get shivers down my spine; and the CGI is honestly just absolutely stunning.

I really do not feel like we need another adaptation by Netflix.

Especially not through Netflix.

Netflix has already been known to mess up so many shows and movies by completely changing the source material or adding in unnecessary things that completely take away from the purpose of the story. I can already see them warping Narnia into something that barely even resembles the books, that strips it of its purpose and simply makes it about a fantasy world, nothing more. I've already seen posts saying that the new movies just can't end the way the books end, that heaven must be explained away, that Susan never forgets and falls down a dark path, that the faith aspect must be taken out so as not to offend new viewers.

Here's the thing.

If you take faith out of Narnia, you remove the very heart of the series. you remove the entire purpose. Because Narnia is entirely about faith, and trust, and Someone greater than yourself who sacrifices everything to save your own traitorous soul. the Disney movies did not shy away from portraying this faith as openly as possible. if anyone was offended, I've never seen proof. I have seen many nonbelievers talk about how much they were affected by Aslan's death, which goes to show that you simply don't have to be Christian to understand what Narnia is about, and to love and enjoy it.

So if these new remakes remove the faith aspect, then what is the point? four siblings go to a magical land and save it from a witch and befriend a talking lion with nothing special about him and live there as kings and queens and return home and live happily ever after? there is no sacrifice, there is no "he's not tame, but he is good," there is no creation, there is no redemption, there is no last battle, there is no "in your world, I have another name", there is no sister straying down a dark path because she has forgotten how to hope, and then returning because her story is unfinished and the road to heaven is paved with flowers that symbolize her name.

so then, what are you left with? Aslan is just a talking lion, nothing more. the stone table never cracks, the sun never rises. "That by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there" is forgotten entirely, because why would Aslan exist in our world if he is merely a talking lion in Narnia? Aslan's country is changed to be something else, and there is nothing about how Aslan suddenly no longer looks like a lion, and how the things that happened after are more great and beautiful than can be described. Edmund's life is never threatened because of his traitorous deeds; Aslan never offers his own life in place of a guilty boy, is never killed, is never resurrected.

the very core of Narnia is removed, and what you are left with is emptiness.

sure, it might make for a good fantasy story nonetheless. you might still have sweeping views and epic music and an intriguing plotline, but something will always feel like it is missing. like there is an empty hole, desperately needing to be filled.

of course, I don't know that all of that will happen; it's just speculation at this point. But I am fairly sure that it is safe to predict these upcoming movies as such. I highly doubt the producers will want to include the faith that shapes Narnia, because according to them, having a faith aspect means less viewers since too many people would be offended.

but if only they would look at the already wonderful existing adaptations, they would know that is simply not the case.

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Anime Review, Season 1, Episode 13 review

This episode has one of me and my spouse's favorite jokes in the manga... And yes, the little sign moves with the hams as they roll away.

This was another great episode!

Thistle!!!!!!! He's perfect. Love that he looks accurate to the manga at this point of the series, and wasn't updated to look more cutesy/younger like he looks in the later manga as Kui's art style evolved to give everyone bigger eyes and cuter faces.

His monarchist speech was chilling and just as good as in the manga. This is a man taht 100% believes in feudalism and the divine right of kings and it's as natural as breathing to him. Love him giving this context for readers and viewers. This is WHAT PEOPLE IN THIS ERA BELIEVE...

Love how we can have Marcille spend an entire episode in just her underwear, fighting for her life, covered in blood, and it's not sexualized. Nothing wrong with sexy things, but very refreshing to see a character able to do that and to feel that the camera isn't focused on objectifying her.

Ok, so time for a pretty big complaint... Leed's voice in the English dub.

As I stated in a previous review, BangZoom entertainment, the English dub company, cast a black actor to play Zon. They have made a pattern of casting real life minorities to play the fictional minorities in Dungeon Meshi, which I think is a noble idea and can certainly bring nuance to the performances! Good for them attempting to do this!

However they rewrote Zon's dialog to have him speak what was either African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or "broken English." In the original Japanese, the orcs do not speak this way, their dialog is more or less the same as everyone else's.

I gave the dub studio a benefit of a doubt because they hired a black actor to play Zon, and I expected that Leed would also be played by an actress of color and that they would rewrite her dialog to match Zon's.

They did not do that.

As far as I can tell, Leed's actress is not black, though she has a Hispanic last name... But much more important than the ethnicity of who they cast, BangZoom did not rewrite Leed's dialog the way they rewrote Zon's dialog.

These characters are siblings, there's no reason Zon and the other orcs would speak a different dialect from Leed.

Did they do this because Leed is pale and pink and they thought that she shouldn't talk in AAVE? They should have known that she was coming later and not done that to Zon then, if they weren't going to continue the trend with Leed.

Very weird, not a fan, makes me question the studio's knowledge and understanding of the source material...

[genericpuff]

I’ve seen some people try and defend Lore Olympus by saying that movies like Hercules and such aren’t accurate to Greek myth, yet they’re still loved. And I somewhat get where they’re coming from, i really do.

BUT- I feel like part of the problem with LO is the fact that if you replace the names, you’d almost be right to assume it takes place in a completely different setting. Meanwhile, if you take away the names from the Hercules movie, you can still tell where it’s supposed to take place. (And who’s who, if you know your myths). Plus the writing of Hercules is 100% better than LO.

The difference between LO and Hercules is that Hercules clearly has respect for the source material put into it. It might not be accurate to the source material - because it's being retooled as a Disney movie for children - but you can tell there's still a lot of thought, love, and effort put into it. The team behind that movie did research on the art and culture of Greece, and adapted it into a movie that was entertaining and recognizable as a Greek myth adaption.

They put our home boy Heracles/Hercules in a tunic! Do you know how shocking that must have looked to American viewers who didn't know a shred of Greek myth and wondered why the big buff hero was being drawn in a skirt? Still accurate though!

LO, meanwhile, writes Greek myth as if it hates Greek myth for existing. It comes across more as a white woman using these stories purely for profit and colonizing it with American-esque culture. The outfits have become noticeably less Greek since the beginning, the characters never eat Greek food anymore, and the locations are left as vague as solid color backdrops to indicate "The Underworld" and "Olympus" without actually showing any set pieces or understanding of how these locations would look and feel in a modern setting.

All of these examples I gave are things we saw a decent amount of in S1. But since then it's just become talking heads on top of flat color backgrounds, eating Chinese food and dressing in American-style clothing. When was the last time we saw a mortal? There's just nothing Greek about the comic anymore because either Rachel has gotten so complacent that she just defaults to what she knows without any research (so what she watches on TV and in movies) or she only bothered with her research in the beginning to get people hooked and convinced that she's a "folklorist" so that they'd keep reading the series and giving her money on good will alone.

Using Hercules as an example of "well it's not accurate to Greek myth either!" completely misses the point of what people are getting at when they say that LO is a bad Greek myth retelling. Guess what else isn't completely accurate to Greek myth? Hadestown. Hades (the game). God of War. Stray Gods. They all take creative liberties with the source material in order to adjust it to the medium and audience they're creating it for, but none of those adaptions are quite as disrespectful as LO's. And God of War literally has little angry man going around and brutally murdering the gods. It still respects the setting of Greek myth more than LO, but unlike LO, it doesn't try to constantly sound smart with its inaccuracies, it knows fully well that it's a video game first and foremost.

And that's the beauty of myths. They can be adapted across generations and used to tell new versions of the same stories. So it begs the question, why bother writing a Greek myth retelling if you're going to make it so non-Greek that you could have just as well just written a normal soap drama and have it still be virtually the same?

Compared to all of the other examples, LO is the definition of confidently incorrect. It should have stuck to just being Greek myth inspired, not a retelling.

[professorhayforbreath]

my blog probably gives the impression that i think the show is bad as a whole, but the reason this show frustrates me so much is because it's definitely NOT 100% bad

like... the movies are bad adaptations. everyone knows it. they have some great moments (an embarrassing amount of which are better than the show lol) but overall they are widely considered blatantly bad adaptations. it's easier to make peace with that

the show, however, is far less consistent and i find it much more difficult to wrap my head around. there are parts that are bad and i'm happy to say that with my chest, but underneath numerous questionable-at-best writing choices, there are glimpses of really, really good stuff. the first few episodes had so much promise—percy burning blue jellybeans and praying to sally, the consensus song. these are brand new additions but they're good, they capture the spirit of the story and characters successfully

and sprinkled throughout the rest of the show are other strong choices! for example in the last episode i really liked that they set the betrayal scene during the fireworks, it created a fantastic ambience. i liked that grover left camp at the same time as percy and annabeth so the three of them got to part ways as a trio on half-blood hill

there are good changes being made, but they're almost all small in the grand scheme of things. in my opinion, the bigger, more consequential things are where they missed the most marks, and that prevented me from fully enjoying the show as a long time book fan

when it comes to writing nothing frustrates me more than wasted potential. mediocre writing is one thing, but mediocre writing that could have clearly been so much better is INFURIATING. i don't dislike the show because i wanted it to be a 1:1 recreation of the book, i dislike it because it's just okay when it could have been great. it so EASILY could have been great and i don't get why it's not. a lot of the writing choices are just baffling in their mediocrity, and sometimes technical weakness, when compared to the well written and effective source material. i wish i could have been a fly on the wall in that writers room when they were making some of these decisions, seriously

the cast is phenomenal. their budget is more than sufficient. they marketed it as a "redemption from the movies", as the adaptation that would finally give fans book accuracy. and the show we got is... fine. it's all right. it's not all that book accurate even though it was advertised as such. there's plenty to like but it comes hand in hand with plenty to dislike. it's only natural for people to be disappointed

i know my critiques can come off as venomous but please never mistake my harshness as hating for the sake of it. i adore the original pjo books so i really wanted to adore the show as well, but unfortunately i can't get there yet. "yet" being the key word because there's still plenty of time for this show to pick up the slack, and for that reason i'm glad it got renewed. i don't have the most faith the writers will listen to the feedback but i'm rooting for them to prove me wrong

[zephyrstargame]

well here's something I can do!

this is a little spin on an idea i've been seeing around that i think is wonderful... I personally, am not in the best financial place to be donating, but i can use my platform as a game developer to help out and do something cool at the same time :3

In exchange for donating esims to gaza, I'm gonna populate the world of Zephyr Star with your characters as NPCs! currently: OPEN!!

Here's the deal-- scurry on over to gazaesims.com to figure out how to buy and donate an esim to the people who need em-- any plan works for me, as long as you're gettin something out there!

then slip into my DMs (or anywhere else you can contact me directly) and show me a screenshot of the email, preferably with timestamps for proof that it's from after this post was posted... or really, any proof that you did do the thing-- also show me:

a reference image for what character you want me put in the game

what this character should say as an NPC (just a few lines at most) (optional; if you'd like i can just write some general dialogue instead)

how you would like to be credited in the in-game credits (ie what name i should put)

below the cut are some submission guidelines and extra notes, please also read that if you're interested :>

here are some general submission guidelines:

nothing too lewd, please!

or racist

or otherwise offensive

fandom ocs MIGHT be fine if they're Legally Distinct enough from the source material, but try not to get me sued here

In general, this game's world has No Humans, but that's not a strict requirement-- just a general suggestion

and keep in mind that characters with super intricate details might have to be simplified in order to work as pixel art

otherwise, anything works! furries, robots, sentient objects, your cat, whatever

and here's some notes, so you know what to expect:

i'll take anywhere between a few hours to a few days to finish, depends on how i'm feeling... either way, i'll tag you in a new post when i'm done!

the character will be done in small pixel art, with maybe some additional effects if i feel it works for the design

i will adjust the sprite size depending on the character-- an average sized character is drawn on a 32x32 canvas but if it's like a giant or really tall or something, i'd make it bigger so that the scale is accurate

everyone also gets a zoomed in headshot for the dialogue portrait

no secret bosses, shopkeepers, or other special story purpose for now, sorry! these are just some guys that stand around and say 1 or 2 lines as you go about your adventure

im putting the characters in various places at random, but if you want your guy to be in a certain type of location in-game let me know

this game is STILL in relatively early development-- but i do promise that each and every submission will be in there by the end! it might take yeaaaars for the full game to finally be out, but i'll be posting screenshots as I put em in the game so you know im not slacking around :>

and alongside the screenshot, i'll also post the sprites on their own if you'd like to save them for yourself

legal stuff uhhhhh im not good at legal stuff-- by participating, you are giving me permission to use your submitted character in the final game-- credit will be given in-game where you would expect to see it (the credits) and i will not claim ownership of any of your guys

(cartoon mafia boss voice) if at any point you want your character scrubbed out of the game, or you want anything changed, let me know in my DMs or anywhere else you can contact me and *click* *sinister laugh* we'll make it happen

no money goes to me ever, im not even gonna be the middlesnake between you and the esims-- i just think its less of a hassle to work this way -w-

did i get everything? i think that's everything... if i forgot something important sorry i'm a scatterbrain failgirl who has never done anything like this before im trying my best okay

may the rift be filled with your cool little guys! but more importantly, let's keep gaza connected! free palestine! 🍉

[queenvhagar]

So I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how Fire and Blood can’t be seen as accurate because it’s a compilation of accounts and I would like to point something out about this:

If we lived in Westeros it would carry the same weight as your average history textbook or historical artifact. But the readers don’t live in Westeros. This is the version of events that George R R Martin gave us. I feel like that gives way more weight to everything in that book, especially how so many notes about “this source isn’t accurate” are included. It may be a source with an unreliable narrator in the world, but it’s the recorded version of events in universe, and nobody should act like it’s totally made up because the real life author published it. It won’t be totally accurate, but it certainly shouldn’t be cast aside.

The unreliable narrator is also used in the Great Gatsby. Nobody acts like Nick is making shit up, they just note that it probably isn’t completely accurate. Fire and Blood should be the same: not entirely accurate and certainly containing unreliable narration, but the author published it so it’s what the real life author wants to be seen as canon

100%.

Treating Fire and Blood as a completely inaccurate collection of sources, made up solely of propaganda and lies against one side, created by GRRM to intentionally portray a skewed version of the REAL history that occurred... it's like, why would GRRM have written it at all then? If he didn't want you to know the real history of House Targaryen, he would have just... not written it. Not sure why people think he would write a convoluted book that turned out to be completely false with fake things that never really happened.

Thinking about it as the history book it was intended to be... WHAT happened in history should be clear, and this is recorded. Same goes for WHEN it happened and HOW it happened. But the WHY... now that is something that the writers could have been exploring. WHY did certain people do the things they did? WHY did certain events play out how they did? This is the part of Fire and Blood that is open for interpretation, not the events themselves. This allows for the creation of character and motivations and arcs and the exploration of inner psyches.

Instead, the writers think they know better than the literal author about how this story and universe work. They're changing the material from the original source while trying to justify it with their excuse and interpretation of "propaganda," and they won't shut up about how profound they think they are in doing this. Meanwhile, they're undermining the themes of the story and rendering it ultimately meaningless in addition to it being a poorly written and confusing adaptation. It has no weight, no depth, no real stakes. The characters are barely characters, as their motivation changes to fit the plot beats. The story has become oversimplified and black and white in its storytelling it's looking less like a quality show à la Succession and more like your average MCU or Disney+ production (just with more shock value of nudity, murder, gore, and incest).

[aita-blorbos]

FAQs

You've asked, and we've answered! ...a lot! Here's a compilation of (most of) the questions we've been asked, all in one place.

What types of submissions are not allowed? Anything that 1. makes the mods uncomfortable or 2. is inaccessible (... for people using screenreaders, for people with low vision, for people with migraines, etc). There's a list here, but that's just stuff that's come up often enough we feel the need to mention it. A good rule of thumb is that the closer it is to any real-life horrible thing, the less inclined we are to post.

Genocide, especially if your ask can be summed up as "AITA for committing/being the victim of genocide?" (Also, if you explicitly term what the POV character has done as genocide, we immediately stop caring about if that's actually accurate.)

SA of any kind, especially if your ask can be summed up as "AITA for committing/being the victim of SA?"

Incest, especially if it is really central to the submission (Also, we may have a different definition of incest than you, so be warned in advance in case your submission that you thought was fine gets sent back or deleted.)

Abuse of any kind, particularly if your ask can be summed up as "AITA for abusing [x]/being abused?"

Suicide, especially if your ask can be summed up as "AITA for committing suicide/making someone commit suicide?"

Extreme violence towards children, especially from the POV of the person doing the violence.

Anything that could be alternately summed up as "AITA for being a bigot?" Yes, fictional bigotry counts.

Submissions about real people.

Harry Potter submissions.

MCU submissions.

All-caps asks. Depending on what software is being run, this can mess with screen readers.

Small-text asks. These are hard to read for people with low vision.

Leetspeak asks / typing quirks of any kind. Again, screen readers, but this time it's for all of them.

Colored text. It can cause migraines.

... For the last four, if your ask makes minor use of caps, small text, leetspeak, or colored text, it will probably get posted with tags like "small text," "not screenreader friendly," or "colored text."

Excluding, to the best of our ability, Harry Potter, we do not delete submissions based on what the source material depicts. 9 times out of 10, we don't know what the source material even is.

Can I submit something about real people if they've been dead for a long time? We would still prefer that you not. If your media of choice is something like SIX, Hamilton, Our Flag Means Death, or any other fictionalized account of real peoples' lives, we may choose to delete your submission even if we recognize the fandom... or there may not be enough to distinguish it from real life, and delete it because we thought you were submitting something about the real Anne of Cleves.

What about Jesus? Jesus was probably a real person but we'll make an exception.

Are 'sequel' submissions (the same scenario from another point of view, a followup, etc) allowed? Yes! However, it's up to you to figure out a way to tie back to your previous ask. You are welcome to do this in the form of a reblog, but we probably won't see it.

Can I submit an ask about my OCs/fanfic/roleplay/other non-canon thing? Sure! Though if you're submitting something about someone else's fic, we'd prefer if you had the author's permission. Same principle with roleplay--everyone involved should be OK with it going here. (We won't know if you don't have permission, but we'd like to remind you that it's polite to get it.)

Do I have to tell you if I’m submitting something from a fic/roleplay/AU/OC/whatever?

You do not! You can if you want to but it doesn’t make a difference to us.

Can we post stuff that has spoilers for X media? Yes*. * Please don't send in submissions for stuff that's less than a month old, as we can't realistically tag spoilers.** ** The exception to this is remakes/adaptations/remasters/etc, which we don't consider to be "new"*** *** Unless something new actually is added, in which case only that specific thing is considered "new." So, if you have a scenario that utilizes that specific thing, please wait a month. If not, you're good.

Can I ask if you've gotten my submission/if it's been queued? Yes, but only off anon, and we will only tell you if it's in the queue or the askbox. We want to answer asks like this privately instead of clogging up peoples' dashes with them, and we do not want to dig through our blog for a specific post. You do that.

If I submitted something off anon, will you let me know if you decide not to post it? Yes, we will answer your ask privately to tell you why we do not want to post it.

How many times do you post a day? 10 posts are published a day.

Can you post more? No. This is an irritating question. You are encouraged to make your own blog if you don't like the way this one is run--we don't have a monopoly on this idea!

How long is the queue? A few days to a week, usually, including stuff in the askbox that hasn't been properly queued.

What do these acronyms mean? YTA = you're the asshole NTA = not the asshole (this means someone else is) JAH = justified asshole NAH = no assholes here ESH = everyone sucks here INFO = more information is required to make a decision

Some of the characters I want to post about are nonbinary. how should I format my submission? We do not require submissions to include the age or gender of any characters. However, if you want to include this, what we've seen other people do say is 18NB or 18X.

Can I put trigger tags at the top of my submission? Yeah that's fine! We also try to tag common triggers, although we don't tag for murder or human death because so many of these stories involve murder.

Right now we tag: - Unreality (every post) - Animal death - Suicide - Rape/CSA - Child harm/death/endangerment - Abuse - Kidnapping - Stalking - ... And a whole bunch of other stuff

All our trigger tags are just the trigger with no CW/TW

What are short format asks?

"Short format" is the tag we use for asks in the format of, "AITA for [blatantly heinous thing]? I, [character name]-." Some people think they're annoying, so we tag them.

If you have more questions about this type of ask, visit our short format faq tag to see if it hasn't been answered.

Sometimes you say you edited an ask. What does that mean?

Sometimes, when we receive an anonymous submission that is postable except for a very slight detail (pretty much always language the writer didn't realize was offensive), we will copy the text, change the one or two words, and send that in anonymously to be posted instead. We try to be transparent about when text was changed, but since it's pretty rare that people accidentally use slurs, it doesn't come up a ton.

Something that hasn't come up yet but could potentially is, if we got an anonymous submission with an undescribed image. We've always required submissions with images to describe those images, so if that happened we might edit in a description. We would, again, be clear about what came from us versus the original author.

If a similar issue crops up with a non-anonymous ask, we send the ask back to the writer and tell them what specifically we need changed. If/when they re-submit, we'll queue that ask immediately instead of waiting for it to hit the back of the inbox, provided we see it.

[moviewarfare]

A Review of “Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)”

It is crazy to think about how this movie franchise originally started on such bad footing with that ugly Sonic design. However, they listened to fans and altered the design to a more game-accurate one. Now here we are with 2 surprisingly good Sonic movies. The 3rd one finally introduces the iconic Shadow the Hedgehog! My favourite character! Is this another great Sonic movie entry or is another in the 3rd movie curse?

Firstly, Shadow is handled wonderfully in this film. The film does a great job of illustrating Shadow's strength and making us feel like Sonic has met his match. Keanu is just doing a Keanu voice but it does work very well for Shadow. Thankfully, they keep the core of his character and backstory in the film. He is menacing but also sympathetic which I find the most important aspect of Shadow which the director also understood. Our main trio is great as they have always been. We do finally get more of them working as a team and I like that the story shows how each of the team has different strengths and weaknesses. They all have incredibly fun chemistry!

Jim Carrey also returns but this time, as two different characters. He returns as Dr Ivo Robotnik but also plays the grandfather, Gerald Robotnik. It seems like the director gave Jim Carrey more freedom to go nuts because Jim Carrey goes full Jim in this film. He steals every scene with his wacky performance! There is an amazing makeup design that makes Gerald look very different from Ivo. However, Jim helps differentiate the two by giving Gerald a distinctively different voice as well. The movie does a great job of making it feel like both characters are there at the same time. Funny enough, both characters have great chemistry which means that Jim has great chemistry with himself!

The movie has some fun action set pieces as well that really show the speed! The first 30 minutes contains many excellent ones including a Team Sonic vs Shadow fight and an awesome chase sequence too. The final act set piece feels like it was pulled right out of Sonic Adventure 2. My one gripe with previous Sonic movie entries was the lack of actual music from the games. This entry remedies this a bit by including a fair amount of notable songs such as "Live and Learn". There are a lot of jokes just like previous ones but this one thankfully is less pop-culture reference galore. There are a fair amount of jokes that actually gave me a chuckle. I think the one standout is how much heart there is in the story. There is the obvious one with Shadow but there is a surprisingly great arc with Dr Ivo Robotnik and his subordinate Agent Stone that might tug on some people's heartstrings.

There is less human character involvement in this entry, which is for the best. However, that doesn't mean the human characters aren't involved as G.U.N is a big part of this story. Krysten Ritter joins the cast as a high-ranking officer in G.U.N but her character is bland and under-baked. Her character leaves the story in a weird anti-climatic way. Gerald Robotnik is also a very one-dimensional villain which is a shame as there was a lot to him in the games. The movie doesn't explore the extent of his grief or even show enough scenes of him with Maria to make him interesting. The pacing also drops a bit in the second act when it becomes exposition heavy and the plot slows down to reintroduce Dr Robotnik and introduce his grandfather.

Overall, it is crazy to see the Sonic movies get better with each entry. The movie is respectful of the source material and provides enough fan service to please fans while telling a solid story. There is an exciting mid-credit scene that is making me look forward to the inevitable 4th entry. I hope it continues to be this good!

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