#but what are we to expect from shit like hbo/max/whatever the fuck

[lucifer-kane]

honestly at this point im just mostly amused at my dash being one or the other abt izzy's death. but honestly for me i was just unsatisfied with it. like. oh, okay. that happened

[joyful-soul-collector]

The Two Faces Of January

Whatever my reactions are to this, blame @raven-rk they told me to watch it. Also if anyone wants to send me recs of oscar isaac movies to watch (or any movies?? you want my gay ass to react to??) go ahead and suggest em, I'm all ears. You too, can be responsible for an unhinged reaction post

All I know about this movie is the one sentence description on HBO MAX and that Oscar Isaac is in it let's GO motherfuckers

Oop there he is

Oh look its Aragorn

Everything Oscar is wearing rn? slut behavior

OH HIS SMILE IS SO CUTE LOOK AT HIM

Rydal is a cool name, stealing that

Oh he's a sneaky little man

I wish smoking weren't so bad for you, it's so damn aesthetic

Idk why Chester doesn't trust him, I mean he doesn't even know Rydal scammed him with that bracelet

Wait does he not trust him cuz he's a person of color. Is this mf just straight up racist. I wouldn't be surprised but still lol cmon bro

Who's this rando

Nice of him to try and return the bracelet he scammed em with lol

Oh shit we fightin'

Oh damn did he kill him?

Oh fuck yeah he ded

Oof, dad passed away only a MONTH ago? Poor guy

Is anyone gonna tell Colette what the hell is goin' on

KITTY

Love this guy scamming rich people, you go Rydal

KITTY

I enjoy the aesthetic of this movie a lot, lots of yellows and browns, makes the cooler colors pop well

Cool that he knows so many languages! I like Rydal so far, he's interesting

Oop Chester is d r o n k

Hope Chester doesn't still remind him of his dad, cuz then his dad would be an asshole...

Oh the intimacy of sharing a cigarette... Again, really wish it weren't so bad for you

I've said it once and I'll say it a million times over: men are always prettiest when they're a bit disheveled

RYDAL IS SO SWEET LOOK AT HIM HELPING THIS WOMAN OUT OF THE BUS

Oop he knooooows

God that bus is fuckin banger, I wanna turn that into a mobile home

Chester you mf, blackmailing Rydal like this

Oh Colette is adorable

Also Rydal's hair rn... Slut shit. Whore behavior

Rydal you sweetheart, standing up for Collette like that

OH THIS IS THAT MOMENT WHERE EVERYONE SAYS HE LOOKS LIKE JAKE LOCKLEY IN THE TANK TOP

I see it, 100%

Ok I hate Chester but his bedhead is 10/10

Jesus this guy has a real drinking problem

Oop Rydal to the rescue

Shiiiiit their pictures are in the paper

Why does this random kid think she can just take people's sunglasses???

HELL YEAH GET HIS ASS RYDAL

Oh they just walkin there huh

Love Zippo lighters, I can do a couple tricks with those, it's quite fun

BRUH WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY'D YA DO THAT

OH SHIT FUCK SHIT IS SHE DEAD??

Ohhhhhhh no....

Wait is Rydal dead too? Did he fuckin kill Rydal? I thought he just knocked him out...

OH GOOD he's okay. He'll be pissed when he finds out about Colette tho

FUCK people saw Rydal leaving those ruins, they're gonna think he did it

Love it when people breathe smoke in the face of someone they hate, fuckin great. ONCE AGAIN, REALLY WISH CIGS DIDN'T KILL YOU

Hell yeah Rydal blackmail the shit outta him

OH SHIT MF ALMOST GOT THROWN OVERBOARD

SHIT fuck shit fuck they're looking for Rydal

Pfft hahaha he's like "if I get caught you're comin' down with me"

Oh damn he called him dad. Yeah his dad must've been right shit then

I forget airports didn't always have nine miles of security to get through

Called it, poor guy had a shit dad

Of COURSE Chester's out here like "forgive your dad everyone expects too much from dads, I hated my dad too"

Hell yeah get tf outta there Rydal

Aw dammit they got him. Hope he can get that confession he needs to be freed

Admit it, do it motherfucker

Ah shit he runnin

OH SHIT THEY SHOT HIM

Dammit I really hope he can get this fuckin confession outta him...

THANK YOU God the one good this Chester does in this whole movie

It's the breaking the cycleeeee, Chester hated HIS shit dad and Rydal hated HIS shit dad so now Chester's gonna be a not shit dad in his last moments mmmmmmmmm

Looks like he really does remind him of his dad in the end. And he went to his funeral in return for the confession

Interesting that he buried the bracelet with Chester instead of Colette. Something something, the immortality of fatherhood and metaphors about breaking cycles and literally burying his previous life and crimes with a man who embodied everything he hated, something something

That was a good movie I quite liked it! Good foreshadowing with the "he reminds me of my dad" comment at the very beginning. Viggo plays a great bad guy. Featuring Slutty Oscar, drunk off his ass Viggo, and poor Kirsten who did not deserve any bad things to happen to her ever, and yet they did

[xianjaneway]

It's my fault for reblogging while waiting in line, & not being more clear about what I meant. @Lostakasha, & @batsarebetterthanpeople, I'm sorry about that, & I want to be more clear here.

"This is why we have fanfic" is not meant to be a, "Your concerns don't matter," brush-off. Rather, I want us as a fandom to absorb one truth, & remember it *every single time* we love a creative universe that's owned by a major corporation: THEY DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT US.

HBO Max is the same company that:

-bought Sesame Street--a show designed to help low-income, urban, minority, & other disadvantaged kids learn how to READ--and promptly deleted 200 episodes. (https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/hbo-max-removes-sesame-street-episodes-1235345685/)

-refused to release a completed Batgirl movie that featured a black woman in the iconic role, so they could get a multi-billion-dollar TAX BREAK: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/warner-bros-discovery-to-take-additional-800m-in-content-and-development-writeoffs-1235282281/ -flat-out deleted shows that have zero DVD or streaming presence elsewhere, leaving writers, actors, animators, & other creative team members w/ no hope for residual income. They're even shopping extremely popular HBO Originals, like Westworld, to 3rd party streamers: shhttps://www.ign.com/articles/hbo-max-to-remove-36-titles-from-streaming-residual-payouts

There's a principle called, "Value extraction," that vulture capitalists follow when trying to make money off of other people's labor: they take the assets of a company, the conditions of the market, or whatever privileges & advantages they have, & strip-mine them to get the most money, in the least amount of time, for the least amount of effort.

For example, the Instant Pot should have been an incredibly profitable product. However, when the vulture capitalists got ahold of it, they *took out 500 million dollars in loans* against the company's supposed 2 BILLION dollars in value, to give that money to stock holders.

Seriously. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/148v26j/instant_brands_maker_of_the_instant_pot_files_for/?rdt=47771

They were purchased by a venture capitalist firm in 2017, which made billions, but in doing so, managed to tank the most popular new kitchen gadget in my lifetime.

They took out loans to issue super-high dividend checks, & then the money pit dried up REAL QUICK.

Gee, what a surprise. (eye roll)

If they hadn't strip-mined the corporation for a quick buck, Instant Pot could have been a thriving brand for decades, like Pyrex--but oh, that same venture capital firm ALSO bought Pyrex! In doing so, they fucked up one of the most historically reliable kitchen products in American history. https://gizmodo.com/the-pyrex-glass-controversy-that-just-wont-die-1833040962

Yeah, the glass that famously was impervious to heat, suddenly explodes when it's too hot.

Knowing all this history meant that, when I heard that Our Flag Means Death was not just popular, but REMARKABLY, UNEXPECTEDLY, MANICALLY popular, I was already a bit concerned for its future prospects.

When I saw it blew Marvel's new series "Moon Knight" out of the water, I could smell vulture capitalists circling.

When I realized HBO Max was bought by the media giant Warner, who immediately strip-mined works made by minorities & marginalized people, in the name of shareholder profits, ANY expectations of quality I had went out the window.

(Side note: this means I've been REALLY pleasantly surprised this season, b/c I was expecting so. much. worse.)

When HBO Max realized they had one of the MOST POPULAR fictional properties in the world, did they throw money & resources at it, to help it grow? Did they reach out to the queer community, or support their new brain child in any way?

No.

OFMD got rid of Ivan, Mary, Badmitton's ghost, & plenty of other potential plot lines. They moved halfway around the world to cut costs for extras & production. They took 2 episodes away from last season's number.

And remember, IT WAS FINISHED BEFORE THE WRITER'S STRIKE.

The writers had a cut budget, a cut episode count, a cut cast, & an entirely new environment. They didn't have the same protections that writers have now, thanks to the incredibly long strike. And they still gave us (gestures at all this) despite those difficulties, because they love the show as much as we do!

Knowing this, when I say, "This is why we have fanfic," I mean, "Fanfic is the ONLY place where writers can allow stories to grow however the hell they want, without corporate executives taking out loans against its potential future value."

Corporate overlords make the final choices here, & their only goal is to increase their profits. Not to give a satisfying story, not to make sure under-represented & marginalized voices are heard, & CERTAINLY not to appease a group of fans that they historically disdain.

Fanfic is a valid & needed response to this practice. The Ed & Stede in Pina Coladas, or Hell Or High Water, have an incredible & moving journey that has NOTHING for the capitalists to strip-mine.

Finally, I want to address a nitpicky thing said in the OP:

You want more Jim & Olu content, & I understand why. They were a tender & beloved love story in season 1, & I certainly wanted to see that grow too.

However, Vico Ortiz is a nonbinary, polyamorous, actor, who is in a committed relationship w/ both a man & a woman. Maybe (and I'm just guessing here) they wanted representation too, & asked for the change. I know Nathan Foad has expressed some hesitation (in my opinion, when I saw his panels) w/ being the poster-boy for polyamory, since he calls himself, "boring & monogamous." His ongoing story w/ Black Pete is great, & I wish their wedding in Hell Or High Water was canon.

I'm a more masculine-presenting person, who is married to a very tender, gentle man, & that's one reason why I LOVE the Jim & Olu storyline. While it's completely valid for both you & me to want to see them developed further, it's not our story to tell. Fanfic is a valid reaction to that, & lets us take ownership of that story. I really hope you DO develop it, & let us see why it was important to you.

I hope all this makes sense, & I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Episode 7 was fine being 25 minutes but episode 6 was waaaaaaayyyyy too fucking short. They needed to have Ed spend more time begging Ned not to touch Stede, that bit needed to be more drawn out and dramatic I needed to see Ed's face when it happened, but instead they just sort of cut away to Roach and Izzy enjoying themselves, it didn't make me feel as much as I felt like I should have and I feel like if they had just given it even 20 more seconds I would have. And then of course they copped out on giving us an actual sex scene, we didn't even see Ed topless for fucks sake, I need a full minute of heavy making out with Stede lying on top of Ed and both their torsos nude, bare minimum. The episode if they'd added those things, would have been perfect and it would only have been 27 and a half minutes long, spend the other two and a half setting up the Olu misses Zheng plot for next episode, because I need more Jim and Olu content

[ihassheepquake]

DC's Batwoman 3.07 "Pick Your Poison" has aired on the CW and I'm here to talk about it

It's the mid-season finale. On one hand, it feels a lot earlier than expected, but also it kind of tracks with how the seasons of Arrowverse shows usually go. Normally the annual crossover around episode 9 of each season is kind of treated as the mid-season finale despite it definitely not being the mid-season. Though there isn't a traditional crossover, I do imagine that this episode is going to end in a way that lets Ryan be able to go participate in the Flash event happening as that seems to be happening in "real-time."

I guess what I'm most interested in seeing, not just from this mid-season but in general, is where this Ivy-Mary thing is going. Is Mary becoming Ivy for real, like full time? Someone was cast as Pamela, an actress named Bridget Regan. Obviously, Mary being Ivy right now doesn't mean that we'll never see Pamela but who knows for sursies. I would guess that Pamela is still in that underground prison it's said Batman put her in and has possessed Mary to go free her. But has somebody been caring for her since Batman vanished? What if she died in the years it's been? Maybe we only see Pam in flashbacks. They have a lot of things they could do with this plot and I'm really excited to see what they do with it.

Enough pre-episode talk, let's get into it.

Starting off strong, Ryan helping Jada basically kidnap Marquis. We love a wild start. Boy is becoming our new Joker, which I don't know if I'm into or not, but whatever.

I forgot Sophie fucked Renee last episode omg.

Swamp Thing name drop?? Hell yeah! Have we seen him in the Arrowverse before? I don't think so but it's been a long time since I watched early Arrow so maybe he popped up there? Did they just put the Swamp Thing show on this Earth now? The CW does technically have that show now and it aired there around Halloween 2019 I believe. Maybe 2020. But I want HBO Max to pick it up and give it new life because it deserves it and HBO Max would have the money to put into it and could let it keep its very R rating.

Yay Ryan, you got it! Alice went with Mary, possibly specifically so you lot can track her but who knows with her. But yeah, definitely not. She's just snatched Mary for her own devilish needs.

Besties what is this method of finding a donor??? Because it's really stupid. Oh I'm so glad they changed Ivy's compulsion powers so she doesn't have to kiss someone to make it work. Was never a fan of that. I wonder if Mary will keep any of these powers after Ivy leaves her system? It's not exactly abnormal for people to keep some powers after possession/temporarily having powers in this universe.

Speaking of, here is Joker 2.0 ladies and gays! This is certainly a plot point. And here he goes killing people.

Can you actually tell someone's blood type like this? Idk what Mary's actually doing but that's wild shit.

How is the show going to backtrack this thing with Ryan resigning? Because they're going to, we all know it.

Ivy-Mary do something to not let Alice get the blood! Take your revenge!! I really don't think you get to qualify as Mary's only family left. It is really interesting hearing Alice and Mary talk about Kate though because really what Alice is saying is mostly fake, Kate did spend most of season 1 legitimately trying to help Alice until Alice made it clear that she wasn't going to accept it. But Mary's kind of right. Kate wasn't great to her and did tend to prioritize Alice over Mary.

Mary going to the dark side!! We love to see it.

Go find the Bat Cave under Wayne Manor perhaps??

This whole Marquis-Joker subplot kinda feels like the Arkham Knight Joker subplot but not as interesting or fun. And even I wasn't a huge fan of the Arkham Knight subplot. Also, is anybody going to recognize and be concerned by the very "let's put a smile on that face" that Marquis just did? Because I feel like that warrants concern.

Loving the suit Ivy. Now we just need to find you a Harley to be gay with.

I've checked out my sources and it doesn't seem like episode 8's title has been revealed yet, which makes sense since it won't air for about a month and a half. And as far as I can see, there really is only 13 episodes this season. That's all I've found listed while looking online. I usually really like the full 22 episode seasons but I have felt like the Arrowverse shows would do better as the 13 episode half seasons for a while. Stargirl does really, really well with the shorter seasons and some of these Arrowverse seasons really feel like they drag at the full length (looking directly at Flash season's 6 & 7).

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the rest of this season plays out, and I'll see you back in January.

[qqueenofhades]

I know you dont watch GoT anymore. And that Braime and Sansa are your favorites. But I know you've read the books and are obviously really interested in the story. And I was just wondering what your thoughts are on the whole Jon killing Dany thing? Is that something you can see happening in the books? And if it is do you think it'd be in the same context as the show did it?

Ahaha, welp. Just jumping right in there.

(Also, you never have to apologise for asking GOT/ASOIAF questions. I obviously have been a fan for 16 years and wrote fuckin’ TNR with its half-million-plus words, so I clearly do have Thoughts on the story/characters, especially with the bag of lukewarm cat vomit that was s8 of the show.)

I already answered this ask discussing how much I hated the Mad Queen Dany thing, both because a) it was horrifically badly handled and b) these mediocre misogynist douchegobblers have managed to outdo themselves in terms of the gross messages they’ve sent about women, after 8 seasons of that. (These are the same people who made Sansa say that she was grateful for her rapes and who claimed that Dany’s turn into madness was foreshadowed by her having a “chilly” reaction to the death of her abuser, Viserys, in s1, so…. make of that what you will.) I’m not saying that it was narratively impossible, especially since GRRM has been toying with the same thing in the books and has more than his own share of Male Author Syndrome. But at the start of 8x04, Dany is in Winterfell, perfectly sane, toasting Arya as hero of the battle. By the end of 8x06, she’s crazy, a war criminal, and dead, murdered by her boyfriend, because… well, something something plot reasons. Even if you didn’t like Dany or were rooting for her to go mad or whatever, that was wildly badly handled.

I personally think it would be pretty gross for GRRM to also go down the Mad Queen route, though at least if he does, we will have had Dany’s POV chapters beforehand and presumably something resembling a justification and a building narrative momentum toward it. But she also got stuck in Meereen for so long because by his own admission he didn’t know what to do with her there or how to get her out of the situation and moved onto Westeros, which remains, theoretically, her outstanding goal in the books. It would obviously not be outside the realm of possibility for this to happen, given GRRM’s focus on “grittiness” that the show took to max factor 5000. I would still find it reductive and trying to make a Clever Postmodern Point and etc if it happened in the books, because literally why invest us in a character this long, especially one who has tried so hard to overcome the circumstances of her past/to not be her father, and then just do exactly that? Obviously there would be elements of Shakespearean tragedy to it, and if done well it could be compelling, but I personally just have a different approach to fiction and what people want out of a story (especially one now as famous as GOT/ASOIAF and how universally betrayed everyone seems to feel by the ending). I’m not saying Dany’s ultimate ending needs to be sunshine and roses and getting what she wants, because often character arcs and resolutions become all the more powerful for being subverted and thwarted (think the “I said I wanted [x] but [y] was there instead” sort of endings). But whatever it is, it needs to be…. not that.

Also, Jon in both books and especially show has been the epitome of Mediocre White Man. I stopped watching in s4, but Kit Harington’s acting was so wooden and the writing for him was very much Standard Misunderstood Brooding Fantasy Hero that I could barely pay attention to his scenes. I find him somewhat more interesting in the books, though ADWD dragged for everyone and it was obvious GRRM was writing in circles. But everyone has noticed that especially in the show, Jon does absolutely bupkis. His ass is constantly saved by the women in his life, he makes an absolute hash of any power that he is given and doesn’t want it anyway, and his ultimate ending was…. going back to the Night’s Watch (as their idea of satisfying narrative storytelling is to literally put everyone back where they were in the very first episode, apparently). Never mind the fact that there’s no need for the Night’s Watch, but the point is, even the fact that Jon is Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son ended up being relevant for like half an episode. That has been one of the major plot points/secrets of the books (although not so much anymore) and it just…. fizzled out like a damp squib. Dany actually TRIED for multiple seasons to be a good ruler and to learn how to handle power and become a queen, so for her to have to be the one to die for Jon to once again do diddlysquat is… well, as I have said before, the misogyny leaps out. They ended up wasting so much potential and so many other things that were also foreshadowed (and far more convincingly than “wah wah she was gonna go evil!”). For this? So Jon can just go brood in the snow again? Cool.

Not to mention, I find it gross on principle that Dany’s boyfriend had to be the one to kill her, especially after rape/sexual violence/loss of agency was such a big part of her early-season storylines (and how horrifyingly and grossly that has been handled on the show overall). We’re obviously supposed to sympathize with Jon in this scenario and to feel that it is justified to “stop a tyrant” or whatever. Also, if the episode was going to be called “Queenslayer,” why the fuck wasn’t it Jaime fulfilling the valonqar prophecy, another thing they forgot about, and killing Cersei, at great personal grief/cost, to once more stop an insane monarch from burning down King’s Landing? But that, of course, would be actual character development/overall arc, and they preferred to also trash that by having Jaime “killed Aerys Targaryen literally to save half a million innocent people and lived with his reputation being destroyed ever after” Lannister unironically claim that he never cared about the lives of the innocent and only wanted Cersei. After she again tried to kill him and Tyrion like three days ago, not even to mention what they did to Brienne and with that whole arc, but I will have a ragestroke if I think about it too much. 

Basically, the ending wasn’t “bittersweet.” It was tragic, reductionist, ham-handed, hugely disappointing for everyone who put years of investment into these characters, and ended up in the amusing position of making Bran Stark the younger and more beautiful queen who comes to cast Cersei down. He became king because… reasons? Whatever? And he knows literally everything about everyone thanks to being the Three-Eyed Raven, so there’s no way that can go horribly wrong. He has basically done nothing except sit in a wheelchair and look creepy for several years now, his arc has never been remotely about being king, and Isaac Hempstead-Wright himself is apparently on record as saying he genuinely thought it was a joke script when he read it. This after both Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington broke down over learning what happened to their characters/Kit apparently realized it for the first time at the read-through and was horrified. Emilia already talked about wandering for five hours and having a crisis and calling her mom and asking to be talked off the ledge like….. fictional choices/characters completely aside, that’s a gross thing to do to your actors. I know they’re all proud of their work and they have apparently and understandably been defensive about the existence of the petition to rewrite s8, but they’ve all been pretty clear, while still being professional and supportive, that there is stuff that they’re just as much WTF about as we are.

Basically, as everyone keeps saying, the acting, cinematography, visual effects, music, etc was clearly up to as high a standard as ever, but was betrayed fundamentally and comprehensively by this god-awfully shit writing by a couple of hacks who clearly rushed the final season to get on to ruining working on Star Wars. They have also been on record about saying “you can’t do what the audience expects or it’ll get boring blah blah blah,” which is a profoundly flawed storytelling strategy if you’re paranoid and trying to outsmart your audience and do something that nobody has ever thought of because you’re an Intellectual Postmodern Commentator On Our Violent Society. If your audience can guess where a story is going, but are still surprised by major twists along the way that then make sense in hindsight, you’ve done your job. If you’re relying on grimdark and cramming in gimmicky plot twists and deus ex machinas and Shocking Moments rather than authentically developing your story, it’s going to bite you in the ass in a big way, as was just proven. 

Nobody expected a completely happy ending from GoT. But the fact that they went to such lengths, especially in s8, to build up characters/ships (Jonerys, Braime, Gendrya were all torched after major canon moments completely unexpected by fans, especially the latter two – why even include it unless to just be more Tragique, and Gendrya is the only one that has even a chance in the future since half of it didn’t end up idiotically dead) and then just wrecked all of it…. as I’ve said, good endings don’t need to be rainbows and unicorns and kittens. But if you’ve asked eight years of audience investment, there has to be something that makes it worth it and that doesn’t make everyone feel like they were duped and stupid to get involved in the first place. They have been beating the “it’s a hard world and bad things happen to the characters” drum for all they’re worth, but… it’s just bad. You can analyse and ask why the hell they did things and so forth, but it’s bad. At this rate, the show should have either ended after 8x03, or they should have taken the money HBO offered and done the proper 10 episodes and let Bryan Cogman write all of them. He was the only one who appeared to remotely give a shit about the characters, and since D&D wrote the last four episodes themselves, yeah, this disaster is on them.

Fortunately, I left the show years ago and have TNR and am used to ignoring their version of things. And I knew all along that they never really got the characters or the story. But I feel really bad for everyone who has had this thrown back in their face, and it seems like a communal disenchantment with this ending is going to enter the pop-culture consciousness on a possibly unprecedented level. So if GRRM does do the Mad Queen Dany killed by Jon in the books (though he has apparently called the show’s ending “traumatic”), I’ll probably still not like it. He has a chance to sell me it on/justify it to me narratively, which the show categorically failed to do. I don’t think I will, just because as I said, I don’t like anything about it, but yes.

Anyway. This is a long post already, and I probably have more to say still, but it’s pretty obvious I think it’s just really, really bad, and that’s about the essence of it.