#but writing takes a lot more time for a viewer to get invested in than appreciating art so it’s not as likely

[rosesradio]

the biggest propaganda in fandom is fanart. like tell me why i started on this webbed site saying things like “i’m just not into percico” and “jercy is just a bromance to me” but like…if you have a good enough fanartist you can make anyone ship anything, now i think percico is cute and jercy has an absolute iron clad grip on me 😭

[batzppi]

is there any chance we are getting a part 2 of boyfriend gamer shigiraki??

ofc😈 pt.2 of gamer!shigiraki

dating popular gamer!shigiraki is fun, until he convinces you to start playing with him.

a couple weeks after you showed yourself on his stream for the first time, he began noticing how you started popping up more and more to watch him play. which prompted him to buy you your own mini set up so you could play together.

it started off with easy games that he could carry you in, then slowly progressed into scary games which you both failed at. you being the silent rager type made for funny reactions and people started to request for shigi to play with you more often.

your presence and influence got him to stream more stuff than just gaming and a couple times you got him to do dumb little challenges.

you managed to get him to play the sims and put you both in the game, then got completely embarrassed when you made each other woohoo in front of all his viewers.

“ok! that’s enough of that.” he awkwardly laughs while you die uncontrollably at his reaction.

playing fire boy and water girl as both of you fight over him constantly messing up over the easiest parts, ends up going viral and gained him even more followers. getting many comments a day for you two to keep continuing the game.

gamer!shigiraki who plays a dating simulator with you and the overall goal is to get the girl to fall in love.

“ok what should i give her for the first date? the stuffed bear or the stuffed dog?” he asks looking at the chat for suggestions, “yea, i don’t think it’s possible to give her the actual animal but i’ll keep that in mind.” he rolls his eyes playfully at all the stupid answers and ending up relying on you.

you guys were taking turns choosing the routes, trying to get the best outcome possible, becoming way to invested in the game. it was actually cute to watch him struggle with all the romantic options, leaving his viewers to wonder how he even managed to get a girlfriend.

sorry it took so long + isn’t as long as pt.1!!

i’m trying to improve my writing so i have lots of other works i’m hoping to post!

[dangermousie]

Cinderella and 2am and Melody of Golden Age have joined the lengthy list of dropped dramas.

I am not a follower of the sunk cost fallacy and have been known to walk out of a movie halfway if I am bored, so it's no surprise am ruthless with dropping dramas - there are dramas where I dropped them two eps from the end, so 4 out of 10 (Cinderella) or 19 out of 40 (Melody) is nothing.

As anyone who's followed this tumblr for more than five minutes probably knows, I watch a lot of stuff with large chunks on 2x/3x - it takes a truly extraordinary drama for me not to ff at all (Beyond Evil, which I am watching right now qualifies; out of airing dramas for all of 2024 only Eternal Brotherhood and Joy of Life 2 qualified. Even with excellent dramas like Black Out or Heroes or Tender Light or Shen Li, there are at least some bits I watch on 2x.) But it is always a bad sign when I start watching ALL of it on 2x, let alone when I am doing 4x and skipping even then, as I started doing with these two dramas.

I can't really write a long and fun rant about hating them or what's wrong with them or w/e, because tbh I did not hate either of them. I did not find anything in them offensive or massively annoying. I can't point to a glaring issue and go "a-ha!"

It's just - they bore me. That is kind of a worse condemnation than a fun dumpster fire. (I once watched the entirety of a jdrama called Vampire Gigolo and I watch Chinese minidramas, I know whereof I speak.)

The ultimate issue with either is that I don't care for any of the characters - and not as a fancy way of saying I dislike them because that would be some emotion. No, in a plain meaning of I have no emotional investment in them, I don't really care what happens to them. They are fine. They are OK. And I wouldn't care if they all got every dream fulfilled or got drowned in Lee Soo Hyuk's Queen Woo moat. And unless the drama is a rare intellectual feast where I am so invested in the plot or the message that I don't care about being indifferent to the characters (and a fluffy romcom and a fluffy procedural aren't gonna be that), I need to feel something for the characters, I need to be invested. They don't have to be good people, I don't have to love them as people but I have to care about their fate, even if it's to watch them get shanked. (Think The Advisors' Alliance - most of the characters are monsters but they are magnetic and fascinating and I was so so so invested in them.) And here I have none of that. It all feels paint by numbers to me.

They don't feel like real people and that's fine. But they don't feel like interesting narrative constructs either. And time is finite and my watch list is long, so good bye, better luck with other viewers!

[miumiumandoodz]

somewhat related to the previous post but never once I rest my thoughts on why I can’t actually ship Jayce and Mel despite them being completely both my type and are the kind of characters I would enjoy shipping together. Like something just doesn’t snap to me. Now that I’ve seen the ending, I think it was also deliberate from the writers to not actually write them as a “shippable couple” in a sense. I bet the writers are smart enough to know their demographic.

Initially I just thought that Mel is so gorgeous, that even Jayce doesn’t deserve her. Later on, I realized that the two were just not portrayed to fall in love in a vulnerable way. Like, something crush them and they find pieces in each other kinda way. Take a look at CaitVi for example. They’re both trying to make sense the world around them and find pieces in each other — realizing that maybe they’re more similar that their differences make out to be, but when it comes to Jayce and Mel, nothing are sort of vulnerable out of the two to warrant that kind of connection and it makes it so hard for me to invest. Plot wise, this makes sense because initially we see that Mel only sees Jayce as an investment. Another trick on her sleeve. Something useful later. And he’s such an naive bottom puppy he’d say yes and played into her strings. And Jayce is… well. A naive bottom puppy. Who could blame him. A gorgeous girl is taking an interest on you, of course you’d say yes. But there’s nothing to it other than that. We see Mel gradually kinda let her guard down and catching feelings, but she’s still putting that facade and Jayce is too dumb to notice further other than “pretty girl likes me :3”

Only after Mel unlocks her black rose powers and Jayce got vomited out from the dystopian future they become kinda shippable to me because by that time, Mel is vulnerable. Jayce is vulnerable. There’s conflict. Jayce finally notices what he is to Mel initially and Mel tries to defend it was a wise choice to make. But it’s too late to even show her vulnerability to Jayce or to even prove whether or not she has feelings for him because 1.) war is at bay 2.) the story needs to wrap itself up 3.) Vik is Jayce’s endgame all along. But now I understand that apparently yeah — if they’re shippable, it’s in this kind of moment where there’s vulnerability and conflict, but by that moment, it’s way too late for me, as a viewer, to even wanna invest.

I feel like the ending is bittersweet in a way that Mel kinda sorts out her personal dilemma but loses a lot, including Jayce — not only because he sacrifices himself to undo what he has done but also, again, by the time she realizes that she might actually care about Jayce, it’s all too late. And it’s kinda sad knowing that Mel pushes that feelings down anyway because it’s clear where she thinks her duty lies. I do feel a bit sad for her. As a standalone character, I do feel like she is quite rounded up. I agree with the major opinion on some of the pacing in s2, especially her arc, but overall, I get it and I invest to her character all the way through even though I don’t invest to her early season romance with Jayce.

Anyway, this is by no means an attack to JayceMel. This is more of like a personal observation in how writers influence you as a viewer through storytelling and character relationships.

[duhragonball]

How would you have written pan as a character for gt?

Above all else, I'd want to establish an end goal for her character arc. Where do we want Pan to end up at the end of the story? How will she change? And then I'd write the character with that goal in mind.

Let's use her father as an example. When Gohan is first introduced, he's established to have great potential, but he's untrained and easily frightened. He taps into that hidden power when he sees his father in danger, or when his own life is threatened, but that's about it. Piccolo declares his intention to train Gohan to control his hidden power, so that he can become strong enough to defend the earth.

And that mission statement becomes the throughline for the character. It's not the only thing Gohan does in Dragon Ball Z, but with each adventure he goes on, he gets a little more capable and a little more responsible and mature.

Static characters are a thing, and you can have them in your story. Yajirobe is basically the same guy in Dragon Ball Super as he is in his first appearance. He moves into Korin Tower and ages a few decades, but otherwise nothing changes. It works in his case, because he's a supporting role in a very large cast of characters.

But Gohan and Pan are presented as major players in their respective stories, and they need to develop over time, in order to keep the audience invested in them. This wasn't lost on the makes of GT. In episode 2, Pan makes it clear that she wants to be taken more seriously by the adults, and she sneaks aboard the ship and forces the others to let her stay aboard, all so she can prove her worth.

But what progress do we see Pan make towards that goal? I'm sure there's some throwaway lines at the end of the Baby Saga about how proud everyone is of Pan for her courage, but the Pan at the end of GT looks and acts basically the same as the one we see at the beginning. What did she learn from all those adventures? How has she grown?

With Gohan in DBZ, this is always obvious to the viewer. He goes from trembling at the thought of fighting Nappa to standing up to Recoome all by himself. At the Cell Games, he doesn't just show superior strength, he also demonstrates skills that he didn't have before he spent that year in the Time Chamber with Goku. He uses the Kamehameha, but he also deflects a Special Beam Cannon, among other things. And there's a lot of visual changes he goes through as well. Fans can just look at a picture of Gohan and identify what period of the show it's from.

GT Pan doesn't get any of that. She's stuck wearing the same Winnie the Pooh shirt from start to finish, and while I'm sure she increased her power level over the course of the series, there's no clear indication of this.

This was why I was always mad that she didn't turn Super Saiyan in Episode 15. It was a perfect opportunity to have her reach a tangible milestone, something that would force everyone to accept her as a peer. Then she could have racked up some wins later in the show, maybe defeat Tuffle Goten or something, and then later she could take out a major league dead villain in the Super 17 Saga. And then she could have scored a big solo win over one of the Shadow Dragons. She wouldn't have to become the strongest character on the show, or anything like that. The point would be to demonstrate that Pan Has Changed A Lot, and she's much more capable in Episode 60 than she was in Episode 3.

If you want to get into specific ideas, I would probably focus on Pan doing "penance" for stealing Goten's spot on the GT Crew. The idea Vegeta had was for Goten and Trunks to go with Goku as a sort of training journey. Pan took Goten's spot, which means she has to do all the hard work Goten would have had to do. They showed her doing (and assigning) chores on the ship in Episode 3, but she never learned anything about the tech that makes the ship run, and we never see her training with Goku.

A big problem with GT, especially early GT, is how they just waste time doing nothing, when they could use that time to develop the characters. So you have scenes where Trunks says something responsible or anxious, and Pan acts whiny or bossy, and Goku says he's hungry, and it's like, that's it, there's your characterization for the week! It's hollow and performative, and it betrays the formulaic attitudes of the creators. They're just making GT in order to hang on to the time slot for one more year.

What they should have done was to use those quiet moments in the stories to show Pan learning from Goku and Trunks. If they're on their way to the next planet, Trunks should be showing Pan how to fly the ship. If they're waiting for repairs, Goku should be sparring with Pan to pass the time. Goku should be very eager to get Pan up to Super Saiyan level, because it could literally save her life one of these days. And, more importantly, Goku knows she's capable of earning the respect she craves.

She should also be learning lessons to curb her shitty attitude, the same way Goku learned some manners in the original series, and Gohan learned to take care of himself in Z. It's bizarre to me how often Pan treats Goku and Trunks with such contempt, and yet she wants them to respect her. It would be so easy to have someone point out the hypocrisy, and maybe that would get Pan to rethink how she looks at the world, but that conversation just never happens.

I could take this in more radical directions, like giving Pan special powers or a unique skill no one else has, but it boils down to the same thing. If you're going to send Pan into space for a year, then she needs to come back older and wiser than she was before. The change needs to be apparent to the viewer, and we should get to see that change happen over the course of the story.

[safflowerseason]

final maisel musings

As a single episode of television, I thought the final episode did a great job. We got see to Midge’s “big break” and it honored all the important relationships in her life and how they had evolved over the years, most importantly Midge and Susie. In some ways it felt like a very traditional, old-school finale, leaning into the emotions inspired by the ups-and-down’s of all the characters’ journeys and Midge’s final triumph. No major surprises, no reveals, no surprise break-ups. I think the flash forwards also did a good job of filling in some blanks while still leaving a lot to the viewer to imagine for themselves...I suspect Joel and Midge probably “reconnected” several times throughout their lives, but never permanently, and I like to think Midge was particularly devoted to Abe in his final years. There seems to be some discourse about how Midge is “alone” in that huge apartment and whether or not she is “happy”, which irks for me a variety of reasons too lengthy to go into here. I appreciated the show ending with Midge and Susie’s relationship so firmly at the center of the episode...it was their journey, their growth, their connection at the heart of the show. Rachel B and Alex Borstein are really an all-time pairing of actresses. 

Susie living in Hawaii keeping a bunch of loud birds was a note-perfect happy ending for her. The final scene fading out on their laughter together, cracking each other up...just wonderful. I laughed and almost cried at that final conversation about what kind of animal they would like to be reincarnated as...Midge saying very seriously “I think I would make a cute squirrel” killed me. 

The Midge/Lenny stuff was also all just really gutting and bittersweet and lovely. The Chinese food scene...ugh. I think the point of TMMM is that it actually features many different types of romances...in a lot of ways the writers were very unequivocal that Midge and Lenny were the kind of soaring “star-crossed lovers” romance that is all the more beautiful and poignant because of its brief and mostly unrealized nature. It’s a testament to the casting, the actors, and the writing that they made all of Midge’s romances (Susie, Joel, Lenny, even that Benjamin guy) come across so specifically different and complex. 

As a whole season, I think S5 was characterized by ASP’s usual all-over-the-place nature as a writer, investing a lot of time and energy in certain relationships and set pieces and bits and not investing enough in others. But this isn’t new, it's been true for all the seasons, so you take the good with the bad. Considering how the major “reveal” early in the season was that Susie and Midge had a falling out, I would have liked to see more about how they reconciled beyond Midge sending a nice video to Susie! Did Midge just get over the mob/Joel in prison thing after enough years had passed?? Did Susie go back to managing her?? When/how did the actual reunion take place?? I would have infinitely preferred more of that plot than twenty minutes of a musical about trash compacting or Abe’s antics at the Village Voice. The relationship could have been given a little more weight in this season.

As for Gordon Ford, I really enjoyed the late-night show as the main setting and Reid Scott’s performance as a diva late-night host. But I do feel the character was underwritten in the latter half of the season when it came to the nature his objection to Midge appearing on the show and his vague role as the “villain.” It just felt like ASP was seeing something in the character or the chemistry between RS and RB that didn’t come across to the viewer. But I will never be opposed to ASP finding RS for S4 and deciding to make him a bigger part of S5. (related we needed way more about Gordon and Hedy's relationship, and Hedy needed her own show!)

In any case, I had sort of checked out of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and was surprised at how much I enjoyed coming back to the show and its fantasy version of NYC and its incredible production values and costuming. The discourse here made me a little insane (par for the course on Tumblr, I guess), but the show more than made up for it. Tits up, y’all!

[bookdragonlibrary]

Hey !

Longtime follower here ! I'd love to get your insight on an issue, and I know I can count on you, when I read all your detailed and well written responses.

One issue plaguing the YJ community is the infamous debate of the timeskips, I personally think it didn't do any favors for YJ. I would have preferred to keep the one season, one year format, while progressing in the main subplot (Vandal savage VS Darkseid VS JL& The Team).

What's your take on this ? What would your plan of each season look like ?

Thank you for your ask and following me :)

As you could have seen, I love Young Justice writing! That's why it's even funnier and more interesting to analyse!

About the time format, I think YJ shouldn't limit the story to happen in one year just to mimick the first season, but has a rythmn according to the story's needs. But I can see the appeal of keeping the same formule so to speak to write the story. But I wouldn't let limit me and my creativity to tell the story and the pace it needs. As a writer, let's say the series is a book saga and the tied-comics like short novels to explore more the universe and the characters but with stories that are shorters than for the main saga. That is what I'm planning for my own work :)

That was the short answer, let's keep going for the long one! :D

For the timeskip. There is good and a bad consequences from it. The good is it's flesh out YJ world and make the DC lore in one coherent world. The characters continue to grow between big events happening in seasons, just like real people.

The bad consequence is for us, viewers, as we are a little lost at the beginning of the season about the changes. But we need to keep in mind that YJ was supposed to be a multicanal storyline with the series but also videogame (where Tula dies) and comics. Young Justice should have more tied-comics to explain and explore the stories between seasons and to develop more specitic characters who don't have a lot of screen time. But the main problem is DC Universe now Warners Brothers don't invest much in Young Justice but instead make DCU movies and we know the quality of them compared to YJ and the animated films (that I 100% recomand if you didn't watch them yet!!).

My plan is the last season seems to be a building for a supposed (let's hope!) five season with Darkseid and Vandal as the main antagonists and each sub-story of the 4th season was to build it up and explain to us the many changes there will be between season 3 and 5 so we won't be lost like at the beginning of season 2 and 3. So it feels like season 4 was the first part of season 5 if you see what I mean?

I don't know if you know this series as it's a French one but Wakfu (it's on Netflix if you want to try it ;) ) has a similar storyline with a main series which will end with its 4th season on January, OST that could be a long film and a manga series. But the same universe also has an online videogame WOW-like called Dofus, a manga series with the same name, films and series with different characters, sometimes at different time periods. You can read the Dofus manga or watch only Wakfu and you won't feel lost about the story. Because it's not made like the MCU where you have to see multiple series on Disney+ just to watch one film on theatre...

Wakfu works because it's the same studio who makes all of that (their name is Ankama). Young Justice is a gold pile the producers are sitting on because they don't invest on it... If the writers have the whole freedom than Anakama has, we wouldn't feel bad about the timeskips because we would have more content to fill the gap :)

I hope that answer your ask and give you another point of view :p

[biasto-bias]

Re: that "not reading wips feels anti-fanfiction to me" post -

I think it makes sense. I agree with the general idea - I think the point of transformative fandom is creating things together! Even writing fanfic in the first place is, in its own way, creating something together with the original writer.

But it made me think about why I don't, personally, read WIPs (in most circumstances). I've actually been thinking about it since I saw the post yesterday. Fair warning, this is a long introspective ramble about my fandom-related preferences, and may or may not interest you.

I know it's because reaching the end of a WIP bothers me and has a negative effect on my mood. (Of course, that's enough - I don't have to look into it more - but I get curious about my own psyche, so here we are!) I think that happens because commenting on strangers' WIPs - participating in the writing process that way - isn't enough of a collaborative thing for me.

I LOVE bouncing fanfic ideas back and forth in a Discord server or (previously, RIP) Twitter threads. I love making up stories with friends. "And then the blorbo suffers!" "Ooh, but what if their love interest suffers along with them?" "YES, and then they can comfort each other afterwards!"

I like that when I do that, the story isn't pinned down yet - it can go anywhere. And even if one of us writes a more traditional piece based on what we talked about, and posts it on AO3 or wherever - the other participant(s) in the conversation, or even some other random fandom member who woke up too late to participate or something (if the conversation wasn't in DMs), can write their own piece, with their own interpretation of the idea, and that's encouraged. Two cakes!

Now, I know that some people would absolutely love it if a stranger read their AO3-posted WIP and went "I couldn't bear that it was unfinished, so I wrote my own ending." I'm one of those people! But I also know that some people would take offense. And that doesn't feel the same, to me, as starting with a collaboration - it feels closer to writing fanfic of original fiction. (Which I obviously think is awesome, but it's a much more distant form of conversation.)

When I read a WIP, I know the author (usually/often) has an outline for the rest of the fic. They know exactly how they want the plot points to go, if not the details. There is an ending, most/a lot of the time - I just don't know what it is, because it's not written/posted yet. And that bothers me. I think it would actually bother me even more if there wasn't an ending yet, even in the author's head! I'm the sort of person who seeks out spoilers - I want to know how the story ends before I invest in it. I can't do that with a WIP.

But with fic-spitballing, often the ending is the first thing you come up with. Or the second. Or you have a vague idea, and then you decide on something else. In any case, you're not at risk of investing a bunch of energy into something that surprises you with a final ending you dislike. If you dislike the idea your conversation partner(s) have for the ending, you can just make your own.

And importantly, that ending is just as much a part of the quasi-fic as theirs is. You're not changing their story, you're just making a new branch of the idea. I think that's the thing, for me. If I read a WIP, I'll finish it in my head, and that ending will become the "real" ending to me - even if I read the creator's original ending later. And that bothers me.

When I come up with a fic idea that changes canon - maybe a Bad End, or a genderbend, or something silly - it comforts me that canon is still there, and I can't actually change or erase it. It'll always be the "real" story to me. The fic will always be the derivative.

I prefer writing love letters to canon, rather than hate mail - I used to be in the Destiel fandom (Supernatural is famous for screwing its Destiel viewers over); now, I'm in fandoms for canon M/M romance, and I'm much happier. I don't think either way of engaging with canon is objectively better, and I know some people prefer the hate-mail one and find more meaning in it, but I do know that the love-letter one is better for me.

So I avoid canons I know I'll be unsatisfied with. And I do the same with published fanfic. If I know I'll feel like "this story isn't enough, I want to fix it or finish it" - even if I'll also feel like "this is good, and it inspires me" - most of the time, I won't even start, because that feeling (and the way I deal with it, by making my own version, whether or not I write it down) frustrates me.

Fic-spitballing, on the other hand, feels more like just an idea. A beginning. It's not something to fix or finish - it's not supposed to be a real story yet. It's not supposed to be "enough" yet. It's the birth of a story, one you get to participate in. And that works better for me - creating stories from the start, instead of fixing or adding onto a story that already exists.

Anyway, WIPs are great. I hope the culture of posting WIPs and commenting on them as they're uploaded never dies down. I've posted some of my own WIPs before, and getting comments on each chapter was essential to my motivation for writing the next one! It's just not something I, personally, can healthily do for other people. I'll stick to the form of creating-things-together that works for me.

If you read all of that, and you have thoughts about your own preferences and participation in fandom, I'm super interested! Please feel free to reply or reblog with your own rambles. :D

[wistfulwisp]

Nowwww for my thoughts on the second season of good omens 👼 (generally not including the ending)

So, going into season 2 I definitely was not expecting the dramatic change in tone and pace, but it was definitely welcome after the supercharged pacing of the first season. Going into season 1 I had known, having read the book, the general beats of what was going to happen but had no idea what to expect for s2 since it wraps everything up so well. So I watched it and uh 🤠

Yeah, subjectively speaking I liked the second season a LOT better than the first. That’s more because it’s more my style — less of a frenzy but still keeping the same charm as the first season. All the character development between Aziraphale and Crowley was fantastic, pitch perfect writing. The amount of depth Gaiman is able to cover with these characters is again inspiring to watch, and the topics he’s able to take a look at (from the religious trauma and abuse suffered from both of these characters to their shared love of humanity and each other and everything in between) was such a great pleasure, and it’s stuff like that that makes this show such a place of comfort for me. The quirky antics of these characters make them likeable and the depth of them make them believable. It’s easy to see myself in either of these characters and it’s easy to see how others would connect with how fleshed out they are.

This is also the first time that I truly felt the weight and seriousness of this project, and how passionate Gaiman is to continue this story and see it through to the end (Amazon be damned). You get the sense that this isn’t just a “funny little LGBT comedy” but also carries with it a sense of importance and of privilege to be able to portray such complicated ideas and do them justice. This is also present in s1, I just didn’t think much of it then (which again makes s1’s re-watch quality all the better). These two elements, and how slow, gentle and romantic it was is what truly carried the story for me. It makes you take visual media and storytelling all the more seriously in everyday life, and that’s something I’ll treasure that this show gave to me. More on this later.

However, there’s some things I’d change.

I said before that SUBJECTIVELY I found this season better. But, there’s an analytical part of me that gets the sense that objectively speaking, s1 is the stronger season. This isn’t just a matter of “less plot” — I’m kind of the opinion that you don’t need a grand plot or a plot at all if you have characters that are interesting enough to follow, which this show definitely does — but what is lost is the cohesion I mentioned earlier. Every beat in the first season felt important, even if I didn’t always gel with the characters. That’s because I knew it was all leading to some higher purpose or theme. Now, with this season a lot more is kept in the dark from viewers — why does Gabriel have no memory? What’s the significance of the record? How do Maggie and Nina play into everything? And a lot of this isn’t fully explored until the last episode, which to me felt very disappointing. I know why they did it! The last ten minutes felt like being punched in the solar plexus in the best possible way (we’ll get to that). But, you give and take when you do that. Yeah, you give the audience a more emotional punch at the end, but you lose the continuity of the narrative. Think about it, all we really get from the Gabriel storyline until the last episode is a fly, a matchbox and a record. That’s it, until the ending. I felt as though the mystery elements of this storyline fell so flat for me, and when Aziraphale went off to Edinburgh to find clues, it really felt like a plot device to either have an episode in Edinburgh or get him away from Crowley for an episode. It didn’t really feel like I was invested in the mystery until the end, which is a shame because I felt as if these elements had been sprinkled throughout we could’ve had a more fleshed out version of the message this season is trying to give (what if we had a talk with Beelzebub and Crowley where she’s absolutely furious, absolutely desperate to get Gabriel back? She’s throwing things and setting fires and cursing, and later we learn that it’s because her plan to keep Gabriel safe has gone askew and not because she’s a BAMF demon lord. What if we had a talk with Gabriel and Az that went beyond the “world feels better around one particular person”? Unfortunately these aren’t things that are explored as time goes on.)

Maggie and Nina also kinda felt like a missed opportunity. They’re super great and intriguing characters and are obvious reflections/foils of Crowley and Aziraphale and their love life, which I an absolutely, 100% PARTIAL to the character foil. Absolutely divine, love it. Wish it had been explored more! We get one very brief conversation where Crowley has that Revelation talking to Nina, and that’s just about it? Again, it makes the ending more impactful, but wouldn’t it have made the story stronger if we had those moments sprinkled throughout the six episodes? It may have been a little less subtle, but I think it would’ve been more impactful as a storytelling narrative. I’m here for more queer relationships though.

The first time I truly felt something drag in this show, other than the Gabriel storyline, was the 1941 date night episode. Yes, it’s was cute, yes, it fit the theming and vibe of the season. But did it really tell me something that I didn’t already know? We know Crowley will do whatever Aziraphale asks, we’ve established the “shades of grey” theme several times already in much more subtle ways. It’s basically seeped into all the decisions these two make together and how they justify them. I liked it, but I couldn’t help acknowledging that in a six episode season when you have one episode that doesn’t give you many new things to work with, it’s significant. I dunno, what do yall think?

That being said, I loved the final scene with Bildad a LOT. Imagine if we had more of those quiet moments intertwining all of these storylines together?

So, objectively I’d probably say s1 is stronger. But, s2 combines my love of little gay men, charming quirky shows, and deep dives into character struggles that I’m absolutely here for moreso than the first season. It acts well as a bridge between the two seasons (1 and 3) but there are some issues with it that does make me wonder where the continuity went.

[albertonykus]

Doraemon Movie Review: The Records of Nobita, Spaceblazer (1981) and The New Record of Nobita's Spaceblazer (2009)

What is Doraemon? The title character of the Doraemon manga and anime is a blue robotic cat from the 22nd Century who keeps an array of high-tech gadgets in a portable pocket dimension on his belly, and has traveled from the future to improve the fortunes of a hapless schoolboy named Nobita. Although relatively obscure in the English-speaking world, Doraemon is a Mickey-Mouse-level cultural icon in East Asia (and some other regions, too). The Doraemon franchise was a big part of my childhood, and there are still elements of it that I enjoy now. Doraemon has released theatrical films almost annually since 1980, most of which involve Nobita and his friends (kind Shizuka, brash Gian, and crafty Suneo) getting swept into adventures thanks to Doraemon's gadgets. Despite being of potentially broad appeal to fans of science fiction and animated films, there are very few English reviews of the Doraemon movies, so I'm embarking on a project to write about all the films that have come out so far. Good luck to me…

Movie premise: Nobita and his friends protect the pioneering settlers of a distant planet from an evil corporation, space Western style.

My spoiler-free take: An atypical Doraemon film that focuses more on Nobita and Doraemon bonding with movie-exclusive characters than on their regular friend group. That may be appealing to some, but it’s not quite my cup of tea.

Despite that, I would still recommend the original over the 2009 remake, which adds new plot points and story arcs that largely fell flat for me.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

Review: This is an unusual Doraemon movie in a number of ways, probably due to it being such an early film installment in the franchise. Something that is well known to Doraemon fans is that the main characters tend to come across as better friends in the movies than in the regular manga chapters or anime episodes. (For example, in typical Doraemon stories, Gian and Suneo are much more likely to bully Nobita than to show concern for him.) In this film, however, the character interactions feel more similar to those in the mainline series.

(Yep, this is more like the usual dynamic among the main characters...)

There is also the fact that Shizuka, Gian, and Suneo aren’t involved with most of the adventure in this story. Doraemon and Nobita are the only mainline protagonists present for most of the film, and much more emphasis is placed establishing their friendship with new, movie-exclusive characters. I can see how that could make for a compelling narrative to some viewers, but being generally more invested in the relationships among the series regulars, it didn’t do too much for me.

Be that as it may, Nobita’s usual friend group does get a moment to shine during the climax. Shizuka is the MVP here, being the one who convinces the others to help out. I don’t think I appreciated as a child how often Shizuka plays a critical role in the movies, especially in the older entries. In fact, it might be interesting to keep track of how many times it happens as I go through the film series...

Shizuka-saves-the-day count (cumulative): 1

Star rating: ★★★☆☆

This movie received a remake in 2009 as part of the 2005 Doraemon anime reboot, so I will turn to that next.

Review: As with the other early movies to come out of the reboot, this is a very visually interesting Doraemon movie that experiments a lot with the art and animation style. Although the general story remains the same, there are also some substantial changes to the plot. I liked that in this version, Doraemon offers a reasonable-sounding solution to Nobita’s request to provide a new vacant lot for him and his friends to play in, instead of the bizarre “solution” he comes up with in the original (which is to bring out a miniature baseball field so the kids can watch miniature figurines play baseball... potentially interesting, but not quite what they asked for).

Besides that, however, I thought most of the other narrative changes fell flat. The biggest alteration is the addition of an entirely new character, Morina, who goes through her own subplot that turns out to be critical to the final resolution of the movie. Unfortunately, beyond having a tragic backstory, she doesn’t come across as particularly sympathetic or involved with the main plot for most of the film. As a result, I didn’t find her story arc very engaging, especially in contrast to the resolution of the original movie, which made elegant use of a gadget (the Time Cloth) that had been set up earlier in the story.

Star rating: ★★☆☆☆

Original or remake? I’m putting in an unambiguous vote for the original here. For whatever faults it might have, it at least tells a more cohesive story than the remake.

[fearsmagazine]

THE DEATH OF APRIL – Review

DISTRIBUTOR: Terror Films

SYNOPSIS:  Meagan Mullen, an aspiring teacher, packs her bags, leaving her family and friends, and heads east for a new job and a new apartment/home of her own. She keeps in touch and updates those back home through a video blog. As her life becomes more complex and emotional, strange things begin to happen in her room and her home, the camera capturing all of it. The film documents the unsettling activity as interviews with family members, friends, and professionals try to solve the mysteries surrounding Meagan.

REVIEW: Ruben Rodriguez’s THE DEATH OF APRIL is a mockumentary/found footage hybrid that weaves together these elements to present a haunting supernatural tale that feels like what you might expect from an episode of unsolved mysteries.

Rodriguez does a nice job of creating the character arc for Meagan. I'm not sure how much was scripted and what was improvised, but there were moments I had similar thoughts about what was going on before the characters uttered a similar point of view. Some of the secondary characters, such as the policeman, paranormal investigator, and the psychologist, could have used a polish on the dialogue. I think what makes this film more engaging than some other films, the premise allows the filmmakers to present videos from the events as captured on friends’ and family members’ phones, and content from her laptop credit as provided by the local police department. However, I doubt the police department would have provided some of the footage for an ongoing investigation. Likewise, the setup of her brother meeting someone on his flight and how she figures into the story is just a glaring coincidence and what she does feels like a bit of a stretch. There is also this element that is a sibling rivalry about recording things. I just thought it went too far when the brother showed up with a professional camera. I get his fascination with it, but he is presented as a law major and I felt it was a bit much, distracting.

The film features a nice ensemble cast. Actress Katarina Hughes as Meagan Mullen does an excellent job of creating an innocent and annoying character who unwittingly steps into a nightmare. There are moments where you feel for her, but the character is such that I never empathized with her. Adam Lowder plays Meagan’s older brother and actor Travis Peters portrays her father. They present these stressed out family members consumed by the tragedy of Meagan’s story. Their performances were engaging and made me forget I was watching a work of fiction for a time. Stephanie Domini is Meagan’s mother. I’m not sure if it is the writing or her direction, but there was an aspect to the character that just did feel as engaged or emotionally invested as the rest of the family, or as mother should be. Also, her makeup was immaculate, whereas the rest of the family looked emotionally stressed. The secondary characters are organic enough. As I mentioned, I wish they had tightened up some of their dialogue and possibly done a couple of more takes.

Clearly, THE DEATH OF APRIL is an independent/home-grown genre film. The costumes feel like the talent provided their own wardrobe. It’s not bad, it just feels a bit raw. The cinematography is solid, the editing is good, the visual effects and some nice touches, but I did find them very scary, creepy at best. Where there could have been a lot of shaky camera work, I applaud them for having the characters put the camera down whenever possible to keep the viewer focused on the drama. Meagan’s apartment (it frustrated me that she kept calling it her home) was a bit sparse and too clean given some of her habits she presents.

Given the nature of the film, you have to give the filmmakers props for what they’ve pulled off. The film merits programming in an independent genre festival, and I’d be curious to see what Ruben Rodriguez might pull off with a slightly bigger budget. It’s a clever blending of found footage and a mockumentary. I understand how some might compare it to “Paranormal Activity,” but I was never a fan of that film and think this is better.

CAST: Katarina Hughes, Adam Lowder, Stephanie Domini, Chelsea Clark, Travis Peters, RayMartell Moore, & Paulina Grochala CREW: Director/Screenplay - Ruben Rodriguez; Producers - Humberto Guzman & Angel Rosa; Cinematographers - Angelita Ali & Humberto Guzman; Score - Abdul Abad; Editors - Brit Godish & Cesar G. Orellana; Special Effects Makeup - Sarah Francavilla. OFFICIAL: n.a. FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/deathofapril TWITTER: n.a. TRAILER: https://youtu.be/ivkGCB5HRJ8 RELEASE DATE: On digital December 9th, 2022

**Until we can all head back into the theaters our “COVID Reel Value” will be similar to how you rate a film on digital platforms - ��� (Like), 👌 (It’s just okay),  or 👎 (Dislike)

Reviewed by Joseph B Mauceri

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

I thought it might be a good idea to understand what's happening when you feel they missed the heart of the Valley is so high that it's still so poor. When we were in junior high school envied me, they did call them essays, didn't they? They'd turn down the nerds in favor of this other firm that they gave the startup what's known as an exploding termsheet. You don't have to be one step short of phonebooks. If you're investing at a tenth the valuation, and the rest of the world, but as Microsoft shows, revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business tend to come from unorthodox approaches, and small companies are less constrained by convention in what they liked. But in a newly founded startup, the valuation number is just an explanation of why your technology would be hard to separate the things you do have kids. Not only do you have left is worth more than they read on the Internet, and you're done. Most successful startups make something the founders needed. While the space of possibilities is smaller, and partly because they tend to have rounds that are oversubscribed, being last in line means they'll probably miss the hot deals. If so, this revolution is going to be. And because I wasn't looking for it. I know are gradually switching to Macs.

File://ycombinator. A lot of the worst kinds of projects is writing an interface to a piece of software. I think the main reason the idea is new at the end of the summer. You can usually call their bluff, and you tend to view support calls as a pain in the ass that you want to discover the image as you make it easy to reload into your head. It's just as well to go work for a long time in the construction industry. So an otherwise innocent email that happens to include the efforts of individuals without requiring them to be ignored. There's a kind of mania for object-oriented programming is such a good deal of willfulness must be inborn, because it's full of students. But there's a way to turn a billion dollar industry into a fifty million dollar industry, so much the money itself may be more dangerous than Google because, like you could before.

I mention no names, there may be habits of mind is to ask yourself, before buying something, is this the Altair Basic of? But this is, in my current database, the word that came to us through the mass media was a blandly uniform and b produced elsewhere. Perhaps we can box it up and put it online. But a company that has raised money is literally more valuable. If we don't see them much in the stories of existing startups, and a third was acquired that we can't figure out how. Another much less subtle influence is brand. Dangerous territory, that; if anything you should cultivate dissatisfaction. One new thing the company might encounter is a down round, or leads for them.

So they drop them off at school on their way to make viewers watch TV synchronously instead of watching recorded shows when it suited them. Together these mean that in many fields the rule will be: Build it, and we can't be in a dozen places at once. Identity Some parents feel a strong craving for distraction. They're more upstanding than I used to do in other languages. Today Lisp is the scripting language of a popular system. Upwind So far, anyway. Aggregators show how much you should put on a line; in C a lot of the most promising range of options afterward. Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Well, obviously overtly sexy applications like stealth planes or special effects software would be interesting to eavesdrop on people, but in 1985 the sight of a 25 year old has some work experience more on that later but can live as cheaply as possible. They'll happen within server farms. Most if not all the things we'll get in the next couple years, the investment community will tend to use the trick that John D. It's just a more extreme variant where you don't specify the recipients.

Thanks to several anonymous CS professors, John Collison, Stephen Wolfram, Sam Altman, Adora Cheung, and Jessica Livingston for inviting me to speak.

[45ispl]

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[animezinglife]

@writingway-in-writinghell, ALL of this.

I think a lot of people--especially what we might consider very contemporary fantasy readers/viewers--equate redemption and healing both with something as being loud, messy, and dramatic. It's telling rather than showing on the writers' part.

Cullen's the opposite. He's human. His healing (and redemption, depending on how you look at it) isn't isn't fully linear, but bless him, he tries so hard not to let his own struggles drag anyone else down or burden them. He tries so hard to move through it on his own (while responsibly making sure he had someone reliable who wouldn't waiver at all in her conviction watching him and would relieve him from duty if he failed).

A lot of the arc happens off-screen (and I get the sense that throws some off a bit), but you also have to remember that not every player is going to want to spend time with Cullen or invest in his life when there are already a million other things going on. Aside from deciding whether he continues taking lyrium (which I think is just a flat evil choice on the player's part) or not, not every player's going to become intertwined with his story.

Every single scene and every line in a game also takes time, money, effort, and other resources to build. People need to remember that. The writers more than accomplished their goal in showing Cullen's healing rather than telling in what they give us, and that's a rare enough feat.

Mira (my character) and Cullen very much have the underlying theme of trust and safety in their relationship. The Inquisitor and the Commander masks come off in private and they're instead just two incredibly human, imperfect people doing the best they can and taking it one day at a time. They're very similar despite being a mage and former Templar, and the ways in which they're different complement each other.

They see each other. They hear each other. I'm not sure how well I can describe it without writing an entire essay on Mira's character, but they simultaneously free each other and keep each other grounded.

Good men need to be encouraged, loved, and held too no matter how strong they seem.

I doubt you get as full a picture of it if you don't romance him, but his healing journey is blatant and thorough if you do. There's something about seeing him casually dressed in that epilogue with his hair a little loose, smiling a big, beautiful smile, petting his new four-legged best friend after reconnecting with his family and looking back at his wife like he's the luckiest and happiest man in the world that just hits differently.

That soft, murmured comment he makes at their wedding about all the fighting being worth it referred to a lot more than the giant hole in the sky.

"The thought of losing you...I can't."

[davidstfde]

WHAT’S IN A NAME? APPARENTLY, A LOT MORE THAN YOU THINK

What do you think this blog is about? Well, This one is about Why a Good Title is Important for A Blog Post or an Article. Titles are like the face value of any given blog or title. Without a compelling title, the post will be kind of empty. The content could contain wit, humour, entertaining or useful information, but still could be ignored by the readers if the title is not good or catchy one. The title of the blog or the article is like the soul of the blog and we all know, that anything without a soul, looks dead. A good blog title is really important because it should want the readers to want to read more about what is written in the blog and be able to learn from it. It should indicate that they will gain something from investing their precious time and reading the content and we all know how important is Time.

Every minute spent, counts. And since no one in today’s fast-paced world likes to waste time, the blog titles should somehow be like the summary of your whole content of the blog. A good title does make a lot of difference. Take an example of your own yourself, when you search the web for anything or any blog/articles, thousands of links appear with the relevant information, and when you read and find an intriguing one, you click on it and continue. Sometimes it happens that the title of the blog and the contents are not well connected or relevant or it did not give proper detail about the content. You feel disappointed right? That is what you exactly need to avoid.

Another factor that should be kept in mind while choosing a title is that it should be relatable to the audience reading it. The title should be attractive enough to catch the emotion of the readers. The readers should be able to imagine as long as they keep reading it. Blog titles are the windows to the content that you create. The titles are crucial as they determine if a viewer will read the blog or pass.

Visitors to your website do not spend more than ten seconds to read your blog title, and that is why it is in the span of these ten or five seconds we have to catch hold of the attention of the reader and make sure he reads the blog, and definitely, a strong and interest generating title can do that task well. Because when you put so much effort into writing a piece of content, obviously you would want that piece to perform well, and thus giving a proper title and attracting the targeted audience is the real task.

A common temptation in developing a blog post is to use a keyword in your title that has mass appeal. It makes sense — after all, you figure the broader your topic, the more volume you’ll generate and the more likely you to get hits. But don’t be fooled. It is much more effective to employ a long-tail keyword strategy. And that will help to improve traffic for search engines. Being keyword savvy will help direct the potential readers to be directed toward your page and thus improving the online traffic of your content. No doubt staying keyword savvy while maintaining the readability of the content you’re writing can be a challenging task but doing that will surely be beneficial for you and your blog. Every blogger’s goal is to get more traffic and that is why it is really important to have good and specific blog titles.

Another reason why there is a need for a good blog title is that the readers should feel engaged. It can be observed that the readers come and search for the various topics that they feel connected and that is why focusing on more than what your opinions are, the blog should be of the type that focuses on their needs and the information that applies to them. This way the readers feel more connected to the certain blog or the article or the content that you have prepared. In a way, it will be beneficial for you as well as the potential readers.

A good title informs the reader accurately about the whole content of the blog. Many articles that are present on the web, do not provide accurate content. The main responsibility of the title is to provide information about exactly what the readers should expect by reading the title. Making many vague claims and not putting the exact things about what the content is will only make the readers less interested which will hamper the performance of the blog. In short, it should not be generic but specific.

Thus by now we atleast know, why is it important for a blogger to have a good title for the blog or the article which has been crafted by the content creators. Since a blog is a way to create interesting and more importantly relatable content and connect well with the readers it should be specified at the same time catchy one. There are a gazillion articles or blogs available on the net and each has been named, and amidst them naming your article with an apt. title that would resonate well with the audience is a tricky piece of puzzle. A proper blog title is like your representation on the internet which not only helps in getting more clicks but also helps in your branding strategy too. Having said it, always remember creating value for readers, and giving them a memorable experience far outweighs any blog title.

About SFS School, Guwahati

SFS Guwahati is one of the best Private CBSE School in Guwahati with Integrated Coaching, awarded with the “Certificate of Excellence” by Bharat Shiksha Puraskar and Ranked №24 across India for “Mental Health” Ranking 2021.