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genlossneg · 2 years ago

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thank you for this blog im boutta post a lot of my suffering in here enjoy the essay

I’m not a ranboo fan at all, i just heard about a cool horror project from a name i’m familiar with and i was excitedly waiting for perhaps a new kid on the block with cool content and the resources to do so. I’ve seen what people with three coins and a piece of lint can do out of passion, and so i expected that someone that has far more resources out of the gate would be able to really take it out of the park if they were equally as passionate. I’ll just grab a couple of points and elaborate.

Intentionally bad.

This is the poorest excuse for low quality content I’ve heard. Not a single self-respecting creative that actually cares about their project would make something ACTUALLY bad. Anytime you see something that’s intentionally bad and yet somehow beloved, look DEEPER. Because behind that veil of “bad” is actually often a HUGE amount of effort and care put into something a creator cared about.

Intentionally bad content is still made with the intention to be fun to watch, to be entertaining. There is very little entertainment found in any of the genloss bad content.

Lack of horror content

The main excuses i’ve seen is that they were scared of Twitch TOS, to which I say lolwhat. You had two whole years to contact twitch and talk it out with them and figure out what part of your project and show would fly and what wouldn’t, and instead you opted to really cut out any horror aspect at all for fear of being banned on twitch? And even then, content more gorey and disturbing than this is allowed on twitch. If Until Dawn flies on twitch, I think gen loss could have gone wilder.

And if they REALLY didn’t want to risk it, for the love of god at least be creative with your attempts to circumvent it? The goofy poor editing of the red in ep2 during the surgery sequence took me out of it entirely and confused me so much. You know what they could’ve done? TURNED THE LIGHTING A STARK RED. THAT’S IT. THE MOST BASIC THING, TO AT LEAST REALLY GET ACROSS THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG.

The acting

I was a theatre kid in highschool and let me tell you even the 13 year olds acted with more passion and devotion to the role than 95% of the cast in gen loss. Even during improv. You can tell that there is basically no script to gen loss and that its purely “X will happen then Y will happen and we need to fill it with conversation and improv” with zero direction on tone or anything. It was so painful seeing how little effort had gone into the acting. Ranboo can’t act for shit and should have gone through some acting classes before taking on a live show. The only ones that were visibly trying were charlie and jerma and the people who were frozen robots during ep3 (because as someone who had to stay frozen in pose hours on end for a play while on-stage, that shit is HARD)

Hetch’s acting was even more laughable, and his fakeout death was… something. An incredibly cartoonish “uguguhh” exiting his mouth- really? Also It was so frustrating to have his voice come from seemingly nowhere. There was no source to his voice.

It sucked so much seeing ranboo actually TRY to be better in his acting in episode 3 because when he suddenly started being intense it felt WRONG and out of character, because there was no natural leadup to him being like that. ep 1 and 2 were so bad that even when ep 3 was better it felt disappointing.

Lighting

Its already been mentioned by film student anon that the lighting is such a huge amateur mistake but I want to touch upon the creative aspect of the lighting a little more.

There was such an utter lack of using colored lighting to really set tones in scenes and it SUCKED. Like, already with the lack of outright horror blood and gore, they NEEDED creative lighting to at least intensify scenes! Add some damn flickering lights! Green lighting? Something- anything. Again, TEENAGERS have been more creative with lighting in a performance and all they had was four colors to work with and nothing fancy.

Camerawork

I wish they would have actually done good camera work. Set up some cameras in locations and acted in front of them instead of having someone follow ranboo around and having some “lore” explanation for it that makes little sense. Having moving cameras that are shaky and constantly cutting people frame-wise is just not pleasant to watch and does not add anything useful. On top of the camera quality jarringly changing between shots constantly it just… ruined the flow.

in ep3, we had an explanation for why there’s a camera following ranboo, and we got some REALLY COOL ESTABLISHING SHOTS THAT…. made no sense in lore. Why would the “drone” following ranboo take establishing shots? It’s supposed to follow ranboo- but then later it gets dismissed and we suddenly have sharp camera cuts to what im guessing was a prerecorded scene due to the camera quality change and it just felt. So sudden and jarring? Like okay you just dismissed the camera and now we suddenly get a different non-canon camera because they remembered we actually need to still see whats happening.

Lore/Story

The lore and story we have gotten so far is so scatterbrained and nonsensical. + knowing that this project isn’t actually what gen loss was supposed to be (which: Why are you advertising it as gen loss then, ranboo? You’re just staining the name of your passion project). So much of genloss is in the “I guess” category of why things happened. But the consistensy also felt so off. From what I understand, Charlie is the slime demon, and was the guy on the gurney, and was also in ep 3 as himself. And all those other versions WERE the ep3 charlie. How? Charlie died? twice? According to what has happened? But he’s alive anyway at the end until he gets killed again by a cheap backrooms monster? But supposedly everyone else did actually die?

I just. Genuinely do not understand what the story here was. What the point was of everything. I’m not gonna ask who the characters were because the characters were just the streamers and nothing special or new. If you know the streamer, thats the “character”. It’s just godawful writing.

Viewer interaction

Viewer interaction was pointless and didn’t matter. Either every choice the viewers made was gonna happen anyway, or ranboo decided to ignore it lol. It felt like there was no impact to viewers doing anything to influence the show and the show probably would have been largely better had viewer interaction not been a thing at all.

also idk maybe making ranboo’s “character” aware of the audience from the get go would have been more fun as they could’ve been trying to get the audience to do anything while we’re just watching quietly. And they could’ve gotten more and more desperate with the audience as things went on. But then again that requires actual acting skills that ranboo barely has.

Just as some final words, this really feels like a case of someone who has never done anything like this thinking they can do this because they’re famous and well-liked online. I know ranboo makes a lot of money, so they certainly had enough money to make something good. Take some film classes or acting classes. Instead they became overambitious and made just a generally unpleasant show that is not going to make me want to watch any future gen loss content in good faith.

The entire show depends on going “MY STREAMER!!! THATS MY STREAMER!!!” and would not survive on its own merit. The hype towards gen loss was misleading on what it’d be, and the fans made amazing fanart that does not live up to the reality of what they got and i feel genuinely sad for them. The fanbase made a better interpretation of what gen loss is WITHOUT EVEN NEEDING GEN LOSS TO BE OFFICIALLY RELEASED.

also a final thing about the merch but why is the merch so bad lol. Its such boring design. The gen loss logo appears barely anywhere in the show itself. The fans could’ve had some sort of cool merch, like masks based off of ranboo’s mask and the showfall robot masks. Shirts and merch based off of the slime demon and warehouse master.

Anyway sorry for the huge wall of text I have just been going insane abt this to my friend in dms enjoy

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i could probably spend hours responding to all of this! thank you for the mini essay, you make a ton of great points. i really sympathize with the “not a ranboo fan” stance because my friends are way more fans of him than i am, and were way invested.

i personally haven’t heard any “it’s supposed to be bad!” defenses but i can totally believe there are people like that out there lol. i definitely in the “there’s no entertainment when it’s bad”. you’re entirely right about the lack of horror! i was so confused after the first stream and everyone was like “it’s not supposed to be horror yet! you don’t understand!” and then it took until the 3rd stream for anything significant to even happen, and even then it was weak.

charlie and jerma did so much for gen loss man, ranboo’s acting was just.. not that great and when it was, it felt so jarring. more interesting lighting would’ve been so fun! so much could’ve been done with that, and that’s especially clear when they switch cameras because they had the ability to film this incredibly and just.. didn’t. i feel like we didn’t get so much lore that we should have, especially with how long the streams were. i hope we get something clearer later on.

the idea of him being aware of chat the whole time would be cool, but idk if it would’ve worked with the “brainwashed” thing he was doing. overall i agree - gen loss was super hyped up and in this form, it didn’t live up to it as well as it could have. once again, ty for the mini-essay, it was a great read!

#submission #gen loss neg #gen loss crit

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thegamemaster1 · 1 year ago

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Top 5 best games for ps5 in 2023

Hello everyone today I'll explain some of the best games you can play on the PlayStation 5 in this 2023.

5. Horizon Forbidden West

Aloy's post-apocalyptic adventure that began in Horizon Zero Dawn continues in Horizon Forbidden West, which takes us to the Forbidden West after which this open-world adventure is named. But the sequel goes far beyond exploring new areas of its universe, getting to know the protagonist better, and delving into the interesting background of how the cataclysm that caused the dominance of the machines occurred. The Guerrilla game improves on its predecessor in everything: in the narrative, in the combat, in the graphics and in the production values in general.

4. Spiderman Miles Morales

Though not a full-blown sequel, this standalone expansion sends Peter Parker on vacation, leaving his young spider apprentice Miles Morales to look after New York. Building on the solid foundations of Insomniac's first game, New York has been covered in snow, holiday cheer, and next-gen polish. The improvements aren't just cosmetic, however - the eponymous hero has a few more spider powers at his disposal than Peter Parker, and these are cleverly accommodated with new gameplay mechanics that, while they don't reinvent the wheel, do put just enough of a twist so it feels fresh.

3. Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake is one of the best remakes ever made. Square Enix's JRPG adapts a portion of the original work, until the release of Midgar, but doing more than just a simple reinvention of the classic: it's its own game. Of course, seeing the 1997 characters and environments with modern and generally overwhelming graphics is amazing, but even more so is a new, agile and strategic combat system, how the story is self-aware that another Final Fantasy VII exists, the deepening of previously undeveloped characters and the interesting expansion of the plot. All this, with slight visual improvements, is in Intergrade, which also expands the game with a DLC dedicated to Yuffie, who is difficult not to like, who stars in some great sequence and who gives a twist to the confrontations.

2. God of War Ragnarok

Kratos adventure through the Nordic lands comes to an end in God of War: Ragnarok, a sequel that keeps the level of the previous title at bay by providing a truly remarkable narrative depth and, of course, much more breadth in the playable systems, both in terms of combat and puzzles. The situations that we live with the god of war and his son Atreus are overwhelming, exciting and are up to the closing of a series that has become part of the Olympus of video games.

Elden Ring

Elden Ring is much more than the adaptation of the FromSoftware formula to the open world. It is one of the best games ever. The Intermediate Lands is an endless and tremendously dense setting, full of dungeons, levels that will remain in our memories as the best Souls settings, with secrets hidden everywhere, and with the capacity to surprise at every turn. All of this complemented by a deeper, more dynamic, fun and also accessible combat system, allowing a wide variety of play styles without detracting from that great feeling of overcoming a challenge that seemed impossible. And for those who want to investigate and pay attention to details, with a plot background that is at the best level of the titles directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki.

Thank you for stopping by, hope you liked the content.

#playstation 5 #god of war #elden ring #horizon forbidden west #final fantasy 7 #spiderman miles morales

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lakemichigans · 1 year ago

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sooooo my wifi has been out for nearly 24 hours and despite it making me go a little insane, it DID give me time to finish until dawn! i was a lot closer to the end of the game then i thought i was, goddamn, and i think i only had? two? deaths? chris and josh. wait no thats wrong, mike died in the explosion. i might do a replay if my wifi doesn't come back soon because im at a serious deficit of other stuff to do rn, EA app wont let me open sims 3 bc its not connected to wifi 😭 i enjoyed it a lot more than i expected, but i kinda dislike how much it didnt really tie up jess and matt falling into the mines? like they both crawled out together but then it just ends there, they didn't meet up with anyone else which kinda stunk. i do wanna do an everyone lives run really bad tho, i think i know what choices i have to make for the most part?? i know for everyone other than josh because the butterfly effect for it was SO VAGUE "sam missed a crucial piece of information -> josh didnt recognize hannah on time" girl WHAT does that even MEAN but yeah okay ill stop rambling now djwjfkqkq

oh interesting!! i'm not surprised that josh died, most people don't find the crucial piece of information on their first playthrough (i'll tell you where to find it under the cut if you don't want to be spoiled!)

but i totally agree about jess and matt! when they were developing the game, jessica was supposed to ALWAYS die during mike's chase sequence, but then they decided they wanted each of the characters to have the option of survival, so they added that short jessica segment towards the end. but this is where i think until dawn fails miserably at satire. they have the "blonde slut" being punished for promiscuity and the token black character who is widely regarded as the easiest to kill by accident. it's like they're making fun of those archetypes without doing anything subversive about it. so the reason why jessica & matt feels lackluster is because it most definitely was an afterthought. they kind of assumed both of them would already be dead by this point :/

i'm actually fine with the police interviews being the only ending, although i would've loved to see some of the stronger relationships reunite ;-; there's a little bit of variation in the interviews depending on what choices you made and who died. knowing that the characters themselves haven't reunited yet (they're still asking about each other in their interviews) makes it a little better for me because at least i don't feel like i missed anything off screen, if that makes sense

also i'm so curious how you got chris killed?? ashley didn't lock him out did she? chris has a lot of possible death scenes but imo they're pretty hard to get organically so i'm always interested when i hear that he died in a blind playthrough

how to "save" josh:

when you're playing as sam and wading through the water with mike in the mines, you have to walk to the left (i think) of the water wheel and there's an extra area. HIGHLY recommend you find it because it explains a lot about the game!! it bothers me that they made it optional and the totem that hints at it is sooo vague

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drawthething · 2 years ago

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6, 9, and 17? 💕 and also good luck with your deadline omg 😭

Thanks, Babs :D

6. Which joke had you crying with laughter?Louise's phone talk with Mickey during the robbery in Bob day afternoon! I do multiple rewatch of that one and it never fails to have me in hysterics (that cop in the background that keeps putting on and off his headset kills me). We also get to enjoy the gracious beauty that is the chaos and craziness of early seasons Louise (i miss those signature yellings in her voice acting). And the whole Bosco vs Louise leg kicks at the end, o h m y g o d. Bob day afternoon is also in my fav eps list for sure :D Top-notch classic comedy 👌

Honorable mention would be Gene dressing up as "travel sized Bob". It's the first bb scene that I watched and what got me interested in the show :D

9. Which burger or other food from the show do you most want to try?

All the Thanksgiving food Bob cooked. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving where I live and I'm pretty curious about what the folks eat for the holiday. Also they always make it sound so good in the holiday eps i wanna try :D. Let's get into why Bob is so hilariously obsessed with Thanksgivings, why not pfffft

17. What are your top three favorite holiday-themed episodes?

Ooooh lots to pick over here

• An indecent Thanksgiving proposal: classic season 3 comedy. The whole Fischoeder fake family situation sends me! Drunk Bob hallucinating about the Totoro Turkey, drunk Bob running around with Lance the Turkey, drunk Bob :D. Everything's just too bizzare and chaotic I love it so much. And we cannot not mention Linda's song, it's too iconic pffft

• Dawn of the Peck: just as hilarious and crazy as the s3 ep. I love the involvement of Mickey, Rudy along with Andy & Ollie. The whole turkey attack plot is so fun and entertaining, and I cackled so hard at the Linda's "alpha turkey" thing. Oh and Bob's plot? That legendary turkey baster scene? Nothing can ever top that

• Bob Actually: this is the best Valentine ep I love it so much. All the characters are getting their fun plots :D Flip White Fudge and Shelly are just too good to be just one-off characters and i'm glad they're returning. The Tina situation is both so amusing and cute (i mean come on now it's Tina & J-ju, and it's THE sky kiss). Her diarrhea walk, Jimmy Jr being a little dork with the trampoline thing, Zeke selling weeds. I love how everything tied together at the end in such a heartfelt and sweet way with the kiss sequence. So good all around

#i don't think the early seasons are appreciated enough #they're so good come on now #bosco shall forever be in my fav side characters list and all because he kicked a child once #what a guy #thanks for the ask aww #bobs burgers #ask game #me and my braincell

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curestardust · 1 year ago

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Dust Watched: Black★★Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall

Genres: Mecha (sort-of), Action, TW: Rape, Gore // 12 episodes // ALT (x)

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

✧ story ✧

The plot of BRS is difficult to talk about as the moment I closed an episode I immediately forgot what happened in it. The plot is convoluted yet simple, a lot of things, names, and factions are brought up but end up mattering very little in the large scheme of things, and the pacing is wack. I was initially going to describe the whole plot of this anime but ended up realizing that it’s just really not worth it. It’s a post-apocalyptic setting where “big bad wants to defeat humanity”. The problem is really that if you take out the names of BRS characters... this is not BRS. I do realize the VOCALOID community has a lot of alternate takes on the story and the characters, which is half the fun, but this one... It feels like the only reason the BRS name was attached to it because otherwise it’s just such a boring mess that no one would’ve cared to watch it otherwise.

As I don’t much care about VOCALOID, the changes made to the original BRS set-up didn’t bother me (because I didn’t remember what was new and what wasn’t) but I hear that if you DO care about it, that makes this installation even worse.

The tone of the show is also a mess, the first half trying to be very gritty and dark, the second half feeling goofy as hell (you can’t make me take anything seriously with Smiley as the main antagonist), and the final sequence of the finale being just so... “anime”, completely going against the previously established tone, that I straight up burst out laughing.

And don’t worry! Because the exposition dumping goes so hard, characters talking about the plot while sitting in one place takes up about half the runtime of the whole show. It’s not confusing, but it is very boring and very stupid! :)

✧ characters ✧

The biggest sin of the whole show is in this section. Did you come here to see Black Rock Shooter (or Empress as her alias is here)? Or Strength and Dead Master? Well, fuck you! Enjoy watching the most cookie-cutter basic-ass “military man with no morals but tragic backstory with the ugliest design in the whole show” take the center stage the ENTIRE TIME!

Initially, I thought he was gonna be just a few episode installment to show a certain side of humanity’s plight as the 2 kids we meet in the beginning leave after Empress helps them with their immediate problem. But with each episode he is just there, sucking up screentime like a leech, from the other human side-characters, to the BRS characters. This anime feels like someone’s self-insert fanfiction.

As mentioned, the worst part of this is the BRS cast. You know, whose name... is in the title? Empress gets some proper screentime, and her recovering her lost memories and reason for existing is interesting (alas the flow of it is always ruined by the damn Colonel). However, Dead Master and Strength are completely shafted up the arse. We meet both of them in the first few episodes for a bit. They’ve also lost their memories and think that Empress abandoned them to die which leads them to attacking her. EXCEPT when it doesn’t.

Both of their stories come to the same conclusion. Dead Master gets some sweet words from Empress while Strength is saved by her so they just decide to... tag along. That’s where their conflict ends. It’s sidelined so much that when they finally regain their memories and realize that Empress, in fact, saved them in the past, it has absolutely no effect because the 3 of them have been hanging out like good ol’ pals for the last 5 episodes already so this *very important* fact doesn’t change their dynamic whatsoever. And I can’t leave out how the writer’s self-insert Colonel makes this even worse. Dead Master joins Empress first, however she makes it explicitly clear that she couldn’t give two fucks about humanity and she only exists for Empress. Yet, immediately in the next episode, she is taking orders from the Colonel who shouldn’t matter to her in the slightest. This could’ve been fixed so easily too? Have the Colonel bark orders, then have Dead Master immediately look at Empress who nods. This way, she would’ve still been doing what the plot demanded of her but her character motivation and who she is loyal to wouldve stayed consistent.

Then there’s Smiley, some half-robot, half-human thing whose purpose I still don’t understand, Charlotte, who would’ve been infinitely more interesting without her ties to the Colonel, and Lunatic who... is actually a decent villain, with an interesting goal.

Anyway, the way I’d fix this would be by cutting out the Colonel, putting the focus on the BRS cast reconnecting and recovering their lost memories while also taking the new baby “Hemiteos Units” under their wings. If you really want a “representation of humanity” put in a human by all means, but make them some rando civilian who the viewers can actually connect with, and not a an army man. Tell me this doesn’t sound infinitely more fun.

✧ art ✧

Besides a few establishing shots, it’s really just meh. The character models are CGI which will turn a lot of people off but it wasn’t particularly bad. The worst offender of it was probably the Colonel who we unfortunately see the most of. But the action, which is where CGI could shine, was pretty disappointing and the sequences were usually very short. I guess, the worst part in the art department would hands down have to be the character designs. Jesus christ, they’re so bad. The BRS girls look like off-brand budget dolls you’d find at Walmart, and the new characters had insanely boring designs as well. There was ONE character whose design I actually really liked (Isana’s) and Lunatic’s eyes look really good but??? Everyone is just so boring to look at. EXCEPT Smiley who has the most DISGUSTING design I’ve ever seen. And not in the way the creators intended. Just from a design perspective he looks absolutely horrid and his “ultimate form” looks like a goofy ahh SCP.

✧ sound ✧

Listen, I personally don’t like how VOCALOID sounds so I did really like the OP and the ED but it was a bit odd that they were like... sung by real people? As for the OST, there was maybe one good track, the rest was completely unremarkable. I watched this with JP dub and the VA’s did a really good job with what they were given and are definitely one of the few positives about this show.

✧ overview ✧

“Dawn Fall” would’ve gotten a pass from me if it fell into the “so bad it’s fun” category but it’s just booooooooooooooooooooooooring which is much worse! Don’t ever be boring!

My Rating: 2/10

#dusty reviews #Black Rock Shooter #i jumped between sections while writing this so I don't know how much sense it makes but #I put about as much effort into this review as the writer did into making the story #(none)

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themosleyreview · 11 months ago

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The Mosley Review: Worst Films of 2023

So here we are. 2023 has ended and what a year of disappointments it has been. This year we saw alot of franchises return. A few in particular wanted one last chance to redeem themselves and in my opinion should've stayed in the shadows of their past glory. We also saw the end of a cinematic universe and how messy that was handled. Not all was bad though. We got to see a film with a fun concept that went all out on its gory promise and well, actually, it was pretty forgettable. I'm not gonna beat around the bush anymore. Without further ado, I give you my list of the worst films of 2023. As always, if you want a more detailed review of all the films on my list, just click the title of each film. First up......

Cocaine Bear: Talk about a wild story that was sort of true. The thought of a cocaine fueled bear on a rampage in a forest set in the 80's seemed like a ludicrous idea reserved for the back corner of the low budget horror section of Blockbuster. Well it was exactly that and for about 30 minutes, the idea was fun and had the right tone. Somewhere along the many lines of snortables, the film took a wrong turn and had no idea what it was trying to be. The tone was shifting from drug recovery to family comedy to romantic comedy to hardcore monster movie and so much more. It lost its appeal really quickly and failed to stay in the pocket it initially carved out. Such wasted potential.

The Marvels: And so Marvel Studios attempt to give their one overpowered and unlikeable character a second chance to be liked and actually have some form a story and character development. This time she had 2 additional heroes to come with her on this action packed romp and for the most part, it worked. Where the film truly failed is its terribly written plot that could've been summed up in less than 20 minutes and the fact that they made their main hero the villain without any sense of repentance for her actions against an entire civilization. There was an emotional core there that should’ve been fully explored and not drowned out by the needless action scenes and unnecessary musical sequence. The real standout of the film was Iman Vellani as Ms Marvel and I hope for the future that she takes the lead from now on. Everyone else in the film felt like an after thought, but at least the chemistry between the 3 leads saved the film from being a complete disaster. Speaking of disasters, don't get me started on the god awful mid credits scene.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: There was a small chance that this beloved franchise could rise from the ashes of the fourth entry and truly lay Indiana’s fedora to a satisfying rest. You had a great director, Harrison Ford dawning the fedora one last time and all the hopes of us Indi fans. What did we get? A over budgeted, character inflated, time traveling mess of a finale that spits in the face of what made those original 3 films magical. It wasn't about the action set pieces and the over use of CGI, but the fact that it was small, simple and real. There was a goal that had its other worldly properties whether it was the Arc of Covenant or The Holy Grail, but it felt more real than the finale of this film. What was really heartbreaking was the fact that once again our hero become sad, old, broken down loner with everyone in his life leaving him to rot in silence. It happened to Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and now Indiana Jones. This film introduced one of the worst characters in the franchise and one that I hated with a passion as she did everything in her power to try and get Indie killed or try to profit off of his dead friends. And you expect me to believe she all of a sudden cares about Jones in the last 5 minutes of the film?! Piss off! Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had more respect than this piece of trash.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Ah yes. The end of an era lands on a sequel to a fun first entry that had stylistic problems, but nevertheless was good. Now, we get this extremely scatter brained and ridiculous excuse for a sequel. I felt that the tone wanted to have an underwater Lord of the Rings type of mythos which if edited and rewritten properly, could've been massive. Alas, we get this hot steaming pile of crap that was boring after the third overly CGI action sequence and weak one noted villain motivation. Jason Mamoa and Patrick Wilson were the only reason to watch this film. Jason was himself most of the time while cosplaying as Aquaman and Patrick Wilson was brilliant and sometimes dumbed down as Orm. The brotherly love and chemistry between them actually saved the last act of the film. Other than that, this film illustrated why the DCEU had to end and I wish it had stuck to their original plan of having one last meet up with Ben Affleck's Batman instead of the stupid mid credit scene we got to a joke that was great once.

Now we've come to the end of the road. There were some truly horrendous films this year, but none of them match the level of disappointment this film did. Ladies and gentlemen, the worst film of 2023 is........

Expendables 4: There was an idea to get all of the best action stars of the 80's, 90's and 2000's together in a pure action film that featured all of them together for the first time. It was The Avengers of action film stars and it worked...... in the first 2 films. The third film saw the horrible decision to make a PG-13 entry to appeal to the younger audiences. They realized that mistake too late and it cost them dearly. Well, now they came back with a hard R rated fourth entry, as it should've been, but with only a fraction of the stars that began this franchise and it was absolute garbage from beginning to end. The relationship between Sylvester Stallone's Barney Ross and Jason Statham's Lee Christmas was at the heart of the franchise and that is stripped away. What we're left with is a piss poorly edited, overly CGI'd mess of wasted time and money. Not even Statham could save this film from mediocrity or the horrible sight of Megan Fox trying to act or look like she could do any sort of fight sequence. You had one of the best action stars in Iko Uwais and you did nothing with him. Seriously, that man would destroy Jason and he barely got one or two worthy hits in. Andy Garcia was the only person that understood what type of film he was in and he truly went for it. John Wick 4 was one of the best action films in years and it showed that the action genre has moved far beyond these fossils.

And that's it everyone! That is my list of the shiniest turds known as the worst films of 2023. If you missed any of these films last year and have any interest in watching them, take this list as an advisory to what you're about to watch. Do you agree with my list? Let me know and tell me what your worst films of 2023 are in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

#worst films of 2023 #megan fox #jason statham #phoebe waller bridge #brie larson #ray liotta #indiana jones and the dial of destiny #expendables 4 #the marvels #aquaman and the lost kingdom #cocaine bear

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cielcius · 3 years ago

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IN YOUR FAVOR | SUNA RINTAROU

pairings: Suna x g/n!reader

summary: In such a large, corrupt campus, it’s hard to find someone who’s willing to put up with anything, especially your drunk self.

from the writer: this was supposed to be my xmas gift here but oh well uhm anyways I have to work like three days in a row after posting this... fun :D eh idk maybe I'll get some inspiration from my male coworker while I'm at it or something (that’s not called using him.. righttttt? right :)) though this is technically going to be my last fic of the year, I'm glad its this one because imma be honest, I think I'm the shit/j no I just laugh at my own jokes but really, to anyone who actually reads my rants, I hope u enjoy this bc this made me laugh way more than any other fic I've written and in a way, its special <3

genre: fluff, crack, drunk fic, strangers to lovers (?)

wc: 4.4k (whew longest I've written in a while)

notes & warnings: reader is drunk!!! also a lot of secondhand embarrassment so this is your first and only warning!!! mentions of alcohol, two mentions of m*rder (in a drunk way), your dorm mates are really shitty, party at a sorority house, cursing, reader is all kinds of drunk (it’s called��inclusivity people 😃)

“Hey, can you watch our drinks for us? We’ll be right back.”

Three red plastic cups find their way into your arms, the owners walking off without another word to you thus, leaving you defenseless in the house of a sorority you didn’t even know. The sigh you let out gets lost in the blaring music that bangs against the walls, vibrating with a frequency large enough to cause a headache without the alcohol.

You lean back against the wall, eyeing the entrance of the house with envy lingering in your eyes, before deciding right there that you’d leave the moment they came back for their drinks.

Placing the three cups down on the nearest table, you take to holding only your drink to which you periodically sip from. The alcohol burns as it passes through your throat, leaving an almost dry feeling in your mouth with a taste that makes you feel off about the beverage. Regardless, you continue with your drink, and then another, and then another.

It’s after you’ve already finished three drinks that your dorm mates come back, two hours having passed since they promised to come back for you. “Hey, sorry. We got distracted on the way back.” For two hours? Looking down, you can tell how they don’t even bother to hide the new drinks they had gotten for themselves along the way, making you roundly roll your eyes as you walk off.

“I’m leaving.”

You don’t wait for an answer, and even if you did, it’d only be drowned out in the music just like everything else. Your cup finds the trashcan on the way out and you’re thankful for the cold air that greets you as you walk down the shallow steps of the porch, regardless of it being the middle of winter.

You should have known it was a bad idea to come along in the first place, especially when the word sorority had made its way into the conversation. You mentally shake your head, trying to clear your mind and the bad gut feeling for the most part before reminding yourself that you could start looking for your own apartment soon as you start your walk back to the dorm building.

All is quiet but it takes a minute for you to notice that your steps are starting to fall out of sequence, your body swaying as you desperately try to find your balance again. Shit. Tell-tale signs of alcohol.

Looking around, you spot one of the many cafes that litter the campus, the warm light attracting you like a fly as you mindlessly stumble through the door. Though it could be considered early to be leaving a party, you still feel the pins of shock at the sight of a line to order and people lounging about at tables seemingly placed at random.

The thought dawns upon you: a night cafe.

The sign with their hours on the door is too small and blurry for you to make out, but it’s pointless as you’ve already claimed a spot in line without thinking so much of what to order or to even skim the menu. What am I doing? I should just go home instead.

Just as your conscious agrees with your mind, your body digresses in retaliation as it brings you closer to the counter in shaky steps and unbalanced coordination. Just as you’ve watched your feet hold a place where your body is oddly balanced, you’re called up to the register to order.

Your hands land on the counter, palms flat as your arms straighten to support your weight and you keep your head down. “Um, I...” Just leave! Your eyes follow the counter several inches to the right where you spot a menu, but the words are too blurry for you to read. You’re drunk.

Just as you think about reaching out for the menu, one of your arms give out, your legs already too tired to support your weight any longer, and you think you might just be ready to leave this world after coming to the conclusion that there is no coming back embarrassment-free from passing out at the register of a cafe.

The ground grows closer as you fall, almost in slow motion until you stop. There’s something that comes around your back, warmth palming at your side as one of your arms is lifted to come across a pair of broad shoulders. Someone caught you.

“I’m sorry,” You hang your head impossibly further. “I didn’t think the alcohol would be so strong.” You keep your eyes down on the floor, watching a pair of black boots walk closely to yours. In the sound distance, you think you hear words of reassurance.

Your mouth speaks apologies for you before you’re being seated at a table, a tall window serving a scene of winter pleasant on the eyes. The cool air is frosted against the glass window, a chill emitting a shiver that runs up your spine and falls down your arms before you hear a voice speak muffled words, the same voice that spoke of reassurance.

You let out a soft sigh of confusion, eyes glazed over but ears perked as you listen again. “I’m gonna get you some water and food.” There’s a pause, but eventually, you realize that the person speaking is waiting for an answer. You nod quietly, lips pressed together in a silent apology and agonizing shame.

I really should have just left.

You wait until the black boots disappear to lift your head, turning to look at the drizzle starting outside the cafe. You watch as anonymous figures in large coats jog for shelter, book bags being held over heads as a temporary shield. Even as you sit in the arms of manmade sunlight, it oddly feels as if you’re running with them in the rain, just as cold under the sky that bears its tears to the world.

There’s a clash of ceramic on the table in front of you, but it isn’t until something bumps against your shoe that you turn your attention away from the window. The black boots are back, one near your shoe that’s enough to tell you what had bumped against your foot.

You look at the table, a steaming mug of what looks to be hot chocolate and a plated croissant sitting fresh in front of you. You curl your lips in, the bottom half stuck between your teeth, before popping them back out. “Thank you...” When you raise your eyes to look straight ahead, you can only make out the middle section of a black apron, breast pocket showing no name or name tag of the sort.

“Suna. Suna Rintarou.”

You raise your chin, making brief contact with green before looking away with a pout just shy on your lips. “Thank you, Suna.” Hopefully, he’s heard you over the distant chatter of lingering customers as your head fills with one thought.

He’s... pretty.

The hot chocolate slides past your throat, not as easy as water would but easier than the alcohol that now runs freely through your veins. You let out a quiet sigh when you’ve let the mug hit the wooden table again, the smell of chocolate burning on your lips with a sugary aftertaste.

Slowly, you go to pick at the croissant, flakes falling to the pristine ceramic in a similar manner of fall-toned leaves kissing the concrete with tips curled in at a last attempt of self-protection.

Oh, now you’re getting a little too cheesy.

You look down your side again, eyes traveling down the arch of your leg and to the floor where black boots wait in patience.

“Are you okay to get home—”

“I’m sorry for causing so much trouble.” The piece of the pastry you once held in your hand is placed back onto the plate before you continue. “I really don’t drink this much, I don’t know why I did, but I’ll pay you back. Here, lemme get my wallet out.” Your voice trails off, eyes pointing themselves to the pocket of your coat where you think your wallet might be.

Your hand is shoved into the pocket, fingers clumsily rummaging around until pressure on your arm stops you mid-search. “You don’t have to pay for anything,” There’s something else that Suna says but you don’t get a chance to hear as he continues. “Just tell me if I can call someone to pick you up or help you back to... wherever you came from.”

“I was born in (hometown).”

“Okay, thank you. So there’s no one I can call?”

You shake your head, the knowledge of your roommates being the only people you know lingering absentmindedly in your brain. There was no one else, so you shake your head again. “My roommates are still at the party, high and drunk off their asses by now, I bet.”

There’s a low scoff, one that almost sounds like a chuckle but there’s no time to think as Suna sits himself in the seat across from you. “Okay, I’ll drive you to your apartment—”

“I live in the dorms.”

Suna presses his lips together, silent and in waiting in case you have something else to say, before proceeding. “Okay, I’ll drive you to your dorm after I close up. Sound good?” You pause before nodding silently.

“Thank you, Suna.”

—

You don’t realize that you’ve fallen asleep until Suna is shaking you by the shoulder, the engine turned off with the car still on, and the headlights reflecting with a harsh glare against the car in front. “Building C, right?” Just as you had told him, he had parked right across the street from the brick building stacked tall with overpacked dorms and communal bathrooms. Home sweet home.

“Uhm, y-yeah. Looks like it.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have parked across the street. Suna thinks to himself with a frown pressing on his lips. “Can you get in by yourself?” He eyes the building across the street.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s... um...mm.” Mid-sentence, you fail to catch your head that falls limp on your shoulder, pushing your body into an uncomfortable position as you lose another battle to sleep.

Suna turns off the car and unbuckles his seatbelt before going around the car to help you out of your seat. With your arm around his shoulders and his under yours, Suna is almost tempted to just carry you as he nearly drags you across the street and to the entrance of the building.

“Hey, can you get your entrance card out? Need to scan it to get in.” When Suna looks down at you, your eyes are slitted and glazed over, but more or less open as you slowly gain consciousness. With a small hum, you start to fumble for a card before pressing it against the panel.

The light flashes red.

Again, you press the card against the panel, and again, the light flashes red. Looking down at the card, you almost sink into yourself as your eyes find red letters in bold. “Oh, this is a Ch*potle gift card. Oops.”

That’s actually an Am*zon gift card, but Suna keeps his lips sealed as you finally pull out your entrance card to which a green light flashes in response. “Waiiiiit.” Suna turns to look at you, foot raised in a mid-step through the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

He watches as you cast your eyes downward, a force pulling the edges of your lips down. You mutter something too quiet for him to hear, so Suna leans in closer with a question for you to repeat it. “What if you do something bad?”

There’s a pause in his actions, delayed by a sliver of shock before he’s overtaken with amusement. “Oh? Like what?” Straightening to his full height, or as much as he could with you on his shoulders, Suna can’t help but let a smirk fall onto his lips.

“Like,” You lean in closer to his ear. “stealing my stuff. O-or, m*rdering me.” All in the midst of drunken chaos, Suna thinks this is the best use of his time that he’s ever invested in. “That’s a big jump between the two. Hm, maybe you shouldn’t let me go with you. Good thinking.”

Sliding his arm out from under you, he lets you stand on your own two legs, wobbling like a newborn until you admit defeat by grabbing onto his outstretched hands. “Okay, let me just walk you to your door then—”

“Nooo.”

“I won’t steal your things, or k*ll you.”

You look up from your feet to Suna. “Promise? Or else I’ll never be able to wear these shoes again” The two of you look down at said shoes, the toes clicking together and Suna has to admit—they do look good on you. Suna bites the inside of his mouth to rebel against an oncoming laugh that threatens to break his exterior.

“I pinky promise.” Suna isn’t sure what he meant to accomplish by adding the action of interlocking pinkies, but that seems to further reassure you as you let him guide you inside the dimly lit building.

The cold elevator lighting stabs at your temples as you enter, your eyes squeezed shut before you open them slowly to adjust. “What floor do you live on?” Suna brings you over to the panel with many buttons waiting to be pressed—

“I swear to god if you even think about pressing all of the buttons on here, I will get off and take the stairs back down.” Though the statement itself should worry you, it only brings a giggle bubbling at your lips before you look back at the panel. “It’s the third one,” You press the button, and the doors close. “I think.”

Suna hopes he heard wrong just now.

You’re slightly leaning into him more by the time the elevator doors open again, body nearly lax against his until he’s nudging you awake. Walking out, you’re met with two signs pointing down two different halls with a section of numbers on each.

“What number is your dorm?”

“Three hundred and eighteen, on the right.”

Suna brings you to the left, double-checking the sign pointing and labeled with numbers three hundred to three hundred and fifty. In the distance, presumably down the right hall, there’s shouting. Suna thinks quietly to himself once again. I hate dorms.

It’s a short stroll down the hall with an occasional misstep but you eventually make it there safe. “You have your key, right?” Your eyes widen, suddenly wide awake as you look up at Suna. That’s why you couldn’t fully get rid of that bad gut feeling from earlier.

“Oh no.”

—

“Red toothbrush, just like you asked.”

Handing you the plastic package, Suna watches as you fumble to get the opening before tearing the cardboard at the back. “Hehe, yay.” Still seated at the edge of his bed with your clothes folded on his dresser, you swing your legs slightly toned in Suna’s spare clothes.

Suna draws out a short sigh after looking at the situation he’s gotten himself into but alas, finds himself patting you on the head before turning to wash up in the bathroom. How did he become so weak to (your) puppy eyes in such a short time?

“Oh, I’ll grab you a towel.” Walking out into the hall, Suna digs through the closet but finds no spare towels in the end, eventually sighing as he finds himself making his way into the only other bedroom in the apartment.

“Tarou? What are you doing in my bathroom?”

Suna’s younger sister is typically a heavy sleeper, but of course, he can count on her the most to wake up during the few times he wished she wouldn’t. “Do we have any extra towels?”

“Huh? Why—” The young woman gasps. “Do we have guests—do you have a guest?” Hoping that the next morning would work in his favor—however it played out—Suna gives a brief explanation of the situation to his sister.

“Awh, you must really like them if you—” Quickly, Suna slaps a hand over his sister’s mouth and as much as he loves and adores her, he can’t find himself doing so at the moment.

“Good night.”

Leaving his sister’s bedroom, Suna finds you at the bathroom sink of his own room with a pout spread across your face. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think I’m the best person to put the toothpaste on.” Looking down at the toothbrush, Suna notices the dot of toothpaste that’s only managed to land on the handle of your toothbrush. “Here,” Suna washes it off before redoing it. “Ah.”

Grabbing hold of your chin in one hand, Suna uses the other to brush your teeth as firmly as he can without hurting you. “Suna, I ca’ brus’ myshelf.” He curses quietly to himself. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

Even as he looks away, Suna can hear the hum of curiosity coming from where you stand. Turning back, your head is tilted slightly to the side with eyes drowned in confusion. Don’t look at me like that.

Suna sighs. “I have a little sister that I used to help get ready in the morning for school.” At the mention of a sister, you perk up, but his explanation is forced to wait as he steps out of the bathroom to let you wash up.

Finally, you walk out with a mind that’s admittedly clearer than before. “You used to brush her teeth for her?”

“Yeah, and her hair, and get her breakfast.” Looking over at you, Suna is met with a teasing smile to which he grimaces at. “That’s nice. Are you looking for another sibling?”

With a gentle push, Suna rolls his eyes as your chuckles make a brief appearance. “No, shut up.” Though he was thankful that you had sobered up a little more at the end of the night, Suna still hadn’t come to the issue of where to sleep until now.

Grabbing a blanket, Suna starts to make his way out of the room, until your voice stops him. “If you’re comfortable, we can sleep in the same bed, but otherwise, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Looking back at you, Suna raises an eyebrow before walking to stand before you. “You’d let a guy like me sleep in the same bed as you?” With a playful tone twisting itself into his words, he awaits your response that doesn’t come as expectedly as he thought.

“Yeah, you are letting me sleep here despite not knowing me, and you already pinky promised to not k*ll me so I’d say it’s a win-win.” For you.

Suna lets out a huff of amusement, a smile teasing his lips before he gives in once again. “Fine. Just don’t hog all of the blankets.” You smile back at him.

“Good night, Suna,” You pause. “And thank you.”

—

The digital clock on the nightstand reads six in the morning when you peel your eyes open, letting your vision adjust as the numbers no longer appear as a jumbled blur of red. A grey sky sits past the light curtains of the bedroom, casting a glow that’s delicate and yet enough to let your eyes scour the interior of the room.

There’s a weight on your waist and another that pulls against you at the shoulders, both coming from the source of Suna Rintarou. His grip on your body is unexpectedly tight, even in the midst of his dream-infested slumber, and before panic can set in, the events of the night before flash through your mind and leave you with a horrified expression spread across your face.

I’m never gonna live this down. If your arms weren’t trapped in the hold of Suna, you would have definitely hidden your face in your hands but alas, you settle for the pillow as the haziness of sleep starts to fade away.

You can only crane your head at an awkward angle to get a glimpse at Suna behind you, and when you do, you’re tempted to fall back asleep as the need to not wake him arises—with the wanting of putting off your embarrassment. Though in the end, it’s not enough (even though you really wanted to go back to sleep).

The struggle to shimmy out of his arms turned to be worse than you thought and as your feet touch the cold floors of the room, you immediately want to dive back under the covers for some platonic (?) cuddling and warmth.

Before you even reach the bathroom, you give into digging through Suna’s closet for a sweater to keep you warm in the unnaturally cold apartment. Sending a mental apology and a promise to give it back later, you shrug on a sweater before making your way to the bathroom.

By the time you’re done, Suna is surprisingly still asleep under the warm covers of his bed, a visible empty space indicating your stay. Maybe I could sneak back in— Before you can take another step towards the bed, your stomach squeals with the urge to eat. Pressing your lips tightly together, you restrain yourself from getting back in the bed and instead turn to venture further into the apartment.

Though you had an assumption that Suna was also a college student, you were still shocked to find yourself face-to-face with the person who seemed to be his roommate—a girl who seemed to be not much younger than you.

Your jaw slackens, mind racing to find something, to at least say good morning but the girl beats you to it. “Are you the girl Tarou brought home yesterday?” Tarou? Even if it were in a different context, meeting a stranger coming out of your roommate's room at six in the morning has never made a good impression on anyone, but you nod.

“Um, we didn’t do anything! I was just drunk and stupid—and really lucky, but I’ll leave now if you want—” A laugh cuts into your sentence, making you watch with wide eyes as the girl attempts to quiet down for the sake of it being early in the morning. “Sorry, it’s fine, really. Stuff like that and having to do with my brother definitely isn’t any of my business.”

“Brother—are you his sister?” Finally, the girl nods with a smile. “Suna Aoi, but you can call me Aoi.” Holding out a hand, you take it as an offering to shake before introducing yourself. “Even though this looks bad, do you want some breakfast? I can try to make you something.”

Without a word, Aoi leads you out into the kitchen, sitting herself on a counter stool with her hands folded in front of her. “Yes, please.” Sharing a laugh, you familiarize yourself with their kitchen and it isn’t until you’re digging through the fridge that Aoi speaks again. “Thank you, L/n.”

“No problem, and Y/n is fine.”

—

The sizzling of food on a pan is what wakes Suna up, and immediately without another thought other than the fact that his sister can’t cook for her life, he stumbles into the kitchen to be met with an unfamiliar sight.

You, the person he took in yesterday night, in his kitchen teaching his sister how to cook food that somehow hasn’t been burnt to a crisp yet.

“And then you just wait until the bubbles start to show before flipping it. Let me get the batter.” Your eyes meet when you turn to grab the bowl filled with the thick pancake batter, your sudden silence making Aoi turn in curiosity to see her brother standing with an unreadable expression—though she makes no comment on it. “Tarou! Look, I made pancakes.”

Moving to the side, Suna can see a plate with two pancakes stacked neatly on top of each other. In other cases, he would be none other than encouraging his sister to make more for him but in this case, the only comprehensible word he can get out is an ‘oh’.

Taking his sudden awakening into account, you take the chance to let Suna clean himself up. “Are you hungry? I’ll make some for you right now. You go eat too, Aoi.” Shooing the girl out of the kitchen with a spatula in hand, you shoot Suna a look before turning to make more pancakes.

Whatever the look is supposed to mean, Suna isn’t sure he wants to know.

When Suna comes back into the kitchen, he only finds Aoi sitting at the counter with an empty plate, save for the random drizzles and puddles of maple syrup. It isn’t until Aoi points it out that Suna realizes that he’s pointedly looking for you. “They went back to their dorm, but they’ll be back soon with your clothes.”

Nodding, Suna sits himself at the counter where a plate presents itself with a stack of pancakes, an extra third one sitting on top with a smiley face drawn from syrup to which he assumes is out of gratitude for last night. “Oh, and you know how I’m moving out, right?”

Suna looks over at Aoi, eyebrows raised slightly at the vague question. “Yeah? I literally packed half of your shit, and your welcome by the way—”

“I found you a roommate.”

“You what?”

Suna puts the fork down, steaming pancake piece forgotten on the plate as he fully turns to face his sister.

After breaking the news of moving out, Aoi had suggested Suna get a new roommate out of concern for his wellbeing (suggested being “get a roommate”). Though in all honesty, Suna was hoping to have a chance to live on his own for the first time—

“Oh, sounds like your roommate’s back.”

“What? They’re coming today?” With no time to ready himself, Suna watches as Aoi opens the door to reveal you in a pair of fresh clothes.

“The good thing is that you’ve already met them.” With arms in the air and jazz hands shaking, Aoi presumably introduces you as Suna’s new roommate.

“Hi, Suna. I’m L/n Y/n, your new roommate.”

Suna looks down at your outstretched hand, only going to take it in his own when he realizes that he never got your name in all of the time spent with you.

“Better start remembering then.” Aoi’s words reach his ears in a low voice, and Suna realizes that in the midst of his shocked state, he must have muttered his words aloud.

Fuck.

But maybe the morning did work in his favor.

Extra:

Looking up from your phone, you observe the cafe in its daylight image before turning to Suna beside you. “Damn, how’d you get around that counter in time to catch me? That shit’s long.” Without looking up from his own phone, Suna replies without a stutter.

“Oh please, I could see your drunk ass coming from a mile away.”

#tea stained letters 🍵#suna rintaro x reader #suna x reader #suna rintaro imagine #suna rintarou x reader #hq x reader #hq x self insert #suna x y/n #haikyuu x reader

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whentheynameyoujoy · 4 years ago

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Yup, Sure Was a Finale

I had an epiphany. The reason why I never re-watched the final two parts of Sozin’s Comet even though I’ve popped in episodes at random many times over the years isn’t that I can’t bear the sadness of seeing one of the best, most engaging narratives out there come to an end.

It’s simply that the finale isn’t all that good.

Some honorable mentions of what was enjoyable.

(+) This

Just this.

(+) The Church of Zutara has another convert

“Are you sure they don’t get together?” Hubster, 2020

(+) The tragedy of Azula

And the fact that it’s acknowledged as such. I hope Zuko will do his best to get her help and have a relationship with her…

(+) Sokka being a big bro

And the whole airship sequence in general. It’s wonderfully paced and plotted, with moments of humor, real stakes, Toph being both badass and a scared crying kid, Sokka strategizing and protecting, Suki saving the day, and non-benders being instrumental in thwarting the bad guy firebender’s plans. Would be shame if Bryke never portrayed them this capable ever again…

And now for the main course.

(-) Blink and its over

The wrap-up feels too quick (hashtag Needs More ROtK-style False Endings). A part of this is due to how fast the story goes from the thick of the action to hastily tying up a bunch of loose ends, but the larger issue is how Book 3’s uneven pacing comes home to roost. After spending half a season on filler episodes that at best subtly flesh out established characters while dancing around a huge lionturtle-shaped hole, and at worst contradict the theme of “no one is born bad” with “you’re a hot mess because your great-grandfathers didn’t get along too well”, the frantic “go go go” rush of the second half screeches to a halt with “they won and everyone was happy because now the right people have power and it will be all good from now on yup nothing more to deal with baiiiii”.

Yes, I know, it’s a kids’ show. But goddamn, this particular kids’ show has proven so many times it can do better than the expected tropiness. Showing the characters in their roles as builders of a new world was the least that could have been done.

Oh well!

(-) Ursa

We’ll never know. There will never be a story that delves into this. Yup. Shall forever remain but an intriguing mystery. Is good, though. Mystery is better than a story where Ursa shares her son’s penchant for forgetfulness. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Speaking of which…

(-) What does Mai see in this jerkbender?

Look, I like to harp a lot on the mess of inconsistent writing that’s Mai but let’s unpack this scene from her perspective, shall we?

Zuko forgot about her! It totally slipped his mind that the one person who prioritized the safety of his dumb ass was rotting in the worst prison in the Fire Nation—because of him! And she was rotting there long enough after the final Agni Kai for the news of Zuko’s upcoming coronation to spread and her uncle to feel sufficiently secure to release her. But then the coronation scene is attended by every single member of Gaang & Friends that was imprisoned?

So what this tells me is that either a) the invasion force had the ability to break themselves out the whole time and for some reason decided not to exercise it until after the war was over, b) Zuko forgot about them as well and no one thought to remind him there were prisons full of POWs until Mai arrived, or, and that’s even better, c) Zuko took care to free every single resistance fighter while making sure Mai would be the one to stay behind bars.

Never thought I’d say this but Mai? Honey? You deserve so much better.

(-) “What does Katara want?”

Asked no one in the writers’ room ever, apparently.

This is not so much anti Cataang as anti romance stories that pay attention to the needs, opinions, and wants of only one partner in general. Over the previous 60 episodes, Katara actively expressed romantic interest in Aang exactly, wait for it,

Once.

And it got retconned out of relevance by the following two interactions where the possibility of a romantic relationship came up, making the Headband dance pretty easy to reclassify as just one of those examples where Aang “teaches” Katara to have fun (as if one of the main obstacles to her having fun wasn’t him constantly fooling around and offloading his duties). And because the writers not only didn’t succeed in portraying Katara’s internal state of mind, but also failed to root her reluctance to pursue a relationship in outside circumstances that could change, her sudden state of unconfused once Aang steps into the spotlight has a single canonical explanation that as much as approaches coherency.

The fact is, though, that trying to interpret canon Cataang from a Watsonian perspective is an exercise in foolishness. Because there is no Watsonian justification for the ship and never has been. Bryke simply conceived of Katara as nothing but a tropey prize for Aang, never saw her as anything beyond that, and were perfectly happy to go on and immortalize her as a passive broodmare for the rest of her life.

And I fully intend to die mad about it.

(-) Iroh dips

OK, it’s been long apparent that the show doesn’t intend to do anything about Iroh’s complicity in AzulOzai’s regime in any meaningful way, and that his sole motivation for doing anything whatsoever is Zuko whom he views as a replacement son which is supposed to be good for some reason. But the finale has him abandon even that, and instead turns him full-on YOLO, idgaf anymore. It really throws Iroh’s supposed love for Zuko into doubt when his last act in the entire show is to take a half-educated 16-year old with no political savvy or an heir to secure a dynastic continuity and plomp him on the throne of a war-mongering imperialist regime where the entirety of the militarist and ruling class is guaranteed to fight him tooth and nail for power.

(I sure hope Mai’s ready to start popping out babies by tea-time otherwise the whole country is fukd in about a week)

Christ, how hard would it be to have Iroh keep the throne warm for a few years while Zuko is getting ready to succeed him? Not only would it make the whole FN reformation bit quite likelier to occur, it would require Iroh’s hedonistic ass to actually sacrifice something for once. And not having Zuko ascend to power, instead spending some time bettering and educating himself first, would be a wonderful message that no matter what you endured and overcame, you never stop growing. A kids’ show, remember?

(-) The conquering of Ba Sing Se

Gee, I feel so blessed to have my attention diverted from battlefields which actually matter to an old dude vanity project I would have been perfectly happy to assume resolved itself off-screen.

The White Lotus in general just bugs me. I was fine with the individual characters and their overall passivity when they were portrayed as lone dissenters living under circumstances where it wasn’t really possible for any single person to mount a meaningful resistance. But as members of a far-reaching shadowy organization that’s left the real fight to a bunch of kids for 59 episodes straight and didn’t turn up until a perfect opportunity presented itself to take control of the largest city in the world and bask in the spotlight?

Yeah, no.

Similarly to the lionturtle-ex-machina, the White Lotus represents a huge missed opportunity for a season-long storytelling. Here’s just a brief list of what they could have been doing throughout Book 3:

orchestrating a Fire Nation uprising;

gathering those directly persecuted by AzulOzai’s regime to help Zuko keep his hold on power once he’s crowned;

establishing themselves as a viable alternative to Ozai;

sabotaging Fire Nation’s war efforts from the inside;

countering Fire Nation propaganda (Asha Greyjoy’s pinecones, anyone?);

running a supply network to alleviate the suffering of Earth Kingdom citizens.

Instead, they sit on their asses until the time comes to claim personal glory.

You know what, good on Bryke for making me conclude that in comparison, the Freedom Fighters were perfectly unproblematic, actually.

(-) Fire Lord Dead-by-Dawn

Yes, a kids’ show, I know! But ffs, this is the same kids’ show that came up with Long Feng and portrayed courtly intrigue, kingly puppets, secret police, spy networks, and information wars. Was it really too much of me to expect something other than “enlightened despot solves everything”? Especially if said enlightened despot has persisting anger issues, no personal support system, no base of followers, and no political experience whatsoever?

If Zuko’s actually serious about regaining the Fire Nation’s honor (i.e. by dismantling the country’s military machine, decolonizing the Earth Kingdom, paying reparations to everyone and their lemur, and funding any and all cultural restoration projects Aang and the SWT come up with), then there is no way, no way in the universe that he doesn’t face a civil war, deposing, and execution within a month.

One reason why his future as a Fire Lord seems rather bleak is that little’s been shown about the actual subjects of AzulOzai’s regime. While we get a vague reassurance that “no Toph, they’re not born bad” (le shockings), they largely remain a voiceless uniform mass of brainwashed clapping seals. What is their view on the Fire Nation’s crimes? Do they associate their condition with their country’s war-mongering? How will they react when Zuko starts dismantling the country piece by piece to rebuild it, bringing it to economic ruin? What will they do when noble Ozai loyalists come out of the woodwork and begin rounding them up under the banner of “Make the Fire Nation Great Again?”

I have no idea, and Zuko doesn’t either because he’s unironically more qualified to rule the Earth Kingdom than his own people.

You know what would have been better? Fire Lord Iroh, White Lotus pulling the strings to maintain the regime, and Crown Prince/People’s Champion Zuko travelling the Fire Nation with Aang and an army of tutors to promote the new boss, only to realize that absolute monarchy is kinda crap for the people he’s one day supposed to rule and gaining their support by ceding some power to them.

I’d laser holes into my TV due to how much I’d enjoy watching that.

(-) All hail Avatar Rock

Literally and metaphorically. Aang doesn’t sacrifice anything, gets everything, and the clever solution of going about getting said everything is handed to him on a silver platter, requiring no active participation on his part whatsoever.

He doesn’t work to unblock his chakras, spiritually or physically.

He only speaks to his past lives to get a pat on the back and a bow-tied solution he could mindlessly follow.

Energy-bending doesn’t require any sacrifice from him, leaves no lasting marks, and only serves for the narrative to praise him as the rare individual that’s unbendable and thus so very very special.

The most infuriating thing is, however, that Aang is clearly shown as being able to beat Ozai without either the Avatar state, or energy-bending.

And he chooses not to. From this moment on, Aang no longer fights to save the world. He fights to preserve his beliefs, going directly against the instructions of his past lives and effectively reneging on his duties as the Avatar.

Again.

It’s not like you can’t portray Aang’s faithfulness to his spiritual beliefs as the key to beating Ozai and saving the world. But that’s not what the show did. There is no link between Aang sparing Ozai and securing a better future, quite to the contrary—Ozai’s survival ends up being a massive problem for the continuation of Zuko’s rule, and consequently a threat to the world at large. His survival benefits Aang and no one else.

Aang’s spiritual purity and his status as a savior of the world are allowed to coexist only due to a deliberate stroke of a writer’s pen.

And I hate it.

Welp, nothing to do about it now except to bury myself up to my tits in fix-it fics I guess.

#atla #atla rewatch #meta #zutara #anti bryke #anti-kataang #anti-aang #anti-maiko

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years ago

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just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense.

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that.

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later.

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone).

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways.

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie!

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway.

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that.

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality.

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason.

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough.

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes.

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away.

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula???

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00.

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #jason todd #bruce wayne #leslie thompkins #a tragic jalebi #robin #red hood

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coraniaid · 2 years ago

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sorry, hit the ask button so soon:

Coexist - ⭐

Thanks!

Um. So I'm going to talk about chapter 21 of Coexist in frankly excessive detail. It’s one of my favorite chapters so far, but the problem with writing dream sequences without a beta reader is that you do sort of feel the urge to ask anybody who reads it: “hey, did you spot that bit of symbolism?". Even, or perhaps especially, when the symbolism probably isn't as clever as you'd like to think.

And I sort of think that the actual fic should speak for itself, but ... well, on the other hand I've just written a thousand words about it, so:

Let's start with the title, which is meant as a reference to Sarah McLahlan’s Full of Grace, as heard in Season 2's Becoming Part 2, specifically to this verse:

I feel just like I'm sinking

And I claw for solid ground

I'm pulled down by the undertow

I never thought I could feel so low

Which is later echoed by Faith's speech to Joyce in Season 4’s This Year’s Girl – “It's like you just keep sinking a little deeper everyday and no-one even sees” – in the very same way that Faith herself echoes Buffy’s situation at the end of Season 2 and into Season 3’s Anne (“no friends, no hope“, as Angelus puts it). And … well, this is a chapter which is all about Faith and how she defines herself in relation to Buffy, so it seems appropriate.

Up to this point, every chapter has been a reworking of a specific episode from Season 3. Sometimes the connection’s been very clear (especially in the earlier chapters), and sometimes it’s been a bit less clear (and in one case there are two chapters devoted to a single episode).

But this chapter is slightly different, in that while it basically takes the place of Season 3’s Doppelgangland it doesn’t really have much in common with that episode (although I guess one of the vampires from The Wish rewrite does make a cameo). Instead it's more or less Restless from Season 4: a series of dream sequences culminating with a final Slayer versus Slayer showdown in the desert.

(As an aside: I’ve always thought that it was a shame that Eliza Dushku was apparently unavailable for the filming of Restless, because Tara’s role as a mediator for the First Slayer in that episode would make so much more sense if given to Faith.)

That said, it's not just Restless that's being referenced here: there's obviously quite a lot of This Year’s Girl too and the opening scene borrows heavily from the dream sharing scene in Graduation Day.

One idea I had for this sequence that didn't quite make it through to the final version was that each of the individual dreams Faith had should feature a character that has been used to mirror Buffy at some point. Not necessarily as a full shadow self, but at least as a deliberate parallel. There’s still a lot of that original plan in the published chapter – it’s why we see Dawn and Drusilla and Lily, among others – but the big absences are obviously Cordelia and Spike.

Spike’s sort of there by omission, if that makes sense, in that Faith at least mentions him to Drusilla, but Cordy’s not present at all. The original version of the scene where Faith sees Buffy and Angel sleeping together was originally going to have Cordelia take Buffy’s place – complete with Faith “remembering” that Diana had told her about the Slayer before her, Cordelia Chase – but in the end I just thought that was too confusing to really work.

It was fun writing cameos for Dawn and Drusilla here, but at a certain point while writing this I really wished I just let both of them introduce themselves to Faith by name. It’s hard not to make repeated use of “the vampire” or “the girl” not sound really clunky.

Also, and I don’t know how well this comes across, but the idea is definitely that this is Drusilla here, not just a dream or a prophetic vision. If Faith and Buffy can share dreams, and we know they can, and if Buffy and Drusilla can share dreams, which Season 2’s Surprise strongly suggests, then I figured that Faith and Drusilla should also be able to share dreams here.

(Also a very, very early draft version of this chapter, when it followed the plot of Season 3’s Doppelgangland a lot more closely, was that Drusilla would actually arrive in town trying to find Spike, and end up taking on the role that vamp!Willow plays in that episode. So her little appearance here is sort of a nod towards that, as well.)

One idea for this chapter that I did stick with is that Faith -- in all cases except one --always transitions between dreams by falling or moving downwards. Which makes sense because, as well as the general theme of falling and sinking that I mentioned at the start, Faith is literally in a coma after being thrown off a building. I think it makes sense that she’d be dwelling on that, even if she’s not consciously able to remember what happened.

She first falls down to the sewers from the collapsing hospital, then falls down through a door into Dawn’s bedroom while running from Angelus, then is escorted back downstairs and out of the house by Joyce, then in the classroom she falls through a broken window and down into the warehouse, and finally she’s pushed down through the portal in the floor into the desert. The one exception to this is that after vamp!Buffy dies Faith wakes up, which I like because it deliberately breaks the pattern and stresses what a big deal this moment is for Faith.

Also, I should perhaps admit that I have no clue how obvious it is that the “something worse” [than vampires] that Faith keeps mentioning throughout this chapter – the thing that’s always close by, that she can’t escape; the same thing that kills vamp!Buffy here and later attacks Anya – is meant to be Faith herself, or at least the Slayer part of her. (This is one of the things I sometimes wish I had a beta reader for, honestly, but I know from experience that I’d write even more slowly if I had one.)

The final fight in the desert was a lot of fun to write. It’s also the closest I’ve come in this fic to writing something like “canon” Faith. (I mean, I hope that this fic’s version of Faith does come across as reasonably in-character given all the changes in what happens to her – I wanted to make it seem like this Faith is somebody who could have turned out more like she does in canon, even if she doesn’t. But in terms of temperament this version of the character owes much more to Amends or the first half of Revelations than she does to Enemies or Consequences.)

And of course the “I’ve got somebody…” line at the end of this scene is a reference to (and repurposing of) what Faith says to Willow in Choices. That moment’s really what the whole chapter has been building towards. Well, that and the image of Faith questioning whether she’s really a monster, deciding not to give up on herself and carrying her own unconscious body out of the desert. Which I like a lot, even if it’s not particularly subtle. (Actually maybe I like it because it isn’t subtle.)

Anyway, I liked working on this chapter a lot and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. There are lots of other little details that I probably forgot to mention, some of which are going to be relevant before the story ends, but … yeah. Probably written enough for now.

Thanks for the ask!

#btvs #ask games #my writing

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fallingtowers · 3 years ago

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btvs season 5 episodes ranked

alright gang we’re in the home stretch. god i really like this season. s5 is a lot like s3 in that it’s really difficult to rank its episodes; the whole season is so well-written, and even the episodes that are closer to the bottom of this list are really good. i gave it my best shot though! feel free to stop by my inbox and call me slurs if you think i made any really grievous errors. alright well anyway here we go click through for the list

22. episode 11, “triangle”: lmao. alright man.

21. episode 9, “listening to fear”: this is another one where i can’t get over the silliness of the premise. the medical drama stuff in this one is really good and affecting, and the demon design is kiiinda cool. i just wish it wasn’t a fucking space demon from space.

20. episode 15, “i was made to love you”: man. all the robot stuff in btvs is always dumb as hell and yet they just kept doing it. at least this one sets up the buffybot which is at least dumb as hell in a fun way.

19. episode 1, “buffy vs. dracula”: okay, so, this is obviously like one of the dumbest buffy episodes, but it’s far from one of the worst ones. it’s kind of a ballsy move to just put Actual Dracula in your vampire show, and the writers obviously had a ton of fun with this concept and didn’t take it too seriously. also, dracula does serve a purpose in the wider plot—he’s the one who gets buffy thinking about where her powers really come from.

18. episode 2, “real me”: properly introducing dawn is a really delicate task, and i think this episode does an admirable job of it. it also brings back harmony, who is always a lot of fun.

17. episode 4, “out of my mind”: lmaooo god i love spike. obviously i don’t care about riley’s plotline but the spike-centric parts of this episode are really good. poor guy. the ending is an all-time classic.

16. episode 5, “no place like home”: i don’t have a lot to say about this one. it’s just a really solid episode. no wait i do have something to say about it actually: the buffy trance sequence is really cool.

15. episode 8, “shadow”: the whole snake monster thing is kind of nothing, but the medical drama stuff is at turns sweet and harrowing.

14. episode 12, “checkpoint”: i don’t know if i would call this episode particularly good, but it’s a ton of fun. buffy’s spiel to the watchers at the end is like, designed to be as satisfying as possible.

13. episode 18, “intervention”: the buffybot is fun and all, but god it’s so fucking creepy that it exists. christ. well anyway, this is another one of those episodes where they really got as much entertainment as possible out of a good concept, in this case buffy’s friends unwittingly interacting with her robot double.

12. episode 13, “blood ties”: man, poor dawn. the drama really hits. michelle trachtenberg’s acting is great in this one.

11. episode 20, “spiral”: i think about this episode a lot. the bit where the main cast are all in an rv getting chased by a company of knights on horseback is like insane in a monty python kind of way and i gotta respect the balls it took to write that in. the best part of this episode though is the way it piles on the pressure for buffy, ending in her break from reality. rough stuff!

10. episode 6, “family”: kind of a heavy-handed metaphor, mr whedon. i still think it hits though. it’s nice. it’s sweet.

9. episode 3, “the replacement”: xander gets some much-needed character development, and it’s a really entertaining episode in the bargain. the gimmick, while really solid in concept, is maybe not quite as entertaining in execution as some others, but it’s still really good.

8. episode 19, “tough love”: lot of cool stuff in this one. the buffy/dawn drama is heartwrenching. the best part of the episode hands down though is willow going ham after tara gets brainsucked. this is our first glimpse at willow going really dark and it fuckin bangs.

7. episode 10, “into the woods”: the thing about riley is that the more he fucks up, the more likable he gets. this episode almost managed make me feel sad that he was leaving. ultimately he is a boot boy though so fuck him. also, the scene near the end where xander confronts buffy is huge.

6. episode 21, “weight of the world”: man, poor buffy. this episode is really really good, but it loses points for its reliance on cgi for the ben/glory scenes (as opposed to like, cutting between the two of em). they look really dated, and i think the energy had been more compelling if the actors had been able to actually act against each other.

5. episode 14, “crush”: oh dru. i’ve missed you. it’s so good to see you again.

4. episode 7, “fool for love”: yesss!!! i love this one. the flashbacks are a ton of fun, the buffy/spike interactions are great, the ending is really sweet.

3. episode 17, “forever”: man. the final 5 minutes of this episode are, like, as horrifying as btvs ever gets. the acting is also really really good; buffy’s grief is palpable. this is a scary and sad episode and i really like it.

2. episode 22, “the gift”: made me cry :( one of the best btvs season finales. possibly even THE best. a lot of btvs episodes have one or two really strong moments carrying them; this one is all strong moments all the way through.

1. episode 16, “the body”: what a stellar episode. what a fucking masterpiece. THE best episode of the show.

#buffyposting #buffy the vampire slayer

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

How Final Destination Went From Real-Life Premonition to Horror Phenomenon

https://ift.tt/30jSLcc

The year 2000 was a scary one for horror films and not always in a good way.

While American Psycho and The Cell offered up visually striking nihilistic thrills to genre fans, the majority of horror movies released at the dawn of the new millennium were at best forgettable and, at worst, lamentable – yes, we’re looking at you, Leprechaun in the Hood.

This was the year of duff sequels like Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Urban Legends: Final Cut and, though it is painful to admit, Scream 3. Horror fans were screaming out for something different, something exciting. They found it with Final Destination.

Discarding the stalk-and-slash thrills that had enjoyed a revival in the years following the release of Scream, Final Destination centered on a group of high schoolers who end up avoiding a fatal plane crash thanks to a premonition, only to discover there is no escaping death’s plan as one by one they are offed in a variety of brilliantly inventive “accidents”.

Released in March of that year, Final Destination was a sleeper hit with word-of-mouth helping the film to clean up at the box office, earning $112 million off a $23 million budget with more than half of that coming internationally.

To date, it has spawned four sequels as well as a variety of novelisations and comic book spin-offs while a franchise reboot is also on the horizon.

Movies

The Final Destination Movies, Ranked

By Sarah Dobbs

Jeffrey Reddick has worked on several films during his career to date but he’s probably best known as the creator of Final Destination. It’s something he has come to terms with.

“It’s probably going to end up on my gravestone, it’s such an ironic title,” he tells Den of Geek.

“Sometimes I’ll be out and I will hear someone say ‘you just had a Final Destination moment’ and it will make me smile. The whole thing just took on a life of its own.”

Nightmarish Origins

A screenwriter and director, Reddick recalls how his neighbors in rural Jackson, Kentucky, would laugh when his six-year-old self would tell them about his plans to work in the movie business.

An avid writer and reader of Greek and Roman mythology, he recalls spending his formative years watching horror movies with his friends. His mother was only too happy to indulge his burgeoning interest too, knowing it kept him out of trouble elsewhere.

Reddick’s life began to change after he saw A Nightmare on Elm Street.

“That film cemented my love of horror. I was this 14-year-old hillbilly from Kentucky but I decided I was going to write a prequel. I went home, banged it out on my typewriter and sent it to Bob Shaye.”

The legendary head of New Line Cinema initially dismissed Reddick’s draft out of hand, returning it with a note explaining the studio did not “accept unsolicited material.”

Undaunted, Reddick sent the script back with a note telling him “Look mister, I spent three dollars on your movie and I think you could take five minutes on my story.”

Shaye was impressed and struck up a bond with the youngster that saw him sending everything from scripts to posters to Reddick during his teenage years.

When Reddick moved to New York to study acting, age 19, he was offered an internship with New Line, which would become a full-time role despite acting being his “main passion.”

“Diversity in casting was not a thing at that time,” he recalls.

“My agent was like ‘I don’t know what to do with you as an actor. We can’t put you up for gangsters or pimps and you don’t rap and you don’t play basketball.”

“So I figured, screw it, I will just write stuff and put myself in it.”

Reddick was present at New Line during their company’s early 90s creative heyday and credits the experience with helping him get Final Destination off the ground.

“I learned a lot about how to get a movie made. I knew that to make a movie that connected with an audience you had to tap into something that was universal. Death is the ultimate fear.”

As luck would have it, the idea actually came to Reddick while on a flight back to Kentucky.

“I read about a woman who was on vacation and her mother told her not to take the flight she was planning to take home as she had a bad feeling about it. The woman changed it and the plane she was supposed to be on crashed.”

At that point however the idea wasn’t Final Destination. It wasn’t a film either. It was an episode of The X Files.

The Truth Is Out There

“I was trying to get a TV agent at the time and they recommended I write a spec script for something already on the air. I was a huge fan of The X Files and thought about a scene where somebody has a premonition and gets off the plane and then it crashes and used that as the plot.”

“It was going to be Scully’s brother Charles who had the premonition. He gets off the plane with a few other people but they start dying and Charles blacks out every time there is a murder so people suspect he is doing it.

I Still Want to Believe: Revisiting The X-Files Pilot

By Chris Longo

“The twist at the end was that the sheriff who had been investigating alongside Mulder and Scully the whole time had actually been shot and flatlined at the same time as the plane crash. Death brought him back to kill off all the survivors, including Charles.”

It would have made for a great episode except it was never submitted to The X Files. Reddick showed his spec script to some friends at New Line who were so impressed, they told him to develop it into a treatment for a feature, which was eventually purchased by the studio.

Producers Craig Perry and Warren Zide were brought onboard to develop the story and set about tweaking his idea.

“Originally the cast of survivors were adults because I wanted to explore more adult themes but Scream had come out and teenagers were hot again so New Line got me to change it”

In a twist of fate, two established writers from The X Files, James Wong and Glen Morgan, were brought onboard to rejig Reddick’s script.

“My version was definitely darker and more like A Nightmare on Elm Street,” he says.

“In my script, death would torment the kids about some kind of past sin they felt guilty about. They would then die in these accidents that ended up looking like suicides.”

For example, Todd’s death saw him chased into the family garage by an unseen specter where he accidentally ended up rigged in a noose triggered when his dad opens the automatic garage door.

Death is all around us

Ultimately that death scene and several others were ultimately scrapped in favour of what would prove to be the franchise’s calling card.

Reddick credits Wong and Morgan with coming up with the idea of having the film’s key death scenes kicked off by a Rube Goldberg machine-like chain-reaction that would see everyday things colliding to create a lethal scenario. It was nothing short of a masterstroke.

“It created this notion that death is all around us,” Reddick says.

“Death would use everyday things around us. It made it more universal and allowed us to set the deaths in places where people go all the time. The payoff would be fun but it was the build-up that had you on the edge of your seat.”

There was one major sticking point for the studio though: the presence of death, or rather the lack of.

“I fought really hard to make sure we never showed death because for me, if you didn’t show it, it could be something someone, no matter their belief system, could project onto our villain. That was a tough sell for the studio. They would be like ‘this doesn’t make any sense, you can’t see it and you can’t fight it’ but that’s the point, it’s death.”

“Luckily both James Wong and Glen Morgan were very insistent we never show it and tie it in to a specific belief system.”

Reddick credits the move with helping Final Destination become “an international phenomenon”.

“It struck a chord with people around the world. It broke out beyond the horror audience.”

Casting dreams

When it came to casting, Reddick had a clear idea of who he wanted in the lead roles, even if the studio’s opinion differed drastically.

“I had a wish list with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst as my two leads but New Line was like ‘well…’”

He might not have got his first pick but Final Destination boasted an impressive cast of up-and-comers who had already made waves among teen audiences.

Devon Sawa had starred in Idle Hands, while Ali Larter was known for Varsity Blues and Kerr Smith was a regular on Dawson’s Creek. There was even room for Seann William Scott, fresh from his breakout turn in American Pie who was drafted in on the recommendation of producer Craig Perry, who told Reddick “you’ve got to get this kid, he’s going to be huge.”

Even so, Reddick was left a little unhappy.

“One of the conversations we had early on was like ‘Just remember this is set in New York, which is one of the most diverse cities in the world so let’s make sure we have some diversity in the cast’ and they were like ‘oh we will’ and then there wasn’t anyone who wasn’t white in it.”

New Line chief Bob Shaye did find a way to make amends on some level at least, casting Candyman horror icon Tony Todd in a cameo role as a mysteriously foreboding mortician.

“He called me up and said they had got Tony Todd and I flipped out. He is an icon. Such a talented, serious actor.”

As well as co-write the film, Wong took on directorial duties while each of the film’s death sequences would require careful planning, his first aim was to have the film start with a bang by creating as terrifyingly realistic a plane crash as possible.

“We want to do for planes and air travel what Jaws did for sharks and swimming,” he declared in one interview.

Yet the film would later garner criticism for its eerie similarities to the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 off East Moriches, Long Island, New York in 1996 where 16 students and five adults died.

“There was some criticism that the movie was written to exploit this real-life crash,” Reddick recalls.

“I even realised later they used footage from one real-life crash which I wasn’t particularly happy about.”

Indeed, much of the news footage shown in the film actually came from the 1996 crash.

That didn’t stop the film becoming a major hit and spawning a sequel within three years.

Final Destination meets Game of Thrones

Reddick returned to write the treatment for Final Destination 2, determined to move the franchise away from its teen Scream origins.

“We had tapped into that zeitgeist and didn’t have to do that again. I wanted to expand the universe and subvert it, so I had it open by following a bunch of teens who are then killed off.”

Once again, divine intervention led to divine inspiration for the opening set piece.

“Originally, I was going to have it open with some kids going to spring break and they stop off at this hotel and there is a fire but the producers were not sure. Writers always say you should go out and live life – life informs you and a lot of inspiration comes out when I go out for a walk.

“I was driving back to Kentucky to see my family and I got stuck behind a log truck and the idea just came to me. I pulled off the highway and called Craig and was flipping out with this idea for a log truck on a freeway.”

The resulting freeway pile-up that leads to multiple deaths is one Reddick ranks as his “favourite scene in the entire franchise.”

“The second film is my favourite. I wanted to create a sequel that didn’t feel like a remake of the first. It went in a more fun direction – but it’s still scary.”

That first sequel also represented the last of which Reddick was formally involved in, though he remained very much in the loop as the Godfather of the franchise, revealing that producers had been “looking at scripts before Covid hit.”

He also revealed that, at one point, things looked to be heading in an altogether different and thoroughly fascinating direction.

“There was talk about setting a Final Destination back in Medieval times. Like Game of Thrones in Final Destination. Craig Perry worked with a writer and they talked about the idea and put a teaser trailer together [which has leaked online].

“I would go and see that movie in a heartbeat but the studio said that the reason Final Destination was so popular was that element of deaths in normal, everyday situations.”

Future Destinations

Reddick hasn’t given up on a return to the franchise though, hinting at a “unique” idea he has for a new film that is simply too good to reveal yet.

In the meantime, he has been busy writing and directing Don’t Look Back, a film that shares some surface similarities with Final Destination and is painfully relevant to society today.

“It’s a mystery thriller about a group of people who witness someone getting fatally assaulted in a park and don’t help the person and somebody films them and puts it online. The public turns on the witnesses and someone or something is coming after them.”

Eager to make more horror films and celebrate diversity in his work, Reddick remains immensely proud of Final Destination and the impact it has had on audiences.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“It’s cool. To have one movie that is going to be talked about after you die is a life goal. If that’s what I leave behind as a legacy that’s enough – but I still want more.”

Don’t Look Back is available on DVD & Digital from 14th June

The post How Final Destination Went From Real-Life Premonition to Horror Phenomenon appeared first on Den of Geek.

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eldritch-elrics · 4 years ago

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i rewatched the entire ice age series and i have opinions

after rewatching some of the madagascar movies, me and @calocybe decided to embark on a quest to watch more animated series from our childhood. an obvious choice was ice age! so, i present to you: finn’s comprehensive ice age opinions masterpost.

read on for an in-depth review of each movie, my opinions on what the series does well (good animation, really fun chase scenes) and what it does not so well (manny is an awful protagonist), and some other things too (like my analysis of queerness in ice age)

first of all, a ranking of the five movies from best to worst:

ice age

dawn of the dinosaurs

collision course

the meltdown

continental drift

first movie

definitely the best

accidental baby acquisition…

it’s just a really good premise. three bros with completely different personalities are forced to work together towards a common goal that doesn’t even benefit any of them personally!

it’s silly and charming and well-written

diego’s arc is especially well-done and it’s easy to follow the way his personality and opinions change

my theory is that they made this movie because they wanted to show off how good they were at animating ice. most of the models and stuff are not very realistically rendered but the ice is honestly pretty impressive

honestly hilarious, has really good visual gags

one of my favorite parts is where they go into the ice cave and find like the ufo and stuff

also the baby does the vulcan hand sign at the ufo which was so subtle and REALLY funny

the ice slide scene. incredible

and then it transitions to the cave painting part with a fantastic depiction of manny’s backstory in a way that’s honestly heart-wrenching??

i wonder if the death of his own family is the cause of his annoying clinginess in later movies, especially with regards to peaches. unfortunately this never comes up again

there are some genuinely emotionally affecting moments in this movie, especially with the humans (when the human woman gives away her baby, when they return the baby to the group) - plus, kudos for conveying all that emotion with no dialogue

this is the only movie where manny’s emotional stuntedness is actually somewhat endearing rather than aggravating

this is also the movie with the most interesting villains - they feel like an especially relevant threat to the protags, and putting diego in with manny and sid creates both good tension and good humor

i wonder why the humans never came back. i think subsequent movies could have benefited from their presence, though i have no idea in what ways. not sure how they would’ve pulled it off but having the baby they rescued in the first movie appear as an adult in a later movie is a plot point that i think would have had the potential to be really powerful

second movie (the meltdown)

pretty underwhelming after the first movie

plot feels disjointed and the climax is weak

i feel like they were trying to go for this sort of found family vs nuclear family / reproductive futurism bent but didn’t entirely succeed and instead made the themes feel muddled. especially after the first movie which was all about rejecting heteronormative standards of family, having manny suddenly go “oop i’m the last mammoth better Reproduce” was a bit jarring

even if he isn’t actually the last mammoth, it feels like the wrong way to start a romance

in general the romance between ellie and manny isn’t very well-done in my opinion.

manny should’ve apologized for getting so offended when ellie freaked out about the pressure to save their species, but instead ellie apologized for “overreacting” for some reason???

number of biblical parallels: a surprising amount??

you’ve got. sid as a jesus figure to the sloth tribe, the ark saving them from the flood, scrat as moses??

the villains in this one were super boring they were just like… evil fish…

ok i’ve said too many mean things about this movie. to atone let me present this opinion: the scene where the vultures sing a parody of “food, glorious food” from oliver completely unprompted is one of the best moments in the series

also the possum brothers are wonderful

third movie (dawn of the dinosaurs)

this was my favorite as a kid!!

it’s still really good

it doesn’t take itself seriously and that’s wonderful. like… dinosaurs? in the ice age? objectively stupid plot. who cares

buck is the best character ever he’s so much fun

buck’s entire thing is also being a VERY cliche kooky adventurer but the way that they play with it and are self-aware about it makes it good

also i legitimately get chills at the scene where he explains his tragic backstory with rudy

god the romance with the female scrat is SO stupid but at least they’re clearly making fun of romantic tropes here

good team-building shenanigans, like the laughing gas sequence

there’s probably something to be said about the ways that family is portrayed in this movie but sorry i’m too busy looking at the scene where they get swallowed by a giant plant and buck has to like cut its veins like he’s diffusing a bomb

also i do need to mention that the scene where they find the carnage of sid’s attempt at feeding vegetables to the dino babies and buck goes off on his whole silly detective-shtick about what must’ve happened (“leaving broccoli… a vegetable!!!”) was my favorite scene in the series as a kid. it’s so wonderfully absurd!

there are a surprising amount of dick jokes in this movie? and by that i mean like 2 but. it’s really funny rewatching this and going “holy shit”

there’s also a joke about a butterfly dude that i’m pretty sure is a trans joke (“i knew that guy as a caterpillar! yknow, before he came out”) so that was also pretty funny

this movie parallels the first 2 by 1. having sid take care of kids and 2. having a group of creatures who copy all of sid’s wacky movements. i don’t have anything more to say i just think that’s funny

buck and rudy are kismeses send tweet

fourth movie (continental drift)

yeah okay this one’s the worst

it takes itself too seriously and that is its downfall

feels tonally off from the other ones

i saw this movie during the height of my hyperfixation on plate tectonics and i remember being very offended at the fact that they made such a mockery of the way it actually worked… :pensive:

(granted, poorly-done science is a cornerstone of ice age, so i can’t really say shit)

anyway this one really felt like a jumble of cliches. the enemies-to-lovers thing with diego! peaches’ teenager problems! manny’s troubles of raising a teenager! all the mean girls! evil pirates! sirens! woooo!

it just didn’t feel all that original and it didn’t play with the tropes like 3 did

what is it in this series with guys not apologizing for their sexism and then getting the girl anyway

also wow. damsels in distress much

sheera’s design is also such a generic “female animal” look

the ape dude was a boring villain and too much of the movie focused on the pirates

okay BUT the sea shanty scene slapped. had some good rhythm and clever lyrics

lewis was good and i’m glad he stayed friends with peaches

the water was well-animated! maybe they made this movie so they could show off how good they were at rendering water

the chipmunk creatures on the island are like knockoff minions/ewoks

in general this movie felt way less funny than the others. less punchy dialogue

fifth movie (collision course)

solidly in the middle of my movie ranking. not as good as 1 or 3, better than 2 and 4

this was my first time seeing this movie! which means that my view of it isn’t colored by nostalgia, and also that i have a lot more to say about it i guess

first of all it’s wild to see how much the animation has progressed… this one was so well-rendered wow

i liked this one a lot more than i expected to! it was a good time, and, like 3, didn’t take itself seriously, which is always great

the whole thing is built off a lot of bullshit science which offends my inner scifi nerd BUT i think they pulled it off quite well

the fact that they got neil degrasse tyson to do voiceovers is just so funny

they’ve firmly established by now that the ice age universe can fully ignore the laws of science when it wants to, especially with regards to scrat and his butterfly-effect influence on the world

okay buckle up because i have a lot to say about scrat actually.

scrat’s ability to influence the universe has been steadily increasing as the series goes on, so it made sense that he would be the catalyst for the apocalypse in this one

and also the catalyst for the creation of the solar system i guess?? which was very stupid. i say that in an endearing way. that beginning scene was super fun & wacky

absolutely brilliant way to bring the ufo from movie 1 back btw

ok so the prophecy tablet thing that buck brings back? he finds it by pressing a button with the outline of an acorn on it and that’s very interesting to me

at that point in the movie i was really invested because i thought that scrat and the protagonists were finally going to be forced to confront each other on the same level. the idea that ice age might finally break its unwritten rule of “the protags can never know scrat as the force of global change that he really is” was legitimately exciting to me, and it seemed appropriate for the last movie in the franchise

unfortunately this did not happen. scrat just keeps doing his silly scrat shenanigans

um anyway let’s talk about some of the other characters!

manny continues to suck. more on this in the “low points as a franchise” section

peaches was actually really good in this one! she’s grown out of her “teenage stereotype” phase and into a character with a believable narrative about growing up and moving out.

her boyfriend is adorable and i was surprised to discover i actually liked their relationship!

sid did not need to be paired off though. neither did diego. what is up with kids’ movies and their shallow heterosexual romances

buck is back and he is fruitier than ever

man i really like buck. he’s so silly and irreverent and flamboyant and it’s like kind of embarrassing to watch sometimes but it’s ok he’s just doing his own thing

the villains were pretty good in this one. i liked how the female dino didn’t have a stereotypically feminine design

on an entirely different topic: let’s talk about the aesthetic direction!

the scifi thing was super fun. like, absolutely wild for a series about the ice age, but whatever. i like scifi

like the whole superpower magnetism shit, especially the scene in the forest? great! especially reminiscent of the climax of the guardians of ga’hoole movie

however the whole dive into the crystal cave environment was a lil tonally dissonant and i think it should have been cut (introduced an entire new world/characters way too late in the plot and didn’t have time to develop them enough, went too far down the rabbit hole of magic healing crystals jokes and all that stuff which didn’t seem to relate to the rest of the story at all, introduced a fun but unnecessary girlfriend for sid, the time could have been better spent making fun of more scifi tropes and developing the villains)

brooke the sloth girl is just miranda from the tempest change my mind also that climax is on a similar level of stupid as that one episode from hoshi no kaabii where they deflect an an entire asteroid using uhhhh cannons i think

but it’s like. whatever. they’ve fucked around with science enough that they deserve this

also i just realized there were no chase scenes in this movie which is so sad??

so there are my thoughts on the individual movies. let’s talk about it as a whole!

high points as a franchise

this series consistently has VERY good chase scenes

just top-tier chase scenes with excellent comedic timing and general pacing

3 is so good because it has a chase as the climax, and that’s what ice age is good at

4 is bad because it doesn’t have a proper chase anywhere!

the animation is really good. by that i mean less like the models are realistic and more that they’re great at conveying emotion and body language through animation

like this is especially true in 1 if you look at the difference between the sort of smooth, not very realistic animation of the humans vs… scrat

like they’ve got the way scrat moves down so well it’s delightful

the movies are, generally, funny

there are good messages about found family, especially in the first couple

low points as a franchise

alright i had a bunch of these written out as universal truths about the series and then 5 actually improved on many of them! so here are some criticisms that apply to the first four movies only:

just… every single female character? they deserve better

too many damsels in distress

all the fat jokes about manny are so unnecessary

the romances are really boring and not very well-written or believable

okay with those out of the way here’s the real biggest issue with the series: manny is an awful protagonist

heterosexual “no fun allowed” man

they keep him sucky so he can have a fresh new character flaw to be worked on in the next movie but that seems like a bad formula for character development, especially how many of his character flaws seem to be related to mistreating the women in his life

the man’s got a major possessiveness issue

he is just the archetypical slightly shitty husband/dad who forgets the anniversary and doesn’t let his daughter see boys and calls women hysterical and yes he does get better at each of the individual problems and he does love his family but that development feels so shallow!

manny is absolutely making AITA posts and getting labeled the asshole

it also feels like he never truly learns from his mistakes. he needs to be learning to apologize properly and most importantly to communicate properly! there’s so little emotional reality to his development and the script always seems to give him the benefit of the doubt when he doesn’t deserve it.

plus, this series is meant for kids and i just don’t think manny is an appropriate or relatable protagonist for that audience?

on a mostly unrelated note, yes i do like the found family themes but when it starts pairing up every single character and implying that all of them are gonna be monogamous het couples and have kids and conform to the nuclear family model. that’s pretty sad

some more random thoughts

my dad once said that ice age fails as a franchise because the premise of the first movie was not strong enough to support sequels. i think i kind of agree - you can see in 2 they’re trying to worldbuild off what little they established in the first movie, and also set up a bigger cast of characters, while still keeping up the “man vs nature” theme that’s such a cornerstone of the series.

i’m not sure they completely succeed. the worldbuilding of ice age isn’t necessarily weak but i do think they could have done more to round out the world and make it feel less like just a prehistoric clone of ours

there’s something about the first movie that makes it feel like a moment suspended in time. we don’t learn very much about the pasts of the characters and they get enough development in one movie that we (or at least i) don’t feel any desperate need to know their futures. it feels complete!

so in all the other movies are working with a set of characters who have ostensibly completed their development. so in each new movie, they need to give the characters more problems. usually this comes from external factors, like new characters. a couple times they do a pretty good job introducing new internal problems for the characters - diego’s quest to get over his fear of water was a pretty good one i thought.

but after a while the main trio just stagnates. diego, once the most compelling character, becomes pretty boring. he doesn’t have anything to do anymore. i’ve already talked about manny - each movie he reverts back into an asshole and it gets old so fast. sid’s a little better; he’s got issues with his family and a desire for a family of his own and all that, but more often than not the conclusions to his arcs are unsatisfying

sid plays the role of the character who’s doomed to never get exactly what he wants, except, like, in a way that’s supposed to be funny. we pity him!

i think he has some archetype parallels with escargon from hoshi no kaabii (why do i keep mentioning hoshi no kaabii) but i am not going into that here oh boy

i feel like i’m juggling a lot in my head right now, but sid’s position as the comedic scapegoat is interesting. i’m sure there’s more to unpack here but i’ve already gone way too deep into this series

there’s also more to unpack when you consider his queercoding hmm

anyway, on that note…

additional thesis: sid the sloth is queer-coded

complicated relationship with family (they hate him and think he’s useless)

lispy voice

cares about “fem” things like children. takes care of kids in both movies 1 and 3. calls himself “mama”

gets pushed into the role of caring for the kid in 1

makes vaguely gay comments at his male friends, like “you have beautiful eyes” to manny

there are literally so many jokes in the first movie like. diego’s “you guys are an odd couple” to manny and sid

that whole part in 4 where he’s trying to kiss the sirens and kisses diego instead and is like “wow romantic”

not interested in the idea of a nuclear/traditional family. see his shenanigans with the dino babies

he is interested in women throughout the series though (bi rights)

5 especially tunes down the queercoding and tunes up the “awkward guy who can’t get girls” angle

so. ice age. is it fun? yes! i definitely enjoyed rewatching the series with my friend. and kids will probably get a kick out of the slapstick and silly dialogue. but if you’re not a kid and looking to (re)watch any of them, i’d probably just stick to the first one.

#ice age #movies #analysis #my post #long post #please clap this is 3k words #i sure do love overanalyzing media that isn't that deep LMAO

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daleisgreat · 3 years ago

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Speed

youtube

Today’s entry will mark the first official 4K home video release I am writing about. I already own a few other 4K UHDs, and a couple of months ago, I watched my first 4K video at home with 2001’s The Fast and the Furious. However, I already covered that movie’s BluRay release here several years ago, so I will not be dedicating another entry for it, other than to say that the 4K upgrade pops and makes it look like a new release. Today’s entry is for 1994’s Speed (trailer). Before diving into this movie, I noticed one of the tracks from this film’s score repeatedly used throughout sounds awfully like one of the main themes I primarily associated with the Metal Gear Solid franchise. I have no idea if this was pointed out before, and I just overlooked it all these years, or maybe I am grasping at straws. Click or press here to take a listen and decide for yourself. 1994 was a hell of a year for Hollywood movies primarily transpiring from a highway with The Chase, Speed, and the OJ Simpson Bronco chase….oh wait (although I highly recommend the ESPN 30 for 30 on it, simply titled: June 17th 1994). The majority of Speed has a straightforward premise: serial bomber and local madman Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper) planted a bomb on a bus rigged to explode once the bus drops below 55 miles per hour. Police officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) is alerted to this by the bomber himself to exact revenge on Traven after successfully rescuing hostages from an elevator Payne armed at the beginning of the film.

From there, for the middle hour of this nearly two-hour film, the action almost entirely takes place on the bus. Traven makes a grand entrance onto the bus by commandeering a Jaguar and having its owner (Glenn Plummer) take the wheel so Traven could heroically leap onto the bus and save the day. It would not be that easy of a rescue mission as Payne has eyes on the bus, and Traven has to play by his rules and get him his $3 million ransom to disarm the bus. Without question, the middle hour on the bus is the best part of the film. The opening half-hour is an excellent appetizer with the elevator hostage crisis that Traven and his partner, Harry (Jeff Daniels), successfully foil. However, once the action shifts to the bus is when Speed takes off. Shortly after taking control of the bus, one of the passengers freaks and inadvertently shoots the bus driver, and a fellow passenger, Annie (Sandra Bullock), takes over the wheel. Throughout the film, Annie and Traven have wonderful chemistry, and I could not help but root for the duo throughout. Every couple of minutes, there is a new potential conflict to overcome to keep the bus going over 55mph. The film wisely peppers in brief dialog exchanges to let the movie breathe just enough before the next hurdle makes itself present.

The film's standout moment is the major obstacle for the bus to overcome when it encounters a stretch of unavoidable highway under construction and missing a hearty chunk of the road. Traven’s solution is that since that stretch of a road is on an incline, they may clear that gap if they build up enough speed! That epic stunt hits all the right notes, and I got goosebumps all over again re-watching it, and odds are, I bet you did too if you have seen this movie. If you have not, then watch this scene and see for yourself by click or pressing here. A lot of the critical discussion in the aftermath of this movie was if that jump was realistically possible. The best thing I can do is to compare it to another film, Road Trip, which is likely a better indicator of what could happen when attempting such a feat. Once the middle bus portion of the film is over, there are still about 20 minutes left where Traven tracks and chases down Payne in a subway station. The movie felt over once the bus portion had such a satisfying conclusion that it almost feels wrong to keep sticking with the film by this point, but I recommend you do since there is a satisfying payoff in the form of Payne’s demise. I have to share a story now when I first saw this film at around 13 or 14 on VHS. My dad’s VCR had what seemed to me at the time was a revolutionary feature where if I kept pressing the pause button repeatedly, it would slowly, frame-by-frame, play the film in super slow-motion. At that age, I thought this was a fantastic way to get the most out of the biggest stunts in action scenes. My favorite moment exploiting this feature was seeing Traven and Payne wrestle around on the top of a subway train until Payne was not watching his field of vision, and a warning light lead to his sudden beheading. I slow-motion replayed that sequence countless times in my awkward, early teenage years. Suffice it to say, Hopper plays the out-of-his-mind bomber perfectly, going so far as to make sure he receives his appropriate cinematic comeuppance.

The director ensures the many passengers on the bus maximized their minutes to the point I where it feels like you are right there with them!

Two audio commentaries are the only extra features of the 4K disc in this 4K/BluRay combo pack. One is with the director, Jan de Bont, and the other is with producer Mark Gordon and writer Graham Yost. Props are to whoever decided to subtitle the commentary tracks. I very much appreciate it! I first started to bounce back and forth between the two commentary tracks, but Bont was way too relaxed and had too many pauses to hold my attention, and I finished up with his track within five minutes. However, Yost and Gordon are very much engaged from beginning to end and have fun cracking jokes and sharing memories throughout. Some quick takeaways I got from them were how they wanted to film a major scene outside of a sports arena, dealing with critics poking holes at how unrealistic their stunts were, and how watching the movie felt very different at the time of the commentary recording just two months after 9/11. The BluRay disc contains the remainder of the bonus features. Inside Speed is a four-part feature lasting just under an hour breaking down the visual effects, stunts, and location sequences, but half of it also contains an HBO First Look special hosted by Dennis Hopper that hits all the right kinds of cheesy mid-90s EPK nostalgia that it is worth checking out. Aside from 12 minutes of extended scenes and a Billy Idol music video that seems totally off base with the tempo of the film, there are a couple of Action Sequences mini-features breaking down some of the stunts. I highly recommend watching the one dissecting how they did the bus jump, as it shows raw footage of what really happened when they shot it, and showed footage of some of the specific safety measures they instilled to make that stunt as safe as possible and had some eye-opening interviews with the stunt driver before and after.

After watching that old VHS copy nearly a dozen times, Speed wound up being one of my favorite action films I got burnt out early on and never bothered upgrading to a DVD or standalone BluRay. Watching it again in 4K all these years later breathed new life into it for me. I am not an expert at breaking down video quality by any means, but watching the 4K disc on my 4KTV gave the impression of this having far more current production values. The editors somehow managed to remove all the old film grain defects for a smooth 4K upgrade. If you have not seen Speed yet, then it has everything you could want out of a mid-90s action movie with explosions, gripping thrills and stunts, dramatic rescues, plenty of zinger one-liners…..and a Billy Idol theme song. Pardon me while I attempt my best Dennis Hopper impression here, “Pop quiz, hotshot, which 1994 blockbuster that takes place primarily on a bus is a perfect candidate for beer and popcorn movie night at home?” Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Endgame The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve The Clapper Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dirty Work Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Inglourious Basterds Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Justice League (2017 Whedon Cut) Last Action Hero Major League Mallrats Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Nintendo Quest Not for Resale Old Joy Payback (Director’s Cut) Pulp Fiction The Punisher (1989) The Ref The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Pilgrim vs the World The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT Trauma Center The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

#random movie #speed #keanu reeves #Sandra Bullock #jeff daniels #dennis hopper #glenn plummer #jan de bont

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