#don’t watch again

[yippeecheapdvds]

Last night I watched “Orion and the Dark” (2024) Comedy/Adventure

My mom didn’t wanna watch “World Trade Center”, the movie I was planning to watch, so we saw this instead. And… i didn’t really like it. Part of the problem is that I’m absolutely not in the target demographic, but the main issue for me is the weird framing device. I didn’t expect it going in, and I liked it less and less as the movie went on. The story felt like it was made up as it went along, which I know was intentional but I didn’t like it. There were things I liked, like the design of all the night entities, and the visuals at the beginning were nice. It’s in no way a bad movie, I just didn’t enjoy it.

Mixed feelings 5/10

[wormzandgutz]

bros

[spitedemon]

i really don’t think it’s “typical dragon age fandom nonsense” for people to be genuinely upset about the world state choices. combat, level design, art direction, gameplay gimmicks, those have all varied across each dragon age game. the one thing that’s remained constant are nods to our previous choices.

i wasn’t expecting my HoF to come riding in on a griffon, but i can’t find a monument dedicated to warden tabris somewhere around the anderfels? lucanis couldn’t have some lines about the time that one arainai boy was stirring up trouble in antiva city? you’re gonna tell me that making a mage the new divine wouldn’t have some impact on nevarra and antiva? on the anderfels, the supposed most devout militant andrastian nation in thedas? you’re saying nobody in the north is paying attention to who rules orlais or ferelden? come on.

[cranberrymoons]

season one eddie diaz who we never really get to meet, you are so near and dear to me too. you are a half latino army veteran from a west texas border town who grew up catholic and closeted and parentified because your father was away and your mother was your mother and you didn’t know how to say no to her. you joined the military in the final days of don’t ask don’t tell after becoming an accidental teen father, and then you were shot in the desert on a different continent in the middle of the night, and when you got home with your arm in a sling after seeing a man die, everyone wanted you to be a hero, but you couldn’t make yourself feel like one because that wasn’t ever what you went looking for. and now you’re home and your mother is still your mother except she also thinks she is your son’s mother, and your son’s actual mother who is your wife but was your best friend and now feels like neither, she is saying she can’t do this. she can’t do this anymore, and you are so scared and so shaken and your brain feels like it’s going to explode because all you want is some space to breathe and figure things out but you can’t have that space because you are a husband and a father and a son, and you are still closeted and catholic in your west texas border town, and then your wife leaves, and you’re working three jobs, and you’re barely making ends meet and you feel like your life is spinning out because you don’t have any structure and you start to realize that you barely know your dad, but your mother is still your mother and she wants to take your son, and well. that’s all you have. your son and your brain full of trauma and your combat medic skills and the fact that you can do this. okay? you can do this, and you are going to do this, because there’s a whole life out there on the coast just waiting for you to go build it. okay? you are my best friend. you can do this.

[pixelaves]

hey guys it’s me, your uncle who works at fairly oddparents. quick take these very real season 2 leaks before they find m

[theanonymousninja247]

The Wild Robot

My Response After Watching it

Y’all. I believe in humanity again if THAT is what people can create. What a story. WHAT. A. Story.

Please. Please. PLEASE. Take the time to watch it. It is BEYOND worth it.

[bmgmw]

The trigger warnings still did not prepare me for how much this show wrecked me 🥲

[secretmellowblog]

The thing is, Jean Valjean’s “nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread” from Les Mis isn’t actually unusual….not even today! I see people talking about it as if it’s strange or unimaginable when it happens every day.

In modern America — often as a result of pointlessly cruel (and racist) habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws— people are routinely sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes like shoplifting or possession of drugs.

The ACLU did a report in 2013 detailing the lives of various people who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonviolent property crimes like:

•attempting to cash a stolen check

•a junk-dealer’s possession of stolen junk

metal (10 valves and one elbow pipe)

•possession of stolen wrenches

•siphoning gasoline from a truck

•stealing tools from a tool shed and a welding machine from a yard

•shoplifting three belts from a department store

•shoplifting several digital cameras

•shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

• taking a television, circular saw, and a power converter from a vacant house

• breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night

And of course, so so so many people sentenced to life without parole for the possession of a few grams of drugs.

And we could go on and on!

Gregory Taylor was a homeless man in Los Angeles who, in 1997, was sentenced to “25 years to life” for attempting to steal food from a food kitchen. He was released after 13 years. The lawyers helping to release him even cited Les Miserables in their appeal, comparing Taylor’s sentence to Jean Valjean’s.

And there’s another specific bit of social commentary Hugo was making about Valjean’s trial that’s still depressingly relevant. He writes that Valjean was sentenced for the theft of loaf of bread, but also that the court managed to make that sentence stick by bringing up some of his past misdemeanors. For example, Valjean owned a gun and was known to occasionally poach wildlife (presumably for his starving family to eat.) . So the court exaggerates how harmful the bread theft was—he had to smash a windowpane to get the bread, which is basically Violence— then insist the fact that he owns a gun and occasionally poaches is proof that he is habitually and innately violent. Then when Valjean obviously becomes distressed traumatized and furious as a result of his nakedly unjust sentence and begins making desperate (and very unsuccessful/impulsive/ poorly thought through) attempts to escape…. the government indifferently tacks more years onto his sentence, labels him a “dangerous” felon, and insists that its initial read of him as an innately violent person was correct.

And it’s sad how a lot of the real life stories linked earlier are similar to the commentary Hugo wrote in 1863? Someone will commit a nonviolent property crime, and then the court insists that a bunch of other miscellaneous things they’ve done in the past (whether it’s other minor thefts or being addicted to drugs or w/e) are Proof they’re inherently violent and incapable of being around other people.

A small very petty fandom side note: This is also why I dislike all those common jokes you see everywhere along the lines of “lol it’s so unrealistic for the police to want to arrest Valjean over a loaf of bread, there must have been some other reason the police were pursuing him. Because the state would never punish someone that harshly and irrationally for no reason. so maybe javert was just gay haha”. (Ex: this tiktok— please don’t harass the creator or poster though, I don’t think they were intending to mean anything like that and its just a silly common type of joke you see made about Les mis all the time so it’s not unique in any way.) because like.

As much as I don’t think Les Mis is a flawless book or that its political messaging is perfect….the only way that insanely long unjust sentences for minor crimes is “unrealistic” is if you’re operating on the assumption that prisons are here to Keep You Safe by always only punishing bad criminals who do serious crimes. And that’s just, not true at all. Like I get that these are just goofy silly shallow jokes, and I’m not angry or going to harass anyone who makes them. but it feels like there’s an assumption underlying all those goofy jokes that “this is just not how prison works!” “Prisons don’t routinely sentence people to absurd laughably unjust pointless sentences!” “Prisons give people fair sentences for logical reasons!” When like…no

Valjean being relentlessly hounded and tortured for a minor crime in a way that is utterly ridiculous and arbitrary in its cruelty is not actually a plot hole in Les mis. It’s a plot hole in …..society ajsjkdkdkf. And the only way to fix that is to fight for prison abolition or at least reform, and (in America) stand up against the vicious naked cruelty of habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws.

But yeah :(. I hate how Les Mis opens with a prologue saying the novel will be obsolete the moment the social issues it describes have been resolved— but two hundred years later, the book is still more relevant than ever because we’re dealing with so many of the exact same injustices.

[aulerean]

Underrated Pearl moment 2/2

[izzystizzys]

TW: discussion of something approximating suicidal tendencies but with the usual crack programming of this blog

“Ah, High General Windu”, says Fox, pleasantly. “So we meet again.”

High General Windu raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, Fox thinks, though it’s getting hard to tell with all the blood rushing to his head. “If I let you go, will you try to throw yourself out of another window?”

Fox makes a vague shrugging motion - or tries to, anyways. It’s hard to tell where any of his limbs are going, hanging upside down in the air as he is. “I am willing to discuss terms.” A bridge will do just fine.

Impossibly, the High General’s eyebrows climb even further up his forehead. “A compromise, then, esteemed Commander.” And so, he righths Fox the head way up in the air, but leaves him floating just above the ground, at which point several painted shells come skidding around the corner followed by billowing robes and screeches.

“WHAT”, says Kote, calmly, “THE BANTHA-KARKED, FORCE-LOVING KRIFF, FOX.”

“You’ll short out your helmet mic”, Fox advises him, sagely. Fondly, he thinks back to decimating his own on only his second time in the newly-christened official Coruscant Guard Scream Closet. He’d just received the comm about the Zillo Beast being transported to 000, and made sure to take his bucket off thereafter to improve the quality of his closet time.

High General Windu’s face does something complicated between sympathy and constipation.

Because the Galaxy doesn’t hate Fox enough already and Cody wasn’t enough on his own, Wolffe elbows his way through their batch to plant himself in front of him, shoulders squared and shaking with repressed rage. “If you try that again, dickhead”, he begins, in a low growl that quite frankly sounds more cringe that intimidating, “I’m going to resurrect you and then kill you again.”

“Ah, Wolffe”, Plo Koon says, in his deep, shivery timbre, “Remember our conversations about effective conflict resolution and communication of needs?”

Wolffe’s eyes narrow at Fox, because all non-Guard are sweet summer children who walk around buckets off on 000 like absolute lunatics. Fox prays they never have to find out why that’s a bad idea. “I feel”, his ori’vod presses out between clenched teeth, “that if you make me watch you throw yourself out of another window, I’m going to jump after you and strangle you on the way down, you little bitch.”

“That’s fair”, says Fox, and watches High General Kenobi bury his face in his hands. Wolffe twitches in place and makes an aborted groaning noise, the hypocrite.

“Excuse me, High Marshall Commander Fox, but I fail to see what’s so dire about this situation that the Jedi High Council and your brothers cannot help you solve”, says Windu, the only sane one left on this Force-forsaken bloated corpse of a planet. Behind the gaggle of Jedi and ori’vode already gathered in front of Fox, the rest of them come veering around the corner in a commotion that’s quite frankly embarrassing. High General Yoda is mounted on Skywalker’s back like he’s a race-Eopie, which is Fox’ only consolation.

He got up this morning at 0300, bleary-eyed and with a pounding headache as always, and all was right in the world. And then Fox got called into the Jedi High Council’s chambers and was ceremoniously informed that in the wake of Chancellor Palpatine’s unfortunate demise (hah), and through the emergency state of the Senate, as well as several invented promotions foisted on Fox to make the delegation of any and all paperwork less shady, he was now next in the chain of command and-

Well, Fox is the acting Chancellor, in short.

Haha, he had said, and been meet with several seconds of silence, until it got both awkward and exceedingly painful. Wait, he’d said. You’re kriffing serious.

Kriffing serious, we are, had said High General Yoda, and thus Fox launched himself out the first best window with a maniacal cackle of, you’ll have to catch me first!

And catch him, High General Windu sure did.

“The will of the Force this is”, Yoda interrupts Fox’ train of thought. He scans him thoughtfully from beneath his wizened brow, and hems to himself. “Shake things up, this will. Determine the fate of the Galaxy, this shall. A feeling, I have, that a good Chancellor you will make. A better one, hmmm.”

“That’d be high praise, if not for the fact that a dead lemming would make for a better Chancellor than the last one”, says Fox, drawing and indignant gasp from Skywalker. He doesn’t bother with either that or the green goblin’s cackle, lost in the deep sense of resignation that settles over his shoulders like a suffocating blanket.

“Alright, then, get me Thorn on the comm. As my first act in office, I’m firing all the Jedi. No offense, but you’re kind of a disaster. Then, someone get me to the Chancellor’s office, I’m calling Dooku to let him know the war’s off. And please get me Judicial, they’ll be up all night working on my datafolders - I’m having the Senate arrested.”

“Who - is - arresting - “, Bly pants, hands on his knees from where he’s just come sprinting around the corner with his Jedi.

Underneath his bucket, Fox smiles a smile that’s all teeth. “The Senate”, he says, sweetly, wondering if he’s just imagined the shiver that’s gone through the room. “I’m suing the Senate, and taking them all into temporary custody for abuse of sentient rights.”

[yippeecheapdvds]

Last week I watched “Pineapple Express” (2008) Comedy/Action

Another pull from the bargin bin. Two incompetent dudes on weed have to escape from some gangsters (who are also incompetent) after they witness a murder. Hijinks ensure. I watched the theatrical cut.

I didn’t care for this. I didn’t find it that funny. It was ok until the barn fight started, then I lost interest and was just waiting for it to be over. I liked some bits, but on the whole it was eh.

4/10 not keeping the dvd

[lorephobic]

“the class commentary in saltburn was shit” WHAT CLASS COMMENTARY???? NOT EVERY MOVIE WITH RICH PEOPLE HAS TO OR SHOULD HAVE CLASS COMMENTARY. EMERALD FENNELL KNOWS VERY WELL THAT SHE IS NOT THE RIGHT DIRECTOR FOR A MOVIE ABOUT CLASS COMMENTARY WHICH IS WHY SHE DID NOT WRITE A MOVIE ABOUT CLASS COMMENTARY.

[randomalistic]

Wait you guys are actually buying Disney products I thought it was a joke

(READ TAGS FOR FULL CONTEXT Sorry it’s long dies

[wishchip106]

crazy this guy can kill anyone with a thought

he’s just a silly billy

he don’t need to mind control me to do anything sign me up to be a child soldier get me in the field

[nellasbookplanet]

The fandom god discussion is interesting, but I feel it’s sometimes hindered by an unwillingness to separate gods from mortal society, or even a sort of over-eagerness to project our own reality onto them, which simply doesn’t work. I've seen the gods referred to as rulers or tyrants demanding worship (which I kinda understand because it’s something Ludinus says in-game, though it’s funny to see fandom corners confidently repeat the inaccurate talking points of the antagonist) but more interestingly I've also seen them referred to as a higher/the highest social class, as colonizers imposing themselves on mortals, the raven queen specifically as new money. Overall these comparisons tend to talk about the gods and their actions regarding Aeor in the past and predathos/the Vanguard in the present less as if they're about saving their own lives and more as if they want to preserve their powerful position.

The gods, by their very nature, are above mortals. They cannot be compared to any mortal ruling class because they didn’t choose or strive for that power and cannot feasibly get rid of it/step down/redistribute it (nor do they actually in any sense rule; killing the raven queen, unlike killing an actual queen, will not end the 'tyranny' of death), they simply have it by virtue of being gods. Saying that’s unfair or unequal and that the gods should be killed because of it is akin to saying it’s unfair a mountain is bigger than you and demanding it be levelled, except the gods, unlike mountains, are living, feeling beings who shouldn’t have to die because some people can’t stand the idea of not always being top dog. Thing is, the gods themselves ultimately understood this power imballance and that they can't help but hurt Exandria the way humans can't help but step on bugs, and thus removed themselves from the equation by creating the divine gate. Saying this isn’t enough and that they're clinging to power is just demanding they line themselves up to be killed.

[pearlsdiamondsandvodka]

the sandra lynn / fig conversation is driving me Insane. fig saying that sometimes she doesn’t wanna exist as herself at all…not wanting to ask her friends how they see her (because she’s afraid to hear their response) saying that to someone she is a monster and she Cannot stop thinking about it. sandra lynn starting the conversation saying she needs to step up but is also simultaneously taken aback about what fig expresses and doesn’t know how to responds to it and suggests getting ice cream. sandra lynn saying “convincing people they deserve good things is really tough” talking about herself but how it also reflects fig. insane!!