#i feel bad for it doing so poorly in the box office

[the-californicationist]

he opens the mail

Captain Price opens a package, thinking it’s intel, but it’s a sex pollen. The only cure? Your pussy, apparently.

Warning: sex pollen tropes, extremely dubious consent, attempt at satire?, angry john price

“We’re never going to make this deadline. Laswell’s gonna kill me,” you complained, burying your head in the pile of envelopes and packages strewn over your desk. 

“Did this to yourself, lass. Shoulda been keepin’ up with intel duty. Wee bit at a time, ‘s what I say,” Soap patted you on the shoulder, feigning pity. 

You spent hours combing through the documents, and by the time everyone had gone to bed, your fingers were covered in paper cuts, and your vision was blurry from squinting at the poorly scrawled Cyrillic words. 

You thought you were alone, and as you stood up to stretch and refill your coffee mug, Captain Price opened up the office door, scaring you half to death. 

“Oh, hey Corporal,” he smiled and then furrowed his brow, “What are you still doing here?”

You sighed, pointing to the piles of documents,

“Laswell’s intel backlog. I’m the only one with a Level 3 linguistics cert for Russian, so here I am. Gonna be an all-nighter.”

He closed the door and sat down across from your seat, digging into the pile, 

“I’m Level 3. Let’s finish it.”

“Captain, you don’t have to do that. I’m sure you’ve got more important things…”

Price shook his head, taking off his hat and hanging it on the chair back,

“Nah, tha’s alright, love. I’ll help ya. Get us a tea, yeah?”

You knew how he took his tea, and you hated that you did. Secretly, you were obsessed with him. He was always around, smelling like balsam wood and tobacco, looking like a gladiator, huge and capable in the most masculine way. It was hard to concentrate when he was nearby. Now that he had offered to help, you had to grin and bear it. 

You worked together for a while, chatting, even laughing. It was nice. You had so much in common, the conversation flowed easily, and you found yourself much more at ease. Finally, three packages remained. You opened the first one and found little more than phone records for a local library. Unhelpful to say the least. Price opened a water bill, and he recognized the address of a recent Konni base location. Any intel at this point felt like a celebration. Then, the final box. 

“Go on then. Show us the ending,” he smiled, handing it to you. 

“Couldn’t take the joy of ripping up the last letter, Captain. Be my guest,” you smiled. 

He chuckled, tearing into the envelope. In a flash, bright pink powder sprayed him directly in the eyes, and he writhed in pain, pinching them shut, his whole body going stiff. 

“Fuck me!” He shouted. 

“Hang on,” you ran over to the sink in the kitchenette, “Here’s some water. Get that shit out of your eyes.”

“Don’t,” he moved away from you like you were on fire, “Don’t touch me. Might be contagious.”

Your chest was rising and falling with your labored breathing, and you were immediately worried. You reached for your phone and called Laswell.

“Laswell, Price got anthraxed by one of the intel letters. What do you want us to do?”

She gasped, 

“What? Shit. I’m on my way.”

She hung up on you. You watched Price slowly try to open his eyes. They were stained hot pink from the powder. 

“You alright?” You asked him. 

“Yeah, love,” he sighed, “Doesn’t hurt anymore. Feeling strange though. Laswell said she’s coming?”

You nodded,

“Yeah, just in case.”

He nodded, running his hand along the inside of his collar. The captain was sweaty and a little pale. 

“Captain, are you okay?”

“Mmm, no,” he shook his head, “Something’s not right, love.”

He stood and went to the sink, washing as much of the powder off as he could. You moved away from him and stationed yourself across the room, praying for Laswell to hurry. 

Price was in a bad way. He took off his shirt, and he was still dripping with beads of sweat. You tried not to stare, but his temperature wasn’t the only thing heating up. His huge cock was making a prominent tent in his pants, but he was in too much pain to bother hiding it. You felt yourself blushing, and you willed yourself to pull it together. 

“…fuckin’ hell,” his hand went to his crotch to squeeze his length, trying to find some relief, “Sorry, love.”

“It’s okay,” you said politely, trying to breathe normally, but feeling the slick rush melt between your legs. 

“It’s makin’ me…feel…bloody hell. I can’t hold it off. Can…can you…? No! No, what the fuck am I sayin’? No,” he shook his head, rubbing his hands down his face, hot and very bothered. 

You inched closer to him,

“If I haven’t been affected yet, I’m sure it’s okay. How should I help you?”

“No! No, stay back. I’m not…I can’t think straight. My mind’s got one thing on it,” he shoved his hands beyond his zipper and began to jerk himself off, his dick making lurid noises with his hand. 

You hated seeing him so helpless. You moved to his side,

“Cap, it’s okay. Let me help you.”

His hand was around your throat in milliseconds. Price shoved you against the wall and began to kiss your mouth, furiously laving his tongue against yours. 

“No, no, no,” he whispered through his kisses, not bothering to pull away as he spoke his lamentations. 

You made the mistake of putting your hands on his chest to steady yourself. He moaned, trembling beneath your touch,

“Ahh, careful.”

“Sorry,” you pulled your hands away, still trapped in his firm grip around your neck, “did I hurt you?”

“No, doesn’t hurt.”

He said it in a way that darkly implied your touch was igniting a different kind of fire. You put your hands back where they were, and his eyes shot open, piercing through yours with a lustful rage. Unexpectedly, he ripped off your shirt and lay you down on the black leather couch in the corner of the office. He crushed you with his weight, kissing you deeply. 

Then, your phone rang. He didn’t allow you to pause, so it went to voicemail. It rang again. You were getting just as hot as he was, and you weren’t that interested in who was looking for you in the middle of the night. Until, however, the door to the office burst wide open and Laswell and Gaz burst through it. 

Price snarled. You’d never heard a man make that noise before. Laswell put her hands on her hips while Gaz tried to shield his face in shock. Laswell rubbed her forehead, frustrated,

“Are his eyes pink, Corporal?”

You escaped his jaws for a moment, 

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s a sex drug. Forces the user to fornicate as it is only passed through the body in seminal fluid, dissolving in the heat of another person’s body. Are you volunteering here? What happened?”

Her tone was so matter of fact, it was a little humorous, if Price’s length wasn’t rutting against you in earnest, you might've laughed. You tried to explain as much as he would allow,

“Got too close… just… happened. How…” you moaned as Price pulled down the strap of your bra and helped himself to your nipple, “How did you know?”

She sighed, typing something into her datapad,

“Checked the incident log from this afternoon. Four more cases of this have popped up in intel collections. Gonna have to screen for it next time.”

She turned to walk out of the office with Gaz, and you called after her,

“Hey, wait! How long does it - oh, fuck… how long does it last?”

Laswell had the audacity to smirk at you, raising her eyebrows and cutting her eyes at Price’s swollen cock, lolling out of his pants, scraping itself against you. 

“Eight hours. Looks like you’re in for a rough night, Corporal. Maybe next time you’ll be more careful.”

Part 2

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | August 12th-18th 2024

Little bit late, but I hope you enjoy it!

Complete

Right Here, Right Meow by carpediaz/ @sofa-king-lame (Getting Together | 1,7K | General): The one where Buck gets a cat and ropes Eddie into looking after her. Not that Eddie needs much convincing, he'd do pretty much anything for Buck at this point.

plugged in by PretentiousSwanQueen/ @hotcinnamonsunset (Secret Buddie, PWP | 2,5K | Explicit): or: Buck and Eddie are secretly together and grabbing drinks with the team and decide to have a little fun with butt plugs along the way.

prove it by PretentiousSwanQueen/ @hotcinnamonsunset (Getting Together, Post-S7 | 3K | Explicit): or: when enough is enough, Eddie and Buck watch When Harry Met Sally because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. And you know. Blow jobs to follow.

🔥 Perfect Fit by Inell/ @inell (Post-S7, Friends to Fiances | 3K | Teen): Buck drops by to talk to Eddie after his break up with Tommy ends up with an unexpected offer. Eddie realizes that it’s time for him to finally make his move before it’s too late.

First Date Nerves by Inell/ @inell (First Date, PWP | 5K | Explicit): Buck and Eddie are on their first date, both nervous about taking their friendship to the next level. Neither one wants the date to end, though, so they continue it at Eddie’s house.

the cost of doing business by PretentiousSwanQueen/ @hotcinnamonsunset (Ravi POV, Secret Buddie | 5K | Teen): It happens like this: he had been this close! like, minutes away from printing out a new tenant lease! when the prospective renter in question calls the leasing office and mentions that she won’t be needing the 1 bed, 1 bath walk up in Faircrest Heights any more because she snagged a 2 bath loft downtown that seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

🔥 I'll Make This Feel Like Home by cairparavels (Post-S4 to S6 | 5K | Not Rated): Buck keeps calling Eddie's house home, and its making Eddie rethink a lot about his life. (Five times Buck refers to Eddie's house as his home plus one time Eddie does.)

🔥 Where You Go (I Go) by blueberrytwoberry/ @blueberrytwoberry (Post-S7, Getting Together | 7K | Explicit): Eddie stood before an open cupboard. He had a big cardboard box on the counter beside him. As Buck stood there, feeling as though he’d been turned to stone, Eddie put a stack of plates into the box. A stack of identical cardboard boxes sat by the kitchen table. Buck looked across all of it, his heart lurching painfully in his chest, and managed to ask, “What are - Eddie, what are you doing?” OR: Eddie's decided to change his living arrangements; Buck takes it poorly.

🔥 Vibrant by blueberrytwoberry/ @blueberrytwoberry (Soulmates AU | 8K | Teen): Color flooded into Buck’s world between one jump and the next in the middle of the tight, pressing crowd of a concert when he was twenty and making a pit stop from running somewhere - anywhere - away from where he’d been. He wished like hell, afterwards, that it had happened anywhere else at any other time. OR, Buck meets his soulmate, misses them, and tries to deal with that.

Right. Down. Medical. by blueberrytwoberry/ @blueberrytwoberry (Post-S7, Canon Typical Catastrophe, Getting Together | 8K | Teen): Buck hadn’t expected to end up in a disastrous accident when he boarded a train - the Pacific Surfliner - for what should have been a relaxing trip down the coast to enjoy some beautiful scenery and just relax, but if he had - and maybe he should have, considering the way bad luck and trouble seemed to follow him - he’d have expected something normal, you know, like a derailment. OR: Buck has some realizations about his life after an accident on a train.

like a vision reaching down to you by blueberrytwoberry/ @blueberrytwoberry (Post-S7, Crack | 8K | Teen): “You ever notice how a lot of the calls we go on seem kind of, I don’t know, predictive?” Buck asked, when the game they were watching cut over to a commercial, his voice an anchor dropped right in the middle of the spiral of Eddie’s thoughts, dispelling it. OR: The crew at the 118 realizes that the universe is, possibly, trying to tell them something via their jobs.

I never meant to fall for you but I was buried underneath by smilingbuckley/ @smilingbuckley (Canon Divergent Probie Buck | 9K | Teen):  Buck is the new probie at the 118 and Eddie.exe stops functioning.

🔥an inch away from more than just friends by allyasavedtheday/ @littlespoonevan (Post-S7, Getting Together | 10K | Teen): In which Buck has a clipboard and a list and is about to romance the hell out of Eddie Diaz. (Part 2 of Eddie vs Romance)

🔥From the Ground Up by blueberrytwoberry/ @blueberrytwoberry (S3, Animal Transformation | 17K | Mature): Eddie’s life had gone to shit in roughly every possible way. He felt about two seconds away from breaking every hour of every day, like someone had stepped up in front of him, shoved him down, smashed the life he’d been working on, and left him to rebuild from the ground up. And so, really, the last thing he needed when he got home at the end of a long shift was to find a massive, weird-ass dog curled up on his front porch. And yet, there it was.

Lost 'Til I Found You by JJK/ @trenchcoatsandtimetravel (911/MCU Crossover, S3 | 20K | Teen): A 9-1-1 x Marvel crossover where Buck is a genetic son of Steve Rogers because the doctors the Buckley's used to make their saviour baby were also experimenting with the super soldier serum.

WIP

🔥Where there's smoke by rainbow_nerds/ @rainbow-nerdss (Multiverses | 18/31 | 22K | Teen): His eyelids are heavy. His lungs ache. The smoke is dense and thick, slowly suffocating him. Eddie feels himself drift as Buck’s voice penetrates the smoke, cuts through the fog in his brain. “Eddie, stay with me. Stay with me, Eds.” Eddie wants to stay. He wants to open his eyes and see Buck. He doesn’t want to leave. But he’s so tired, and sleep is calling him. Maybe it will be okay. Maybe his dreams will be sweet. Maybe there’ll be peace, there. And maybe, if he just rests for a little while, he’ll be able to find his way back.

Gentle On My Mind by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergent, Shannon Lives, Buck/Eddie/Shannon | 1/? | 6K | Explicit): In which Shannon lives, tells a lie, and sends hers, Eddie's, and Buck's lives down a very different path.

go and kill, go and die by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Zombie Apocalypse AU | 3/14 | 12K | Mature): The 118 are a group of survivors in a small California town in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. For months they've been isolated and safe. But the arrival of some new players, the search for some missing loved ones, will shake everything up and put their little team in jeopardy.

🔥 Long Death by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-S7, Vampire AU | 13/15 | 62K | Explicit): In the summer of 2024, a never before seen form of vampirism breaks out in Los Angeles. Just as Eddie is about to get his son back. Six months later, Buck's life is permanently changed.

Podfic

🔥 [podfic] to hurt, to heal, to hope by be_brave13/ @djemsowhat // fic by brewrosemilk/ @gayhoediaz (Post-S7, Getting Together | 10-20min | Teen): "I'd love to be more of a gentleman about this, and I mean this in the most abstract and metaphorical, and least possessive way possible, but in the spirit of not wasting any more time than we already have, Buck..." the words follow each other quickly through a single, whispered breath. "...you're fucking crazy if you think I'm letting you go on that date." "Eddie, you think I'm going anywhere, you're fucking crazy."

🔥[podfic] Advice Wanted by be_brave13/ @djemsowhat // fic by cairparavels (Social Media Fic | 45-60min | Teen): Eddie Diaz takes to Reddit to figure out why he hates his best friend’s new boyfriend so much.

[corazondebeskar-reads]

you know you never stood a chance - chapter one

you know you never stood a chance series

one: you know you never stood a chance

series masterlist | next chapter

qz!Joel Miller x f!reader

Word Count: 2k

Summary: When QZ!Joel finds out you're planning to take up prostitution to earn enough rations for your sick sister, he makes sure he's the first one to pay you a visit.

Warnings: Prostitution, dub-con due to power imbalance, Joel Miller is bad at feelings, kind of mean!Joel, p in v sex, unprotected sex, oral sex (f receiving), inexperienced reader, mention of cordyceps, brothel

Originally written for Kinktober 2023 - Day 9: Cumshot/Prostitution from this list by @absurdthirst

also on aO3

“Come in,” you called through the door, trying for your best laid-back, confident voice.

It wasn’t very successful. Joel rolled his eyes and opened the door. You were knelt on the bed, looking soft and demure—except for the way you were wringing your hands.

And the way the sweet look fell off your face when you saw him.

“What are you doing here?” You snatched up a pillow, hugging it over your torso like he hadn’t already got a good look at you through the sheer fabric.

“Gardening. What do you think I’m doin’ here?”

“This isn’t funny, Miller. Get out.” You grabbed another pillow and threw it at him.

He deflected it away from his face. “Jesus, woman.”

“You’ve had your laugh; you can go now.” You stared at the dingy Berber carpet of the shitty old motel room. It had probably been shitty before the whole world fell to pieces. The peeling wallpaper had sickly yellow stains to match the cigarette burns that pockmarked the single tufted armchair in the corner.

“Didn’t laugh,” Joel said gruffly, tossing something at you.

You had to drop the pillow to catch the bottle of water, nearly fumbling it, and looked up at him. “What’s this for?” you asked warily.

“It’s for drinkin’.”

“Ha ha. Look, can you not—don’t fuck with me right now. Why’re you here?”

It’s then, as you took a careful sip from the bottle, that Joel got a good look at your outfit.

Periwinkle tulle had been sewn roughly into an approximation of a dress, like something out of a Victoria’s Secret magazine had been poorly described to a seamstress who had never heard of lingerie. Actually, now that he thought about it, there was a good chance that was exactly what happened.

It had crooked, lacey ruffles on the top and bottom and did not suit you in the slightest. “What the hell are you wearin’? You raid a JoAnn’s?”

“Hey, I tried my best,” you said, bottom lip quivering.

“Ah shit, sweetheart, I didn’t—”

But you smirked. “Wow, you were really about to apologize, weren’t you? I shouldn’t have cut you off; go on, I want to hear Joel Miller say ‘sorry.’”

“Wasn’t gonna,” he scowled.

“Right, sure. Anyway, nah, they got a box of this shit in the office. I don’t know who makes it, but they want us to look extra dolled up or something.”

“Take that shit off. I can’t do this with you lookin’ like that.”

The smirk slid off your face. “Can’t do what?”

“Can’t fuck you, sweetheart. Isn’t that why you’re here? I paid for ya’, after all.”

Your stomach churned like the angry sea you had only read about in Moby Dick. You felt about as well as a sailor might have, too. It’s not like you had any misunderstandings about what would happen if you worked a shift at a whorehouse. But with your sister sick and unable to work, you’d been out of food for two days. So.

He looked at you with something too close to pity, so you pulled the dress over your head and threw it on the floor, staring right at him and daring him to say anything. And he did, but it wasn’t what you were expecting.

“You got pretty tits, sweetheart.”

“Thank you… ?”

“What was your plan here? What if it wasn’t me? You just going to let some old creep come in here and do whatever he wanted to ya?”

“And you’re not an old creep?”

He rolled his eyes and sat down on the chair, tugging at his boots. “This ain’t your first time, right?”

“Obviously not,” you snapped. It wasn’t. But he didn’t need to know there had only been the one time. You hadn’t found the experience worth repeating, but the guy seemed pretty happy so you figured you could just lie there and let them do whatever.

“You know how to suck cock?”

You flushed and shook your head. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands, rubbing at his forehead for a few seconds.

“Okay, alright. ‘Nother time, then.”

You were too nervous to clock what he said. He rose and walked over to the bed. You looked up at him with wide eyes, and he knew he had to wreck you. He couldn’t walk out of this room without ruining you for every other person who dared to lay hands on you.

He set his hands on your hips, and you flinched, so he rubbed soothing circles with his thumbs until you relaxed a little. When you had adjusted to the weight of his heavy palms, he slid them and cupped a breast in each.

“Damn, sweetheart. These are real nice.” He fondled them like that for a minute, enjoying the heft in his palms, before rubbing his thumbs over your nipples. He was rewarded for his efforts when a small moan slipped out of you.

He tore his eyes away from your chest to check your expression. Though your lips were parted and eyes glazed, you still looked afraid. “S’all right, honey, I’ll go slow.”

He leaned down and took one nipple into his mouth while he rolled the other between his fingers. You moaned again, louder this time, and he took that as permission to give the other breast the same treatment. When you finally started to ease up, to lean into his touch, and he felt more assured that you weren’t about to cry, he stepped back.

“Turn around, hands and knees.”

The apprehension filled the lines of your face quickly, but you turned around, relieved he wouldn’t make you look at him.

He ran a hand across your bare back, pushing your shoulder blades down with one hand and your knees apart with the other until you were arranged how he liked. You tensed, holding your breath and waiting for him to push in.

Instead, you felt a gentle hand on your mound. He cupped it before parting your lips, sliding his fingers through. You were damp, but nowhere near wet enough to take him. Not without a whole lot of pain, at least.

“Got a real pretty pussy, too. You’ve been holdin' out on me.” He circled your clit with the pad of his middle finger for a few seconds, watching you squirm, before he pulled his hand away.

“Anyone ever tasted you? You ever taste yourself?”

You shook your head.

“Shame.” It was a puff of hot breath over your cunt, followed closely by the warm, firm pressure of his tongue.

You wailed. You might have been embarrassed if it hadn’t been the best thing you’d ever felt, beating the record he had set seconds ago with his finger.

He didn’t ease you into this. It took no time at all for his skilled tongue and thick fingers to pry an orgasm out of you. He had worked one finger in you by the time you fell apart, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

You wriggled when he didn’t let up, trying to lurch away, but he pulled you back with a hand on your hip. “Hang on, let me open you up good.”

It was intense, and you were loud, swearing up a storm. When he eased another finger inside, you pushed back against his hand, grinding your hips. He sucked on your clit, flicking it with his tongue, until you came again, this time with a low groan pulled from deep in your chest, sinking back onto his fingers. He slid another one in, pumping furiously until the second orgasm turned into a third, and you were shaking apart.

“That’s a good girl,” he murmured, stroking soothingly along your spine and drawing his fingers from you. He wanted to push them between your lips, to watch your eyes go wide as you sucked your juices from him, but decided he better not push you too far. Not today, at least.

“You ready for me?” he asked, unzipping his jeans and letting them fall around his ankles.

“Please, Joel.”

And goddamn, if that wasn’t the sweetest sound. “Yeah? You want my cock now?”

“Please, please fuck me, Joel.” You were pushing back against him, grinding your ass against his erection.

“Alright, sweetheart, I’ll take care of ya.” He held you in place with one hand and notched the fat head of his cock at your entrance.

You cried out as he pushed in slowly. “Oh my god. What the fuck. Why are you so fucking big?” You didn’t even mean to be complimenting him. The one dick you had before had certainly not felt like this, like you were being pried apart.

“You gotta relax, sweetheart, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“That’s easy for you to say; you’re not being — oh fuck,” you broke off as he pushed in further.

“Not being what, honey? I didn’t hear ya.”

“Not being fucking split in two by some fuckin—”

He knocked whatever insult you were gearing up for out of you in a strangled breath as his hands gripped tight to your hips and pulled you back on his cock.

“Almost there, don’t worry. I gotcha,” he murmured, reaching around to rub at your clit. It didn’t take much to get you off again, and when your body shook and convulsed, he slid his cock in all the way.

He had planned on giving you a moment to adjust, but you started gently rocking yourself back and forth on it like a fuckin’ handwritten invitation. He began pulling almost all the way out before slowly sinking in, letting you part around him. His groan had you arching your back.

You thought he’d fuck rough. It might have been easier if he had. When you realized he was serious about it, that he had paid real fucking ration cards for access to your body, you figured he’d use you, cum, and leave.

Instead, he took you apart with precision. You wondered if he was a musician before, the way his fingers seemed to know right where to go, just how to thrum your body to draw out sounds you didn’t even know were inside you.

The rhythm he set was fluid and deep. You felt like you might explode, each stroke leaving you with fewer coherent thoughts. He hefted you against his chest, thrusting up into you and reaching around to your breasts.

It was a little overwhelming. Your whole body electrified, just the brush of his arm against yours sent waves of too much too much coursing through. All the while, his hips rolled into you, and yours mindlessly sought him back.

He was getting close, his thrusts a little sloppy. He held you to him with one hand cupping a breast and slid the other down to press against your clit. “Cum on my cock,” he growled in your ear.

It didn’t take long with the steady pressure and the way his cock nudged something inside you that made you twitch with every thrust. When you came, he shoved you down into the mattress, pulling out to cum over your ass.

You must have dozed off for a minute, because the wet washcloth landing on your back brought you abruptly into the world.

“Clean up, drink that, and get outta here.”

You glowered at him, head spinning from the sudden shift. He made you off-kilter and vulnerable, which was not an option, so you snarled back, “What, you think you’re my only client? I’ve got other men to fuck today, Joel.”

He finished tying his boots and stalked over to you, bending down to get in your face. “No, you don’t. You’re gonna go home like a good girl. And next time, you come straight to me. Understood?”

“What?”

“You still cockdumb? Poor thing.”

“Fuck off, Joel.”

He pressed the water bottle into your hands. “Next time you need cards this bad, you don’t come here. You come to me.”

“I’m not taking your handouts, Miller.”

“I’m not offerin’em. But you keep comin’ here, doin’ this? You’re gonna catch something worse than fuckin’ cordyceps. Or get yourself knocked up. We can make this same little arrangement if you need to.” He tilted your head up to face him. “Understood?”

“Fine,” you spat.

He stood up. For a moment, you thought he might say something else, but he just shook his head and left.

next chapter

*title from "Stood a Chance" by Taking Back Sunday

[frasier-crane-style]

Furiosa And Its Response: A FAQ

Q: What’s Furiosa about?

A: Ironically, for all the claims prequel Fury Road wasn’t ‘about’ Max, Furiosa isn’t entirely about Furiosa. The first hour or so features Furiosa as a child, kidnapped from the Green Place (an idyllic oasis whose people live in peace and abundance, zealously protected against the post-apocalyptic depredations of outsiders) and then becoming the prisoner of Dementius. Dementius is sort of the villain protagonist of the movie’s first half while Furiosa is on the sidelines.

He seems like the last gasp of the savage warlords like Toecutter and Lord Humongus that we saw in the Mel Gibson Maxes. He is entirely about increasing the size of his horde while taking and consuming any resources he can find. He comes into conflict with Immortan Joe (the villain from the ‘sequel,’ Fury Road), who is more of the iron fist in the velvet glove, and one of the interesting points of this movie is how Joe seems like a reasonable administrator in contrast to Dementius. He’s an awful person, obviously, but at least he keeps the trains running on time.

Furiosa grows to adulthood caught in-between Dementius and Joe’s feud, eventually moving to escape and return to the Green Place.

Q: Is it as good as Fury Road?

A: Not quite. It has a new cinematography look that tends to give things a plasticky CGI sheen, like Attack of the Clones or something. I know that they did a lot of the effects practically and that Fury Road used a lot of CGI itself, but yo, what's the point if it looks fake?

Also, towards the end, Dementus gets into this "we're not so different, you and I" deal with Furiosa that feels like a reach, considering he hasn't seemed to be motivated by revenge at all throughout the story, just bog-standard ambition and lust for power, so trying to make him a dark mirror to Furiosa now seems like a strain for profundity.

Q: Is it woke?

A: I’d say not unless your definition of woke is so expansive that it’s basically meaningless. The themes of the movie are too universal to belong to any one political movement.

-Rapists, tyrants, and warlords are bad.

-In a radioactive wasteland, it’s good to live in a self-sufficient oasis.

-Good people try to avoid violence when possible and want to live in peace.

It does have a female protagonist, but so do Aliens, Terminator, Kill Bill, and a buttload of Michelle Yeoh movies. If you say that you’re fine with female protagonists, just not with poorly written ones, then I don’t see how that’d be a problem here.

In fact, it’s stated that the reason Furiosa is so badass is because a straight white man, Imperator Jack, saw her core toughness and mentored her. He’s not at all a simp and is treated as a paragon of masculinity—reasonable, respectful, self-controlled, and hypercompetent. He and Furiosa are in an implicitly romantic relationship.

That’s right. Furiosa is so cool because a boy fell in love with her and taught her everything she knows.

Other men help out Furiosa on her quest and some women are enthusiastically villainous. In that respect, it’s even less ‘feminist’ than Fury Road was.

Q: Okay, how’s it doing at the box office?

A: Not well.

Q: Why is that?

A: Opinions vary. Some say it’s because, despite the movie’s quality, it’s getting caught up in a backlash against ‘gender-swapped reboots’.

Q: Is it?

A: Possibly. I should note it isn’t meant as a ‘passing the torch’ ‘legacy’ ‘rebootquel’, just as a spin-off. The next movie that director George Miller wants to do is a prequel to Fury Road focusing on Mad Max, entitled The Wasteland. So this movie is more like if, between Batman movies, they made a movie about Catwoman going on a solo adventure.

Q: It can’t be doing poorly because it has a female protagonist, the most successful movie last year was Barbie!

A: You’re telling me female audiences showed up for a wacky comedy with a big showstopping musical number, but not for a gritty action movie focusing on death and revenge, despite both having female leads? It’s almost like girls like girly movies while men like manly movies (most of Furiosa’s audience is male—and I wonder how much bigger it would be if they’d advertised Imperator Jack’s presence instead of keeping it a secret).

Q: All movies are doing poorly this year!

A: Godzilla X Kong did well, as did Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Dune 2, The Beekeeper…

Q: It’s been a long time since Fury Road came out, people forgot about it!

A: It was a long time after Beyond Thunderdome that Fury Road came out.

Q: Well, people are only going to the theaters for big event movies!

A: Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy in an epic action movie follow-up to Fury Road isn’t a big event? Look, I’m not saying these aren’t factors, but I remember seeing a movie before this came out and overhearing an elderly couple looking at a poster for Furiosa and muttering, in a disgruntled fashion, words to the effect of “Oh, great, they made Mad Max a girl.” I think it’s very possible that Hollywood has killed the market for female-led action movies by making people think they’ll get a deliberately assaultive product every time they try their luck.

Q: But aren’t woke people turning consuming politicalized product into a secular religion?

A: Umm… maybe? I think most people who are fans of anything get pissed off when quality work goes ignored while slop (reality TV, Michael Bay movies, Call of Duty games, comics about Batman) get hugely appreciated. Everybody should probably not take the box office so seriously, since the important thing is that we have a fun movie to enjoy, even though it is frustrating that we could’ve had a whole trilogy of Rocketeer movies if just a few more people had bought tickets. Jennifer Connolly, in her prime, playing a thinly veiled Bettie Page!!!

Q: Then you think I should see it?

A: Yes. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, obviously, but if you like action movies or prior installments in the franchise, it’s hard for me to believe that you won’t get your money’s worth here.

Q: Does it have good disability representation?

A: Uh. I guess? It’s in the context of people having birth defects owing to radioactive fallout from nuclear war, but sure. Why not?

[sunhlland]

This blog write all right. Idk how all his project outside mcu all get one way or another does bad or it's streaming numbers or box office. Idk hod it'd happened like probability so small,like we don't know it'd his team or it's him not knowing what hd doing. Did someone reading scripts alongside him to give advice? If u think about its somehow coming it's always something bad storytellers,pace,bad challengers development or something else?now he have bad reputation in Hollywood or big ppl not take him seriously. Plus mcu actors nowadays it's like swimming against stream,u like need proof to everyone and add some,all should be ideal and only then they will let go of his neck. I'm kinda sad for Tom. But on another dude he said himself that he don't wanna be actor 😔 like if it's not u passion why u forcing it dude idk working through pressing on urself. Idk idk like I stop expect anything, I wouldn't surprise if he retire after spiderman. Tom a man of unrealized potential

Ok.

First, when did Tom say he doesn't want to be an actor? Do you think that if it were like that he would continue trying and working on it? I think he has just been unlucky, remember most of his movies were released in the Covid19 season. Chaos Walking, for example (poorly executed, definitely, but would have done well at the box office if not for...zero promotion and covid).

Tom was very young when he started taking on a lot of unscripted projects. and I read somewhere that he wasn't sure about playing Cherry but the Russos convinced him (they bribed him lol, I'd say ) and since he feels he owes them part of his career, he said yes... The Russos have a name there out and (Advenger is a success to this day although it hurts those who hate the MCU) but it turns out that the direction of these men was bad in cherry. Now his performance, his acting skills (if you read the reviews) has always been praised... even today. (there is an agenda against him for being part of Marvel duh)

The common people love him, praise him... and even on Twitter they always defend him with..."the broh needs a better agent" "he always chooses bad projects" etc... they know he's a good actor. Those who say it's a flop...who are they? some Z fans who hate him bcuz he dates her and are jealous. Fans of other actors who for some reason feel threatened by Tom.... (and why do you think that is?😌) some idiots who think they're cinephiles and believe that hating everything that has to do with marvel makes them intellectual...🤪 ? LMAO.

You say marvel flop too? huh that will never be the case with Spider-Man, don't worry...Tom is not just any Marvel actor...he plays the most beloved character of all superheroes and the most famous. And people love it... 🤭

To this day his most watched movie outside of the MCU is TDATT, and most people always praise Tom's performance. And it's the most viewed bcuz it's from Netflix. If TCR .....

None of my friends have Apple TV and even I had to pay for 2 months of that horrible app just for him.. when I recommend the series... no one has Apple TV... I hate apple tv...Anyway.

I give you some advice, if you have such a poor perception of him, I think there are more actors out there for you to follow.

Tom is 27 years old...not 40. There are actors who were recognized just last year with 5 years older than Tom...and I am not going to mention names...🤐🤓

xo🤗

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

chiaki, thoughts on concord?

Okay, now this is a real tragedy, because Concord is symbolic of just how difficult it is to be a gamer in this day and age.

2024 has been a year full of disappointments. Most recently, the $15 million budgeted Borderlands movie made only $18.5 million at the box office. Considering that doesn't even pay for the marketing expenses, it's a catastrophe.

Undoubtedly, it's a bad film, but in the realm of video games, we currently have a failure named "Concord." And it's surprising to me that people even remember this game, despite it's recency.

Now, for the record, what I'm about to say is something that makes me genuinely sad. Like...ACTUALLY really sad. So...bear with me.

For those who are unaware, Concord was a generic hero shooter that was released less than 30 days ago, similar to Overwatch or Valorant. Except it had a five-times slower pace, it combined all the worst aspects of earlier hero shooters. The game's movement was really slow; it felt like you're playing on a treadmill. The gameplay was excruciatingly slow and annoying; it seemed as though you're trapped in a slow-motion Zack Snyder movie.

The game was really generic, but it was neither terrible nor unplayable. But at the same time it wasn't really unique, and if someone enjoys this genre of game, there are at least fifty more that are superior. The fact that Concord costed $40 rather than being free to play, like the majority of other multiplayer shooters, is what made it especially foolish. It was destined to fail from the beginning, and today it only managed to launch with a little over 650 users on Steam.

To put that in context, more people played some of the worst failures in gaming history when they first launched. Redfall and even Babylon's Fall, which was such a failure that it was removed from Steam, had more players than Concord had. Compared to Lord of the Rings: Gollum, another huge failure that forced its studio to close, Concord had only a little bit more players.

Now, you must have noticed by now that I've been talking about this game in the past tense, and there's a reason for that. Concord was such a massive failure, that the servers were shut down two weeks after its launch, with all sold copies being refunded. That is a HUGE FAIL.

Concord was a big-budget game that must have cost millions to produce, but nobody wanted to play it. Although I don't personally have strong feelings on the matter, I do find it puzzling how these games are approved in the first place. Everyone sighed in agreement when they saw the first trailer, which made it obvious that this was another hero shooter in an already crowded industry. It's difficult to determine who this game is intended for, especially considering that even fans of hero shooters won't rush into a $40 game when there are more enjoyable free options, like Fortnite, or Overwatch 2.

It's unbelievable that this disaster was released considering how predictable it was. Even then, it didn't make sense to invest in a game that is sure to fail, even if it appeared to be a desperate attempt to recover part of the production costs. It's unfortunate since I have no doubt that brilliant developers worked on this out of necessity rather than choice. Seemingly, they attempted to make another hero shooter, believing it would be a simple victory, but they didn't realize that no one wants to see more of them, especially not for forty bucks.

I HATE being negative. I hate being negative more than I hate anything else in the world. But this is a flop that's hard not to laugh at, which is why I wanted to talk about it. I don't see why anyone would pay such a high price for this when there are better free options available, despite the fact that it has largely great reviews.

Considering how poorly Concord performed, especially for a high-budget game, is astounding. The majority of games, including the most popular ones, never start with fewer than a thousand players. I felt compelled to address this as it's uncommon for a game to fail so miserably.

[eradicatetehnormal]

My Zoomer Ass Watched Pink Flamingos For the First Time

So, I think? I enjoyed that. My taste in media is what most would consider garbage, but relatively safe garbage. Stuff that's garbage in the sense that it's poorly written or executed, not in the sense that it's genuinely filthy. I mean, 90% of my blog is dedicated to a video game series with anime and Disney characters, so yeah, I was really out of my element here.

So first off, I really like the way the movie characterizes Divine in the beginning. The standout scene for me was her putting raw meat between her legs. I didn't get it at first, but I read an interpretation of that scene where the writer said that Divine is meant to be, well, filthy. She shits on femininity and leaks nasty body fluids. She would always prefer to have flesh touching her, even if it's raw meat. That's genius characterization, imo.

The central plot of the movie is very entertaining, as well. I love the concept of two rivals duking it out to see who's the worst. We get some great moments out of it like Divine receiving a box of shit or her and her crew killing and eating those officers.

The main reason this movie has been on my mind is because a Youtube channel I'm starting to fancy, Anthony Gramuglia, recently made a video about how we need more bad queer representation, a sentiment I agree with. I'll always have more of an interest queer content that isn't about two, skinny, white boys from upper-middle-class neighborhoods talking about the pressures of being in the closet *bleh!* I'm just sick of seeing that shit hyped up.

But it was interesting. This film was one of the main examples of how unsanitized and offensive queer media used to be. That it wasn't as concerned with making queer people look good. Don't get me wrong, the character of Divine is anything but inoffensive, at the same time though, I feel like this movie makes her out to be the lesser of two evils. I mean, yeah Divine is gross, blowing her son, shitting in public, and cannibalizing people? That's pretty nasty, but she never reaches the heights of people who run a sex trafficking ring and flash themselves in public consistently ('cause I mean like, you gotta clean up the police bodies somehow, you can't have that stinking up your property. Also, that was arguably self-defense, the people at the party weren't really doing anything wrong.). She even does something somewhat heroic by letting the two women locked in the couple's basement free and get revenge on their rapist. I thought she was going to kill the two afterward.

Maybe that's the point, though. That there's a difference between being filthy and being evil. Also, Divine's revenge was just way better. Burning down a trailer and your ops aren't even inside? Cowardly.

This was an interesting watch. I can't go into detail about how much of a landmark this was on queer cinema and cinema in general. I just know that it was. On a scale of personal enjoyment, I'd give this a 7/10. And yeah, kill everyone now, condone first-degree murder, advocate cannibalism, eat shit. My final message. Goodbye.

[zoeysdamn]

Treasure Planet: a way underrated Disney movie [critic]

Hi, hello, it’s me again, rambling about a movie like I’m working for the Nostalgia Critic instead of writing next chapter or actually do my work. What can I say, I love to ramble on obscure subjects (but since at least once person enjoyed the critic I wrote on The Witcher: Blood origin I solely did to improve my writing skills, I guess it’s okay lmao) Love you and stay hydrated ♥

Time to analyze and bring justice to Treasure Planet 

There are some movies that leave a mark on you, that you’ll always remember of through your life. It isn’t necessarily a good, Oscar-winning movie, or a mindblowing work, but it is an unpriceable memory to you, and that’s why it is one of your favorite movies ever. That’s how I feel about Disney’s Treasure Planet. 

First thing first, I’d like to highlight an important aspect about this critic: Treasure Planet is the first movie I’ve ever seen in theaters. I was 3 years old, and seeing those incredible images of space and stars up on a big screen through my child’s eyes definitely did something to me (cue my tattoos of moon and sun I guess). So what I’m trying to say is, that even if I’ll be doing my best to make an objective critic, it definitely won’t be one. I love this movie so freaking much, do not try to stop the fangirl screaming in me. I watched it again recently with my brother, and even if I know it like the back of my hand, I couldn’t believe that a lot of people still think poorly of this movie.

That being said, let’s move on to the main subject: in what way is Treasure Planet an underrated movie? I’ll be trying to analyze why it failed to be a new success for the Disney company at a time of many mildly successful productions, and carry on about why we all should appreciate it more with a new eye, for it brought many great things. 

First, let’s talk about the context of this movie’s release. In 2002, Disney wasn't in its golden nor silver age anymore. The last original movie – meaning, that isn’t a prequel or sequel of a previous franchise – was Atlantis in 2001 and Kuzco in 2000 (I’m not including Monsters Inc., given it was a Pixar co-production). The first wasn’t exactly a financial success (although it is also one of my favorite Disney ever, what can I say, I like the unloved ones), and the latter, even if I still think it’s one of the most hilarious movies they ever made, was not a great movie. So when Treasure Planet launched and turned out to be a critical business failure – 109 578 115 $ at the box-office for a 140 000 000 $ budget, and if you’re wondering, yes it is indeed a big failure – nobody ever talked about it again. The failure is even greater given not a single Disney Park has an attraction on this theme – but we’ll talk about this later. Now, not many people actually know that this movie ever existed.

Now that we have a little more context, let’s go even deeper and see the different elements that lead to this catastrophic failure within the movie. It’s important to remember that I’m not an expert either in movies analysis or the Disney company, there’s a lot of things I don’t know or don’t have any numbers to prove what I’m saying. I’m simply here to ramble and list things that seem important to me, and I’m making a hella lot of assumptions. 

Given the general context of the movie release, I think that what wounded its reputation the most is the 3D used. It is – if I’m not mistaken, and I probably am – one of the first Disney animated movies that uses so much 3D. And let’s be honest…it aged badly. I’m not bad mouthing anybody’s work, I appreciate the fact that Disney tried something; with every new experiment, there have to be some clumsy first try, and yeah, we could say that Treasure Planet was this one. But remember, the movie came out in 2002: a year before, Dreamworks leveled up the 3D game by releasing Shrek, and next to it the 3D view in Treasure Planet looks cheap. The idea was interesting, the view in a gradual zoom on the moon-turning-to-be-an-harbor was really a good idea; but the messy outcome of the visual cost a lot more to the movie’s reputation. 

Another thing that may have contributed to the movie’s unsuccess could be the lack of “typical” Disney elements. I’m here talking about things such as a romantic interest for the main character, a princess/royalty character, or catchy musical moments sung by characters. If we look at the Disney animated movies that had been released around the same time, it was all movies and/or sequels about princesses (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid), or already popular characters (Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, etc.). Choosing to not give a female, princess-like, and popular character was a bold and risky move for Disney; as a result, the story was led by a forgettable character who didn’t leave any mark in people’s minds. Again, I’m talking while trying to be objective, you bet I remember Jim Hawkins; we’re talking about one of my very first fictional crushes here, I’ll take the defense of this amazing character later. 

Of course, the story does give a glimpse of a love story, but between two side characters. Not enough for a company who built most of its movies’ success on princesses and true love kisses. The same could be said about the lack of songs; there’s always a tune immediately blasting in your head when someone mentions Disney, the absence of such joyful musical moments certainly wounded Treasure Planet’s reputation. But on the other side, the only song within the movie (I’m not counting the outro) is really deep, and well inserted in the plot. I hardly picture any of the characters, even the main one – especially him – starting to sing their feelings out of the blue. The lack of sung serenades makes sense, but it may have not been appreciated by viewers who expected a full Broadway show. 

Finally, the whole aesthetic may have been quite unsettling for most of the viewers. I think the movie came out at an in-between of steampunk glory – after the success of Lovecraft and before the 00’ return of this style’s popularity. Again, I'm a big fan of the whole design; but it was also a bit too daring for the time. 

So to sum this up really quickly, I think that Treasure Planet was released too soon. It has the potential to be a bigger success, should it have been released nowadays. Beside the 3D parts that have aged badly, I honestly don’t think this movie’s outdated the slightest. I still think today that the viewers of 2002 weren’t ready for this movie, its story, characters and message. And to defend that, I’ll list the elements that make this movie a brilliant one. 

First of all, the whole story inspired by Stevensons’ Treasure Island is a major good point for me. The pirate aesthetic hadn’t come back fully in pop culture yet, and the original story has very interesting material ahead. The source of inspiration was an excellent idea. It also led to the unconventional coming-of-age story; most of the plot in this kind of scenario is about someone who becomes an adult somehow, through an epic quest. They have a good life, but thrive for more, or are the “chosen one” and all. Here, Jim is, admittedly by his mother, a juvenile delinquent. This late teenager is lost in his life, torn apart between his dreams of freedom, and the love he has for his mother. He doesn’t want to let her down, or disappoint her, but he doesn’t know what to do because no one can guide him through what’s possible for him. And as a young adult who had been through such a crisis for 5 solid years (and still not completely out of it let’s be honest), it is an important subject to bring up. It’s not that Jim is lazy or inherently a bad son, he just doesn’t know what to do and what the possibilities are. The cops, the clients of the inn, even the doctor and his mom had categorized him as a good-for-nothing so he’s kind of stuck in this role, all while deeply loving his mother and trying to help her. This internal conflict between what you want to do for your own good and what your heart wants to do to keep your loved ones (especially family) safe and proud of you isn’t completely foreign in a Disney movie; but it is something that is more recurrent in later movies, such as Moana, Tangled and such.

This is a great transition to address the subject of Jim’s family, which is also depicted in a very modern way in my opinion. The fact that he only has his mom in the movie is…painfully classical in a Disney movie (I mean, the no parents policy is basically a private joke in Disney movies now). But it’s one of the first movies where the dad’s absence is clearly and loudly mentioned, either by the characters themselves or through the song. It is also one of rare cases of a parent actually leaving their families; during the song, we see Jim’s dad leaving and never coming back (probably out buying intergalactic milk, I don’t know), but we also see Jim’s mom crying, him being deeply affected by his father’s absence through different phases of his childhood, and more than that, the effect of his dad’s absence is clearly mentioned several times. We don’t know if his father actually died out of space or if he just left Jim and Sarah – although several elements seem to indicate so, such as the fact we never see his face, that Sarah doesn’t have any picture of him in the inn or in her memory-locket-necklace, or that Jim says that he doesn’t miss his dad who’s more like “going away and never coming back”. Parent(s)’s deaths in Disney movies are usually either briefly mentioned as such (Atlantis, Cinderella, etc.) or a means to bring up a more tragic backstory that serves the character’s growth (Tarzan). Here we have a very realistic, bitter case of a father leaving his child and wife for no apparent reason; for a 2002 Disney movie, it is indeed a very modern take at the subject of one parent’s disappearance, especially at how they show the effects on every concerned character. 

And this is a very appreciated choice! When Encanto was released almost two years ago, I was thrilled by the serious issues such as intergenerational trauma, gaslighting within a family, and pain caused by neglect of elders someone looks up to. My first thought was “Finally, we can have a Disney movie that addresses very much real family issues, it’s a big step for them.” But then when I re-watched Treasure Planet, I realized that Disney had done that before, almost 20 years ago; and that’s why it’s a great movie. Children aren’t dumb (yes, I’m actually saying this), I do believe we can talk about any subject with them if we use words and concepts they can understand. They’re naive about a lot of things, and it’s natural they’re still kids; but if a kid can watch and understand Ariel wanting legs to seduce the good-looking fellow on the boat, they can understand that sometimes family can take different forms, including a single mother and her sons both struggling on different scales due to a husband and father abandon. 

This whole setting also allowed the movie to have a slightly different type of main character. I mentioned it briefly before, but Jim is a more complex character than most of the Disney protagonists of that time - and before. Once again, let’s make something clear about typology: complex doesn't necessarily mean complicated. Jim has a rather easily understandable goal, he wants to find his place, and what to do with his life. But the fact that he’s standing in-between the brashness of late-teenage years and seriousness of young adulthood, probably triggered earlier by his dad’s disappearance, makes him more complex. He’s a morally gray character, who’s sometimes acting like a brat (trespassing several times, getting arrested and such), but who also wants to get things right, especially for his mom. So by complex, I mean that Jim has nuances; much more than traditional Disney protagonists (that is especially true for all of the princesses lore anterior to this movie). There had been some examples of that before of course, with Aladdin and Tarzan for example; Megara in Hercules is loved because she’s witty AND a complex character. But she’s only a side character; in Treasure Planet it is  the protagonist and others who wear those traits (Silver, Jim, even Captain Amelia). It also reminds the turn-over of the team in the second part of Atlantis, when they all realize Rourke had gone too far while not even 10 minutes earlier they were assumed capitalist treasure snatchers regardless of Atlantean culture. So, those two big examples of more complex characters did a good job to prepare the field for their successors (Elsa in Frozen, Flynn Rider in Tangled, even Maui in Moana), but not enough to get the public satisfied enough when they came out. 

Jim’s evolution through the movie is also a really interesting one, because it does once again not fit into what I’d call a “traditional” goal in Disney movies. I’d say there are two main categories in there: a romance trope (seduce and/or reunite with the love interest as in Sleeping beauty, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc.) or a higher, destiny-boud, epic purpose or quest (Simba avenging his father and claiming his rightful place as the king, Arthur becoming king, Hercules trying to prove he’s a divine hero, Moana saving the ocean, Miguel trying to return to the living’s world and mend some of his families’ feud, Robin Hood fighting against oppression, and on and on). Of course I’m caricaturing things here, but it is indeed quite rare to have, such as in Treasure Planet, a protagonist with a very personal, almost selfish compared to other movies, goal. Sure there’s the Flynt’s treasure hunt, but more than that, the journey is about giving Jim an opportunity to find himself, his place, and his dreams. More importantly, he finds a father/guiding figure in Silver in once again a very subtle way. Jim doesn’t need a new father, he needs someone who listens to him and gives him the tools to choose his destiny himself. That is greatly pictured at the end of the movie when Silver offers Jim to follow him in the pirate way, and Jim declines saying he has his own future now. He doesn’t reject the cyborg’s way of life, for he had learned a lot from it, he simply acknowledged the outcomes of his journey under the guidance of Silver. Through all of their adventures we see on plenty of occasions Silver teaching Jim things, and Jim trying, understanding, and then mixing those things with his own ways to create something greater, more efficient and deeply personal. This is an excellent way of depicting teaching, especially for older or young adult character growth. They are already their own person, they don’t need to be made or inherently changed; but they still need an adjusted guidance to unlock and thrive through their potential. Again, this is a good, nuanced message that the movie aced. 

That being said, I’d like to talk again about the overall aesthetic of the movie. I was, and still am in awe in front of the chara-designs and ambience. Creating an animation movie using space aesthetics was brilliant, and it’s a shame there’s still not a lot of movies doing so. I mean, the color palette, patterns and design possibilities are endless, some screenshots of the movie are my favorite of all time. Plus, I really liked the design of some planets, mixing steampunk and a more Alien-like vibe. As for the characters, it’s still funny how we feel like we know what they’re partly inspired by, but at the same time being completely clueless? Like, Captain Amelia is a cat-lady or something? The scary spider-thing man? The whole pirate crew? Each character is an alien for the other and the designs are really funny to watch. And can we please talk about the absolute snack that Jim is? We’re talking about one of my very first fictional crushes here, and I said what I said. The boy is more charming than 90% of the Disney princes who had come before him, I won’t change my mind. 

To sum this up, I think that the design team and artists really had fun creating this movie, and that even if the whole aesthetic failed to please the public, it’s still an excellent exercise of style for the artistic direction team.  

So now, where does all of that lead to? I’ll try to make a quick conclusion about all of that. Basically I think that this movie was released too soon. The message and execution were great, there were some good ideas, but I don’t think the public was ready or expecting that. Disney needed a new success, and it should have been something like a new Aladdin, or The Little Mermaid; something more traditional they knew would absolutely work. Instead the viewers were disappointed by the new movie and turned their back on a too unconventional movie. Should it have been released ten years after, I’m pretty sure Treasure Planet would have had a better 3D and a better, well-deserved success. And honestly, the fact that some movies with interesting, new designs and plots failed to be popular is a disappointment for both the viewers and Disney itself. For example, Atlantis shares a lot of similarities with Treasure Planet on this subject. Can we stop for a second and imagine what could have happened on a larger scale if both of those movies had been successes? The impact on the way female characters are written, or people of color representation (which Atlantis was a great precursor of)? On how a good animated movie doesn’t necessarily needs a love story or a kiss (Milo and Kida never kiss, nor do they declare their undying love, because they met 3 days ago for fuck’s sake. Yes Cinderella and Snow White, I’m looking at you); or the impact on characters and universes design? Imagine the potential of both of those movie aesthetics for Disney parks attractions? For merch? 

In the end, the appreciation of a movie, especially one produced by Disney that we certainly watched as a kid, is deeply personal; the success or lack of at the box-office doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad movie. A dozen parameters are to be accounted for to understand if, and why the movie had been a critical failure, including the general context of movies of the same type at the time, and a more large view of the company and expectations of both the producers and the public. So if one day you’re rewatching a movie you love that hadn’t been exactly welcomed at its time, think about it; maybe it’s a true gem, never understood by critics, maybe it had come out too soon or too late. Maybe some of the movies that are considered the greatest of all time now will never be heard of by our grandchildren. We never know what will be popular in pop-culture in a decade or two; so if you enjoy a movie nobody loves, it’s okay. You like it, no matter what the critics might be right now, it’s a comfort movie of yours. And no one can take that away.

(aesthetic is myine, I did it some years ago. Thought it was the right time to dig it from the depth of my files!)

If you want to debate about the movie, of movies critic in general do not hesitate to drop by in the comments or in DMs! I love talking with fellow movies nerds ♥

[pbandjesse]

I just got done my ceramics class. And I have such a nice time. I used almost all of my clay. Literally had like three little teeny tiny pieces the size of a quarter left. I gave them to Sandy because she had a reclaim bag right there and I just feel really nice right now. I am very excited to go home though because I'm so tired.

I didn't sleep well again last night but it's really just because I can't breathe. I wake up in the morning and I can't breathe out of my nose and I just feel so tired. I don't know what I can do to make myself breathe better at night. I'm either too hot or it's too dry. Ridiculous.

So because of that I let myself sleep an extra hour. And I did benefit from that greatly. Wednesdays are great because I can do that. And I just tried to not cry. James left a little bit before I got up for real. They had laid it with me for a little while but honestly I was just not in a good spot and I was just really frustrated.

But they left and I pulled myself together. I got dressed and I felt pretty good. My hair is very dirty and my head is itchy but it looked nice. And I just pulled myself together and I left and I went to work.

I was still thinking about the house a lot. And I I'm still thinking about it now. But I tried to put it out of my head and think about other stuff because focusing on and isn't going to help me much.

So I got to camp and I got to work on fixing some of the things on the schedule. Cuz that is just going to be a project I'm going to continuously tinker with for the next 3 months. I worked on starting to write down the lessons and ideas I have for the new programs that we're trying to develop. It was a good time.

But very quickly I became very bored. They're just wasn't enough for me to do today. But it was also way too cold outside to do anything. On my drive in it started to flurry which was so nice and it was so pretty. But I left my gloves at home and so being outside was too painful. Thankfully I have an extra sweatshirt in the car so I was able to layer later in the day when it got doing colder. But I did not want to be out in the world doing much. I wanted to stay in the office where it was at least warm.

I was very distracted this morning though I was just thinking about the house and I was working on lesson plans and I was playing on my phone and eventually I walked up to the art building and I did put some stuff away and I spray painted a pallet easel box I have that someone had poorly painted. So I would go up there twice to do a couple coats. And then I put away all the stuff that we got from the attic. But then my hands hurt really bad so I went back to the office.

I was so bored that I just was eating all day. Just trying to keep myself awake. I had my lunch early and I just tried to have a nice day because it was very difficult when I was so bored.

Eventually I would go up to arts and crafts and get some of my beating stuff and brought that down to work on just to have something to do.. periodically Heather would have something for me to change your ad on the schedule so I kept fussing with that and working on my lesson plans. And eventually we got an email from Harold about the house.

Apparently the current owner, seller, got a home inspection done in September. I guess in preparation for putting a house in the market. And there are issues. A lot of issues. It's hard though because there are two codes essentially there's orange and there is red. And the orange ones are kind of all over the place. Like some are stuff that is concerning to me and stuff that I'm just like oh well like that's fine. Like for instance some of the orange ones are about the length of the handrails. And then others are about the gutters touching electrical wires. And this has issues. It will need work if we get this one. Some of it bigger than others. But honestly I don't know if it dissuades me from this particular house. I'm going to kind of lean on our realtor on this one and kind of take his advice at this point because any home inspection we get is going to have these problems because we're looking at houses that are old. But even the house is that are old but flipped are not flipped well so they're also going to have issues. So it's really hard to know how much money it's going to take to fix any of these places. And like yesterday I watched a TikTok about someone who just bought a brand new house and it's leaking all over the place and it's just got water coming from every pipe essentially and they've had to replace the entire flooring and so many things have gone wrong. And honestly I think that's probably going to be the case in any place we end up. They're all going to have the potential for catastrophe. And you got to hope that it's not going to happen and be proactive and I think that's one of the things that's nice about the home inspection because now at least we know and we can start attacking those problems. I just need to believe in myself that I wouldn't take on something that I don't think I can handle either by fixing it myself or financially.

But honestly getting that home inspection just made me more stressed because now I don't know what the right answer is. There's so many things I like about this house but I still think I want to see the couple more. I am more secure in what my overall budget is though and what I'm comfortable with taking out lone wise. I don't want to be stupid about it but it is not a buyer's market and I am also being realistic about that. It's really hard to know what the right call is in the end

I just focused on my beating though and tried to finish out the day. Chris would come up from his house to have a meeting with Alexi and me him and Heather talked a little bit. I told him he's going to be leaving a program and he was like haha and I'm like apparently you were supposed to do it beforehand so I'm going to make you do it this year and I think it will be good for everybody. I hope that I can actually make that happen. And I chatted with Heather after he went into his meeting and we talked about enthusiasm and getting people on board with stuff and the things that we hope to do and it was really nice.

Me and Heather were also laughing because earlier in the day I had found someone had posted two of our badges / awards on eBay for like 40 and $50 a piece. that is hilarious. Which one of our people are doing that because that is so funny. What I think happened is something we donated had a patch on it and it ended up in somebody's hands that thought it was worth something and was vintage and put it online. But these things are modern and it was really funny to see.

But it was time for me to go. And annoyingly I wasn't really hungry anymore but I knew that I should eat something where I was not going to make it through my class. I said goodbye to everyone and decided to drive out to cockeysville to go get Taco Bell. But you didn't really make my stomach feel amazing. I accidentally got two different potato products. But it was okay. I ate my car and watched a video and then I went to my class.

And it was a really nice class. We only have one more after this and I'm really glad I took this class but I still don't think I really like throwing on a wheel and if I did a ceramics again I would just want to be a handworking class. They do have other types of classes at the millville and so I'm going to look into those because I think I would still enjoy taking something. Periodically but weekly I think might be a little bit much for me right now. I'm just a little stretched thin.

I started the class by finishing waxing the bottoms of all of my fire pieces to get ready to be dipped. I chose a couple colors I haven't done before and when I have. I am really excited to see how they come out and I really hope they come out well. And then I trimmed the pieces I made last week. I decided I really liked the rough texture so I left a lot of that natural roughness to them and I think that they will come out very interestingly in the end. And then it was time to start working on my Christmas ornaments!

I really like to doing the Christmas ornaments with cookie cutters. I thought I would enjoy the temporary tattoo underglazes more but it just didn't do anything for me. Like I made a couple that I think will be nice gifts but I really enjoyed making the cookie ones and then I wanted to paint them like actual cookies. My favorite ones I made look like the Little Debbie's Christmas tree cakes. And I'm really hoping they come out nice because I just think that they were a really good idea and I am very excited about them.

I still had some clay left so I rolled that out and I cut a whole bunch more cookies and I did drop a wooden tray on the ground of some of them and squished them so I had to start those again. But it was fine. I talked to Lindsey about finishing them next week since I'm going to have stuff to glaze but that's not going to take very long and I want to have something to work on so I have a few pieces that I'm going to let continue to dry in the next week I'll under glaze them and then she said even though the class is over we can come back and do clear dip places on all of our pieces if we need to. Very very nice of her.

I didn't have much clean up because I never turned the wheel on and so I was able to pick up pretty quickly and now I'm on my way home. It's very cold outside and I kept my clay covered sweatshirt on under my jacket. But I'll be home soon and I'm going to wash my hair and try to sleep better tonight. Fingers crossed. Tomorrow me and Sarah are hoping to go up to the art building to do some crafts but we'll see what happens. It's so cold up there I can't really see us being very comfortable doing that but we will see. I just hope it's a good day. And I hope that we get to see some houses tomorrow. Maybe it'll give me a little bit more clarity.

I hope that you all sleep well tonight. Be safe out there. Until next time. Wash your hands.

[genlossneg]

Ok hi hi hello, film student anon back here to talk about one of my biggest gripes with genloss that I didn't know about until afterwards: the budget

So, to start off with, filmmaking is expensive. Even on student film sets a lot of them are usually at least a few hundred dollars (keep in mind we're college students). Personally, with the money that I have, the most I spend is on food for feeding my crew, but people with more money than me will spend a bit on props costumes etc

Now Ranboo has the fortune of a massive budget and quite frankly I'm so disappointed by where I've seen where the money's gone too.

The fact that the most expensive thing was a *box* is so painful. How the hell was that thing 18k. And the fact that he might not even use it again makes it worse. If he hired a decent art director they should've been able to make that thing so cheaply with materials from a craft store and the mechanism to close it might've cost a few thousand but no where near 18k

That 18k could've gone too better costumes, or better lighting, or a better camera in the second stream. 18k is a lot of money that could've been more evenly spread out throughout the rest of the production and given ranboo a much cleaner final product

Not to mention the prosthetics for jerma also being up there in price when they weren't even blended properly

Also the mall they got. The mall was *massive* and then they proceeded to barely use it and when they did use it, they barely bothered to dress it up. It didn't look like an abandoned mall that had been taken over by some corporation, it looked like an abandoned mall with some lazy set dec on it. They easily could've used a much smaller mall or a warehouse honestly might've worked better.

I can understand the need to have all of these different sets and why a smaller location might hinder that, but there's a lot of work arounds for taking down and reusing a set and still making it obvious it was all a set. Like putting all the furniture and props into a storage room and having ranboo open it and see the previous sets sitting there dismantled, or maybe having sets look similar and reusing furniture that's been dressed up differently and then Ranboo finding the paint they used to make it look different and letting the audience put things together

Thats actually a concept that my school drills into us. It's called creative geography and it's basically making things look bigger than they are or like they're different completely locations even if they're literally the same room by dressing them differently and getting creative with different camera angles etc etc

There's a lot of ways to have less space and still give the same illusion but the team ranboo hired and ranboo himself didn't do anything like it, they just went for big and expensive and it didn't work

In the final stream where it was revealed that it was all some TV show or something, after the initial set where ranboo spawns in, there was one hint of that throughout the rest of the mall that it was a "set" and it was there was a c-stand and a light that I honestly thought at first was a mistake and wasn't supposed to be there but then realized what it was trying to do

The mall probably cost so much and it was so poorly used honestly an abandoned office building or a warehouse would've done better. They probably could've even reneged a proper studio space for a few weeks. And honestly having a smaller space would've stopped the need for the cameraman to be on screen as much as they did cause that honestly really ruined the immersion

This isn't even digging into the money spent on those ridiculous pipe puzzle animations.

Sometimes I feel a little bad for digging into genloss as much as I do, but with how much Ranboo hyped it up and with how many very amateur mistakes there were it's justified. And I have some genuine hope for future installments because it honestly seems like ranboo has some really creative ideas and cool plans, it's just that so far his execution has been very poor so far

Again so sorry for this long ask, hope I don't bother you too much

-film student anon

film student anon <<33 really cool insight into budgeting! i also would've loved to see more of the mall tbh, i think the creative geography stuff could've been really cool

Thats actually a concept that my school drills into us. It's called creative geography and it's basically making things look bigger than they are or like they're different completely locations even if they're literally the same room by dressing them differently and getting creative with different camera angles etc etc

i think this is such an interesting concept, an office space would've also been so cool. man theres so much in this ask and i think all your thoughts are so good. i got nothing to add atp

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

The Next Animated Blockbuster Heavies

In my 6-part series - of sorts - on animated movie blockbusters and how the Top 10 highest-earning animated movies of all-time changed rapidly over the course of 25+ years... I asked... What's next, then?

What cracks the Top 10 again?

Last year's MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU came close with over $930m, which was down from what the first MINIONS spin-off of the DESPICABLE ME movies made in 2015, in a pre-COVID world. Families have certainly become choosier with these movies, as not all of them can - nor should - be box office smashes. I'm glad that movies like THE BAD GUYS can make about $250m worldwide and be considered a success, not something to throw away.

In fact, we're seeing similar movement on the live-action front of things now that the Marvel Cinematic Universe behemoths are starting to dry up (note the abysmal legs on films like DOCTOR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, and ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA), and there's value seen in small endeavors - many of which in the horror genre - such as BARBARIAN, SMILE, TICKET TO PARADISE, THE MENU, VIOLENT NIGHT, M3GAN, and COCAINE BEAR. Smaller series, like the CREED films, keep that train chugging. It's like we're in the '90s and early '00s again, seeing these little bread-n-butter movies being the real success stories.

Animated movies, depending on the budget, are in a similar frame. Universal has been smart with budgets: DreamWorks no longer spends more than $90m on what they make, Illumination has always kept costs below $100m, and yet their movies still look pretty darn cinematic-level. Sony Animation has done the same, along with Warner Animation Group and now Paramount. Most of the films coming out are doing fun things without a Disney or Pixar-sized budget, and it's no surprise that a lot of the profitable films are the likes of THE BAD GUYS and DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS. All sub-$300m grossing movies that are still fine because they didn't cost so goddamn much...

Disney Animation and Pixar, in addition to misjudged release strategies under the stewardship of former CEO Bob Chapek, have yet to see a genuine animated success I feel. SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED all went straight to Disney+. SOUL made sense because no vaccine was out in late 2020, and even LUCA made sense because mid-2021 was before the Delta and Omicron variants, and many kids still weren't vaccinated. TURNING RED... Even then... TURNING RED I still feel would've made BAD GUYS numbers at best. $250m worldwide against the typical Pixar $150m+ budget would've been a massive bomb. Again, that family hesitancy and peoples' money being very tight. Ditto the Disney Animation movies. RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON did the day-and-date thing; theaters for those who were willing to go, Disney+ $30 digital file (until it was free **three** months later). A company spat with Cinemark kept the film from playing everywhere across the country, so RAYA didn't do adequately as a theatrical title. I mean, it did fine for a film playing amidst an ongoing pandemic and the vaccines not being entirely out yet, but it was still a financial loss. ENCANTO made little more than $250m worldwide, not at all great against the budget. Huge hit on Disney+, though. Then they treated STRANGE WORLD, a movie that tested poorly (for whatever reason, be it the sci-fi story being too out of reach or the gay son) well before release, like an unwanted stepchild. Huge flop, but it managed to do okay enough on Disney+ from what I've seen.

It's telling that Chapek was booted right after that film came out, and soon thereafter, the returning Bob Iger drastically restructured the movie release strategy. The heavy pivot to streaming was viewed as a mistake. Many observers feel that future Disney animated releases, both from Pixar and WDAS, are cursed now. Disney+ is one of the most subscribed-to streaming services, movie trips cost a fortune for families and many others, and the release strategies for the last six or so animated movies conditioned families to just wait for a hassle-free movie night in the living room...

Maybe?

Universal is the opposite. They didn't pivot as heavily to streaming as Disney did, and it also helps that Peacock doesn't have as many subscribers. How many average Americans even know that there *is* Peacock? Disney and Disney+, far more recognizable as a brand I'd argue... Universal delayed movies, and sacrificed a few to streaming, but also experimented. TROLLS WORLD TOUR went straight to PVOD, but THE CROODS: A NEW AGE was given a theatrical-only rollout with a PVOD release down the line, and it paid off nicely. It also helped that the movie cost $65m to make! Delaying MINIONS Deux twice, SING 2 opened amidst Omicron and became the first pandemic-era animated movie to pass $100m at the domestic box office, beating RAYA, CROODS Two, ADDAMS FAMILY 2, ENCANTO, and hybrid TOM & JERRY. MINIONS Deux finally came out and made nearly a billion, despite the previous film being 7 years old at that point. Maybe the first DESPICABLE ME being a 12-year-old movie helped? Nostalgia, maybe? The suit memes? Whatever happened, something *worked*. Then there's PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, which has almost relied entirely on its ludicrously strong word-of-mouth and record-breaking multiplier...

So that leads me to ask...

What are the next titan-sized animated movie blockbusters?

Currently, the top 10 looks like this.

1) THE LION KING (2019) - $1,657m

2) FROZEN II - $1,450m

3) FROZEN - $1,280m

4) INCREDIBLES 2 - $1,243m

5) MINIONS - $1,159m

6) TOY STORY 4 - $1,073m

7) TOY STORY 3 - $1,067m

8) DESPICABLE ME 3 - $1,034m

9) FINDING DORY - $1,028m

10) ZOOTOPIA - $1,023m

It's no surprise that... A LION KING prequel, FROZEN III, DESPICABLE ME 4, TOY STORY 5, and ZOOTOPIA 2 are on the horizon. Money talks, ya know. You'll likely see a third INCREDIBLES at some point, too, and a third FINDING Somebody movie as well. As such, I think all of those are definitely contenders for the Top 10.

So far... We have quite a few animated movies on the horizon... Here are the ones that I think have a shot...

THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (Universal - 4/5/2023) - It seems obvious at this point. Mario is *the* video game, one of the most iconic, the video game industry is largely where it is today because of his success, cross-generational appeal going all the way back to people who first played DONKEY KONG in arcades in 1981... If SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 could take in $405m worldwide, this all-animated picture should easily make double that. Domestic projections alone are through the roof, the marketing has been great, the hype is all over... I think it could challenge the billion and maybe even make it into the Top 10. (6/11/2023 NOTE: Grossed $1.3b... Put up a good fight!)

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (Sony - 6/2/2023) - The first film, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, opened in December of 2018 with an okay $35m... And then it had fantastic legs, climbed like a webhead to a stellar $190m domestic gross and very solid $384m worldwide take. Nowhere near the takes of the live-action Spideys, but the animated Spider-Man movie won hearts over and lasts beyond its theatrical release. The hype for this sequel is totally there, and it promises to be huge in scope. More universes, several Spiders, higher stakes... I see this performing similarly to... TERMINATOR 2, AUSTIN POWERS IN "THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME", SHREK 2, DESPICABLE ME 2, and INCREDIBLES 2. Films whose predecessors were either sleeper hits or quite successful films, but built massive followings after their release, whom all turned out in droves to their sequels. I think ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE is going to be just that. As for the billion, that may seem steep for an animated Marvel movie and one that isn't in an established cinematic universe (the three MCU Spider-Man movies are the only movies featuring Spider-Man to ever crack $1b), but maybe INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE's staying power could make this one a surprise. (11/20/2023 NOTE: Grossed $690 million...)

WISH (Disney - 11/22/2023) - A real wild card, given that it's a Disney release, but both this and the summer Pixar flick ELEMENTAL are going to indicate going forward how Disney will market and release their animated movies post-Chapek. I'd imagine WISH, being the centennial celebration feature for the company, and an old-fashioned princess musical picture that's all about wishing stars (of course, the very PINOCCHIO song that became Disney's whole damn anthem) presented in a hand-drawn-esque look. This could all work in its favor, and it could perform similarly to FROZEN (helps that its director Chris Buck is back at the helm for this film), maybe not but still have those usual Disney Thanksgiving legs. Again, the whole "audiences now wait for Disney+" thing is an uphill battle, and it all depends on how Disney releases and markets the thing... But if they play their cards right, it could potentially be very, very big. A 100th anniversary picture doing okay-ish would look kinda embarrassing.

KUNG FU PANDA 4 (Universal - 3/8/2024) - The biggest KUNG FU PANDA movie was the second one, making a little bit more than what the first one pulled in... Without the aid of 3D and higher ticket prices. Both grossed in the $630-670m range, so in sense, KUNG FU PANDA 2 stayed flat and didn't increase, SHREK 2-style. KUNG FU PANDA 3 was the lowest-grossing of the three... Maybe an eight-year wait will make this one significantly bigger? Maybe if it's a reinvention of the franchise like PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH to the SHREK series, it could surprise? One of the least likely to me, but I included it anyways, because anything's possible.

SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE (Sony - 3/29/2024) - This one's performance hinges entirely on how ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE does, and what kind of a cliffhanger that one ends on. Keep in mind, this was original supposed to be a two-part film with "Part One" being in the ACROSS title for a while. Even appears that on the film's first trailer and on some merchandise. (11/20/2023 NOTE: Delayed indefinitely, but still...)

INSIDE OUT 2 (Disney - 6/14/2024) - The original made $850m+ worldwide, astounding for an original feature not based on any pre-existing IP. Usually Pixar sequels make more than their predecessors, or match the attendance of the original, making for a higher gross (such as FINDING DORY, or TOY STORY 4's gross in comparison to TOY STORY 3's)... Either way, a billion is very much in sight for this one.

DESPICABLE ME 4 (Universal - 7/3/2024) - The second MINIONS movie came close to a billion, DESPICABLE ME 3 crossed the big billion, the only DESPICABLE ME movie to miss $900m worldwide was the first one. I think the momentum is still there for this franchise, even if this one is Gru and the girls, and not those yellow tictacs.

MUFASA: THE LION KING (Disney - 7/5/2024) - This one is probably the least likely, but I included it anyways since the film this is a prequel to is the highest-grossing animated film of all time... However, this one's tricky because... THE LION KING was a remake of a beloved film that was also a record-breaking smash, and 2019 LION KING only did as well as it did because of the 1994 classically animated original directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. If this movie was made in a universe where that LION KING did not exist? Oh, Jon Favreau's film wouldn't have been anywhere near as big... Anyways, THE LION KING got a direct-to-video sequel in 1998 made by other animation divisions of the company, *not* Walt Disney Feature Animation. SIMBA'S PRIDE is not being remade, so there's no gauge there. Even if it was, it still wouldn't have the same drawing power. This is a prequel story, technically it's all-new here... And honestly? I see this one playing out similarly to ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS and MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL. Their predecessors did well, off of the iconic originals and familiarity... but the sequels did not command the same attention. ALICE 2 outright flopped, MISTRESS OF EVIL managed to eke out an okay gross... I suspect this will be the same for MUFASA: THE LION KING. Outside of some very curious people and those who happened to like the 2019 movie, who really gives a dang? I expect great foreign numbers for this all-CG animal picture, but domestic I feel is where it sinks. (11/20/2023 NOTE: Delayed to December 20, 2024.)

SHREK 5 (Universal - 2025/26?) - Back in 2004, SHREK 2 made $919m at the worldwide box office... Without the aid of 3D, IMAX, the high ticket prices of today (and in the past decade for that matter), and a much larger international market... That's where the franchise peaked, because the domestic grosses slipped... While the foreign grosses gradually rose. SHREK FOREVER AFTER took in the biggest overseas total for the franchise back in 2010, and PUSS IN BOOTS did excellently in non-North American territories a year later... 11 years went by, PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH legged it up something fierce here, and is doing great worldwide... SHREK also became a meme fountain this past decade, and that post-quadrilogy love remains a thing. There will definitely be a nostalgia rush for this one from people my age who saw the first SHREK in theaters, and several who grew up on the SHREK movies on home video. This will be massive, especially after the wildly cool reinvention of the franchise that we saw in THE LAST WISH... DreamWorks' first billion dollar movie, comin' up.

ZOOTOPIA 2 (Disney - 202?) - First one made a billion. Much like how INSIDE OUT made $850m+ worldwide, that's fantastic for an animated movie not based on any pre-existing IP.

TOY STORY 5 (Disney - 202?) - Given that the last two films grossed a billion, and despite the pleas of internet weirdos who insist that Pixar need not make this film (or have made TOY STORY 4 for that matter), your average joe is there for another round of the talking playthings. It only didn't work out for LIGHTYEAR, because Buzz wasn't a toy in that and that was a different iteration of the character. TOY STORY 5 is mainline, that's enough to get people coming. That is, if Woody and Buzz are back, or at least one of them.

FROZEN III (Disney - 202?) - FROZEN made a billion, FROZEN II made a billion, I think it's locked to do it. No matter how long the wait.

... and who knows, maybe a surprise or two along the way...

[tnlbarth-blog]

Nov. 20 2024 - 12:03pm

Trigger Warning: Talk of sexual assault. Talk of abuse. Talk of suicide. Talk of self harm.

Warning: All people places and things resembling any real people places or things are merely coincidence and are not to be taken as such.

The guilt is eating me alive. Growing up I was not a good person and I have only just come to that realization. I am 33 years old. I think I always knew but I was in such denial that I believed that I was a good person. I mean sure at my core like most people I was good. We don't start out bad or toxic. We grow into it as a way of coping with life and surviving the homes and families we were brought up in.

Even if we take into account that I was possibly Autistic I behaved poorly and believed that I was good. No one could tell me how I was. Or who I was.

I had a bad temper. A temper developed possibly to be heard and seen. Growing up being the middle child with two siblings didn't leave you much room to be heard. We were never given the proper tools to communicate effectively.

I was a very frustrated little girl. But I always masked it at school with smiles and acting as innocently as I could. I had a lot of very valid things to be frustrated about. I was bullied every day for two years by a boy who called me fat starting in first grade. We didn't know what that meant but we both knew it was hurtful. I was abused at home. From all directions but it was so normal that I didn't realize. Paddled for disobeying. Yelled at for being a minor inconvenience. Being beaten by my sister. Were poor and starving most days and even lived out of our van for a while. I was raped by the elementary school principal. Bullied by kids at school for wearing dresses and glasses and for playing with Barbies. Bullied on the bus for simply existing. All without the tools to confront them. All without tools to tell my parents what was happening and even if I did they didn't really believe me. My best friend moved away before second grade. I was alone for several years before making friends again. And on top of all this I peed the bed from third grade to the sixth grade. I was miserable.

I needed help. I needed a therapist or counselor. I needed someone to see me. I needed someone to give me love. But instead I got nothing for years.

I was so angry all the time. It began to manifest in my behavior. I acted out. Nothing super terrible. Nothing that got me put in juvie. Though I am certain I should have been. Maybe it would have helped. Or maybe not.

I started standing up to my sister who was hitting my brother and I and hit back. I started talking back to my teachers. I started shouting at my parents. I refused to do anything. I stopped working on school work. I refused to go to school feigning illness.

I started stealing from the school office and the teacher's desk. I stole from the UNICEF box that I collected money for. (Never all of it) And I rationalized it heavily that It would go to me anyway since I was so poor. I feel so super horrible for that. I stole from the lost and found. Eventually the stealing did stop.

I started throw fits. I'm pretty sure they were meltdowns but I didn't know what that was back then. The meltdowns started pretty young. I would throw my hands and feet around. And I would throw objects and shout. Mostly due to over stimulation.

At some point I realized the meltdowns helped me get what I wanted and then I would "use" them to do just that. Not okay. These were the more obvious behaviors.

The not so obvious things. I would tell people what was wrong with them called what I did "giving people the hard truth". I would make jokes at others expense. I would "accidentally" hurt people. Example; my friend had a broken foot and I "absent-mindedly" put my hand down on her foot while she had it elevated knowing I'd probably hurt her. I am not proud of that. I would play little pranks on people that were kind of harmful. Though that stopped when I pulled the chair out from under my sister as she sat down. I thought it would be funny because I saw someone do it on TV. It was not funny. I immediately felt bad and I got into trouble on top of it.

I forced my friendship onto people. I don't know if they really liked me or not. If not I honestly don't blame them. Especially since I told them what they did wrong all the time. And never took accountability for the way I acted. I DARVOed (Deny Attract Reverse Victim and Offender) people all the time. Of course back then I didn't know what that meant. I manipulated people. I shifted blame. I avoided accountability all the time. I lied. I snuck around. I looked down on people.

All these things happened before I graduated high school.

After high school I dated a guy and he abused me. And I abused him too. It was with him that I learned a lot about my own behaviors toward others. But I was still in so much denial. I lost a lot of people during that relationship and I blamed him for it for a long time. But I realize now that even though he was part of it I was a horrible person and those people should have left, it was the healthiest thing to do.

I did learn about myself and grow. But not enough. After him I only really had one friend who had stuck by my side. My best friend who endured my crap all the time. She saw the good in me I am sure.

After that relationship I moved in with my mom and brother and tried to work on myself but I didn't know where to begin. But I tried.

Then I met my next boyfriend. He helped me learn some things because he too was trying to improve himself. This had been a really good relationship for a long time. Then my sister moved in with us and she opened up something in me. Or reawakened some unresolved and unhealed problems in me. And I was miserable again. I was doing so well but I backslid because I hadn't done any actual work. I was repressing things and pretending I was okay.

I became that hate filled angry little girl again. And I felt trapped in my room because that was the only way I knew that I could avoid fighting again.

Then on Christmas eve of the first or second year she lived with us. I had another meltdown. Ending in me locking myself in my room and cutting my wrists with scissors and swallowing every pill I had.

I went to the hospital on Christmas chauffeured by my boyfriend of the time. Then I was ambulanced to the mental hospital where I stayed a week. Where I finally learned something helpful. That was the true beginning of my changing.

All this to say that I was not a good person and all those people who had to deal with me knew it. But I didn't want to believe it.

There are so many other things I did but I cannot remember them all.

I ended my relationship with my most recent ex boyfriend the same year I ended my relationship with my best friend.

I don't know how bad they really were. I know that a lot of bad things happened to me via my ex boyfriend's father. Which made me bitter toward my ex.

I thought I knew why I was breaking up with the people I broke up with. But I am pretty sure I was wrong. I think I was letting my jealousy and fear take over. It was probably best for them anyway.

I never wanted to be alone. But here I am. Alone. And maybe that is best. I've only really started to change five years ago. It took me too long to come to terms with how horrible I was. I don't know how bad I am now. I suppose I'll have to watch and see.

But I do know that I have the tools necessary to change and I am actively doing that.

I feel major guilt for everything I did growing up. And the only thing I can do to make up for that is to change who I am to be better than I was.

I will probably be in denial of a lot of things in my future. I seem to have a problem with that. But I think that I am doing better at taking accountability for my actions.

I just wish I would apologize to the people I've wronged. But I am too fearful of what they will say or do to me. If they forgive me I don't feel deserving of that. If they don't I understand but I don't think I can handle it.

I don't expect anyone to feel bad for me. This is not something I wrote to gain pity or praise. I just don't have anyone to talk to. I don't have anywhere to put my thoughts.

I expect you to hate me. I would look at another person saying all these things in disgust. I would judge them.

I really hope I am not that girl anymore.

Regards

TNL Barth

[thejacksmit]

First Take: The Garfield Movie - love Mondays. Hate this film.

SYNOPSIS: After Garfield's unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, ragged alley cat Vic, he and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered lives to join Vic on a risky heist.

It wouldn't be a multifilm marathon without at least one film that belongs in the depths of hell - and boy did we have a real doozy this year to join the likes of The Queen's Corgi (which was bad enough to get a Journal episode made about it). Somehow, inexplicably, Sony decided to take on a new Garfield film, made independently of the studio. One which has been in development since 2011. I was three cups of Earl Grey deep when venturing into this 'minefield'... and I am so glad I've made it out in one piece. Thermonuclear rant incoming, so longtime fans of the blog will know what happens next: cue the music.

Mark Dindal of Chicken Little and The Emperor's New Groove fame has broken free from Disney to direct this and... oooooof. This is a mess. 1 hour 41 minutes of poorly paced, dumb, stupid, poorly executed animation that serves no purpose other than to get kids into cinemas. I am not angry, just very very very very very disappointed. Script wise, it is three credited writers (and likely more ghostwriters) - Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, and David Reynolds are the fall guys for this trainwreck of a script that has barely any legible plot, a story that goes all over the place, dialogue that is too on the nose ('I do my own stunts... like Tom Cruise'), and to wrap it all up with a cherry on top, the product placement is worse than the Tom and Jerry film I willingly sat through a few years ago - no, it's worse than Haunted Mansion last year - which explains how this got a cinema release. As for the score, John Debney what were you thinking by besmurching Lorne Balfe's arrangement of the Mission Impossible theme and Hans Zimmer's version of the Top Gun theme for the sake of a punchlime? Technically this is an absolute shambles all over the shop.

Then there's the cast. I have no clue how or why Chris Pratt, Samuel L Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames and Nicholas Hoult took the contract to make this, as the voice acting is soulless, lacks ANY emotion, feels very phoned in, and believe me this says a lot when even SNOOP DOGG has a character in it! Reading up on when the castings were all confirmed, this definitely feels like a film hit hard by the SAG strike (all very rushed to finish recording) but I have to ask Sony - make it make sense. Apparently there is a videogame and a sequel in active development with Alcon Entertainment, which is mental considering it's a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, and still grossing over $250million at the box office. This is a film that arguably completes a full collection of mediocrity across the 11 years I've done this - just when I thought The Emoji Movie and Nine Lives were the benchmark of terrible movies... this one comes and blows both of them out of the water.

THE VERDICT POST MORTEM

Lord almighty that was bad. An incoherent plot, voice acting with no emotion, a flat, emotionless script, the abomination of some fantastic licensed music... everyone involved should hang their heads in shame. There's bad films, then, there's this. I legitimately felt like being mummified after watching it.

RATING: Minus 5/5

[incorretlynamedcambrianexplosion]

Ao3 Link (coming soon)

Word Count: 1,430

Summary:

A small drabble in which Copia thinks Mountain's horns are just beautiful. He also has no idea why Mountain groans like that when he touches them.

Or:

Copia accidentally makes Mountain cum in his pants :D

AN:

This is so poorly written. I did not work on this as long as I usually do and it was a spur of the moment type thing. I'm on 1 hr of sleep so-

Relationships: Copia/Mountain

Tags: Tail and horn play, could you call that coming untouched? clothed sex.

Copia doesn’t know much about ghouls. It’s a failing on his own part, he only got through his clergy work as a student based on second hand information and poor sources. The most he knows is summoning, but even that is rocky (see: unplanned summoning of Swiss). Studying them in textbooks felt wrong in some way. The figures of their bodies laid out on yellowed, aged pages felt wrong to view, so now wandering through living with several ghouls under his watch has been... interesting.

Thankfully he’s had a great teacher. Mountain has slowly let him in on ghoulish things. The whole ordeal started when Mountain gifted him a stone that flashed in the light with warm yellows and a box of handmade tea. Apparently he took notice of Copia’s stress and it’s a common thing for them to do. They gift each other food and something element related to ease each other’s minds. That led to many questions, and now he likes to think that maybe he understands a bit more. There’s still the question of why Mountain seemingly randomly flushes or why he seems to constantly be adjusting his tail.

Now, on the small couch in his office, Copia is squished beside his earth ghoul. It’s a small moment he has as a break between workloads, but a much needed one. Copia’s hands wander aimlessly before one accidentally slips over the little bump at Mountain’s spine just above his ass where his tail rests. In hindsight, their previous costumes couldn’t have been comfortable against it, even glamored. He’s learned that even while glamored, the ghouls can still feel their hidden limbs. His finger tips just barely brush under the base of it. Mountain makes a noise that Copia can’t quite distinguish as good or bad.

“That must be uncomfortable to hide all day. If they’d allow it, I’d have you all unglamored whenever you please, but no. They’re too worried about appearances,” he laments for Mountain with clear annoyance in his voice.

The ghoul shrugs. It isn’t too bad. Sure it gets a bit cramped feeling but it’s not too uncomfortable or painful by any means, at least when it’s not for long hours. It’s just one more thing they have to remember. At least his horns can fit easily into his helmet so he can have those out. He’s lost in thought when a curious finger slips just under the base of his tail again in an attempt to rest on just the top of his ass. Mountain makes a startled noise and jumps. Immediately the curious hands are gone.

“Eh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle.”

The ghoul shakes his head though his eyes are still a bit wide in surprise. It’s sort of unexpected, but not wholly unpleasant.

Mountain sits there for a moment before speaking in a low rumble, “No, it's okay. I don't mind."

With a nervous look and still fingers, Copia glances at him before slipping his fingers back to the small of Mountain’s back. He doesn’t hook his fingers underneath the small bump of his tail but just leaves it there. It leaves Mountain full of anticipation almost shifting in place. It’s worse when those fingers are just sitting there. He wants them to hook under his tail and maybe pull it a bit, the way a mate would tug on it roughly to pin him down.

With his own spindly fingers, he reaches behind him to his back and guides Copia’s to hook under the base of his tail. He lets out a pleased sigh as Copia grows more confident and starts gently stroking the leathery skin.

Mountain’s flat ears twitch, the rings in them jingle softly, and Copia laughs.

“Is it pleasant?”

He has no idea that the way he’s touching is all too reminisce of how it’s pulled to force Mountain to present himself in heat, how his mates pull it to the side or lift it up high to embarrass him. It settles a warmth in his bones, and Mountain can’t help but lean into it as he slouches back.

“Mhm,” he mumbles.

A nail is dragged across it, and Mountain lets out a small noise. It’s like a small yelp that got caught too low in his throat to make any real sound. Copia raises a brow but doesn’t say anything about it. Mountain shifts and crosses his ankle over his knee before pulling Copia’s hand away. He looks a bit disappointed. Mountain shifts his tail so that it lays a bit flatter against he hem of his loose pants.

“Sorry, is that uncomfortable?” Copia asks.

The ghoul doesn’t really make a sound to confirm his suspicions. Mountain just shrugs, but doesn’t really move. He just ducks his head down a bit giving Copia something new to focus on.

Out of curiosity, and a slight fascination of all things ghoulish, Copia’s hands then go up to Mountain’s ears. They flick and twitch under his touch. His fingers move up even if it’s a bit of a reach to touch Mountain’s horns. Mountain ends up leaning his head down a bit further to help. Blunt nails scratch against the bone of the two points and soft fingers trace where his scalp rises before giving way to his horns.

Mountain’s tail twitches from where it’s folded neatly into the hem of his pants and his ears flick back. He leans his head down further almost pressing his horns into Copia’s hand. Mountain can feel something building just below his stomach and he should stop, but -oh- when Copia’s blunt nails dig into the divots of the bone he shivers.

“Mountain?” Copia sounds unsure and starts to pull his hand away after a labored expression comes over the ghoul’s face. His eyebrows knit close together and his forehead wrinkles.

A clawed hand grabs his and holds it still, “Please don’t stop.”

Copia has never heard the earth ghoul beg before.

With a chuckle, he continues again and pays close attention to the scalp by Mountain’s horns. There’s a few bumps underneath the skin where the flesh is uneven on his horns. He drags his nails through the groves of the bone and it’s just then that the ghoul makes a strange noise.

Mountain’s hand grips his leg tightly, his claws leaving pinpricks, and a small sound escapes him. The whine fades into a low groan, and Copia stills with his hand still on the ghoul’s horns thumbing his scalp. Mountain’s breath is shaking and labored as he bites his cheek. Copia can’t help but watch the display.

“These are beautiful,” Copia murmurs stroking the base of them with his thumb. The bone is two tone and reversed from each other; black on top of one and on the bottom of the other.

He should have known better than to let someone touch his horns, but Aether’s the only one who has been able to force him to cum from it, so surely it wouldn’t have gone this far. He shouldn’t have let this go so far, but a thick blush rises to his face regardless. Mountain wages a little war in his head over his burning need to cum, even if it’s just in his trousers, or ripping Copia’s hand away from his horns and leaving without a word. Another scratch to them sends any thought of leaving out of his head and before he knows it, Mountain ruts into nothing.

“Does this sort of thing happen to all of you? Or are you just a bit sensitive?”

Mountain shakes his head rife with embarrassment. “J-just me. ‘n’ Dew.”

He shifts in place so close to the edge. His eyes flutter for a moment before one more scratch to his horns has him tensing and making a guttural sound deep from his chest. He screams at himself, no! no! no! and a hand flies to his dick if only to cover the dark stain forming. His briefs stick to himself unpleasantly, and Mountain can only whine.

“Oh, did you-?” Copia’s tone is teasing. On the inside he’s a bit flustered himself, but it’s about one of the proudest things he’s ever done too. He doubts that many clergy members can say they’ve done the same thing.

Mountain is flushed and his eyes are screwed shut if only to save him the embarrassment of the whole situation. Still, he nods silently. Suddenly a gentle kiss is placed to his cheek leaving behind a black and white paint mark.

“Don’t be silly. I’d love to hear what other noises you can make.”

In response, the ghoul just makes a whiny, needy sound.

[8bitsupervillain]

Best Games that came out before 2022!

I thought briefly about combining the pre-2022 games with the games that actually came out in 2022. In fact I still plan to, but I figure I should separate the lists and include my mini-reviews.

10: Leisure Suit Larry (real caveat hours)

For the purposes of its entry here this is in fact most of the Leisure Suit Larry series. The old Sierra ones anyway. Is it cheating? Technically sure, but the thing about it is I can't really pick one out of the line up to be like "this is the best one." LSL1 is a decent little game, but it has aged rather poorly and the gambling section you have to do is the worst. LSL2 is not good in the slightest, and I hate it quite a bit in fact. LSL3 is good, I greatly enjoyed the story and like Passionate Patti as a character. LSL5 is maybe the best of the originals, but there are some hang ups I have with it looking at it with a modern lens (the blackface, I'm talking about the blackface). LSL6 is a pretty decent game with some really good jokes in it, but it also has some of the worst bugs, some of which can straight up lock you out of being able to finish the game. Love For Sail meanwhile plays the best out of the series but has some real aggravating moments where you have to be pixel perfect in your play. Also it has another similarly terrible gambling section just like the original Larry. I didn't play the remake of the first Larry this year but I can't imagine it does too terribly much to make it stand out from the rest.

I have to say though I greatly prefer the Sierra Larry games to the first attempted reboots that came out in the 2000s. I haven't finished it but Magna Cum Laude just seems like a really poor game that lacks the charm of the older entries. There's also Box Office Bust, but I'm given to understand that's somehow even worse, especially since you can't buy it from any of the digital stores, and I don't really want to buy a disc drive just to play Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust.

I'm in full fanfiction mode here now, if they do make a new Leisure Suit Larry game I kind of want them to include a character like Passionate Patti. Wet Dreams Don't Dry included a small section where you play as Faith in between the two games so clearly they're not opposed to the idea of having a female player character in the reboot series. Then again, I'm also fine with them just leaving the series alone because I felt that Wet Dreams Dry Twice was a wonderful send off to the reboots. Also with the passing of Jan Rabson I can't imagine they'd be in too much of a hurry to make a new one. I humbly submit to you that I think they should try making a Passionate Patti game. Make a game like the Larry reboots, but have Patti be the main character, I think that could be good. Couldn't be any worse than Les Manley or Jerry Wanker.

09: Final Fantasy XIII

For a good decade or so I kept hearing the constant rumblings and grumblings about how Final Fantasy XIII was more or less a slap in the face for RPG fans. The hallway, the hallway, Pulse l'Cie, fal'cie, cieth, gotta read the in-game bestiary to get the lore, why does Hope gotta be such an emo boy, etc. etc. I quite liked this game, maybe I'd feel differently if I were a long-time fan of the series, but honestly this game really doesn't feel so bad as its years of reputation would lead one to assume it is. My only real complaint is playing the game on the normal difficulty makes enemies entirely too spongy, but kicking the difficulty down to easy made it feel a lot better. Not that it made it a cakewalk, I died a few more times than I'd care to admit. For all the harrumphing and furor I've heard in regards to the story I liked it, sure there's some realy pacing issues and nonsensical twists but I thought it was a good story. One of things I liked about it is despite her status as the cover girl Lightning really doesn't feel like she's the main character or hero of the story. I know she's given more plot relevance/made the hero in later entries, but here in XIII she doesn't really get that much more screen time than any of the other characters. You could just as easily assign main character/protag status to Vanille or Fang, hell even Hope or Sazh if you're feeling particularly brave.

The only other major complaint I have with this game is when you do inevitably get down to Pulse I don't care for the sudden open-world the game gives you. I didn't particularly mind the game giving you a path to follow, so when it gives you this rather poor open world I was kind of trying to just rush through the section so I could get back to the story proper. Also the ratings after the battles I think don't add a whole lot to the experience. It's not like it's an action game where it can judge your combat proficiency like a Devil May Cry or similar. The combat system really feels like a single player version of a system from an MMO. Where you choose your attacks or spells and the game just does them automatically. That being said I don't mind the combat system, I think it's perfectly functional, even if I did find the summons to be slightly confusing to use (and I cannot for the life of me remember how it actually functioned, I played this way back in February). I'm eager to try the rest of the trilogy because despite how "the story is poorly handled" I want to see how the rest of it shakes out.

08: DJMAX Respect V

I enjoy rhythm games. I may not be particularly great at them but I find the simplicity of "push button to do good" of a lot of these types of games to be fun. Like so many people I fell face first into the clutches of Guitar Hero/Rock Band back in the day. I've always been vaguely aware of the DJMAX series, but never really bothered with it, until now! Is good. I like most of the tracks that are available for it, I'm not the biggest fan of K-pop but this has some really good K-Pop tracks in it that made me a fan of several of the artists. Also it's good to know that if I ever need to find a way to rid myself of several hundred dollars the DLC option is right there for me. Good game.

07: The Darkside Detective

A delightful comedy mystery adventure game. It leans heavy on the supernatural element, but I found it to be a delightful game. Some of the jokes are absolutely groanworthy, but I feel that none of the chapters of the game outstay their welcome. I think this might have been an episodic thing way back when but I'm not a hundred percent sure. It would definitely explain why the game is split into six separate cases (plus two extra ones you unlock after completing the main story) that largely have nothing to do with each other but I'm not sure that's the case. It's not a particularly long game, but I don't think that's really something to hold against the game. It just means that it doesn't get the chance to start getting annoying with blatantly unfair puzzles. More games should have the decency to not drag themselves out forever, and instead end before things get too bad.

06: Call of Duty Black Ops III (Girls' Frontline Mod)

Honestly if you asked me back in April if I would replay Call of Duty Black Ops III, much less had it be in my top ten I probably would've reacted negatively. Largely because I distinctly remember not caring for Blops 3 when I played it way back when. But then I stumbled across the Girls' Frontline mod for the game and I decided what the hell I'll give it a whirl. I'm really surprised at how much I like the actual gameplay it was a fun time to be had. I find that the combination of Girls' Frontline with the storyline of Blops 3 worked out really well. From what I understand a lot of the later story in Frontline lends itself well to the techno-conspiracy stuff seen in Blops 3. Also I feel that the use of the models from GF is the closest I'll ever get to my dream game of making a big elaborate espionage conspiracy game like this or a Metal Gear Solid and just having everyone be an anime waifu. The one time in the game it doesn't swap out the model for one of the Dolls is really funny to me. It's great seeing photo-realistic Robert Picardo standing with a bunch of anime girls.

05: Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance

I considered doing with Kingdom Hearts what I did with Leisure Suit Larry. I thought about combining them all into one entry and saying: Kingdom Hearts, all of em (except Chain of Memories). But the thing is I can absolutely point to an entry and say "this, this is the absolute peak, and pinnacle of the series. God I love it. I want to have sloppy makeouts with it." Dream Drop Distance is an amazing second place prize winner in this regard. Dream Drop Distance plays like a conglomeration of everything I love about the various Kingdom Hearts games just crammed into one very thrilling and masterfully executed package. The only aspect about the game that I didn't care for was some of the Flowmotion stuff because the environments in the game really don't lend themselves well to it. They're crying out for a more open environment like what would eventually be in Kingdom Hearts 3, not the pretty closed off arenas of DDD. That being said everything else about this game is just an absolute gem.

The combat is much more refined and feels better than the combat in Birth by Sleep, the focus on two playable characters kept the pacing of the game moving at a good clip. Then there's the boss fights! Some of the best boss fights in the entire franchise are located in this entry. I may have complained about the sheer soul-crushing challenge of the Rinzler and young!Xehanort fights but I can't help but admit that they are two absolute stand outs from across the series. Even with the fights I don't like I can tell that they took the lessons they learned from Birth By Sleep and 358/2 Days and made the bosses fit the restrictions of the handheld better than some from the past. It's something of a double-edged sword though there's at least one encounter that is entirely too clausterphobic for the big fight you have to do. And the less said about Spellican the better I say.

This was a great game and an absolute delight in setting up what was to come in the final installment of the current story arc. It is also in my opinion the game with the best realization for Xigbar since KH2, and wonderfully sets up what becomes of him in KH3. The only real complaint I have about the games technical aspects isn't even strictly to do with the game itself but with the weird implementation of achievements on the PC version of the game. For whatever reason Epic Games has the correct amount of play time listed in the library, but it does not show any of the achievements I unlocked during my time with the game. The same thing happened with the achievements in Birth By Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage, other than that though I had no problems with the game on a techincal front.

04: Tyranny

I do enjoy a good dark and edgy fantasy every now and then. I don't really look specifically for it any more because of the absolute glut of the stuff you can find out there. Tyranny is special in my eyes because it does the dark and edgy fantasy stuff really well and is written well enough that it never really stands out as just pointless edge just for the sake of it. Sure there are cartoonishly evil characters like The Voice of Nerat who just seems to be the embodiment of "lol random chaos evil murder. I'm so quirky." But the rest of the game is so well-written that it makes a character like that work. What I like about the game is that since you're playing as an evil overlord who is sent to oppress the masses the game doesn't make you undergo an arc where you realize Tunon (your overlord) is in fact a bad so you need to work with a token resistance to stop him. It lets you start as an evil overlord and stay as an evil overlord, it's nice and refreshing. I love how some of the conversations in this game are basically boss fights where you have to choose exactly the right choices or the conversation goes extremely poorly to the point where someone has to die. Sure there are plenty of times that combat is inevitable, but I appreciate when the game lets you talk down an opponent and convince them to join your side in overthrowing some other pawn of darkness. It's not the longest RPG in the world but I think it works to its favor. Since it's shorter it doesn't take as long to go through the multiple routes and see what the game has to offer in terms of story content. I wish that there could be a sequel one day, but given the accusations and everything against Chris Avellone I completely understand why that's not likely to happen. Still though this was a phenomenal game, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in CRPGs.

03: Return of the Obra Dinn

I always thought this looked like a neat thing. But for whatever reason I just never really took the time to actually play it. It's certainly not a typical scenario for a video game, go do some investigating to find out what happened to an entire ship's crew as an insurance agent. What I wasn't expecting was some of the absolutely out of left field events that occurred on the ship. I don't think anyone could accurately guess what leads to the ultimate downfall of the Obra Dinn. I liked this game a lot, there are some issues I have with trying to identify the differences between some of the sailors, but I think that's more down to me just being bad at recognizing the differences between some faces. It was always a massive boon when a character would have some sort of facial hair so I could tell the difference between characters. I love the voice acting in the game, hearing various European and Asian sailors yelling at each other brought a big smile to my face. I don't wish to spoil the mystery of the game, so don't take the relatively small amount of text I wrote about it to be an indictment of the game, this is most certainly well worth playing. Plus it's on the Switch now, so you can take the fun insurance investigation on the go with you.

02: Kingdom Hearts 2

I did very seriously consider making this just a "All the Kingdom Hearts minus Chain of Memories are great, and here's a brief summation." But I think that Kingdom Hearts 2 stands head and shoulders above the rest of the series as the best. It astounds me that they went from KH1 being a very good game and then after a brief foray into card battling made this absolutely stellar piece of gaming. Just pure unadulterated greatness poured into this game, I love it to pieces. I find the opening hours of the game where you play as Roxas to be a great change of pace to the first entry and it sets up very well just what kind of story the rest of the game will bring you through. The combat is a real swell time acting as a very strong Action RPG that just generally plays better than the combat from the first outing. While the boss fights might lack some of the more big bombastic set pieces from later entries in the series they stand out in this game for being simply better than the others.

While I love the plots and counterplots and counter-counterplots of the later entries I love how comparatively straightforward this one is to the others. Sure there's certain trace elements of what would go on to the rest of the Kingdom Hearts plots but this one sets it all up in an extremely satisfactory way. I like how some of the Disney worlds in this game have some gameplay changes, they're not all just go into Mulan and fight and fight and fight. For as many people have griped about it Atlantica will stand out in your memory for how different it is compared to the other words, for good or ill. I love how Tron world starts out with you in the lightcycle arena before it goes back to the old Kingdom Hearts combat. It just plain feels good to play generally, it doesn't have the basic combat system of the first game, and it doesn't over complicate it by having the magic and combat systems that you would eventually see in Birth By Sleep, Dream Drop Distance, and 3.

For years I was always curious why the fandom for Kingdom Hearts seemed to always single out KH2 as the best of the franchise. Having played the game I can completely understand why. This is quite possibly one of the finest action RPGs I've played. A definite recommend.

01: Pillars of Eternity

I didn't go in to this game with any real expectations. I just sort of went in hoping to find a fun little RPG to play during my down time at work. I certainly did not expect to be so thoroughly gripped by this game, this is such a masterfully written and immaculate game that I am surprised I hadn't played it at any point in the past seven years. Particularly I'm surprised because I apparently kickstarted this game nearly a decade ago. Guess that goes to show how loose I am with my money and the games on my infinite backlog.

When I started the game I thought it was going to be just sort of a typical by the numbers RPG with fine combat. And at the very start that's what I figured it was going to be, but then after everyone who is accompanying your character dies I felt a marked difference in what was to come. When you get to the first town with the massive tree just full to bursting with hung corpses I started to figure this might be quite different from what I figured it would be.

I find this to be extremely difficult to talk about because I want to just gush and spoil the entire story of the game. But I don't want to spoil anyone because I do genuinely think this game is well worth playing. While the gameplay doesn't strictly do anything unique it just plays as a very strong refinement of CRPG mechanics that I've seen in other games like Blackguards or Tyranny (which itself was a further refinement of the systems from Pillars). While for the most part the gameplay can boil down to "have your guys just dogpile and turbo murder every enemy" there are also moments that are basically conversation boss fights. Which makes the game stand out very strongly to me, I absolutely adore when games let you have dialogue puzzles to make it so you don't HAVE to engage some of the pivotal fights. I love it when RPGs remember that there's more to situations than just combat and makes it so you can roll a character who is a bit of a sweet talker.

Another strong aspect of Pillars of Eternity is that with the DLC they released they actually went to the effort to record new dialogue for the original cast that interacts with the characters you can recruit in The White March. They even made it so if you have characters from the White March DLC they can interact with important characters in early parts of the game, it just blows me away. One gameplay thing I was surprised by is when you unlock your manor base I thought the game was going to make it so if you wanted to upgrade it you'd have to drop what you're doing and hoof it back to base. It was a very pleasant surprise that you don't have to do that, it's just an menu you can use whenever you please to do most things with the base. There are certain actions that will require you to be at Caed Nua (your manor/base), but these aren't super pivotal choices.

That's another thing I adore about Pillars of Eternity, your quest that is so incredibly important to your party is basically an unknown to the rest of the world. The world keeps turning to involve the petty issues of a mad lord with his big town square hanging tree hoping and praying his unborn child isn't born a soulless monster. You keep having to collect taxes and pay your employees who guard your estate. Of course no actual time passes in the game, it all really just progresses when you do your in-game quests. I just find it neat that as your going on this big world-changing journey no one outside of you, your party, and those you're actively chasing after is any the wiser.

I love this game it was just a such an utter delight to play through and I'm eagerly looking forward to playing Deadfire.

[writingaboutdisney]

This will get long, so I decided to reblog instead of just comment. Because I disagree with pretty much every point up there. Also, under a readmore because of how long it is. I'm sorry to subject you to this lol.

There's certain things that I think are a matter of opinion. That means that even if the youtubers are backing it up with facts, what they're saying won't apply to everyone, but it's still a valid criticism for others. Especially without more details to some of your points, it's hard to get into specifics. That's why I was just focusing on the box office numbers, and that even though the critics don't like it, most of the audience does.

I'm not going to cover every point. Some of these I'm curious about, some I can chock up to differences of opinion. So like, Valentino being annoying? If you don't like the goofy side kick type characters, yeah you'll probably find him annoying. But if you do like, say, Olaf, you'll personally enjoy him. I actually found him to be less annoying than Olaf, personally.

Other points that fall into the "Depends on a person's tastes in film" category would include the music being okay at best, too many references to old movies, and the animation style being lackluster (Which i'll still bring up later because there is some more to talk about with this imo.)

As for what I'm curious about, why is Asha considered boring? I've seen some criticism for her, mainly people thinking she's "adorkable," but I haven't heard her called boring yet.

I have seen more criticism for Magnifico being "boring." I think he's a lot more complex of a villain than a lot of people give him credit for. In fact, I'd argue he's the most complex villain we've ever got in Disney. We see he has a tragic backstory, and we see how that might influence his actions, but it also does not excuse them. He's not trying to grab power for power's sake, nor is he redeemable just because he has understandable motives. It's a rather fresh take on a villain that I was excited to see. But a lot of people seem to miss this about his character and not understand his character arc, which is why I think they find him boring.

Which leads me to the point about them sacrificing story for easter eggs. I will say this, the story felt a bit rushed. But, if you watch older Disney movies, like Snow White, Sleeping beauty, etc, they feel slightly rushed too. They're shorter. Yet, they can fit the entire story into the movie, and while you're left saying we should have had more ... did we really NEED it for the story to work? And I'd argue, no. Wish is able to give us enough details about the characters that the story holds up and can be followed. Extra run time to explore things further would have been nice, but it isn't needed. It goes back to some of their old habits of storytelling, where objects in the background can help tell us about a character, lighting in a scene can help set the mood, etc. It's a more subtle method of storytelling. And it may not be everyone's favorite, but that doesn't mean they did a bad job. They were just doing something different than what they've done in their recent movies. I enjoyed it, because I like the older Disney movies. It may not be for everyone, but that doesn't make it terrible.

I also didn't find Amaya to be useless. She was an interesting character in her own right. She helps the heroes take on Magnifico. She's someone in power who sees how things are going poorly and is there to support her people, which contrasts nicely with her husband as he goes off the deep end. She helps Dahlia get access to the magic book she needs to research how to defeat Magnifico. At the end of the movie, she's the one with experience ruling the kingdom who can help everyone heal after what happened. I won't say she has the biggest role in the movie, but she's certainly not just sitting in the background serving no purpose.

As for the magic system, this is the point i'm closest to agreeing with. I don't think the plot holes are too big to be excused, however, because things feel a bit rushed, some things pop up in the middle of the story when it would've been nice to know them before. For example, Magnifico is the only person allowed to use magic in Rosas, and that's not something I realized until the middle of the movie. Other forms of magic are illegal. It kind of came out of nowhere, but it does fit with his personality and the world itself, so again, it wasn't such a big plot hole that it was inexcusable. I'm not sure what other plot holes people are talking about when it comes to magic, but if you give me an example I could give you my thoughts on it.

Star was not only made for merchandising. That is actually just ... blatantly untrue. Star was always meant to be in the movie long before he was the small, adorable, merchandisable thing we ended up with. I have the art book and I could show you some pictures later if you like, but they went through a lot of different design options for him before finally landing on the one they picked. A lot of them are far less cute, some have him looking human, some more like Jiminy Cricket. That's who he was inspired by btw, he's supposed to be a guide for Asha like Jiminy was for Pinocchio. And he does work in that compacity. He contributes a lot to the story. The story wouldn't exist in anywhere near the same way without him. So I'm not sure why people are saying he's just for merchandising.

As for the animation ... like I said, i got the artbook. And while it's an opinion on whether you find it to be better or worse than other movies coming out, I do know the team put a lot into this. This is Disney's first stylized CGI movie. It's the first time they've blended 2d and 3d animation into one medium like this. I'm not saying it's everyone's cup of tea, or it's perfect, but I do feel like people are being extremely hard on it. Again, if it's not your thing, that's okay. This is just a point I disagree with and I personally find the animation to be beautiful. I'm really glad we got something that wasn't the giant heads and eyes we've been getting ever since Tangled lol. I think this was a step in the right direction animation wise.

As for the teens, I don't really see it as overcrowding. THis might also be a personal opinion I suppose? But they're based off the seven dwarfs from Snow White, and just like Snow White, while they do play a role, they're side characters. They're not meant to steal the show. THey're meant to be Asha's friend group who helps her out when she needs it. I thought they struck a nice balance of giving them unique personalities while still making sure they didn't take up too much time since the movie was about Asha. But maybe that's just me.

TLDR: I think a lot of people are taking personal preferences and using that to say the movie is a bad movie in general, when really it was just a bad movie for them personally.

So Wish came out...

I haven't seen it, but with so many videos on why it's terrible, I'm starting to hear some of the same stuff pop up.

Music is okay at best. Lyric pacing is terrible.

Too many references to old movies, not enough attention to the story.

Asha is a boring character.

Overcrowding. Having the seven dwarves as Asha's allies made for seven characters with no real purpose.

Magnifico is a boring villain. Which is a shame, cause as someone who has no intention of seeing the film, he seems like he's the most interesting character.

The queen has literally no purpose whatsoever.

The magic system is never clearly defined and creates plot holes too big to excuse.

Valentino is annoying.

Star was only made for merchandizing purposes.

Animation style is lackluster compared to other movies made by other studios coming out today.

Honestly, I worry that this is going to become one of those cases where "bad press is good press". So many people are talking about the film, and the people who made the videos obviously went to the theater to see it. I hate to contribute to that, but I felt like summing it up. I doubt Wish is going to make the same comeback as Elemental did, but who knows? Even if it starts making more money in the box office, I don't see its ratings going up.