#idk if that's a realistic budget

[cookiescr]

it should be able to run it at lower frames, maybe it would run better at a lower resolution than full 1080p since theres no dedicated gpu and the cpu will be doing all the heavy lifting. if he needs a portable computer has he considered a budget gaming laptop or a refurbished one? if hes set on the gtr6 tho, it should get the job done

not set yet on anything just trying to find options for her! Trying something not too expensive and portable. Is it better to maybe get a budget gaming laptop? I assumed a mini gaming pc would be better but i dont really know much about PCs ngl

[sochilll]

My other critiques aside, this kid is fucking NAILING Grover thank u Aryan Simhadri

[robinsnest2111]

okay, my brain went really hard on the super realistic dream scenarios turning super unrealistic during the latest nap.

helping my parents pack all the things they need for their courthouse appointment tomorrow, running back inside and getting the last documents while they fight and bicker over something unimportant outside. but then seeing our house's interior has transformed into a fancy turn of the century townhouse, with beautiful art nouveau ironwork and woodwork and windows and such, also a huge magazine rack with a bunch of magazines, even some I used to read when I was a little kid (like Diddl's Käseblatt and several Winx Club magazines)

visiting and staying at a fancy hotel, using the elevator, making sure a very much overly confident almost to the point of being cheeky little kid knows their way around and doesn't get lost while getting ice cream at the ground floor bar

then, outside, running into a huge biker gang who are helping American race car drivers fix some things on their cars before going off on an otherwise abandoned stretch of Autobahn, speeding off into the horizon. me then hopping onto one of the biker's vehicles and zooming around a fantastical landscape that's transforming from the previously mentioned Autobahn right before my eyes, like in a video game.

[rosencrantzsguildenstern]

if yjh was a little more of a twink cha eun-woo could be a fun fancast

[kenzan-kiwami]

would people drag me if i negged the pirate game on main

[ghostmadewithlove]

having been employed for more than half a year at this point it is increasingly affordable to just go diy but unfortunately it doesnt change the whole "transitioning while living with my parents" problem...

[prince-geo]

literally pleased with almost all of the new atla trailer except as per usual, Zuko's scar, idk why studios are so scared to commit to the intensity of the thing, its supposed to be shocking and obvious and textured and the first thing you see... that's the point, Zuko is supposed to struggle with feeling like it defines and brands him before finally coming to the point in his journey where he defines it.

Hollywood/big studios are known to hesitate or straight up avoid properly and honestly and unapologetically showing people with disfigurements/disabilities/facial differences etc. with the realism they deserve. Which is a shame in general for representation and humanization but ESPECIALLY in this case as its minimization actively harms it's narrative purpose as well

I promise making the scar more intense (shrivel up the ear a bit, make it intrude in his hairline, make his eye in a permanent squint due to nerve damage, for god sake REMOVE THE EYEBROW IT WAS BURNED OFF) will not make Zuko "ugly", (the actor is incapable of looking ugly and also the implication that scars make people too unappealing? yikes) but will actually do the character and his journey justice, not to mention really show Ozai's brutality, another essential narrative tool. Especially when he's bald like hello??? It should be even more stark and intense when he doesn't have hair to distract from it and cover his ear!!!

When transitioning from 2D to live action, of course some visuals are up for interpretation but that usually involved ADDING detail because the constraints of having to stay on modeling frame to frame is gone, not minimizing, removing or airbrushing. Doing Zuko's scar right to me is absolutely essential and I'm disappointed they seem just as as scared to go there as I thought they might. It doesn't have to be gory, if you've ever seen burn victims in real life or in pictures or even cosplayers/artists who are skilled in realistic burn makeup you'd know its possible to balance realism with humanity. It's possible especially with their resources to avoid the "scary Halloween makeup" route while not holding back on the brutality of the original injury.

Budget is definitely not an issue, or "scaring the kids" considering this remake is likely aiming to go a lil darker in tone than the cartoon (which was already super dark with its target audience of nickelodeon 7 year olds so no excuses) Audiences SHOULD be unsettled and upset when they see him but not because he's hard/disturbing to look at but because we are human and do not want to imagine someone doing that to a child.

It's a deliberate choice out of the all too common fear/hesitation to allow someone who is destined to eventually become a protagonist and is meant to be sympathized with to be "too ugly" while this hesitation is very rarely applied to straight up villains (again we come back to media's historic villainization of facial deformity). It's a trend that's always ticked me off in fanart too. The boy's face was melted, for gods sake. Zuko was always portrayed as an attractive boy in the cartoon (fire nation girls fawn over him) even with the intensity of his scar which is something I've always admired! People exist with scars similar to Zuko's in real life, and should not only be permitted to be represented as good guys and/or as attractive when their scars are toned down to be "palatable"

Like I said there's more that I loved than didn't love about the trailer, that can be a whole essay on it's own but I needed to get this very specific vent off my chest because it missed the mark so hard and stands out like a sore thumb in comparison to all the other visuals that hit the nail on the head to me

[decolonize-the-everything]

what do you realistically believe will happen if those on the left wing do not vote for democrats? do you believe that will single handedly reform the system? or do you believe trump will win and ruin the lives of millions of americans who would have been okay under the democrats?

Y'all tried to threaten us in 2016 and how did that turn out for you?

I'm native. I'm not voting for a genocidal Democrat. For a genocidal anyone for that matter. Y'all are lucky I vote at all, I have no fucking business participating in the genocidal colonial-settler project that killed my family and decimated my people and hundreds of other tribes.

"how are you gonna reform the system if you dont-"

Shut up. You literally won't refuse to even entertain the idea of voting for someone who's clearly stated goals are to reform the system just because they're a 3rd party.

Again, y'all are lucky I'm willing to vote at all. The person I vote for sure as hell won't be someone who's actively taken steps to repeat America's first mistake.

"how will we ever reform"

It's been 500 years and youre STILL justifying a genocide and convinced you're the fucking good guys. You won't. This country will never reform because even it's fucking liberals dont think a genocide is worth a threat to the status quo.

Die mad with Trump as your president and know it's people like YOU who literally fight progressives and activists that let it happen.

You are settling for fascism not me

"how will we reform"

Give me a fucking break and ask the white people that have had power from day 1 and to this day continue to vote in their own interest.

You want reform? Take it up with the people who Don't want reform at all instead of me. I'm giving you my vote, you don't get to tell who to vote for.

That'd be fascism. And if your country falls apart without fascism to make it function, good. Fascist countries don't deserve to exist.

"what do you think will happen to the people-"

Idk maybe Biden should've actually codified something instead of just promising to do it after his presidential elections or after Dems won mid terms like he said he would or trying to maybe even back when he was a vp or-

You don't get to hold me accountable for the way your party has chosen to actively fail everyone alive right now.

I'm not a politician. Natives couldn't even vote everywhere until the 70's!!! You can't be serious with this victim blaming nonsense and blame shifting.

If you message me then get rid of that cognitive dissonance you have.

"ruin the lives of millions of americans-"

Which lives aren't already ruined? If you are marginalized or someone who experiences intersecting marginalizations then you must've already been making donation posts on Tumblr and Twitter. And that's those of us who can post.

So who's life are you thinking of?

Your party is a party upholding white supremacists values and that's why they're so okay with xenophobia and genocide overseas but want to increase racist police budgets despite the war crimes being committed by police against Black people and protesters on the daily. And if you think American lives are more important than anyone else's in general (you're the one that told me to consider the lives of Americans while several genocides are happening), that's nationalism! The first step to straight up white nationalism and white supremacy. And you're acting like its rational in my asks on behalf of your party!!!

Don't be shy. Let's think critically here. What does that mean about who's lives you consider valuable and worth saving? Who is it? Who. Tell me. Go on.

Hope this helps ;3

[ardatli]

I have a VERY cool, too-smart-for-his-own-good, 12-year-old kid, who is very into thresher sharks. They are his favourite shark, which are themselves his favourite marine animal. (He drew my icon, Eagle Shark, when he was 10. It Is Awesome.) Marine biology is his dream career, particularly if it can involve sharks. And lasers, apparently.

I want to do something cool for him - for Hanukkah, or his birthday, or his bar mitzvah next year, idk - that involves thresher sharks.

It can't realistically involve travel. Flying somewhere outside of Nova Scotia / Montreal / Ottawa / Toronto to swim with thresher sharks is not in the budget. (Can you even swim with thresher sharks? They're small, but mighty.) I am a poor adjunct academic, and his dad draws cartoons.

What I would like to do is crowdsource a running list of Cool Shit Involving Thresher Sharks. Lego kits, stuffies, movies we can buy, documentaries to watch... researchers' youtube channels? Amazing science books written for a popular audience?

Something's going to be the right thing. I just don't know what that is yet. If you stumble on something, add it to a reblog.

Thresher sharks. Hit me.

[miilkyrolls]

okay fine, Murder at homecoming, YOU WIN

so i finally finished MaH after putting off continuing past chapter 1 since like...february and, i almost used this book as a diamond mine cause i preemptively was like "this looks lame 😒"

... i came, i laughed, i gasped, i yelled, i cried and i left... then i CAME BACK BECAUSE HOLY MOTHER OF REPLAY-ABILITY BATMAN🥲

but no this book hits right where it needed too. I know one of the biggest upsets people have with MaH is A) the villain being guessable and B) not solving Perdita's disappearance and sorta C/ B.2) it being a standalone. and imo for A, that's up to you to feel that way. imo cause choices is a visual form of content, it's kinda hard to have genuinely surprising "twist" villains cause the visuals already clue you into who done-did it unless they pull the twist straight out they ass(i feel this way about movies and shows too. the only way surprises genuinely get me is in books or podcasts, so non visual entertainment)

and B/C, i actually think NOT solving perdita's story AND making it a standalone was actually very mature of PB (first and possibly last time i'll ever say that in this day and age 💀). it's possible they might've made it their next teen drama series if they had the budget. But unfortunately it's honestly realistic. unfortunately a lot of women go missing and rarely do they get found alive and in a short amount of time (esp if you have as a bipoc mc/ perdita). it's an extremely tragic cookie crumble that unfortunately a lot of mysteries in our lives often take us our entire lives to solve and a lot of them we'll never solve in our lifetime. it's a great paradox / parallel to gabbie's death. it took us all of say 4/5 months (cause in the US, most schools go on winter break in late December) to solve with justice being fairly swift, fair, and harsh but unfortunately a lot of victims don't get their day for a long while, if ever. it's a healthy ying and yang of enjoying fictional justice but it being unrealistic with acknowledging the devastation of losing real victims while acknowledging those lost and their unsung stories that we should never completely give up on their days to come. (ofc however, i hc that perdita is still alive and uncovered corruption in the city and knew that making her family deal with legal repercussions would make their lives more difficult and be ostracized by the elites of Beachwood, so she just left and changed her identity. i like to think she did it also cause MC deserved to have a normal teenhood and not be ousted for her actions)

also i love the open and candid conversations around the treatment of queer children, bipoc mistreatment , misogyny, sa and grief. idk why but the ability to choose if you'd experienced homophobia/ transphobia based on your pronouns and who you've romanced, and tyler talking about thinking he was straight before meeting us (i had a masc body) idk why but i like that touch. i feel like PB kinda grazes over the aspect of being queer / trans and the concept of love, coming out, and society acceptance when your same sex romancing/ nonbinary so it's real shocking when they actually..idk address that thing😭. it's nice to have characters acknowledging their sexuality rather then just be automatically playersexual and everyone around them is just immediately accepting/ suddenly bigotry just seems to evaporate for mc's life/ society

also also, WE CAN BE POLY AND LIKE ITS CALLED POLY AND EVERYONE IS HAPPY AND THE LI WE DON'T CHOOSE AREN'T FORCED ONTO US/ GIVEN AS A OPTION

smaller things: i like the heavy usage of sound effects, idk why but i do. i like the flashbacks into mc's and perdita's relationship, the mix of free and paid clues that are non linear, STEVIE (yes she needs her own category)

overall: 9.2/10. i really like this book, it's going on my personal shelf next to the likes of crimes of passion (minus proposal...), Queen B, big sky country, blood bound, immortal desires 1, and with every heartbeat for my good book shelf

[angelicguy]

was talking about it the other day but its sad how we are never going to get really big budget games w/ funky artstyles again. like if you look at the majority of big budget releases lately, they are all kind of going for the same thing as far as actual modeling goes- hi fi, super detailed complex models that try to portray as much detail as possible. which is fine for certain games, but it makes me miss the big swings devs used to take.

take street fighter 4 for instance- despite being over 10 years old at this point, it still looks REALLY good. great art direction, has a weird painterly look so everything has a cool watercolor style to it, models are expressive, etc. and this was a BIG release, its not some indie game (where most big stylistic swings tend to be made nowadays).

compared to street fighter 6, which is going for photorealism (with strong choices made as far as animation and color goes) it looks dated in the context of graphics generally, but looks WAY better than its contemporaries from the same time period. my fear is that street fighter 6 wont look that great in 10 years time.

side note, its also why street fighter 5 was really only loved by hardcore fans. it does nothing particularly well! its a halfway point between realistic and artistic to the point where it feels like a side-grade rather than an improvement or even its own original idea!

whatever leaps were made in lighting and texture quality are essentially irrelevant here. fucking gross!

the thing is, i dont think this is a deliberate choice that devs are making right now. from what i can tell, recent rendering tech has made it way easier to achieve a handful of lately- hi fi LIGHTING, increased TEXTURE DETAIL and HI POLY COUNTS come to mind. these are cool, but if youre a dev who wants to make a triple A product, you kind of have to use whatever tech is on the table to make a product look cutting edge. none of those encourage taking wild stabs at cool art directions. devs used to use those cool art directions because it was the ONLY OPTION THEY HAD.

classic case being windwaker right. the gamecube was a huge graphical leap from the n64, where even getting a model to look like something was a challenge. compared to ocarina of time, windwaker looks absolutely fucking incredible. it got a lot of pushback at the time for being too kiddy, but really the strength of its style is a result of doing as much as they possibly could with the platform they were working on. no high poly counts, the shading tech was relatively simple, and the textures (while a huge improvement over the n64!) are still basic compared to what we have today. windwaker still looks impeccable to this day, and even the HD remaster they made which, ahaha, improved WHAT

LIGHTING and TEXTURE DETAIL. but without a real consideration for the original artstyle (or why it even existed... which was the gamecubes limitations) it just looks worse.

in response to this pushback (i think, idk i didnt work at nintendo at the time) they gave twilight princess a way more "realistic" look. but given the rendering restrictions of the time, it still has a fairly robust artstyle

proportions are more realistic obviously, but in order to achieve that realism without the kind of lighting tech we have now the "lighting" is BUILT Into the textures. look at links sword, how it kind of darkens near the hilt, or how the shadow on the keese's wings is just kind of painted in specific areas. i would argue that twilight princess looks a LOT like street fighter 4 in that area-

damn! they almost look like theyre from the same game! but twilight princess was celebrated for being "realistic" while sf4 was noted for having a funky watercolor style (thats built into the focus attacks even!). its so so smart, because the devs knew they couldnt go for photorealism (like so many games of the era tried at and completely failed at!) so they went for a mix of cool stylistic decisions that allowed a game to look GOOD in a subjective, artistic way.

Not that games don't try and apply artistic principles now, but its a lot less unique. look at mario odyssey

its just a beach. and it looks great, its well rendered, but its just a beach. colors are clearly intentional and very pretty, but it's nothin that special right now, probably will look even less special in 10 years even compared to levels in the same game.

what im curious about is when are we gonna get back to that kind of artstyle meets rendering tech! if ever! current tech makes it so devs are kind of forced to go down the same boring path. look at mortal kombat 1:

im sure there are some leaps in texture and lighting, but they keep taking shortcuts. all the faces are modeled after REAL peoples faces and they mocap for expressions/conversation, which gives a really boring look to it. the fact that mk11 and mk1 look so similar so many years apart (4 i guess isnt that much but there have been leaps!) is disappointing to me.

then you have tekken 8, which is like the best looking game ive ever seen. for a while i found it hard to put my finger on why, but my brother said something really smart i feel- they made all of these models by hand. theyre essentially digital statues. they didnt pull actual face models, they just worked on their features until it looked correct. on top of the lighting and texture work, it creates a look not unlike the renders tekken has been using for years. which is convenient for them, because they can finally match the kind of real-time fidelity they've been chasing for like 30 years

hell it looks BETTER than that. so what im trying to say is im hopeful that art direction will catch up with the kind of rendering tricks/strengths we have.

i think tekken 8 feels like how soul calibur 2 probably felt at launch. does a lot of the same things given the time period

i still think hi fi rendering doesnt make for a good looking game, but rather where the focus lies for the player. for tekken it makes sense that they would focus their horsepower on detailed models and stages- youre gonna be lookin at that forever. look at elden ring

texture wise, SUPER low res for 2022. maybe even 2020. but what they do with the horsepower is genius- they focus on scale to translate locations of objectives to a player while also reinforcing the feeling of adventure, on top of extremely strong choices in color and lighting. i hope, going forward, games focus on how they can use this kind of tech to reinforce a games "gameplay mission statement" while keeping strong artistic choices present rather than focusing on being able to wow someone with a couple of screenshots at the cost of BOTH of those things. im just ranting though french press got my ass

[butch-bakugo]

Im so glad we all rightly clocked the Minecraft movie as probably going to suck and I'm not alone. I was so worried I was just being a pessimist but after seeing what other's have said and what moistcritickal posted (haven't watched it yet), I feel a bit safer sharing my opinion. So, as a mc fan and player for almost, if not exactly, 10 years, I'll give my opinion.

It wants to be the super Mario movie. It wants to be it SO BAD but it doesn't care to actually commit to it. So many awesome movies about gaming IP have come out over the last 5 years from the Mario movie and the fnaf movie to detective pikachu and sonic. All bangers. Idk what it is apparently about 2024 and letting the most sludgy shitty gaming movies being announced/coming out but this is... Not it. This and the borderlands movie (tbf I'm only repeating popular opinion as I haven't seen the movie and am not a fan of the franchise but mega and even casual fans plus it's horrific box office say it enough. ) are probably gonna end up the same.

It looks terrible. Period. Almost everything in it looks terrible and I garentee it's budget was 150 to 300 mil and it still looks like fucking garbage. It can't even commit to being a live action or animated movie. It wants to be both so bad and not lose the recognition of the 2 celebrities it dumped probably a quarter of the budget on. Everything from the mobs to the world design to the cgi already looks like fucking garbage. It looks so fucking bad y'all I'm not even exaggerating. Holy shit. Everything has that fuckin cursed style of realistic components but cartoonish attitude and shape. Everything in the trailer looks like jigglypuff or Mr. Mime from detective Pikachu bred with sonic before everyone bullied them into giving him justice.

Tell me this shit doesn't have the same fucking energy.

This isn't cute, it was never cute, it's fucking creepy to put hi-def details on an originally cartoonish characters. Its giving fleshball with hair. Side note, since tf when were creepers made of grass and leaves n shit? I feel like I'd puke if I touched one by accident.

I want to give credit where credit is due and say the piglins and the ghasts look great. I fuckin love the fact the ghasts are stitched at the seems. They look great. It's almost like cartoon proportions but realistic style can look good in its creepy nature when out on top of characters who are supposed to look creepy and not right. 🙄

I have no idea why they wouldn't just fully animate this movie. Why are there fully human live action actors in this bitch but literally everything else is CGI. These poor actors are just standing on green screens when they very literally could have just been live action segments of them popping in and out of the world of Minecraft while voicing their minecrafty looking selves while animated. Literally just give it the ready player one treatment. Also why is Steve, the titular Minecraft character, a live action human as well? Even if your weird fascination with Zionist autism-speaks devotee Jack black is what you paid ungodly money for, he's a good voice actor. He showed that in the Mario movie as Bowser. Why does he have to be not only an IRL human but also his beard nor skin tone match canonical Steve. Jason Momoa, the only moc on the cast of human characters, would match Steve's actual skin tone. The boy's got melanin, Jack does not.

Speaking of the human characters, I can smell the uninteresting cookie-cutter nerdy boy with a crush he needs to profess to protagonist a mile away, I'm sure the little girl character is tough on the outside but soft when she warms up and is quirky and joins the bad guys for a bit only to come back but never has any actual character, idk litterally anything about the adult woman character other than her outfit is giving Dora and she litterally says nothing during the trailer and jason Momoa? I'm alittle worried. First off, why you got this whole ass man in that shitty ass wig. That is party city shit. I could find better for $8 on Amazon. Second off, though I think he's trying to be like... 80s 90s pop star twisted sister style shit, im NGL... My first thought was " is this a transmysognistic caricature?" Because of notch and the fact he moves pretty femininely through the trailer. I won't judge it yet but like... My hackles were UP up. I'm stressed. Another thing of note? No Alex nor Villagers. The villages were there and actively plundered but no villagers.

Something interesting of note is that the villagers were originally made, by notch, to be antisemitic caricatures. That's why they have the big nose, the nasally voice, considered primitive, the specific obsession with emeralds of all gems, why their deals always suck and they come off greedy. Mojang did very little to change their original design and even though you couldn't tell nessesarily without knowing that context that the villagers were a caricature, that doesn't make them less of one and Mojang really should of made the choice to change them by now. I, like many other allies and obviously the Jewish community, always felt a little uncomfortable with them but are now especially nervous about their more realistic but still cartoony take. We've seen plenty of human/realistic but cartoonish takes on villagers fully lean into the caricature with hooked noses, pointed ears and other common ethnicly Jewish features. Some even Include Payots ( the curly pieces of hair worn on orthodox Jewish men), Yamakas and stars of davids. These are clearly antisemitic caricatures and I, and many other fans, are worried about their one screen translations. I can only hope they humanize them as some more realistic takes on villagers can be good.

My second to last note is the setting, holy fuck is it UGLY ugly. Like I dont watch any Minecraft YouTubers or streamers so I'm not accustomed to tracing rays 1,000 mods realistic lighting, realistic resources, needs huge processors to run without the computer becoming the same temp as the surface of the sun to be happy with the way it looks but like... Ew. I play raw mc, no mods on console (and PC at one point but that was awhile ago and also with no mods) and I, through buildings or natural landscapes and locations, etc have seen prettier lighting and locations than what they chose. Like, one of the many joys of Minecraft is the simplistic but natural and real and relaxing atmosphere the world of Minecraft can be. Even when it's raining or snowing. Minecraft sunsets and sunrises after you spent the last real world 56,000 hours on this big building complex and finally resting and watching the sunrise over your work and the mountains or ocean or forest or even desert around you become pink then yellow then bright as the start of a new day is a healing experience. It can be emotional even. That landscape looked like garbage. Incredibly monotonous and boring and plain. Just nothing. How you squeeze the very easy thing of a beautiful atmosphere out of Minecraft is beyond me.

Speaking of emotions, let's talk about the story and the humor/dialogue. I'll start with the later and end my thoughts with the former. The humor, the little we did see, seemed at least a little bit on brand for Minecraft. The animals especially. I'll give it that, I just hope it's not unending poop or fart or pee jokes. Finally, I, like many others, are very worried this is a modern isekai ass Jumanji style shit take of minecraft. We are very worried this is just modern people shoved into minecraft to solve a problem, save the world and leave. This isn't what Minecraft's about, it's not it's messaging nor ever been a " hero/band of heros story" about saving the world, I don't even think it will honor the final poem of the game.

Minecraft has always always ALWAYS been about community, belonging, making a place for yourself in a world that won't accept you, working together and coexisting. It's about peace. It's about sharing. These messages are very near and very dear to the 6 yr old gen alphas who've been playing it since they were 2 or 3 yrs old and beat it 60 times to the elder Gen z and millennials like me who grew up with the game and have a special place in our hearts for the world's we've built and lost to the 89 yr old grandma who played it over covid and built a home for her whole family to visit and live in with all the accommodations they could want. Minecraft is for all ages and everyone has either played it or heard of it, it is the most successful singular game in the world ffs. It has sold more copies than ANY single game in existence, over the most common production of solitaire and Tetris and Space invaders AND any super Mario or Pokemon game. Minecraft rakes in over billions of dollars and millions of players every single year. Those who start playing it struggle to stop. It's a cultural icon, a seriously beloved and wholesome one. One the fans truly took, made it their own for everyone's benefit and spawned so much spin off media and love that it's done better than most games could ever dream to do. Minecraft's success and communal love, despite the unsavory trend of pedo and bigoted YouTubers centered on the game, is its soul. It's driving force. Its succession literally cannot be understated and cannot not be attributed to its fans.

I fear this movie is a slap in the face money grab disrespectful turd in a doggy bag left on the community's porch. I fear this movie will have none of the game's and community's values and lessons and love. I fear this movie will do what Mario, sonic and fnaf did not, hurt it's audience. I, like many other fans, already have an unsavory taste left in our mouth's from this trailer pie and we can only hope it didn't come from American pie or the help. The movie looks fucking soulless. It looks corporate. Like it only exists to make money off the already successful IP that is Minecraft. Like they saw the box office explosive success of sonic and Mario and fnaf and decided to shit something else explosive out as quick as possible to jump on the trend. I fear because it's fucking Hollywood, the messages it holds will be watered down and tasteless like a fucking LaCroix where someone ate a cubic millimeter of an orange peel and shat in my can and called it flavor. It'll be the same old schmut that every kid friendly movie has. It will have no nods to and for its existing fans to comb through and point out and smile that they are seen.

It may not even have a fucking ender dragon or a wither. Will it even have the nether? People already pointed out that most movie trailers include some of the big cool (expensive) parts of the movie and if they eventually fight the ender dragon, they would of probably included that in the trailers due to how cool (expensive) that scene would be. It's not there. All we see is piglins, a relatively small enemy in the game, pillaging villages (why no , ya know, actual pillagers pillaging. Why piglins... Who are barely present in the over world....who dont attack unless provoked... and only attack the player not suddenly aggro with every AI in sight... Why are they attacking villagers suddenly....) which.... Isn't super interesting. That and the irl actors walking around and discovering how to fucking play the basic shit in Minecraft like getting wood.. and making crafting tables.... And talking to Steve. Like this has bad shitty written all fucking over it... I'm so worried.

We, the fans who work and love this game tirelessly, deserve better than isekai diet Jumanji live action meets shitty animated garbage.... I can only hope and pray that my take on this ages poorly. I hope it ages poorly and I'm horribly wrong and it's the next fnaf movie and shows huge amounts of respect for the fans. I want to be wrong. I want us to be respected. However you can't ignore the blood in the handkerchief concerning movies with a highly popular IP, too many a-list celebrities, high costs and piss poor CGI. It rarely doesn't lead to disaster. Please let me be wrong.

[mamamittens]

Weird thought, would modern cooking kill Thatch?

Like, I'm not saying he's a bad cook or anything! Clearly, he's very good at what he does and is, in fact, so good he appeared to be visibly keeping Whitebeard healthy past his prime with cooking alone. So like, health wise, he's gotta be top class shit.

But I mean... he's on a boat? All the time??? And there are just... some things that you can't keep for long at sea. Especially with so many people to feed. While I imagine they have a hella food budget, there's no way they have bales of herbs and spices laying about. I mean, look at this?!?

Doesn't look dry at least... but this is a lot of food that's just being eaten wholesale that's definitely not being spiced like we can expect/afford to today. Realistically, Ace just swallowed a whole hunk of plain bread, what seems to be a weird turkey leg, a slice of ham, and a hunk of roast. Not a speck of seasoning in sight.

I'm not even sure they could keep a steady supply of all the 'additional taste enchancing ingredients' for months at sea, even without Ace's black hole stomach hoovering it all up.

They're definitely not picky at least, so they've got that going for them I suppose. Can't be too bad but, honestly, Ace grew up eating spitroasted croc he hunted himself, so his standards aren't exactly sky high either.

So, what I was just having a silly little laugh to myself about my favorite pie, whip cream Oreo pudding pie (god it's so sugary, you cannot have more than a humble slice and this is from someone who unironically likes gallon sweet tea with almost four cups of sugar in it). And I realized that the amount of sugary decadence would like... send Thatch into a coma. They'd probably think it's fucking disgusting it's so fucking sweet.

And I'm not particularly crazy about spices--I'm actually a little bitch about them. So while Thatch probably has tasted and made some delicious ass dishes, there's no way most of them reach the casual level of 'overdone' modern food tends to be. Especially considering the double deep fried nonsense the southern USA is known for. You just can't reach that level of indulgence in a buffet style meal regularly for +1,000 people several times a day. It's literally only possible with modern convenience and insane cashflow to keep that up.

Kinda makes me wonder if canon Thatch would be horrified at the array of flavors we've made, the horrific food combinations, and culinary monstrosities. Both of the 'you can't eat at everybody's house~!' and 'holy shit this is actually amazing, may I please have more?!?' varieties.

He'd definitely be curious but like, there are so weird ass flavors. Had vinegar and sea salt chips once that tasted like I decided to deep throat Poseidon in his purest form, it was so aggressively salty. Novelty shit and genuine 'there are people who live and die by this particular brand of bat shit flavor'.

Idk, I guess it's just a funny thought.

[butmakeitgayblog]

Any new headcanons brewing in your head after seeing Alycia at the AACTA

Not... entirely

But I've had thoughts. Bear with me.

I'm not even remotely the person to write something like this at all, but it definitely did have me thinking of a SORT OF SHOEH-esque type fic. Something involving them being closeted and in Hollywood. Getting their flowers for their talent and being in love, but having to keep it quiet their entire careers. I've seen some fics along this line here and there, but inevitably in the fic, one or both eventually come out on stage or something.

Which is great! That's a lovely and hopeful ending.

But also....

Not entirely realistic.

Or even half as heartwrenching.

"Well yeah jesus fuck, why do you want sad shit Andi, why are you always such a glutton for punishment and literary pain?"

Well I'll tell you why: cuz... shut up

Idk it just got me thinking of Clexa as two Hollywood starlets on kind of differing ends of the spectrum of Hollywood that in the public eye are generally never really thought about together.

Lexa tends to do more gritty work, a lot more indie films. Dark threaded moody pieces and emotional roles, not generally thought of as box office fodder, but pretty much always a contender at awards season. Sleeper hits, you get me. Things like that. She definitely has a well known name, but she's selective in her work and that gains her a lot of respect with fans, even if they have to sometimes wait 2-3 years between projects. Because whatever she signs on for, it's pretty much always really fucking good. Whereas Clarke is more of a mainstream girly. She does a decently broad spectrum of films, but they're by and large always ones with bigger budgets, bigger release dates, more screens. It's not that they're not quality pictures, it's just that Clarke likes to work a broad range of things. One year she's in a comedy, the next a period piece, the next action. There's no real labeling her career.

And most importantly, they're both very, very straight.

At least, their personas are.

Alexandria is a smoky eyed femme fatale who leaves all the men eating out of the palm of her hand. Very "Look but don't touch" attitude that adds to her allure, to her mystery, despite her always being attached to leading man's arm. Miss Griffin is the picture of buxom Hollywood glam that every guy has on the List. Known for leaving a string of broken hearted men in her wake with little more than a cheek kiss-stained in signature red lipstick

Lexa and Clarke though?

Lexa and Clarke are two friends who have been deeply in love and committed to each other for the better part of 5 years.

They love each other in secret because that's what they feel like they have to do. They have two seperate houses with two separate addresses, and only one bed they actually sleep in.

It only really burns on the big nights, which I think would be an interesting oneshot. Just a glimpse into their life and what it feels like in that moment. The night when all their work and their sacrifices are being honored. Because even though, yes, they do play the part of friends and manage to sit near each other, it's not the same. It's not the same when they can't get ready together or even show up in the same car. When they have to remind themselves not to lean into each other too often, or even reach for the others hand to calm their nerves.

When one wins, they walk up alone without a hug or kiss from the only person who actually matters. They thank their families and their friends and their management that they can barely stand half the time, and remind themselves to smile like it's the happiest moment of their life even though at least half it all feels like a lie. Because yeah, they get lonely in the months when projects and shooting schedules pull them to opposite sides of the globe... but somehow those months never feel quite as lonely as being in a room filled with people who act like they adore you, while the love of your life sits quietly with her own "date" half an aisle away

[lizardsexposed]

there's a rly idk 'weird' feeling that RPGs like fallout: new vegas, mass effect 1, dragon age: origins and to an extent, baulders gate 3 really give me that I don't know how to explain

It's in such stark contrast with the following mass effect and dragon age games, alongside the bethesda games.

I'd hesitantly call it a lack of polish, but I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. I'd maybe call it lack of LED lights.

All of them feature things that are just there, small scale stories, characters with hidden dialogue that takes often excessively long and disinteresting steps to give. There's huge reward there if you take non-conventional (or what the developers perceive as non-conventional) approaches and rather than punishment for it, it's sort of encouraged.

I feel like a lot of 'more modern' and other developers, and bioware as they got larger like to present the cool and interesting stuff as front and centre (which is understandable, you want to show off your good work).

But this accessibility and ease of access, as well as diverting away from more 'hidden' sections of dialogue (likely the associated costs of voice actors and stretching of writers time as games get bigger) really under saturates the experience, especially the replay experience. Sure, you want to get the players to keep playing and capture the casual player. But this really costs the experienced player and makes the game feel less alive and responsive.

Let's be real, no one plays ME1 or dragon age: origins for the 'incredible game play and fantastic combat' they're janky as hell (ME1 somewhat less so after the remaster). But there's a rich host of things to explore, builds to create and unusual dialogue choices to make that keep players returning. For example, just look at the amount of dialogue options in DA:O vs DA:I and build possibilities.

Sure, a lot of the talents and builds in DA:O were just not viable and the bulk of the players will gravitate to premade builds. But sometimes it's just fun to do something ridiculous for the sake of it.

I feel, and this is just a theory. This shift has occurred due to the AAAisation of games. The game needs to sell and only sell once per player. Realistically you don't make money from someone doing their 65th run of dragon age origins where they chose a slightly different response to Alistair. And this led to de-prioritising what I'll call 'vanity' content. With budget costs (and development costs rising) I feel most RPG games have moved away from it, despite the fact said 'vanity' content is really what made the game feel alive in the first place.

Anyway, just some thoughts of mine. Not sure if anyone agrees or has some input.

[spearxwind]

Ough thinkingabout the godzilla monsterverse movies. The 2014 one is genuinely just so.. good. Like.

But then all the others are insanely bad I dont get it. The only one that's ever so slightly passable is the second one (kotm) but the more I look back on it the worse it is as like, a movie

and yeah yeah before you say "well its good because its just supposed to be a movie about monsters fighting" well dont you think it could have been done better?

the first movie works very well because its not made as a monster movie its made as a natural disaster movie, where the natural disasters are huge monsters. Their actions have weight, the budget people have to fight back is limited, there are genuine stakes (and the fights have more weight to them as well) and the human element does matter and helps move the story along (for better or for worse) no matter how much people complain that they "didnt care what the humans did" or didnt care to watch them, maybe part of why you didnt like the movie is because you weren't paying attention to what they did

In the rest of the movies though every human factor is almost if not completely pointless. In kotm they just kinda fuck around as supposedly ecoterrorists and wake up ghidorah but then ghidorah doesnt do anything the whole movie except fly around ominously (he doesnt even kill anyone i dont think they fake out of that like 4 times its infuriating) and then in the gvk movie its just absurd. like theres no cohesion to it

(that's another one, skull island is a fantastic movie, very stylish)

like season one of strangers things "something fucking weird is happening in this town and we are realistically responding to it" versus season three "a bunch of kids sneak into a super secret russian complex and fuck shit up somehow" its just a progression that doesnt make sense

I know the monsterverse is marketed to children and has plots a child would make and are increasingly """child-friendly""" but man idk I just wish they would have done it better. Monsterverse has just become the marvel avengers of kaijus and I am using marvel in a derogatory way. Like yeah sure its cool monster fighting movies but objectively you have to admit theyre just not good.