#its about 'if i could memorize my lines at all maybe i'd be the main actor' fsdhjbvgfdshgvsdghfdshvgfdssdhj

[snekdood]

if i could memorize shit good id be a great actor

[cacklingskeleton]

Alien Romulus Nitpicks

ok so I've now seen Romulus twice and have been able to get my thoughts together

overall I'd say Romulus is a good movie, and might be the best movie in the series since Aliens (or at least the first AvP movie)

but has some problems that hold it back from being as good of a modern sci-fi horror movie as something like Nope or Prey

Really I think the movie has three main problem

The Cast:

So I think the characters are fine but aren't super memorable compared to some of the other movies outside of maybe Andy.

One problem is that having Andy being the only black person in the main cast creates an uncomfortable racial tension that im going to assume was somewhat unintentional. With the way Andy is treated in the film it makes the dynamic a little uncomfortable, and i think this would have been negated by casting another black person as at least one of the other characters.

The other thing is that everyone is too young, I think with the story they were trying to tell about people being stuck on a dead end mining planet, having the main cast be all young and conventionally attractive kinda undercuts that a bit. I don't think they all should have been older, but I do think aging some of the characters up or adding an older character would have helped. It would have given the sense that multiple generations have been stuck in this colony.

Rook:

So if I could just change one thing about this movie, I would cut Rook out of most of the movie. His inclusion feels really clunky and unnecessary, and most of his dialogue could have just been inferred naturally. Really feels like a "show don't tell" situation to me. Also the facial cgi doesn't look good and I really wish hollywood would stop using it to portray dead actors.

I would have made his last appearance be the scene where they activate him to ask about the facehugger, but I would have not shown his face and only imply he's the same model as Bishop. I also would have cut a little bit of his exposition in that scene. Afterwards the audience would figure out slowly that Andy has changed along with the characters.

The References:

There's way too many references to the older movies. Some of them are cute but after a while they get a little cringey and keep the movie from feeling like its own film. I'd cut the "stay away from her you bitch" and the final message references at least. I liked how they used the black goo in this movie, I'd just cut Rook's lines like I mentioned earlier. I also like how the Offspring is somewhat of a reference to the Newborn from Resurrections.

Just as the film is, I think a director's cut would help the film a lot, as even though its a two hour movie it doesn't feel like it. Hopefully since most of the other films got one, Romulus will when released on dvd.

[adobe-outdesign]

Would you mind talking about the Spinarak line if you haven't already? If you have, I'd love your thoughts on Skorupi! (And vice versa; I did some searching but I didn't see it)

Spinarak is a cute little guy! It's probably the simplest spider design we've ever gotten in Pokemon, but that's a not a bad thing. The blank-ringed eyes convey a sort of compound eye without being too literal with it, and the little fangs and random horn (following in the proud Gen 1 tradition of slapping horns onto things for no reason other than that it looks cool) add just enough detail to prevent it from being too bland. I also love the stripey legs, a feature found in many spiders.

The main draw of Spinarak is the concept of it having a second face on its abdomen. Not only does this make logical biological sense (it would confuse predators), but it also makes for a fun little theme, and increases the cuteness by 20%.

My only real nitpick with the design is that the red fangs feel a bit out-of-place; they could've easily been yellow. Then again, it ties into Ariados' radically different palette and many IRL spiders have different-colored pedipalps, so I'm willing to give it a pass.

It's also worth nothing that Spinarak had a completely different palette in general originally, sporting a mostly purple look. Ariados was also purple originally, which created more design coherency between the two stages. I'm not sure why they changed this. Maybe they thought it made them look too much like poison-types?

While it's a shame that there's little color consistency between the two, there's at least some visual consistency—the horn, the stripe and spots on the abdomen, the fangs, and the striped legs all remain. Meanwhile, the body shape has changed in a way that makes it look appropriately stronger, and its gained a really pair of false legs on the back that no other spider 'mon sports.

Unfortunately, what doesn't remain is the theme. Spinarak's most noticeable feature was its false face, so it's baffling that Aridos drops that in favor of... nothing really. Aridos is nicely designed, sure, but it doesn't really have anything specific to make it stand out. I point this out mostly because this was Aridos' beta sprite:

Most of Aridos' design has been improved from this design; the finalized design sports a much more interesting body shape that looks much more different than Spinarak's than the beta's does, and the face feels a lot more complete in the final with its thinner head and larger eyes.

However, the loss of the face on the back was honestly a travesty. Like I said, the face on Spinarak was its main theme, so using the evolution to advance the face from being a simple smiley face to a full-brown vicious pattern ala Arbok would've made the line much more memorable, and would've created a greater sense of increase between the two stages. Even the final Pokedex entries for Aridos still blatantly reference this earlier design:

If they had kept Aridos' final design but allowed it to keep the false face of the beta, the line would've been dang near perfect. As-is, they're both still enjoyable spiders—just not nearly as memorable as they could've been.

As a final side note, I could see potential in revisiting this line. I don't think a third evolution would be out of the question; maybe play back into the face theme or expand upon the false legs by giving it the ability to flip itself upside-down or rightside-up on a whim.

[deep-hearts-core]

(tonight we're gonna party like it's) 1999

god damn i haven't done one of these in a while. its charlotte nilsson time baybee

Lithuania REAL SHAME about this staging. it's a nice song and aiste has a great voice clearly but she doesn't have the right kind of stage presence for this. the dancing around that she was doing didn't feel right for this genre, it was discordant and distracting. also the pink lighting didn't work. if i could go back in time and fix this i'd tell the lithuanian delegation to keep the camera close on her upper body at all times.

Belgium nice song nice voice well staged but she's too damn quiet. i can't really hear her. especially at the beginning. sad bc i have no other complaints about this one except for maybe "is that guy blowing into a horseshoe crab?".

Spain she's a good singer so it's a shame about that dress. also, the verses are kind of boring and i only really enjoy the chorus. also, i keep misremembering this song as having the tune of a bosnian song called "zena svijetom upravlja" or something like that that a friend of mine submitted to a tumblr fancontest forever ago. also also, did i mention that dress? distracting.

Croatia love the "ah-ah-ah-ah"s in the chorus. favorite thing about this song. (maybe because that's what's familiar because that's the thing that everyone puts in the fourth place compilation recap vids or whatever). she looks nice in that dress i guess but something feels kind of off with the staging. i can definitely tell that this followed immediately after dana international. there's something in the way she's moving that's making it clear she's trying to imitate dana in some way.

UK i love this one!! love a girl band, the main singer is really good, and those silver outfits are great. that "say it again, say yeah" is the most catchy/memorable line i've heard so far tonight that i hadn't already seen in a recap video. unfortunately one of the girls was a little pitchy in the high harmonies and that got on my nerves a little.

Slovenia i mean i don't love it but there's nothing to hate about it really. she sounds good. nice classic eurovision ballad.

Turkey this is every turkish entry ever, right? it's not bad really it's just not my speed. i spent most of my time watching this thinking about danish barbershop quartet the clementones and admiring the stage, because this year's stage is cool. more on that later.

Norway ngl kind of disappointed? the dance routine was good, i guess? idk it's not my kind of song and he wasn't great vocally. and that shirt wsa sort of. a choice. didn't work imo.

Denmark you can always count on denmark to do a good happy duet with a guitar. love this. if they hadn't fucked up that very last note this would have been absolutely perfect to me. <3

France like if that song "free fallin'" got eurovision'd.

Netherlands early dutch country is also every eurovision song that follows it for the next like 5-6 years, more at 10! nah but it's alright. and she's pretty, which helps. the song started before she started singing and i was like "?? this is gonna be so good?" and then i remembered it was the netherlands and my expectations instantly went medium. lol.

Poland great belt on this man. not like a literal belt but like his voice near the end when he's belting his high notes, that's good. good tone. song's ok i guess.

Iceland this song slams and i fucking love it in studio but the staging was... a little too over the top, tbh?

Cyprus her voice isn't a good fit. the slow start goes on for just a little too long and she's just kind of shrill.

Sweden it's good, i can see why it won, but her outfit is just so MUCH. i hope it was a candidate for barbara dex. the eyeshadow. the flesh colored fabric underneath the pretend crop top. no thank you charlotte.

Portugal not bad. rui bandeira is kind of a guy who looks like a girl who looks like a boy iykwim. idk it kinda sounds like all the other ones.

Ireland this song is too low for them and it does funny things to their tone quality. too much vibrato.

Austria she's cute, i like the guitar line, this is very radio-friendly and american in a way that allowed me to like... yes tune out but not tune all the way out and just kind of vibe.

Israel it is a sign of how brainpoisoned i have become that i saw a quartet of guys on the stage and thought, "ah yes, the guy in the different shirt is the lead, he has the tenor and the bass on either side of him, and the other guy is the bari". i'm in hell. good song though. i mean i guess. why is it happy birthday?

Malta their harmonies aren't really locking. given, i have a much higher bar for that these days due to the aforementioned brainpoison, but still, some of these chords are heinous. also the song is just sort of not good.

Germany song is alright except for the bridge which is unnecessarily cheesy. i mean, even for the thing that it is, which is a eurovision song.

Bosnia & Herz d... dino merlin? idk this one is weird, they're like conjugating french verbs or something and also this one was muted in the video archive i had and the dino merlin official youtube upload had terrible audio quality so i feel like i can't really judge it

Estonia the onstage aesthetic vibe of this is beautiful, and i like the song, too. it's a shame that it's not a good vocal fit for evelin. a clear precursor to randajad and good use of the stage too.

My top 23 1)Denmark 2)Estonia 3)Portugal 4)Iceland 5)Sweden 6)Austria 7)Belgium 8)Poland 9)Israel 10)Germany 11)UK 12)Slovenia 13)Spain 14)Croatia 15)Ireland 16)Turkey 17)Netherlands 18)Lithuania 19)Cyprus 20)France 21)Norway 22)Bosnia 23)Malta

shoutouts again to my friend rachel's prefsorter, because we can't always have gerbear

Miscellaneous commentary the little cgi tour of europe at the beginning was cute. but also very funny because of how squished together and contiguous everything was. lmao @ the host greeting the "distinguished guests" and everyone there in nice clothes. like wow the contest has changed in 20 years obsessed with these postcards btw. cartoon eve fully tits out. jesus represented as a hot guy in a suit. joseph and his brothers singing in barbershop harmony. the baby moses video game. priceless recaps are so short? i already have a hard time remembering how each song goes but like the recap snippets help absolutely not at all lol at the sun prop. it was a really excellent stage, honestly, a lot of contestants were able to use it really well, but after last year's debacle i just kept giggling whenever i saw the thing move. overall like...it's hard to judge the songs in this era, it's hard to rank them, because really i don't like most of them? like they just aren't really my style. i feel like for many of the 90s rankings the margins between songs are going to be very thin and i'm going to have trouble remembering a lot. i don't listen to a lot of 90s music so it's like... ok? sure? do i even know if this is good? no i don't!

[kendrixtermina]

About dw- same. I actually weaned off the show when Clara was there- I didn't like that they were changing companions from regular people to vague important mysteries. I saw episodes every here and there but havent seen any of the newest doctor yet- seeing the reaction to it though I'm glad I haven't! If you find some really good dw books, can you please share? I'd love to interact with the dw i knew and love again

Nah sorry, we don’t agree here.

I LOVE Clara. I LOVED her plot, I loved her character she’s my ALL TIME FAVORITE. 

She wast “reduced to a mystery” she was an interconnected whole of motifs and little connected details of which that plotline was only one part. 

I get that RTD was good at doing everyman characters - that was his strength, so it was a draw for a  lot of people; And I get that ppl who prefer that sort of story aren’t necessarily going to like the high-concept type of stories Moffat did, just because of personal taste. I for my part thought RTDs characters were a) shilled a lot and b) too linear, that’s why they were mostly 1 season affairs, there was a point A and A point B, one specific lesson and that’s it, not so much this wider field of associations and elements to play with. That said this is a personal taste difference; I still loved Rose, Martha & Donna and they’re iconic. 

I also liked that Amy, Clara & co had more edges. RTD’s had like cute relatable good girl flaws. Rose was a bit insecure, which is relatable; Martha had trouble asserting her own needs which makes her look giving, Donna was a tad abrasive and maybe had a narrow focus as the start but she got over the latter and the former is a strength when it makes her be assertive when needed. 

And that’s fine. Those are legit personality types, they’re interesting and good as basically good people - some people are mostly good, and they’re supposed to be heroes. I’m not for this cult of “flaws” as the ultimate mark of a good/realistic character.  

It’s a legit, good story. But it’s not the *only* legit type of story. I’m very much against this modern tendency in fandom that you can only empathize with someone if you can somehow convince yourself they’re an underdog.  

At the same time Moffat’s characters get the sort of flaws that have a bit more bite, lead to costly mistakes, actions that could lead them to treat others unfairly or make others legit dislike them - Stuff like Amy’s difficulty with commitment, Clara’s perfectionism, high standards and calculating streak, and River who’s somewhat crass and impulsive in the eps where she’s younger and even once she matures past that sort of keeps back her real feelings a bit.... 

The one most similar to the sort of characters RTD made would probably be Rory in that he’s a basically good person who just needed to be more confident. I don’t think Bill would fit either category, but she has a lot of presence with all her quirky questions & reactions & habits, and there was this mentor dynamic and the interesting premise with the tutoring etc and the particular way she stumbles into mysterious events... 

I think Moffat approached it not as making “a pov character” but  an interesting character, an interesting sub-story on its own that it would be interesting to have interact with the main plot. 

The classics had both what you might describe as “regular people” and more high concept stories like ppl from space or with wacky backgrounds. It was never the rule that they must always be like this one specific type of character... 

Also, what IS “ordinary”? What IS flawed? What is relatable or interesting to one person might be boring to another. 

The problem with Chibnall is that he couldn’t be farther from the other two inthat he’s not much about characters at all and even when he actively tries to give them traits or lines or whatever they’re bland and indistinctive and really not memorable. 

He has no idea that specificity, the sense of a personal story and inner consistency, as well as edges, are what make stories and characters appealing so he has no qualms doing a big retcon that really shaves a whole of that off from the main character making them at best and at the most optimistic, a completely different sort of character and at worst totally undermined.  

This is my opinion on the matter, at least; As I said, personal taste plays into it somewhat.

[doubleddenden]

My ideal Pokemon game would probably make people think I'm insane, but I'll make a list anyway for convenience sake in case I get around to scenario and script writing for my own

Not a remake or reboot

A region based maybe around Oregon or somewhere in Canada

Enough new mons to stand on its own with maybe a few older mons specifically tied to newer evolutions/pre evolutions or specifically regional variants. I want a minimum of 100 Pokemon that aren't evolutions or pre evolutions, legendaries, Ultra beasts or otherwise. Ideally, 130 or so Pokemon you can normally catch and evolve, maybe 20 variants and maybe 7 legendaries.

Regional variants to more than just Kanto Pokemon AND including starters. I'm talking Water type charmander, electric fairy Typhlosion, etc.

Mega Evolution wouldn't be a main plot proponent but considering my starters would have them, it's still pretty important and they'd be there

Same with Z moves tbh

Pokeride can stay but I'd also take key items that do the same thing.

The region takes a bit more of an outdoorsy environment versus the city areas like most games. Not saying there wouldn't be a few big cities, but there's a charm to the rustic aesthetic (even if I'd rather die than go camping irl)

There's plenty to explore for more than just plot. Maybe side quests, sure, but overall just places you want to explore. Forests? Ruins of an ancient race? Haunted houses? Yes please

An element of time progression as you pass through the region, both aesthetic and perhaps characters

There'd be something memorable about each location. Maybe not plot related, but generic caves and forests are boring.

The characters would all have a reason for being there beyond being your friendly rival. Ideally there'd be a close circle like maybe Black and White or X and Y (albeit not as annoying as Tierno), but all are given adequate character growth and personality like Bianca and Lilly. This extends to gym leaders who aren't just there to hand out a badge and call it a day.

The rivals would be fun and challenging to fight. Ideally there's a friend, a dick, and the Wally friend. Each would have their own goals and agendas, and each would have formidable teams of six.

The professor is A. A lady because I'm literally tired of tumblr drooling over every hot dad they see and Juniper honestly needs company in this sausage fest and B. Somewhat plot relevant like Kukui in SM.

There would be gyms, but also something like trials of nature sprinkled in. Great you got the Shred badge, now you need to get through these ancient ruins.

Speaking of gyms, I'd like for the 8th gym to be like Blue. To be the final test of trainers before facing the Elite 4, I'd think we would fight someone like this and not Wulfric again (ALSO FULL TEAMS BY AT LEAST THE SIXTH OR SEVENTH GYM and no less than three Pokemon but no less than 4 or 5 after the third badge.

The trials would be just as challenging if not more challenging than SM. Those were tough and I LOVED IT but we can go beyond that. Some would need to be fought but I think it'd be neat to have optional ones to fight for side quests or items.

The story is to the scale of BW, ORAS Delta Episode, and Ultra SM with a larger than life climax. I'm talking a final fight ON THE MOON. The fate of the world, the fate of YOU on the line.

The legendaries are MONSTERS. I want to fight Ultra Necrozma again. I'm one of the rare people (apparently anyway lol) that beat Ultra Necrozma on my first try. It wasn't easy, mind you, but holy SHIT that's a rush I want again.

The champion feels like a worthy opponent, your equal and friend. It's not just the imminent gut wrenching feeling that their Dragonites or Garchomp could wreck your team, but a feeling of excitement and a rush of a challenge and pride to fight someone THIS powerful that you've personally watched grow stronger. And you know what? I want to fight a level 100 team or a team level that rivals or surpasses Red. Yes. I need this rush.

Post game content includes plenty of places to explore and more story associated. The post game episodes we've been getting from X and Y, ORAS, SM, and USUM are what I mean, maybe even combine them with event legendaries. This could even include character specific episodes.

Character customization makes me feel happy or even connected with my trainer. In a way I miss Gen 5 days because they were older trainers and I could easily place myself in their shoes and not be disappointed with the lack of clothing variety or everyone constantly telling me I'm 11.

The music gotta be boppin. I'm talkin Colress, Champion Iris, the legendary and elite 4 fights from X and Y, Zinnia, Red, Red and Blue from Alola, GUZMA, Ultra Necrozma, that shit. It'd be so great of we could even get an item in game that would let us listen to whatever track we wanted too.

I gotta cry. I gotta cry for my bois and girls, the ending and the high points, I want to be hit with emotion rivaled only by the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series and Black and White.

Please. Difficulty adjustments accessible via the options menu. If I could, I would have Ultra Necrozma levels of difficulty in my gyms with Hard mode. Fuck, I'd take it with route 1. Mega Ultra Rattata needs to be capable of fucking over half my team. (Jokes aside this would be cool).

Unless there's an absolute new mechanic or battle system, let me skip the tutorial. Boi I could have caught a full team by the time you got finished teaching me how to tackle and throw a ball. In lieu of tutorials, maybe bring back the teachy tv and just say "check this out to learn how to catch Pokemon if you want."

Someone other than a mom. Personally speaking, I have a dad and an aunt that have done more for me than my mom ever has. I'd take even a grandpa or a sibling too.

Not necessarily open world but freedom to choose where to go. People keep bringing up Kanto but honestly that's still kind of linear with the understanding that you have to go Pallet Viridian pallet viridian Pewter Cerulean Vermilion cerulean Lavender Celadon lavender, etc.

A simplified player search system.

A pokedex that shuts up and never talks. I like the map, quest sign, and semi phone aspect of it. I hate talking to it.

Hardly any mentions to Kanto whatsoever. No hints to remakes of any kind. Full effort put into making this game the best it can be and making the next game original af.

A dolphin Pokemon. Please.

That's all, I swear, lol.