#j*review

[daisyy345]

aah yes. my favorite hispanic and latina author Sarita Jota Martinez

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Great job, ineffable fandom

The tumblr year in review thing is our and your Mascot says CONGRATULATIONS YA GAY FUCKS

I know it's been, well, a rollercoaster of a year for us as a fandom, and the whole fucking shitpile with Gaiman was really, really hard. But can I just say, this community and this fandom saved me, and I'm so, so proud of you for sticking together and reminding yourselves of what is important. And that the horrible things one man does cannot undo the good that you did. You created something beautiful.

I will never stop being so, so incredibly grateful for y'all, Good Omens fandom. You adopted (kidnapped) me as your Mascot nearly a year ago, and it has been a wild fucking ride, and I love you.

[starfxkrinc]

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

shooting the shit with bsf!jj. its late, you’re both crossed and swapping stories on the walk to the store in as much graphic detail as possible to make the other squirm. but you’re getting more and more annoyed as time goes on—jj likes to brag, he’s vulgar, the girls he describes are nothing but an amalgamation of big tits and sticky cunts with no discernible differences. the guys he describes are fags and bottoms who leave feeling empty and used. you’re sick of him, you think he’s got a big ego, you don’t think before you utter, “please like you’re even getting all that anyways.” with a slurred scoff and he stops, crowding your space as he bumps you with his chest.

“what was that?”

you’re world tilts as you squint up at him with his set jaw and blue eyes shining red, “you’re full of shit jj.”

and jj’s a bully. always has been. so it’s not surprising when he all but shoves you against a tree and you’re so close when he grabs his crotch you can feel his knuckles dig into you tummy, “you think i can’t get pussy?”

his teeth are bared, a cross between a smug smirk and a snarl making his sharp incisors gleam at you and you whimper.

“thought so.”

the moments over as soon as it happened, and jjs back to cracking jokes and pulling you along with an arm wrapped tight around your shoulders.

you’re quiet the rest of the walk—burning hot with your heart thudding. and his smile is still mean when he opens the store’s door for you.

[calming-chaos]

[mst3kgifs]

We've been enlisted to do yet another Summer Blockbuster Review. The government wants us to inform the citizenry of their compulsory big expensive studio movie watching duties.

[ladybender]

Jesus oh my god...

Futurama's second episode of this season "Quids Game" was a punch in the guts. In a good way! It goes right on par with episodes like "Cold Warriors" and "Game of Tones": an exploration of Fry's childhood, this time through the lens of mean aliens making him relieve his 8th birthday party games - this time to the death!

I have a lot to say about this episode so buckle up!

Let's start off with some minor complains I have for this one, which are pacing, stakes, and Leela's characterization (in a particular scene).

The episode really flew by so fast, almost at a break-necking pace, and the games felt too short and jam-packed because of that. The emotional weight of the end of each game hits hard because with every one a beloved character dies. There managed to find the time to get the reaction for the major ones (Kif, Leela's parents and grandmother), which is great, but the episode moves so quickly and there is little more time to absorbed it all.

Though, about this issue, I wanna say that I often feel like episodes are either going by too fast or too slow the first time I watch them and it usually doesn't feel the same from a second watch onward. so this is really a minor one that might not even be an problem for me later on, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

moving on to stakes, with this I mean that I originally thought, before the episode aired, that the end goal of the death dame was that the winner would get a prize. A birthday gift for example, and it would have incentivized everyone to go on and even play dirty (which, in retrospect, seems like a really smart thing to put in! compare everyone trying to get an advantage to Fry absolutely refusing to cheat, and pack an even bigger punch with that ending). I suppose playing to survive is motivation enough, but I think it undermines the "wants" of most other characters, and since this was a big coral episode (which is absolutely a strength! I can only imagine how hard it must have been to put together, wow!) I would have loved to see them striving to win, guess what their “birthday wish” would have been, maybe even learn a few of them along the way.

The third iffy thing I want to mention is Leela in the scene in the kitchen. There are seven characters left in the competition and only four baseballs to find to win the round. Leela is panicking trying to find one and she begs fry to cheat and find it for her since he already played when he was a kid and knows the house. Now this conflict was SO good and ALMOST perfect, but whyyyy oh why was Leela so ready to leave Fry behind??? doesn't make sense to me??? I know she was scared and upset bc she had just lost her family and that probably pushed her to act irrationally, but I just can't see her only wanting to keep herself alive and not Fry, especially when an easier and stronger solution is RIGHT THERE.

Have Leela go to Fry already with one of the baseball (that she might have found in some crawled and ridiculous place, to show how desperate she is to win and survive. if you have the wish giving stakes it's even better because you can imagine she'd use her gift to bring her parents back). in the meantime, the other characters find two other balls so there is only one left, and NOW Leela begs Fry to cheat to find the last one and win with her. It's even more emotional, Leela tells him she doesn't want to lose him too but Fry categorically doesn't want to cheat, and in the end tells Leela to win without him, sacrificing himself for her. Bender finds the last ball in the fridge and the episode continues just like we saw (with Bender tossing the ball to someone else right before being pulverized lol. like I said, Bender should be cheating like MAD in these games, really drive home the concept).

I wanna make it clear that these complains don't really turn me off from the whole episode, they are just my free flow of thoughts on stuff that i thought could have been stronger.

But now for the meat. This episode was phenomenal!!! so much good Fry's family characterization and SO much to unpack for Fry as a character. Cody Ziglar has such a spot on take on Fry, it was so validating seeing this episode and putting together all the little pieces of Fry's psyche I’ve picking out for years now, converging into one.

It seems superficial at first glance, but this really runs deeper than it looks. Fry has always been earnest but insecure, proven and proven again in countless episodes. You expect a person goofy and easygoing like Fry to go ham at his birthday and celebrate with all the people he loves, but we find out Fry doesn't like his birthday and feels bad about being put at the center of attention, and it all goes deeper and more upsetting from there.

Adding to all of this and speaking about Fry’s parents, especially his mom, I wanna add that it’s such a realistic conflict it was painful to watch – she wanted to give her son the chance to be a winner, she had no idea how the situation would turn against him. Sometimes a good day of parenting could be the kid’s most terrible experience of his life, and that’s brutal but the parent meant well even if they ruined things for their kid. It’s so sad Fry never got to see how much his mom and dad did for him, and she wanted him to feel like a winner, but this isn’t a story with an easy resolution. It’s bittersweet and it's insane and this last scene ruined me fr, like just look at this what the hell

This exploration of Fry goes hand in hand with everything we know of him. it seamlessly adds another layer of understanding that I’m honestly not even sure I can unpack in a single post, because there is so much to say and draw conclusions from, starting from the very first episode and ending with Meanwhile. From his relationship with his parents and his brother, to his love life and friendships, from his view of himself as a loser to the way he's always striving to better himself while always staying true to himself, trying to achieve his goals the hard way instead of finding an easy way out. Think the why of Fry, Parasite Lost, TKOS, the sting, godfella, my three suns, BBS, cold warriors, and on and on and on. It’s building together a picture of Fry’s character that’s so complex and worth exploring.

With this episode we have a new fundamental facet of him, and for this alone it’s an amazing episode.

I’ll mail my therapy bill to the writers, thank you

And thank you for reading, let me know your thoughts and opinion, I wanna know what y’all thought about this episode

[lok1needsahug]

calling out my tolkien girlies

[destinyc1020]

Review of R&J from a theater-goer 😃😁👏🏾

(May contain light spoilers)

[hikarry]

Who wants a new This Is How You Love The Biblical War chapter today, even though I posted chater 16 yesterday?

[whilereadingandwalking]

In Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado, writers share superb personal essays about the power of video games and the impact of their stories, from Fallout 76 to The Last of Us to Clash of Clans. Writers talk about the power of embodiment, about what it means to live a life where the only way to go is forward, about problematic Aryan ideals sneaking into games, about Middle Eastern villains, about creating settlements and community and a home in a war-torn world, about health bars and redemption and escape.

My favorite essays spanned a wide range. "I Struggled a Long Time with Surviving" by Elissa Washuta talks about living with chronic illness, about an unsure diagnosis and medical dismissal and the in-game virus and its story twists of ambiguity and inevitability. In "I Was a Teenage Transgender Supersoldier," nat steele talks about what it meant to have a helmeted, anonymous protagonist in Halo, and how the unmasking took its power away. We talk about watching others play in Stephen Sexton's "No Traces," discuss debuffs and depression in Larissa Pham's "Status Effect," explore the comfort and productivity of a created home in J. Robert Lennon's "Ruined Ground," and close it all out with a superb essay by Hanif Abdurraqib on Red Dead Redemption, playing God, the afterlife, and what it means to be good.

The essays are strong, interesting, and appealing to video game superfans and fans of just good storytelling and its impact on people. Really great collection with some superb gems.

Content warnings for suicidal ideation, emotional/physical abuse, depression, death/grief.

[autie-j]

I finally watched Transformers One and holy shit, that was amazing. They really just casually went and made the best Transformers movie ever. The live action movies should be embarrassed to be in the same franchise as it. Just good on so many levels. I'm kind of upset I didn't see it while my theater had it. This will be pretty high up the ranking of best movies of the year

[monicalins]

Hola, querido poeta! ¿108.3 es este el número de la pizzería?Quería decirte algunas cosas... Primero respóndeme: ¿a dónde vas cuando tienes miedo? Del ocio, de la soledad, del tiempo, de lo obvio, de lo indiscutible? ¿Cuál es la próxima parada? Por aquí sigo la rutina, después del largo viaje, tomo el café de siempre, leo algunas páginas más y vivo lo que durante años pensé que era inalcanzable. Siempre estoy buscando algo más que hacer. Durante los protocolos cotidianos te veo en la plataforma, finalmente entendí la canción. En los auriculares soundgarden se refleja a mí con un poco más de madurez. Los veinte y poco años son los más locos. Aprovecho y registro memoria concreta, es anestésico. Algunas tardes al sur de una de las 33, escucho experiencia, no hay tantos filtros, por ahí el aliento de vida está más desnudo de sí mismo. ¿Puedes sentir el silencio del caos? Pausa para descansar, me detuve en un amor sereno, capaz de detener mi inquietud, algunos fantasmas tuyos aparecían en las madrugadas advirtiendo que yo era un monstruo. Mis agitaciones eran como olas violentas y vivir lo común me acobarda. Y la cobardía mantiene la conciencia. Sabes bien. Consciente del libro de goldstein en concreto en el recorrido que hago todos los días, señalo la próxima estación, bailo al son de ese antiguo vals y sigo...

(Trechos de um livro inacabado)

Autora: H. Frank

[the-book-raven]

[literatureaesthetic]

house of flame and shadow ; sarah j maas

this is floating somewhere between a high 3, low 4 stars for me. there was a lot to love and a LOT that could have been (and should have been) executed better. overall, i liked how everything wrapped up and how each character arc was completed. i've always said that 'house of earth and blood' is my favourite sjm novel, and this finale, although nowhere near a perfect conclusion, definitely didn't let the characters or the series down.

saying that, i have issues with the amount of plot conveniences in here. certain scenes felt so ridiculous and out of the bounds of logic that i had to laugh. it was difficult to suspend disbelief at times

nonetheless, i love these characters, and i love this world. this book was pure entertainment; i had so much fun reading and discussing with online friends. is it flawed? absolutely. but it was still a solid conclusion to a series i've been reading and loving for years now!!

[twinyolk-chicken]

SCOTT CAWTHON'S THE DESOLATE HOPE'S CHARACTER DESIGNS ARE REALLY GOOD: A BRIEF CONTEMPLATION

PREFACE: i was going to make this all properly punctuated and grammatically correct but in the heat of passion i forgot to do so and i am NOT going through to fix it now. whatever left my mouth when i wrote this approximately twelve hours ago is exactly what you're getting pal

first, coffee:

his simplicity is breathtaking. coffee (that's his name) is often framed against cluttered environments, creating a super sublime vibe akin to watching a tiny spaceship meander through the endless void of space. according to the game's lore, coffee's AI is much simpler than most - which is communicated brilliantly through his design, especially when compared to his complex coevals!

the liquid physics of his pot's coffee are really fun, as is his silly little bouncy antenna. the slight motion blur on his walk animations adds so much to his overall vibe. i really like his robot eyelashes, too! what a cutie 10/10

(look at him! tiny! so simple and out of place!)

(especially when compared to some of the game's other characters. is that visual communication or WHAT?)

(speaking of other characters........)

most of this game's other character designs are so visually detailed it's genuinely nauseating when they move sometimes (this is a good thing). lots of lasers and wires and metal with really delicious texturing. these designs are what stuck most with me after playing this game, and they're still some of my favorites out of any media i've ever consumed!

the enemy NPCs, the ones you actually fight, are supposed to be your character's limited AI's attempts at interpreting a mutating supervirus. i'm obsessed with the concept of subjective visual interpretation in video games, i think it's the most intruiging thing in the world, and GOD do the designs we see deliver! say what you will about scott cawthon but he sure knows how to make a death robot!!! sorry but fnaf animatronics do not hold a candle to the desolate series. PULSAR could beat freddy's mammalian ass

while visually striking, the awesomeness doesn't end there - all of these bots have such incredibly distinct personalities and thought processes, and YOU as the player get to explore them! the main four tertiary characters are these ginormous computers almost appearing overgrown with their own wiring, rotting away in their little rooms - canonically no longer able to move as they once did. how cool is that? rotting megacomputers, damned by their own machinery and its unavoidable obsoleteness? the memory of human fallibility embedded in their every bolt and screw?? and BECAUSE they've all got such distinct personalities and motivations, you can't help but feel so so sorry for the poor bastards. the game does let you bring them gifts which is swell :)

they're all hot too which is an automatic 99999/10 from me

[mst3kgifs]

Welcome back to the MST3K Blockbuster Review, featuring the summer movies that, thanks to an amendment tacked onto last year's highway bill, we're all required to see.