#last of us spiolers

[funke3]

Follow up on my last post

#Spiolers as always 🤭

In pvp civilization when you rank up you get the same room and it seems like you have more lifespan but really everything just costs the same in the grand scheme of things. Oh boy I have 250 durability. That's so much except food is like 10 compared to when you had 50 and food was 2. You're not gaining anything

Also but funkler? Erm but it still costs 1 durability to fight

Except you can get chest plates and armor, so you fight for longer and lose more durability on your sword anyway

I guess I'm just saying that I like the premise of parkciv better than pvpciv. I enjoy the currency aspect better since it makes more sense for guards to want to be hit instead of like. Jumping. I guess. Parkour as a currency makes no sense but pvp in pvpciv could be used to generate energy when you hit the armor stands maybe

[dorkwalf]

Fnaf sb riun spiolers

If you have not watch/played it do not read!

Rebuilt AU part 4

They were on the move

Sunny was making room in the daycare and collecting parts to help there friends

Roxy was look at the green rooms

And last but not least

Cassie was at the theater dressing room

She was looking everywhere though a bit scared of what will happen when she finds them

She was about to start a new place when she heard a crash

A locked door

She quickly put on the mask and the door was no longer there

Once throw she took it off coming back to reality and unlocked the door from the inside

She looked around was looked like an employees locker room

There was some thing red around the corner

She walk around exspecting to find Monty but instead found two long lost friends

Before where was a worn and torn purple bunny and Broken down and battered fox

Bonnie and foxy

Bonnie turned his head her way

‘Hay there little gal! What cha doing back here?’ Bonnie asked getting up and walking the best he could toward her

‘Tis be no place for a lacy’ foxy said standing up

‘I’m look for the animatics to bring back for repairs! Omg we can get you fixed! I hated it when you guy where taken out the band! But now-

Both Bonnie and foxy staired and watched as the girl ramble for at least 10 minutes before she stoped to breathe.

Then it hit them

‘How did ya get in here anyway? It’s been lock for years.” Bonnie asked shocked

Cassie then explained the mask and said she could lead them out

Bonnie and foxy were over joyed

They can leave

They can see there friends again

The follow Cassie out and looked in horror

This was dangerous for kids

Before Cassie got to far foxy picked her up and placed her on his shoulders to keep her safe and asked her to lead the way

When they got to the daycare cassie saw that Roxy had found chica

Foxy put cassie down in a safe area right before him and Bonnie where tackled by Roxy chica and sun

They where all in a pile when chica remebered cassie

Roxy had filled her in on what happened and immediately ran over and check her over

She felt so bad but she thought it was Gregory

Cassie giggles claiming she was ok

Meanwhile Roxy was filling in foxy and Bonnie on the incident

After every one was on the same page

‘Know all we need is Monty!’ Sun said

‘Why not Freddy?’ Bonnie asked

‘Freddy was helping Gregory. He left us.’ Roxy growled out

‘What!’ Foxy and Bonnie said angerly

They could believe it

How could he do this

They all desided to rest and look for Monty later hopefully they can find him fast.

[utterrandomnesswithlulu]

By The Episode: Infected (TLoU)

Episode two of The Last of Us premiered on January 22nd, and it has us with Ellie, Joel, and Tess the following day after leaving the Boston QZ.

Welcome to a new article type By the Episode! This article is essentially a recap of a show that airs on a weekly basis. This won’t be including shows that can be “binged watched” or full seasons that are currently available on streaming platforms. That will be left to our other article type Midnight Binge.

There won’t be a rating for articles by the episode because I like to rate an entire season rather than an individual episode. However, I give my opinion on if it’s “Worth a Watch,” “Cautiously Optimistic,” “Let’s See Where This is Going,” “I Might Stop Watching,” and finally “Nope, Not Worth the Time.” Instead of being at the end of the article, I will include this opinion at the beginning.

EPISODE GRADE: CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC

SPIOLERS for TLoU episode two, Infected.

BOMB IT ALL

The episode opens up with another flashback, this time in Jakarta, Indonesia, as we see this elderly woman sitting in a cafe before being taken away by two military men. From what was told to us in episode one, we can surmise that Jakarta is where the initial outbreak happened.

The woman Doctor Ratna Pertiwi (Christine Hakim) is taken into a hospital where she’s shown a microscope that has a prepared slide. She quickly announces that it’s a cordyceps fungus on the slide, and the general says that this was found in a human. Obviously, she mentions is completely impossible, as it’s commonly found in insects. The general wastes no time showing Dr. Pertiwi the body of the female factory worker that had been shot in the head. The doctor investigates the body and finds the infection centered around the leg. Cutting open the leg, we see the white fungus growing underneath the skin. What’s a bit more unsettling are the semi-alive writhing tendrils in the woman’s mouth.

The general asks the doctor what they should be doing. As in making vaccines, and figuring out treatment options, but the doctor says that they should be bombing the city. There is nothing available to combat a fungal infection such as this, and she would like to go home and be with her family. Knowing full well that this was the end.

It’s the morning after escaping the Boston QZ and Joel and Tess are fighting about what to do with Ellie. Joel firmly believes that it’s only a matter of time before Ellie turns, but Tess holds onto hope that she could be the real thing. Joel holds fast to his belief, thinking this whole deal is a waste of time and that they should just turn back. But he is begrudgingly convinced by Tess to continue their journey, and they travel through a decimated downtown Boston to get to the State House. According to Tess is a ten-minute walk, but there is a long way, and a short way (or, in Tess’s words, “we’re fucking dead” path). It is very quickly voted that they take the long way, and Tess gives us some exposition about what happened in the twenty years to the city since the infection. Dr. Pertiwi’s advice was followed, and the military bombed many of the major cities in hopes of slowing the infection. In some cases, it helped, but in others, it did not. Boston was one of the cities that was bombed in the early days, which is evident by the massive craters strewn throughout the city.

The longer path has them making their way through a flooded hotel in which we learn Ellie can’t swim (this is also funnily in the game too). The water isn’t high enough to deem that swimming is necessary and they walk the ten floors up so they can use a board to cross over into another building. As they come upon a balcony, we witness our first swarm.

This is where the mechanics of tendrils are explained. If you step or mess with tendrils in one area a mile away, a swarm wakes and descends into the area. They continue into a museum, which seems safe at first after Joel confirms that the tendrils outside have dried out. As they walk in, they see the fungus overgrown and a freshly dead body lying in a corner. Tess and Joel get very tense, whispering that they didn’t “hear” anything when they entered the building. Quietly and carefully, they continue through the museum. As they get upstairs, a part of the roof collapses and that’s where we “hear” them.

Two stage-three infected, or Clickers, screech, and holler as they’re alerted to Tess, Joel, and Ellie entering the room. Ellie accidentally makes a slight noise, and the Clickers pounce. As a gunfight ensues, Ellie tries to hide under some display cases. One Clicker goes for Tess while the other shambles toward Joel. They make it very clear that Clickers are difficult to kill after Joel shoots one several times and Tess cleaves it with an axe.

With the Clickers dead, they continue to the roof and nurse their wounds. Ellie has been bitten for a second time, while Tess has a twisted or broken ankle.

They finally make it to the State House, but there is NO sign of the Fireflies. When they enter the State House, they find dead Fireflies, and it’s evident that someone was infected and turned on the other Fireflies. Tess freaks out, looking for any sign of where they were going to take Ellie. She harshly asks Ellie where they were taking her, but she didn’t have any idea except they were planning on taking her west. Joel tries to convince Tess that this is the end of the road for them and that they should head back to the QZ and let Marlene handle it. However, Tess is angry, frustrated, and upset at this because the QZ isn’t her home, and their luck had to run out at some point. Ellie realizes that Tess is infected, and indeed, she reveals a bite mark on her collarbone.

Tess grabs Ellie’s arm and shows Joel how real and rare Ellie was because, in just a few moments that it took to reach the State House, Tess’s bite looked infected, already changing colors with tendrils growing just beneath the skin. While Ellie’s looked like a bite mark, normal and healing. She pleads with Joel to continue on with Ellie because her immunity is real, staring them right in the face.

The Fireflies that were on the ground are actually infected, biding their time as we get our first glimpse of how tendrils work. The tendrils, which were light green and thin, wrapped around the Fireflies’ hands. Where they spotted the first swarm, the tendrils alert all of them, and they all raised up and charged for the State House. Things become desperate as Tess starts dumping the gasoline onto the floor and she tells Joel to “save as many” as he can. She tells him to take Ellie, and that she was going to try to buy some time. Now the next part is creepy, yet interesting at the same time. As the Runners start streaming into the State House, ignoring Tess, she tries to light a lighter to ignite the gasoline spilled onto the floor. One Runner spots Tess standing against a pillar. He makes his way to her and tendrils are pushing their way out of his mouth. And now the creepy part. The Runner kisses Tess, full on, with tendrils squirming out of his mouth. A reminder, Tess was infected, and she was bitten on her neck near the collarbone area. This close to the brain, it takes minutes to infect an individual. Tess was literally on borrowed time when they reached the State House, and tendrils were one of several ways a person can become infected.

The episode ends with Ellie and Joel running from the State House as it explodes.

CONCLUSION

My cautious optimism is slowly resolving with each episode, because just like the first episode, this one was just as beautiful, thrilling, filled with game Easter egg goodness, and so much sass between Joel and Ellie. A bit of good news though, HBO has picked up The Last of Us for a second season before the drop of episode three.

However, some sad news, the original actress for Tess, Annie Wersching, has passed at the age of 45, after a two-year battle with cancer. Our hearts are with her family and friends in their time of grief.

The Last of Us is streaming weekly on Sundays, at 9pm EST, on HBO Max.

[pigeon-in-anguish]

So I just finished The Last Of Us Part II, here are my thoughts: 

!Under read more bc whole plot spoilers! If you’ve played the game I’d love if you would read this and respond with your own opinions on what I said! (If you’re on mobile this will look very long Im sorry)

To start off, here’s what I liked bc it’s a much shorter list (lol)

-The graphics are insane! But honestly they didn’t look any different from Uncharted 4, I really expected to see more pores and skin texture 

-The soundtrack S L A P S. Absolute bop. 10/10

-The frikin moss on the water MOVES when you walk through it!!! As it didn’t do this in UC4, I was wicked impressed.

-I’m really glad they had Dina talk about her Jewish upbringing, and they even had a menorah in the house she and Ellie shared. As a Jew I’ve never played a game with a Jewish character. It feels nice :)

- I know the character Lev has been under some controversy on tumblr as being a trans character seen as an “enemy” but I really liked his character! Remember- he was born and raised into a vicious cult. He just wanted to be able to be himself. Even though he is fighting against Ellie, it’s because Abby is fighting against Ellie, and Abby is his friend. He’s trying to protect her. He would most likely be Ellie’s friend without Abby’s influence. (BTW I’m cishet, so if my opinions and stuff are off/ rude here I apologies I’m just trying to say why I liked his character, please tell me if I said something wrong.) I also think he’s funny and a total badass. You go you funky little cultist!

Now on the the things I didn’t like:

-The whole ass plot. 

-The whole fist game is about the JOURNEY to the Fireflies, and in this game you just appear at locations of same distance in an instant??

-Playing three days in Seattle as Ellie, then playing the SAME FRIKIN 3 DAYS as Abby. I was bored out of my mind. They made a zombie game boring. Congrats

-Everything Ellie did and lost just to let Abby live because ???? Girl you went all that way, left your hot ass wife and child just to let her live? The whole point of the game is to kill her!! The game becomes pointless for me.

-The amount of flashbacks. Oh my fucking gd. I DO NOT care about Abby’s past, I DO NOT care about some zebra and I DO NOT care about her relationship with Owen. He’s got the most punchable face I’ve ever seen.

-Characters acting out of character for the sake of plot. Ellie going after Abby leaving Jessie on his own to go after Tommy? Wouldn’t happen. Ellie hasn’t gone down that road of hate yet, she wouldn’t ever do that. Tommy showing up to her and Dina’s house and basically forcing Ellie to kill Abby? Wtf!!! This part was cheap. He knows what Ellie meant to Joel, and saw her in a similar way he saw Sarah. He would have mentioned it, but would NEVER have gotten angry at her.

-The ending. Arg. She leaves Joel’s guitar behind?? So like she’s just over him now?? THEN WHY THE FRIK DID YOU GO TO CALIFORNIA YOU TWAT!!!! I’m not pleased :/

Sorry this is so long, I could go into more detail about all the things I didn’t like but then I’d lose everyone’s interest. The game should have been Joel and Ellie revenging Tommy after he was killed by WLF ppl attacking Jackson or something. That one birthday flashback was nice though. The whole game could have been that ;-;

[stardustpinkart]

Fred getting pardoned sucks, but Im not exactly suprised, this is how the real goverment even works. Huge monsters get away with there monsterous crimes. Or people make deals. Even if you KNOW someones guilty they sometimes let monsters out of prisons that deserve a live sentence(death is maybe too quick a way out, they deserve to get torn to bits in prison instead).  Its awful but its life.

HOWEVER

Is Fred really not going to get punished? Hes snitched on his buddies, he cant go back to Gilead surely? So he’ll have to stay in Canada... And many people know what he did. There are more people vying for the Waterfords to be punished than realeased.

Vigilante justice is liable to occur. If nothing else they’d be spitting on this asshole in the street. Maybe JUNE will be the one to shoot him dead, but I kind of hope not for her sake. Given how goverments are always warped, if she ended up imprisoned after everytjings shes gone through? That’d be so wrong.

Also I felt this ep showed all the more how men have the power in this world despite women being so “precious”, to have children. With the fucked up relationship they have I think either would leave them hung out to dry. Fred just happens to be the one having that option right now.

And that the wives are just as piosnious and two faced. I know Naomi doesnet seem to particularly want her OWN baby but I do wonder, they seem to get some priveldges one way or another....

Becka is permitted to the fancy school becuase her father is a good detnist but an everyday man. Mothers wed off there daughters to powerful commanders for position and prestige. Having a certain amount of things makes you more superior... Having another baby might be considered a accolade.

And these women are willing to steal even from each other, save Eleanor and Esther wives are toxic bitches, like rich ladies lording it over all and talking behind each others backs, all fake smiles to each other.

I doubt Serena will be allowed her child but IF her “friend” took him, you can bet she’d never see him again despite her fake reasurrances.

Its also perfect becuase Serena now INDEED is getting a taste of the pain all those mothers felt when Gilead stole there children.

Spiolers also make me worry Hannh will NEVER get out of Gilead, but, if they take material from “The Testaments” as they already have, she probably will eventually.

Actually it might be kinda cool if the protaganists of the next series were her and Holly/Nicole. Especially if they have Holly sneak into Gilead as a teenager to help bring it down. There as brave and strong as there mother. Its a possibiltiy, I cant wait for the next, and I hope the last season(DONT drag it out, DONT keep us hanging, please, we need a satisfying ending and its already been suggested it will be happyish, depending on your opion)

[cheap-pack-of-cigarettes]

30 Day BL Drama Challenge

Day 26 - bl drama that made you cry buckets

Without a doubt its History3: Make Our Days Count

omg this is days late sksksksk

At first I was thinking of saying Until We Meet Again and that show did make me cry during it but the mess i was after the last ep of MODC.... *SPIOLERS*

 when i tell you i was in no way at all ready or prepared for the kind of ending we were given with ep 10 that would be an understatement. for the whole week leading up to the last ep, genuinely everyone thought the reason xi gu ran back to his apartment was because hao ting’s dad was there to finally accept his son and their relationship but holy fucking shit were we all wrong!!!!! i dont even remember when i exactly started to cry watching i bc most of the ep i was confused as fuck as to if xi gu was actually even dead (dont even get me started on the xi gu look alike with the dubbed voice) but i do remember absolutely breaking down at the scene where sun bo had to pick up hao ting at the spot hao ting took xi gu for their first date all those years ago and then my heart completely shattered when sun bo and hao ting were talking about how much he misses xi gu, this still lives in my head to this day: 

Hao Ting: “I’ve changed.”

Sun Bo: “We’ve all changed.”

Hao Ting: “But he hasn’t changed. His time stopped when he was eighteen. But mine will continue to move on, unable to stop. I keep longing to close the distance between us. So I keep climbing mountains, and continue to climb mountains that are even closer to the stars. It’s like I can touch the stars when I reach out my hand, like being able to touch.... But it’s wrong. No matter how much I want to get closer to him, reality is that our distance will become further and further apart. He’s still eighteen. Only i’ve changed. I’m so scared.”

this one ep made me go through two whole boxes of tissues and literally ruined my day afterwards. it was bad enough i watched the episode in the morning and then had to go out and do things let alone seeing everyone else on my tl crying and trying ot figure out what the hell actually just happened. 

[gold-5tandard27]

AVENGERS ENDGAME SPIOLER REVIEW

Saw Avengers Endgame in a literal packed theatre but no one made a sound except a few snifles. All on the edge of their seats with anticipation. Sat next to some girls in blankets in the third row. Twas cozy. Can we all talk about how this was basically Captain America's movie like, fighting himself, holding mnorqjnere and single-handedly taking on Thanos for like 5 seconds wow! I loved how they brought in the actors to re-shoot scenes from previous movies and hearing Captain America say "hail hydra" on the big screen was cool. Hulk banner looked awful and was a mix of Sully from Monsters Inc. and Shrek. Though him dabbing with just a Hulkamania pose was at least saving face. Nebula is so f***ed dude. Iron Man's last words being "I am Iron Man" was so corny but, so poetic. I'm glad it's finally over. I liked that one shot of Captain America standing alone to face the army before you know.

No spoilers:

Endgame left me with so much to think about. If Infinity War was telling a good story, then Endgame was tying up loose ends and giving us everything we needed to see. To an extent for now. So yeah a lot of people are going to be able to nit pick a few plot details because the three act structure is nowhere near as on point but, at least it's not Age of Ultron bad.

Go see it because there's a lot to spoil!

[redantsunderneath]

LOGAN - short take with some spiolers

The first superhero movie in a little while that managed to be good on the screenplay/developed theme axis and still got me a little tingly about the subliminal aspects.  I somehow missed that it was R not PG13 going in, but it was insanely violent and used the F word quite a bit.  The Shane stuff was amazing (the use of the word “brand” gave me chills).  I liked this a lot.

Basic analysis is that it was Age of Ultron inverted.  It is a generational anxiety movie by someone with a different set of issues about the transition between Gen X and what’s next.  In AoU, Tony, in order to keep the next generation safe from making his mistakes, brings on a catastrophe, the way out of which is to learn to let go and create a system with more input and step aside.  Logan abandons the next generation to be raised by the corporate hellscape, which causes a dystopia, and must step up to demonstrate masculinity and reclaim his suppressed righteous rage, then “fucking die, already.”  They both have a farmhouse in the middle to learn an important lesson.  In AoA they learn what they need from real America and set out to correct their mistakes.  In Logan, everyone in real real America dies except the predators - the black family struggling as farmers, the racist corporatist bullies, even the Haliburtonesque corporate/federal paycheckers. Tony lives on to forget everything for the next outing, while Moses Logan, having led his charges out of  Egypt Inc. and through the desert, dies in sight of the promised land, never reaching it. 

The best scene is the one in the Bronco where Laura talks for the first time (where she keeps repeating the names of her fellow escapees and holds the map upside down - the psychogeography of this movie is enough for a big effort post where Lacan will be mentioned - America as the desert of the real, Mexico as the unreal, Canada as the imaginary).  The southern-boy representative of the new lethal masculine will in thrall to the globalist ambiguously-national oligarch dies really funny with the multicultural kids using their weirdness to kill him.  The discussion of the foot claws was super intriguing for its talking around the idea of rape, which is central to the comic X23′s origin.   I couldn’t hear very well but I think Logan’s second to last sentence was something like “Ves como madre tu” (Look like your mother?)) and the actress look distractingly like Famke Jansen.  The drones were a nice touch.

Borders and immigration will no doubt be a robust read (those limousine passengers... Jeez). I’m more interested in Mexico as the subconscious where Logan must go to retrieve the memory of the past, who now has Alzheimers, and the borders as something of a metaphor.  Then there’s Canada as a destination he knows is a lie and must learn to believe in anyway.  Additionally, I feel like they changed New Orleans to Oklahoma City in post, but both make no sense since they could easily claim Vegas was on the way and run with that.  It would provide the same function.

Nice.  No post credit scene.

[theplotsmith-blog]

Ready Player One, Novel, By Ernest Cline,2011

SPOILERS—MILD

For several years I have had this book on my reading list. It is only recently, now the film trailers have been released, that I put some time aside for it. I told myself I would pace myself to enjoy the story more and take it a chapter at a time. This didn’t last and I seen went through three quarters of it in two days.

Cline does a good job of painting a rich picture of the OASIS, the virtual world in which the story takes place. Despite my initial enthusiasm this seems to be the best part of the book, a big downside for readers who, like me, like story and character to have a bit more attention than the setting.

Maybe it was the story format (a first-person, past tense memoir) that limited the narration in some way but the OASIS overpowers the real world. This is good, in a sense, as that is partly the point of the book, that virtual reality has replaced the real world as humanities reality, but when the book switches back to reality it glosses over it and never gives us details in the same way. This left me wanting more; there was a great opportunity for the juxtaposition of a utopia and dystopia (if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years it is that dystopia fiction is all the rage) but the narration, like the characters, shy away from it in favour of the escape of fiction.

With this comes the shying away of the Wade, the protagonist, from the things that would endear us to him. The teenager is an orphan who lives with his aunt, who he hates (the feeling is mutual) and longs to escape from. Sound familiar? It should, it’s everywhere these days. His personality never comes through clearly, in fact it seems like everything he has to say about himself somehow relates to his 80’s obsession which fills the book from start to finish. I’ve hear the book described as ‘80’s porn’, a term which sounds about right. What really got me though, what really turned me off his character, was how little he seemed to care for his friends and family in reality—not that he is wrong to value his virtual friends, to a point, but because he (and here I’m phrasing this carefully to avoid major spoilers) parts ways with them, even the ones he claims to care about, with little to no regret or guilt.

Despite being released some six years ago now the book felt to have contemporary themes of net neutrality. If the filmmakers have any sense they will have built on this but I doubt it. Partly because I think this political turn came too late in the film’s making and partly because… well, I’ve given up asking the film industry for more (so it’s always a special surprise when they deliver!).

SPIOLERS—MAJOR

The one thing that did get me though is the one thing I think will be left out of the film as I have seen no hint of it in the trailers or, more tellingly, the cast. There is a character (who shall remain nameless for their own protection) who, when they make an appearance in the real world, is the complete opposite of their avatar in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. This is one of the finer points of the novel illustrating how our persona online, and how we identify or wish to be perceived, can be very different from the truth.

Seeing this in the film could be a magical moment in not just the film but in cinema for the whole year if not decade. Will they do it? I predict not. Why not? Because Hollywood isn’t brave enough to challenge the increasingly outdated image they have in their minds of the general populous (seriously, in the young adult audience this twist could go down a treat) or go the extra mile for the sake of the themes the book tried to convey.

I am in two minds about the film but am not getting my hopes up. It looks to be a visual treat or ‘Eye Pleaser’ (copyright pending), a visual piece designed to look good over containing any actual substance.

[theplotforge-blog]

Ready Player One, Novel, By Ernest Cline,2011

SPOILERS—MILD

For several years I have had this book on my reading list. It is only recently, now the film trailers have been released, that I put some time aside for it. I told myself I would pace myself to enjoy the story more and take it a chapter at a time. This didn’t last and I seen went through three quarters of it in two days.

Cline does a good job of painting a rich picture of the OASIS, the virtual world in which the story takes place. Despite my initial enthusiasm this seems to be the best part of the book, a big downside for readers who, like me, like story and character to have a bit more attention than the setting.

Maybe it was the story format (a first-person, past tense memoir) that limited the narration in some way but the OASIS overpowers the real world. This is good, in a sense, as that is partly the point of the book, that virtual reality has replaced the real world as humanities reality, but when the book switches back to reality it glosses over it and never gives us details in the same way. This left me wanting more; there was a great opportunity for the juxtaposition of a utopia and dystopia (if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years it is that dystopia fiction is all the rage) but the narration, like the characters, shy away from it in favour of the escape of fiction.

With this comes the shying away of the Wade, the protagonist, from the things that would endear us to him. The teenager is an orphan who lives with his aunt, who he hates (the feeling is mutual) and longs to escape from. Sound familiar? It should, it’s everywhere these days. His personality never comes through clearly, in fact it seems like everything he has to say about himself somehow relates to his 80’s obsession which fills the book from start to finish. I’ve hear the book described as ‘80’s porn’, a term which sounds about right. What really got me though, what really turned me off his character, was how little he seemed to care for his friends and family in reality—not that he is wrong to value his virtual friends, to a point, but because he (and here I’m phrasing this carefully to avoid major spoilers) parts ways with them, even the ones he claims to care about, with little to no regret or guilt.

Despite being released some six years ago now the book felt to have contemporary themes of net neutrality. If the film-makers have any sense they will have built on this but I doubt it. Partly because I think this political turn came too late in the film’s making and partly because… well, I’ve given up asking the film industry for more (so it’s always a special surprise when they deliver!).

SPIOLERS—MAJOR

The one thing that did get me though is the one thing I think will be left out of the film as I have seen no hint of it in the trailers or, more tellingly, the cast. There is a character (who shall remain nameless for their own protection) who, when they make an appearance in the real world, is the complete opposite of their avatar in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. This is one of the finer points of the novel illustrating how our persona online, and how we identify or wish to be perceived, can be very different from the truth.

Seeing this in the film could be a magical moment in not just the film but in cinema for the whole year if not decade. Will they do it? I predict not. Why not? Because Hollywood isn’t brave enough to challenge the increasingly outdated image they have in their minds of the general populous (seriously, in the young adult audience this twist could go down a treat) or go the extra mile for the sake of the themes the book tried to convey.

I am in two minds about the film but am not getting my hopes up. It looks to be a visual treat or ‘Eye Pleaser’ (copyright pending), a visual piece designed to look good over containing any actual substance.

 I shall be updating this after the release of the film to gloat or announce an apology depending on how it goes.