#none of them feel like people! they feel like cardboard cutouts of people idk

[tiktaalic]

ok in terms of Plot and What Not how does gomens s2 stack up against season 3 of ted lasso. which was also shockingly plotless and at times nauseatingly directionless

OH. hm. I think Ted lasso has the edge in several respects. Because while it was very plotless there was still the looming Big Game. Guys we have a Big Game coming up. There was no Big Game in good omens. It was just. Oh we have this one plot piece to puzzle out but it’s not really a priority or time sensitive. And if all else fails we can always bail out. It would have been trite and it wouldn’t have entirely fixed it but if there had been some sort of arbitrary time limit set in good omens I think it would have tightened up the ship so it felt more like a television show and not two men doing six hours of improv. Something like oh and btw you have a week to return Gabriel before heaven explodes without his source of power and also we kill you. Or Gabriel going idk much but I do know that in one week something huge and possibly terrible is going to happen :-).

Also. Ssssssssssigh. Ted lasso was funnier. I think I’m awarding a lot of points to Ted lasso based on the ep where Jamie drags Roy around going let’s do tourism! Because I did have fun in those parts. I honestly didn’t have a lot of fun in gomens i was just. Flabbergasted. The entire run time. Nazi zombies? Sure. Gay David tennant son? Alright. Twenty foot tall crowley? Why not. Why not do that. Might as well happen. I’m trying to think of what happened in the show and that’s like. It. It either needed more or less flashbacks. If there were more they would have had to be firmer anchors to what was currently happening. If there were less they would have to be doing stronger character work.

Ted lasso is much more moralistic so loses points in that regard but there was also the episode where aziraphale was like graverobbing? bad and wrong! I retract my statement. Graverobbing is fine and perhaps even a virtue. I think Ted lasso Feels more misogynistic and racist because they do their overtures to We Have Solved Every Problem. Great job team. Gomens makes no overtures to this it just has cardboard cutouts of characters in the background swaying gently in the wind. I also. Think Ted lasso does stronger character work :|. Every character in Ted lasso has at least one or two flanderizable characteristics that fill them out enough that I see a character and know what their Niche is in a conversation / scene. I could passably nail anyone’s patter for a few sentences. Good omens is . Again. Two guys and scenery. There’s no patter to imitate.

ALSO. Sory for being a bad gay person. I was more entranced by throuple bait than azcrow bait or I guess. Azcrow Foreshadowing. Throuple bait was like oh Aw they’re growing as people together :) . Azcrow bait was someone marching up to their mark planting their feet on it and reading off the script still in their hands to say Have you noticed that you act like a couple with this man? Now it’s none of my business but you act like a couple with this man.

[bitebitesnap]

https://youtu.be/P2isL-Pw1yI its here, i know you said you don’t care fkr it but god, theres a pure cgi moment and it makes me laugh too much. Its at 1:00 and how the big guy moves makes me cackle

Not going to lie, yeah it looks like a toddler running after dropping a camera.

But if I will be frank while I respect the work put into it, this is some of the worst live-action and CGI integration I've ever seen. It's not as bad as it could be but I can feel the amateur effort put into it from visuals all the way down to the acting. I don't want to play this game any more than I would regularly because almost none of the characters sound right, the action feels really limp-wristed, and the graphics look like cardboard cutouts running in front of a blatant green screen.

I respect the work, I see the potential, but I also can't look past the flaws. Yes, I hope these people continue to do their best and get better at the career/hobbies they enjoy, I would love to see them grow as a group or individuals to where they want to be, but I do not enjoy this trailer aside from maybe respect for the effort.

Also, what was the point of this? To promote a game that's already been out for at least a year? It doesn't sound like it's pushing an update so, what's the purpose beyond I guess clout? To prove that they can?

Idk, it feels hollow to me.

[zapsoda]

sometimes i feel like a sick person for disliking this book so much but like.

in the hit comedy book, supermega saves the troops, every chapter ends with this ridiculous and EXTREMELY DRAMATIC nonsequitor about the characters' ~impending doom~ and the cadence of those goofy mic drop moments is IDENTICAL to that of the ending of every chapter in this 100% serious ya historical fiction

the worst part is that this book is based on the lived experiences of real people but it is fucking impossible for me to take seriously because of how dramatic and ridiculous and impersonal the writing is! (in my opinion) (again maybe im just terrible. a sick fuck for this)

this book is so fucking hammy and impersonal i feel like im going to overdo my sodium intake for the day

[jrueships]

I don’t want to judge…. but are you trying to tell us that your newest ship is…. Rolo??? …. and…. KRIS DUNN????

LiSTEN- LIStEN. OKAY-

aLSO WHY DO U SOUND MORE SURPRISED ABOUT DUN THAN KRIS HeLP??????? IM KIDDIN OF COURSE BUT LIKE- OKAY- listEN. it's not like- FINAL final (none of my insane rarepairs are of course like if marcus gets a fr on same team bf I won't be upset LOL all my rarepairs are just basically 'i like this player and this player so... what if.. boyfriends??') But LIKE... im still... CONSIDERING... CLOSELY- ... tho kris and lauri sounds cute too ngl their finnish speaking video (that had Greek music in the bg...) was funny!!

But i just think that

THIS is VERY interesting to me... and im always a sucker for more height difference relationships .... the way Kris doesn't even try stepping AWAY from Robin to smack trae??? He smacks him like he's hiding behind rolo???? Almost like a little kid cowering behind a teacher and only feeling confident enough to hold up a middle finger to his bully because he's got the teacher on his side now??? And the way rolo instantly wraps an arm around kris???????? ITS CUTE LISTEN.LISTEN-

But like??? Personality-wise (the main reason behind my rarepair madness) .. i just REALLY like two stubborn people in a relationship constantly trying to prove the other soft and then inadvertently falling in love with each other because of it.

I'm no astrology ho but APPARENTLY rolo's zodiac is Aries sun LIBRA moon like WOW. So he's like.. I DUNNO... baby... He's a team player but he also wants independence??? So he WANTS to be Different and stand out but hes just so Kind and complementary that he can't help But just fall in the flow??? Which he doesn't really want???? Which makes sense! He wants to be this big scary weird.. caveman and some THINK he is on the surface but really he's just a Disney loving NERD who LOVES superheroes!!!

And Kris is like.. Basically he's kinda eccentric and self-absorbed not in a prideful sense but he's just in his head alot ??? His personality can go from rigid and prickly to charming and open in like. A second. He's just weird like in the picture??? He'll high-five lopez and then remember that trae kinda elbowed him and just go attack mode without thinking twice ??? and it's surprising and that one action makes people think he's just some hot-tempered aggravator but two seconds later he's chill again???

IDK they're both so INTERESTING to me .. I feel like they both can help each other a lot ??? With their personalities ????? but in a fun to write way LOL. Dunn probably challenges rolo's tough guyness a lot; consequently, helping to bring out more of Rolo's soft side. And Rolo can understand Dunn's shifting nature, but also help keep him grounded a bit and out of trouble ?? BUT THEY DO IT THRU LIKE.. arguing and teasing and butting heads a bit because they both kinda pride themselves on being 'fierce'... and then later they resolve things and talk about them.... IDK IDK THIS MAKES SENSE TO ME IN MY HEAD- i KNOW rolo is... kinda ugly and Dunn is essentially 'dunn' (done) in the nba BUT LIKE. LISTEN- THEY THEM... GAY IDIOTS WHO CALL EACH OTHER IDIOTS BUT KNOW THE OTHER IS ACTUALLY REALLY SMART AND IS WILLING TO VOUCH TO THAT FACT ????? LISTENLISTEN.... there is just something ABOUT unexpected relationships ..... that goes BEYOND 'this one is nice and this once is not' like their relationship is COMPLICATED and WEIRD and they don't really know HOW or WHEN it started but it started and they just can't get off it !!!!!!

AND JUST IMAGINE THEM GOING ON A DISNEYLAND DATE ???? THEM B O T H TRYING TO SPIN THE HINGES OFF THE TEACUP RIDE ????? rolo convincing kris to lightsaber fight with him?? Dunn originally being like 'ugh this is so dorky dude' but it's only a short sigh to keep his dignity and he can't help But be charmed by rolo's infectious excitement AND by his OWN excitement ?? so they DUEL and it starts playful until dunn smacks rolo a little Too hard on the arm and then it gets SERIOUS. Idk they probably end up getting kicked out for scaring the children lol. Dunn has bruises and rolo has bloodied scratches. No more lightsaber fighting today :(

Rolo wants to buy a life sized stupid.. expensive soemthin idk like thanos cardboard cut out which Dunn says no to. Then Dunn goes and buys a ton of expensive ass weird candy so rolo rebels and buys the cardboard cut out anyways lol. When they get to the tram train whatever way home, rolo sleeps on dunn's lap using the thanos cutout as a blanket. Dunn keeps waking him up and giving him a concussion because he won't stop bouncing his leg tho from the sugar high. OVERALL... the date is went. It went. Yeah

[sugarandspice-games]

I guess this is becoming a trend... I’m popping in before the actual intro to clarify-- if the text is in italic, it is me (Sugar) talking and regular is Spice. Alright? Cool. And so--

So, one night I’m going through youtube and I come upon this one shitposty video about some random anime that I’ve never even heard of. After doing some research, I discover that it’s actually based on a dating sim that I’ve also never heard of. As a joke I was like “Hey Sugar wanna watch this as a joke, it might be funny” and so we did. And uhm. Well.

Today we’re gonna be reviewing Brothers Conflict, aka Sweet Home Alabama 2: Electric Anime Boogaloo aka the anime that ruined our lives. [Again, disclaimer: neither Sugar nor I condone incest and/or pedophilia, two themes which are uh, very rampant in this anime which is why I cannot recommend it in good faith. It’s not good, don’t get me wrong. I can’t really say that I liked it even if watching it and ragging on it was kind of enjoyable, and I did get attached to some of the characters because that’s the kind of idiot I am. Also, we’re not shirking our duties to write I swear please don’t kill me--] Anyway, an obligatory SPOILER WARNING though this probably isn’t going in the main tag bc I do not want the fans to publicly stone me. Why are we reviewing this? Bc we need to talk about it somewhere. Though I say review lightly bc this... is really more of a critique.

ALSO we only watched the anime, idk if things are different in the game. There is no full english translation for the games and most of the LP channels have been copyright striked, so please don’t come at us for not knowing anything. I also know that otome games and dating sims don’t tend to translate well to anime, and I will be addressing this later.

So, dear god, where do I begin.

Where do we begin indeed? How about the fact that her name is Ema and I had to google to remember the heroine’s name? Also, she is seventeen.

Our plot, or well... what you COULD call a plot, I guess, if you REALLY wanted to give this anime that much credit, focuses on the aforementioned seventeen year old Hinata Ema, who has an absent father who apparently FOUND THE TIME TO FALL IN LOVE AND GET MARRIED BUT NEVER HAS A SECOND TO SPARE FOR HIS ONLY CHILD, RINTARO I SWEAR TO GOD I AM TAKING CUSTODY OF YOUR CHILD. HAND HER OVER-- Anyway. He’s getting married to a woman who has 13 sons (jesus christ ma’am have you ever heard of a condom?) and he decides to move her in with them because... I guess he has less braincells than I have balls, which is to say, zero. Hi, I’m trans.

So, Ema moves in with them... along with her talking grey squirrel, Juli. Juli is... interesting and by interesting, I mean-- ABSOLUTELY PUZZLING. He, apparently, has seen the majority of Ema’s life from babyhood to teenagerhood and can talk but is only understood by Ema (who he calls Chii) and Louis, the eighth son in the Asahina family. It is never explained why, or how Chii came across him or how in an episode, a single episode, he becomes human because why the hell not, I guess??? (Also, he is pretty. YES. I said it. Fight me.) [Quick Spice intervention, this squirrel can talk to people, transform into a human, enter dreams, and live way longer than a squirrel should since the average lifespan of a squirrel is like 6 years in the wild. Juli is apparently a god as none of this is EVER explained.]

And when she meets the Asahina family, it’s pretty much immediately chaos because these heterosexual (I guess? They look like a bunch of twinks to me but there goes anime trying to convince me that straight people are real and not a lie made up by Trump) men have NEVER and I mean NEVER known a woman in their entire lives, since they seem to want to bang their stepsister immediately. And most of them are GROWN ASS ADULTS. Only three of them are actually minors (though Iori is 18 and only one year older so I guess??? It’s okay??? But still weird) and one of them is a 13 year old who looks and acts like he’s 8.

Oh, and did I mention that out of these boys, only the adult triplets and the abusive asshole 16 year old get any kind of characterization AND character development? I mean, Subaru gets an “arc” if you can call it that, but really, they don’t give him much... personality. You could replace him with a cardboard cutout and it’d be the same. I feel bad for him (but not really because dude you are 20 and she is your sister, what the fuck--)

But if there’s anything good about this anime, it is the characters themselves. Several of the boys have redeeming qualities and interesting personalities and quirks, as well as interesting relationships and dynamics with each other. Yes, some of them are lacking in the plotline department while others may have decent plotlines and lack personality, and then some of them are just given absolutely nothing (COUGH Masaomi COUGH Ukyo COUGHCOUGHCOUGH Iori, and by the way, what the fuck is that game plotline bc I read the wiki since I wanted to know more about him. We don’t have time to unpack the mento illness luv. But you’re telling me they had all this meat to work with and they threw it in the trash and gave him nothing? What the hell?) And if anything, I feel as if the characters themselves are crippled by the plotline. If given a different story, perhaps, they may have room to shine, because a lot of them are compelling if not lovable (though some may not be... lovable. COUGHFuuto, at least not for me.) If you want to see our review on the characters, we’ll put out another post.

Iori... Iori has a hell of a plot in the game, according to the Wiki but I can’t blame the writers for not exploring all of it because whoa. It is dark and not in a good way. But back to the subject at hand... I agree with Spice. I do/did like quite a lot of the characters... provided the entire romantic plot is taken away but we will go into more of why the plot is problematic below. All I can really add is: There is a baby in this dumpster and canon has been taken out back to be shot like a lame horse.

This brings me to a point in which I would like to pause the character discussion and bring up a glaring flaw with this anime in general (aside from the... plot. Look, I’m not a huge fan of weird stepsibling stuff but I think that if you want to do something like that, there are ways to do it and ways not to do it. This was the way not to do it, which I’m getting to). The biggest thing that made this anime so uncomfortable was the imbalance of power dynamics. Why is the protagonist 17 when most of the love interests are 18 and older, and I mean much, much older? And she’s not any 17 year old... she’s a lonely, neglected girl who is starved for the love of a family. This makes her easily manipulated by the brothers, who clearly desire her for less than wholesome reasons, and that makes it skeevy. I’m not sure why there’s such a fetishization of nonconsent in media, as if it’s fine for as many men to lust after female protagonists as the writer desires BUT the woman can’t want a single one of them in return. It’s creepy, and quite frankly, I am very much over it. I also get that the age thing is probably a product of the protagonist of a teenager oriented dating sim not translating well to an anime (because really, all otome game MCs are meant to be a neat little pair of shoes for the player to imagine themselves in), but why are we fetishizing a teenager being groomed by adults anyway? Especially adults who have this much power over her to begin with? The power dynamics bring this plot from “Oh, this might be kinda trashy but it could be entertaining” to “This is extremely creepy and rapey and kind of a dumpster fire.”

This is also true. If we were to take age into consideration, Fuuto, Yusuke, and Iori would be the three candidates left for Chii. This is taking out the youngest as well, who is... thirteen, I think? But anyway, (I know I am probably going to get some hate for this but go for it), I am into stories that explore the stepsibling thing and it can make a good narrative-- but before everyone gets uppity: There is a line between FICTION and REALITY and I do not condone real life incest but a story is a story and there are ways to frame it that make it clear that it is not a romantic thing, or acceptable. This anime does not do that in it’s dynamics because some of the brothers do start off in that very firm caregiving, family role and it is a sharp turn into romance that makes you go, “?” or in Fuuto case, a blending that does lean into fetishization.

All in all I think the plot maybe could have been okay? I’m not saying it isn’t problematic, because we all know it is, who are we kidding? But I don’t think it’s wrong per se to explore family dynamics with romance and to understand where the line should be drawn, and maybe exploring the definition of family itself. I have seen fanfictions with similar tropes ask those questions and explore the concept beautifully without romanticizing or fetishizing incest and unhealthy power dynamics. It could have been good, and I get that perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree by expecting mature themes in an anime based on an otome game, but it also could have been a lot less... creepy (I have used that word so much that it looks wrong now) even if it wasn’t the greatest thing ever. But again, what was I expecting? I watched this whole thing as a joke and ended up attached to the characters like a fool... That tends to be a trend here, and this is why we are so salty all the time. So anyway, stay tuned for our review of the characters! We may not cover all of them since some of them don’t really get anything, but we’ll cover what we found interesting.

[kob131]

http://twelveclara.tumblr.com/post/183594981449

So you don’t want to deal with the nice people who want peace then huh?

Fine, you can deal with the assholes who don’t care then.

uh dude not to burst your bubble or anything but there are literally a million valid reasons people dislike white rose but ship bumbleby, including:

Remember, this is SOLELY shipping Bumbleby over White Rose. Nothing here should apply to Bumbleby in the slightest.

no explicitly romantic development. this is like, not a debate, there is an extremely clear difference between bumbleby’s development and white rose’s. 

You hear that?

That’s the sound of someone shooting themselves with a  grenade launcher.

By this logic, BLACK SUN should be the ship to happen because IT’S the one with the explicit romantic development. Like, Sun has expressed direct romantic interest in Blake and Blake at the very least has shown physical attraction to Sun. NONE of which applies with to Bumbleby. And this is hilarious to me since the best I’ve seen with Bumbleby has only a hug, a look and a hand holding to it’s name. Which all apply to White Rose along with a stronger character dynamic. So not only is BlackSun outgunning you here, White Rose is outgunning you as well.

no support from cast/crew/company; actually active dislike from both the va’s from earlier volumes. lindsay has voiced her support for asexual ruby before, or nuts & dolts. kara likes white knight.

As opposed to one voice actor, where only the WRITERS are the only ones who matter in this situation.

Not to mention that’s a stupid fucking thing to say: ‘Oh I hate this ship because no one in the production likes it.’ The creators don’t dictate who ships what.

f/f ships are not equatable just because they are both f/f. i don’t want just any f/f ship to happen. i want bumbleby to happen because it’s been built up over the course of the entire show with both characters having exclusively intertwining arcs and development that revolved around each other.

You mean like how Ruby’s issues with the fallout included being abandoned unwillingly by Weiss?

If that’s not enough: Yang’s issues are focused on Raven and Blake’s are focused on Adam and Sun as well. Either White Rose passes by your own damn rules or Bumbleby fails harder.

the complete disinterest ruby has in romance, dating, sex, etc. she knows what it is. she and yang exchanged that look while she hugged blake in the finale because she knows exactly where yang’s heart is and yang confirmed it. she gets what it is. she canonically isn’t interested.

And Yang AND Blake have shown a n equal disinterest in romance with the same sex. Since both are characterized by an abstance. You say Ruby s pushing asexual, I say Yang and Blake push hetero.

And no, a fucking look is not enough. That could have been a reassurance that she cared for Ruby, you’re just interpreting it that way. And Guess what, death of the author doesn’t work here.

the fact that most of the fandom content sexualizes ruby to some degree, and plenty of people are uncomfortable with that. 

As are sexualizations of Blake and Yang, guess you’re double wrong.

Also nice job implying the reason why you like Bumbleby is because you wanna see them fuck.

the fact that weiss has explicitly referred to them as her family, and her entire arc as a character centers around found family and taking back her independence from her father. if i need to explain why people don’t like the idea of a ship in which one character has explicitly stated she considers the other half “family,” idk what to say to you

Oh so like how Monty described Team RWBY as a ‘sisterhood’?

You really wanna bring in that barrel of worms? Be my guest.

the fact that ruby is still a minor. ruby has a purity and an innocence to her that bumbleby doesn’t have. again, plenty of people are uncomfortable with altering that aspect of her personality which very frequently happens with wr because the fandom either has to make ruby more “mature,” or they have to infantilize her. 

Too bad they do that with Yang and Blake and Yang and Blake are only TWO YEARS OLDER.

the fact that there are a lot of adult men in the fandom who participate in the sexualization of ruby and weiss which in turn makes us feel unsafe

*grabs OP’s head and points them at Dudeblade fucking a cardboard cutout of Yang and Blake.*

You do know you guys have literal lesbian fetishist on your side right?

i can literally go on and on. it has literally nothing to do with us being “conditioned” to think that both ships can’t happen, and everything to do with you missing the point as to why people ship bumbleby and only bumbleby in the first place. we like their dynamic, their character arcs, their storyline specifically.

And WHite Rose shippers like THEIR dynamic, character arcs and storyline. As do literally EVERY SHIPPER EVER.

You don’t get to devalue someone else’s ship because of that shit.

honestly i don’t care if people ship white rose or not, but please stop putting these rants in our tag and accusing us of not supporting it because of some random shit like “conditioning.” we aren’t conditioned. we just don’t like it and we don’t have to. it’s a non-canon f/f ship and we don’t have to “have your backs” or “voice our support” for it. thanks.

And guess what? Bumbleby is JUST as non canon. 

So how about you take self righteous, smug attitude of yours and go out into the cold with the rests of the shippers? Oh wait, you probably pissed off a bunch of other ships who are just waiting to tear you to shreds.

Maybe you shouldn’t be a smug douchebag.

[pilotheather]

aye, really starting to loathe the “yaz kills either graham/ryan whilst under the dalek influence” like-

1. first of all. hate this presumption that graham/ryan have to die. personally, im fine with companions dying - clara’s penultimate exit in face the raven was done beautifully, i think, and i will FOREVER resent them not leaving it like that. however with graham and ryan? literally, i just feel like... it’s so cheap. it offers nothing, babes! and it’s just infinitely LESS interesting than if you just kept them alive.

all the companions, in my opinions, still lack development. i do love them! i really am warming to them. but we’re two seasons in, and the fact of the matter remains they just... haven’t gelled too well with the show proper and they aren’t as fully realised as they should be by this point. and frankly, its not one singular problem moreso it’s an interwoven web of issues (hence it’s hard to really unpick that, without unravelling the whole mess) that have affected the show completely. the point is, despite being here so long, they just still feel so unexplored as people and a little unknown to us and idk!!! i think killing them, wouldn’t offer much in the way of anything interesting - other than, like i said, a very cheap way to instigate tragedy, and springboard some trauma-induced development for yaz&13 - because we aren’t really gaining more than we’re losing here, man.

clara’s exit in face the raven WORKED because it had been building up to it all season. i also dont like amy/rory’s exits (but that’s v potentially my own biases) but theoretically, i can see the vision for that- and the reason why that would be so tragic, is BECAUSE amy&rory are so fully formed at tht point that that loss hits. im not sayin graham&ryan dying would NOT be sad, but it’s... just too soon, still, for me. and when, narratively speaking, they’ve been setting up them thinking about leaving anyway? at least, ryan has? just doesn’t feel quite right at all and just like i said: a pointless attempt, at taking their exits, and doing weird tragedy shit with it for the sake of it.

especially when the ALTERNATIVE is they can stay on in the same way martha did: on earth, totally fine, and with the opportunity to reappear in later seasons. they can progress offscreen in ways that can be satisfying, in the way martha did. she moved on; she became someone different; and yet that change was still guided by what we had seen. same can be done with ryan and graham, finishing their stories and making them all the more satisfying.

2. piggybacking off of that. literally, this scenario of yaz killing them: what would that DO for yaz exactly? like.. what big payoff are u expecting from her? you’re just... horrifically traumatising her. and im wondering, like- where would that leave her in s13?  because she’s supposed to still be here, then, and supposedly travelling with the doctor. and again it just feels so damn cheap: because yaz really does still feel like she’s at the beginning of her story, despite being here for two years (and god am i a little mad abt that; it’s so, so sad that she really could be replaced with a cardboard cutout for most of s11). explore what we HAVE of her, first, before trying to go so damn dark with her. it’s not going to have the payoff you want. you have to work a bit more, to do something like that first. using some fucked up shit like that, just as a springboard for character development it just- it feels so damn lazy to me...  and again, i do not feasibly see how this could properly segue into s13 on that damn note. like the conse

3. and just... god in general. i just. okay again with chibbers and his writing. literally i dont want to sound so negative abt chibnall bc like SOME ppl really do just fucking attack . KILL. over every damn thing, without a breath and its like... okay babe. okay. and i mean, granted i can be a little like tht with moffat tbh - and so  i get ppl do get a little FERVENT when it comes to shit they dont like but- BUT MY POINT IS. i really dont hate-hate this era of who. s7 will still be my least favourite, even if i do still regard this all as bottom of the pile stuff- and that is frustrating, because it really does have potential! but anyway god. what was my fucking point. oh yeah. chibnall. if this was the case.... if this really did fucking happen. god no offence but fucking hell i do not trust chibnall to treat such a heavy scene well enough. not with the way s11 and s12 have been. and its just because... again this is all the WEB OF ISSUES with these seasons... but all of it just boils down to: every single script really needed a second or third pass over. ITS LIKE, things are kinda right, but its always jsut...wrong and its soi many things that just dont quite work and  instead all work in tandem to bring this ship down.

too many companions, leading to a bloated tardis; leading to none of them getting enough focus; leading to weaker characters whose dynamics with each other aren’t always hitting. there’s swathes of s12, where the doctor is just completely disconnected from the companions altogether. she just doesnt talk to them. and there’s a difference between her being detached, and her just.... LITERALLT FORGETTING THEY EXIST. i remember- was it ryan who disappears at one poimt, and she JUST DOESNT NOTICE? and then all of them disappear in fugitive? like its just so... the companion-docgtor relationship is so INTEGRAL to the whole show!!! it makes story beats less effective; not even that, the whole energy is brought down, because they just don’t TALK properly (and the dialogue... good god, is it stiff: and whilst i hated 11′s era of mutated LOL THAT’S SO RANDOM. THE HORSE IS NAMED SUSAN. BOWTIES FEZ FEZ HOW MANY MARKETABLE RANDOM SHIT CAN WE THROW AT THE PAAAGE it felt like characters were bouncing off each other... there’s now these long pauses, places where it should have been snappier, awkward remarks thrown in there and then) . it, again, bloats EVERYTHING bc half the time you have to just give stuff for these ppl to do and its like man, why! why ! its all so.... sloppy in a way that’s sad bc it was ALMOST right. things are ALMOST right here but it doesnt QUITE work and it needs pulling together into something neater, tighter.  AND GIVEN ALL OF THAT. i do not think, with the way he’s been handling things, this man would ever be capable of pulling off something as fucked up like that in a way that has any weight even disregarding the two above points

4 lastly. just fucking dont kill ryan man. c’mon. how many main, black characters have we had? hmm, let’s see. martha, mickey, danny, bill. we’re going at a 50% survival rate, with the other two facing pretty poor treatment in the writing room in general. no, im not letting it go: you cant literally refer to mickey, who was the first, like, leading black character on the show, as a fucking DOG repeatedly.  if you’re gonna decide to diversify the tardis, pay your dues; dont fucking axe him for what, again, really just feels like empty emotional tortureporn. ryan deserves better.

[bookwormguri]

A Kinda ‘Okja’ Analysis

I’m still peeved over Okja, but after gathering my thoughts and sleeping on it, I think I can more accurately discuss why I thought it was a bad movie.

Rest is under the cut if you don’t want to see the negative shit and because it got REALLY long.

I was finally able to pinpoint why Okja made me so angry. Going back and rewatching the trailers, to me it seemed like we were going to be in for a movie about the bond of friendship, a feel-good and possible heartbreaking story about Okja and Mija’s relationship. We did get that. And I find that part of the film to be it’s driving force and greatest pull. Unfortunately, the film gets bogged down by a ton of other messages, where nothing gets resolved.

The description of the movie on Netflix seems much more accurate that the trailers ever were (”A gentle giant and the girl who raised her are caught in the crossfire between animal activism, corporate greed and scientific ethics.”) which is also unfortunate seeing as the trailer is wat got me hyped for the film. To me, the film seemed to be going for The BFG or Pete’s Dragon feel through their trailer editing and language and I can’t help but feel lied to with the final product.

I understand why some people enjoy the movie. It does apply some commentary to the corporate greed aspect and is staunchly anti-capitalism which I LOVE. However, for its possible pro-vegetarianism message (as many fans seem to be taking it as) is not only misguided, but also confuses the tone of the film. The thing that makes me the angriest is how Okja and Mija’s bond and storyline seems to be sacrificed for these sensationalised themes.

I tried to break down the other issues I had with the film into the following categories.

Characterization  As much as every seems to love the ALF, what do we even know about our loveable bunch of not-terrorists? Aside from Jay, they can easily be categorised as ‘Snarky + one notable personality/physical trait + ALF Member.’ 

Red = Snarky Female ALF Member Silver = Snarky Hungry ALF Member Blonde = Snarky Big Guy ALF Member K = Steven Yeun

Trust me, I use the same technique when I need to make NPCs in D&D to make them seem like an actual person instead of a cardboard cutout. This technique is fine and dandy for the side characters that they are, but the characterization falls flat for many of the bigger characters as well.

Jay introduces himself as a lover of all living creatures. I thought he came off as creepy, which is why I thought the film was going to the set-up of “corporations are bad, but their opposite isn't altogether innocent either.” I was almost entirely sure we were going this route when Jay beats K, but no, not only was this completely out of character, but the ALF turn out to be the good guys through and through. 

I give some leeway to the Jay-K scene as it was during that absolute trash rape scene, so we can infer that Jay let his emotions get the better of him and he decided to throw away his non-violent creed in a fit of passion. Okay, sure. But what about why he goes to hit Okja with the mic stand and Mija stops him? Up until the point with K, Jay had been established as a person who did not act brashly like that, especially against and animal that he saw being raped and tortured. This is what I mean by poor characterization. When they can’t keep one of their titular characters IC, what’s even the point?

Speaking of titular character, let’s talk about Lucy. Aside from Mija, I think we got the best performance and characterization from Lucy. We got to know her motivations and insecurities throughout the film, which is why I can’t fucking fathom why they toss her aside to shoehorn in her sister as the titular villain. Oh wait, yes I can. Because without Nancy taking Lucy’s place as the villain at the very end we would have had no reason for the gratuitous slaughter house showdown. 

Why the filmmakers thought it was a good idea to bring in Nancy is beyond me. We spend almost the entire film with Lucy telling us how horrible and barbaric Nancy is, and once she’s introduced, BAM, she’s exactly that. No intrigue if Lucy’s perception of her sister is a bit biased. No investment to ‘beating’ Nancy like there was with Lucy. No. She was just there. 

Bong Joon-ho said in an interview that he scrapped the first ending of the film (where all the pigs in the slaughterhouse would be set free) because he’s too much of a realist and it would be too-Disney. Idk what is more Disney that the Nacy style of villain to be honest?

Lastly, let’s talk about Mija. Honestly, I found her performance to be the best out of everyone. Not surprising considering she is the lead, but there are still parts that are lacking. For one, while Mija’s single-minded determination to find Okja is fantastic to see, her poker face and steadfast gaze gets repetitive after a while. I would have loved to see more emotional scenes with her like when she was on the mountain (both in the beginning and end).

Speaking of emotions, why oh WHY, is this film allergic to even giving Mija’s close-up shots? You know what would have REALLY driven the emotional impact of Mija and Okja’s reuion? A fucking shot of Mija’s face as she realises how Okja has changed. OR when Jenifer not-so-subtly threatens Okja to get Mija to cooperate? Would have been nice.

What makes me the saddest is the missed opportunity during the slaughter-house showdown. Mija ‘celverly’ uses the golden pig to buy Okja (because who didn’t see that coming the minute she put it in her fanny pack?), but we’ve already seen how that pig means nothing to her from when she slams to the ground in the beginning. Her giving it up to Nancy carries no emotional weight and is honestly a poor climatic solution. Of course, it feeds into the message of corporate greed I spoke about before, but as I also said, it is at the expense of actual deep, emotional impact from Mija as she finally finally gets Okja back. I got more satisfaction from all the times Mija screams, “Okja-ya!!” 

Mixed Messages I really don’t think this film knows where to go with its final message. We’ve got the Homeward Bound or Fox and the Hound theme of best friends doing anything for one another and to get back home. Then we’ve got Lucy and later Nancy with the corporate greed, anti-capitalism side. THEN we have the animal rights theme being pushed quite heavy-handedly in the most grotesque scenes. And of course it introduces the ethics of science before forgetting it altogether. 

The problem is, this film was not great about balancing these issues in a way that didn’t make it seem like even the film didn’t know what it was going for. 

Furthermore, from what I’ve read in the Okja tag it seems like many people have chomped into the animal rights theme and refuse to let go. While I think the handling of the various themes could have been handled a lot better, it is no better to dismiss the other messages. Many people seem to mistakenly label the film as pro-Vegan and say they will stop eating meat after seeing the film. This is a perversion of the intent if I’ve ever seen one. While the film tries to shed a light on the horrible conditions of mass produced meat, it does not try to preach that all meat is bad. (Mija and her grandfather are farmers for christ’s sakes) I think many people are forgetting the beginning of the film where Mija has Okja catch a fish for her to make into stew? Or when her grandfather makes her “favorite” chicken stew?

Instead of stopping at the simple solution of “don’t eat meat” we need to delve further into what makes something have enough ethic to pass the standard of consumption (even as Silver mumbles about when refusing to eat a tomato). Of course, that is not an easy conversation to have because it inevitably will lead to a conversation about economic disparity and whom has access to a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle. I don’t have the time to go into that here so I’ll just leave it at that.

Loose Ends Boy howdy are there a lot of them.

Why happened to Lucy after her sister says they won’t help her with legal fees? What happened to Wilcox? Why are Nancy and Frank even in cahoots? Why did none of the people watching a drunk Wilcox harvest from Okja stop him when we know Okja was not supposed to be harmed? Who the hell even were those people? How long was Okja in the lab? What caused her to go all rampage-y? Who the fuck where those three taste-testers and why did they take up valuable screen time? Who is K’s doctor friend? Hello Ms. Conveienient Plot Device? How are Jay and K able to break into Mirando’s slaughter-house with relative ease but not their lab? If they expected to get caught why even bring Mija? So she could say goodbye to Okja before she’s killed?

The question that is most important to me:

WHY DID WE NEVER REVISIT OKJA BEING AN ACTUALLY INTELLIGENT CREATURE?? LIKE, SHE SAVED MIJA FROM THE CLIFF AND SPENDS THE REST OF THE FILM ONLY REACTING TO WHEN MIJA CALLS HER NAME??? MY IDIOT CAT DOES THAT.

I’m sure there’s more that I could pick out if I watched the film again.

Tonal Issues My biggest gripe with the whole fucking movie was its tone issues. There was even one point I said to myself, “Oh, we’re not supposed to take this seriously, it's just a good-time film.” This, of course, was before the dark second half.

I’ve seen some people praise the film for being seamless in its transition from fart jokes to serious commentary, but I’d like to ask what about it was possibly seamless? I would have gotten whiplash it the tone was any more sporadic.

Furthermore, the ‘serious’ bits were mostly those with ‘graphic’ imagery like the rape scene or the whole slaughterhouse. I found the Wilcox and Okja scene was actually one of the better scenes, but it on top of the gratuitous rape scene ended up just feeling like bad torture porn. The Wilcox scene on its own would have stood up much better as it is a human doing the evil deeds, not another animal. That carries more emotional weight for Okja whom has never met another mutant pig.

The ALF and Mirando specifically suffer from tone issues and I have more to say about all of these problems, but I’ve already talked for long enough.

[julystorms]

I don’t understand where Isayama is going with all of this. He’s so eager to pull from the World Wars, but he’s not pulling over any of the brutality. Trench warfare wasn’t cute. The glorification and romanticizing of war was a genuine issue back then. Why not take the time to explore these things? Kids like these genuinely existed back then—ones that desired to join the first World War in hopes of becoming a “hero”. It’s the same thing here; you have kids who joined in hopes of becoming [c]

warriors. It’s obvious they’re sold a romanticized version of war, and they become enamored enough to go out and join, except this enamored state isn’t being torn asunder. I mean, this is trench warfare—that shit was bloody; it was disgusting; there was nothing clean and cut about it. You sure as hell didn’t have people returning from this feeling the same way they did when they initially joined.

Sorry for the late reply; I really did intend to get to this last week.

My feelings about this recent update are...mixed, to be sure. On one hand, I kind of liked the update. Er, rather...I liked certain aspects of it. On the other hand, the issues you’ve pointed out, among others, have me feeling that old irritated itch again... I don’t want to jump the gun and rail against Isayama for this chapter until we see where it’s going, but for certain the storytelling is poor and I wish people would stop calling Isayama a genius writer because he’s far from it. (“I’d like to see you do better!” Heh, point, but in hindsight I’m pretty sure he has and WILL have qualms with his own work so, unless you’re a writer or you know something about writing/the process/how writers think, SHHHHH.) 

Part of me wants to blame little details (because after a certain period of time they REALLY start to add up), but some of those ‘little’ details aren’t really so little, tbh.

Like, I dig the timeskip; I’m fine with Marley being at war with Another Country. I’m fine with the focus being on New Characters (seriously stop saying he wouldn’t have to invent new characters if he hadn’t killed off the old ones; these characters can and do serve a SPECIFIC narrative function none of the old characters could fill).

What I’m not fine with is the tone presented in this series. Like, combining WWI and WWII-esque material? All right. Could be cool? Taking trench warfare and turning it into slapstick comedy? Unacceptable.

If the entire series was a comedy, I wouldn’t even blink, but Isayama’s sense of humor sucks, and it makes these bland kids seem like concrete blocks--worse than cardboard cutouts; at least cardboard cutouts react to their environment in some fucking way. Concrete just kinda sits there and only gets damaged if you put salt on it too soon after it’s pou--

ANYWAY. Like I liked Gabi and Falco and Colt just fine. I hope Uto/Udo dies, and the sooner the better. Zophia means nothing to me at all. Yawn. “Let’s use slaphappy humor to explain shit to the audience” is almost as stupid as “convenient plot amnesia to explain shit to the audience.” Maybe it’s worse. Yeah, it is worse. The whole amnesia thing was just piss poor storytelling. The kids are mysterious-years-old and they are both desensitized to their environment and??? NOT??? You can’t have it both ways, really. Not in this easy down the middle of the road way where they’ll be horrified at JUST the right moment like lmao I’ve had enough of that shit.

I feel like I can predict Gabi’s death a million miles away and hey, don’t get me wrong, I find her character intriguing af, but I wouldn’t write her the way Isayama is, not if she’s ~15+ years old, not with dead bodies everywhere. Like, idk. I feel like he just writes reactions that are convenient and goes out of his way to avoid inconvenient reactions--mostly by killing off huge groups of people. Flocke was convenient in a sense because he lacks attachment to literally everyone. If Marlowe had lived, his reaction, even if it was similar (’we should save Erwin’) would have brought with it a lot of different connotations because we know Marlowe and more importantly than that, we know his connections to the other characters; we know the stake he has in this fight because we know why he fights and what it is he’s fighting for. Flocke was just a plot vehicle, an easy casual antagonist. (Yawn. And also: poor Flocke, IMO.)

Anyway, as I read the chapter I couldn’t help but feel that a slightly more serious Gabi would be hella interesting, and I’ll be HELLA disappointed if we don’t get to see her alone struggling with some of the shit she’s already done and will be doing, even when she laughs about everything else in public and in front of even her closest friends. But honestly her line about being ‘better than everyone’ was SO good and could have meant SO MUCH but it just came across like an egotistical brat puffing her chest out and prancing around laughing like a popular girl villain in a 90s high school setting flick. Please. A slightly jaded Gabi who is only speaking honest truth with her words would be way more interesting to me--a Gabi who really and truly does feel she’s better than the rest because she’s good at practical application not arbitrary answers on a test: now sign me up for her. 

Anyway, her laughing as she runs away from the trains, the kids giggling and having normal conversations in a trench with dead bodies two fucking feet away...? No thanks. I mean, people have normal conversations when they’re at war, sure, but usually they’re not doing what these kids were doing in a trench like 200 yards from the fucking fort that can blow them all to smithereens. Like I said, it’s the tone. These are just kids; they can all die in a second. They’re not shifters, they’re not badasses. They’re just kids. They’re surrounded by death and yet they don’t act like it. And again, if they were just desensitized, fine, but I know that’s not the case lmao.

The tone is what makes this chapter a like 5/10 instead of an 8/10 for me. I really dug the idea and stuff but...eh.