#not like i have a zillion other writing projects i need to get my ass going with

[zuzsenpai]

Full story (so far) of the work project from hell that's lost me vacation time, lost me sleep and hair, caused a number of panic attacks, and literally gave me my period when I'm not supposed to have periods and haven't had one in a year and a half.

I'll put it under a cut because I'm sure most of you don't want to read all this shit. I just wanted to vent and get it out.

So around the beginning of September, a video project request came into our office. The way it was explained to us by the project coordinator in marketing (who I will call "Sam"), was that it was going to be a TV spot as part of a big campaign that the CEO is requesting. The topic is letting people know that our healthcare network has a zillion awards for all 15 of our hospitals, compared to the other healthcare network in our area (this is a VERY common marketing strategy for us even though it's been proven the public does not give a shit which network has the most awards). It's a very dull "look at us and our awards and stats" video that, again, the public couldn't give a shit about. But the CEO wants it because ego.

We were told the video needed to be produced in two weeks, because the CEO wants to see the campaign ASAP. This means, for my team, that we don't have time to shoot new footage for this campaign. We were given a pretty mediocre script (we do not write the scripts), with directions to get it professionally voiced and to use old footage we've already shot in order to get this done in time.

That's where I became involved. I'm not a videographer (I do the animations and various other things). I know how to edit, and I know how to edit fast. But if this were a piece we had time for (that had a much better script), our video team of FOUR videographers would have handled this. But I got the project because of the bullshit reasons that I "know where all our footage is" and "can edit fast".

This was a week before I was supposed to go on vacation. I was supposed to go on vacation for a week and a half. My manager (who I will call "Betsy") KNEW I was going on vacation, but she still gave me the project. I know I should have given it to the video team and that point, but I didn't. That was my first and biggest mistake.

The higher-ups in marketing took their sweet ass time choosing an ending tagline and creating graphic design elements I could use in my video. I still didn't have them by the end of that week. We had our voiceover guy record half a dozen taglines that were supposed to be chosen from, just so something could be eventually edited in.

I had a draft that didn't include the tagline or graphic design elements ready by the end of the week. Meaning the day before I went on vacation. My second and almost just as big mistake was saying I would work on it over vacation. But honestly, this was for the CEO, and the VP of marketing hadn't approved my raise yet and I am always feeling like I would be the first on the chopping block if we needed to downsize the department. So I wanted to prove myself.

Anyway, while I was on vacation, I kept all the channels open: Teams, Outlook, etc. I had a VERY hard time relaxing because I knew at any moment I'd have to pick this project up. I also have massive burnout and just could not get myself to chill out. Anyway, a couple things happened by Thursday of that week: the tagline was finally chosen, the script changed and a whole 20 seconds was added to the video, and the graphic design elements came in. Keep in mind the project was supposed to have been done in two weeks. Meaning by the literal NEXT DAY. That wasn't happening at this point, so I was given a new deadline of a first draft by the following Wednesday.

I scrambled to coordinate the voiceover guy coming in again even though I couldn't be there. I scrambled even harder to find 20 more seconds of footage while I was over 100 miles away and had incredibly slow access to our video server. In fact, I could barely view or download video at all. I panicked for DAYS trying to get video downloaded, but it was just NOT happening.

I cut my vacation short and got in by Tuesday morning that next week. I had a single day to figure this video out. I was able to manage it by the skin of my teeth. I sent the draft on Wednesday and eventually heard back that Sam, the VP of marketing (who I will call "Ken"), and a few other higher-ups in marketing loved it. Great. The end!

Except the Chief Strategy Officer (Ken's boss), suddenly needed to approve it. I will call him "Ray". So Ray is new at his job and apparently needs to have his fingers in ever single piece of marketing that comes out of the marketing department. This is the opposite of how the old guy who retired used to do it. Ray is also the CEO's son-in-law. So, a Jared Kushner if you will. He's trying to prove himself and in the process, he is micromanaging to the extreme. But also it takes him forever to make decisions. Great combination there, all around.

It takes Ray over a week to even look at the video, during which I start getting other projects with quick deadlines. And when Ray does look at it, he comes back with the unhelpfully vague comments of "it's unsophisticated", "doesn't look like a sleek big city ad" and "is not emotional". So he rejects it and asks for a completely new video to be done, ASAP. Marketing collectively loses their minds in a bad way. The project coordinator (Sam) decides to inform me of this by immediately sending me an email outlining everything that was "wrong" with the video, despite having originally said he loved it. He told me a new one needed to be done and it needed to be done FAST. It needed to look like a polished, high budget, big city ad.

Well that wasn't getting done. I told him this. He didn't care. Ray gets what he wants. Even though Ray did NOT say that's what he wanted from the beginning. Even though I made a good video based on the shitty script I was given. The script that was supposedly approved by Ray himself. The script that had no story, was unemotional, and given an unreasonable deadline to get produced into a video.

This was last Thursday. I had a breakdown in my office, sobbing and hyperventilating. I decided I would finally bring in the video team. I needed one of them to do this. I needed to be done with it. I had 4 other projects with deadlines fast approaching (all of them animations, so I was the only one who could do them). Betsy called an in-person meeting with her, myself, and the 4 videographers.

I was still having a massive panic attack as I tried extremely hard to be normal in that meeting. I tried my best to explain to the team what I needed. The videographers were super angry on my behalf that I was even given the project in the first place, and they were extremely willing to redo the video from the ground up. I was grateful beyond belief. My video was scrapped, which sucks, but I didn't care at that point

A few days later on the following Monday (this past Monday), around 4PM, I was told that Ken decided we were going to go over Ray's head and "just edit the video we already have into a sleek, emotional, big city ad". Using the same script and most of the same footage. Just "make it better". Ken's reasoning was that this video was for the CEO and not Ray. And the CEO wanted it weeks ago.

Because this was an update to the existing video, Betsy informed me that I had to jump back on the project to make the edits. The edits that were a nebulous "make it better". I knew the project already and I can edit quickly. So it's mine again. Again, I had 4 other projects with deadlines of THIS WEEK. I had to send emails apologizing to a few people for not having the projects done.

So I spent Monday evening (at home) and all of Tuesday (yesterday) fucking around with the video. I asked the video team their thoughts on what would make it better and "sleeker", and they came back with things like "no amount of tricks and transitions is going to make that old footage look any better". So, unhelpful as fuck. Sam just kept saying "use tricks from big city ads! Just copy them! make it emotional!"

I did what I could. I found an emotional song, I used some flashy transitions, I slowed down some footage for dramatic effect, and I found a few pieced of stock footage that looked more "polished" than the footage I had. Granted ALL of the footage I originally used was local. It was our hospitals and our doctors and our staff. It just wasn't shot for this video. I tried to keep as much of that local feel in as possible, because I know the CEO likes that. I neglected projects for this. I stressed about this. Couldn't sleep. Got my fucking period after a year and a half on birth control.

I sent out a draft at 3PM yesterday. To Sam and Ken. Didn't hear back, but that's pretty normal (Ken sends work emails at like 10PM). 4:30 rolled around and I got up to leave. Betsy called me into her office as I passed by.

Betsy: I have something I need to tell you.

Me: ?????

Betsy: This morning Ken told me that we farmed your project out to [freelance video production company that we sometimes use].

Me: I'm sorry what.

Betsy: I didn't tell you because I didn't want it to upset you or hurt your feelings.

Me: But... then why did I work the project all day????

Betsy: Because I think we needed to show Ken what we are capable of.

Me: But that's irrelevant. He asked the other company to do it.

Betsy: Yes but I think he really wanted us to do it.

Me: So I sent a draft to Ken after he'd already farmed it out to the other company?

Betsy: Yes. But I sent him an email explaining it.

I didn't know what to say. I was furious. But Betsy is in charge of asking Ken for my raise, so I waited until I got to my car to start crying and screaming. I was in a bad state last night.

Got in this morning to an email from Ken just saying "Please find time to discuss tomorrow afternoon". So essentially a "see me after class". This could go one of three ways.

He could tell me he likes it and here are a few edits (unlikely, though he DID like the original and it's not too different from that?????)

He could tell me it needs a lot of work and changes and I need to do it ASAP (likely and stressful)

He could get mad I wasted my time, which is entirely Betsy's fault (likely and gets Betsy in a load of trouble)

The meeting with him is at 3PM tomorrow. I'm working from home because I need it at this point. I'm so sick of this. I'm so done. I'm even done typing about it right now because I am just so out of steam. I have so many deadlines and I'm so burnt out and I am so exhausted.

[legobiwan]

Quick review of the Dooku, Cad Bane, Katooni, and Obi-wan chapters from the new Clone Wars book that was so nicely delivered to my phone an hour ago.

SPOILERS AHOY! SPOILERS AHOY! SPOILERS AHOY!

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This is very obviously a young readers book. Keep that in mind as you go, as the writing style is pretty simple.

Dooku's chapter...sigh...was not all that great and was mostly regurgitation of Clone Wars dialogue with very little real reasoning for Dooku's capture nor any great insights into Dooku's motivations. Yes, Rael does get a mention in passing but it was really just a name-drop. This does make me want to write my own version of Dooku's story from Florrum, because I have things to say about this sequence of events and I feel there was a lot more subtext than what the author gave us in this (granted, limited) story. But yeah, this really didn't do much to capture any the contradictions in Dooku's character, relegating him more to a mustache-twirling, two-dimensional figure. *Sigh* (Hey Star Wars, how about you hire me to write Dooku content? Just a thought.) This all being said, I did appreciate this little jab as it does reflect Obi-wan's own contention that Dooku never gets his own hands dirty.

Cad Bane: Mostly the same criticisms of the Dooku story, in that it was almost a carbon copy of the episode with dialogue tags. Nothing much added to the Hardeen storyline that we didn't know already.

Katooni: I admittedly only skimmed this one but there seemed to be some more promise in it. Plus, we get to hear about Obi-wan's "very expressive eyebrows" which were apparently a known factor amidst the Jedi Younglings and something I find HILARIOUS.

Obi-wan: Obes's story covers "The Lawless" and has some GEMS. First of all, just LOOK AT THIS MAN:

I love him.

This author gets Obi-wan's wry humor.

His beard bahahaahahah, that is so Kenobi.

This passage is glorious:

Was this man the student of Qui-gon "We Don't Have Time For a Plan" Jinn or what? But also,.it really captures the way Obi-wan puts on the front of a cool, collected, in-control Jedi Master when he's really just winging it a lot of the time and hiding his truer emotions. Which is a theme that comes back in this story later in the most startling part of this tale: the page devoted to Obi-wan seriously considering raising bloody, violent hell after Satine's murder and Maul calling him on it.

:o !!!!!!!!!!

Maul is 1000% accurate in his analysis. The many masks Obi-wan wears to hide is insecurities, his emotions, his anger. Of course, Maul picks up on this.

While I was less than satisfied with the Anakin-Obi-wan interactions that bookended this story and the confrontation between Bo-Katan and Obi-wan, on the whole, Obi-wan's characterization was pretty spot-on (including Obi-wan constantly griping in his internal dialogue about Anakin's penchant for spectacular crash landings.)

I would blame the simplistic storytelling on the fact this is a young reader's book, but on the other hand, we have the Jedi Apprentice series as a gold standard of angst, characterization, and solid plotlines (even if they wallowed on the side of ridiculous melodrama from time to time) while still being written in straightforward, accessible age-appropriate language. Some of these stories just feel...lazy, to be honest, but then again, I don't know what kinds of parameters the authors were working within. So far, I would rate the non-Obes stories a 4/10 and the Obi-wan story a 7/10. I'll get to the rest hopefully tomorrow.

[violetfaust]

(Belated) TFATWS 1.3 roundup

This will probably be surprising to anyone whom I’ve subjected to my megaton of tfatws reblogs--but ep 1.3 was my least favorite of the series so far. And unfortunately every time I try to put together my breezy little liveblogging impressions, I get immediately stuck wanting to write ten paragraphs of WHY it’s my least favorite, which, in so many words: too little Sam POV. And by this time, plenty of other people who agree with me on this have written plenty of thoughtful threads on why, so I am just going to...let it go. For the moment. (And maybe just make it a separate ten-paragraph post.) Anyway, tl;dr:

I still enjoyed the episode

I’m still loving the show

I still think we’ll get emotional and dramatic payoff; BUT

I’m disappointed with my fave’s treatment this time around.  

Okay! Got it down to one paragraph and a bulleted list. Onward.

I’m relieved that Isaiah is at least in the previouslys.

I dunno, man, that cheesy commercial alone doesn’t make the GRC seem like the good guys, even before you follow it up with Walker throwing his weight around.

“Do you know who I am?” And just like that, Walker shows his true colors and proves he’s not worthy of the legacy. Because he’s a person who allows power and fame to corrupt him.

So is Zemo Nazi/Hydra or is he just a Nazi/Hydra fanboy? 

“What are you reading?” “Machiavelli.” “Yeah, you definitely seem like the kind of guy to break out of high-security prison. This is a good idea.”

“We are NOT breaking him out!!!” *puppy dog eyes* “sigh. fine”

I know the fandom loves Zemo, but man he is a little bitch. It literally takes him three minutes to start breaking down both Bucky and Sam. How the fuck did he even get his hands on Bucky’s notebook? (see below) Excuse me, Steve’s notebook. <x3

“Heartbreaking: Worst person you know just made a great point.”--> Sam re: Zemo and Marvin Gaye.

So Karli is friends with a cute little girl, sees her mother/mentor die unnecessarily, and just wanted to be a teacher when she grew up, and we think she’s the villain? NO.

This is getting super long so....below.

Heartbreaking Pt. 2: Yes, Sam, Zemo is right and you look good in the suit. (That is impeccable pattern matching, btw. I did not watch seven seasons of Project Runway for nothing.)

Okay, I should save this for my ten-paragraph bitching post but: I KNOW the trope of “undercover guy has to eat something gross to pass” is objectively funny. But Sam is from Louisiana.  I can guarantee you the man has eaten frog and/or alligator AT LEAST once. In fact, since the family business is shrimping, there’s a non-zero chance that he has prepared and served super-gross foods such as six-inch sea cockroaches with heads and ganglia attached. He should NOT have been fazed by a cocktail with fresh snake gonads or whatever those were. You know what would have been a funny take? Sam knocks back the drink, then says: “Delicious. And [pointing to Zemo] one for my friend here.”  (AM is hilarious here though.)

“Power Broker, really?” Goes with “Smiling Tiger is a bad name” and “Battlestar? Stop the car!” (Frankly, a person still going by “Winter Soldier” does not have a lot of room to criticize here...)

How does Zemo wearing a cool coat and dancing like a cute dork make up for what he’s doing to Bucky here? Sebstan had tears shining in his eyes. 

Love language: “You good?”

The layers of Sam, an African American man from the South, watching another human, his friend, apparently being sold...

REALLY? Sam didn’t put his phone on silent? (Bless Sarah for being a civilian and not playing along...)

HOWEVER this is a pretty ugly reminder in this episode when Zemo is throwing around his zillions and his private plane while Sam can’t get a loan to save his family business.

Was it Sharon who killed Selby? I’m confused?

Sharon! Being the poster woman for landing on her feet. Good for her. And thank you, Sharon, for having a wardrobe of men’s wear in Bucky and Sam’s sizes. Although if you could have gotten one of them to wear that sequined number...

It is just hard to accept that Steve and the Avengers did her SO dirty that they simply ignored her in the two years they were on the run. (It also doesn’t gibe with Sam and even Bucky seeming to know Sharon, since they never met before CW.) Come to think of it though, I don’t remember how Steve even got himself pardoned after IW?

I’ve read the theories that she might be the Power Broker, which seems unlikely purely on the practical basis that if she was blipped for five years she’d lose her standing, but this is Marvel, so who cares about making sense? If she is, I hope she’s not treated as a flat-out villain; maybe she deliberately let Karli and her group get the SS serum rather than Hydra wannabes? 

Let’s hear it for Sharon--kicking ass and not even bothering with the names.

Nagel is the most villainous villain who has villained here so far. What a waste.

So there are up to twelve SS serum doses left. Calling it now: Walker is going to do whatever he has to in order to get his hands on one of them.

However I do NOT want Sam to take one. He doesn’t need to be superpowered to be a hero.

“Partners each convinced the other is the sidekick.” 

We’ve all been waiting for this callback.

That had better not be the last of Sharon. She has her own minion--this should be good.

Look: the only reason Bucky would even CONSIDER taking the shield is that Sam says he doesn’t want it. (And I’m not sure he even IS seriously considering it so much as trying to make Sam reconsider.)

So I said this elsewhere but: apparently Zemo is redeemable. Sharon killed about fourteen people this episode alone. Bucky killed “almost everyone he ever met.” Sam offed helicopters full of terrorists in ep 1. Karli’s victims are not exactly innocent--they are hoarding resources meant for those refugee children and sick people.  I am not giving up on my daughter for this. ;-)

Heartbreaking #3: Bucky and Sam were dead for five years so it’s not exactly fair to call them out for not visiting the Sokovia memorial but...would they have thought of it?

WAKANDA! Finally! They’ve been teasing it since ep 1 but I didn’t think we’d actually get there. (Although I’m 100% sure that Shuri is one of the nine numbers in Bucky’s phone.)

Not a lot of Sambucky this time around, although we did get

Sam being a sweetly worried boyfriend throughout. Sam calling him “Buck” at least three times--with no pushback. 

Bucky very determinedly NOT looking at ALL at shirtless Sam. Not at all. 

And POSSIBLY Bucky reading a self-help book about forming strong erotic love relationships. 

[fourdaysofrain]

Self-Made Man

Summary: A Trans!Tony Stark AU. 

(Lengthy, personal author’s note below the cut, if you’re interested.)

Natasha Marie Stark was born twelve minutes before midnight on May 29th, 1970. She weighed a healthy seven pounds and two ounces when she arrived. She was the most beautiful thing that either of her parents had ever seen. And she was screaming loud enough to scare the pigeons from the trees outside.

Read on AO3

Well, hey everyone. It’s been a handful of months since I’ve been on here. I want to apologize for being gone, but that feels kind of phony. I don’t know. I missed this, though. I can tell you that much. I still checked my notifications every once in a while. It made me really glad to see people still commenting on my fics or passing my links around. Love y’all. 

I guess it’s about time that I tell you that I’m trans. I have been this whole time. To answer a few quick questions, I first knew sometime in late high school, but it was always kind of in the background my whole life, I just didn’t know how to isolate the feeling. I started socially transitioning (i.e. dressing male, coming out, going by he/him) after my high school graduation, and I started HRT (Horomone replacement therapy, that means I inject myself with testosterone weekly. .33mL subcutaneously into my tummy, if you’re curious) on Oct. 12, 2018. So it’s been almost two years since, and I’ve been completely passing as a man for quite a while. Ass-crack hair, sweat, and all. 

This is a pretty personal fic for me, given the nature of it. I’ve wanted to write it for a long time, and I’ve actually had words in the Google Doc since January. It took a lot of long nights to write. It helped that I was back home. I always have an easier time tapping into Trans Emotions when I’m in my home town, for better or for worse. All the memories and relationships I formed pre-transition follow me like ghosts. 

I’m leaving for college in two days, conversationally. 

I see a lot of trans!Peter Parker fics. I’m not dissing them, I love them to bits. But it makes me wonder why fandom is so quick to headcanon Peter as trans instead of one of the other characters. He’s petite, has a higher voice, and has softer features than the other male cast members. I feel like those attributes definitely play a role. It can be easy to see trans men as “uwu soft bois”, or as Men Lite, or as a more palatable version of “normal” (that is to say, cis) men. Those ideas are often flawed and based on transphobic foundations. The reality is, trans men (and by extension, all trans people) have the ability to be indiscernible from their cis counterparts. Everyone likes to think they can pick trans people out from a crowd, but you’d be surprised how quickly I started being read as male. Androcentrism for the win, I guess. 

I won’t be entirely pessimistic. I understand that people my age project onto Peter (I am by no means exempt from that), and that there’s a greater number of young trans people than old, due to a series of depressing reasons. But I still wanted to try a different take on a trans character. 

My experience as a trans man is vastly different than the one I write about here. If anything, I’m closer to fandom’s idea of trans!Peter. My parents were accepting, I had the financial and social means to transition relatively early, and I can fly under the radar easily. The most important difference is the time period. 

I don’t know a lot about the trans experience of the 80s and 90s, which is what Tony would have gone through. I know of one single trans man who began his transition back then, one of the gender studies professors at my university. Even then, he’s from Canada, which I’m assuming has an entirely different culture around trans lives. There aren’t many older trans men. It’s depressing. There’s a lot of reasons for this. I don’t want to get too deep into them, because it only makes me feel sad. The final scene in this fic is extremely self-indulgent with regards to this. I wrote what I needed to hear. 

That’s not to say I don’t relate at all to what I wrote. There are themes that are almost universal for the trans experience. I hope you can parse those out here.

I also wanted to talk about how I showed the change from “Natasha” to Tony. In the early stages of this fic’s development, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to openly say Tony’s deadname (the name trans people are given at birth, and often, but not 100% of the time, change as a part of their transition), but I soon realized that it would make the story much clearer with the inclusion of it. If you’re wondering, I got the name from Earth-3490, where Tony is born a woman (and marries Steve, lol). I chose to show the change between the two with the use of past tense for the first half of the fic, and switching to present for Tony’s life. Often times, it feels like that when you transition. You start living in present tense. 

I also want to make it clear that transitioning isn’t as simple as shown here. From the beginning of mapping out this fic, I was stressed about “Oh, how will he be able to graduate as Tony if he doesn’t start transitioning until after he gets to college,” and “How will Howard react to him coming out?” and “How will he have a playboy persona if he isn’t able to have sex with someone without them knowing?” and a zillion other ideas. It was very freeing for me to let go of some of these obstacles and leave it up to the reader to decide. I alluded to some of the solutions that I came up with, but for the most part, I glossed over the paperwork and bureaucracy aspect to transitioning. But in real life, there are countless red tapes you have to cut for even the simplest of actions. I went to the state court to change my name and sex in March of 2019, and I still have cards in my wallet with my deadname. I had a consult with a plastic surgeon for top surgery (the colloquial name for the double mastectomy that trans men often go through to masculinize their chests. If you’re wondering, genital reconstruction surgery is normally called bottom surgery to mirror this) last December, and I still don’t have a date set. It took me a few months to start T, and I only got it so easily because I went through my unviersity, which does informed consent. Some places have to have proof of 6 months of social transitioning and a letter from a therapist. There is a lot of medical gate keeping in the trans community. I don’t know what I would have done had my parents not been accepting enough to help me through the processes. I am extremely thankful for their support. 

But it’s a lot easier to write about transition happening smoothly. Money helps, which I don’t touch on a lot in this fic, but oh my God, does money help. I’m lucky enough to be able to afford my ~$20 a month T prescription (which I will be taking until the end of my days, likely), and I’m in the process of saving for top surgery. Thankfully with Tony, I can just presto most of the problems away because he’s canonically a billionaire. Eat the rich, folks.

There’s also the intersection with race that is very impactful for trans people, as it is for everyone. Both Tony and I are white, which gives us societal privileges that trans people of color don’t have access to. As well as the fact that transitioning from female to male is a much different experience than transitioning from male to female. We don’t experience trans misogyny, which is a special kind of misogyny specifically related to trans women. (Think of old sitcoms where the joke is that it’s a man dressed in women’s clothing, and that’s what makes it funny. That’s a fairly tame example of trans misogyny. It gets ugly fast.) 

I’m veering dangerously off-topic, but it’s important to talk about. It’s easy for white trans people (and LGBT people as a whole, I suppose) to distance themselves from talking about white privilege or male privilege because they aren’t straight and/or cis. But it’s important to recognize that while we may face unique oppression, we also still benefit from historical white supremacist and patriarchal structures present today in society. 

Sorry, not sorry for getting political. And if I haven’t said it on here, Black lives matter. Of course. 

If you end up having trans-related questions, I want to be a resource for you. Seriously, I’m narcissistic and love talking about myself I don’t mind helping you understand the trans experience. I can’t promise that I know everything, but I also have my own group of trans friends who might know what I don’t, and we can learn together. 

Again, love y’all. Thank you for the continued support you give me. I can’t promise that I’ll go back to my normal level of activity on here, but I might dip my feet back in the pool. <3

[minaminokyoko]

Men in Black: International--A Spoilertastic Review

Disclaimer: I AM FUCKING BIASED AS HELL.

Ahem.

That's important to announce.

If you at all follow me, you know I am one of the harshest critics of fiction simply because I do this shit for a living professionally, so not only do I know what to look for, I know when I'm being duped.

I knew going in that MIBI was going to be bad.

But.

I fucking love Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson.

So here's the thing: this is a bad, lazy sequel. It's no worse than just your average bad, lazy sequel to a beloved franchise. You've seen these kinds of movies a dozen times and you'll see them a dozen more.

And I think the people making the movie knew that, and that's why they hired Hems and Tessa.

Damn near every moment of these two darlings together is fun as hell.

And everything else is basically trash.

Therefore, it's a battle between my critic brain and my goblin brain.

My critic brain hates the movie. My goblin brain thinks it was harmless fun. So please take that into account for my overall opinion on the flick.

So here we go. Naturally, spoiler alert.

Overall Grade: C-

Pros:

-Let my shallow ass get this out of the way first: DEAR FUCKING GOD CHRIS HEMSWORTH IS A MOTHERFUCKING WALKING, TALKING BUFFET GOOD LORD AND ALL HIS ANGELS HE IS JUST BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER, AND FUCKING DESSERT AND I WANT HIM TO JUST SLAM ME AGAINST EVERY WALL IN THIS HOUSE AND TEAR ME APART HE IS WALKING AROUND IN A FUCKING SUIT THE ENTIRE MOVIE AND HE JUST. LOOKS. SO. FUCKING. DELICIOUS. IT'S. NOT. FAIR. THAT SMILE AND THOSE EYES AND HIS CHIN AND HIS PECS AND HIS ABS AND HIS LEGS AND HIS ARMS AND JUST FUCKING BURY ME IN THE DESERT FOREVER BECAUSE I WANT HIM SO BAD KILL ME DO IT. THE THIRST IS REAL AND IT SHALL NEVER BE QUENCHED.

-Ahem. There. Now then, literally the biggest and only selling point in this movie is the insanely good chemistry between Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth. It's damn near as good as them in Thor: Ragnarok. As I said above, I really think the filmmakers took one look at this "script" and they knew goddamn well they had nothing at all. It's dripping with cliches and tired ass ideas and lack of imagination, so they knew the only way to get it made was to have two utterly charming actors who play extremely well off each other, and that is Tessa and Hems. These two are having such a good time that you actually can't help but have a good time despite the fact that you are watching a completely LAZY fucking movie. Agent M and Agent H aren't fully formed characters at all, but their interactions are a sheer delight. They play off each other beautifully and even when the movie is vomiting yet another cliche at your feet, you can't help but still enjoy the two of these doofs. It's the movie's only saving grace. I shit you not, if it were any other pair of actors, I would give this movie an F. No lie. Tessa and Hems saved the film, hands down, no contest, because they're charming and cute and you want them to be together. It's like the movie is a shit-covered diamond--the shit is everything around them, and Tessa and Hems are the diamond in the shit. You gotta stick your hand in something gross to get the valuable thing out of it, and it is for this reason I would tell people to just rent this movie. It's so not worth box office pricing, but it is worth a look-see because the two of them are a blast to watch, honestly. And do yourself a favor and look up some of their interviews too. They are cute as a button together.

-The only creativity that I saw was the faux villains and the final Hive monster, basically, but said creativity was eye-catching. It was a unique concept to see these sort of celestial beings and they were captivating each time they were on screen. Their powers were very, very cool. The final Hive monster is nothing new if, like me, you watch or play a lot of video games, but it did still have a great presence and felt extremely alien and threatening and scary.

Cons:

-Literally everything else about this movie blows. Fucking. Everything.

-The dialogue for the most part is tired. It's so tired. It's loaded with dull one-liners. Sometimes I think scripts mistake quips with actual jokes. These characters have almost nothing of interest to say in the whole film, and mind you, I do know that sounds like it makes no sense, but it's true. Almost every interesting thing about these characters is off-screen. Seriously. The backstories sound way more interesting than what's presented, and do you know why? Because this fucking movie TELLS YOU EVERYTHING. There is almost NO showing. It doesn't hit any emotional bits. It just loudly announces them like my favorite bit from Futurama: "You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!" That's the biggest problem here. There are Captain Obvious statements fucking everywhere, and what's worse is any emotional beats of connection are also loudly announced in cliche fashions and there's almost no weight given to M or H as characters as a result. It's just noise. Most of the dialogue in the movie is white noise you don't at all need to hear.

-All the cool shit about M and H is withheld. We understand M's motivations just fine, but H's are not dealt with, and that's frustrating because he seems to be fascinating offscreen. For example, being the dude that saved the world might be big shoes to fill and he seems as if he was having trouble coping, or he got a big head from the experience and got sloppy because he was the golden boy. In the hands of an actual competent writer, this could have really, really worked well. But they skip over it. Over and over again, this lazy ass movie skips shit we should have seen, like M growing up trying to tell everyone what she saw and being ridiculed. I wanted to see her long search for MIB. I wanted to see her learning to hack and investigate like Harriet the Spy or something. It could have been a great, compelling way to feel like I understood her, because I would have been the same way. I love that H was just a big old goober, playboy with a heart of gold, and I wanted to see the two of them get closer than they did. H's "big old heart" speech was hella charming. So charming. I like that soft smile he gives her when he talks about the universe being one big chemical reaction. That was a real moment, and sadly, it's one of the few we get with the two of them because the movie is in such a rush to get to the next action sequence. But, hey, if I'm being honest, I only saw this movie so I had full permission to write a zillion fanfic chapters shipping them, so I will just bloody fill the gaps in myself.

-This movie is so goddamn fucking predictable it gave me a headache. Hey, remember the trailer? Well, there. You saw the movie if you saw the trailer. You're sitting there going, "They can't possibly be this boring and transparent about Liam Neeson being the bad guy, can they?" Yep. They fucking can. It is so obvious that I would argue this might be an MIB movie for kids. The whole thing spoonfeeds you every bit of info. There is no mystery and no surprises period. It makes you want to bang your head on a wall with how obvious every single story beat is.

-The ending is nonsensical bullshit. There, I said it. Fuck you, movie. You don't get to try for the emotional wham of separating the partners because you didn't properly make them fucking partners. J and K's bittersweet ending made sense because the two of them went through HELL together, and while they bickered, they liked each other. The other thing is that their skillsets matched their actions at the end. K was exasperated and tired, but he was a good teacher and he knew J loved the job. J was the job, and that fit his character. K had been through years and years of battles, and he needed to rest, and that fit his character. Slapping H with the role of director does not fit his character. We see him as a rough and tumble cowboy type of agent. He parties and he smiles and he kicks ass. What the fuck about that makes you think he should be in charge when Agent C is like right there? I actually sat there waiting to see if they had a post credit scene that undid it because it made NO SENSE. The only reason they busted up the partners was an attempt to echo the original movie. That's fucking it. There is no reason that Agent M can't stay in London, and there is no reason Agent H would accept the leadership position when he's all about fun times and explosions. It's a load of crock and I do not accept it at all, so you'll see me rewrite that shit in fanfics as well.

-All of the above adds up to the final point that this is definitely an unworthy sequel to the original. Not MIB 2 or 3, mind you. I hated MIB 2 so much it made me not watch MIB 3, and from what I hear, MIB 3 was marginally better but still not good. The movie is doing new things, and yet it feels a lot like a small child trying on his dad's shoes, for God's sake. It literally stops entire scenes to fellate the original movie with cameos and borrowed plotpoints or references, and it takes you out of the experience. There's nothing unique about this movie except for who is starring in it. That's the tragic part. I had a good time, but in the end, it just reminds you how far we've fallen and why Sonnenfeld should have been the one to handle this sequel. He had a very, very sharp creative mind and that's why MIB is in its own category as an action-comedy. It was clever and interesting and it actually made you care about your leads, and it didn't rely on nothing but a cliche storm. So I am sad that it's not going to do well at the box office and I'm sad it wasted two extremely talented actors on a sad, boring project that isn't worthy of the name it's using, but at the same time, I signed up for this, so oh well.

In the end, this is a movie that would be intolerable but it's got two strong leads that keep you smiling anyway. I cannot recommend it at all unless you are a die-hard Hems and Tessa fan the way that I am. If you are, hey, you'll still be annoyed at how lazy it is, but you'll get a giggle out of them being cute as hell. There are raw materials in this movie that are in fact good, but it's all carried out sloppily as possible, and that's truly a shame.

Here's to all the fanfiction my stupid ass is about to write.

Kyo out.