#so why- with such a huge budget and more time than the movie (who also successfully managed to tell a good story) is the Tv show-

[nico-di-owgelo]

To all of you who are blaming the pacing issues on the episode lengths, do you not watch anime? There are shows that have 20/24 minute episodes who somehow magically manage to tell a coherent plot in that time. It's almost like... the problem isn't the format.

[abnerkrill]

fantastic rebuttal to "writers don't deserve better pay because the stuff they write is terrible/unoriginal", full thread here

(to explain, the "Unknown" under his name is from a add-on bot detector; it usually can assign a percentage likelihood that a user is a human being and not a bot, but I think the blue check system disrupted the add-on so it says "Unknown" underneath his name now.)

[image id under the read more:

May 7, 2023 tweet thread from Tom Vaughan @/storyandplot

With #WGAStrong rightfully in the spotlight this week, I've seen some less-than-sympathetic comments focusing on the lack of originality in our projects. This is a fair criticism of the system, but not the writers. A quick history of how we got here (thread emoji)

The first thing to understand is that Hollywood has NOT run out of new ideas. The studio’s preference for I.P. has nothing to do with regurgitating ideas and everything to do with MARKETING.

The late 60s-70s is generally considered the artistic high of the studio system. Ironically, many contribute this to corporations buying up the studios! The corporations knew they had no idea how to run a movie studio, so... they put creative people in charge.

This is how you got the run of so many great films the studios would never make today. They also took bigger chances on young, promising talent (the first "film school generation" of filmmakers.)

But with the success of JAWS and STAR WARS, the corporations demanded more of those kinds of hits. The creative folks insisted such things were unpredictable, and the business folks said let's make them less so.

(Sidenote: This was also the same time a completely different phenomenon was happening. A/C was becoming the norm for theatres, making summer movie-going much more attractive.)

Over the next decade, more and more MBAs and marketing people gained influence in the studio system. Being business folks, huge hits were not a creative problem as much as a product/marketing problem.

The 80s is when the “high concept” became pre-eminent because it narrowed a sales pitch to one sentence, a trailer, and a poster. This made everyone a marketing agent for a movie because everyone could explain what it was about!

In the 90s, marketing became just as important as the film itself (reflected in their respective budgets) when Hollywood discovered they could profit from fifty years of pre-existing awareness for old TV shows and movies.

This allowed the marketing department to move away from pitching a movie and convincing you to go see it (lower success rate), to simple “audience awareness” and building anticipation. (higher success rate.)

The audience knew what THE FLINSTONES the movie was. They just needed to know the casting and when it opened. No one needed to have the remake of GODZILLA explained to them. They just needed to know when it opened.

The marketing department prefers AWARNESS over SELLING because awareness is something you can throw money at. Selling is harder, and it’s less predictable. This is why franchises are so valuable.

Whenever someone says, “That’s something I can sell!” It’s usually something that can sell itself. What they mean is, "I just have to let people know about this!"

Hollywoods's reliance on property the audience is already familiar with is 100% because... the audience is already familiar with it. It is easier to market the product and this increases its chances of success.

This focus on I.P. has become so pervasive, many, including executives themselves, have forgotten WHY it's valuable. They'll option an unknown comic BECAUSE it's I.P., forgetting that it's unknown and lacks the main asset of I.P.

Writers do love writing on an I.P. that means something to them. Every Star Wars fan who became a filmmaker would love to work in that universe. But we do not love it more than our own original work. We would always rather work on that.

So when you see another remake, or reboot, or adaptation, and think, "Can't they come up with something new?"

Remember, the answer is yes. Yes, we can. And we want to. You can blame the market or the marketing, but either way, the widespread production of truly original content is just not the studio business model we're in right now. #WGAStrong

end ID.]

[buckysdollbarnes]

you are in love series - part one

one look, dark room

PAIRING: tfawts!bucky x grad student!reader

Summary: Moving to NYC to go to grad school, your friend's dad has a connection with the owner of a rental building in Brooklyn where you can live on your own, for cheaper than you could get anywhere else. On a student's budget, you strive to still make your place your own by thrifting as much decor as possible. Meeting your quiet and somewhat secretive neighbor, James, you gain some free labor to help you move the random stuff you buy, and with that he may be growing to love parts of the modern world he has been missing. With you in a big, new city feeling alone for the first time and Bucky wanting to make a connection with someone other than Sam and his therapist, maybe online marketplaces and a turntable will bring you both what you need most.

warnings: mild language

word count: 4.7k

a/n: this is my first time EVER writing fiction, usually I only ever write academic papers so this is fun. :) I read over and revised this chapter so many times, so I hope you enjoy it! Feedback is always welcomed and I'm excited to start on the next chapter.

a/n: also!! sorry for it being so long genuinely just so much had to happen in this chapter for it to be set up the way I wanted, which I think I did well enough. lmk what you think <3

Why did I think carrying this by myself was a good idea? It might be cute and a great deal, but I don’t think I'll be able to feel my arms tomorrow. I might need to hit the gym again before I find more bargains like this. Hell, maybe I'll even invest in a neck towel, because this heat is unbearable. I’ve been searching for some larger pieces to fill my apartment, and this vintage bar cart should fit perfectly. Just five more blocks to go.

Moving here alone has certainly come with its challenges: being on my own in such a big city, dealing with a lot of stress, and managing on a tight budget. But I’m determined to make it work though and prove everyone wrong. Growing up, you see so many romcoms where the heroine leaves everything behind to chase her dreams in NYC, landing a job at a magazine or fashion house, living in a gorgeous high-rise, and meeting the perfect guy. It’s a beautiful fantasy really, but the reality is much tougher. New York isn’t a movie set; it’s a real city with real people, and you have to work just as hard, if not harder, to be here. I know that, but it feels like a majority of my people back home DON’T know that I know that.

I came here for school. In about two months, I’ll be starting my Master’s program at NYU. I don’t think I’ve ever been as proud as when I received my acceptance email. I worked my ass off in undergrad to earn strong recommendations and good academic standing, and seeing it all come together was a huge relief—until the reality of the cost hit me.

Luckily, a friend's dad has a connection with a landlord in Brooklyn and got me a good deal on a place of my own. It’s incredible not to have a roommate in this market, especially in a place where your bed doesn’t touch your stove, though it can be a bit lonely.

Finally, reaching the stoop, out of breath, you set the cart down on the pavement. Wiping your brow, you notice the street is unusually quiet for this time of day. The city never truly sleeps, but the residential streets seem to take occasional naps. A little breath of air somewhere where it feels like oxygen is running out sometimes. Light filters through the trees, momentarily blinding you, and you turn back toward the building.

“How on earth am I going to get this up to my floor?”

Carrying it down the street was one thing, but hauling it up the stairs is a whole different challenge. Plus, who knows when the building's maintenance has last been here, the steps might not hold up under the cart’s weight. They usually feel like they could give away holding one person.

Deciding that falling to your death and being crushed isn’t really how you want to go, you open the double doors and drag the cart into the lobby, using the wheels on one side. Passing the main desk where the worker, who looks completely uninterested, engrossed in a crossword puzzle, you make your way to the end of the hall and start pulling the cart backwards up the incline of the stairwell.

“Nah, I can’t,” you say aloud, after struggling up two floors, letting the cart rest on the landing. There’s still three more floors to go, but your body is clearly telling you the cart belongs right here. Maybe the universe wants it to stay here—who knows, maybe the entire second floor needs a communal bar more than you do.

“Excuse me,” a quiet but rough male voice comes from behind me. You turn around to see him—a guy you’ve seen around your floor a few times, though you’ve never talked. One of the neighbors. You quickly realize you’re blocking the entire staircase.

“Sorry! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I’ll move this um — just give me a second.”

You shove the cart closer to the wall to make some space for him to pass, but he stays put, his gloved hands in his pockets. He’s definitely handsome—tall and solid, but not intimidating. His furrowed brow and tight-lipped expression don’t exactly scream “welcome,” but he’s still got a certain charm.

He shifts a bit, clearly wanting to say something but hesitating. Feeling a bit awkward under his gaze, you decide to try talking to him again.

“You can just squeeze by if you want. It’s just really heavy, so I’m taking a quick break before I try lifting it up again.”

After a moment, he seems to make up his mind and asks, “Do you need help?”

Looking back at him, you consider saying no. You pride yourself on being independent and capable, and part of you wants to insist you can handle it. But then you think about the struggle of getting the cart up the last two flights of stairs—only this time, it's three—and decide against it.

“You wouldn’t mind? You’re headed down, I’m sure you’ve got somewhere else to be.”

He gives a little smirk that makes you feel a bit dizzy.

“Well, I’m already here so.”

You nod slowly, a small smile appearing on your face.

“Sure, you can take this end, and I’ll get this o—” you start to say, but before you can finish, he’s already in front of you, lifting the cart with ease and starting up the stairs without breaking a sweat.

“Hey! Be careful, uh—,” you pause, realizing you don’t know his name.

He picks up on your hesitation and hesitates himself, considering whether to give his name. He’s wary of how others might perceive him, potentially recognizing his name from past news broadcasts or papers, still dealing with the shadows of his past despite his efforts to make amends. Not wanting to be dishonest, he chooses the safe option.

“James.”

“Be careful, James. I don’t want you tripping and falling on my account.”

“Won’t happen, doll.”

“What-,” you start, caught off guard by the pet name, “what if it does?”

“It won’t, see?” With the last few steps, you and James arrive at your floor. “Already here.”

He must have seen you around before too, to know where you live.

He gives you a quick look and then carries the cart to your door.

“This is yours, right?” He turns and looks at you expectantly. You rush over, fumbling for your keys to unlock the door. If he’s willing to move it all the way, who are you to turn him down?

You lead James into your apartment, wondering if it looks anything like his. The layout can’t be that different; it’s not exactly a luxury building.

He strolls further into the room.

“You can set it right here,” you say quickly. “Thank you for bringing it up for me. I was honestly thinking about giving up when you showed up.”

Setting the cart where you indicated, he straightens up, rolls his shoulders back, and gives you a look that feels intense.

“It’s no problem.”

His gaze wanders around your apartment, taking in the mix of vintage furniture and eclectic decor. On a student’s budget, you’ve filled your space with secondhand finds. It’s more affordable and personal that way. The place might not be filled with new things, but it’s entirely curated by you. Finding beauty in the mix of old and new is something you do well, and now, thanks to James, you have one more piece to add.

James’s eyes land on your turntable setup. He seems intrigued by your collection of records but doesn’t say anything, turning his attention back to you.

“I have to go.”

Your eyebrows lift at his abruptness. Sensing your surprise, he quickly adds, “I’ve got an appointment.”

You nod vigorously, urging him to go and thanking him again for his kindness. Feeling a bit sad that this chance encounter with your new neighbor is ending so quickly, you call out as he heads for the door.

“I’ll see you around then? Since you live here too.”

He turns on his heel, giving you one last smirk.

“Yeah, you’ll see me.”

As he heads down the stairs, you shut your door and lock it behind you. Wandering over to where James’s gaze lingered, you pull an album from the shelf, lift the acrylic cover on your turntable, and set the record down. You close the cover, push play, and let the needle softly drop onto the vinyl. As the music starts, your mind drifts back to James.

Embarrassingly, you find yourself hoping this isn’t a one-time encounter. You don’t know much about him beyond his name, but there’s something about him that makes you want to see him again.

“Two hundred bucks for this is crazy,” you mutter to yourself, staring in disbelief at the sofa you’re eyeing on Facebook Marketplace.

“People are practically giving this stuff away.”

Not wanting to miss out on such a good deal, you message the seller to check if it’s still available.

Since you got the bar cart about a week and a half ago, you haven’t picked up anything else. With the July heat blasting, just thinking about moving a sofa in this weather makes you want to rip off your skin to cool down.

You can’t help but think of James, who you’ve seen briefly in the hallway since your last encounter. He just nodded as he passed by, and that was it.

Your phone dings, snapping you out of your thoughts. The seller confirms the sofa is still available and offers to deliver it since they have a truck.

Excited, you reply with a yes, and they let you know they’ll head your way soon.

You get up to rearrange your furniture, making space for the new sofa. You don’t have much to move since you’ve been slowly collecting things. As you shift the pieces around, your turntable stops, signaling it’s time to flip the record. After you do, you take a moment to picture how the sofa will fit in the space.

Then it hits you—moving a sofa is way heavier than the bar cart. If you struggled with that, how on earth will you manage this?

“Independent woman, my ass.”

With the delivery imminent, you decide on the only solution you can think of. Without hesitation, you head to the apartment across the hall and knock softly on the door. You wait, hoping James will answer. After a moment of shuffling and then silence, you start to wonder if you should just try something else.

Just then, the door cracks open, revealing half of James’s face. He looks curious but not annoyed—no one usually visits him.

“Hey! James! Great to see you again! I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I was wondering if you could help me out a bit? I just bought a sofa from this marketplace deal, and the seller’s coming to drop it off right now. He said he’d deliver it, but didn’t offer to help get it up to my apartment. I realized a sofa is way heavier than a bar cart, and you saw me struggle with that, so I was kinda sorta hoping you could help me bring it up here?”

After your rambling, you offer him a hopeful smile, waiting for his response.

A few moments of silence later, that smirk you’ve been missing appears on his face. Opening the door wider, he comments with a grin.

“You bought another thing you knew you couldn’t get up the stairs?”

“I honestly didn’t think it through. The deal was too good to pass up. I’m really sorry for bothering you. I can try to find someone else if you’re busy.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help, doll.”

The smile that blooms on your face is unavoidable.

As the delivery guy drives away, James shows you where to grab the sofa and effortlessly lifts the other end. He encourages you to take the lead, making sure the weight is on him as you both navigate the stairs. With minimal effort, you get the sofa up to your place.

After some awkward maneuvering, you finally get the sofa into your apartment through the thin door and set it down. You put your hands on your hips and exhale deeply, only to find James already looking at you with that same intense gaze from before. It makes you a little nervous.

You can’t help but feel grateful—there’s no way you would have managed this on your own.

“I could have handled the bar cart,” you say, nodding toward the cart now adorned with bottles in the corner, “but this? No chance. Thanks so much for your help.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies. “I wasn’t busy.”

As you look at him, you start to feel like you know him from somewhere beyond being just a neighbor. Maybe you’ve seen him around the city before you moved?

Brushing off the thought, you offer, “You’ve helped me out twice now, and it doesn’t feel right not to return the favor. If your whole evening consists of not being busy, why not stay for dinner? I promise I’ll cook something totally good and not poisonous.”

James looks surprised by your offer but quickly hides it.

“You don’t need to do that. You don’t owe me anything,” he says, not wanting you to feel obligated or uncomfortable. He worries that his presence might not be enjoyable.

He wishes he could be as charming as he was back in the 40s. Being friendly used to come easily, and if he were still the same person he was at 26, he wouldn’t have left so quickly after helping you on the stairs the first time. He wouldn’t have had a therapists appointment to go to and he wouldn’t have a hidden arm made of metal. He’d have asked you to dinner or for you to let him take you dancing instead in return for his brawn. Now, he struggles to make new connections beyond a few familiar faces, like Sam, and asking someone for a dance feels out of reach.

“No, no! Stay, I insist! It gets kind of lonely around here, doesn’t it? Why not have a friend dinner?” you press, hoping he’ll take you up on the offer.

Seeing your sincerity, though still feeling a bit miffed, he finally agrees.

“Yeah, sure. I can stay.”

James settles onto the sofa while you work in the kitchen. You’ve decided on making some stuffed ravioli and garlic bread—easy, delicious, hard to mess up.

Before getting into cooking, you switch out the record, letting new music drift softly through the space. Unbeknownst to you, James watches closely, paying attention to how you handle the records and the turntable. The care you take when putting a record back in its slip, taking a new one out of its dust cover, and gently putting it on.

Seeing you focused on cooking, James gets up and strolls over to your setup. He runs his fingers lightly across the spines of the record sleeves, feeling a surprising sense of comfort. He hadn’t realized people still used record players so often.

The setup looks quite familiar to him, with many aspects reminiscent of the record players he used back in his earlier days. In his life before this one.

As you finish preparing the pasta and pull the bread from the oven, you call out, “Hey, food’s ready!”

You glance back to see James hovering by the turntable. He quickly moves to the table and sits down.

Over dinner, the conversation flows comfortably. James seems to be relaxing a bit, his initial reserve fading. He’s still somewhat guarded, but what he does share is genuinely interesting. You sense that opening up is challenging for him, so you respect his pace and take whatever he is willing to give. Laughing with each other a few times and getting through some odd topics, he mentions that he hasn’t had a home-cooked meal in quite a while and thanks you with a smile.

After a pleasant dinner, you decide to bring up something you’d been curious about.

“You like records?”

Caught off guard by the question, James tries to answer without revealing too much about himself. It feels strange to be here, knowing you don’t really know who he is, but he worries that being too open might scare you away. He decides to keep his secrets for now, selfishly hoping to get to know you better before revealing more.

“Yeah, I used to have quite a few records as a kid. My ma would play them too, especially when she was cooking, just like you. I didn’t realize they were still so popular.”

Excited by this glimpse into his past, you push further.

“Oh, there’s definitely a huge market for vinyl. Lots of people who think it makes them superior, but also a lot who just love the physical aspect of it.”

“So which one are you?” he asks.

You laugh and reply, “Maybe a bit of both.”

You glance up at him from beneath your lashes, catching his rare smile.

“But really, I just like having it. There’s something different about the listening experience. It requires more effort than just hitting play on a playlist. It’s about choosing a full album and actually sitting down to listen. That feels more intentional to me, and that’s why I do it.”

James seems to ponder your answer, his expression softer than before. He then turns his gaze back to the turntable.

“So, since you mentioned you had records as a kid, do you not have any now?” you ask.

He shakes his head.

“Haven’t had any for a long time. Talking about it makes me miss them. Everything these days feels so complicated. I like simple things like that.”

Watching him as he looks away, you hesitate but notice the nostalgic shine in his eyes. You sense he might appreciate physical music even more than you do.

“If you ever get any and don’t have a place to play them, you’re welcome to use mine.”

He turns to face you, his expression unreadable.

“I mean, I know it’s not the most convenient offer, but it’s there. One record lover to another,” you add with a smile.

He returns your smile, saying, “Okay… thank you. I’ll keep that in mind, Doll.”

That night, Bucky lies on his makeshift bed on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and replaying the events of the day. You knocking on his door for help with the couch, inviting him over for dinner, and all the easygoing conversation you shared. It was such a stark contrast to his usual rigidity. He'd let his guard down just a little—letting himself smile or flirt ever so slightly.

He wishes he were better at this. It used to come so naturally. Hell, before he left for war, he’d gone dancing with both his own date and Steve’s at the same time. Now, he finds himself listening to you talk while struggling to share anything of his own.

He doesn’t want to pass up your invitation, especially since you’re inviting him into your space again. Clearly, his reserve hasn’t put you off too much.

“What would I even bring?” he wonders aloud.

All he’s ever listened to is 40’s music and big band. He doubts that’s readily available these days.

Rolling onto his side, he grabs the cell phone Steve had insisted he get before he went back in time to live his real life, without Bucky.

“You can do anything on here, Buck!”

Scrolling through the three contacts he has, he taps on the name of the guy who’s been trying to reach him for weeks.

“So, is there a valid reason why you haven’t picked up my damn calls?” Sam’s voice comes through.

“Sam, hi.”

“Did you finally learn how to click the screen? Is that why I’m hearing from you now, old man?”

“Look, I’m sorry. I just don’t like the thing. Too confusing,” Bucky says, grimacing as he fiddles with the phone.

“Okay, okay, what’s going on, man? You doing alright?”

“I’m fine. I just have a question and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t harass me about it.”

“Is it about wizards?”

“What?”

“Wizards. Is the question about wizards?”

“No, what the hell. Look, I had dinner with one of my neighbors tonight—”

“Was it a girl?”

“Does it matter?”

“Hell yes, it matters. And from that response, I KNOW it was a girl, so—”

“It doesn’t matter. She has a record player, which I didn’t know people still used, and she offered to let me use it, but I don’t have anything to play on it.”

“I’m not getting the problem.”

“I only like the stuff from the 40’s and—”

“Did you listen to that Marvin Gaye playlist I sent you?”

“Not interested.”

“C’mon, man, it’s good stuff. Give it a listen.”

“Not feeling it.”

“Alright, your loss, I guess. Still not seeing the problem though.”

“What do I bring? I can’t just bring around the stuff I know because where would I even get it?”

“Whoa, man, what do you mean, where would you get it? Just go to a record store and hit up the vintage section or something.”

Bucky pauses, mulling over Sam’s words.

“They have that?”

“Duh. You know, you could answer these questions a lot easier if you just looked them up on your phone—”

“Thanks, Sam. Talk to you later.”

Lying back down, Bucky decides that the next time he’s out to see his therapist, he’ll first stop by a record store to find something to bring over to your place.

Your easygoing presence was so comforting, and he found himself longing for it as he drifted off to sleep. He’d see you again soon enough.

Later in the week, as you wind down from a busy day, you focus on making your space as calming as possible.

You light some candles and turn on an orange floor lamp, the soft glow wrapping around you and setting the perfect mood to sink into your sofa with the book you’ve been neglecting.

You’ve just started settling into your reading when you’re jolted out of your half-nap by the sound of someone knocking on your door.

You get up and peer through the peephole, and there’s your dinner guest from earlier in the week.

Opening the door with a smile, you greet him.

“Hey James, unexpected visit! What’s up?”

His eyes linger on you for a moment before he speaks. You glance down and realize your outfit—shorts that really lived up to their name and a tank top—might not be the most guest-appropriate.

Brushing off your embarrassment, you look back up at him.

“I’ve got something I’d like to play, if that’s alright?”

Bucky’s mind races. Standing at your door, he worries maybe you only offered your place to be nice, and now he’s making a fool of himself. Of course, you didn’t want him there—he could barely talk.

Just as he’s about to get lost in his own head, your bright smile pulls him out of it.

“Oh my gosh, please, come in. What do you have?”

His doubt fades away as he sees your genuine excitement.

“Brought some Sinatra. Not sure if you’re into that, but I used to like his stuff when I was younger.”

You spin around abruptly, staring at him in disbelief.

“There’s no way you think I don’t know who Frank Sinatra is…”

Bucky stumbles over his words.

“Well, I mean, it’s not exactly new stuff so—”

“You think I wouldn’t know ‘Fly Me to the Moon’? ‘Singin’ in the Rain’? ‘New York, New York’? I mean, I even moved to New York—I had to get the romanticism from somewhere.”

“What are those?”

You pause, confused.

“Like, the most iconic Frank Sinatra songs. You are talking about Frank Sinatra, right? Not some other Sinatra I’ve never heard of?”

“No, you’re right, it’s Frank.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I guess I don’t know those ones.” He admits.

“So, what era are we talking about?” You ask, reaching for the record.

As you grasp the sleeve, you notice a glint of light catching James’s bare hand. Realizing he’s not wearing gloves, confusion sets in before it clicks. You HAD seen James before.

Looking up at him, he seems frozen, obviously panicking. He planned to tell you eventually, but not like this. Not when you weren’t close enough yet.

He thought there is no way you are going to want anything to do with him now.

You thought there is no way was there's an actual Avenger in your apartment right now.

You’re frozen, just like him, but more in shock rather than fear.

“Do you… usually go by James?” you ask cautiously.

Hesitating, he shakes his head.

“What do you usually go by then?”

Bucky feels anxiety creeping up his back. You’re both still holding the record, and he can’t tell if you’re scared or just surprised.

“Bucky.”

You stay silent for a moment while Bucky’s nerves are on edge.

“So… metal hand…”

Clenching his jaw, he replies, “Arm.”

“You’re that Bucky.”

“Yes.”

After a long pause, you start again.

“You’re an Avenger and you didn’t tell me?”

Bucky hesitates, his discomfort visible. “I’m— I’m not an Avenger.”

“What do you mean? You’re totally an Avenger! Why wouldn’t you tell me? How did I not recognize you before?” you ask, laughing in disbelief.

Bucky’s taken aback. You really thought he was an Avenger? You’re not scared of him at all, which surprises him. You must not know much about his past if you’re still standing this close.

“No wonder you don’t know ‘New York, New York,’” you say, almost to yourself. “It’s from after your time! This is crazy, I—”

You’re interrupted by his response.

“Are you not scared?”

“Of course not.”

Bucky closes in on himself, panic evident. “If you really knew me, you’d want nothing to do with me. I’ve—”

“I might not know the version of you you’re talking about, but I’ve met James, who helped me not once, but twice  carry stuff he definitely didn’t have to up the stairs, stayed for dinner, has been very polite to me, and has given me zero reasons to be scared of him.”

He looks at you, his piercing blue eyes revealing an internal struggle. That one look holds more weight than his words. You can see the battle within him, torn between his past and the present moment.

“Listen,” you say, finally letting go of the record, “if you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to. But I’m not scared of you, and I actually like your company. So, regardless of whether you’re James, Bucky, or whoever, you’re still welcome here.”

You pause, adding, “And we can still play this if you’d like.”

Bucky struggles with his inner turmoil. The idea that you know who he is but still want him around is foreign to him. He doesn’t feel worthy of the kindness you’re offering, but it’s been so long since he’s received such warmth that it’s almost impossible to turn it down.

He’s not comfortable with his identity or his past, but in this moment, he wants to push it aside. If you don’t care, maybe he can allow himself not to care, even if just for a bit. Maybe he can prove something to himself, or even his therapist.

Handing you the record, he relaxes his face slightly. You’ve always thought him handsome, but in the dim light of the dark room, he looks almost ethereal.

You’re hoping he believes you because your excitement for his company tonight feels more significant than it probably should, but you’re okay with that.

“I’m Bucky.”

You smile warmly at this change. “Alright, Bucky. What do you want to do?”

He gazes at you deeply, his look sending a shiver down your spine and warming your chest. “Play it.”

a/n: well, hope this was alright. as I mentioned before, ive never wrote fiction before, but ive definitely read enough to get the gist.

[cultofsappho]

Ive come to the realization that the reason theres a small but loud group of people who are showing nothing but hate for the rwrb movie is because they have completely unrealistic expectations. People are forgetting that this is a cheesy romantic comedy, thats supposed to look and feel like a cheesy romantic comedy. This isnt going to be moonlight or gods own country or some other critically acclaimed, oscar nomintaed queer film that makes straight people go "hmm maybe they do deserve rights and respect🤷‍♀️"

Its gonna be a cheesy adult romantic comedy, thats gonna be a bit camp and over the top and thats exactly why its so good. I dont want to think about every gay movie I watch. I want to watch it and see two queer people fall in love and thats it. Thats how deep it goes. Maybe a sprinkling of politcal commentary in between.

There is this issue thats become bigger and bigger every passing year, that people expect every bit of queer representation to be the best thing ever. There can not ever be anything cringey or different or silly, and if it is then they send endless hate towards it, and in an industry that already hates to show queer people on screen, its this viscious cycle of someone finally being greenlit to make queer media, the media gets endless hate for not being perfect, the studio cancels the queer media before giving it a chance because theyve just 'proven that it wont make money', suddenly everyone is saying 'why do they keep canceling queer media😢', cycle repeats.

Im so over it. Let gay people be slightly cringy or cheesy or campy. Let queer media exist without putting it on this huge pedestal. Just enjoy things! And if you dont, dont watch it! Move on, find something better to do.

Yes!!! Thank you so much anon for putting this feeling into words much better than I could have!

"I dont want to think about every gay movie I watch."

Thank you.

I want light-hearted rom coms about queer adults just being queer adults and havig fun. I want comedy adventures where the characters just happen to be gay. I want more horror where at the end the final girl kisses a girl and can't belive they lived but not because they're gay. (suprisingly several of these exist and I love it)

I don't always want to think about the plight and horrors of being queer today with every queer movie I watch.

Sometimes, yes of course, I want to be seen on that level.

(Nimona, which came this weekend is a perfect example of a queer movie where I felt very very seen but also had a good time and was an incredibly silly fantasy adventure movie. But, still had the queer expereince intertwined.)

I'm looking forward to a movie that will be 90% rom com, and 10% realism/heavyness. re: being outed is a real thing that happens to people. famous people.

Alex and Henry go through some heavy shit. There's seriously traumatizing stuff at the end of the book. They're both dealing with mental illnesses, complex families, and rock-or-a-hard-place situations. I want all of that honored.

And, at the same time, I'm expecting a straight-to-streaming, mid-budget, movie that had to pass through a LOT of straight hands and board meetings to get to us.

Not to say we should love and accept every queer movie that comes out automatically, they have been done wrong in the past. (example: I skipped call me by your name bc the age gap still makes me too uncomfortable to watch)

But we have to give queer movies a chance to fit the genre they were made for, the tone they are made to be, and give queer creators a chance to show they are us annd they know us. The director is Bi. He's spent so much time going on about how much he related to Alex that he needed to make this movie. It's his first directing role, and I'm giving him a chance.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (December 3-9, 2023)

I made a frame from this shot Wikizilla's Image of the Week. No regrets. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, I love ya. When I was a teenager, explicit queerness was anathema to most big-name franchises. Those dominoes have been slowly falling, often in lower-profile tie-ins first, and to me this is a huge one: 69 years without a queer live-action Godzilla character are over. And Cate's the main protagonist of the show! I'm not under the delusion that media representation will cure all society's ills, but it sure doesn't hurt. Now, the non-Tumblr parts of the fandom are being completely normal about this, right? Right? Whatever, that's why you'll never get rid of me here. Cate had a couple more sweet moments with May in this episode, and Mariko Tamaki wrote episode 7, so don't expect her to stop kissing girls. Hopefully she's learned a valuable lesson about cheating though.

"The Way Out" is also another gift to those of us who have always wanted to see more of the ramifications of a world where Godzilla exists, from underground towns for the super-rich to ruined cities where federal troops shoot looters and harass people experiencing homelessness. And the show continues to find ways to use kaiju to talk about COVID, from Cate and Kentaro's exchange about San Francisco truthers ("It's easier than waking up every day and thinking, at any moment, the same could happen to you") to the blink-of-an-eye speed at which the threat went from on the news to her front door in the flashbacks.

As I foretold, we got a Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire trailer, an amusing contrast to the weighty Toho flick and Apple show already fore of mind. It's Adam Wingard unbound, that's for sure. The human cast seems pared back, a longstanding Monsterverse problem, and the kaiju fights were far and away the best part of Godzilla vs. Kong, so hopefully this approach will play to his strengths. But that movie also had excellent VFX, and some of the shots in here are rough. There's time to fix them, at least... which probably can't be said of Godzilla's design. I like that he's pink (did some Warner Bros. executive take the wrong message away from Barbie?) and sporting a thagomizer on his tail, but his proportions are uncanny. And I see Kong found the Infinity Gauntlet; good for him.

I am, of course, not done talking about Godzilla Minus One. It added over 200 screens and made $8.3 million in its second weekend in the U.S., a minuscule drop considering that its $11.4 million opening "weekend" spanned five days. Almost a third of all tickets sold this weekend were for Godzilla or Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, remarkable in a market so allergic to foreign imports. That brings its total to $25.3 million (more by the time you read this). With an avalanche of Christmas blockbusters on the way, its grip on premium-format screens is about to slip. Still, I see it hanging around theaters for a while. I have never seen the fandom so united in praise for a film before, and it's making plenty of new fans.

Some of those fans are in high places. Variety leaked that it's on the 20-film shortlist for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars (to be narrowed to five nominees), something I, again, never expected to read about a Toho Godzilla film. Alas, it's locked out of this year's Best International Film category due to the quirky nomination period.

Much has been made of how great the film looks on a $15 million budget. I have two caveats, one in each direction. No one is quite sure where the $15 million figure came from; Yamazaki said at a recent con appearance that he only wished he had that much to play with. (He has yet to divulge the actual budget, just that it was above ¥1 billion.) Now, unions in the Japanese film industry are much weaker than in Hollywood, so a given production budget goes a lot further in Japan. All the same, I doubt that alone explains Minus One looking better than most superhero movies made for twenty times the cost. I'll offer a couple more reasons: Yamazaki has extensive visual effects experience (he's been the VFX supervisor of all but one of the live-action films he's directed), and the film's big effects scenes aren't as busy or lengthy as many of the Hollywood counterparts. I don't know if Disney will ask Yamazaki to direct the next Star Wars movie (that would require there to be a next Star Wars movie), but the studios here should be taking notes.

the sphinx, a blog with a ton of American Godzilla rarities to share, has outdone itself—behold a continuity and dialogue script for the U.S. version of King Kong vs. Godzilla! Included in the download is a detailed comparison with the film. No huge differences, apart from the script giving the secretary added to the U.S. version a name, but a fascinating piece of history all the same.

The Minus One incarnation of Godzilla (MaiGoji?) has joined Godzilla Battle Line, accompanied by [SPOILER]. To be honest, my enthusiasm for this game has been flagging, and I'm not caught up on the strategies developing around these two, so I'll just refer you to Sir Melee's channel as usual. This Godzilla's also doing a collaboration with the Japanese mobile game Fleet of Blue Flame.

Tiffany Grant, Asuka's original voice actress, will narrate the audiobooks for the Neon Genesis Evangelion: ANIMA light novels which explore an Instrumentality-free path for the show. Seven Seas Entertainment published them in English from 2019 to 2021, which, to be honest, was also news to me.

This one's for my fellow library workers: the obscenely popular Who HQ nonfiction series for children is publishing a book about Godzilla next June. I don't know if this will have quite the same impact on today's young Godzilla fans as the Ian Thorne tome had on Gen Xers and Millennials, what with the Internet and all, but it's certain to be more factual. Expect illustrations instead of licensed photos, and not just because of Toho.

I can finally talk more about the Godzilla x Kong: Titan Chasers mobile game without fearing a DMCA. Not that there's much to talk about; it's freemium through and through and I'm not sure I know a single person who's excited for it. Interesting to see some critters from the comics break into another medium, at least. Here's the trailer.

[rainbowsky]

Hi, how do you know Jackie Chan is a part of LOCH? I’ve been trying to find as much info on this film as possible and I never came across anything mentioning Jackie Chan. Also this film is already a big budget film, which is also the reason why I feel Tsui Hark chose Xiao Zhan specifically because he’s number one in popularity and with immense popularity he comes with good acting so it was a win-win but although I want this film to be released internationally really badly especially my country, I still fear being disappointed. Would they really invest in an international release? and is there a way if fans could get their messages across to them asking for an international release? because i will honestly cry if xiao zhan’s first movie (during my time as his fan) is released and i as a die hard fan can’t even watch it on big screen!! 

This is in reference to a previous post.

The full cast has not been officially announced yet, but it was all over the media at the time of GG was announced as Guo Jing. You can find articles mentioning it just by Googling. There were several big name actors mentioned in smaller supporting roles, and it actually caused a bit of controversy at the time among netizens (who, of course, always stress out over who can do justice to their favorite literary heroes).

Feng Shaofeng - Genghis Khan

Hui Yinghong - Li Ping

Jackie Chan - Hong Qigong

Official accounts haven't confirmed (or denied) these widespread rumors, but we will likely know a lot more soon. The film is slated to be released for Spring Festival, which is the second weekend in February. No doubt there will be some promotional materials, etc. coming out in the next couple of months.

As for whether it will be released abroad - I honestly don't get why fans are always hand-wringing over whether their films will be released internationally. I find that confusing as heck.

It is safe to assume that pretty much all of their movies will be released to international audiences. It would be odd for them not to appear outside China.

Keep in mind that - alongside non-Chinese speaking international audiences who take an interest in international films - there is a huge population of Chinese people living all over the world. In my region, for example, 20% of the population are Chinese Canadians. There is a demand outside of China, for Chinese films.

Legend of the Condor Heroes is one of the most popular novels in China, and is appreciated all over the world. It's an outstanding book. I urge everyone to read it (or enjoy the audiobook). I can't overstate how good it is.

GG is also very popular, and his international fame is growing. Films stand to make more money the more screens they're seen on. It's simple math.

This film WILL be seen outside of China. Any agonizing over whether it will is a waste of one's mental health. It's going to be a big release. It will be seen far and wide. It's will probably make a lot of money. It's got a good formula, a good director, etc.

And even if it doesn't come to some countries - as with all of their projects - it will eventually end up on streaming services. You will get a chance to see it.

Edit: as I said in the comments of this post, there will always be some countries where there really won't be legal options for viewing. That's just the unfortunate reality of the situation. In those cases, there is no shame in watching a pirated version. I feel that it is better to watch their projects, thereby being able to write a review and promote the project to other people, etc. than to not watch them at all.

As long as we are supporting the film financially if there is any option to do so at all. There have been people who have bought tickets for their films in regions that they are unable to travel to, just to support the film. People can also buy tickets for other fans who cannot otherwise afford to go.

There are also often official merchandise and things like that which can be purchased from anywhere in the world.

You can also contact your favorite local streaming services and request for those projects to be made available to you. The more fans who express an interest in their films, the more likelihood a streaming service will make an effort to obtain rights.

There is no guarantee, of course, but it's worth a try. I also encourage people to be patient, because it can take a while for a movie to make it onto streaming platforms. Just because it is available in some regions and not others doesn't mean it won't eventually make it on to yours.

As long as we are supporting to the best of our ability, that's all that anyone can do.

[genichisojo]

Kagurabachi's Popularity: Familiarity Through Structure

Having a degree in writing and media is so fun because I can write an essay on why Kagurabachi can be defined as well written through craft standards and attribute its popularity overseas to its structure, which is framed similarly to western movies.

And I am!

After this interview confirmed that Takeru Hokazono, author of Kagurabachi, is a huge fan of western films, I went back to this idea I was playing with in October when KB had less than ten chapters. I had been reading since day one, and I knew it was good, and other overseas fan knew it was good. But what made it so good to us, overseas?

I made a quick thread on it on my Twitter account (that I never posted) where I mentioned Blake Snyder's Save the Cat book on script writing and story structure. I also brought up characterization and how it would've been really popular in my comic book class from undergrad. This thread discussed both Chihiro and Sojo, and the quick yet steady pace of the manga has given us more characters and moments to pinpoint. To not overwhelm myself, I'm not going to discuss the craft of characterization (maybe another time), and I'm not going to do a beat sheet for Sojo. For now, I'll try to stay under the first arc to map out why Kagurabachi has so far moved like a high budget film in manga form. So, spoilers ahead!

A quick lesson on Save the Cat, its three main characteristics are: Three act structure Fifteen plot beats Mostly applied to American Hollywood films

One of the biggest things I noticed right away was the resemblance a lot of the chapters, even the story as a whole, had to Snyder's beat sheet. This beat sheet that comes from Snyder's book is somewhat of an industry standard, so a lot of movies, even those that preceded Snyder, go through this structure of Act 1, 2, and 3. Snyder just identified the parts and broke them down to fifteen beats. Plus he dubbed the save the cat moment:

A decisive moment in which a protagonist demonstrates they are worth rooting for. Having the protagonist save a cat can be literal or figurative.

This was something KB needed and did have to have us warm up to Chihiro who post time skip, just gave gloomy orphan energy in the previous chapters. Here, Char would be our cat. Chihiro chose to save Char and chose to protect her, and continued to fight for her until she was rescued. He made this choice even before it's revealed that Char's mother died for her, something that would parallel Chihiro. This is what got readers to see him three dimensionally after being introduced to him. He's still the caring little 14 year old we saw at the start, who continues to take care of the innocent despite the tragedy he's been through. It is only natural for us to care for him, too.

Above are the fifteen beats of Save the Cat and although KB on occasion doesn't hit all fifteen exactly as specified, especially final image as it's continuing, the song and dance is quite similar. Here are examples of The Dark Knight (2008) and Inglourious Basterds (2009), two movies that have inspired Hokazono's work.

Before Chihiro meets Char, we get his opening image of him and his dad forging which is works well as the entire story revolves on the consequences of them creating weapons. We get the set up to his world where he lives with his dad who made famous katanas that wield the power to end a war. The theme is stated, and it's not kept a secret: The katanas they make are weapons made to kill people. Are they willing to carry the burden? In another variation of this question, is Chihiro willing to carry the burdens unintentionally passed down by his father?

The catalyst is his father's murder that catapults him into seeking revenge and recover the katanas.

Now, for the rest of the story, this structure can be applied to the first 18 chapters or even 1-3 chapters at a time which in my opinion, is kind of insane. There's story telling inside the story telling, and these moments are both subtle and grand, signs of a strong and captivating writer. Hollywood would kill for a script like this these days. In order to get you to believe me how prominent these beats are, I'm going to do arc one and Daruma's story. The main story line should be around act one and two right now as of chapter 20, if we want to get down into it, but if anything, this feels like it's moving like a second "movie."

Overall, this structure that comes from Hollywood movies can be identified in multiples parts of Kagurbachi's storytelling. I was going to do beat sheet's for Char and Sojo's stories as well, but I think this is enough of an example of a bigger picture versus smaller. Although other mangas also fall into three act structures, as most story telling does, KB masterfully uses the 15 beats to its advantage. I believe the familiarity of this pace is what hooked oversea audiences, and aside from that, the characters that quickly capture us.

Very quickly, because I don't want to make this about characterization, Chihiro is well written through his past, who he chooses to kill and save, his dialogue that can be surprisingly vulnerable at times, and his cool façade that melts because of how hot he truly runs. He is also straight up a badass. We get handed Char's background in an "all is lost" segment as well as some lore that can present her as a resource for the main cast. We see Azami's phone background photo that's minimum 3+ years old- a government employee with a soft spot for his friends, one who he is still clearly grieving. We get one tiny yet so fucked up bit of Sojo when we see him get a flashback where he's a child and his single dialogue of "I truly love Kunishige Rokuhira," that launched his type of villainy in the maniacal fanboy category. Who does it like that? Nobody but Takeru Hokazono.

Thank you for reading this essay! I do have two other essays drafted, one on Sojo's possible return (I'm a delusional Sojo fan) and just his overall significance and impact as the first villain even if he doesn't return, and on Hiyuki plus servant leadership versus self service.

[katapotato55]

Undertale analysis: Chara was a bad person but not because they were an "evil serial killer child" like the fandom portrays.

TW: mentions of mental illness, self harm, and suicide. SPOILER FOR UNDERTALE. yes this game is 8 years old and scarily popular, but its still worth playing! its 10 bucks on steam! get it! Post also contains stupid edits I made to ENHANCE your experience by at least 50% guaranteed or your money back (post cost $0)

first: some backstory. I played Undertale way back in like, 2016 when the game was still fresh yet gaining popularity quickly. The fandom soon after became criminally insane and went on a moral panic where people were harassed for "playing the game wrong". I remember stories of youtubers cancelling Undertale let's plays because they would kill a character and people would get upset. other than AUs, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the strange obsession with claiming Chara is an evil demon child who is the root of all evil and eats puppies and enjoys drinking the blood of the innocent. and then counter-culture made it so that chara is actually innocent and that the PLAYER is the horrible evil monster eating puppies etc etc.

two extremes that i half-agree with, but mostly disagree with. There was an INSANE black and white mentality that flooded the Undertale space with no breathing room for mistakes. nowadays people have matured and the fandom calmed down, so now would be a great time to explain why i think Chara is a more complex character than people give them credit for. please don't hurt me.

1- Chara very much had mental health issues.

and not in the horror movie way where they were a caraaazay evil serial murderer

a huge misconception is that people assumed the garden tools in toriel's house being dulled was somehow "proof" that Chara was an evil serial murder or something.

though... I think people also forget Chara heavily hinted at struggling with serious depression and misanthropic tendencies.

Chara climbed the mountain to end their own life. the reason the garden tools were dulled wasn't because the Dreemurs were trying to protect other people from Chara, they were trying to protect Chara from themself. it baffles me how a lot of people didn't catch onto that. It could be that we were young teens and didn't know better... but i digress! "but kat? how is Chara a bad person ? are you saying people with depression are-" get that objectively wrong idea out of your head. Having a mental illness does not make you a bad person. If you struggle with suicidal thoughts please get help from loved ones and don't EVER think you are a bad person for struggling. no. chara is a bad person because...

2- Chara was a bitter misanthrope that didn't care about anyone else or their feelings.

there are several lines of dialogue that point to the fact Chara did not like humans. There is a high probability that Chara had a hard home life before falling to the underground and that is possibly why Chara was the way they were. I am not going to send you a million screenshots as to every single bit of evidence of this, I am not made of time and jpegs. (besides i spent the entire budget on photoshop edits) I am however, going to send you the most damning evidence on my side: the true lab tapes. In the pacifist run, you can visit the true lab and find Asgore and Toriel's old home videos. The tapes basically showcase Chara's plan to Asriel where they were to eat the butterscotch flowers, and then Asriel will absorb their soul when they died.

you can watch this youtube video on all of the true lab tapes. to recap the story, Chara died, Asriel absorbed the soul, took Chara's body to the human village and then the humans thought Asriel killed Chara. Asriel refused to fight, walked back to their home and died in the flowerbed. Later on if you talk to Asriel, He mentions he wasn't the one who went to the human village, but it was Chara that was controlling him. He refused to hurt the humans and fight back and essentially they were both taken down. so here are my thoughts (please remember this is my interpretation you are OK to disagree with me)

-Chara probably just used the freedom of the monsters as an excuse to off themselves, Then put that emotional responsibility on Asriel. -They then USED Asriel's body to try and enact revenge on the humans in their death as some kind of messed up murder-suicide but in the wrong order -This ends up Killing Asriel, then he later became a bitter misanthropic husk after being reincarnated by Flowey. Possibly due to the trauma. -This ends up putting the ENTIRE underground in a depressed state with no hope and causing a massive war with the humans -their adopted parents are now divorced due to this tragedy and both Toriel and Asgore started to have conflicting issues on the topic of humans -Asgore basically trapping everyone with him in his own grief because he didn't want to actually face what happened and played the long game collecting souls one by one. -Toriel struggling to move on and essentially trying to mother any human that falls down without facing her demons. -Litterally all of undertale happened. essentially Chara was not a bad person because they were a child version of Jason Voorhees Chara was a bad person because they manipulated their family into having emotional responsibility for their self-inflicted death and hatred of humanity. They made their issues everyone else's problem and didn't consider how their horrible actions would affect others. and in a way, that is one of the morals of Undertale If you don't care about others and how your actions will affect others, then you would be making the world a shitty place in the end. Lets get back to that thing I said earlier about fans harassing other players for little mistakes. killed Toriel on your first play through ? congratulations! you are a horrible irredeemable person who deserves to get death threats ! /s God forbid we have nuance and acknowledge that most players at this point feel BAD about what happened since this is their first play through! And that they CARE about what they did to their new friend! These kind of people ignore the fact that the issue with the genocide run wasn't just the deaths, but that the player didn't consider how the monsters felt after you just ripped away their happy ending. which is the mentality that both Chara and Flowey had.

here is a video i recommend. to quote this video about the sans fight: "They call out the player not for acting immorally but for acting with no moral guidance whatsoever. Flipping back and forth between good and evil for no real reason except that they want to see what happens. In the boss’s own words, committing genocide “because you think you can, and because you can, you have to.” " Chara offed themself and made Asriel emotionally responsible for Chara's fucked up revenge fantasy without considering others feelings The player restarted the timeline (more than likely the good ending) to kill everyone all for the reason of curiosity without considering others feelings. the reason why Chara goes after you at the end of the genocide run is because you basically VALIDATED the deep dark desires of a mentally damaged person and made them watch their loved ones get ritualistically murdered. meanwhile in the pacifist run (with no history of the genocide path on your file), you simply let Chara remain as they were when they passed away. You didn't validate their dark mentally unstable desires, you simply shown Chara that the world isn't a horrible place and that actually caring about other people leads to a better life. If you HAVE played genocide before the pacifist ending, then the lesson does not sit because you still basically led them down a dark path in the end. By caring about how others feel and the impact you leave on people, you are helping retain hope for a better future for everyone, and that is one of the many reasons why i love Undertale.

thank you for reading this massively long analysis, it took me a lot of time and effort to get this put together.

[lobinilo]

What are your favourite Jonah’s projects? ☺️🎬

~ plays TikTok Sound~

OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE THIS QUESTIOOOONNN

So since May 2023 (what happened there? I have no idea 😉) I've watched everything Jonah-related I could get my hands on (except for Little Women, but I'm definetly going to watch that later this year).

My top 3 Jonah projects OTHER than The Little Mermaid (because truth be told, I think it's pretty clear how obsessed I am with that movie and it's not really a fair comparison to some of the more indepent, even low budget projects Jonah has starred in) so far:

1. World on Fire (2019 - 2023)

created by: Peter Bowker directed by: Chanya Button, Thomas Napper, Adam Smith, Andy Wilson Jonah plays: Harry Chase

Big shocker, right? Given how much I already rambled about Harry and Kasia (my traumatised parents) and how upset I was when they cancelled it. I will always mourn this show for the huge potential it had.

World on Fire is a BBC-show following different people in Britain, Poland, Germany and France (with some American viewpoints as well) as they have to endure and navigate their life through World War II. Doesnt really sound like anything we haven't seen, right? However, World on Fire is worth checking out imo, since it differs a lot from the usual Hollywood-infused war epics, because rather than focusing on the politics or the big battles, the show looks more closely at the everyday person that actually had to live through this tragedy and how they deal with what's happening. That being said, obviously this is still a show about WW II, so there definitely IS depiction of violence, murder and torture, as well as bombings, gunfire etc., so please be careful if you find any of those things triggering. I personally found some episodes quite hard to get through.

I think it's interesting that Jonah's filmography is very heavy on projects set during or related to WW II (additionally to WoF you have The Song of Names, Ashes in the Snow and ofc coming up The Tattooist of Auschwitz). Theories on why that is are welcome!

Harry Chase (brilliantly brought to life by our favourite British simp) differs quite a bit from many of Jonah's other roles in that he`s not your heroic, clean-cut good guy (like Andrius, Lucas, Mo or Prince Eric). He's insecure and a little helpless, even cowardly at times. Harry starts out as a translator, but later joins the British Army and the SOE. He fucks up repeatedly, both in his role as lieutenant, as well as in his personal life. Even though most of the time he means well, his cowardice ends up hurting a lot of people and leads him to be in the middle of a love triangle. (Though to me it's not a triangle, but rather a straight line, Team Kasia all the way.)

Harry, though deeply troubled, is a very kind and soft soul. That doesn't really pair well with the acts of war, as well as british society in the 1940s in general, which leads to conflict with other characters and their idea of who he should be. Especially when he clashes with his mother Robina (portrayed by the absolute MAGNIFICENT Lesley Manville, shes giving Emily Gilmore in the best way possible), Jonahs acting is ON POINT. His performance is so nuanced: He's angry, he's desperate, he's sad, but also condescending, sarcastic and hostile towards her. The interesting thing about Harry is the journey he takes. To watch him try to better himself by dealing with past trauma and taking responsibility for present mistakes. The real standout for his character is episode 5 of season 1 where he finally steps up and takes charge. This is also when he starts earning the respect of his sergeant Stan (Blake Harrison) for the first time - they have a real bromance, both on and off the show, I LIVE for these two.

But - just like in real life - he doesn't have this one breakthrough moment and everything is smooth sailing from there. He fluctuates, just like a real person would. He still has the tendency to run away from his problems, but I think what he's seen in the war, what happened at home and (yes, I'm making this about my ship) his love for Kasia (Zofia Wichlacz) make him realise the type of man he wants to be and he would probably try to act accordingly IF WE GOT A THIRD SEASON, BBC! 😤😡🤬

2. Old Boys (2018)

directed by: Toby MacDonald Jonah plays: Henry "Winch" Winchester

If you can only watch one Jonah movie, I beg of you MAKE IT THIS ONE!

I`ve found next to nothing about Old Boys and that seriously has to change. (watched the entire movie again, getting my non-existing gif-making skills ready, just the night before I got this ask, talk about fate)

This movie is so underrated, it doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry. Make it make sense! How is nobody watching this cutie-patootie work of art? Its adorkable in the best sense of the word, it's heartwarming, a little silly and oh! so funny!

It's losely based on the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, set in an all-boys british boarding school in the 1980s. Given the source material, catfishing is definetly a thing here, keep that in mind if you might find that topic difficult.

Alex Lawther's character Amberson (cliché school nerd and victim of bullying) falls in love with the new french teachers daughter Agnes (Pauline Etienne) who in turn has a crush on First-Class-Himbo Winch (portrayed by a beautiful, dimple-faced, british actor). Because Agnes is very artistic and looking for someone that matches her vibe, Amberson helps Winch to try to impress her, because Winch himself is... well... a little dim 😅.

Winch is easily my favourite Jonah character to date (yes, including Prince Eric). I have seriously considered changing my tumblr-name to themightywinch because of him. I mean... he's corteous and punctual, after all 🤣😍.

While not the main character, he's definetly the highlight of the movie. Jonah is likeable, charming, the right kind of awkward in the right moments, has fantastic comedic timing and great chemistry with Alex Lawther.

Just look at that scene alone! IT`S. SO. CUTE!!! (cute-raging over here 😡) Watching this just makes you wish Jonah would star in more comedies, because he definetly has the skills for it! This is just a feel-good movie that leaves you smiling with a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart. It has easily become one of my new comfort watches. Old Boys just never fails to make me laugh and I wish it would get more attention and recognition since it definetly deserves it! (like at least write a Wikipedia article about it) Btw, I bought this on Prime for 99ct, best money I ever spend!

3. The Last Photograph (2017)

(the trailer says 2019, but the movie was originally shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2017)

directed by: Danny Huston Jonah plays: Luke Hammond

Fair warning, this movie is gut-wrenching. I don't know if this qualifies as an actual trigger-warning, but this movie deals with the loss of a child/ death of a young person, as well as the real life tragedy of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombed in 1988 so proceed with caution.

Luke Hammond (Dimples McGee) is on said flight to visit his long-distance girlfriend Kate (Stacy Martin) in New York. Kate's and Luke's first meeting is a little awkward imo, I think it's meant to be like a meet-cute, especially with the whole "Bird"-thing, it just doesn't really work for me. But the rest of their love story is very endearing, they're just two young people experiencing love for the first time. Their time together is told through seemingly random, incoherent flashbacks and memories, just giving little glimpses of what their relationship was like and it's the cutest thing. Little intimate touches, hidden smiles, shared laughter... It's shot in a way as if you're watching them through rose-colored glasses, which is probably the point.

I love the way this movie uses different lighting and colour changes to depict a difference in the time line as well as the emotional state of the characters.

We only see Luke in flashbacks (guess why) and follow his dad Tom (Danny Huston) in present day (which in this case means 2003) as he is desperately trying to retrieve the last photograph (hence the titel) he possesses of his son after his bag was stolen. To see Tom slowly losing his grip as he grows more and more desperate to find the picture is truely heartbreaking. (It's a polaroid, so there are no copies, this is truely the last memory he has of Luke. God, I'm tearing up while writing this.)

Because Luke is basically just seen through the memory of his father who obviously holds him in high regard/ romanticizes the idea of his son, he is portrayed in a solely positive light, which usually wouldn't give much dimension to his character. Yet Jonah still manages to fill this role with life and witt and charisma, making you understand why Bird fell for him. He's sweet, romantic, a little bit shy, which works really well here, has the cutest laugh and clearly cares really deeply for his father. He's definetly portrayed as the "you simply have to love him" kinda guy, which is why his absence cuts so deep.

This is also in huge parts due to Danny Huston's performance. Honestly, the sweater-scenes (or jumper, if you're british 😉) almost broke me. And don't even get me started on his letter to Kate or Kate's letter to him... ugh. It's. So. SAD.

This is obviously not for everyday watch. However, even though The Last Photograph is heartbreaking, it doesn't necessarily leave you hopeless and depressed. This movie feels like a loving tribute to an actual person and therefore has a beauty in its melancholy. Throughout Tom's journey there is hope and forgiveness towards himself. There's a beautiful symmetry to the whole thing. The ending feels almost satisfying if you can say that in this context.

I also wanna give a shoutout to This Is The Night (2021). The movie itself isn't that great, it's a little all over the place and I think they tried to do a little too much all at once. But I looo~oooved Jonah in this, Christians character arc is by far the most interesting one and I wish the script gave their character justice in the way Jonah's and Naomi's acting did. (Also this is the HOTTEST he's ever looked which is a bit ironic).

This list is probably going to be outdated soon, since he has a lot coming out in the near future (I'm especially excited for Rich Flu).

Sorry, if this is too long and rambly and if it took too long for me to answer, I got a little carried away and suddenly had a lot of gifs to make 😅.

Thank you soooo much for the ask, @measuredmotion ❤️.

[mdhwrites]

The Lumity Kiss is Bad

Which is really weird when the actual, physical kiss is pretty much textbook perfect. However, this isn't a quick kiss or a throwaway one. It's the BIG kiss in a romantic subplot. The second half of the resolution we got in Knock Knock Knocking with the confession and the show frames it that way. As such... The kiss is more than just the kiss and it's every element around the physical action that ruins it, making even the textbook nature of it somehow flawed.

Let's start with the positive though. Now I've actually said I don't like how the kiss is animated and I do kind of stick to that. If you go to the 57 mark of this clip of the kiss, you can literally watch as Amity's face slides back to being on model.

And kind of like a lot of moments in the show with big budget animation, that's not a HUGE issue but it is deciding that frame rate and smoothness is king for good animation without considering how jarring it is to watch in the show and if it actually fits within the style of the show. I find TOH fights WAY more enjoyable to watch when isolated by themselves because of this because they aren't in an uncanny valley where they feel like a well produced fan animation than something official and I do still hold to that with the kiss itself. I just wish I could better describe why.

BUT! I said I had a positive to talk about and I do. For three seconds, the scene is just right. Luz says the date will be perfect before then Amity, looking at Luz, the person who the mere thought of was comforting her and who she's been worried about for a week, decides to go in and kiss her. Her hands are gentle as they take Luz's face and she leans in. Luz is shocked that this is happening but then quickly gives into the bliss and holds Amity's hand in her own. It is sweet, quick but incredibly impactful. It is a textbook example of how to do a kiss that one half of the pair didn't see coming and the couple are meant to be deeply in love. It's nothing new but doing the classic spot on is never a bad thing.

Those three seconds die the second Luz says, "Crikey," let alone the fact that it's in an Australian accent. And don't get me wrong: You do not have to make a kiss like this sappy. I Was A Teenage Exocolonist has a romance route with a very clinical, scientific person and when you two get together, she snarks at you if you ask what next. That I should know her well enough to know she has a logical decision deduced from what is correct for the situation.

"So are you going to kiss me or am I going to kiss you?"

Great. Amazing. Silly and not taking itself too seriously but above all else IN. CHARACTER.

I'm sorry to break it to you all but Luz is NOWHERE NEAR "Lol, random" enough for this. Hell, in both this scene and Looking Glass Ruins, the writers point out how Amity is driven to act on emotion and on what her brain pulls her towards more than Luz, especially on this topic. It's why Amity is ALWAYS the one to do the firsts in their relationship. Meanwhile, Luz's only times where she blurts out something random is "Snorses" which had a clear correlation to what was happening and "You damn rat!" which also was explicitly tied to the stimuli causing it.

What stimuli here makes her go "Crikey" and turn FUCKING AUSTRALIAN!? The only reasonable excuse I could even think of is to say she's a huge Crocodile Dundee fan but Luz was born theoretically somewhere around 2006, literally TWENTY YEARS after that movie came out and I don't feel like Camila would push something like that for her to watch or really fits in with most of what else Luz seems to enjoy.

Fucking BAZINGA would have been more in character because at least nerds still mock Big Bang Theory. Other options for a random word or reference would have been "Excelsior!" or "Wahoo!" as she jumps into the air like the hyperactive gremlin she's supposed to be.

Neither one would work though in general because the tone and framing of the scene isn't right for a joke, let alone this sort of joke. Part of what makes the kiss feel so justified in this moment is the setup... Though only on Amity's side. I'll get to the problems with Luz's setup for the kiss in a bit.

Amity has thought Luz might be dead for a week. She hasn't heard back from her, she's scared, distressed and strung out. She wants things to go back to simpler times like in Season 1 when things weren't so scary. She's emotional and is actively using the thought of Luz as a way to comfort herself. Then, out of nowhere, Luz comes in, promising romance, better times and safety, all while proving she herself is safe.

It is perfect setup in a story like this for the first kiss. Honestly, they could have gone one step farther and mentioned that they haven't even had a big kiss but they went with the missing out on the date element, which works just as well. It's nothing new but it's correct. It's good. However... It's also genuinely serious. Like this is effectively Amity laying out exactly why she likes Luz. The strength she gets from Luz. Why this relationship is important to her. It is great setup for an "I love you," or a first kiss.

It is a REALLY bad setup for a joke. However... as bad Luz's joke is... Amity's is actually worse.

"I can't believe I just did that!"

Yeah and I can't believe that in this moment that should show how far Luz and Amity have come as a couple, the strength and joy they've gained after being a couple for half a season, you're literally reacting the EXACT same way as you did when you kissed her on the cheek back in Looking Glass Ruins. It doesn't matter that you have nicknames now. That you two keep twirling each other about. Have had deep conversations about Luz's pain while Luz ignored yours. *eye twitch at Reaching Out* And it doesn't matter that in this moment, you have EVERY justification to be confident in this choice. To simply happy and overcome with emotion that your partner is simply ALIVE.

Her response should have been, "I'm so happy to see you," not literally going back an entire half a season for a cheap, repeat gag.

To be fair though, while this entire scene, from the moment it cuts to Amity talking to Emira and Edric, is obviously paying reverence to how big of a deal this is and trying to make the kiss be correct... The jokes are in keeping with how quite literally the rest of the episode treats Lumity. Remember, this episode starts with Luz claiming she'd like to pull a romantic rescue but deciding to opt out because despite having literally nothing to do with the plan, and likely being detrimental to how stealthy they need to be because fewer numbers are better here, she would rather be prepared to help Eda and King than actually break her girlfriend out from being grounded by the EC. This is despite, in Luz's own words, "You know me. I'll always choose the chaotic option." That... Isn't a good starting point.

Then the rescue is comically easy and Luz doesn't actually do any of it. It's all Gus, Willow and Hunter. Luz just gets to take the credit and get the big hero kiss, which this ABSOLUTELY IS. Amity was a damsel in distress for Luz to save, complete with a kiss for doing so. That's also without getting into how pathetically easy the save is. Like Willow doesn't even have to try to bury one dude and an abomaton ALIVE under ground. Frankly, I'm amazed that guard is still alive.

It's just a lot of stuff way too easy to be leading into what is the final payoff for your romantic subplot, let alone one that has taken up a THIRD of your story so far.

The rest of the episode isn't any better though. This should be an episode about Lumity. It starts with talking about Amity in trouble. Then it saves Amity and does the big, climactic kiss... But we haven't gotten Luz's side of the relationship yet, have we? We haven't gotten her speech like we did Amity's. We haven't gotten anything to show her deeper care for Amity and while Amity is talking about Luz's quirks and her kindness and the strength she gets from her, Knock Knock Knocking is really the closest we've gotten with "Awesome and pretty" which is vague and shallow. This is your chance to fix that.

There's even a perfect moment. Odalia threatens their relationship and says Luz isn't worthy. Have Luz agree... But then say it doesn't matter what her or Odalia think. That she is lucky to have someone as smart, dedicated, and passionate while having a sweet center that despite all her fears, anytime she's with Amity, she knows Amity is going to give her the chances she needs. Is going to understand what she's trying to say instead of looking at how weird she is and rejecting her. Take ten, twenty seconds to do that... While in the background, we can see Gus obviously thinking about something, glance at Luz, and then start working on a spell circle.

The shield comes down, get the dramatic reveal of Alador and then cut back to where Hunter is holding Amity's hand. Same effect as the show but allow Gus to make the plan of his own volition because he wants to protect his bro and this was the best he could think of. He thought Luz would be more capable of defending herself due to glyphs and that Belos was less likely to kill her than Hunter. Also, it was in a panic and the best he could think of.

INSTEAD, we get Luz ignoring Amity's problems with her parents for the THIRD FUCKING TIME and focusing on the white boy in the cast instead. In fact, I don't think Lumity talk to each other ONCE after the kiss scene. The focus is too much on the plot and Amity's angst and I could do an entire blog about how little Luz actually engages with Amity's character arc and plot elements. It makes it real rough analyzing old episodes for Amity's arc when you realize how much Amity jumps in her arc without almost any input from Luz on elements that are suddenly gone.

And this would be OKAY... But it makes the kiss feel like... Well, honestly like a gag. We're at a point in the show after all where very little of it is trying to be funny. Even Gus and King are being taken seriously now and Amity will be a joke for most of S3, especially in Thanks to Them. Even her standing up to her mother is lightly mocked by Alador sounding like he's just saying sweet lies in telling Amity that she was close to breaking the barrier. It's WEIRD the treatment of it when it has consumed so much time and the framing of the actual moment is so serious.

And I want to be clear: I am happy they kissed. I am not against this because it's two girls or anything like that. I'd criticize this no matter the gender, race, etc. of any element here because it is just flatly bad romance writing. The only parts that function are either cut off at the knees or the one part that has the characters too silent to actually harm the moment.

And I think the last thing any of us wanted for Lumity was for it to be treated like a joke.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[popculturebuffet]

Disney 100th Birthday Special: Top 12 Disney Television Animation Shows

Happy Birthday all you happy people! And it's a very special birthday as it's the 100th anniversary of a company that, while I routinely mock on a regular basis for impaling themselves about a dozen time a year, has brought me a lot of joy. It was a 100 years ago that the wonderful world of disney began and 100 years later it's still bringing us some of the finest and funnest animation around and will likely continue for a hundred more as they create a whole disney planet serving up mickey shaped foods for all time around a disney owned star.

So before we can look forward to happiest dystopian future off earth, I thought hard about what I wanted to do for the 100th. I've covered disney a LOT on this blog: season 3 of ducktales AND the arcs for the two seasons before that, seasons 2 and 3 of both amphibia and owl house, classics like the Lion King and A Goofy Movie, a whole year worth of house of mouse reviews, shorts, various comics great and donald being pro illteracy.. the list could go on for an entire article itself.

So while I had PLENTY of options, from a shorts marathon to another movie, I decided the best way to honor this occasion was by focusing on a portion of disney near and dear to my heart: Disney TV Animation.

Way Way Back in the 1980s, DisneyTVA was formed by fresh faced executive overlord Michael Eisner. Eisner was looking to expand his new empire, and found a clever way to do it. See at the time while there were certainly good cartoons, most had the budget of a paper clip and a piece of string. It's why Disney took this long to get into the game: Walt thought he just coudln't get the quality needed on a tv budget and while he WANTED to at some point, he passed before that could happen.

Many laughed at this decision, citing it as a huge money sink waiting to happen.

Yeah critics not taking animation or kids watching it seriously isn't new and assuming they'll just watch anything is laughable. Yes low budget shows like Transformers got plenty of views... but transformers also put in high quality voice actors and intriguging designs. Take both of those and make the animation bouncier, and kids would notice.

And they did: The first Disney TVA show, Gummi Bears, was a massive success, leading to the planet sized one that was Ducktales and a whole legacy of classic shows.

There is a double edged sword here though: While most of these shows are high quality and well loved.. Disney tends to.. ignore they exist. They don't make merch, think adult and teenage fans aren't a think, and when it comes to merch don't usually tend to make it for these shows during or after their runs. There are exceptions and they are reviving stuff.. but disney has a bad habit to prefer cashing in on nostalgia than on what they have now unless it fits their narrow perameters

For me though.. Disney TVA is home to some of the best, most game changing shows in the medium. From shows I grew up with to shows that sadly just ended, Disney has made a ton of shows permeanntly embded in my heart. My doctor says I should get that removed but what does he know. At this studio are creators who are passionate, create unique works, and work very hard to stand out. Even when shows get slapped with the dreaded 2 season limits, they still stick in our hearts not just because of that nostlaagia pop disney wants, but because they were just that good and still hold up into adulthood. I've covered a lot of this library, owe my career to these shows and will never sotp being impressed by them.

So out of the 42 i've seen I whittled it down by 30 which was way harder than it sounded down to the very best. A few shows like Gargoyles I sadly just.. hadn't watched, so if something's missing it was either that or a very hard cut. Whlie the top 8 was shockingly easy, it was hard to narrow this list down to the very best. I'd also like to point out that this is my opinon: feel free to send me your own lists, i'd be curious to see how your own personal experinces shaped yours. But for now this is mine... and this is my top 12 best disney telvision animation shows.

12. The Weekenders Created by Doug Landale 2000-2004 4 Seasons, 76 episodes

Our #12 is a childhood faviorite of mine.. and also one of the two shows your most likely to hear me bitch about disney+ not having. IT'S BEEN ALMOST 4 YEARS.

But bitch complaning about disney being disney aside, the Weekenders is a charming classic that needs more eyes on it and it's weird I haven't covered frankly.

At any rate Weekenders is a slice of life show with a good yet simple hook: it follows 4 middle schoolers, Tino, Carver, Lor and Tish, as through their weekends from Friday after school to monday morning. It allows for the show to do pretty much whatever it wants, and what it wants is to be a fairly lowkey slice of life show. The only really zany element that I can remember, or that I saw in ToonrfiqTariq's excellent retrospective of the series, which you can find here, is main character Tino, a sarcastic but kind guy played by voice acting royalty James Marsden, talking to the audience zack morris style, which is really just a neat way to move things along so it's not that obtrusive. I highly recommend that retrospective by the way. Tariq is awesome and it helped jog my memory on the show.

The series is a fairly low stakes affair: our heroes have a fairly typical problem, they talk it out or deal with it as the weekend goes on, and at least once an episode they go for pizza at an ever changing pizza restraunt with a fun new gimmick each episode, something I loved already as a kid but love even more NOW as an adult knowing that gag was likely a LOT to do. Keep in mind they had to draw new backgrounds, exteriors, and a new costume for the guy running it every time. It's the kind of joke you think a series would've given up on for those reasons but nope, every episode has one.

Weekenders is a throughly charming slice of life show, helped by it's characters: In addition to tino we have the egotistical Carver (Phil LaMarr) thickheaded jock Lor (Grey DeLise) and immigrant nerd and vegtarian Tish. While the four coudl've easily fallen into their sterotypes there's just enough depth to the cast to make them work. Tish in paticular was my faviorite, not only being one of the first immigrant stories in a show I saw that was largely respectful and not just

It's a great show I genuinely wish I had more to say about. Find it somehow if you can, it's entirely worth it.

11. Phineas and Ferb Created By Dan Povmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh 2007-2015, 20XX- 129 Episodes, 2 Movies, Upcoming Revival

At a time when kids animation wasn't in the best place, Phineas and Ferb was the smash hit we all badly needed. Done by vetran creators and Rocko's Modern Life Alums, Phineas and Ferb was a fun, creative show about two boys who simply wanted to make the best out of summer... and happened to be child progidys only limited by their immgination, so they could do anything and the utterly catchy theme song helpfully outlined it. Having only watched the first three or four seasons, I still don't know if they ever found Frankensteins' Brain. It was over there.

While the a-plots with the boys were great most of the time and had a great supporting cast: Helpful scout Isabella, shrill voiced nerd Baljeet and bully turned buddy Buford, the real draw for most of us was the b-plot: each episode the boys Platapus Perry would sneak out, don a fedora and foil the plots of his arch enemy and best buddy Heinz Doofenschmirtz, an awkward mad scientest who rather than therapy decides to deal with the many, MANY traumas in his life by building various inators and talking to Perry. Their shenanigans inevitibly undo whatever our heroes did in time for their mom to never notice and just think their sister Candance needs help as she tries to bust them.

The show mostly used this loop for it's lengthy run, ocasionally mixing up the setting by visiting the kids grandparents or with a special, but it mostly went like this. This started as the shows strength as the repitition allowed them to REALLY play with the formula: lampshade it, subvert it, and play with it. Sometimes Perry would go to foil doof but it ended up being something benign like Doof trying to do a party for his Daughter or go on a date. Sometimes the boys would genuinely be trying to help Candance or she'd have her own concerns outside of bustin making her feel good. The show packed this with tons of lampshade hanging, catchy songs (after an early one made the network want it once an episode), and genuine heart. It's hard not to root for Phineas and his optimism and genuine cheer. Depsite "driving our sister insane" being a main lyric.. the kid has nothing but love in his heart for his sister and that simple goal of just wanting to do something fun or help someone each day makes this one of the sweeetest shows around.

So your probably wondering why it's so low. And it's really simple: it's constant status quo.. kind of wore it out for me. After a while there was no real reason for Linda NOT to know the boys were doing this. We never got any indication she'd care beyond "Maybe wear a helmet" or "Have candace watch you", neither of which would really STOP what they do every day. While Across the Universe was a great movie it having a MASSIVE snapback at the end is what eventually got me out of the show. It was hard to invest when the show wasn't willing to really change anything. In hindsight I do get some shows just function better as status quo shows and my bitterness has lessened and it's why this show ended up making the list: it's status quo could be frustrating.. but no one had more fun playing with it at the time than these two kids. And the hunchbacked old man what fights/is common lawed married to their platypus.

10. American Dragon: Jake Long Created by Jeff Goode Developed by Eddie Guzelian and Matt Negrete 2005-2007 2 Seasons, 52 Episodes AmDrag was part of the teen superhero boom on kids shows in the 2000's. Classics like Danny Phantom, My Life as a Teenage Robot, El Tigre and more came about at this time, with disney only dipping it's toes in twice with this show and another we'll get to soon enough.

That said.. American Dragon is an excellent show, mostly down to it's core: The show follows the titular Jake Long, a guy who on surface, from rapping part of his theme to his frosted tips to his skateboard comes off very much like an energy drink came to life and starred in it's own show. Which given the 2000's i'm very suprised never happened. But jake is somehow likeable.. he's a bit arrogant sure, but his arrogance is only in his skill: He genuinely does try his best as protector of new york, cares about his friends and cares heavily about his crush Rose. He's got a heart to him beneath the layers of axe body spray and Dante Basco's standout performance, what would easily have been his defining role as a VA had avatar not come along soon after, helps make this guy feel human.

What also helps boost it's show is it's myth arc. Like Danny Phantom a year before it, AM Drag breaks from the style of the time to have a dedicated arc and continuity. There's plenty of monster of the week stuff, some better (like the oracle twins, easily my faviorite side characters , who also have the fun gimmick of one being super cheery yet predicting horrible things and the other being jaded but seeing only good, with their powers being why (If you see every good thing that you'll ever get it makes it hard to enjoy them and if you see every possible horrible thing that happens to you, it makes the other stuff easier to swallow), some worse, and that can be a weaker part of the show.

But it's core arcs are what make the show it's most intresting. For the first season and a half we have the shows best: Jakes battles with the huntsclan, the foot clan.. if they were violent racists who slaughter magical creatures. Granted we don't SEE that on screen but the show does a good job showing us that no, that's what they are.

This itself would likely work.. but what makes it special and standout for the time it came out.. is the wrinkle they throw in: Huntsgirl, the Huntsclan's #1 guy and sidekick to the huntsman.. is Jake's crush Rose, a fairly well adjusted kind girl who simply dosen't know what she's been indoctrinated into, thinking Dragons are evil. This is a nice change of pace as at the time most relationships with teens and tweens in cartoons were either between some popular slab of cardboard of the characters best friend.

Instead Rose SEEMS to be the cardboard type.. but not only has depth outside of the hood, but the fact the audience can easily tell who huntsgirl is, Mae Whitman has a distinctive voice after all and as usual does a fantastic job only adds the tension: We know who rose is, but Jake doesn't and early on we don't know how much of her is real. And once the secret breaks we get the drama of both dealing with not only being on opposite sides but Rose realizing she was on the wrong one.

The arc after, focusing on a dark dragon isn't as strong in comparison, but it's also not entirely fair given they likely though they'd have another season and a half to wrap it up proper. That being said the series also has an interesting arc with Jake's overachieving younger sister, who goes from knowing about the dragon thing (his whole family does minus his dad for.. some reason) and showing some powers.. to being a dragon herself and often her brother's sidekick.

The show had it's weaknsesses, outside of the big bads there was never really much of an interesting Rogue's Gallery, Trixie felt a bit flat as a character, and again there was no good reason Jake's dad shouldn't know so we got stupid groundings and such. But we also got a compelling enemies to lovers arc with a lot of tension, a nice mythology, and profressor rotwood, Jakes teacher and magic hunter, a fun butt monkey for the show. It's a solid show that i'd love to see get a revivial.

9. Wonder Over Yonder Created by Craig McCracken 2013-2016 43 Episodes

Wonder Over Yonder is one of Disney's more infamous cancelations. Despite being DisneyXD's #1 show they not only barely promoted it, I wasn't aware the second season was going on till it was almost over and still need to get around to watching it, Disney cancelled it. Despite being well loved Disney cancelled it. It's not the worst cancellation on this list, that comes later, but it's still a pretty dang bad one. The fact they didn't put the show on Disney+ for some time dosen't exactly help.

Why Disney hated this show so much I'll never know as Wonder is one of the most heartfelt and creative show's disney put out. And keep in mind as I said i've only seen season 1. I know it gets even better with season 2's dedicated story arc and the introdcution of lord dominator. I've seen the musical number.

Wonder took inspiration from, of all things, dr. seuss, with Craig being an admitted fan of 60's and 70's astetics already, it just flowed naturally as we got the tail of a gentle tumbleweed whose kind and thoughtful to everyone he meets wether they desreve it or not and his tough as nails steed and best friend sylvia. The rolls are easily the best of Jack McBrayer and April Winchel's long careers, nicely contrasting each other in perfect ballance: Sylvia fights the battles wonder can't win with kindness or is too oblvious to realize he's in, Wonder wins fights simply by being too cheery and oblivious to beat.

Over their journey's they repeadtely run into our other main characters, Lord Hater, played by the awesome Keith Fergeuson, an over the top skeletial manchild who badly wants to be taken seriously but is too impulsive, stupid, and easily angered for him to actually achieve that depsite the help of Commander Peepers, his #2 and put upon lackey. Add in tons of great sets, fun scnearios and creative uses of animatoin and you have something unforgitable. McCracken really loves to play with storytelling here, from your standard genre breaks to simply taking a conventional tale like a kinight rescuing a princess.. and turn it into our heroes accidently assitating a stalking jerk and said princess easily clocking him one before they can all unite to save him. The show had so much fun with it's cast and heart in it it's really hard not to like and while it sadly ended too soon what we got... is something magical.

8. Clerks the Animated Series Created by Kevin Smith 2000 6 Episodes Like most of you are as you read this entry, I was suprised to find Disney TVA made this. To date this is Disney's only adult animated series, and the fox acquisition giving them a full studio for that tells me it'll likely stay this way unless they do something actiony for disney +. It's also far and away the shortest lived show on this list. only airing two of it's 6 produced episodes, neither of which was the actual first episode. ABC didn't like what they got, they buried it, standard corprate procedure, and thanks to DVD and Comedy Central airings the show went from quickly forgotten weird relic to one of the best animated adaptations out there and one of the poster children for shows too good to last.

I grew up with this show. Since I was too young for the kevin smith movies my brother was obessed with, the series was the first Kevin Smith related thing I ever watched and it's stayed with me since. The show's short.. but it's 6 episodes are absolutely STUFFED with great jokes. I could honestly spend the rest of the article quoting this series, from "Hey, it's ted danson" to "Why are we walking like this" to "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit you old hag!".... and that's just the second episode. Admitely in terms of tone, Clerks TAS.. is nothing like the movie. The original Clerks was a fairly low key film mostly driven by our leads Dante and Randall's conversation and the various people who came in. It was a character piece about being stuck in a dead end job, about ignoring rules versus blindly following them, and about two stoners who were in it for 5 minutes but became the backbone of this cinematic universe because their the best.

Clerks the Animated Series instead is a gleefully wacky romp where our heroes can't say fuck but do get into sitcommy hyjinks, from clipshows, to a rival buisness across the way, to the deadly motava virus, to a pastiche of the last starfighter turning into a pastiche of the bad news bears then a pastiche of temple of doom. As you can tell this show is kinda nuts and really just Kevin Smith getting to be all kinds of redicluous in the funniest way possible. He replaced being able to say fuck and talk about sex with hyjinks and turned randall from a charming if assholish slacker into one of the best dumbasses in animation. The show is a near constant laugh riot, beautifully animated too. It also naturally has the boys, with Jay and Silent bob still getting in lots of neat antics even if they can no longer deal on screen. Clerks the Animated series is one of the funniest shows there's ever been and I highly recommend seeking it out.

7. Milo Murphy's Law Created by Dan Povemire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh 2016-2017, 2019 46 Episodes

Meet the show disney somehow treated WORSE than the last two. I swear when I put this list together I did not realize these three would be clustered together.

But yes, when I said there was a worse cancelation I meant it: Milo Murphy's Law was the dwampy duo of Phineas and Ferb.. and got utterly buried because Disney was mad it wasn't the mega hit that show was, forgetting that was also a fairly slow burn, or that you kow THIS IS A DIFFRENT SHOW. So they not only barely promoted the second half of season 1.. but then just sat on season 2 for a full year, with many an episode airing elsewhere long before that and released it over a few weeks. They then just.. straight up ended production to make a phineas and ferb movie. In fact despite a full soundtrack apparently existed only ONE song's gotten released from the show in full thanks to said movie's soundtrack. To say Disney screwed this show over is putting it lightly.

And it's a huge shame this show got buried as it did as Milo.. is freaking awesome. I mean I gave it a shot from episode one simply because it had Weird Al attached. Even if i'd gotten burned out on the previous show, i'll give anything Al's in a shot.

And that shot was worth it as from the first episode to the last, Milo is a truly charming show with, say it again ya'll, "a truly unique premise" . Disney has a knack for those don't it?

MML follows Milo Murphy, a happy go lucky 6th grader who meets new kid in town Zack.. who soon finds out Milo has a family curse, based on, of course, Murphy's Law; if something can go wrong, it will. So the universe bends over backwords to try to murder this tween and anyone around him... hence why while everyone likes Milo well enough, only his feisty hustler best friend Melissa really hung around before Zack took a chance on his new pal.

What makes the series great though is that Milo... dosen't ever angst about having murphy's law. You'd think with his life being a constant never ending string of disaster dominos, the guy would give up or we'd have one episode of him bedguging all he's missed out on. Instead.. Milo sees his life as an adventure, enjoys in the shenanigans he gets into and simply packs his backpack to be prepeared and keep his spleen in tact. He's a sweet, kind, optimist who helps people no matter what and dosen't let his curse get him down or stop him from living his life. It's milo that makes the show this good, having to both work around his jinx as well as many an adventure coming from people's reaction to him: From his love intrest Amanda intitally avoiding him due to being a perfectionist only to let him in more once she realizes what a kind guy he is, to the local security guard played byc hristan slater being an absolute dick to him, we see how it impacts his life.. but how he also enjoys his life regardless.

The series also has it's own perry equilvent, Dakota and Cavendish, who genuinely drive the seasons story arcs, two time policeman and ambigously gay duo who try to prevent pistachos from being destroyed.. then do the opposite once i'ts clear it'll cause the end of the world. They add to the story.

What puts this show up here, and way above phineas is that it's not afraid of change: the basic status who dosen't, but the show has a story arc for each season, characters grow and change with Zack getting more used to the chaos around his bestie, the relationship with amanda I mentioned, and most importantly Dakota and Cavindish finding out about milo fairly early on and vice versa, allowing their plots to intersect. It's also really damn funny.

Honestly the show's only this low because the top 6 are REALLY that good.. and because season 2 kinda crams Dr. Doofinschrmitz in there on what feels heavily like an executive mandate. Sometims he cab be a bit overbearing.. but the show's still up this high because frankly, Doof was the best part of his previous show and still gets a LOT of great material, paticuarlly this bit.

Also his friend there is Jeff. Jeff is a man who lives underground. He's great. And this series is, badly underated. I can't wait to see these characters again as it's been directly said that while their tabling it for the first two seasons apperances by characters from the previous two shows aren't off the table for hamster and gretel, they just learned from this one to wait, but while I wait.. what we got.. is still damn magical.

6. Kim Possible Created by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle 2002-2007 4 Seasons, 82 Episodes, 2 Movies, 1 Live Action Reboot Film

Kim Possible was one of my faviorite shows as a kid, and for good reason. Even over two decades later, the show still holds up as a smart, hilarious, and well done spy show. I also will gladly count it as part of the teen superhero boom as it hits a lot of those tropes too.

The setup however is nicely unique: Rather than work for a big spy orginzation (Though she does freelance in a few episodes for SHIELD expy Global Justice), or for money or what you'd expect from a world class adventuerer and super spy, Kim is just an above average teen whose fairly smart, popular and really damn good at both gymnastics and kicking people who does the job because it's the right thing to do and her organization is really just four people: herself, Wade, a child progidey who finds jobs for her, Ron, her best friend, eventual love interest, and overly panicky but loveable goofus, and Ron's pet Rufus who counts because he saves their lives quite a bit simply by being in ron's pocket and being smart enough. He's also a naked mole rat and the reason I know those exist.

While the show has a strong supporting cast with screen legends Gary Gole and Jean Smart as Kim's Rocket Science and Neurosurgeon parents, her annoying twin brothers, her sarcastic best girl friend monique, her annoying rival bonnie and my personal faviorite her authorative yet still resonable and utterly hilarious teacher Mr. Barkin, played by my boy Patrick Warburton, one of it's biggest strengths is Kim's Rogue's gallery.

Like I said with americna dragon a lot of the weakness for these teen hero shows is that they genuinely only have one or two major foes that are actually you know.. memorable. In contrast Kim has a LOT of intresting and fun villians of the week, not a huge pool but enough to keep it intresting with plenty of fun one offs. The main one is Dr. Drakken, played by John Dimaggio in one of his best parts and Shego, played by Nicolle Sulivan in her best role, an over the top , hammy shortsighted blue mad scientest and his snarky assitant who does most of the punching and is easily kim's physical equal. The two show up the most out of Kim's rogues, and while this on paper could get reptitive the two's banter is great, they play off our heroes fantastically, and they frankly never seemed to run out of great schemes for Dr. D to do.

There were other greats too, my personal faviorites being Senior Senior Senior and Senior Senior Junior, character actor Ricardo Montalban in his best role as a rich old man who after accidently blacking out paris, takes ron's suggestion he had all the makings of a super villian to heart and using his vast wealth to arch our heroes for fun while Junior.. badly dosen't want any part of this. Ther'es tons more I could gush about from DNAmy to the bebes, to my boy Frugal Lucre, a guy who works at a wallmart expy and barely spends money on his arching suplies.

The show's other weapon is it's writing: it's clever, hilarious, and the main duo are incredibly likeable: Kim is incredibly compitent but just as prone to teen angst as anyone her age, while Ron is incredibly panicky and goofy but far more compitent than he seems or he thinks himself to be. Our leads, Kristy Carlson Romano and va god Will Fridle in my faviorite role of his, have an effortless chemstriy between them, even before it turns romantic. You see how valuable their friendship is and how much they need each other even when they bicker.. and it turning romantic just feels.. natural. There's a risk there, and i'll likely go more into tha twhen I eventually cover so the drama (Either later this year if I can squeeze it in or early next year), but needless to say their the gold standard for friends to lovers and I love them.

The show is just.. damn good and worth checking out if you haven't. It's on Disney+ , all of it including the reboot film which is.. alright. not as good as the series but thanks to great casting and the creators involvment , still solid. Call it, beep it, reach it, it's a masterpiece and I badly hope those revivial rumors are true as i'd love to see this cast as adults.

5. Amphibia Created by Matt Braly 2019-2022 3 Seasons, 58 Episodes

Anoyone whose seem this blog before probably saw this coming. I mean I covered two whole seasons of the show and deeply love it's main cast. And Maddie. God bless my creepy frog daughter. So it being this high up isn't a huge shock.. but damn if it dosen't deserve it. Amphibia isn't perfect: some of the one off episodes, even those important later, aren't the best... but the show still plays one of the best long games in animation. The character arcs are well set up from the get go and we follow our lead Anne Boonchuy from reckless and irresponsible teen plunked into a frog world to a strong empathetic heroine who has to save both worlds from a tyrant and his abusive computer dad. Along the way there's betrayal, slice of life shenanigans, and lots of cleverly done worldbuilding. And some padding. There's just a touch padding. But the strong character arcs not just for Anne but her friends (With Sasha being my easy faviorite but Marcy not exactly far behind and complex and engaging enough to get her own spinoff journal), found family and even her earth family. It's a beautifully done three act story: what seems like a lonnnng time spent in the rural town of Wartwood ends up not only buliding up the show's supporting cast but characters who are vital to the world's salvation later. The second season shows how far anne has come while also building out the world, continuing Sasha's arc as she spirals further and giving us the glory that is marcy, cumilating in season 3, a fantastic season that reverses the premise to amazing effect and ends with a truly satisfying conclusion.. even if SOME of the getting there is messy. Hey it's #5 for a reason.

IT's a well built, hilarious, and heartfelt human into swamp water story, and one of my faviorites. I only don't say TOO much as I want anyon ewho hasn't to try this themselves. Amphibia is a masterpiece and if you haven't seen it it's WELL worth the binge with one of the best voice casts in animation (Something that's really true for everything from far out), really choice world building, and a satsifying ending. This section may of been short but damn if i don't love this show with a lot of my heart.

4. Gravity Falls Created by Alex Hirsch 2012-2016 2 Seasons, 40 Episodes

Another fairly obvious pick.. but one I weirdly HAVEN'T covered on this blog. I'll really have to fix that next year. Still just because something's obvious dosen't make it any less true. Gravity Falls is easily one of the most influental animated series of the 2010's, right up there with adventure time in kicking off the animation renaissance of that era and several of it's crew, including Matt Braly from the previous entry and a certain someone else coming up, going on to make stellar shows of their own.

It's rep and influence is well earned: Gravity Falls, like, as i've realized writing this, EVERY show on this list has a very simple elvator pitch: two kids spending the summer with their weird elderly uncle at his toursist trap get into paranormal shenanigans: Dipper as he tries to unwrap the mysteries of their temproary home and Mable as she tries to make friends, find a boy to smooch and genuinely ambles through life. She also gets a pig.

The simple setup belies not only a fairly intriguing mystery with a truly amazing twist halfway through season 2, but a fun arc villian in LIttle Gideon, the con artist next door, town hero and phony psychic, but a one of a kind, memorable and all time great vilian in Bill Cipher, a little triangle man who also happens to be a mad nightmare god trying to get into our dimension whose Chucky levels of deeply disturbing and terrifying as he is incredibly funny and charastmatic.

The rest of the cast is no slouch: Dipper and Mable are incredibly likeable, Wendy is great, played by personal faviorite of mine Linda Cardenlli and criminally underused and Soos, voiced by Hirsch along with Stan, Bill and MANY other characters, is a loveable dum dum 20 something who treats our heroes like surrogate siblings.

The real star of course, and the show stealling heart of the show is Stan Pines, the kids corrupt uncle and one of the most hilarious, and once we learn his deal heartbreaking and suprisingly complex, characters in all of animation. This show is on this list on it's own merits but woudln't nearly be so high without stan, a constant laugh machine, quote factory and powerhouse performance by Hirsch, who despite being new to voice acting steps into it like he's done this for decades. From teaching a bear to drive, to wondering if it's wrong to punch a child to "yes yes burn the child" and of course his greatest folly

Stan constantly boosts the show by existing. Add in strong character ties, a compelling mystery and, like most shows this high up a hell of a finale, and you have a true classic that understadnably changed animation forever.

Also i'm pretty sure Stan killed at least two people in that clip. No one ever talks about that. I mean I knew he had a body count but still.

3. Recess Created by Paul Germaine and Joe Ansolabehere 1997-2001 4 Seasons, 65 Episodes, 4 Movies

Recess is the oldest work on this list, ending just before KP and American Dragon started (though it'd air long into their runs as this show ran forever and rightfully so). It was also part of my childhood, airing long after it finished and being tender the whole way through.

Recess is a masterwork: while many a show stuck with me from childhood this is one that thinking back I can remember the episodes vividly, and given my memory is spotty that says something. It's a show with a lot of style, having it's characters dressed out of the 50s and 60s, with a cold war subtext I never had, but keeping it in the present to relate to kids when it's airing. It creates a vibe tha'ts both of it's time (the monstickers ep is very much of the pokemon boom), and timeless (kids STILL collect pokemon cards and despite some morons best efforts have recess and still form little clicks).

It takes two simple things kids grapple with, unfair teachers and authority figures and cliques and social circles and simply blows it up to be as big as it was in our heads: I remember having epic duels with the kids I played with , wars, whole conflicts and recess meets things on that level: the world of recess is one where the playground has a lineage of kings, the kindergartners are a feral tribe, two kids can reguarly acess shovels, and the local snitch is some sort of combination of gollumn and a weasel while keeping it just grounded enough for adults to relate to. Where rebelling against authority involves elaborate heists.

It's a perfect kind of show for kids: it meets them on their level, as it did when I was a kid.. but is smart enough that as an adult you can still enjoy it. It helps that most of the cast is three dimensional:

TJ is a loveable scamp.. but a good chunk of his schemes aren't just to stick it to the man or get some reward for him and his running crew, but to help kids. TJ's just as likely to break out of detention as he is to help a kid this week simply because they need it. He'll even help Randall, the local snitch I mentioned, despite his better judgment, simply because it's the right thing to do. He'll have to be talked into it because.. it's Randall. Randall sucks, But he'll do it. Spinelli is the tomboy of the group and will fight everyone, but has a good side to her and struggles with being a girl when she relates more to being masculine, something that's only become more relevant with time and can be read a lot of ways. Mikey is the big kid.. but a soft kind giant who deals with being sterotyped for his side. Vince is the sports kid... and okay most of his plots are around that, but we do get neat bits like him being ashamed his brother is basically urkel and having to learn his brother still slaps because unlike Urkel he dosen't harass women. Gretchen is a massive nerd, and the first role in Ashely Johnson's long and storied career, but also gladly paticipates in the schemes, has a lot of heart, and struggles.

And finally we have my boy Gus, the new kid at the start and the one I related most to being a nerdy nervous wreck myself: but he's gladly accepted into the rest of the gang, and finds a home at long last after moving around his whole life. He's got layers to him: he's a military brat, he's never really had stablility int erms of friendship, and he's often put upon, having to deal with King Bob being a jerk to him for being the new kid or bullies. Yet he's got a good heart despite being the nervous one of the group the biggest heart of them and will gladly stand up for himself when the chips are down.

Not only are these 6 fleshed out and relatable.. but they have a wholesome friendship. They'll fight sometimes, kids do, but despite being vastly diffrent people who on paper shoudln't really be hanging together.. you never doubt they like each other or would drop everything to help one another. Mostly because a good chunk of episodes are just that. Gretchen and Gus are never picked on by their friends.. teased a little, maybe , Spenelli be like that, but these six kids love and respect each other on level that's just heartwarming. You never doubt for a second these six are friends, even with Gus not having their shared history. He just fits because they like him, he's willing to do what's right, and he's a good kid. TJ is brave and noble, Spnelli is tough but dosen't punch down, Vince is cool, Mikey is insightful and kind, Gretchen is smart and clever and Gus ahs a good heart. You see the good they see in each other and it shows our diffrences.. make us better. There may be cliques at recess, but when the chips are down, TJ can get them to work together.

The series also just had a knack for creating really memorable episodes that feel entirely relatable: a trading card style boom leads to TJ becoming a rags to riches tycoon, swinger girl who always swings trying to do what all kids did and reach the other side leads to a tale about things we can't explain when she seemingly dissapears, a simple punishment leads to TJ"s teacher psychologically torturing him, a fake swear word leads to an ENTIRE COURT CASE, all stuff that's somehow realistic. The show's premise was a tool box that allowed them to tell a ton of diffrent stories, a lot of which with really adult, meaningful lessons, and the show never really got old. It only ended because Disney's attempts to continue it simply didn't work out and even with the 5th grade eps as an epilogue, it has a hell o a finale in the movie. The whole run's on disney+ and I.. really need to revisit it.. and to review it next year if possible.

2. The Owl House Created by Dana Terrace 2020-2023 3 Seasons, 43 Episodes

Let's face it even if the article image hadn't tipped my hat here.. this one being high up .. was a given. I've gushed about this show at length, covering it as season's 2 and 3 ran out, written fanfiction on this blog, and since I started doing them the show's always ranked decently on my 20 best animated episodes lists I do each year, and will likely have a spot this year for the finale. My love of this show is something I don't remotely hide and have no reason to. So it being #2 on this list is an obvious pick.. but one i'm happy to be obvious with. In fact with these last two their pretty nearly tied in my heart and it was one inching out the other.

And the weird thing is.. I didn't even watch all of season 1. I watched the first half much as I could, but while I liked it I didn't get really heavy into it. The characters were charming, the designs great and it was nice to have a show where Wendy Malick was not only voice acting, but had a MAJOR role that really let her show off her chops. I've always loved her and it was a lot of fun to get a roll this good. It was also nice to have Alex Hirsch back. The show wasn't without style, a compelling lead, a hell of a romantic arc or other attractions.. but it wasn't till later in season 1 when classicsl ike encahnting grom fright and the finale REALLY made the show into what it became.

This lead to season 2.. which is one of the best seasons of television i've ever seen, and tha'ts with the fact that halfway through they had to massively reorganize the plot to fit into 10 episodes and 3 specials, something that's only really noticable in hindsight. And i'm not hyperbolizing: the show was good before.. but season 2 enriches everything, giving the characters more depth, paticuarlly king who goes from an afterthought in season 1 to the emotoinal core of the season and Alex Hirsch's best roll... which given Stan above says a LOT. Season 2 takes the foundations of the show and really plays with them, with pretty much everyone getting a deeper character, the school stuff forced into season 1 downplayed into just showing up as needed, allowing for way more story freedom and belos increased presence and hell of a true self reveal giving us one of Disney's greatest villians. Add in hunter as a new main cast member and best good soft boy, and you have a riviting saga that kept me enthralled the whole season. Even the weaker episodes add something, and the result is something that can't be topped: a show tha'ts funny, heartfelt, unmistakably queer and unquestionably well crafted.

It also managed to pull off one hell of an ending, not only introducing my murder child who learns his lesson the collector, but doing so with only three specials to wrap up what they shoul'dve had a season to. It's a show that like Gravity Falls before it is bound to really shake up animation and influence many a show to come an dI can't wait to see the results. A true epic about finding yourself, religious indoctrination and eldrich owl and tube shaped parasites, this show is something that may never be topped and was an utter joy while it lasted. Hoot.

1. Ducktales Based on DuckTales by Jim Magon /Uncle Scrooge by Carl Barks Developed by Matt Youngberg and Francisco Angones 2017-2021 3 Seasons, 69 Episodes Like #2... #1 is a show my love of has been transparently obvious: Covering season 3 started this blog, i've covered seasons 1 and 2's story arcs, and done a ton of other duck stuff from a full three cabs retrospective, to donald shorts to the very duck adjacent goofy movie. While I haven't done as much duck content this year, a shame really, and still need to finish my life and times retrospective some day... my love of Disney's Ducks has been something i've had since college and this series not only revitalized it but sent it into the fucking stratosphere with the gold standard for reboots. DuckTales is the only show here based on an existing IP, but still manages to be super creative with it. Matt and Frank took nearly 100 years of Duck stories (not hyperbole, Donald turns the big 1-0-0 himself next year), taking from the legendary barks comics, the worthy successor rosa comics, the giant pile of European duck comics, the shorts, the movies, anything Donald , Scrooge or the Boys had been in, every bit of the disney afternoon, and everything else they could shove in to creat the defintive duck universe: Something that fully and lovingly respects what cames before but uses it all to create something fresh and wholly it's own. The cast is a nice mix of reinventions of old characters and brand new ones just as good if not even better.

This can be seen well with the core cast: Scrooge only gets changed slightly, but those slight changes were BADLY needed: Scrooge is still a guy with flaws: he can get far too focused on the goal ahead and not the human cost, is egotstical as all hell, and disconected from the common person. He can raid a tomb better than anyone, sorry Indy and Lara, but god help him if he tries doing an interview or produce a film. It's a nice ballance: he's out of touch and crotchety as usual, but far less of an abusive asshole. It's also clear that while the bin stores a lot of his treasures, and he won't take one if it's owners need it, being more than happy to give Djinn his family's lamp for instance, with it only being a whole thing because Louie sold it. It paints him more as a historian than a theif and robber baron, while still keeping the nice flaws that make him who he is: he's still cheap, he just won't underpay his staff and in fact mostly recurits people other employers give up on for being too weird.

The rest of the cast is given a more extensive but needed overhall: My boy Donald is less of the likeably selfish ass he usually is, instead a loveable dad who still destroys everything he touches, but spends the first two seasons living entirely for his kids. He's more mature while still being the idiot we love.

Everyone else.. is a huge change as I said. The biggest and best.. is the boys. Usually Huey, Dewey or Louie are a hive mind of goody goods.. or obnoxious boys. Depends on what the story needs. It always annoyed me that when you have three characters there their not at all distinct and there's no real need for them. Thankfully the creators of this show understood that and thus evolved the boys into three seperate people: Huey is more like the barks comics versions, a junior woodchuck, close to his mom and uncles, and exitable.. but with a nice fine pace of neurodivergence and anxiety that not only makes him relatable to me but a fairly likeable kid: one scared of change but with all the potetial in the world. Dewey takes ab it after the more sterotypically 80s moments of the boys in the show, being a rad dude with a penchant for acting out.. but instead of a sexist bully or jerk like the boys could be, Dewey is a pure theater kid who badly wants attention and has no impulse control. He's basically Hank Venture , age 12 and i'm here for it. Finally Louie takes the boys more scheming moments from the comics and shows and boils it down into a gen z slacker who wants to work smater not harder, and not work at all if needed, who evolves from heartless lazy schemer and evil triplet to a keep observer whose just mildly shady.

While the barks 5 are all acounted for we also get nice overhauls for the ducktales three original core characters: Webby gets the best, going from just "small baby child babY" to a hyperactive girl who is easily near scrooge's level in adventureeing.. but has no idea how to socalize and still loves sparkles. She's empathetic, brave, and a contrast to what woudl turn out to be her old man: instead of growing to shut people out , she starts out badly wanting to let everyone end. Beakley likewise gets a glow up from "old lady stertotype whose constantly flustered" to "badass british former secret agent, only sane man and gender swapped brock sampson" , with Launchpad being made a loveable doofus, but still compitent since Donald's here to be the everyman.

The cast.. only gets better as it goes: Ducktales took a huge leap and decided "Hey what ABOUT the triplet's mom" turning della from a question mark that was answered all of once across nearly a century.. to a character just as vallad as her brother and uncle who have said near century on her: Della is Donald's opposite: brave, confident.. but a mess herself and stuck on the moon for half the series. Paget Brewster does a phenominal job.

I emphasise the series characters.. because tha'ts it's heart: it has solid plots, revamps and what not.. but it's a giant, instnatly loveable cast of characters: The side cast is MASSIVE pulling from all over duck history: Fehtry makes his debut, Gladstone is taken from easily one of my most hated characters in the comics to a far more loveable schister, Rockerduck finally debuts, Glomgold is turned from "Scrooge but evil" to someone badly trying to copy scrooge and the most glorious weirdo in all of fiction. Seriously Keith Fergusons glomgold is fucking majestic, and while he's never really a major threat his overinfalted ego, lack of planning, obessions with sharks and bombs and general haminess made him one of the best parts of this. You also get Magica as a genuine threat , and a mess later, Scooge's parents having a more active roll, Fenton having more of his own personality and weird swing for the fences complete and utter makeovers like Doofus Drake going from doofy kid to a very weird child who needs therapy, Donald's neighbor nemisis being his therapist or taking the zombie from voodoo hoodo, one of th emost racist and questionable things in duck comics history.. and instead making him into an unstopable juggernaut frankenstein curse ont he rich.

And of course the original cast.. is impecable. My adopted Daugther Lena is the clear standout, having covered her whole story arc on here and loving the character a lot, A cool teen TM who ends up being a traumtized girl badly needing a home, her stoic and neurodivergent sister violet, the egon to her venkman, fuckboy Mark Beaks, great final boss Bradford, gay icon Storkules, gay icon Selene, everyone's least faviorite dick Zeus.. I really coudl go on for some time and easily could but this article has taken a while. The show just had a knack for memorable loveable characters and making this world feel truly alive and humungous and scope, with gorgeous art designs.

It also had a great throughline, with Scrooge going from a man who pushed everything a way.. to the man who truly has everything, everyone growing along the way, and a finale that while a bit messy and leaving us hungering for more, really got to the hart of the show: a family that comes together after being torn apart and adds a LOT to them. It's a show unlike any other, and was truly the dream of a life time.. and I coudln't put anything else at #1. Thanks for reading.

[mariacallous]

If you were asked to guess which prestigious film-making duo had spent their career scratching around desperately for cash, trying to wriggle out of paying their cast and crew, ping-ponging between lovers, and having such blood-curdling bust-ups that their neighbours called the police, it might be some time before “Merchant Ivory” sprang to mind. But a new warts-and-all documentary about the Indian producer Ismail Merchant and the US director James Ivory makes it clear that the simmering passions in their films, such as the EM Forster trilogy of A Room With a View, Maurice and Howards End, were nothing compared to the scalding, volatile ones behind the camera.

From their initial meeting in New York in 1961 to Merchant’s death during surgery in 2005, the pair were as inseparable as their brand name, with its absence of any hyphen or ampersand, might suggest. Their output was always more eclectic than they got credit for. They began with a clutch of insightful Indian-set dramas including Shakespeare-Wallah, their 1965 study of a troupe of travelling actors, featuring a young, pixieish Felicity Kendal. From there, they moved on to Savages, a satire on civilisation and primitivism, and The Wild Party, a skewering of 1920s Hollywood excess that pipped Damien Chazelle’s Babylon to the post by nearly half a century.

It was in the 1980s and early 1990s, though, that Merchant Ivory became box-office titans, cornering the market in plush dramas about repressed Brits in period dress. Those literary adaptations launched the careers of Hugh Grant, Helena Bonham Carter, Rupert Graves and Julian Sands, and helped make stars of Emma Thompson and Daniel Day-Lewis. Most were scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who had been with them, on and off, since their 1963 debut The Householder; she even lived in the same apartment building in midtown New York. Many were scored by Richard Robbins, who was romantically involved with Merchant while also holding a candle for Bonham Carter. These films restored the costume drama to the position it had occupied during David Lean’s heyday. The roaring trade in Jane Austen adaptations might never have happened without them. You could even blame Merchant Ivory for Bridgerton.

Though the pictures were uniformly pretty, making them was often ugly. Money was always scarce. Asked where he would find the cash for the next movie, Merchant replied: “Wherever it is now.” After Jenny Beavan and John Bright won an Academy Award for the costumes in A Room With a View, he said:“I got you your Oscar. Why do I need to pay you?” As Ivory was painstakingly composing each shot, Merchant’s familiar, booming battle cry would ring out: “Shoot, Jim, shoot!”

Heat and Dust, starring Julie Christie, was especially fraught. Only 30 or 40% of the budget was in place by the time the cameras started rolling in India in 1982; Merchant would rise at dawn to steal the telegrams from the actors’ hotels so they didn’t know their agents were urging them to down tools. Interviewees in the documentary concede that the producer was a “conman” with a “bazaar mentality”. But he was also an incorrigible charmer who dispensed flattery by the bucketload, threw lavish picnics, and wangled entrées to magnificent temples and palaces. “You never went to bed without dreaming of ways to kill him,” says one friend, the journalist Anna Kythreotis. “But you couldn’t not love him.”

Stephen Soucy, who directed the documentary, doesn’t soft-pedal how wretched those sets could be. “Every film was a struggle,” he tells me. “People were not having a good time. Thompson had a huge fight with Ismail on Howards End because she’d been working for 13 days in a row, and he tried to cancel her weekend off. Gwyneth Paltrow hated every minute of making Jefferson in Paris. Hated it! Laura Linney was miserable on The City of Your Final Destination because the whole thing was a shitshow. But you watch the films and you see no sense of that.”

Soucy’s movie features archive TV clips of the duo bickering even in the midst of promoting a film. “Oh, they were authentic all right,” he says. “They clashed a lot.”The authenticity extended to their sexuality. The subject was not discussed publicly until after Ivory won an Oscar for writing Call Me By Your Name: “You have to remember that Ismail was an Indian citizen living in Bombay, with a deeply conservative Muslim family,” Ivory told me in 2018. But the pair were open to those who knew them. “I never had a sense of guilt,” Ivory says, pointing out that the crew on The Householder referred to him and Merchant as “Jack and Jill”.

Soucy had already begun filming his documentary when Ivory published a frank, fragmentary memoir, Solid Ivory, which dwells in phallocentric detail on his lovers before and during his relationship with Merchant, including the novelist Bruce Chatwin. It was that book which emboldened Soucy to ask questions on screen – including about “the crazy, complicated triangle of Jim, Ismail and Dick [Robbins]” – that he might not otherwise have broached.

The documentary is most valuable, though, in making a case for Ivory as an underrated advocate for gay representation. The Remains of the Day, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker-winning novel about a repressed butler, may be the duo’s masterpiece, but it was their gay love story Maurice that was their riskiest undertaking. Set in the early 20th century, its release in 1987 could scarcely have been timelier: it was the height of the Aids crisis, and only a few months before the Conservative government’s homophobic Section 28 became law.

“Ismail wasn’t as driven as Jim to make Maurice,” explains Soucy. “And Ruth was too busy to write it. But Jim’s dogged determination won the day. They’d had this global blockbuster with A Room With a View, and he knew it could be now or never. People would pull aside Paul Bradley, the associate producer, and say: ‘Why are they doing Maurice when they could be making anything?’ I give Jim so much credit for having the vision and tenacity to make sure the film got made.”

Merchant Ivory don’t usually figure in surveys of queer cinema, though they are part of its ecosystem, and not only because of Maurice. Ron Peck, who made the gay classic Nighthawks, was a crew member on The Bostonians. Andrew Haigh, director of All of Us Strangers, landed his first industry job as a poorly paid assistant in Merchant’s Soho office in the late 1990s; in Haigh’s 2011 breakthrough film Weekend, one character admits to freeze-framing the naked swimming scene in A Room With a View to enjoy “Rupert Graves’s juddering cock”. Merchant even offered a role in Savages to Holly Woodlawn, the transgender star of Andy Warhol’s Trash, only for her to decline because the fee was so low.

The position of Merchant Ivory at the pinnacle of British cinema couldn’t last for ever. Following the success of The Remains of the Day, which was nominated for eight Oscars, the brand faltered and fizzled. Their films had already been dismissed by the director Alan Parker as representing “the Laura Ashley school” of cinema. Gary Sinyor spoofed their oeuvre in the splendid pastiche Stiff Upper Lips (originally titled Period!), while Eric Idle was plotting his own send-up called The Remains of the Piano. The culture had moved on.

There was still an appetite for upper-middle-class British repression, but only if it was funny: Richard Curtis drew on some of Merchant Ivory’s repertory company of actors (Grant, Thompson, Simon Callow) for a run of hits beginning with Four Weddings and a Funeral, which took the poshos out of period dress and plonked them into romcoms.

The team itself was splintering. Merchant had begun directing his own projects. When he and Ivory did collaborate, the results were often unwieldy, lacking the stabilising literary foundation of their best work. “Films like Jefferson in Paris and Surviving Picasso didn’t come from these character-driven novels like Forster, James or Ishiguro,” notes Soucy. “Jefferson and Picasso were not figures that audiences warmed to.” Four years after Merchant’s death, Ivory’s solo project The City of Your Final Destination became mired in lawsuits, including one from Anthony Hopkins for unpaid earnings.

Soucy’s film, though, is a reminder of their glory days. It may also stoke interest in the movies among young queer audiences whose only connection to Ivory, now 95, is through Call Me By Your Name. “People walk up to Jim in the street to shake his hand and thank him for Maurice,” says Soucy. “But I also wanted to include the more dysfunctional side of how they were made. Hopefully it will be inspiring to young film-makers to see that great work can come out of chaos.”

[marybeatriceofmodena]

Two of the biggest problems with HOTD's costuming is that it's simultaneously *too* similar to GOT, despite being centuries ago, and all over the place. Clothing would have been similar within a time period but class and cultural differences would also influence style. Both Alicients had costumes that doesn't indicate a cohesive Hightower look beyond green. With ROP, the costumes had rhyme and reason because the designer designed for each culture and actually worked on the Hobbit movies too.

Yeah, like, one thing Michelle Clapton did very well in GoT was making the different regions in Westeros and Essos look distinctive, and stay coherent about it. I'd argue the quality went down in the later seasons, but the basic ideas and concepts were there throughout, and for the most part, they had decent wigs! And keep in mind season 1 of GoT didn't have that big of a budget and it still looked better than HotD!

Like, I can see a few Tudor references here and there (Alicent has a veil that looks like a French hood from time to time, Rhaenyra has a gown that looks like an Elizabethan era dress with the white collar and all), but I don't really get why it's "Tudor-inspired", given the ASOIAF universe is basically an AU of medieval England (Aegon I is William the Conqueror, Rhaenyra is Empress Matilda, ASOIAF itself is the Wars of the Roses). The styling is just not different enough for me to really notice how it changed from one period to another - and you don't need to make it more simplistic, just give me something. Hell, they could have gotten away with a Roman-inspired look where Rhaenyra, Rhaenys and Laena wear hairstyles like this:

And if you want Alicent to be a Livia Drusilla type where she presents herself as a "traditional woman" who doesn't have time to look frivolous, you could go with something like this:

Seriously, have fun with it! You could also have the Hightowers with the traditional Roman inspired fashion, and have the Targaryens decked out like Byzantine emperors. Like, you'd THINK the fall of the Targaryen dynasty would lead to huge changes in dress, because the Targs would probably opt for Valyrian fashions that the court would have tried to emulate, and then Robert Baratheon basically throws all of that out of the window and the "fashionable" style is now pretty much dictated by Cersei, since she's the queen.

Kate Hawley meanwhile is the costume designer for RoP, and she did design for opera, AND IT SHOWS. She also did the costumes for Crimson Peak - which is probably one of the best I've ever seen in a period drama, and I'm not even kidding. Take for instance Edith and Lucille - Edith is a rich heiress, so she wears silhouettes that were in vogue at the time and has a Gibson Girl look to her:

And even then, even if the silhouette is pretty much prefectly accurate, she's still able to have fun with it! The fabrics used here weren't necesarily used in the Edwardian era, but the idea was to use some that looked similar to butterfly wings, and it works!

Lucille, meanwhile, wears gowns with a silhouette that was in vogue in the 1870s-1880s, with the bustles and all, but not anymore. It looks out of place during the evening party where she plays the piano for everyone, and her clothing is one of the things that awakens Edith's father's suspicion. It would be one thing if she was an old lady (since they tended to wear dresses that had gone of fashion 20-30 years ago, hence why in P&P 2005, you'll see Mrs. Bennet wearing a rococo dress at the Netherfield ball), but Lucille isn't that old.

And the thing is, the Sharpes are low on money, but fashion was meant to be sustainable at that time and Lucille could easily adjust her dresses to have a more fashionable silhouette, and use the removed fabric for other stuff, instead of having to buy something new. She chooses not to, and it's deliberate, probably because the dresses she wears belonged to her mother.

See? That's thought and care right there.

Meanwhile, see this dress? Alicent Hightower wishes she looked that good:

And the thing is, with all the pleating, the belt thingy she has, it would be so easy to mess up and have her dress look frumpy. The belt is perfectly adjusted and provides the watery effect it's supposed to have, the pleating is nice, and the dress actually looks like it was made specifically for her. Which makes sense, because Galadriel is a Noldo princess and she'd absolutely have her clothing tailor-made, and have it be from the best Elven seamstresses you can find. It looks so simple at first, but the more you look at it, the more you see all the little details it has. And they didn't mess up her hair, either (and anyone who's read the Silmarillon knows Galadriel's hair is important!). They used Morfydd Clark's natural hair, added extensions, made sure there were golden and silver undertones, and voilà.

And the costume department did their homework when it comes to the design - they took inspiration from pre-Raphaelite artists when it comes to the Elves, and also a little bit for Númenor as well - which makes sense given the connection they have to Elves, but they still look distinctive, with plenty of little details referring to Elros' origins here and there. Bronwyn has a dress that looks different from the other villagers, yes, but given she's a healer, she'd probably know how to dye her clothes and would dress more lightly due to spending a lot of time outside looking for herbs. The Dwarves look VERY different from the rest, and Disa has some great outfits, but you can tell their clothes became the way they were given they spend more of their time underground. The Harfoots seem to be wearing stuff they found while travelling, since they don't seem to have equipment to weave cloth and they often seem like they're wearing stuff that's too big for them. And I'm only scratching the surface here.

[discluded]

Can you believe that we thought the MS press tour would be MA showing up in different Dior outfits but and it's just them in the MS shirts every single day.

Strategical I can understand why they did it (reaching out to regular folk(especially to an older audience), promo more adapted to the locals in smaller provinces, more focus on the actors and the movie vs fashion, economical in the wardrobe perspective) but I am not sure why they couldn't just style them in the shirts differently in each stop or just let the actors wear their own clothes but that are from a budget friendly price point if they don't want to appear too flashy...like their pictures from each event are so boring and you can't differentiate one event to the next which likely results in less press for them as for the press they all look like the same day making the picture basically worthless after the first day.

putting these together 💖

A couple of things I randomly found out (more like realized) in the past couple of weeks:

Bangkok has a population of 10.7M people (for reference, New York which is the densest city by population in the US has 8.5M people. Of major Asian countries, Shanghai is 26M, Mumbai is 20.6M, Manila is 13.4M, Tokyo is 14M, Seoul is 9.8M, and HCMC is 9M people.

Thailand has a population of 71.6M people, which means the city of Bangkok itself makes up 15% of the country's population. The only city similar on the list is SK with 51.7M, or 16% of the country's population. (I do want to note Seoul is much smaller in surface area than Bangkok, which does mean Seoul is also denser)

SK is approximately 100,032sqkm. Thailand is, however, 513,120sqkm. Both of the cities are marginal in size compared to their countries' total surface area, so looking at non capital city surface area, BOC has to promote in 5x large of a space compared to if a Korean company were to do the same with their film.

I mean BOC going out and doing this kind of promo in these less urban regions is losing money for them, even if it's in terms of cost-benefit analysis of time itself. But I think overall the project is a labor of love for Mile and Apo, especially. And as Apo said, the way to earn money as an actor is not through working as an actor, but sponsorships and promoting brands.

Of course they don't want it to be a total sunken cost and for people to see this movie, but they made this movie for the pride of Thailand, not just for people living in Bangkok. I think getting to see glamorous movie stars you can see on the big screen in your town is enough, they don't need to be wearing weird, inaccessible Dior clothing. I guess maybe they just feel it would be more fair if all these cities got the same experience. Even if it's boring for us, it's probably each town's local newspaper reporting on their arrival and promotion as a pretty big deal to the region. I even saw some Thai fans organizing to try to sponsor tickets for helping get more locals into these shows because they recognize that 220 thb (~$6), the cost of a movie ticket, might be a lot for some of these families.

And for their inter fans, it's also education about these other cities in Thailand and bringing in business to local store owners from local fans who are following them on their journey.

I don't want to be too down about it, and it doesn't bother me really they aren't dressing differently between different stops... we've gotten so many amazing outfits from their Man Suang press tour already. Just like it doesn't really bother me that them doing this kind of promo isn't going to generate a huge amount of revenue for them. Some things money can't buy, and pride is one of them.

[hologramcowboy]

I can think of two reasons why Danneel is doing CrossRoads con in March. The first is she’s going for the same reason Jensen is: they need the money. We know networks only pay for the first ~6 episodes of a season unless the show proves to be successful, and it’s up to the production company to find the rest of the funding. And we also know that CMP has struggled to get investors since the very beginning, and there’s no way TW is getting more network funding based on how things are going (41% audience loss by episode 2? Ouch) so it’s up to CMP to finance the rest of the episodes. Considering that the prequel is CMP’s only source of potential income, the Ackles have to open up their own wallets // Mommy Ackles wallet. And not only are they hemorrhaging money on the production company front, they don’t have enough money coming in to keep up their current lifestyle. Probably should have invested the money they were given in the CMP deal in the company instead of buying a fancy car, Colorado mansion (which they’re selling/sold), and a new face for Elta. Oh wait, they spared some money for Danneel to buy the rights to some books, what great business people. I do would trust Danneel to pick future IPs to work with🙄

The majority of Jensen’s work post SPN has been guest star roles and voiceover work. Amazon is known for paying it’s actors horribly, so The Boys was not a big pay day between that and his limited screen time over the course of a short, 8 episode long season. Rust was/is a small production with a budget that couldn’t even cover proper accommodations for their crew workers. Plus, Jensen was a last minute hire to replace the original actor, who I believe left after they already started filming, meaning their limited budget was drained further by reshoots. Both jobs (TB and Rust) were to boost his status after being on the CW for decades rather than paycheck picks. If his role in Buddy Games 2 is anything like the first movie, it’s a very short cameo that he probably got paid the bare minimum for. Big Sky is probably his best post-SPN paycheck, but it’s nowhere near what he was making on SPN and doesn’t have the longevity/guarantee that SPN did. And it’s about to be over because I’ve heard rumors his character leaves/dies this season. Voiceover work is at an all time low pay wise, so he’s not getting huge paychecks for his WB animated universe work. Certainly more than voice actors by trade due to his name and relationship with the network (which is BS, they’re the ones who deserve his pay), but again not SPN money. Radio Company only makes money on merch, because artists make pennies on streaming platforms and you need tour and merch income to make money. And that profit depends on how much of his own (let’s be real, it’s not Steve’s) money on studio time and other expenses. Notice how in order to win a guitar, you first had to buy merch. Which is illegal, but that’s going to need a separate anon lol. He has the brewery, but breweries are horrible investments (I worked in the restaurant industry for years and have many friends who work in or own breweries) because the overhead is so high, you’re lucky to break even. And the pandemic has all by destroyed the hospitality industry. If he didn’t get the deal that allows him to sell his beer in stores, the brewery would have gone under. Something he alluded to at a con recently (will try to find the video + time stamps). Jenneel love to buy and sell real estate and call themselves house flippers, but they def do that just to afford their next McMansion. They aren’t making income on their real estate ventures. Jensen could have investments/businesses that aren’t public knowledge, but he’s proven to be a very poor business man over the years so he’s probably doesn’t have the same passive income that Jared (a great businessman) has.

And not only does Danneel not work so she’s not bringing in any money, she’s a major drain on resources. They have two different mortgages/household expenses (Jensen’s condo and the house Danneel and the kids live in…though gossip is the new “family” house was a major downsize) on top of paying for the kids schooling, their nannies, and their housekeeper. Plus their vacations and summer spent traveling on Danneel’s part. Both Jensen and Elta get cosmetic work done which isn’t cheap, plus all of the money she spends on “looking pretty” (hair cut, color and extensions, esthetician/dermatologist visits) and they both spend a ridiculous amount of money on clothes. Everything about them screams living beyond their means to try to keep up appearances.

And if it’s not money that’s prompting Danneel to show her face at a con, it’s certainly not fans. The last con she did was back when FBBC first launched, and she interacted with no one at NOLA con last fall. They’ll give her the praise she desires all without having to leave her home, you’ve seen how long they milk “content” from her for and how she moves them to tears just because they know she’s breathing potentially near Jensen. I think she’s going to the con because the only time she gets to be with Jensen (or more importantly, seen with him) is for work engagements. She can’t prove she’s still Mrs. Ackles through her Instagram anymore, so she had to find another avenue. Very reminiscent of back in the day when she would show up where Jensen was to force them into going public after years of being just friends with benefits.

Sorry that got so long! I really thought it would be a quick one 🫠

Absolutely, Jensen has been living above his means for a long time and you explained everything perfectly. The house flipping is something people do as is taking out "loans" on properties they own to increase their income even more. I forget the exact real estate terminology but anyone can research this. Except the Ackles are bad at it and yes, they ended up downsizing big time.

Please never apologize for long posts, I enjoy reading them and it's impossible to truly explain something without writing quite extensively because there are many aspects to factor in. Thank you for having the patience to share, I deeply appreciate it. 🥰

[elrondsscribe]

Ok so. It’s like 1999. You’re on tap to make a movie adaptation for a studio, just so the studio can be petty with a popular author. The material you’re being asked to adapt is not one but two long, weirdly structured, very transgressive vampire novels with a huge ensemble cast.

You’re also technically supposed to be making a sequel (?) to an existing successful adaptation of an earlier novel (that was shorter than either of the two novels you’re working with).

And you’re doing it on what is basically (for a major studio) a shoestring budget.

Are you up for the challenge?

Honestly, every structural choice in this movie makes sense to me as, like, a result of Decisions That Had To Be Made.

Like,, the LOTR movies are getting made and released around this time, so I bet there’s more mainstream tolerance of long ass genre fiction movies, but you still have a pretty limited runtime to make all this work.

So yeah, we’re cutting Magnus and we’re making Marius the mentor figure, and yeah we’re cutting like 2/3 of these other characters, and the characters we’re leaving in are absolutely getting their extended backstories cut. Yeah we’re subsuming Mekare into Maharet and making one character function as both. Yeah we’re straight washing that shit cuz it’s 2002 and we’re not that on board with The Gays (and even if we are, our audiences and/or studio aren’t).

Hey, there’s a modern-era female character in here, and she’s connected to the combined character who’s going to kill Akasha. Let’s make her the Female Protagonist, and hey, why throw her at Lestat? Why not do a love triangle pitting the Modern Girl Protag against the Awesome Queen Antag that Aaliyah Haughton is playing.

Why not make Lestat’s whole entire emotional journey about “I want me a vampire companion, and I’m getting a girlfriend to fix it?” Why not completely cut Claudia and Louis?