#they parody people who nitpick movies

[miihoshi]

Wait, people think the Cinemasins writers are serious?

[beevean]

i DON'T think AVGN is a good example and thank you for pointing it out it's fake. AVGN had addmitted most of his videos are written by other people (and pretty badly btw) and avgn confessed he isn't really into video games or movies anymore

Well, yes, it's fake. He's a character. I know that the joke got lost in time and nowadays it feels more like Rolfe winding down after taking care of his family, but the AVGN was born as a parody of a nerd who spends his time nitpicking older shitty games, a basement dweller who clings to his childhood lol. So his room is full of videogames to give that impression.

My point was that it looked less clumsy than Shankar just placing random nerd stuff on his desk only for the sake of looking like a nerd you can trust :P

[starrysharks]

today, i watched "saw 3D". it was a moving picture.

i'm surprised that they went off the rails for the most part of this movie (not in a good way) like this. firstly, this movie probably has the worst starter trap in saw history 💀 it was framed so ridiculously that i thought "oh, they're showing a fake trap that's being done as a prank or something" until the girl actually got sawed in half. even when blood got spilled i thought it would be revealed as ketchup later, and it was supposed to be a parody of how people view saw as over the top and silly.... but no that prank was legit.... the traps in general were a bit mediocre here, and the gore was really meh especially with the bright pink blood. iirc this movie and danganronpa came out in the same year which is a funny coincidence.

generally this movie was just sillier than the others and it was hard to suspend my disbelief with it. i think the breaking point was the car crash trap. hoffman killing a bunch of racists is lowkey #BASED but the way it's more or less him saying "when the lights turn off we're ALL black" is kinda funny. as well as that, the weird fanservicey parts (like the girl's outfit in the first trap) also took me out of the story.

other than that, the story of the movie was actually an interesting concept - guy fakes being a saw trap survivor and actually has to go through a saw trap, but compared to the other saw trap house guys, this one kind of blends in. also two teeth related tortures in one movie i feel like they're kinda running out of ideas (but that's just me nitpicking)... though i don't want to be too hard on this movie. my favorite trap was probably the one with his friend cale as it was pretty unique, didn't rely on gore, and had a good stressful atmosphere.

ignoring the main trap house plot, the continuous story here was pretty nice. hoffman going crazy and killing everyone is entertaining (even tho he killed jill </3), and gordon's big reveal was also cool, even tho i knew it was coming because i accidentally got spoiled. i think him looking at his severed foot at the end in the OG bathroom kinda showed how he left behind his compassion/a part of himself died, which if intentional was cool symbolism. i assume this really was supposed to be the final conclusion, so it makes sense that they had so many callbacks to the 2004 movie. but i wish they had more clues towards it besides bringing up gordon as much as possible in the previous movies.

this saw was not like the other saws i saw. people weren't lying when they said it was the worst - the story, while easy to follow along, was a bit dull and very silly (i know i've said silly a billion times i'm not good with words), and it really feels like its leaning in to the misconceptions and stereotypes that people give to these movies. however, it did show a huge plot twist that had an alright buildup and good conclusion. i'm giving it a solid 1.5/5, with .2 points added for john kramer's fire fucking fit at the book signing holy hell that shit was raw. hopefully saw 8 shows us who the other pig heads at the end were (maybe the other survivors at the therapy talk?) and also redeems the franchise.

[s10127470]

The Reason Why Modern Disney Villains Suck

I don’t think this movie needs any introduction….

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is an absolute godsend of a film. From the stunning and vibrant animation obviously inspired by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but with its own flair (heavily inspired by paintings and storybooks), to the surprisingly gripping and mature story about the value of life and coming to terms with your morality.

This film has become an immediate masterpiece among critics and audiences alike.

And one of the film’s MANY praises is in regards to its characters…..or more specifically, it’s villains.

This film has not one….but SIX villains!

This was quite impressive since….

Villains in animated films have become somewhat rare nowadays.

2. The fact that each of them were executed perfectly!

Undoubtedly most of the praises has been going to Big Jack Horner and Death, who both harken back to classic villain archetypes.

Jack Horner is a classic evil-for-the-sake-of-it villain who knows he’s a massive piece of shit and relishes in it. And although he’s incredibly comedic, he’s still treated like a legitimate threat.

and Death is a classic serious, ruthless villain who’s pretty much a force of nature and serves as the biggest obstacle to our heroes.

As a result of these god-tier villains, a lot of people have been looking back on the once-undisputed king of animated villains Disney….and their frankly pathetic villain outing over the last decade.

If you want some more context of this, I suggest watching Schaffrillas’ “So is Disney Just Never Gonna Have A Real Villain Again?”

If you want to check out real quick, here it is.

Basically, Disney’s strategy with villains since 2013 has either been poorly-executed twist villains, forces of nature with no personality, characters who act incredibly antagonistic to only end up getting undeservedly redeemed in the end, or no real villain at all.

Everyone has already gone into detail on why their villain strategy failed miserably, but no one has never really gone into detail on why they’ve been doing in the first place.

Well, I think I might know the reason why…..

Ever since the mid-to-late 2000s, Disney has shown some self-awareness to their common tropes.

Going all the way back to films like Chicken Little and Disenchanted.

The latter even being a parody of their classic films, in the veins of Shrek.

They would continue on with some of this occasional meta humor in later films like Frozen, Moana, and Wreck-it Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet.

And in all honesty, everytime they do something like this, I can’t help but roll my eyes.

It’s not only because like a lot of people, I've grown mighty tired of meta humor, but also because they reflect a bigger problem.

It’s pretty obvious that Disney has been listening to criticism towards their films from the past.

And while they may seem good, the criticism that Disney seems to be responding to either falls into the category of bad faith criticism or nitpicks.

The live-action remakes might be the best example of this, especially in the case of the upcoming Little Mermaid remake.

In some behind the scenes interview for the film, several people frequently mention that tired old myth about Ariel giving up her voice in order to be with a boy, when she really didn’t.

Ariel gave up her voice because she wanted to finally be able to explore the surface world, something she had been dreaming about her whole life. However, a lot of numbskulls and snooty critics misinterpreted this and eventually led Disney to feel the same way.

Perhaps one of the most notable results from this self-awareness is the lack of romance in many recent films, particularly in their princess films.

Tangled was the last major princess film to have a major focus on romance.

I know there’s Frozen, but the romance with Anna and Kristoff didn’t really spark until about the end of the film.

I do understand that not every film needs to have romance, some people, myself included, feel like the reason they’ve either been exempted or downplayed is because Disney feels like their female protagonists being in romantic relationships would make them come off as weak.

Most of this criticism is obviously directed towards the three original Disney Princesses: Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora.

Look, the main problem wasn’t the fact that they were weak (with the possible exception of Aurora), it was the fact that their relationships between their respective princes were virtually non-existent.

Seriously though, the princes before Eric either had no personality at all, barely appeared in the movie, or didn’t even fucking talk.

And although that major flaw had been fixed with the Disney Renaissance films, which but a greater emphasis on both the male and female leads, it seems critics and numbskulls used this major flaw that only really applied to the earlier films and tried to apply it to all of the other films.

The reason I bring this up because I feel like this is the reason why Disney has been so pitiful with their villains.

Their villain strategy pretty much started off with the notorious twist villain trio: Hans, Bellwether, and Mr. That Was His Mistake himself, Callaghan.

Everyone has already gone into detail why these twist villains didn’t work and failed miserably.

I feel like the reason did these twist villains were done was because a lot of their previous villains were said to have been pretty obvious in the fact that they were the bad guys.

While most people wouldn’t really see that as a bad thing, apparently some numbskulls and critics did. And eventually, so did Disney.

I’m assuming the reason Disney did these twist villains because they felt that they would automatically be better than the villains of the past simply because their villainy wouldn’t be revealed right away.

Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to understand what made a good twist villain….

Ironic given that they have shown in the past that they are capable to making good twist villains like Rourke and King Candy.

But after that, Disney (thankfully) pretty stopped doing twist villains….and villains in general.

Ever since Moana, there hasn’t been a Disney film with an actual villain.

And while I do understand that not every film needs a villain, there have been some cases where a clear cut villain would’ve greatly benefited the film.

Films like Frozen II and Strange World would’ve worked well with a villain, especially the latter given the obvious environmental message.

I feel like the reason Disney isn’t really attempting to do villains anymore is most likely because of the Twist Villain Trio and the negative backlash they received.

As a result, it led them to believe that nobody wanted villains in their movies anymore.

Here’s the thing that literally everyone has been saying.

WE STILL WANT VILLAINS IN OUR MOVIES!!!!

These characters are not only some of the most iconic characters in animation, but also fiction as a whole!

People love these baddies, their wild personalities, and just seeing them relish in being utterly terrible people.

And worst of all....Disney clearly knows how popular their classic villains are!

For God's sake, they literally have an entire franchise dedicated to these characters!

I feel like another reason from them not having villains is because of the current landscape in modern media.

It's no surprise that during the 2010s, we've seen a notable increase of villains who were either twist villains, had tragic and sympathetic backstories, were something of anti-heroes, or even got redemption arcs.

And while these elements aren't inherently bad by any means, I do feel it did leave a notable impact on entertainment and general audiences.

Classic villains became increasingly rare and even audiences began to believe that classic villains couldn't work anymore in this day and age, the reason being that they believe that not everything is black and white.

And while on one hand, I do understand where they're coming from, but here's the thing.

Some people seem to believe that there are no good or evil people in the real world. But in reality, there are.

There have and always will be legitimately good and legitimately evil people in the real world.

And going back to Puss in Boots real quick, I feel like the characters of Death and especially Jack Horner really made people realize just how much they missed seeing actual, unapologetically evil villains.

And because of this, its led people to look back at Disney and wonder what the hell they've been doing lately with their villains....or lack thereof.

I mean the fact that DreamWorks manage to not only outdo Disney (the former king of animated villains) not only in terms of quality and profit last year, but also villains, is both hilarious and legitimately sad.

Anyway, that's all for now. Let me know what you guys think about Disney's recent villain problem.

[whatyourusherthinks]

American Fiction Review

I was so excited for this movie! This movie actually came out last year and got rave reviews. Unfortunately our theater got it late, but fortunately that means I can air out my white grievances.

What's The Movie About?

An affluent black writer is annoyed with the crop of "true stories" of the black struggle in America, so he writes a fictionalized account parodying those books. Which then get's incredibly popular because white people don't get the joke.

What I Like.

This movies is hilarious. I mean I was expecting that, it is a comedy, but it was way funnier than I was expecting. I was expecting it to be mostly dry humor and jokes about how stupid white people are, and there is a lot of that. But there's quite a bit of crass humor as well, and I'm nothing if not crass. The attention to detail in this movie is very good as well. Like it's pretty much standard for any black movie to touch on microaggressions, but there are all these other touches in the movie that are easy to miss. And the satire in this movie is sharp and wide spread. Obviously white people, more specifically white liberals, are the main target of mockery, but the movie has critiques on conservatism, boomers, the business world, the movie industry, affluent Americans, hell it even turns the satirical scalpel upon it's own premise at one point. There's an amazing conversation between the main character and another author about exploiting a narrative versus genuinely telling a story the market wants, and I loved it. This, in my humble opinion, is the reason to see this movie. Even if you're a target of the satire (Go read my Color Purple review. I'm literally the white Literary Award judge lady.) I think the message of being critical of narratives and where them come from is an important thing to learn. (See, I am white Literary Award judge lady.)

What I Didn't Like.

Uh, well... If you want me to nitpick... There's a couple tone shifts that were really abrupt. The ending, while I liked it, did kinda feel like the writer didn't know how he wanted to end it so found a way to put them all in. Also, and I want to stress this as much as possible, this is just a me thing, but I was distracted with how much I related to the main character. And before Joe Buggknutz starts flaming me in the comments for saying I relate to an affluent published author who's own mother calls him a genius, I mean I identified with his mental struggles. He would get called out for certain behaviors relating to depression and anti-social tendencies and I realized "Shit, I do that."

Final Summation.

So no shocker, this movie is great. Normally I'd say go see this movie if you think you can roll with the premise, but honestly, I think even people who think they can't should go see it. That's the point.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

#5: The One With Astruc's Self-Insert

In my introductory post, I said the main inspiration for this blog was @hypocrisyofandrewdobson​. For those who don't know, Andrew Dobson is an infamous webcomic artist known for drawing webcomics that tend to demonize people he's come across in public or people who disagree with him online (either critical of his art or his political views), while portraying himself as the victim or wise man calling them out on their differing beliefs.

If you want to learn more about this guy who I consider to be far worse than Astruc, check out the blog in question. And no, I don't know why he draws himself as a blue bear.

Why am I talking about this? It's one thing for some schmuck on the internet to use his work to respond to criticism, but the creator of a popular animated series dedicating an entire episode to attacking his critics and trying to get others to feel bad for him is another story.

The second episode of Miraculous Ladybug's third season, “Animaestro” served as a wake-up call for fans (myself included) to make them realize how immature Astruc could be. The plot centers around the premiere of a movie about Ladybug and Cat Noir directed by Thomas Astruc, who voices himself in the original French dub.

And this isn't just a brief cameo like what Stan Lee did in the MCU. Astruc is the Akumatized person this episode, so there's naturally a lot of focus on him. Throughout the first half of the episode, Astruc portrays himself as this timid man who nobody recognizes or respects, like this idiot who doesn't know what animation is.

Doorman: This is a private event, sir.

Astruc: Huh? Excuse me? I'm Thomas Astruc, the movie director.

Doorman: You filmed Cat Noir and Ladybug? What are they like in real life?

Astruc: Er, it's an animated movie. It's all cartoon characters. We don't actually film anyone. See, there's this whole team that draw the chara—

Doorman: Whatever. Who would want to see Ladybug and Cat Noir as cartoon characters?

Get it? Wasn't that meta joke hilarious? This is how much I was laughing:

And Astruc continues to get about as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield when he interacts with other characters like Jagged Stone and Chloe.

Jagged Stone: Ladybug is one of my best buds! I can't wait to see her movie!

Astruc: Well I—I'm the director, so actually it's more my movie, so to speak.

Jagged Stone: Oh, so you're the one who created the story?

Astruc: Well, technically the screen writers wrote the story, inspired by Ladybug's exploits.

Jagged Stone: Oh, okay. So you did all the drawings?

Thomas: No, no. The animators do all the drawings.  

Jagged Stone: So what do you do then?

(Later on...)

Chloe: So you're the one responsible for this movie?

Astruc: Yes, yes! Exactly! That's me!

Chloe: Then you were the one who left Queen Bee out of the trailer. You're lame, utterly lame.

I can't believe Astruc had a scene where he interacted with Chloe and didn't insult her at all.

The episode is determined to make the audience feel bad for Astruc. Nobody respects him and what he does. Isn't that saaaaaad? Nobody cares about animated film directors like Walt Disney or Tex Avery anyway. Not even these stupid children understand how hard Astruc works.

Several Children: Ladybug! Where's Ladybug?

Astruc: Hey there, kids!

Teacher: Ladybug isn't here children. We came here to meet the director of the movie. Children: (frowning in disappointment) Aww.

(Astruc looks visibly disappointed.)

Way to insult your primary demographic, Astruc. I thought you said kids have a better understanding of these stories when people criticized the writing of a certain episode (It's that scene in “Puppeteer 2” if you're curious/don't value your sanity).

It's almost like you're using that as an excuse to half-ass your work while still getting to claim this show is so groundbreaking.

In case you can't tell, “Animaestro” is one of those episodes. The ones where the showrunners decide to dedicate an entire episode to attacking critics of the show in a blunt fashion. Whenever a show addresses criticism, they either create an obvious strawman character to parrot the opinions of fans who don't like their work, or have someone defend the show and insult the critics directly.

The problem isn't that they're ignoring criticism. It's their show, and they aren't obligated to listen to critics or fans who don't like the direction the show is taking. On the other hand, they aren't obligated to fight back like this and treat their audience like crap. Any show that does something like the three clips I showed you usually comes off as petty and immature because they dedicate so much time to insulting the critics. 

Even during the Akuma fight, Astruc has to call out Ladybug for having problems with his movie in-universe, obviously representing critics of the show Astruc claims have no right to criticize the show while it's still airing.

Ladybug: What's with that trailer too? I am not scared of cats, at all.

Astruc/Animaestro: You haven't even seen the movie and you're already slamming it?

Cat Noir: He does have a point, you know.

Ladybug: I wasn't slamming it. It's called constructive criticism!

Yeah, how dare Ladybug be angry that this movie is portraying her as a powerless coward dependent on Cat Noir as opposed to a confident and brave superhero. She just doesn't understand the genius of Thomas Astruc!

And of course the character Astruc claims is “perfect” is the one to take his side.

And that's another problem with this episode, the metatextual references. Before he gets akumatized, Astuc says he spent three years of his life working on his movie. I get that time in this show is weird (we somehow had episodes taking place on the first day of school, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and the first day of Summer), but how did Astruc's self-insert work on a movie based on a superhero who has only been active for a year? Meta-wise, it's an obvious reference to the scorn Astruc has gotten from fans after working so hard on his show, but the only people who would get that reference are the ones who are aware of Astruc's reputation online.

Self-Insert aside, I actually think the titular Animaestro is one of the more visually impressive Akumas featured on the show. Animaestro takes on several forms based off several different forms and eras of animation, like flash, anime, rubber hose, and they all stand out. Granted, some of them are obvious parodies of other characters like Goku or Sailor Moon, but the actual Akuma fight is fun to watch. According to the Mexican Miraculous Ladybug Twitter account, this episode took two and a half years to create, and it shows. It's too bad the story behind it is completely insufferable, almost like the cartoon equidistant to Pixels.

But then comes the part that honestly makes the episode worth it, mainly for how unintentionally hilarious it is. Do you want to know what Animaestro's weakness is? Do you really want to know?

Animaestro is physically incapable of moving unless someone is watching him. I am not making this up.

Ladybug and Cat Noir literally defeat Animaestro by getting everyone to stop paying attention to him.

I could make so many jokes with this, but I can guarantee you're already thinking of something just as good, if not better, than whatever I write.

And there's the end where Astruc gives Marinette his ticket to the movie, which prompts Marinette to kiss up to him for no real reason.

Astruc: Sorry, I guess you don't know who I am either.

Marinette: Of course do. You're Thomas Astruc, the movie director!

Astruc: She recognized me. Somebody actually recognized me!

Nothing happened to make her change her opinion on the Ladybug movie, she didn't really say anything to him earlier in the episode that connects to this exchange, and outside of a few lines Animaestro said, she doesn't even know why he got akumatized (even though ironically she and Chloe accidentally contributed to it because of the awful subplot involving Kagami I talked about last time). If anything, it comes off less like she actually appreciates Astruc's work, and more like she's stroking his ego just to keep him from getting akumatized again.

So yeah, this episode is awful, and the fact that it came out right after the controversial “Chameleon” only proved to show what kind of direction the show was taking this season.

But honestly, even if Astruc still wanted to make about how he doesn't get enough respect the episode could have potentially. All he had to do was make a simple change: Instead of making it about validation for Astruc as a creator, make it about validation for animation in general.

It's a common misconception that animation is only used for shows and movies aimed at children, so the episode could reflect it. Instead of the huge turnout where several celebrities appear at the premiere, instead, the turnout could be a lot smaller, with the media dismissing it as some stupid kiddie flick. Instead of getting akumatized because he gets humiliated in public/getting no respect from anyone else, Astruc gets akumatized because he sees the audience didn't go wild for the movie after the premiere. All he can hear them say is that it's just “kids stuff”.

So when Astruc is Animaestro, he goes on about how important animation is. How it's helped produce propaganda since World War II. How it helped improve special effects in big blockbusters. How the medium is used to create movies that simply can't be filmed on a physical set.

After defeating Animaestro, Ladybug shows up to talk to him. She had seen the movie earlier, and actually enjoyed it. She had a few problems with the story, but they were just minor nitpicks and inaccuracies Astruc wouldn't know about, and she was blown away by the animation. She tells Astruc not to be deterred by his critics, and continue to do what he does. As a designer in her civilian life, Ladybug knows the joy creating brings her, and both she and Astruc want to spread that joy through their work.

Back at the premiere, Astruc thinks about what Ladybug said to him when he sees some kids reenacting a scene from the movie. Astruc walks over to them and asks what they thought of the movie. They said they loved it and how energetic it was. When he tells them he is the director, the kids' faces light up and they say they want to do what he does when they grow up, bringing a smile to Astruc's face.

Isn't that a much more humble approach instead of what we got? It would have helped Astruc come across as more sympathetic, especially with animation fans. But instead, we got an entire episode of Astruc whining about how misunderstood he is.

And you know the footage used for the movie at the beginning? Remember that, because I have a huge rant about it saved for a later post.

For now, here’s an example of a creator appearing in his work done right.

[duhragonball]

I think you're right, although I'm not sure if Cinema Sins and its ilk are the cause or just a symptom.

I'd argue that this goes back a long way, maybe even as far as Mad Magazine, which spoofed pop culture and inspired load of imitators over the decades. Maybe it's even older than that. But yeah, Cinema Sins kind of crystallizes the problem, so it makes a good illustration of the fallacy involved.

Like Mad's movie parodies, I think Cinema Sins is somewhat "obligated" to rip on just about *any* movie, good or bad. That's not a problem in itself, since nothing is immune from criticism. I generally liked Godfather Part I, but I watched that clip of Peter Griffin complaining about it and it almost felt like he was reading my mind. It does insist on itself.

But Cinema Sins probably can't just do a video complaining about how Godfather I drags on in places. They have to find nitpicks to point out, like they would do for a bad movie. And if they can't find a serious problem, that only increases the temptation to exaggerate a minor problem, or just invent a problem out of thin air. The formula for the videos is more important than the quality of the critique.

Years ago, I uses to read a website called "Mr Cranky", who was basically doing a parody of Siskel and Ebert with an insult comic twist. He'd rate movies with bombs instead of stars, and even the good movies would get one bomb, though he struggled to find anything bad about them. I stopped reading him when he started using the reviews to rant about the Iraq War. Even when he stuck to his gimmick, it was becoming clear that he was running out of ways to say every movie was a crime against humanity, and the war protest stuff only underscored that roasting "Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever" wasn't really worth the effort.

I'm not above lambasting stuff I don't like, but at some point you have to be willing to give equal time to the good stuff, or your "angry tirade" humor will lose all impact. This is why the Angry Video Game Nerd will occasionally cover good games, or give a bad game credit where it's due. It keeps things fresh by reminding you what a good game should be, and why the bad ones are so frustrating.

But I think a lot of internet wannabes see acts like AVGN, or MST3K, or Cinem Sins or whatever, and they try to ape the formula without understanding the nuance. It's like how everybody used to try to get into pro wrestling because of the Rock, and they knew how to wear sunglasses and act like an arrogant horse's ass, but they couldn't learn how to run the ropes or do a thousand squats or all the other boring parts the Rock had to learn just to get hired.

The other thing that irks me is when I see people making snap judgments based on parodies or reviews, or just other people discussing things on Twitter or wherever. That's how you get all these dopes who post bad DBZ takes based on Team FourStar videos. They're eager to watch a series of 10-minute parody videos, but reluctant to take the plunge and commit to a 400+ episode anime series. That's because they're not interested in Dragon Ball; they're only interested in the engagement they get from making cheap jokes and "hot" takes.

To be clear, I'm not gatekeeping here. You're not a "fake fan" for not seeing the entirety of a series. But I've seen people who have only watched an arc or two, and they generally keep their opinions and critiques confined to the parts they actually saw. They're not talking shit about Majin Buu when they've only seen the Saiyans Saga, for example. The phonies are the ones who rip on stuff because they saw someone else do it and wanted to pile on without knowing any better.

That's also what leads into this brittle mindset where anything that happens in pop fiction is meant to represent some endorsement by the author. "Oh, Goku hit Gohan once, I guess that means Akira Toriyama likes child abuse!" That's intellectually dishonest, and I think most people understand that, but a lot of people have been conditioned to turn everything into a hill they need to die on.

I asked someone once to elaborate on why they called the Cell Saga "broken", and it basically boiled down the old story about how Toriyama's editors kept having him tinker with the villain. As far as I know, it's a true story, but it's also a behind-the-scenes story. The finished product should be judged on its own merit, not the chaotic environment that produced it. You don't have to like the Androids/Cell arc, but you can't just cite editorial directives as your critique. What's wrong with the comics themselves?

But I never got an answer, which I think was because this person wasn't prepared to give one. They just decided that the editor situation at Shueisha automatically disqualified the arc from being good. That's unfair to the arcs they *do* like, whatever those are, because apparently those are only deemed "good" for having less public awareness of editorial meddling. That's barnyard logic.

Anyway, it all stems from this desire to "defeat" media people don't like. People want a mathematical proof to justify not consuming or enjoying a piece of media, and that's bonkers. I lost interest in the MCU years ago, and that's good enough reason for me to not watch Eternals. I literally do not care enough to go to the trouble of seeing it. I don't trust the studio anymore, I don't have any investment in the characters, and the novelty of a bunch of actors standing around in superhero costumes wore off a looonng time ago. I'm not even saying it's a bad movie. It's probably good, but they haven't overcome my apathy and I'm not expecting that to chance anytime soon. I don't need to cite backstage shenanigans or stage a one-man boycott in protest of a line of dialogue. I don't need to make a video lambasting all the problems with the plot. I can just stay in my lane, and everything is fine.

[spongebob-connoisseur]

im curious, what are your thoughts on the spongebob vs the big one episode? i dont hear many people talk about it so

You know I have that episode on dvd! I got it from the dollar store

It came like this and I got it for $4. If anyone is charging you more for it then they're ripping you off.

That's unrelated but this ask gave me an excuse to watch it today. I remember watching this episode as a kid. The promo were all like "Johnny Depp is gonna be in the new spongebob episode! Davey Jones going to be revealed"

man, idk what my 8 year old self knew about Johnny Depp but I know that i did want to see Davey Jones and dutchyy!

I don't remember much outside that and while I thought it was a strange special, I enjoyed it.

Now for my rewatch. The beginning was relatable. It's a hot day at the krusty krab and the fan does jackshit. That's basically like today!

Ngl this special starts off kind of boring. I guess that's just something about the middle seasons and me lol. The conversations feel so empty between characters. They're trying for a joke about Mr. Krabs being cheap and he didn't pay the electric bill but is unaware that he hadn't but it doesn't quite land.

I feel mildly indifferent about this special now. I don't outright hate it like other episodes from the middle seasons. There's a lot of good parts about it. Like I said before, they have a lot of interesting episode ideas from this era but they seem to fall flat. They have the potential to be really grand. But hey, it's still enjoyable and not everything needs to be a jawdropping masterpiece.

This special is pretty much made to be a parody of surf movies. Spongebob, Patrick, and JLK following the basic tropes of surf movies and Squidward being the straight man who questions the logic of all these tropes and tears them apart.

I actually don't get why Sandy and Mr. Krabs are in this special. Sandy especially doesn't seem to have a place in it since she's seperate from the group most of the time and the things she does is unrelated to the plot. Even how she was introduced in this episode was odd. She shows up and is like "I love surfing" then immediately gets separated from the group. The way how the group gets swept away by the wave was also dumb and felt so flat. Why do they look so stiff.

But I love Sandy and I still adore her parts in the episode. I remember as a kid REALLY loving how she managed to not only survive but thrive after being stuck on an island. Look at the cool things she made!! An icon. Amazing. I adore her.

But I do have a question. When she got in her helicopter, there's a dude in an air traffic building. Shes supposed to be stranded on an island all alone but she still managed to get some dude to be air traffic control. This isn't to be nitpicking the episode this has no effect on the quality. I just pointed it out because I remembered as a kid and waa curious. Similar to the end of the episode where the dropouts where at Goo Lagoon to party even though they were also stranded on the island.

The whole Mr. Krabs and Flying Dutchman thing also wasn't necessary. Obviously they needed a B plot. The A plot with Pat, Sponge, and Squid isn't enough to fill the time of a special.

I still really liked Mr. Krab's part because Dutchyyyy. Like I said before, he makes the best part of any episodes. This was also my favorite part as a kid. I actually do wonder how they managed to get away with the pools of blood thing. The dutchman's triangle is clearly supposed to be he Bermuda triangle.

I thought it was kind of sad that Mr. Krabs basically mentally degraded from the isolation and fear of being in the dutchman's triangle.

I think it was a bit of karma from earlier because it's his cheapness and stuff that brought them into this situation in the first place anyways.

JKL is supposed to be some awesome surf dude. He doesn't talk much at all. I think they were paying Johnny Depp per word because of it lol. Idk his moments are so underwhelming. His design looks so out of place for spongebob but also something I feel like I would have gotten in trouble for watching if my parents were around when I was a kid which I mean, I don't think I have to discuss who's the character designer for this episode.

It's supposed to be a surf movie parody but it feels so flat. The only thing they had that made it known that it was a parody is Squidward pointing out the plot holes and issues with said tropes but they never really try to subert any of them. The story got better once they got to the climax. Learn to surf, take a mystical ancient wave back to the bikini bottom. That and the dutchman's part in the episode are the most enjoyable parts. Everything else, while not bad, sorta dragged out.

I kind of wish I had more to talk about this episode. Hence why I was putting it off writing about it. I don't hate it but I don't find it much interesting either. It has a good idea and I kind of want to rewrite it for fun just because of it.

Oh also a random note. The drop outs! Twitch and Silent Stan are dating. I don't make the rules.

[zhuilingyizhen]

social media + the juniors✨

oyzi can’t believe i haven’t done this yet. gonna be doing them by app & not by junior this time cause my memory is shit. :)

// youtube //

i won’t go too in depth with the youtuber au (unless y’all want me to in a separate post?? I think I’ve done it already but y’all can ask ig) & their individual channels so i’m gonna talk about their shared channel. 

i realize that they can be called the juniorz if they’re all juniors in hs and even after they graduated the name stuck, so... yeah

their vlog/shared channel pretty much documents their friendship (we appreciate good platonic relationships) + have many guest appearances from other friends & family.

they post collabs w/ all four of them on the shared channel, though they also have a series of movie/book/other media reviews, which is really just jl nitpicking everything.

sizhui has a series where he discusses chinese & canto dramas!! he does the videos in mandarin (or cantonese if it’s a hk drama) and adds english subtitles

honestly sizhui can cater to such a wide audience bc of his music that it’s amazing

the juniors started a parody/crack band (oyzz & the boyz, as @yoitsamy put it) but it ended up being good?? and popular??

jingyi’s singing talent + sizhui’s musical prowess honestly carries them

the lans have done legendary covers together while jl and oyzz are just reveling in it all

they have an ongoing joke where they make jl buy them stuff except it’s not a joke bc he does it

shit i delved into youtuber au territory too much, time for other social media stuff

// snapchat //

i knew i should have done tiktok or instagram first but i have no idea how tik tok even works so snapchat it is

so jingyi is the one who has like a billion stories, but he uses four main ones: our story, my story (basically everyone he has a personal connection to/acquaintances and some og fans), story for close friends and family, and a story for just the juniors. they all have obnoxious names too, but jingyi changes them so much that nobody has no idea what they’re doing.

jl and ljy have a 284 day streak purely bc of their competitiveness. lsz and ljy will sometimes accidentally start streaks but lsz doesn’t purposely send them. 

he has the poop emoji next to all of his best friends on there, but jl is his #1 Best Friend cause of the streaks. plus, the juniors don’t really use snapchat. oyzz has it for the filters but it isn’t public knowledge.

// tik tok //

oh dear me. honestly, i would’ve preferred to do reddit or ao3 than this one (are they even considered social media?? i don’t think so but i will have to do a post w/ ljy and oyzz’s fanfiction writing habits.)

oyzz doesn’t use tik tok at all, he doesn’t understand it. jl doesn’t use it either, but refuses to admit that he doesn’t get it and instead just says that it’s stupid.

uhhh jingyi has an acnh tik tok. like. gaming stuff, but it’s mostly him doing acnh stuff.

he also gushes over cute villagers bc he’s jingyi. like, what would you expect??

sizhui probably has tik tok to like all of jingyi’s posts but doesn’t use it himself lol

// instagram //

jingyi posts consist mostly of cute selfies of him and sizhui. honestly their shippers are spoon-fed content cause of jingyi’s obliviousness (he doesn’t realize that he’s practically dating sizhui, at least to the internet)

oyzz has a lot of aesthetically pleasing stuff. pictures of his plants, rays of sun on literally anything, a random cat. it’s not even his cat, where did he get the cat-

jl uses insta to mostly post pictures of himself, like some people do. his look the most professional though, if that makes sense. like if he’s gonna post something, it has to be at his best. cute fairy photos? check. slight makeup? hair done up? vibrant colors/background? lighting? check check check check.

he also has an instagram for fairy, bc fairy deserves nice things. most people chalk up his perfectionism in pictures as him being narcissistic, but jl grew up being relatively famous (their family probably had a reality tv show like kuwtk lol), so he takes social media quite seriously.

sizhui posts food pics and candid photos of the other juniors. it’s basically shipping central, w/ all the adorable posts lsz has.

// twitter //

don’t feel like talking bout it, so here & here

[lucifers-horror-harem]

If you can't enjoy a horror movie without pointing out every "unrealistic" element you spot as you watch it, maybe you just don't like horror movies, dude. I am sick of hearing and reading this shit from movie snobs myself. I enjoy horror because it can be realistic or totally outlandish depending in the subgenre.

That’s my thing with reviewers in general nowadays because people that aren’t interested in horror movies are reviewing horror movies and telling people how bad they are when really it stems from their disinterest or understanding of the genre as a whole. As someone who loves films that have been critically panned, I completely agree with your statement.

Side note that goes along with this, I still remember how when Cabin in the Woods came out at the time my friend went and saw it and told me how terrible it was and to not bother watching it. Years later I finally saw it and while the film was marketed poorly, but to me, it was very obviously a love letter/parody to the horror genre as a whole that I really appreciated. I know that might not be everyone’s cup of tea but people bashing it for not being a typical horror film is ridiculous. People seem to love and appreciate it now but I remember how horrible everyone said it was when it first came out.

Anywho, tldr is horror has so many subgenres that there’s something for everyone to enjoy and the nitpicking of films bothers me sometimes. Not everyone is going to like everything but also give it a chance, you know? There’s plenty of movies I didn’t like/get the first time around that I enjoy way more now.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Of all the things to get a live-action adaptation, who the hell would have ever expected Dora the Explorer? And adding onto that: who the heck could have expected it to be good? Well, let’s back up a bit to see how we got here, cuz I think there’s a few things that can explain such a seemingly baffling statement such as “The Dora movie is pretty good, actually.”

First up is the original show. Dora the Explorer is one of the most weirdly hated shows of all time.

Like, the show is clearly and blatantly made for little kids to teach them observational skills and even a little Spanish; it’s got some cute characters and is corny but inoffensive, so it really just baffles me why everyone and their mother hated it. The point I’m getting at here is that the show wasn’t awful and its simple Point A to Point B adventure plots are ripe for expansion, so this idea was not doomed from the get-go.

Then there’s Nickelodeon itself. Lately they’ve really been pulling themselves out of the dark ages as of late. They’ve been working with Netflix to bring back old shows, they’ve redeemed the SpongeBob franchise, they took Butch Hartman behind the shed and put him down… the last few years of the decade made up for the first few for sure. So why not, while you’re at the top of your game, do something crazy like making an Indiana Jones-lite affectionate self-parody of a reviled cartoon for toddlers?

The worst thing I can say about this movie is that they underuse some of the best elements of the film, namely Swiper and Boots’ voice. Swiper is here played by Benicio Del Toro of all people, and he’s fantastic every time he’s onscreen… but Swiper only has a couple of scenes, and he’s only a major player in one of them, and about half of his limited dialogue is variations on his catchphrase (“Awww man!”). This is despite the fact he is inexplicably aligned with the criminals chasing after Dora which, while admittedly hilarious due to Swiper’s existence or status as a fox is never really commented on as being abnormal, could have easily been expanded on or even used as an excuse to make Swiper the big bad as opposed to just an elite mook.

Boots is an issue to a lesser extent, because he is a major player in the film despite not talking or wearing his boots (which is lampshades early on). The issue is that he does have a voice, that voice being none other than Danny Trejo, but Trejo only plays him in a single scene where he gives Dora a much-needed pep talk. The issue isn’t that this is bad, unfitting, or even a total waste - it’s one of the best and funniest scenes in the film and is very effective as a surprise. I’m just salty that Trejo only got to do this one paragraph of dialogue. Give me more Danny Trejo, dammit!

That’s really where the big issues end. Sure, there’s some other nitpicks, like there being a few too many moments of lowbrow toilet humor and the reveal of who the villain is being incredibly obvious because it is literally the same twist from the recent Hey Arnold! movie, but this is a movie with a younger audience in mind so it’s pretty forgivable to an extent. Most of the rest of the film is remarkably competent, with decent characters, plot, and humor. It’s all relatively simple and fun, but what really elevated this film is one performance: Isabela Merced as Dora.

Merced plays Dora as an over-eager, overenthusiastic young girl who is smart as a whip and rarely has a frown on her face. As a real wild child who grew up around nature, some of the film is dedicated to that sort of fish-out-of-water element inherent when you throw a character like this into a place where they don’t understand, and the fact that she is thrown into high school, a place where so many people feel like they don’t fit in and are alienated, makes it infinitely more relatable. Merced is just overall a blast, making Dora the most engaging wildlife enthusiast in Nickelodeon’s roster since our lord and savior Nigel Thornberry; in fact, her Dora has a lot more in common with Nigel than the original Dora while still recognizably being Dora, which frankly is the best possible way things could go.

This is a remarkably competent and fun adventure film for the whole family… sort of. It feels more like a slightly edgier take on Dora aimed at the people who grew up with her while also being accessible to younger audiences. It’s simple, fun, and mostly entertaining, so if you like Indiana Jones-esque jungle adventures this is a pretty good choice. I honestly think this is good enough to deserve a sequel… though I mostly just want more Dora, Boots, and Swiper.

[redtutel]

Rewatching Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Although I have vague memories of the Episode III promotional material, this is the Star Wars movie where I truly was a part of the hype. December 2015 was a magical time where everyone was just...loved Star Wars. And it created a meme and parody culture that was just as wholesome as the original trilogies. None of that cynical and nitpicky, or in extreme cases sexist and racist, Star Wars fan culture we’re dealing with today.

So much like the first Avengers movie, the magic surrounding its release will make it impossible for me to judge this movie fairy. But I don’t care. I’m still very attached to it. Will this be the viewing where the magic wares off? Or will I find myself considering this better then the film it pays homage to. I’m excited to find out.

Seeing a brand new “A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far, Away” and an opening crawl in theaters was just awesome.

“Will not rest until, Skywalker, The Last Jedi, has been destroyed,” Hey, Foreshadowing! I know there’s a ton of debate as to what was or wasn’t planned in advance for this trilogy, but still.

The First Order is Space ISIS/Neo-Nazis, and Leia leads an army to fight it. Pretty simple. I don’t get why people get so up in arms about how little the politics are explored in this movie. It’s probably a side effect of just how lore heavy Star Wars got after the original trilogy.

The opening shot of a space ship completely covering a moon. A new take on ironic Star Wars imagers. A pretty good summary of this movie. But I feel like such new takes make up for just how many recycled plot points this movie has.

The opening action sequence is the first time in years Storm Troopers have been intimidating (Clone Troopers and Stormtroopers are two different things). It’s pretty impressive. It’s a great way to establish how evil the First Order is.

Finn’s introduction is so impressive. A Stormtrooper who in his first fight, completely looses the will to participate in war. We may never know about his friend he saw die, but despite that, we still understand why he lost his will to fight. It might be a bit awkward for Finn and Poe’s friendship if they ever find out Poe shot Finn’s old Stormtrooper friend.

Kylo Ren stopping a laser with the Force. An awesome new way to use the Force. And I love Poe’s quip “So who talks first?” It establishes Poe as a fun, jokey character, which is why I don’t get why people got upset about his sense of humor in Last Jedi. He’s the sort of character that uses humor to relieve the tension of any situation he’s in.

J.J Abrams made this movie to be watched blind, and I really wish I could (but I saw spoilers before I watched it). Where is Luke? Who is this new Sith? What’s the backstory the old man hits at? There’s a good Stormtrooper? He talks off his helmet? Who’s this girl in the desert? I’d love to discover these things for the first time all over again.

I’m found of robot characters that go against their programming. Finn’s not a robot, but the beginning of his character arc has that concept. He does not believe in this cause, and he fights war terrifying. And he wants to escape.

Anakin was a slave, Luke was a farmboy, and now we have Rey, a scavenger, all alone in the world, just tying to service. She quickly establishes herself as incredibly tough, but also a bit cute. 

Of all the protagonists Rey’s backstory is the saddest in my eyes. While Luke had a happy but boring life with his aunt and uncle, and Anakin had a hard life but a living mother, Rey has had to fend for herself since she was a child, holding onto hope that one day her parents will come. She was all alone in the world. But now that’s going to change.

I don’t take any sides in the CGI/Puppets debate, but seeing puppets in a big Hollywood blockbuster again is pretty nice.

BB-8′s so cute. I have too much R2-D2 nostalgia to consider him my favorite Skywalker Saga droid though.

Rey’s relationship with BB-8 establishes that although she’s a survivor, she hasn’t let it harden her heart. She’s willing to help BB-8, and although she wants him to be on his way, she still won’t sell him off (despite being tempted to)

...Poe’s technically the Leia archetype in this movie. This tough rebel who got captured by the villains, and who sent a droid with something important.

The Finn and Poe escape scene has a lot of great dialogue. I’d argue some of the best banter in the series. It’s a pretty good action scene too.

Of all the characters, I like how Finn’s take on his archetype the most. He’s the Han Solo, the deuteragonist who wants nothing to do with the battle, and joins for selfish reasons, but in the end proves to be a loyal friend and hero. But unlike cool and collated Solo, Finn is nervous and cowardly. But that makes his eventual bravery and loyalty all the more satisfying. 

I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard Poe was originally going to die, but Oscar Isaac was so great they kept the character alive. I do believe keeping them separated is for the best, seeing how it makes sure Finn stays around for as long has he does.

Early on we establish that Kylo Ren is abnormally obsessed with Luke Skywalker, to the point where Gnearl Hux questions him.

Finn and Rey’s friendship stars off pretty rocky, but even then they have some good chemistry. At one point Finn’s all beat up, and he asked Rey if she’s okay. He may not be very good at it, but he’s trying to be a gentleman.

I love how the Millennium Falcon gets called garbage. It’s a funny bit of irony, concerning just how sacred everything else from classic Star Wars gets treated.

The first Millennium Falcon chase is another great action sequence. Rey and Finn are figuring things out as they go along, and BB-8′s being cute. And in the end they’re very impressed with each other. Characters becoming friends tough action sequences is a favorite troupe of mine.

Everything from Finn and Poe’s escape to meeting Maz Katana has nothing to do with a New Hope, and thus is a very underrated part of the movie. Although the tentacle monster scene is kind of forgettable.

Both Finn and Rey have no last name. They’ve never had any sort of family before. Heck, Finn didn’t even have a real name until just a few hours ago. They’re nobodies trying to find themselves, which sets of their arc that carries over into the next film

Kylo Ren destroying the console establishes him as short tempered for the first time. He drops his stoic facade and shows his true colors. Kylo looks indimiateing, but deep down he’s an insecure manchild trying his best to inhert a dark legacy. I’m found of this character, as well as similar characters like Berkut and Shiguraki

Did BB-8 give a thumbs up or a bird? The world will never know.

Rey keeps her guard up around people she doesn’t know to well, but she has a very soft and kind side as well. She’s pretty aggrieve to Finn early on, which is probably why....certain people, dislike her. Women and aggression tends to lead to backlash, after all.

I love how Finn slips in a bit of Stormtrooper knowledge. It comes in handy a few times in this movie. Some could say it should come up a bit more, but I think it’s used enough.

“Chewie, We’re Home” What an iconic line. I can still hear the applause.

Seeing Han become the Obi Wan archetype is a very unique direction for the character to take. And he handles the role very well. Harrison Ford may have been sick of this character, but he still brought his A-game. I love that Rey admires Han more for his smuggling than for his war heroics. And it’s very sweet seeing Han admiring just how much Rey knows about piloting. It’s a very sweet father/daughter relationship. In hindsight, Rey and Han don’t even need to be related for this relationship to be this good. Rey lost her parents and Han lost his son, and they can’t help but see each other as a means to fill those voids, even if they deny it to themselves.

The events of the original trilogy are legendary to these characters, which make the “It’s True, All of it” line so cool. It’s pretty interesting how chronologically, the events of one trilogy are legends to the characters of the next one.

Seeing Han be exactly how people remember his is pretty cleverly deconstructed. In-Univse it happened because he needed to escape from the pain of what happened to his son. And now he’s at the point where there’s nobody left to swindle. 

Whenever Rey’s in trouble, she’s always the one to get herself out of it. This is definitely meant as pushback to the fact that in so many things, women always need help while men can aways get out of a situation by themselves.  And I’m all for it. It’s great to see a woman be this strong, but she’s not flawless. After all, she shuts people out and is struggling to accept the fact her parents are never coming back.

Snoke even says “Last Jedi.” Even in this movie, Snoke is convinced that Luke is the hero of this story, and will stop and nothing to stop him. It is interesting that they introduced the Emperor archetype in this first movie, although maybe it was a sign that he wasn’t actually the big bad of this trilogy.

“It the hands of your father: Han Solo.” And the audience gasped (unless they got spoiled first. It’s one of those things we can never un-know). Although if I have to nitpick, I’d be nice if we found out alongside Finn and Rey.

I love that the space chess still looks like stop motion.

Rey doesn’t see herself as the hero. Just the delivery girl. Even Luke saw himself as trying to save a damsel in distress. But though this journy, she becomes a hero.

"Luke felt responsible. He just, walked away from everything.” This was established in this movie? Why did it take until Last Jedi for people to react to that plot point?

“I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy” I love that line. It’s so endearing!

Finn reminds me of Usopp. A liar and a coward, but someone who will always do the right thin in the end. He’s my personal favorite sequel character

“Women always find out.” Han has a ton of great lines in this movie.

“I’ve already been away too long” She’s so convinced her parents will come back she won’t even leave her planet for a few hours.

With Maz Katana, we’re back in a New Hope. I’m found of this character. It’s fascinating to see someone who’s Force Sensitive but not a Jedi. And she offers some great advice to Rey and Finn. I’d love to see her in the next season of Clone Wars.

Kylo Ren sees Darth Vader as the hero, the dark as good, and the light as bad. But he has regrets, and lakes the discipline and fidelity of Darth Vader. Of all the characters, he’s the one most desperate to fulfill his archetype.

“Though the ages I have seen evil take on many forms. The Sith, the Empire, today it’s the First Order.” “If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in many different people.” Of the the sequel’s trilogy’s biggest themes is that history repeats itself. But despite that, it’s still important to fight evil whenever it arises, instead of just sitting back and letting it happen.

It never occurred to me before, but Finn’s cowardliness might be the lingering effects of his brainwashing. Although he does not believe in the First Order’s Ways, he was still convinced all his life that they’re unstoppable, which is why he wants to run instead of fight. I also like how he’s admits the truth, instead of there being this “liar revealed” thing.

Finn and Rey have truly become friends at this point. Instead of just running away, now Finn wants Rey to come with him. As far as he knows, she’s the only friend he has, and he doesn’t want anything to happen to her. Meanwhile, Rey doesn’t want Finn to leave, because he’s one of the few people in her life to stick with her for this long. If he leaves, he might end of like her parents, who never came back.

Wait...how come nobody was demanding to know Finn’s parents. He was taken from a family he’ll never know after all. How come people accept that Finn’s parents don’t matter, but insist that Rey’s does?

Seeing Rey connect to the force for the first time (outside of  the piloting and scavenging skills I assume she she used them for subcoinsously before the events of this movie) is really impressive. We get flashes of her past, as well as Luke’s past and Kylo’s past, and even hear the voices of Yoda and Obi Wan. ok She’s getting her first glimpse at the Force that binds everything together, and she’s terrified of it. It’s also yet another divination from the New Hope plot, which is very welcome.

I forgot that Rey being Force sensitive was once a spoiler. How time flys.

I really hope Obi-Wan appears in Rise of Skywalker. He spoke to Rey when she connected to the Force for the first time, and I’d love to see that expanded upon.

“They’re never coming back.” A lesson Rey, and the audience, finds difficulty accepting. 

“The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.” Such a great line. It’s a great summery of Rey’s arc, and I imagine people with difficult pasts can relate to it.

Maz tells Rey and Finn exactly what they need. Rey need to learn to move forward, and Finn needs to learn to fight for what’s right.

Why does the lightsaber choose Rey? I guess her midichlorian count is just right or something. It doesn’t really matter, and I personally find the idea that the next hero can come from anywhere inspiring.

...Come to think of it, Luke’s the only protagonist who isn’t just some rando.

“Why is Maz so interested in Rey” Probably because of her strong connection to the Force.

Rey rejects the saber. Classic rejection of the call. Can you blame her, after that vision?

The First Order sees the Republic as weak and dishonest. Seems straightforward to me. Maybe people were underwhelmed because Neo-Nazism didn’t get as much attention as it did just a few months later.

Starkiller Base. It’s cool looking power-creep. On one hand, since we don’t know anyone from those planets, it’s not as impactful as what happened to Alderan. But then again, we actually see people on that planet die. So It’s a bit of a mixed bag overall.

Finn’s not going to leave until he knows Rey is safe. How touching.

TR-8R. I miss that meme.

Seeing Poe’s triumphant return is pretty great.

Seing Rey’s trying to fight off Kylo Ren with a gun is very tense. This the the first time she looses a fight in this movie. Seeing someone so strong get captured really raises the stakes. This is where they first meet. Their relationship is standard Hero vs Villain in this movie, but things are going to change a LOT in the next one.

Despite how scared he is, Finn still rushes in to try and stop Rey from being capture.

Seeing General Leia for the first time is awesome. Han and Leia’s reuinon is so touching as well. C-3PO’s back to disturbing Han and Leia moments as well, which is pretty funny.

Seeing BB-8 and Finn get reunited with Poe is also very touching. 

Finn is helping the Resistance for the sake of Rey. He’s not quite a hero yet, but he’s getting there.

So the movie did established R2-D2 had the map in his back-up data in the actual movie.

Han and Leia went back to what they know best after the loss of their son. It’s such a tragic moment. 

Kylo almost has the depth  in one movie that took Vader two or three movies to get. I feel like that should be discussed more often.

Kylo’s face is removed to reveal...a normal person. Ben didn’t get any external injuries to turn him into Kylo Ren. It was all manipulation

Rey takes on the Leia role when capture, and Finn briefly takes on the Luke role, But when she frees herself they go back to being Luke and Han, respectively.

Even in this movie, Rey and Kylo are using the force to get to know each other, although mainly on accident. Maybe that’s where Snoke got the idea in the next movie.

After seeing Kylo using the Force, Rey decides to use it in order to escape, although she’s a bit hesitant to do so. It takes her three tires to do the Jedi mind trick, after all. I do wonder where she heard about it. Maybe she figured that if you can read minds, you can change minds.

Rey is a very fast learner in any situation, be it piloting, shooting or using the force. Maybe it’s her midichlorian count. 

Starkill base makes very little logical sense, but its still a very cool concept, and seeing day turn into night serving as a ticking clock is a very cool visual.

“No matter how much we fought, I always hated watching you leave” “That’s why I did it, so you’d miss me.” All these years later, and that still have such great chemistry. 

“That’s not how the Force works.” I love that line, but people misuse it.

Finn is doing something very heroic, putting himself on the frontlines and disabling the shield. But he’s only doing this for Rey. Despite that, he stays true to his word and disables the shields. I love seeing him stick it to his old boss. It’s a fun moment.

The Rouge One “Womp” is even in this movie! How did I never notice it until after Rouge One?

“As Long as there’s light, we’ve got a chance” A classic symbol, but one that still works.

Seeing Rey and Finn reunited is just another very touching moment. “We came back for you.” For the first time in Rey’s life, somebody actually came back for her. I love how Rey describes how using the force to escape was “Something I can’t explain, you wouldn’t believe it.” In general I love how the Force is depicted in this movie.

“We’ll meet back here” No! That was their last moment together!

Ben and Han’s confrontation is another utterly fantastic moment. Ben is tempted to go back to his father, but he’s too devoted to Snoke’s teachings. On top of that, he feels like it’s too late to go this far. He figures that to get rid of these regrets, he has to kill Han Solo. I love how the sky gets dark, leaving red as the only light source. It really makes Ben’s lightsaber stick out when he kills Han. And yet, Han still touchings the check of his son, showing that even despite this, he still loves him. Instead of letting the past die by killing his father, Kylo is left more conflicted than ever.

Meanwhile, Rey lost a chance to have a father yet again.

The snowy forest at night is such a great setting, and leads to an awesome lightsaber fight. Rey gets knocked out, so Finn has to protect her with a lightsaber duel. Kylo is beating himself, increasing his pain to increase his dark power. Finn puts up a valiant effort, but in the end, he gets knocked out, and Rey has to save him. But still, he bought her time, and gave her the strength to use the force to stop Kylo. Seeing Rey grab the lightsaber for the first time using the Force is just awesome. She’s barely holding her own, but true to the character, she’s a fast learning. Meanwhile Kylo is still injured, and maybe a bit worn out from fighting Finn. At the cliffside, Rey is at the ends of her seat, but when she trusts in the force, she manages to beat Kylo after he overpowered her during the rest of the movie.

Finn ends with the movie more devoted to Rey than the Resistance, but he still proves himself to be a loyal friend and a hero. I was worried about him for the two years between Force Awakens and Last Jedi

There’s no words between Leia and Rey. They both just know, Han is dead, and they both loved him. And that’s enough for them to mourn him together.

But in the midts of dealing with the loss of Han, there’s is hope. Specifically, the New Hope.

Seeing Luke for the first time in this movie is such a fantastic cliffhanger.

Overall, I still love this movie as much as when I first saw it. It’s got great action and effects, the new characters are some of my favorites in the series, and the old characters give some of their best performances of all time. Sure it messed with a happy ending, but I’m still investing in seeing how characters old and new are going to try and get that happy ending back.

[light-and-heartful]

Am I the only one who thinks the Graphic Novels for the Amazing World of Gumball that are written by Megan Brennan are WAY better than the cartoon it was based off of?

granted I’ve only seen the first two (via readscomicsonline.to), but at least the full stories on here are more wholesome, actually have well-meanings, wholesomeness and good lessons, unlike the TV Show & Comic Series that is uses way too much edge humor & cruelty for their stories

and I say the ones written by Megan Brennan, cause she knows what Gumball is supposed to be like, I mean when I saw the series I thought this was I was going to expect from the series, not meme-filled, mean-spirited crap that the TV Show is known for now

I’d say the one nitpick with I have with it (and the comics for that matter) is that they try to put Anais & Nicole too high on a pestital to a point where they don't have any reprecutions to their actions & make it seem that they're always right while Gumball, Darwin & even Ritchard still get punished in over-the-top ways & always getting the one blamed for it, but still they’re wholesome and has good morals to them, and that’s definitely better than what the show has to it 

I just love it

also I had this idea for Cheat Code being adapted into a TV movie of where these changes happen,

when Gumball & Darwin try to think how they can get the other students to join the science fair after they ruined the game for them, Gumball decides to give the other students the cheat code, so they’ll all be on equal turf the next time they battle, but only if the other students promise to sign up for the Science Fair, and it works, until the next day when the other students decide to fight as a group with their powered up Monsters against Gumball & Darwin (kind of like the Horde Battles in “Pokemon X&Y” but in multiplayer form) to get back at them for destroying their original save files for their games, but after a fight scene inside the game where the powered up Sparky is fighting against all the students other monsters [also I’d like to mention that all the scenes where the Monster Fight Friends monsters are fighting (including the final mech battle) are all animated in a fluent epic anime style kind of like what happened in the episode “The Fury”], eventually Sparky wins, and after a fakeout where it seems the other students games broke again & they are about to pummel Gumball & Darwin but it turns out it just turned off after the battle was over when they turned back on again & assumes that because they’re the same level there was little damage to them this time, all the students are cool with Gumball & Darwin now (as they say it as they start to battle eachother) and everything seems fine since they got everyone to sign on for the science fair & it’s been three days so they’re not grounded anymore, but then the scene where they’re in class with Penny and as they’re being dismissed from their class, Anais comes to Gumball & Darwin saying they’re too busy fighting with their monsters to do anything in the Science Fair Meeting, to a point where Mr. Small is irritated by this, so she yells at the two then goes to tell Nicole that they snuck the game out of them during their grounding, and as Gumball & Darwin hold her down, the power from the previous fight got not only gets Sparky out of the game but all the other monsters from the other students’ games (without them knowing thinking the batteries on them are dead) as well, and the there is a big battle with Gumball, Darwin, and Anais to stop the monsters (with it being Gumball & Darwin going on their own first to stop it after Anais and Penny are crossed with them, but when Anais sighs and says “I leave them for two days with cheat code to get my trophy and they just screw it up as usual” Penny just gives a blank stare, then an angry >:( face with a slow turn, with the scene ending with Anais saying “What?”, and then it cuts to the two boys heading out at first with their water guns, some matches, bags of dirt, and electrical cords, and does well until they run out & they’re smacked all the way across the town with Anais coming to get them literally off the ground, and sort of apologizing to Gumball & Darwin saying that she let the hope of winning causing the problem, and when Darwin asks if you figured that on your own, Anais saying yep, and then it cuts to a flashback where Penny as a Wolf chewing Anais’s leg as she scream) with three transforming mechs (kind of like the ones from the Dexter’s Laboratory episode “Last but not Beast”) to fight the other monsters that combine together into a bigger robot to fight Sparky, all made by Anais for the Science Fair [& they’d still have Gumball & Darwin (on the ground after damaging both their mechs leaving them on the ground & watch and feel guilty about the whole thing as Anais is about to take a spirit ball-esc attack to the face) apologizing to Sparky about forcing him to fight and getting him powered down to his original self, the other students still wanting to do the science fair (because of the old passing fads things that happens in cartoons) and ends with the three of them not being grounded anymore and Gumball & Darwin getting to play with Sparky], also Anais gets grounded Extra-Grounded as well as Gumball & Darwin when the two of them tell Nicole about the whole incident (including how Anais gave them the cheat code in order to win the trophy) as Anais is getting out of the trashed mech suit since she was was just as much as to blame as Gumaball & Darwin for sharing a cheat code that can crash other people’s games & summon destructive monsters onto the world all to win a Trophy, also the opening credits is a parody of the original Pokemon intro with Pokemon characters, and the end credits have cute animation of Sparky playing around with toys and such, enjoying himself

do you think that would be good?

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

Me Ranting About a Bad Magical Girl Meme

So on discord an acquiatance-friend shared a magical girl meme about how “SJWs” ruined MG anime for the “West” that got me so angry that I need to rant about it here. 

Their friend (that showed to them) sadly couldn’t find an original version so here’s one with some rapid-fire responses for reference

I think that really most of the appearance ones are good and dealt with though I need to personally say “lolfuckyou” for “sexy girls and guys”. 

Let’s look at the others?

mostly apolitical beyond same ethnicity

The points in the response are accurate but we can go much further. If having one, broadly speaking (setting aside outliers like Anthy who don’t count I guess) ethnicity is perceived as a political statement (and I don’t disagree it is one essentially), what are we supposed to make of the messages like “have compassion for people even if they’re different?” that when possible, people should always strive for non-aggressive solutions and try to talk things out, even if in the end an aggressive solution is sometimes required? 

If the inclusion of a single ethnicity is a political statement, what should be made of the constant reminders by magical girl anime that gay people exist (more on this later) and that they are people with their own struggles and should be treated just as fairly as everyone else? 

Or themes and messages like that people shouldn’t be judged for superficial differences that really don’t matter, and that people should always strive for forgiveness, even for people that they have distaste for?

What about Utena’s portrayal of an unjust system that essentially perpetuates itself through the lack of desire of people at the top to tear it down and allows for people like the Student Council to have dominion over the rest of the school? Or how Utena’s story very, very frequently is used to deconstruct common shoujo tropes and expose their sexist undertrappings? Hey, remember that time in Huggto that Masato told Emiru that she shouldn’t play the guitar because it wasn’t “for girls” and Lulu is portrayed as justly taking Masato a-fucking-part? Surely no political implications there!

What should be made of episodic points like Miki utilizing Utena’s own critique of the dueling system removing Anthy’s autonomy for his own selfish ends, to the point of repeating it basically word for word? Or how about that scene in Sailor Moon that is basically devoted to softly criticizing Japanese academic culture? 

I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without noting that the blending of femininity and the masculine, in saying that one can be “girly” and still have the ability to save the day and defeat the villain (very very often without any sort of male aid), something soundblasted at the climax of Huggto that “anyone can be a Precure” is ridiculously political at its core?

(psst the SJWs are coming from inside the house) 

P.S. I love how Star Twinkle Precure managed to arguably make this out of date even at the time of its creation. 

generally leaves Yuri to the fandom

lol okay here have a couple canonical manga pages

oh and here’s an actual movie screenshot

(This is roughly an encapsulation of the entire scene btw I’m really not cherry-picking with this one)

Things the Ace Memester is also conveniently forgetting

1. That time in the manga that Chibiusa and Hotaru’s relationship is directly paralleled by Usagi herself to her and Mamoru’s?

2. How Saki and Mai, and Itsuki and Tsubomi, and Setsuna and Love, and Kanade and Hibiki and Lulu and Emiru (excusing the two examples I already gave) are so super clearly supposed to be love interests that it’s borderline text? And on the male end you have the super obvious basically transparent subtext in the Sailor Moon R movie. You also have to deal with Seiya’s super clear interest in Usagi and Usagi’s interest in... basically everyone. 

3. How about the time Regina used the nearly explicitly romantic Japanese word for love in reference to Mana in Doki Doki Precure? Or that time in the manga Rikka explicitly imagined Makoto and Mana getting married? Or that other time in the anime where Rikka talked about how life would be actually genuinely meaningless if she didn’t have Mana in it? How that’s an actual thing she really says?

4. If i’m allowed to include adult-oriented MG anime, how about how Togo from Yuki Yuna is explicitly stated in the extended materials to have a crush on Yuna (as if the show isn’t obvious enough about it)? Or how Nanoha and Fate live together and adopt a kid? Or Homura and Madoka and the subtext Kyouko and Sayaka have going on? Or the canon lesbians in Magical Girl Raising Project that get killed off to show how gritty the show is, but certainly exist? I’e gone this long without even mentioning Utena and Anthy or Shiori and Juri. 

Like “generally” is doing so much heavy-lifting that the poor soul collapses due to the weights simply being far too heavy to be held up with any sort of intellectual honesty. 

“better art and animation”

If you only watch the super-streamlined and high-budget shows, maybe?[1] But like, I am old enough and have enough residual memory to recall how Crystal got lambasted in its first season for its low-grade animation quality, ignoring the often wonky animation in the original franchise.

Like, if you don’t see the poor animation in MG anime, it’s often because of all the short-cuts animators really clearly take to disguise it, typically pouring pretty much all their budget into the important scenes that people really do need to remember. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

“Original ideas and no parodies” 

1. Hey, remember how much inspiration Naoko got from the tokusatsu shows she loved for Sailor Moon? And how things like the team dynamics and color scheme of shows like Precure are so obviously cribbed from the team dynamic in Sailor Moon? 

2. Hey, remember how Futari wa (even though this one does die), Splash Star, Fresh, Suite, Doki Doki (arguably), Princess, and Huggto have eerily similar redemption arcs for one (or more in Splash Star’s case) of their villains? 

3. Hey, remember how basically every season of Precure has a “the Cures are going to break up!?!” episode?

4. Or how plot elements of Princess Precure (like the Haruka-Kanata dynamic) are really clearly inspired by Utena? 

5. Or do you want to talk about how Nanoha was pretty clearly inspired by Cardcaptor Sakura at points? Or how adult-oriented MG anime quite often cribbed from Madoka tonally, thematically, and even in terms of character/plot beats? (MG Raising Project is often the most blatant about this.) 

6. If we’re talking about “parody”, see above vis a vis Utena and shoujo tropes. 

Like oh my god there’s so many examples that I’ve forgotten some as I’ve tried to write this up.

In sum, can reactionaries who want to co-opt MG anime please get out of this fandom? They’re really not wanted. 

1. Though I recall all the nitpicking that Madoka’s animation got back in its time. 

[jeanjauthor]

Writers?  This is the artistic version of a short story.

Artists...?

...WHY??

So...many...questions.

A lot of this breaks what writers call “the willing suspension of disbelief.” It’s where the audience is willing to overlook implausible things in order to keep following the story.  At some point their credibility has a limit, a breaking point where their ability to suspend and ignore their disbelief will snap, like hanging a thread from the ceiling, and then putting too much weight on it.

Some of these weighty questions include:

Why is she "standing" like that? She looks like she's sitting on an invisible stool!

Why is her cloak/sheet still bound up like that if she's been fighting long enough to get her sword bloodied?

Why is she so pristine when the wyrm corpse is clearly freshly arterially injured??

Why does she have no shoes and pristine feet when she’s clearly touching a bloody corpse?

Why is the tag end of her cloak/sheet...thing...whipped up under one leg and over the other when she’s been chopping up a monster and now has to fight another one?

Again, why is she so clean??

There are so many WTF questions...

What is she sitting on?

If she’s not sitting on anything, how is she supporting her weight in that position?

She’s not being supported by her feet, that’s for sure--is she seriously en pointe with her left foot (the one on our right, visually)?

And the one on the left (her right foot), if it’s resting at a 45-ish degree angle on a corpse so freshly butchered it’s still spurting, how is it she’s able to keep it in place when it should be slipping out from under her by all the laws of squshy meaty blood-filled things?

Where is the missing V shaped wedge of that tail?  Look at the angles on those two cut ends; there is clearly a whole big fat wedge of flesh that is missing!  If there wasn’t, that tail would literally have been an L shaped structure with the cut angling on the diagonal down into the corner, and that is just disturbing to contemplate...

...Where are the arm bones in those dragon-wings?? Seriously, that is disturbing, seeing the thin metacarpals and phalanges (the “finger bones” of wings if you look at wings as nothing more than elongated & weirdly angled hands) ...but not the arm bones...so where are they??

...Now this isn’t to say the picture is all bad!  The concept is actually a neat idea, looking like a cross of Lord of the Rings meets all those hedonistic Renaissance paintings of the Ancient Greek mythos.  And it would be 100% correct to mix mythos like this, as the Renaissance painters were doing that all over the place, mixing Greek mythos symbology into Biblical art, and vice versa (all of which was fan art, btw).

The streaky effect of the Nazgûl is wonderful, though I’d like to see a bit more tattering (along the same diagonal upper left to lower right lines) on that right side of the Ringwraith fellow, there.

The Ringrwraith even seems to be bending the airwaves around and above him, with the effects of the clouds sort of streaking in toward that bright spot in the sky above and behind.  It makes it look like the halo is sucking in all the Light before fleeing into the West, or trying to suck the Nazgûl  off the face of the planet to hopefully disinterate its evilness out of existence...

The bright part of the sky also kind of looks like dragonbreath fire, even though the Fell Beasts that the Nazgûl rode upon aren’t evern mentioned (as far as I can recall) as being able to breathe fire like dragons.  So that’s another point of coolness.

I have no idea what’s going on anatomy-wise of the presumed fallen and chopped up Fell Beast, but at least some effort has been made to provide it with a (weird) internal structure.  If it really is a Fell Beast and not meant to be a dragon or a wyrm, then I can accept the odd anatomy and darkness of the...I’m not sure if those are bones, but I’m presuming that it has some bones in its tail, and if it’s a foul abomination style creation, I can accept the creator had no clue.

I do like the crispness of the woman in focus versus the Nazgûl who is equally clearly not in focus.

Certainly the woman definitely looks like a Renaissance painting of a Greek Mythos Action Sequence! She’s in a classic serene, poised action pose that no doubt has some sort of supporting stool & armature behind and under the original model for her to rest her arms upon.

The symbology of Shield Maiden of Rohan certainly gets the first two components of that descriptor down visually: for the first part, she has a shield (lovely round thing, very Classic Greek Hero With Spiffy Expensive Metal Shield), and she definitely is using it to shield herself from something. (Plus the sword.)  The other part of the symbology is the “modesty sheet drape” under one thigh (gotta show off them nekkid thighs, Renaissance foiks!!) and up over the other, between the legs, blocking off any view of or access to the mons pubis...aka, shielding her maidenly modesty.

However, there is zero sign she’s from Rohan, because there’s zero symbolism representing Rohirrim culture...and the key element to Renaissance pictures of various cultures’ mythos were that they were rich with symbolism.  The Rohirrim, the Riders of Rohan, were emphasized over and over as horse people.

Tolkienn also cribbed the Scandinavian culture for his descriptions of them (I suspect the Golden Hordes of the Russian Steppes, heavily influenced by the Rus folks who were Scandinavians who had moved east and mingled with the Mongolian Empire remnants who a little earlier had moved west.  The Greeks knew of the Scandinavian peoples (no, really, they knew of them! Electricity is actually just the Latin word elektron (which comes from a similar-sounding Greek word I’m not going to bother to spell correctly), which meant amber, as in the petrified pine pitch being shipped down through Europe from the Baltic Sea in the far north, which is surrounded by Scandinavian countries.

Yet there’s no signs or symbols of Scandinavia about her, no knotwork animals, no amber, just pale blonde hair (which frankly could be representative of the British Isles or partial albinoism)...  So while there’s a lovely Greek Mythos in Renaissance Paintings feel to her...it falls short of being a true copy/homage, which is unfortunate.  It could’ve been so easily fixed, too, with a bit of knotwork braiding painted onto the cloak/sheet thing.

I will say that the folds of that sheet are spectacularly well painted, lovely depth and dimensionality to them!

Same goes for the condours of her body, and the tail of the wyrm.  I fully believe these are three dimensional objects!

The lighting is beautifully done.  Admittedly if the light is coming from that glowy bit of the sky behind the Nazgûl, she should be in shadow...except he’s a Ringwraith, and it’s 100% acceptable for light to go through him, since according to cannon, they’re not fully corporeal.  This is a “plot” point where fans who know the lore are more than willing to suspend disbelief.

I’m not a rabid Tolkienn fan by any means, but I do know enough to accept that Ringwraiths are wraiths, and not fully of the physical realm.  Plus, Greek Mythos Heroes in Renaissance paintings are supposed to be Bathed In The Light Of Holy Goodness, sort of an inner aura spiritual goodness radiance-effect, I guess...?  Either way, it’s symbolism, it indicates visually that the Light (Good) will shine through upon Heroes (& Heroines) when they are being their Most Heroic...and it’s very well done.

(...Another question if that’s her helm on the ground, where is the rest of her armor? Where are her clothes?? Or is this meant to parody the “sword and magic helmet!!” trope and the helmet was providing all her armor and clothes up until the point she removes it to reveal she’s a nekkid Not A Man? And really, are Nazgûl so far removed from their mortal lives that they need nakedness to be able to tell males from females of their own species...?)

If this were a story, it would be a crossover fanfic with awesome potential...but it falls a little short of what’s needed to successfully suspend the reader/viewer’s disbelief.

Why is it important to do a better job next time, to get these details a little more accurate? Because most Tolkienn fans I know are rabid about it, & willing to nitpick any mistakes or inaccuracies. Cast your minds back to the huge raging fandom debates around the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies about whether or not Peter Jackson & co were “butchering the mythos” of Middle Earth.

Also...I’m trying to figure out how the Nazgûl is standing, and on what if he is indeed standing, though perhaps he’s actually astride the fallen Fell Beast, and simply swung himself around while she was chopping off & somehow disintegrating that V-shaped wedge of wrymtail? I can suspend some of my disbelief for that, though it does add to the overall strain of that willing suspension, and obviously there were too many other issues that ended up snapping it.)

As an editor, if this were a story, I’d be telling the artist to fix the wing bones, to give the woman some shining chain armor with a Rohirrim tabard, or boiled leather armor and tabard--at the very least a tabard with the Rohirrim symbols on it!!. I’d also at the very least slap some Scandinavian knotwork on it, if not the actual Horse of Rohan. (I’d also suggest using the accepted colors for the Rohirrim banner, green and gold, though I might keep the majority of the tabard white and just have a gold-and-green knotwork horse centered on the chest, or something.)

I’d also request there be more chunks of hacked-off tail all over. (Bonus points if one of them looks like The Lonely Mountain!  lol...)

Plus, I’d give her at least a tiny bit of blood spatters around her boots and on her thighs & a little on the lower tabard, to show she’s been fighting in battle all along.  However, I’d actually hesitate to put the spatters any higher than belt-line at most (and definitely do something different than that cloak/sheet thing).

Why would I hesitate to get the chest area bloody? Because of the symbolism.

Renaissance paintings had blood & gore, but only up to a point.  She’s the heroic figure who slays the 3rd Biggest Nasty of the entire trilogy (#1: Sauron, #2 Saruman, #3 chief king of the Ringwraiths, the one she stabs in the face-hole), so she needs the symbolism of still being Clean And Pure Of Heart, aka no muss, mud, tatters, or blood in the torso (chest / heart) area.

In fact, if you just replaced the cloak/sheet thingy with just a tabard (a white one with a little knotwork on it, and put Grecian sandals on her feet...that would seriously fix a lot in this image.  You’d still get to paint the glorious three dimensional folds arrowing down between her thighs, “shielding her modesty.” and you could put some of the symbols of Rohan on the tabard (horse, knotwork, etc) to make her more clearly the Shield Maiden of Rohan, and not just a shield maiden, while still retaining that Greek Mythos feel.

(Plus, you could have a bit of Side Boob showing on the side closest to the viewer to make it clear She Is No Man, and still avoid the blasted censorship issues rampant in modern society, particularly on this site these days.)

...Definitely fix the dragon wing armbones with a bit of shadowing to remove the fact they look like they’re translucent with nothing along the upper/leading edge... ‘cause once unseen, I cannot un-see-it, and it’s creepy as-is...  >.>*

I love the color palette. It’s very dusky, as in nearing-sunset-dusk, with lots of earth tones.  It looks a bit dirty in its hues (as tragically poised battlefields should), and yet it has kind of a “Romanticism golden afternoon light” quality to it. These are all colors that I 100% believe Renaissance painters had access to and would’ve used.  Excellent choices!

At a quick glance, it’s a good painting.  When you look at it a little closer, however... the contrast between all the high quality stuff (lighting, three-dimensionality, focus versus unfocus, at least half the necessary symbolism is there, etc, etc) and the lower quality stuff (oy that lack of proper dragonwing armbones, etc) means it’s really not quite the artist’s best work, and it could be so, so very much better.  Why?

Composition is as important as technical performance.

Seriously, the way she’s painted is gloriously done...except for her positioning.  The dragon wings (I haven’t even touched on the odd angles of the metacarpal bones on the left-side one, just the right one, which is well done for the “finger bones” but there’s no way it should be pointing up lke that), those wings are too anatomically implausible, though I’ll admit they’re more about visual framing than being actual key features.

And lastly, if you’re going for a glorious Greek Mythos Renaissance Painting look to the art...go the whole hog.  Paint it like it’s Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Lunch, Dinner, Tiffin, Tea, Supper & Midnight Snack all rolled into one. 

Hell, paint a Loyal Dog (a staple of Renaissance symbolism), put it down at her feet (to represent the hobbit Merry, who was with her on her quests), and give it a little Rohirrim helmet and/or tabard!  Go the whole distance with this.  I truly believe this artist has that kind of quality in them!

If they did, I do believe all the old Renaissance Masters would totally thumbs-up this painting, if those flaws were fixed and the symbolism ramped up to at least a 9, if not necessarily a 10, rather than just doodling around down near a 5 or 6.

If this were a story and I was the editor for it (and presuming this was done on a tablet / computer, since if it’s an actual painting, that’s harder to fix), I’d definitely strongly suggest the revisions and rewrites listed above.  And then I’d pimp the hell outta this painting.

(Oh, and to fix the weird positioning of her body, I’d give her a Radiant Aura Of Goodness with some golden streaks of light or something angling out at all directions, so it looks like she’s kinda floating, rather than wondering if she’s “suspended” by secretly sitting on a stick or a tail spike or something.  That would help strengthen my suspension...as in the suspension of my disbelief.)

[theonceoverthinker]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Top 5 Bit Songs

Here’s something that should be no fucking surprise to anyone: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has a lot of freakin’ great songs!

And honestly, there’s too many to restrict to one list. Or even four lists.

So instead, I settled on six lists (Well, six best lists and one worst list)!

I do this because there is such a wide variety of not only songs, but types of songs in this show that I can’t justify conflating into a single list. To do so would never allow for the smaller songs and reprises to truly get the recognition they deserve, and I think that there’s something there to examine and appreciate in the smaller numbers the show produced. And that’s why I wanted to do a bit song list.

What’s a bit song, you may ask? Well, I qualify it as a song that runs at or less than one minute and fifteen seconds (A weird choice, I know, but honestly, if you check out the data, that’s how long the filler songs tend to run) and is not a reprise because they’re going to get their own list. Also, this will likely be the only top 5 list because I can barely manage a top ten list for some seasons and I’m no masochist. ...At least not like that. XD

These songs will be judged on the song itself, its narrative contribution, its visual elements, my personal biases because I’m only human, and because this is a bit list and the bit songs are basically all comedies, how funny it is!

Okay, now that I’ve explained myself, let’s get this going!

5. Apple Man

Apple Man makes this list for its essence of parody and Michael McMillan’s energy! The songwriters really knew how to make an in-universe filler song and made one that is not just a parody of it, but an honest-to-goodness homage. Like, in some 30′s or 40′s show, I could totally imagine this being here. And McMillan has just the enthusiasm and big voice to deliver in a completely straight way. Finally, I love that in the most out-there and funny of ways, it actually is what brings about Daryl’s epiphany about Paula. My only complaint is that I wish McMillian had played it just a smidge hammier, particularly when he says “I’m sticking to my one fruit plan,” but that’s honestly a nitpick! I guess you could call me an Apple Fan of Apple Man!

4. How to Clean Up

This song is on the list because of how funny its deceit is. When i first saw it, I was all ready for a Josh and Daryl song, but what I got was funnier than I could’ve hoped for. I love how character informed it is. Daryl is friendly and helpful, but only to a point: He has two kids, and isn’t about to take on a grown man as a third. But while the thought is unconscious, that’s what Josh kind of expects. That makes the number even better. Also, let’s talk about the visuals. I love the bright colors, the held frames, and the flashes of animation. It really makes it seem like something out of the eighties and the buildup of the visuals makes the punchline hit so much stronger!

Curious about 3-1? Well, meet me under the cut to find out what they are!

3. If You Ever Need a Favor in Fifty Years

I tend to wane on my appreciation for the on-the-nose songs in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but this one that I utterly ADORE. While I never went to a summer camp like Camp Kavethca, I do know a lot of people who did and saw more than my fair share of movies and TV shows about them. I heard their songs that promised to forever be a camp girl and how they’d always be sisters, and because of that, once again, I’m in awe of the homage! I think the punchline about how on-the-nose it is works really well! There’s not much of a visual component to the song, and there really doesn’t need to be one because these two are only acquaintances, if even that. There’s no friendship to call back to: They’re only using each other as a means of maintaining a status and it’s fairly clear in this number, and that just makes this funnier!

2.I Have Friends

“I Have Friends” has so much of what a great Crazy-Ex Girlfriend song has -- brilliant comedy, great characterization, nice visuals, and a great energetic rhythm. First, for as sad as it is concerning the status of Rebecca’s friend count both as a kid and an adult, it’s also funny too! Just look at the “friend of friend from law school” -- he’s so uncomfortable! And he’s just one of the increasingly absurd friend examples that this series points out between the two Rebecca’s. Second, we really see how Rebecca’s awkwardness has been a consistent presence throughout her life -- giving the song a layer of tragedy on top of its comedy. Third, the bright visuals of the grocery market and the school paint a vibrant illusion for the song that pairs well with its solid rhythm, making us believe for just a moment just what Rebecca wants to believe about herself.

1. Scary, Scary Sexy Lady

This song is a marvel -- a mix of visual, story, character, comedic, and musical components put into a small, but satisfying package. The visual effects combine elements of slashers monster movies and action films like “Kill Bill” in an intimidating way that shows you everything you need to about Rebecca’s spiral. She still considers herself to be a tragic revenge-driven anti-hero, as reinforced by the lyrics, but the opening framing and the absurdity of those same lyrics show us just how bad of a spot she’s really in. Finally, the same absurdity in the lyrics I just mentioned combined with the credits that remind me just as much of Deadpool as they do of James Bond are hysterical. Everything from the abstract visuals of the more random parts of the “opening number” of Rebecca’s delusions to the over dramatized presentation of the actually established elements of the show just make for something over the top, but in the best way, and that’s why it’s my number one bit song!

Here’s hoping you like this list and general structure because you’ve got plenty more of these coming your way! And what’s you favorite bit songs? Let me know! I LOVE talking about this series!!!