#this movie that it’s so fast paced in a way that’s obviously supposed to be entertaining and thrilling but now that i’m not obsessed with it

[pupkou]

the editing pace in marvel movies is kind of terrible

[alpaca-clouds]

Why do people struggle so much with understanding pacing?

Okay, let me talk about my pet peeve when it comes to writing in any medium. Pacing.

People, who know me for long, will know that this has been the thing I have been complaining about since I was like 12. And there is a good reason for it.

See, when I learned to write, there was this guy who I greatly admired as an author. And after bugging him for a while (look folks, the internet was a very different place from what it is now) he did give me some recommendations on books on writing. And a lot of them went deeply into his pet peeve, which - you guessed it - was pacing as well.

And thus, I learned early on about story structure, and pacing, and how to pace out a story in a way grips the audience. This material I read went onto different techniques for different mediums, into how different cultures had a different ways of dealing with this, and so on, and so forth.

Some of my main take aways were, that a lot of very long stories struggled massively with pacing, and that a ton of people also very miscalculated their ability to handle characters in terms of pacing - because characters and pacing are two things that are very, very heavily connected.

I also learned something else, though: That a lot of western writing advice did not understand anything about pacing outside of the idea that stories were supposed to have three acts - or maybe five - and ideally from a certain fateful day in the early 2000s on, would follow the "save the cat" formular. (Mind you, I do not hate "Save the Cat", however, this formular has been created for movies. It works at times somewhat well for books, too. But it definitely does not for for pretty much anything serialized, because that is not what it was developed for.)

And I also learned another thing: Most people do not understand pacing either, because pacing is not a thing that is ever taught in normal school (like most things that are about creative writing are not). So, while some people might have a gut feeling that the pacing of something might be off, they rarely can actually say why. And this is only worsened by the fact that today's tiktok addicted society is so used to consuming ultra condensed media, that they will perceive anything less condenses than 1 minute tiktok videos as "too slow and boring".

So, please allow me - the guy who kinda hyperfixated on this specific writing skill - to talk about pacing. And this will be in the following points:

What is pacing actually?

How do characters relate to pacing?

Pacing, Streaming and the supposed "filler episode".

Pacing and Fantasy

Pacing in Action vs anything else

Pacing in books vs visual media

What Is Pacing actually?

Okay, I think one of the main issues when it comes to understanding pacing is, that a lot of people see pacing on a on a spectrum that goes from "I am bored" to "I can't follow the plot anymore". But that actually does not always have to do with the pacing - obviously.

Technically pacing is the speed in which the plot moves. Or, to make it more quantifiable: "How many plot points (beats) are covered per either time (in any timed medium) or per page (in anything you read)". Which makes sense at the first glance - but does actually often not line up with the subjective perception of this. Becau se here is the thing: No, fight scenes are not automatically fast paces. A lot of modern action movies have super slow paced - in terms of story pacing - action scenes. Because yes, during those action sequences a lot of STUFF happens, but nothing of it actually is in any way related to the plot.

Look, I freaking adore the Fast & Furious movies. But you could literally edit those movies down to like 45 minutes each and not lose a single plot beat. But of course, nobody would watch those movies - because yes, me and everyone else who adored those movies, is there to watch them lunch cars into space and see stuff blow up. I don't much care about the characters or the plot.

This is by the way also the kinda point that me and other people talk about, when we are unimpressed by "oh, but sex scenes don't add anything to the plot", while the same people would often not make the same argument about action scenes - even though there is a ton of movies and shows where the action scenes really do not add anything to the plot. A lot of people just do not perceive action sequences as slow pacing, because even if nothing that happens on the screen actually adds anything to the plot or moves it forward, it is undeniable, that STUFF is happening. So basically monkey brain will go: "Hehe, things go boom!"

Don't get me wrong: there absolutely are stories in which the action is moving the plot. Mad Max Fury Road is a great example. The movie is also about 60% action - but the action scenes actually add to the plot.

Meanwhile nothing tells you as much about how unimportant some of the MCU action scenes are, than the fact, that they are often done by a completely different team and will be done apart from the rest of the movie.

But yes, traditionally the idea was, that towards the "finale" of a piece of media, a lot more plot beats would happen over a shorter amount of time. You will see that also in a lot of beat sheets. There are more beats that need to happen in the third act of a story - if we go by three act structure. And often there is actually even more plot developments, as usually in a finale all the "plotlines" will kinda finish up in the end. So even plotlines where not a lot has happened to this point - this shows especially in serialized works both in TV shows and stuff like manga or comics - the important plot points will then often happen close to the finale, because it feels more "right".

In older serialized media - especially TV shows prior to streaming - you also had the same thing hold true towards the finale of a "story arc". In a lot of older shows, you would usually see a structure that looked like this.

The "rise" here technically has less to do with more stuff happening in later arcs or seasons - and more with the threat-level rising, and the convulutedness of a story. lol

But yeah, the take-away from this part should be: No, action does not equal fast pacing. There can be action-heavy shows with super slow narrative pacing - but it will to many not feel this way, because at least action is interesting to watch. Which also might be an explanation to why people are a lot worse in seeing the issue with action-scenes that are not adding anything in visual media, but might actually notice it in written stories. Because in books action scenes do not feel "fast paced" in the same way they feel in movies, where the often faster editing and the amount of motion on screen will create this effect.

Oh, and on the other side: Of course there can be slow paced plots that will leave you having problems following. At times, because they are badly written (aka: the media does not give you all the information you need) - and at times, because a piece of media might expect you to know a certain bit of information that you do not know. I can definitely think of a variety of scifi media, that just expects you to know stuff about computer stuff or space, and will not explain it to you. Which might make you need longer time to take plot developments in, and then leaves you reeling.

Another thing however that is also important is: If the pacing stays actually the same throughout a piece of media - rather than accelarating towards the finale (or finales if there are multiple) - it actually will feel wrong in some way. Often people (even I, who hyperfixates on this specific thing) struggle to point at it at first. But yes, this very much is an issue that also can happen. You want the pacing to accelerate towards certain points in the plot - and then slow down. If you had an important point, you want a few slower scenes/episodes/chapters afterwards, to allow the audience to somewhat absorb all the new things you presented them with.

How do characters relate to pacing?

Alright, now we come to the dicey part - specifically, because a lot of people (which includes narratologists, creative writing professors, and people professionally writing) actually kinda do not fully agree on this. So, fair warning: This is how I think.

A character arc in many cases absolutely is a part of the plot. Most media we consume these days are character driven, so the characters are absolutely centrally connected to the plot and the plot mainly exists to have the character move from point A to point B. Or, to make it more basic: To have a character realize that their WANT is not their NEED.

Sure, those characters will usually also accomplish something plot-related. But them accomplishing them is more often than not heavily connected to them fulfilling their character arc. (Please note: characters having a want but having to realize a need is something that is core of western storytelling. However, given that it makes for interesting character arcs, a lot of Asian media these days also will use this as a central driver for character development.)

In some pieces of media, the character arcs are way more heavily tied into the beats of the main plot, than in other. In adventure, action, and related a lot of fantasy and scifi, there is most of the time a character arc happening parallel to the main plot beats. Meanwhile often enough in more down to earth drama and romance, plot beats and character development beats are heavily interwoven. This is not a hard and fast rule - there absolutely is fantasy where the character arc is the plot arc, just as there is romance where the development does not play as heavily into the main plot - but you can generally observe it.

However, no matter how strongly the character development beats line up with plot beats, you cannot deny one thing: character beats are beats that also add to the pacing - even if they technically do not move the main plot forward. So, for example, if you have an episode in a show or a chapter in a book, where important beats happens in terms of a characters development (for example: they realize something important about themselves), this does not necessarily slow the pacing down - even if no actual plot beats happen.

What the fuck is a plot beat? What is a character beat?

This part of the essay was originally not included, but the people reading over it said I should include this.

If we say, that Pacing is basically the description of "Plot Beats per Time" or rather "Plot Beats and/or Character Beats per Time", then we also need to say, what exactly a Plot Beat is. I will fully admit, that this is one of those things in which I forget that this is not a thing taught in school.

I mentioned "Save the Cat" before. "Save the Cat" is a book about writing movies and specifically about pacing out a movie in a way that it is captivating. It mainly focuses on action, but you can absolutely use it for most other genres. And this comes with a so called "beat sheet", a collection of the main story beats that happen, showing when they are going to happen. It looks like this:

Basically a Beat is a scene, in which the plot (or a character arc) is moved forward by a bit. Basically anything that reveals something to the main characters, anything where the basic assumptions about the plot change, anything like that.

Examples for Plot Beats would be:

Character learns about something going on

Characters find out something important about the plot

Someone (either protagonist or antagonist) gets killed or injured

Characters get a new power or item that is important to the plot

Romance goes forward or a reason for the romance to happen is found

Characters find a hint for something they want to reach

And examples of Character Beats would be:

Character learns something about themselves

Character makes a decision for themselves

Characters realizes feelings about something or someone

Character overcomes trauma

And mind you, because I cannot fit this anywhere else: If you read these you might realize, why Musicals are basically a cheat for very fast pacing. Because you can put an entire character arc into a 4 minute song. This is why musical animated shows like Steven Universe or My Little Pony managed to pull some insanely paced episodes, like the Empire City episodes for SU, and the episode in which the Cutie Mark Crusaders finally got their Cutie Marks. Musicals are insane when it comes to this.

And something that you have to realize: While for movies and books certain Beat Sheets (Save the Cat is not the only one) work rather well, those Beat Sheets usually do not work well for Shows. And currently we are living in a time, where this becomes very noticable - because a lot of modern shows are written and aired as basically 4-8 hour movies, using often just the "Save the Cat" beat sheet (if you have read Save the Cat, you will see it EVERYWHERE, because it is so frequently used in western media), but... obviously, Save the Cat is made for something that has 2 hours, and as such a lot of modern media feels strangely slow and stretched out.

Pacing, Streaming, and the supposed "filler episode"

(Yes, this needed to be the gif for this. Because no filler episode has lodged itself quite as strong into my brain as this one.)

So, let me talk about the issue in modern media. Because oh boy.

As I said: I hyperfixated on this specific writing skill forever - and as such I was annoyed by "filler episodes" in TV shows. To explain for the youngest people (not that I am assuming a lot of those are on this hellsite lol): "Filler" was the name given to material that did not move the plot forward at all. So a "filler episode" was an episode, that was just there to fill the episode slot for the week, while no plot was happening. I am not fully sure whether the term originated with anime - but at least back in the early 2000s, before Shonen-Anime were done as 12-26 seasons that then allowed the manga to get ahead in between, "filler" was also the name used for those story arcs that the anime people made up for shows like Naruto, One Piece or Dragonball, that were not in the manga - and hence obviously also never added to any overarching narrative.

And what can I say: We did not appreciate the filler episode enough. Because this related very much to the last part: While filler episodes did indeed not add to the plot and usually by definition did not the character development, they actually still added something often enough.

They allowed the audience to get to know the characters a bit better and get a better feeling for the character relationships - and those episodes take out a bit of speed, which is actually important.

As said before: The pacing should not be even throughout an entire piece of media. In a TV series after an episode that was especially tense and pushed the plot or characters forward a lot, there should be ideally at least one or two episodes that move forward slower or even not at all. This allows the viewer to sit with the new developments for a bit - and of course the characters to have a moment to breathe and process whatever happened to them.

There is also the fact that those episodes usually give the audience a better understanding for the characters - and if you have an audience who at this point ideally care about some the characters, this will even be more successful.

And as I said. Back in ye olden days, a lot of people - me included - complained so much about Filler. But we were wrong. Fillers are amazing, as long as they do not overtake the whole show.

Pacing and Fantasy

Okay, let's talk about a thing, that is somewhat funny. A lot of fantasy - specifically written fantasy media - often has a pacing problem. And this problem comes from the Worldbuilding. Others forms of fantasy media (other than games - though pacing in games is whole different matter) have this too at times, but it tends to be worst in books.

Basically, when you are a fantasy worldbuilder, you have this whole world. And this leaves you with two problems.

a) You are afraid that people will not be able to follow the plot if you not give them a lot of information about this world and how it differs from ours.

b) Well, you build this entire world. And the people should KNOW.

So, a lot of fantasy media basically regularly will stop to explain to the reader or audience, whatever is happening right now. Some writers manage somewhat naturally put this in. Maybe they have a character that does not know a lot about for example magic or dragons, and they can ask questions and act as an audience stand-in. But even in cases, where the worldbuilding is somewhat brought in naturally (which by far is not all of them - because people usually do not naturally talk about stuff they both know, or think a lot about something they find naturally) those "explanation" pieces will make the plot come to a screeching halt.

So, the more worldbuilding you explain, the slower your pacing is.

And of course, pacing is not a reliable thing to keep people reading, and pacing will not always turn people off. But you know how people complain about how slow Lord of the Rings is? This is because of course, every time that Tolkien describes a piece of landscape over multiple pages, there is no plot happening on those pages. And while I personally think some of those descriptions are darn stunning, it is one of those things many people will not like.

However, this makes it a bit complicated. Because yes, worldbuilding explanations will slow down the pacing to a degree that can be problematic. But if you explain too little worldbuilding, people might struggle to follow the story. Which again is the most common problem if the pacing is "too fast" as well. Basically, people do not properly follow the plot and will struggle to understand what is happening and why.

But the opposite is true as well. I have read way too many fantasy books, where after the first 100 pages, I know a lot about the city the plot is set in, or about the magic system, but sadly have so far not been privy to any information what the plot is about, what the characters try to archive, or even who actually the characters are. And that, yeah... Is probably the most common reason why I put aside a variety of fantasy books in the past.

Pacing in Action-media vs anything else

Okay, let me talk about one other thing. See, the word "pacing" is at times used in some other context: In visual media, pacing will be used for the editing of what we see. Basically the amount of cuts that happen within a scene. Or, in a comic, the distribution of panels is also seen as a pacing element.

And anyone who heard people complain about how at times confusing the editing in action movies is, you know that this at times can get too much.

Still, in visual media action scenes feel usually fast - because the characters are moving around rather fast. In a visual piece of media, action scenes are often thrilling, because the characters are in constant danger of dying, and because a lot of stuff is happening. This often works better in visual media, than in written pieces. While it absolutely is possible to write thrilling action scenes, a lot of writers struggle with this, because they tend to overdescribe and that takes the speed out of the prose. But generally speaking, a couple of punches thrown - something that in a movie takes about 10 seconds - will in book easily end up in 200-500 words, which you will not read quite as fast. A bit more about that later.

And then there is the issue with the action scenes, that even is true for visual medial, is that they often really do not have any important plotbeats. Sure, if the characters have their final battle, that is a plot point. But in a lot of action media - especially TV shows - there are a lot of scenes included that really do not add anything, but just are there because folks love watching action scenes.

This goes so far, that people will think a show or movie with a lot of action scene will just be seen as "good fast pacing", even though if the actual pacing in terms of plot beats being spaced out is rather bad. As a good example I will once more nod at the Fast & Furious and the Mission Impossible movies, that often have horrid pacing and very confusing plots - but they do not feel really like it, because the movies are like 60% action scenes, and hence they do not feel like it when you watch them.

It can work at times. I spoke about my love of the F&F movies. Can I tell you a lot of the characters? Nope, but the action scenes are fun to watch!

But this also tends to mean, that in a badly paced movie or show, that is badly paced because the action scenes not adding any plot beats, everything tends to fall apart when the action scenes do not work. And often enough action scenes will still be prioritized over everything else in many of those pieces of media, making things fall apart easily.

Pacing in books vs visual media

I have hinted at this now multiple times: Written media is generally a bit harder to pace than visual media, because of the things you can and cannot control. While a writer in a book has full control over the scenario, a director of a show or movie had actually influence the timeflow of the things happening on screen. As a writer meanwhile you absolutely have no influence on the speed in which your reader will read.

Sure, you can somewhat influence it. Shorter sentences are easier read. An general lower reading level will allow people to read quicker. So simpler words, shorter words, shorter sentences will make parts appear quicker. You can use this for example in action scenes to have a bit more of this breathless feeling that an action scene on screen might have. Use short sentences. Do not link sentences up. Quick hits. Quick impressions. It can work - but it needs some training. Not to say it is fucking hard.

Generally speaking to my experience when you write a single novel, the "Save the Cat" Beat Sheet actually works rather well, if you are the kind of writer who is fairly good at planning things out. If I actually try, I will usually manage to plan out a story and predict fairly well how many words a chapter will have. So yes, for books I can very much use "Save the Cat" and it will work.

However, some things simply work a lot better when you have visual parts going on - but there are other things you can do better when you do not have the visual stuff. For example: A writer can do much more when it comes to motivation and introspection of characters. Yes, this slows down the pacing - but it is something that writing has basically over any form of media that is not a musical. (In a Musical you can characters do introspection through songs. Musicals are the ultimate way of cheating. I love them!)

Something I feel so many writers struggle with in terms of books is actually putting in a clear goal for the character from the beginning. Again: I have put too many books aside where I reached page 100 and did not yet have any goal for the main character.

That goal you give them does not necessarily need to be their final goal. Again: A lot of western storytelling deals with the incongruent nature of a characters "needs" (aka something that would actually help them) with the character's "wants" (aka what they think they would need). But at the very least the plot needs something that it can head towards from the very beginning - a hook to capture the reader.

There might be readers that are absolutely fine with just reading an exercise in worldbuilding - but you cannot expect them to be.

[chaotic-ravenclaw]

UNPOPULAR (?) OPINION

(pls don't attack me for this 😭😭)

THE PERCY JACKSON SERIES WAS A PISS POOR ADAPTATION!!!

I would like to start by saying absolutely no hate on the actors!! They were perfect for their roles <3

I'm not just gonna be complaining the whole time, there were some things I did like and I do mention them as well.

1) the pacing was all off. I get that they only had 8 episodes to cram all that info and action into, but it really was WAYY too fast paced. The fight scenes didn't feel like fight scenes coz they were over in seconds, and just a lot of the info you're supposed to find out gradually or just know from context clues is outright said instead of shown and spaced out.

Also, just some of the dialogue was really cluncky and weird/unnecessary and made it very awkward to watch at times.

And then the only two long fight scenes dragged on and ended in ways that just completely disregarded a major character moment. Which leads me to no. 2

2) The arch scene. I actually really liked how they changed it to a shrine of Athena's in the show, it really showed how much Annabeth trusted her mother, and when Echidna was able to pass through anyway, the betrayal was a nice touch which really showed how much trouble they were really in.

HOWEVER!!! What I DIDN'T like, was that last fight scene with Echidna and the Chimera, which actually really upsets me coz it was our first decently lengthed fight scene. I didn't mind the fight overall, but the ending was a cop-out.

The scene in the book where he jumps out of the arch is supposed to show how much trust/faith he has in the gods and his father. He trusts that Poseidon will catch him. And yes, ik, Uncle Rick "thought it was closer" and didn't realise the river didn't go directly under the arch, but surely the fact that it wasn't closer holds that much more weight if he had jumped?

3) They completely butchered Grover, Annabeth, Sally and Gabe's characters.

Grover is supposed to be this scared but BRAVE and LOYAL satyr who loves nature and whose entire purpose is to PROTECT young demigods and find Pan (the god of the wild).

Instead, we get this guy who rats out his friend for doing something he didn't even do, AGREES WITH ARES about fucking WAR of all things (I get it was a ploy to get information but I'm still not really vibing coz it was just so out of character), and WAITS OUTSIDE till the fight is finished before running in and asking if it was over yet. And if all that wasn't bad enough, they've turned him into the exposition guy. Uncle Rick, does show don't tell mean nothing to you?? He deserved a lot better than what he got.

Annabeth in the books had so much depth and character dimension; she wanted to break free from her stereotypes (dumb blonde, girls can't fight/are weak etc); she had a lot of faith in the gods (especially her mother - I'm really glad this was shown in the show); she wanted a way to prove herself to the gods.

Instead her character is moulded down into a singular trait. 'Mean'. I personally think it's a step up from her movie counterpart's singular trait of 'girl', but they could also just do her one better and give her an actually fully fleshed out personality.

I understand that, due to her appearance, they obviously can't do the whole dumb blonde thing (which I really don't mind), but they could throw in some struggles about her race and the 'girls are weak' thing too. Obviously they'd have to be careful to handle it respectfully but it's definitely doable. Like, there are so many thing they can do with her character and all they did was make her mean.

I would have liked it to have been more obvious that she wanted to prove herself to the gods, because it's such a big reason why she chose to be part of the quest. Like, the bathroom scene should've made it more obvious that she was scoping him out to see if he was the leader of the quest she was prophesied to be in, instead of that stupid janky line about capture the flag.

I did, however, like that they got rid of her little crush on Luke, because the fandom ruined their sibling relationship because of that. (I can already see the arguments THATS gonna bring up lol). I interpreted her little crush on Luke as something similar to like when you'd have a teacher crush on primary school. A silly little crush because "they're pretty and were nice to me" kinda vibes. A platonic crush if you will ?

ANYWAYS, I'm glad they fixed that up, but I really would've liked to see her and Luke act more like siblings before he left. Like, half the confusion the first time round was coz we didn't get any proper sibling moments before (or after really) Percy came to the conclusion that Annabeth liked Luke. It just would've been a nice touch.

I also really didn't like the fight with Luke at the end (they changed WAYYYY too much) but the thing I dislike the most was that Annabeth was there. She wasn't supposed to be there. Half her struggle through the rest of the books was that she couldn't come to terms with the fact that Luke was on the Titan's side, and tried to hurt/kill them multiple times when they got in his way. It's supposed to be a slow process for her, but having her there would (realistically) speed up that process, and undermine her feelings and struggles from the books.

On another note, I didn't like how they dealt with Cerberus. It felt so unfeeling, when it was supposed to be a more emotional interaction. Annabeth loves dogs, and that was supposed to be one of the moments you learn more about her. It was supposed to be sad when they parted, but instead it was more of a "that thing is going to kill us, we need to get the fuck outta here" kind of situation.

One last thing for Annabeth coz this is getting long. The Fields of Asphodel scene was rubbish. If there had to be one of them stuck there, it should've been Grover. I truly believe he'd have the most regrets out of the three (eg. Thalia dying under his care, losing the teleportation pearl, trusting Luke, regret for ratting Percy out perhaps? Etc). But realistically they all would've planned roots. They each have regrets weighing them down. Anyways, I just thought it was stupid

Gabe is meant to be the absolute worst. He's meant to be an abusive asshole who couldn't give two shits about Sally and Percy. He's meant to be demanding and messy.

Instead we get this somewhat likeable guy whose worst crime is sitting in his chair for hours at a time. We're supposed to hate this guy, so why am I finding him kinda funny? Like yes, he's still kind of a dick, but he's not so irredeemable as he once was, and this version of him DEFINITELY doesn't deserve to be turned into a statue 😭😭

Like, miss ma'am, just divorce him, move out, turning him into a statue was so unnecessary in the show 😭😭

And I hate to say it, but the movies actually got him right.

And that leads me into Sally's character. In the books she's this brilliant woman with a heart of gold who loves her son more than anything. She married an abuser to protect her son from worse things, so he could grow up with a relatively normal childhood without fear of being hunted by monsters 24/7.

She's supposed to be a bit timid, a bit scared of Gabe because HES AN ABUSER. Sally isn't supposed to have her girlbossness yet! She hasn't gotten to the point where she can leave him (both because she's staying to protect Percy, and also because after being with someone like that for a prolonged period of time, it starts to get to you)

Side note - she's also not supposed to keep contact with Poseidon?? It kinda defeats the purpose of keeping Percy underwraps?? (I'm talking about that one flashback in the diner, it doesn't really make sense)

ANYWAYS!! Instead of some quality character development/growth, we get a character who unrealistically doesn't need it coz she isn't really a victim in the first place. They took away part of her character by taking away her trauma. The way that Sally and Gabe are portrayed really takes away from Sally, and the point that her character is at in the show doesn't make sense to her situation in the show's current timeline.

Also, the way Sally treats Percy in some of the flashbacks is fucking disgusting. THAT is NOT my Sally Jackson. My mother is emotionally/vocally abusive and neglectful, and that is exactly how she treats my neurodivergent younger brother. Maybe I'm projecting or looking into it too much, but seeing that in the show from one of my favourite characters in the books was so jarring, I almost started crying.

Because Sally is supposed to be the best mum, everyone loves her coz she's such a wonderful human being, and that's how she's been treating her son. It just makes me second guess how bad my own mum really is. Obviously everyone has their flaws, but getting angry and yelling at a child because he's scared/upset/doesn't want to do something has never been one of hers.

Alrighty, I'm gonna stop yabbering on coz I feel like this is WAYY too long, but I have a lotta thoughts and feelings about this coz PJO is my comfort fandom lol.

Please gimme any thoughts/opinions you like to share <33

[wizzdot]

The Patron Saint of One Way Trips

Ch26

Description: I’m back, thought it was getting a little bit too fluffy so it’s about time some shit hit the fan x

The short holiday John had planned passed quickly. The 141 pack had truly spoiled me, taking me shopping, to dinner and even allowed me to share their pack bed with them when I couldn’t sleep. John, ever the traditionalist, had reminded me that I didn’t have to share their room if I needed space.

It all crashed to a jarring halt when Laswell called John an entire day earlier than she was supposed to.

*Laika’s POV*

I am lounging comfortably across Johnny’s lap, curled up against him as he sleeps. We were watching a movie together when John’s phone starts ringing. Kyle groans at the interruption and John sighs, standing to answer the phone in private, leaving the room.

I listen carefully through the walls as John paces back and forward in the hallway outside.

“Kate, I thought we had another day until we shipped out.. what’s changed?” John grumbles down the phone.

I don’t hear the reply, obviously, but it can’t be good news.

“No, she stays with us. We ain’t leavin’ her anywhere by herself. That’s not an option, Kate..”

Shit, they’re talking about me.. he sounds angry. Why were they discussing me…?!

“Kate.. it’s final, she comes with us or none of us come..”

They’re fighting, but I can only hear John’s side of the argument..

“I understand what you’re saying, Kate, but she is safest by my side. I won’t let anything harm her.. I’m not leaving her, that’s final.”

I can tell that the conversation is wrapping up. I sit back closer to Johnny, pretending to still be sleeping. I gulp, nervous about what is coming..

I hear the door click back open and John walks in, sighing heavily, clearly pissed off.

“..well?” Simon grunts

“We leave tonight, Kate’s got a lead..” John says.

“Tonight? Must be important. What was she saying about Laika..?” Simon digs.

“She thinks she should sit this one out. Thinks she can’t cope, that it’s dangerous.. that she’ll be a liability”

“And why’s that ..?”

They’re whispering, hoping I can’t hear them while I ‘sleep’ - Johnny, bless his heart, is still fast asleep. I’m pretty sure a bomb could go off and he’d sleep through it.

Kyle chooses the pause in conversation to pipe up. He’d obviously been listening and thinking through what could have happened.

“Who exactly is it Kate’s got a lead on, Cap..?”

“Makarov” John whispers, trying his best to not allow it to reach my ‘sleeping’ ears.

“Shit”

I tense up when I hear his name. I feel sick. Johnny must be able to feel my change of position as he suddenly tries to soften me up to better mould to his sleeping form. He kneads at my hips, trying to soften my position against his lap again, but I’m just too tense now that I’ve learnt that we are going up against Makarov.

“No point in whispering, she’s listening, aren’t you, little one..?” Simon says, directing his comment towards me, while I continue to try my best to pretend to be asleep.

Shit, he has noticed.. of course he has..

I open my eyes, immediately meeting the gaze of all three Alphas, Johnny continues to cling to me while he sleeps.

“So you’ve heard everything then, love?” John asks me, directly.

I nod, nervously.

“Do you want to stay.. sit this one out..? Your call..” he asks.

“I - I don’t want to be left on my own.. but.. but I don’t know if I’m ready to face Mak- him”

Fuck, I can’t even say his name.

“How-how long will you be gone..?” I whisper, contemplating my options.

“Probably a week, but we never really know.. we could bring you with us to the safe house,..? Make sure you’re safe..?”

“I - uhm.. I..” I stutter, completely at a loss of what to do.

“Sweetheart” Kyle speaks softly from beside me, “you’ve got a couple of hours to think every thing through. Take your time, you’ve got options. You can stay here, at base.. you can come with us to the safe house and stay there until we come back, or you can obviously come with us on the mission but if you’re nervous or not ready then it’s probably safer if you stay away from the action for now..”

I nod, appreciating Kyle’s calming presence and simplification of my options.

“I - I want to come to the safe house”

He nods and smiles at me.

“Sorted then, that’s what we will do, love”

John agrees and Simon just, sort of, stares. Johnny continues to sleep until Simon abruptly stands, barking Johnny’s name. He jumps, and wraps his arms tightly around me before remembering where he is.

“What the fuck’s goin’ oan?!” He grumbles, sleepily.

“Hiya, pretty.. look at you all comfy on your favourite Alpha’s lap, eh?” He teases, kissing my cheeks, dangerously close to the corner of my mouth.

We hadn’t done anything since my weird half heat thing. John had said it was best to take things slow and steady.. it had all been flirtatious touches, cuddles and kisses, nothing more. But Johnny had come close to breaking his Alpha’s ground rules.. he was the boldest of the pack. The least obedient.

Kyle had been nothing short of a gentleman, so soft and caring. Simon had closed himself off again, a little, on the physical side of things but had still been kind and respectful. He’d been calling me sweet nicknames for the past few days.

John had spoilt me on the shopping trip again, much to my disapproval. I quickly realised that if I looked at anything for more than 3 seconds, John would assume I wanted it and would send Kyle to buy it before I could tell him I just admired it and that didn’t mean he had to buy it for me. He just brushed my moaning off as nonsense.

The next few hours pass in a blur. It feels like one second, I was curled in Johnny’s lap, and the next, I’m sitting in the back of the car between Kyle and Simon, as we head towards London.

I must have fallen asleep as I wake up in Simon’s arms as he carries me up the stairs of an unfamiliar house. “It’s alright, little one. We’re at the safe house. Taking you to bed. Y’must be tired. Been sleepin’ a lot lately..” he teases gruffly.

I whine against his chest, taking this rare moment of closeness to inhale his rich scent. He grumbles when he realised what I’m doing. “Greedy girl” he teases again.

“M’not greedy. Not my fault he doesn’t cuddle me more…” I huff back, like a little brat.

He chuckles deeply at my response.

“M’not a cuddly Alpha.. not like the others anyway..”

“John’s cuddly..?” I ask, having only recognised Johnny and Kyle’s obvious obsession with touchy feely stuff.

“Oh yeah. Caps probably the worst. He has been holdin’ back around you, omega.. afraid he’ll scare you away..”

“John..? As in the Captain.. Pack Alpha..?” I ask, completely lost.

“Yep, once he has you in his arms, he ain’t goin’ to want to let you go. He’s a possessive bastard..”

“I like it when you cuddle me..” I admit “you’re warm.. ‘n’ so big..” I whisper, slightly embarrassed.

“Shh, love.. you’re tired. Not thinkin’ straight”

“No, Simon.. I mean it. I want more…”

“Don’t want to hurt you, little one. I’ll let Kyle and Johnny do all that stuff. They’ve more control over their Alpha side than I do”.

[masculinemiracles]

How was Lunacita born? At first I thought with all the fuzz it was Angel and Val's kiddo

She sure is Val's kid

Tw// labour, Birth, Water breaking, nsfw themes

Angel dust shuffled uncomfortably in his makeup chair, reading the script of his film for that day while his baby kicked happily from the safety of his womb. A small smile stretched across his lips as he rubbed his belly with his lower set of arms. Their situation was less than stellar, and Valentino was working him to second-death to pump out movies before Angel gave birth, but Angel enjoyed his pregnancy despite that. Knowing his little baby boy or girl would arrive soon. There were even websites dedicated to countdowns for when Angel was due to pop – which was any day now.

Many fans had their own bets on birthdates and the time of day he'll deliver, and it took a toll. Angel just wanted to give birth in peace, no cameras, no watchful eyes, just him, a doctor and his child. But he knew that wasn't going to happen. Valentino had planned to livestream his labour and birth to all of hell and profit off of it as one last ‘fuck you’ to Angel and their baby.

He was quickly jolted out of his daze with a sharp pain, bewildered, Angel took a deep breath and pressed his palms to his lower back. He had been feeling these pains all morning, and now they were coming more frequently. “Fuck..” He hissed under his breath. He was too scared to admit to himself what was really going on to him. He was in labour. Hair and makeup came over and started doing his hair, all Angel had to do was push through until shooting was finished and have the baby somewhere private.

“What is the fucking holdup Angie-?!” Valentino yelled from across the studio, even though he can obviously see that Angel is still being tended to.

Angel sighed and waved the cosmetics team off, simply leaving his appearance how it is and standing up from the chair. He could feel just how much lower his baby sat on his pelvis than before. As he began walking across the room, he felt a small pop between his legs and the warm feeling of fluid running down them. He quickly picked up the pace to get away from the puddle and stepped onto the set.

'This can't be happening...'

“ACTION!” Val shouted, and soon filming began.

Angel was out of it. Way too focused on breathing through the aches rather than acting. Luckily Valentino wasn't noticing and he allowed the other actor to do whatever he wanted as long as he could hurry it up already and cum. And as quickly as he prayed for it, the other came right onto Angel's stomach.

“Cut! Hot stuff you two!” Valentino applauded, ushering the stage crew to start cleaning right away for the next shoot that thankfully didn't involve Angel.

As soon as Angel was free to go, he slipped away to his dressing room where he finally collapsed onto the floor, sweat beading on his forehead. This isn't what he wanted at all, he wanted a hospital, he wanted a friendly nurse to hold his hand and coach him through the birth. But the pain and the pressure in Angel's lower half only grew stronger with each passing minute. As soon as the contraction subsided, he acted fast. Grabbing some scissors from his vanity and bottles of water from his mini fridge.

He fell back onto the ground and huffed, finally feeling the urge to push. He grunted and bore down, pushing with all his might. He didn't know how much time he had, so he hurried and pushed until he felt dizzy.

--

With one final push and a muffled scream, the tiniest of cries filled Angel Dust's dressing room. He panted in shock for a few moments before looking down at the floor between his legs, where a little white moth baby lay crying out for her mother. Angel felt the urge to vomit as he reached down and picked up the little moth. It was supposed to be a regular day, a regular shoot in the studio. He hadn't expected to go into labour today of all days. Yet there he was, sitting on the floor of his dressing room, covered in blood and holding Valentino's spawn.

He felt everything and nothing at all.

As he stared down at the baby, taking in her features, all he could see was a silhouette of his abuser. A sharp twinge pierced his heart as he ran his hand up her tiny antennae, which twitched from the sensation.

Valentino would soon find them. And the thought terrified Angel. He knew what Valentino would do when the pregnancy between them would no longer be profitable for the company. But as the baby's cries softened in the quiet room, Angel laid back against the wall. Savouring the moment with his daughter before the reality would set in once again.

[woafofbread]

New Year’s resolution is to post more so I’m gonna start off with critiquing generative AI.

My dad sent me this for new years. Obviously he didn’t know it was Ai and I didn’t immediately know for sure but I got the feeling. The feeling that’s like “hey something is off about this.” I wanted to talk about the process of recognition that I go through as an artist when I see something made by Ai because a lot of the time at first glance nothing seems wrong.

First thing that I notice is how after 2025 there something that is clearly supposed to be an exclamation point but it’s too small and incomplete. This immediately made me realize for sure that it’s Ai. Ai is usually bad at doing text and it would be pretty easy for a human to fix.

Then I see the rest of the inconsistencies. The n in new is disconnected. There is a stray line coming out of the h in happy. Snoopy’s hands: one has a different line weight and the other has a finger that’s way too small. The stray little lines on Snoopy’s mouth. Woodstock only having one eye brow. Then this part is debatable since it is clearly trying to replicate the style of the CGI Peanuts movie, but Snoopy’s eyes being different sizes bothers me. The ear which I didn’t even circle is probably trying to replicate the loosely colored in ears in the comic strip, but in the CGI version it’s fully colored in. The golden firework blending into the top of Snoopy’s hat. Woodstock’s hands. Woodstock’s feet. The blurriness of Snoopy’s foot that isn’t anywhere else. The lines on Snoopy’s foot which doesn’t reach the end. The blurriness at the top of Woodstock’s head.

As an artist in art school we are critiqued on every little detail of our work. These kinds of inconsistencies are not okay for professional artists to make so the idea that companies want to use Ai shows how little they cared about artists in the first place. Any company that uses Ai instead of hiring an artist is clearly is cheap and is making themselves look bad.

I know that Ai can look convincing and pretty at first glance, but I want people to look at artwork for more than a few seconds. With social media everything is so fast paced and we are conditioned to to want instant gratification, so Ai is a quick and easy way to make ‘content.’ But the things that generative Ai makes are low quality and infuriating to see as an artist. I would much rather see someone try to make art as a beginner than see a computer steal art from other people.

So when you share or like something take an extra second to see if it was made by a person because if a person didn’t even care enough to make it it’s not worth your time.

Any other artists feel free to point out anything that I missed.

[ilovetomdaya]

🚨This is going to be my spoiler Dune Part Two review. It's going to be long so please bare with me. I loved Dune Part two and I would definitely watch it again.🚨

So let's start off with Chani. She's a total bada** and Zendaya did an amazing job playing her. She really seems to understand Chani and who Chani is. Her performance of Chani really blew me away. Chani is obviously a very strong believer in Fremen. She doesn't believe in what the other Fremen do. I love that she makes that very clear and she never let's anyone change her mind. Then she falls in love with Paul. He makes her all of these promises and says all of these things about fighting for Fremen. Chani is definitely a strong independent woman who gets sh** done, fights for her people but also seems to love hard. She has conflict with herself because she loves Paul but disagrees with him on some things. Over all Zendaya knocked it out of the park with Chani. I feel so bad for Chani because she sacrificed so much for Paul and got other Fremen to believe in him and treat him like family only for him to stab her in the back. Asking Irulan to marry him right in front of her. Just mere minutes after telling Chani "i will love you as long as I breathe." I'm glad she walked away from him but my heart hurts for her. She deserves better. I wonder what she'll do next? I'm so proud of Zendaya. Timmy did a great job playing Paul. He really dug into the deep dark part of Paul and brought that out. Paul felt and seemed so much more darker this movie and was power hungry. He became a character that I don't like. I'm glad that Chani slapped him. He deserved it. His hunger for power definitely came out when he went to the South for sure. He had a little bit more of a softer side in the North side. He doesn't truly love Chani the way he's suppose to. He wants power and will do anything to get it. Even if it means hurting Chani and people that he supposedly loves. Over all Timmy did a great job playing Paul. Okay so let's talk about Paulchani. One of the problems I had with this movie is how fast paced Paul and Chanis relationship was. They go from just meeting to all of the sudden telling each other I love you and being in love. It makes no sense. I also personally think that Zendaya and Timmy don't have the best on screen chemistry with each other. They obviously have okay onscreen chemistry but it's not the best. I found myself struggling to connect to their relationship/ love story. Their relationship just didn't make me feel anything really. I honestly think that's due to how fast paced it is/ was though. Another issue with the movie that I had (like others did) is the pacing. It started out slow but then it got really fast and it seemed like they were trying to fit in a lot of material in a short amount of time. Austin absolutely blew me away with his acting. Couldn't even tell it was Austin. All I saw and heard was Feyd. He portrayed the physcotic person Feyd is/ was amazingly. There were times where Feyd genuinely had me scared. Like other people have stated the accent he did for Feyd was cringy but the acting was great. Rebecca straight up bodied the role of Lady Jessica. She was terrifying. She had me scared asf sometimes. Especially when she became a Reverend Mother. The fact that she betrayed her own kid... has me saying "damn." That woman is ruthless and a bada**. You couldn't tell it was Rebecca. All you could see was Lady Jessica. Javier did an amazing job too. I loved that you could see how strongly Stillgar believed in what he did. Zendaya, Rebecca, Austin, and Timmy were the stand outs for me though. I definitely want to watch the movie again. So glad I got to experience it in theaters.

[mincedpeaches]

re: this post

>They wanted to focus more on Red Team

And yet no Donut or Lopez. hmmm. Whats that all about.

>considered Simmons to be somewhat of the main character and wanted to focus on his arc

Okay now this I can kind of see. The only thing I think doesn't work is where he ends up. Literally just send him off to be a Sargeant back on Chorus or with the UNSC or something and this would have been ace.

>difficult to get the pacing right knowing it would be a single release rather than an episodic one

Yeah, we could tell. But also I don't think the episodic pacing hurt the good RvB seasons rewatchability when they were the "complete" versions too much. I think they should have just tried writing it episodically and then stitch it if they thought that would be easier.

>they did revisit some earlier seasons while working on it for inspiration

Okay but did they revisit Chorus. The trilogy this was supposed to come directly after. Because if not, plus they're watching old seasons for inspiration, maybe that explains why their characterizations were so off.

>it would have likely been expanded into a trilogy, they condensed the story significantly for the movie

*Adelle voice* We could have had it ALLLLL. But seriously, we could tell this too just from watching it.

>The main story is based on the original pitch Burns gave for S15, but ultimately they went with Nicolosi's pitch instead

And WHERE was Jason's pitch RT? HMMMMMM? Also when did Nicolosi pitch this? What was the difference between his and Burnie's pitch? No offense to Nicolosi but I can't imagine him contributing anything better than Burnie.

>They were also working under relatively tight budget and time constraints

YEAH, WE COULD TELL.

>The production team was very small, Hullum speculates the smallest one they've had since Season 8.

And yet Season 8 is a masterpiece. Much to think about. (Obviously Season 8 probably had more time & money and also Animator Georg (Monty Oum) but its interesting that Matt would bring this up.)

>They consider bringing Tex back to be Caboose's decision, not Church's. Church's plan was trying to bring himself back. They tried to imply this in the script without directly stating it.

Okay I did NOT pick up on this and this fucking rules. Caboose character arc real.

>There was a cut scene showing that Tex and Church spent a lot of time (relative to them) inside the memory unit before it was destroyed.

I'm assuming when they say "cut" they mean cut before filming. Because otherwise why would you trim scenes from your already way too fast paced plot. Also awww. Cute.

>There's another deleted scene where it's revealed Simmons has access to Grif's internet history. Both of them are uncomfortable about this.

CUTTING THE GRIMMONS BAIT. I SEE HOW IT IS.

>Donut is Geoff Ramsey's favourite character.

WELL THAN. WHERE WAS HE. ANSWER ME GEOFF.

[reelvibes91]

A Mosaic of Contrasting Emotions- A Review of Anora

Any film that wins Cannes Film Festival gets high praise. That creates a lot of buzz for potential future awards shows and gives the film a lot of discussion in various social circles. Anora was that film this year. There has been a lot of chatter about this film.

There is a palpable energy that flows right from the opening sequence all the way through this movie. It is a tale of two energies. One is a fast movie, a modern love story, and the other a chaotic free fall. All of that happens so fast and there is so much to take in.

Mikey Madison bears that weight as the titular Anora, and she delivers as promised. She creates a vulnerable character, and we see go through so much. Anora is both a fighter and afraid of being lonely and abandoned. Madison showcases that in the later half of the film, the pace switches from upbeat to frantic. Her performance goes from more subtle to deliberate in everything. Her demeanor changes when the atmosphere she is switches on a dime. Madison should win the best actress next year. She is in almost every scene of this movie, and without her pulling off a performance of this nature this film never succeeds.

Her ability to showcase how Anora felt while on top of the world all the way to feeling desperate to cling to it should be studied. Not just for her performance but also how to write a story. This is the story of broken people finding themselves in situations where there is no positive outcome. It showcases how women are still treated like objects and the personal toll it takes on them. It showcases how almost anyone will enjoy the lavish lifestyle when given the opportunity to do so.

Anora is a heartbreaking film, but that feeling is there even through all the partying and beat by beat scenes of the love story. Classifying this a modern love story is an odd marketing choice when, by definition, it is more of a tragedy. It has the star-crossed lovers feel to it. As if they had met during a different life with different circumstances and without the pressure, things could have been better. That is what makes the film so uncomfortable in the latter half. You see the train wreck approaching, and with any good story, you just have to watch it happen. Obviously, in a story, these concepts are written and created for dramatic effect, but they do not make the downfall any easier to accept. That is the mark of a great story with an outcome that is hard to swallow. We know it is coming, and still, the gut punch hurts just as much.

If Anora does go into the award season, poised to sweep a lot of major awards that would not disappoint me. It is one of the best written films of the year. You can point to certain themes being over the top, but that was by design. It makes you feel the highs and lows more this way. It makes you invest in these moments because they are heightened. It is one of the most engaging movies of this year. My viewing was split in two. The first half was very early, and then I had to take care of personal things, but my mind was always on getting back to this story. If Mikey Madison does not win Best Actress, there is a lot of questions to be raised within the academy. It is supposed to highlight the most memorable performance of the year. The one that demands the most out of the winner and Madison definitely left everything out there and was not afraid to do what was asked of her. Amazing job.

[randomrabbidramblings]

Random's "The Super Mario Bros Movie" Review

My quick toughts on the fly weren't enough so his is a longer, more "serious" review.

Obviously, SPOILERS!

So let's start with the negatives since there are so few of them.

The pacing feels kind of rushed, sometimes we jump from scene to scene too quickly and the interactions between the characters are also a bit too fast (like Mario and Donkey Kong becoming friends so quickly in a "I saved you, you saved me" kind of thing). As a lot of people said: the movie really needed an extra 15 minutes.

Some of the characters are very plain, especially Toad. He is very underdeveloped compared to the others and only serves as the funny side character. There's no explanation about who he is or why he behaves that way (Nintendo fans will correctly guess he's Captain Toad, but an outside viewer might not get it). This doesn't mean I didn't like him, his comedic timing was good and never annoying and he never tried to steal the scene for a gag. Luigi comes close to having little characterization, but it's mostly because he didn't have a lot of screen time. We do get to see his relationship with his family and Mario, we get his personality quite well and he gets to be a hero by helping Mario at the end.

End of negatives. Yes just that, lol. Now the positives!

The plot. Even if very simple, it just works. It's a movie about the beginning of the Mario Bros adventures, they couldn't tell a completely different story without twisting everything. Plus it's a movie made by Illumination and we know their main target audience are kids and so they mostly focus on simpler plots and not very deep stories (unlike Dreamworks or Pixar for example). And since it's a movie about a 40 year old chracter, the movie has to appeal to more aged viewers as well. Everyone knows Mario games aren't so deep with lore (not counting the various RPGs and spinoffs, I'm only talking about the mainline games!).

The atmosphere is perfect. "Normal looking" (but never plain) in Brooklyn and "super bizarre" in the Mushroom Kingdom. There are a lot of things taken from the games, but even if they are never explained they don't feel out of place because the universe is so odd and everything feels so unnatural they make sense for themselves, even for someone not used to Mario things. The floating blocks? By themselves they would look out of place, but with everything going on, the question isn't "Why is that block floating?", but "Why wouldn't that block float?". And this goes for every "strange" thing we see.

The characters are well distinguished even if in a simple way. Mario and Luigi are the ones with the deepest characterization with their wholesome relationship and family problems. Peach is simpler, but it's ok it's that way because we don't know anything about her past, just that she came from the same place as the Bros and the Toads took her as their Princess. Bowser is quite funny: he's presented as a ruthless tyrant, but in his speech to his troops we learn that he stole the power star and they're heading to the Mushroom Kingdom because he wants to marry Peach. Even his own army can't believe it! The viewers go "What??" the same way as they do! Donkey and Cranky Kong have a simple but effective relationship as well with Cranky being embarassed by his boisterous vain son who's supposed to be the prince, but instead he just likes to show off.

References. As much as I don't like too many refences to things in movies here they work! If they aren't relevant to the plot, like the powerup blocks and Rainbow Road, they act as very good background props and they are never constantly shoved in your face. A lot of them are even very well hidden, so the movie is worth a rewatch to catch all of them.

And now some things I enjoyed!

The mario Bros sitting at the table with their family. I love how they made them so different, yet so similar. Dad being voiced by Charles Martinet is poetic.

The Blue Spiny Shell scene in general. I knew it was gonna happen, but still surprised me.

The Donkey Kong vs Mario scene was one of my favourite scenes. Animation, pacing and dialogue was perfect there!

Bowser and Kamek piano duet. "Jam with me." *underground theme* *coin sound*. It was so unexpected, lol. Also Bowser's practice wedding with Kamek. Basically all scenes with both of them.

Mario's training course was also one of my favourite scenes. Peach stuffing the mushroom in his mouth was funny. Mario throwing up in between shots of the montage was even funnier. Mario and Peach little talk after it was sweet too.

Luigi in the Dark World. Everything about this scene. The Luigi's Mansion references, the Dry Bones behaving like stock movie zombies and the surprise Shy Guys at the end. Not gonna lie, I was expecting some Boos too in the Fortress.

Bowser's ehm... passionate singing lol.

Totally unexpected, I called the swearing. But not in the Mario Kart part where I expected it. And just in the Italian dub, I suppose as I really haven't seen it mentioned for any other languages. Mario and Luigi swear once each (or Luigi swears twice, I can't remember now) with a nice placed "Are you fucking with me?". Yes the Mario Bros officialy said "fuck". Twice.

Lumalee. Dark humor at its finest. The funny thing is that he could easily fit trough the cages' bars, but he just didn't want to, lol.

And finally a couple of missed opportunities (in my opinion).

The 1-up mushrom. Maybe they could have made Mario eat one someway and then let Bowser defeat him in the final battle. Everyone is grieving the poor plumber, Bowser is gloating in his victory, but Mario comes back to life thanks to the 1-up he ate before. Too much for Illumination?

I still haven't understood why they replaced Toadsworth with a generic Toad. He could have explained something on why Peach became the Princess.

After this review, I think I'm gonna change my previous 8/10 with a 9/10 (because this time I took in account the Nintendo fan in me, lol).

[perfectlyfinespacebacon]

my initial thoughts

admittedly i have not read the books but like am i supposed to be rooting for / like alex? like how the scene was put together the cake thing was literally alex's fault and then he hates henry because he was mean to him years ago because it was his first debut as a public figure and he was scared? but like henry doesnt owe alex anything? and alex is all like uggh hes entitled and snobby but like he's literally doing the same thing? i know they work through it (obviously) but it was really hard to root for alex's happiness for me

but also maybe its the actor too? taylor isnt giving charismatic charming to me...

am i the only one who feels this way?

EDIT: the movie's pacing is also so fast like i'm not sitting with the characters enough...

[merianmoriarty]

Server Movie Synopsis: Evil Dead Rise

*AN: Keep in mind that these synopses will contain spoilers and may not be complete, as I rarely see the entire movie while serving for it. These synopses are just going to be fast impressions of an Alamo Drafthouse server.* 

Swoopy camera!  Lakehouse (lol is this a Halloween reference? because it feels like one...).  Unwell girl not facing camera.  Well, in this franchise, that means there’s like a 99% chance she’s One Of Them.  Spooky voice!  Yup, she is one of the Evil Dead.  Travel back in time to how the Evil got into her (the movie...seriously, that’s what the movie is about, how the Evil Dead got unleashed again in the blond girl in the cabin in the middle of the woods [guess it could be the Cabin in the Woods, too, because the Evil Dead seems like something those nuts would be betting on...]).

Rocker chick!  Pregnant?  We don’t know yet, but since this is a horror movie, probably!  Chick from all the movie posters/trailers dyeing her hair while fiddling with Chekov’s Tattoo Gun.  Kids!  Protesty-daughter, genderqueer-child, tiny-tot-who-will-probably-survive (“I would love to forget that, but it seems like the kinda thing that stays with a man forever.”).  Neighbors!  DON’T GET TOO ATTACHED.  Building is haunted?  WELL, HERE WE GO.

Earthquake.  Is that a wood-chipper?  Bank vault.  Spooky religious stuff that looks like it’s supposed to be keeping demons at bay.  Obviously, we must immediately disturb this and take the creepy skin-and-fangs-book.  ASH YOU HAD ONE FUCKING JOB, MY GUY:  KLAATU BARATA NIKTO.

Oh, good; not only did you take the spooky book from the spooky vault, you thought you should read it.  THIS IS WHY KIDS NEED BRENDAN FRASER’S NINETIES MASTERPIECE, THE MUMMY.

Evil Dead unleashed.  Great job.

Spooky instructions from the spooky bank vault tell them that a priest tried to translate the book and now he Regrets All the Things, because (as long-time franchise fans know) it takes a body and kills it, and then anything it kills after that joins it...and the only way to stop them (aside from destroying or properly sealing the Necronomicon) is to completely dismember them and seal off the place where they died so that the Evil Dead is/are trapped in that one spot with no host bodies to take them elsewhere.  Hey, remember that wood-chipper?

Try to escape!  Fail miserably!  Amalgamated monster!  Wood-chipper!

Two final girls, definitely full of trauma they should not share with therapists lest they transfer the Evil.

Featuring:  Staffne (Staffnie?), some Serious Scissors, “I GOTTA KILL THE CREEPY CRAWLIES THAT I GOT IN MY TUMMY °u°,” misuse of kitchen implements, typical Evil Dead acrobatics, surprising lack of Evil Dead lightshows, Evil Dead elevator cables instead of Evil Dead vines, Evil Dead Voice, All The Blood (Just Fountains Of The Stuff, Really, Just Everywhere), white kids with a horror-movie-typical lack of fear and good sense until way too late, and a chick who would have survived if she hadn’t noticed the aftermath of the wood-chipper and strolled right into the Evil Dead.  As short and fast-paced as the original, but with a Big Budget feel, somewhere between Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 in terms of violence and general excess.

[practically-an-x-man]

And finally:

Paper, Canvas, Photography, Film, Cricut, Finger Painting, and Creative! :)

And here's number three!! Thank you again, this has been a lot of fun to dive into!

OC/Writing Art Asks

Paper: Who do you feel is your most two-dimensional or underdeveloped OC? Why is this? (including those that are still in development/haven't been written about yet)

So I have actually answered this one here, but the short answer is that I want to write something that incorporates Sean Cassidy, but all I've got for an OC so far is their mutation: the ability to visualize solid matter where there is none, like the inverse of Kitty Pryde's powers. Most of my OCs go through development very quickly, so there's not much that feels two-dimensional to me

Canvas: Do you ever "prep" your fics with outlines or warmups before you start writing, or do you just dive right in?

I don't usually do warmups (unless I'm REALLY hurting for motivation), but I sometimes do a bit of outlining. Usually, I'll outline by chapter, and do the outline of the next chapter right after I finish writing/posting the current one. I also tend to use the top of my document as a dumping ground for character information, ideas for future scenes, and other outline-based things. I think Desert Song actually has the most tangible outline of all my fics right now, since there's a lot of chaos that I need to keep in order.

Photography: What's one moment from any of your fics that you feel is preserved in your memory?

Oh man... how do I choose? For one thing, I'm kind of a walking encyclopedia of my writing. Honestly speaking, you could probably pick any line at random from any of my fics, block out the names, and I'd still be able to tell you which fic you pulled it from and the scene that surrounds it. So in that sense, it's all pretty well-preserved. But that being said, there's a few moments that I just can't get out of my head:

Chapter 42 in Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 37 in Bolts and Blasters

The second half of Chapter 7 in Desert Song

Chapters 47, 56, 66, and 69 of A Love Once New

Both endings of Secret Worlds

Chapter 15 in Catch and Release

(and yes there are individual moments within these chapters that I'm also referring to, but describing them would take forever. And this isn't even all of them. There are so many more, now that I'm thinking about it, including a lot of moments that I haven't written yet)

Film: Which one of your fics do you think would work best if turned into a movie? Who would direct it?

Hmm... So, I'm going to discount the ones that are physically synced to the source material (a good chunk of Catch and Release falls under No Way Home, Who Waits Forever Anyway? is based on NATM 3, etc.) and say that the most likely candidate is either Desert Song or Nom De Guerre.

6 Underground was supposed to have a sequel anyway, but it got cancelled due to poor reviews. Both of these fics are written based on what this sequel could have been, so they'd translate well as a continuation of the story

They're both very fast-paced and action-packed, and while the stories are/will be somewhat complex, they follow a fairly linear path that would translate well to the big screen.

I feel like my writing style is fairly "cinematic", but most of my other fics are either too complicated to fit into one movie, or simply work better in writing. These two are modeled after 6 Underground itself, and therefore are designed in the same action-movie way

As far as directors, the simplest answer is Michael Bay, since he directed 6 Underground itself. I'm not the biggest Michael Bay fan as a general rule, but I feel like it would be best to maintain the style of the first movie.

Cricut: are there any characters you've had to "cut" from a story? Are there any moments/chapters/stories you've had to "cut" entirely?

Hmm... obviously, I'm not afraid of long stories, so I don't end up cutting a whole lot. If I want a scene or character to be present, either it'll find a place somewhere in the original, or I'll post it on the side (I've done this with Bolts and Blasters as well as A Love Once New).

I did have to cut out one story entirely, sadly. After Wednesday came out, I had an idea for a fic and even got a couple chapters written (but not posted), but then there was some backlash for a few of the actors and even the show itself, and I didn't want to place myself in the middle of that. I was proud of the OC I made, and ended up hybridizing her with a character I made for an AHS fic I have planned.

Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.

Oh boy, alright. My earliest completed fic is called I'll Be There to Catch You, and it could certainly stand a rewrite now that I've improved as a writer... but this isn't the earliest thing I've written. There's actually a super old AHS: Roanoke fic still floating around my AO3, abandoned after like 6 or 7 chapters. I want to delete it and rewrite it, but I don't want to get rid of it until I've started the rewrite. So uh... second-hand embarrassment, here we come!

“So how’d you get into acting?” you muttered, still mostly focused on a piece of stubborn scar wax that refused to stay stuck to his skin. His blue eyes flashed up to yours, and his mouth twitched like he wanted to smile - but he was trying to stay still so you could do the makeup.

“Hmm. I don’t really know.” he let out a short chuckle. “I know that sounds weird. I just got done touring with the Army and figured it would be an interesting job to go into.”

“You were in the Army?” you asked. Your eyes flicked down to his collar, looking for dog tags.

“Yeah. Two tours in Afghanistan. Took some pretty nasty shrapnel to the chest but otherwise I’m alright.” His eyes went distant with the memory.

“Well, lucky you don’t have to take off your shirt until next week.” you joked, trying to bring him back to the present. It worked...but not in the way you hoped. His eyes flashed up to yours, and his cheeks went red.

“I mean...your costume.” you backpedaled, feeling your own face go hot, “You have a different costume next week and it shows more of your chest so-” You cut yourself off, realizing you were babbling. You ran a hand through your hair, looking utterly mortified.

“Mind if I dig myself into an even deeper hole?” you muttered sarcastically, busying yourself with a bruise wheel. You were sure that your face was still beet red, probably your ears too.

You kept working, keeping your idiot mouth clamped shut as you finished up with the scars on his arms and face. You weren’t even paying attention to the music anymore, just trying to get through the makeup without any more major embarrassments. Of course you’d screw things up with the hottest guy on set (sorry Rory) after barely having a single conversation with him.

And as for the rewrite: say goodbye to second-person (I've made it work before, but not for this), dress up those descriptions, and just make it less cut-and-dry. Let's see what I can throw together.

"So," Wren asked, a desperate attempt to fill the silence with anything more than the dull drone of the radio, "How'd you get into acting?"

"Ah, I dunno. Just got lucky, I guess," he replied, and she caught a flash of crystalline blue as his eyes met her own. Dylan kept himself close to frozen, his lips hardly twitching even as he spoke. It reminded her, again, of how terribly close they were. Wren fiddled a bit more ardently with her airbrush, returning her focus to what was necessary. Filming was due to start in just a few minutes, this was no time to get distracted by his eyes. No matter how brilliantly blue they happened to be.

"Lucky?"

"Oh, sure." Dylan replied, stifling a low shrug as he once again fought to keep still, "Got out of the Army, no degree, wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my life. But Hollywood's got no shortage of action heroes, I suppose. Or... colonial settlers."

"Well, you do rock the colonial settler look," Wren joked, biting down a smile of her own. She realized a moment too late that her eyes had left her airbrush and were now scanning his chest, searching for the telltale glint of dog tags. "And you were in the Army?"

"Two tours in Afghanistan," he said, a barely-perceptible hint of darkness slipping into his voice. He shrugged it off awfully quickly. It must have been common practice for him. "Ate some shrapnel on my second trip over, discharged on injury."

Wren didn't quite enjoy the shadows behind the words. And she didn't enjoy the way his hand had ghosted across his chest, over the memory of those old wounds. It was a little strange, she thought. She'd pegged him as a military man from the moment he walked in - something to do with his strict posture, his deeply-ingrained sense of discipline, the way he seemed up and ready to go even at the ass-crack of dawn - but this ran so much deeper than she'd expected.

"Well," she found herself muttering, chasing away the fog in the only way she knew how to, "At least you don't have to take off your shirt until next week."

She hardly processed what she'd said until his head snapped upwards, candid shock blinking across his face like a bolt of lightning. And her words were the thunder, catching up to her a moment too late.

"I mean-" Wren blurted, feeling heat pool in her cheeks, "Your costume. We're shooting the poisoning scene... there's a different costume and it- it shows off more of your- and Sidney wants some scarring so I'll have to-"

She huffed out a sharp breath, ready to melt into a puddle of mortification right then an there. She pitied the janitor who'd have to mop her up when all of this was done. But at least it would spare her the embarrassment. Wren let out a wordless growl, stapling her tongue to the roof of her mouth so it wouldn't run away from her again.

"Mind if I dig myself an even deeper hole?"

Creative!: free space! share something you've been dying to share about your writing! Could be an OC that never gets the limelight, a moment you were proud of, or anything else you'd like to share

Looking back at that old snippet of my writing has actually made me appreciate how much I've grown as a writer in the past 2.5 years since I started. I began writing fanfic both for fun and as a way to hone my skills to a usable level, since I had (and still do have) a couple ideas for genuine novels of my own. I feel like I'm at a position now where I could actually write them, which is exciting! I just need to find the time to start.

[joonberriess]

·˚ ༘ 💌 IMAGINE┊forgetting all about the movie because jimin has other plans.

TAGS — bf!jimin, creampies, raw sex, cow girl style, dirty talk cause it’s jimin, pussy put his ass to sleep, movie night gone right, domesticity, fluff

WORD COUNT — 1.1 k

The sounds of skin smacking against skin filled the dimly lit room. Your soft huffs and Jimin's quiet groans mixed together to produce what people would think is the most nasty sex of all. You've both been at it for a while now, this was supposed to be a movie night with your boyfriend but it obviously didn't turn out that way. 

The bed creaks in protest to the rough bouncing and grinding, shifting against the wall as the headboard slams into it. Jimin bites his lip and admires the way your pretty tits jiggle inside your lacy bralette. He leans forward and eyes you with mischief as he buries his face against your tits.

You bite your lip and move your hands from his shoulders to the back of his hair as you run your hands through the soft black locks. He laughs huskily and begins to leave open mouthed kisses on the soft flesh of your tits. He picks a spot and sucks on it with the intention of marking you up. Jimin runs his tongue over a specific spot and then sucks hard enough to bruise. 

"Jimin," you softly moan and run your hands through his hair, "that's enough." You quietly laugh and bite your lip as you gently tug his head back. 

Jimin stares up at you with a grin as he bites his lip, "Thought you wanted me to mark you baby." He rasps out, hands tightening around your ass and giving each cheek a plump squeeze and a small slap.

You moan at the pleasant sting and roll your hips in figure of eights, "Mmm, my neck." You point out knowingly because he absolutely marked you up there. 

Jimin closes his eyes as a low moan escapes his lips, "Shit right there baby." He moans out as his cock throbs weakly inside of you.

You repeat your movements on his cock and find that he's enjoying more than he lets on. Slowly you manage to swivel your hips and roll them sensually, a lot more calmer than the rough riding from earlier. His cock rubs up deliciously against your walls, you feel so full and stretched out nicely. You feel the head occasionally brush up against your g-spot. 

"Fuckin' love the way you ride me baby, look so goddamn sexy sitting my cock like that and riding me like it's nobodies business." Jimin pants softly, "God I could just cum from the sight of you.” He hisses and slowly slides down from the headboard so he’s lying on his back now.

You eagerly roll your hips faster, taking it as a sign to go back to riding him like before. “Feel so big inside of me,” you moan out, “fills me up just the way I like it.” You lick your lips and grin.

Jimin grunts, “Fucking minx.” He slaps your ass, clearly turned on by you feeding his ego.

“ ‘s true Min,” you whimper and bounce in place, “you fill me up so good I can still feel the shape of your cock inside of me even after we finish.” You run your hands down his chest and settle them on his abdomen, “Gonna fill my pussy up with your cum baby? Gonna leave me dripping?”

He bites his lip and nods eagerly, “I’m going to leave your pussy dripping with my cum so everyone knows who you belong to.” He whispers out and flips the two of you over.

You moan unabashedly as he begins rolling his hips in ways that have you seeing stars. You reach down shakily to rub your clit in fast circles. “Jimin–” you whimper.

His cock drives in so deep you can feel it poking at your cervix or something. Jimin’s pumping into you at a languid pace, smacking his pelvis against yours repeatedly. You rock a little from the force, watching as his bangs cover his face, lips only visible.

His necklace dangles in your face as he slowly slides his hands upward and grips the headboard with one hand. “Gonna cum for me like a good girl?” He rasps out.

You nod eagerly, “Y-Yeah,” you moan, “keep going baby, right there.”

Jimin fucks into your pussy faster and harder, the bed creaks and slams into the wall much louder now. If his roommates didn’t know what you were doing, they did now. He grunted from the force of his thrusts, his thighs smack into your ass every time he pressed down deep inside of you.

“Jimin..!” You breathily cry out, your toes curl from the intense pleasure you’re feeling.

“That’s it, cum for me baby.” He whispers out and keeps grinding into you.

Your back arches, lips parting as no sound leaves you. You feel like you’ve been hit with a ton of bricks as your orgasm quite literally leaves you breathless. Your pussy clenches down tightly and throbs around his cock as you basically drench his cock with your slick.

The slide is slippery, his cock glides in and out of you smoothly as he works his hips faster and faster. Jimin’s moans are louder now as he nears his own orgasm. He buries his face in your neck and shudders with each push of his hips. “God baby,” he grunts.

You can feel his balls slap against your ass every time he thrusts forward. He snaps his hips harshly repeatedly, jabbing into you with rough punishing thrusts. “y/n,” he moans and attacks your neck with a series of harsh kisses and brutal love bites.

Jimin works his hips faster and faster until he finally seizes up and cums hard inside of you. He shudders and hugs your body tightly as he pumps his cum into your awaiting pussy. His cock throbs pitifully from inside of you.

“Ohh fuck.” Jimin whispers and turns his head, panting harshly as he smothers you in kisses.

You hum softly and lazily reach up to stroke his hair as he finally stops rocking inside of you. “Mm.” Your eyes flutter open and you stare at his blissed out face.

“Gonna knock out.” Jimin smiles sleepily, eyes still shut as he holds you tenderly in a warm hug.

You giggle tiredly, “Are you really that tired?”

He chuckles softly and adjusts his head on your chest, “No, pussy put me to sleep.” He softly says and ends up falling asleep a few seconds after saying that.

You smile fondly and kiss his forehead as you curl around him, “I love you Mimi.” You softly coo in his ear.

“Love you too…” He smiles in his sleep.

[laurenreviewsmovies]

Elvis

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Starring: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks

Release Date: June 24, 2022

My Rating: 9/10 (it’s so freaking great...so long as you understand what a ‘Baz Luhrmann film’ entails)

My Review (no spoilers):

I love pretty much any Baz Luhrmann film (at least all the ones I’ve seen), so I recognize that I might be a bit biased in my praise. But this film was perfect in nearly area except for the plot/pacing…and even that was near perfect. Visually it was breathtaking and you could feel the sound in your chest. It was a complete sensory delight and everything I wanted from a Baz Luhrmann movie and more. Perfection, in those areas.

My only issue with this film, and it wasn’t even that big of an issue, was the pacing. The pacing at the beginning was perfect but it started to lag in the middle part. The pacing thankfully picked back in the last part of the movie, towards the end of the Elvis’s career. The movie tried to tell the story of the Elvis’s two decade career…I understand that this isn’t a documentary but I would’ve loved to learn more about everything that went on. You kind of need to know a bit about Elvis before going into this movie, otherwise you might be a bit confused when the movie glosses over certain events. I left the movie wanting to buy an Elvis biography so I could read it and feel like I got the complete story. The story also dramatized Elvis’s life story quite a bit but since I didn’t know any better going into the movie, I ate it all up and thought it made for a fantastic story.

The story was smartly told though, I will say. I liked the framing of it, for the most part. From an outside, second-party point of view. It wasn’t just an Elvis biopic…it was told by someone who was standing in the wings of his entire career - his manager. But it wasn’t the story OF his manager…like his manager states in a voiceover at the beginning, it’s the story of both of them and their business relationship. It’s very much Elvis focused, but you kind of get to watch his whole story from the outside looking in.

Also, speaking of Elvis and his manager? Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. They were PERFECTION. Tom Hanks is so recognizable, it’s quite hard to make me forget when he’s in a movie. Even with prosthetics or elaborate costumers, it’s just so obviously Tom Hanks. He’s the reason I can’t watch Captain Phillips or Sully. But I got so into this movie and into the characters and the story, that I legit forget it was Tom Hanks until I started to write this.

And I know Elvis was problematic in a couple of way (appropriation, getting together with Priscilla when she was underage, etc). So this might be an unpopular opinion, but I kind of appreciate that this movie was sympathetic to Elvis. Maybe that’s a personal fault, but I think that tone made for a better movie. It’s a blingy, colorful, loud and fast retelling of the life of America’s first rock star. Being critical of those aspects of Elvis would’ve detracted from the tone. There’s already parts of this movie that were fabricated to make for a more intersesting movie. But Elvis’s family and friends themselves approved of this movie, so I’m not going to get upset about how anything was portrayed (or wasn’t portrayed).

The movie had a lot of heart. Not gonna lie, I cried a couple of time. It packs a lil emotional punch. I couldn’t recommend this movie more, so long as you know what a Baz Luhrmann is supposed to be like. He delivered once again.

[shihalyfie]

Translation problems in the official English subs for Kizuna

We’re thankfully in an era where Digimon is getting official localizations again, and with much better quality than we used to, but, unfortunately, Kizuna’s official English subtitles have problems that are detrimental to the movie. (Even worse, the official English dub is obviously based off the same mistranslated script, so a lot of its issues are carried over.) It’s not to say that the movie can’t still be enjoyed well enough or understood with it, but this is a fast-paced 90-minute movie that relies on a lot of nuance in key lines, and it’s not like we haven’t already had issues with things with a more oblique storytelling style getting accused of being “difficult to understand” or “incomprehensible” due to the impact of a less-than-ideal translation (hi, Hurricane Touchdown and X-Evolution).

In this post, I’m going to point out some of the more glaring translation issues in said official release and why they pose a problem. Note that I still endorse supporting the official localized release if you can -- it’s very important that we still show our support for Digimon products having demand outside Japan, especially subtitled, and I also feel we’ve still come a long way from the time when official Digimon subtitles used to be borderline bootleg tier -- but I’m writing this post as important reference so people are aware of the translation issues if they need to do deeper analysis of the movie’s dialogue. Note that the Dash X Bunko edition of the novel has the movie’s dialogue transcribed effectively word-for-word, so I suggest referring to this translation of it if you would like to reference a more accurately translated version of the dialogue.

The movie has effectively been fan translated (at least) three times apart from the official translation, partially because of frustration with its quality, so that should go to show how frustrating it is for people who know Japanese to see this. For this post, I’ll be referencing both the translation by L Subs (which is translated by the same person who translated the Dash X Bunko version of the novel) and the translation by an anonymous person who released it under a “Kizuna” name, having retranslated it independently out of frustration about the official translation being subpar. (I’ll be referring to the latter as “Kizuna subs” for lack of a better way to call them.) An indirect translation was also done by a third translator via the Shueisha Mirai Bunko novel; I won’t be referencing it below due to some minor differences in the actual Japanese text, but note that it’s also far more in line with the other two fan translations than the official version in terms of preserving important nuances in each piece of dialogue.

(Also note that the official subtitles use the American English dub-originating names for characters and terminology, but although I’ll be quoting them as-is, I don’t consider them to be translation problems, so this is all purely about the phrasing of certain lines and some outright mistranslations.)

Official subtitles: The more that people accept the future chosen for them...the less they will age.

L Subs: We aren't so elderly yet that we simply accept a future that has been decided by someone else.

Kizuna subs: We have not grown up so much that we can simply accept the future that was decided for us.

Already, the first sentence of this movie is a huge huh? in the official translation. In fact, it’s supposed to be just a clear statement of the movie’s main theme: we don’t just sit here and accept what people tell us is inevitable, and that’s not what getting older is even supposed to mean. The official translation here arguably says the opposite in that being younger means accepting a future that someone else’s decided, and that’s...uh, really not good?

Official translation: “My wings are holding back, they are still weak”

L Subs: “Even with these unreliable wings, full of images tending to stay”

Kizuna subs: "But even on these undependable wings, filled with images I can't just shake"

This one doesn’t really have to do with Kizuna in particular per se, but I’m starting off with this example just as a proof of concept: notice how absolutely diluted the lyrics of Butter-Fly, of all things, have gotten! This song has been translated more times than you can even count, so you can reference all of the other translations on the Internet to compare -- the L and Kizuna versions are most certainly capturing something that the official translation just isn’t retaining at all. Being interpretive is understandable, but this is pushing it way too much.

Official translation: “It’s just, it made me realize what I really want to do.”

L Subs: "I just want to do what I really want to do."

Kizuna subs: “I just realized that I only want to do what I really want to do."

Taichi hasn’t realized what he wants to do yet! The point here is that Taichi doesn’t have the motivation to push on unless he finds out what he really wants, instead of graduating just for the sake of it. Taichi’s fully admitting that he’ll push forward if he does find something he wants (which he does at the end of the movie) -- he just hasn’t found it yet, which is why he’s having his existential crisis right now. Also kind of important in light of it already having been driven home back in 02 that partners have a connection to having passion for one’s own dreams.

Official translation: “Mimi launched an e-commerce startup.”

L Subs: “Mimi put up an online shop selling imported goods.”

Kizuna subs: "Mimi's built her own online shopping site and is selling all sorts of goods all around the world."

This one’s more of a nitpick than anything, but since we only get a few sentences to catch up on everyone like this, it’s good to not omit the part about the imported goods -- it ties into Mimi’s love of cultural exchange, and contextualizes why she constantly has to do so much international travel.

Official translation: “We’re at the Asagaya Horumonya...”

L Subs: "We're at a barbecue restaurant in Asagaya."

Kizuna subs: “We’re at an offal grill in Asagaya.”

I’m just including this one because I honestly think it’s hilarious that the official subs seem to think there must be only one offal barbecue grill (horumonya) in Asagaya to call it the one there. (Actually, the restaurant is a real one, and its name was earlier in the scene: it’s Buchi Horumon Yakiniku.)

Official translation: “Do you know why Digimon partners pick the children they work with? It's because they're full of potential...The possibilities are endless. Their choice results in growth. That growth and potential produces an enormous amount of energy. Surely you understand. Your growth was the trigger for your partner Digimon's evolution. As we live our lives, the choices we make help us grow. But as you grow older, the power of your Digimon steadily dwindles. And once it's gone...the bond between Digimon and partner is broken."

L Subs: “Do all of you know why it's children who are chosen to be partners with Digimon? It's because children are full of possibilities...The future is rife with unlimited choices. You grow as a person by making those choices. 'Growth' and 'possibilities' together provide vast energy. As I'm sure you guys are already aware, the evolutions of your Digimon partners are triggered by your growth. In our daily lives, we make tons of choices and grow. But in those choices, the power that exists between you and your Digimon gradually decreases. When that power is gone...Your partnership with your Digimon ends."

Kizuna subs: "Do you understand why children are chosen to be Digimon partners? Because children are overflowing with potential...The limitless choices that stretch to the future. The growth that comes with making those choices. The coexistence of this potential and growth produces a tremendous amount of energy. You all should know this. The evolution of your partner Digimon was triggered by your own personal growth. In the course of living our day to day lives, we choose amongst many possibilities and grow. But in doing so, you steadily lose the power that exists between you and your partner Digimon. When that power disappears...your partnership with your Digimon is broken.”

First of all, if you’ve watched Adventure and 02, you should know full well that Digimon partners do not pick the children they work with! But that aside...

Both the L and Kizuna translations are much better at phrasing Menoa’s “theory of partner dissolution” in much easier-to-understand ways, and the ambiguous references going back-and-forth really obscure the case Menoa’s making. Precise syntax is important here (especially since the rest of the movie is dedicated to showing that Menoa’s view of the world is extremely warped). Menoa’s argument is, in short, that “making choices narrows down your possibilities”, and this is kind of gleanable in the official translation, but gets very obscured -- which is a problem when the finale brings back the exact sequence of events that led to Menoa locking onto this mentality, and why it’s wrong.

(In general, this official translation has a problem where it's way, way too vaguely or sloppily phrased for a movie where phrasing really matters, and is altogether very stilted in its wording. Character personality is also totally absent, with Koushirou and Iori’s infamously polite speech patterns nowhere to be seen.)

Official subtitles: “I like Matt’s ramen better.”

L Subs: “I like Yamatoya’s ramen better, dagya.”

Kizuna: “I like Yamatoya’s ramen more.”

(As a side note, I like how you can see three tiers of localization philosophy in terms of name changes and retention of verbal tics.)

So as you can see, the official translation seems to have misinterpreted “Yamatoya”, a reference to Kizuna’s scriptwriter Yamatoya Akatsuki. (Making “cute references” to Digimon’s own staff members has been a long tradition since the original Adventure, and Yamatoya’s name sounds like one that could totally be that of a ramen shop, because it literally means “Traditional Japanese Shop” and uses the “-ya” suffix common to such shop names.) It’s also referenced in the drama CD. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you if you want to make a headcanon that Yamato is now so good at making homemade ramen (not an easy feat!) to the point he can beat out professionals, but...

Note that this is one of the most obvious signs that the English dub was working off the mistranslated script -- it has the same error.

Official subtitles: “We’ll never grow apart.”

L Subs and Kizuna subs: “We’ll always be together.”

The phrase that more literally translates as “we’ll always be together” -- (zutto) issho da -- is used as a recurring theme in this movie (and in the stage play, too), with this exact phrasing. The fact it can be expanded to mean many things in terms of “being together” (including the implication that their partners are still somewhere tied to their hearts even after they ostensibly disappear) is also an underlying nuance as we get into the later parts of the movie. Beyond the fact that “grow apart” is really weirdly poetic phrasing for our very lackadaisical Taichi, “growing apart” is kind of...exactly what happened here to cause this whole problem in the first place.

Nitpick, but I’m really not sure what was the rationale to translate a simple “Gennai-san” to having this whole “Master” thing. Taichi was never particularly respectful of Gennai (he called him a very irritable “old man!” back in Adventure), and moreover Gennai’s more like an informed advisor for them, hardly a master of anything. The fact that the Digital World’s main protector entities weren’t particularly all-powerful or omniscient was kind of a recurring thing back in Adventure and 02.

Another nitpick, but it seems that the translator here didn’t recognize that “Bingo!” is supposed to be a known recurring catchphrase of Miyako’s (this usage here is meant to confirm that she’s still got that habit). The English dub goes with this translation as well, thus also missing what was the equivalent of her catchphrase in the original English dub of 02 (”Perfecto!”). A shame.

Official subtitles: “I’m afraid partnerships do end.”

L Subs: “Unfortunately, you are experiencing the case where your partnership is dissolving.”

Kizuna subs: “Unfortunately, it’s true that there are broken partnerships.”

This is probably one of the most detrimental ones overall. One of the key words in Gennai’s statement to Taichi is the word jirei (case) -- this is a single isolated case of a partnership dissolution. While the Kizuna sub translation doesn’t literally use the word “case”, it at least captures the nuance that there isn’t some set-in-stone rule that partnership dissolution is going to inevitably happen to everyone, but simply that there’s known cases of this happening and that Taichi is one of them. This ties into, again, the fact that Gennai and the other Digital World protectors were not portrayed as necessarily knowing everything about how Digimon partnership works, so they’re getting a feel for this just as much as Taichi and the others are. At this point, a perceptive viewer should be able to catch that there’s a mismatch between Gennai’s way of framing the issue and Menoa’s significantly more cynical and resigned way of seeing it.

The much more vague phrasing of the official translation implies that Gennai knew that this was some kind of ironclad rule and never divulged this fact, which makes the fact he never told this to them before look significantly more cruel-sounding. In the situation where this is just a thing that may happen, it makes much more sense to not talk about it until it becomes relevant, because hey, we don’t know much about this yet and you might be lucky about it not happening! -- hence, why Gennai’s following statement is about the fact you normally wouldn’t talk about something morbid like this unless you were asked. But the official translation not only makes Gennai look like a pretty horrible person, it also makes Menoa’s “theory” of inevitable partnership dissolution happening at the cutoff point of adulthood look a lot more plausible than it’s supposed to be.

Official translation: "But if you still have unlimited potential...Or..."

L Subs: “But if you guys still have infinite possibility...Then it's possible...”

Kizuna subs: "But if you two still have limitless potential, maybe..."

Again: This scene is supposed to give you the impression that something’s off -- that Gennai just came with a significantly more hopeful outlook than Menoa’s. Translating that last word (arui wa) as a simple “or” sounds borderline ominous, or at least doesn’t correctly get across the nuance that Gennai’s implying a way out of this, or a way to change this situation in the future, very much not like Menoa’s extremely cynical way of seeing it. Taichi’s zoning out and missing this last part, which is why he’s still subscribing to Menoa’s way of seeing things until the end of the movie.

Official translation: "And...you might be able to change our cruel fate. I truly believe that.”

L Subs: "You guys might be able to change this tough reality. That's what I thought."

Kizuna subs: "Because I thought that you might be the ones who could change this painful reality."

Notice something about how both fan translations preserve the fact Menoa considered Taichi and his friends to be strong enough to change things in past tense. Menoa’s portrayed as cynical, and completely and utterly resigned to a lack of any possibility out -- she takes the actions she does at the end of the movie because of how completely convinced she is that partnership dissolution is inevitable, and that adulthood is cruel. Even Taichi and Yamato, members of that so-called strongest team, ended up with the rings on their Digivices, and just as confused as to what to do about it. In other words, they “failed” her.

Therefore, it’s actually pretty out of character to end a line like this on a hopeful tone of her belief in them -- her belief that they can’t do anything and that she needs to force her way on others is what defines her mentality right now!

(Unfortunately, the English dub, running with this translation, absolutely has Menoa say that she “believes in them” with full hopeful voice acting delivery to go along with it.)

Another instance of issho da (both fan translations phrased this as “we’ll always be together” to match the other instances of this recurring line), this time translated by the official translation as “sticking together”.

Official translation: “So...this is my fate.”

L Subs: “So...This is our destiny, huh?”

Kizuna subs: “Damn...is this our destiny?”

The problem isn’t the translation in a vacuum, but the fact that the official translation fails to maintain a particularly significant recurring nuance. (The really distressing part is that the official translation of To Sora maintained a proper distinction, but the official translation for the movie itself does not.)

The word Yamato uses here is unmei, a word that’s historically showed up a lot in the Digimon franchise, and in kids’ anime in general, or really any kind of poetic or idealistic series. It’s showed up in episode titles (Adventure episode 34), in major parts of the franchise like a certain Digimental, and has been repeatedly brought up in any kind of context you can think of. And in many cases, it’d be fine to translate it as “fate”, but the problem is that in this movie, it’s important to maintain the distinction between it and the word shukumei -- which is used by Menoa.

I’ll go into shukumei when it shows up from Menoa’s mouth later, but the important part is that unmei still has a nuance of being able to overturn it by luck or effort -- it’s a sort of thing that the universe vaguely set out for you, but that doesn’t mean you’re bound to it, whereas shukumei is an inevitable thing stuck on you since before your birth that you’ll never be able to escape no matter what. The words “destiny” (implying a guided route to a “destination” rather than necessarily something incredibly set in stone) and “fate” (which has a much stronger nuance of something inevitable) have a similar difference in nuance, which is why both fan translations go with it here.

Official translation: "Try to make it back in one piece."

L Subs and Kizuna subs: “Come back safely, boys.”

Imura jokingly calls Taichi and Yamato “boys”, which has a bit of symbolic meaning in that this is the moment Taichi and Yamato most resemble their younger selves in temperament and initiative.

Official translation: “The one that goes to File Island?”

L Subs: “It’s the one on File Island, isn’t it?”

Kizuna subs: “-- the one from File Island, isn’t it?”

The train car never went to File Island, it only was either on it or left it. The fact it’s associated with leaving the island is presumably connected symbolically to why it’s crystallized in this movie, as if wanting to prevent it from ever going anywhere.

Official translation: "The fated parting with our partners is inevitable."

L Subs: "Separating from your partner is your fate. It can't be changed."

Kizuna subs: “Separating from our Digimon is fated. It cannot be changed."

All three lines are similar for the first sentence, so, again, this isn’t an issue by itself as much as it’s in the context of how the words in question are used. The prior mention of Yamato’s unmei had been translated as the same “fate” here, but there’s a distinction!

Menoa uses the word shukumei, which is a word that you really don’t hear much -- if at all -- in Digimon, or really in much of anything else, and the reason is because of how impossible it is to do anything about to the point of downright cynicism. (The etymological root is that the un part of unmei means “luck”, as if the course of your destiny is based on how the dice rolls, while shuku literally means "dwelling" and refers to a place you're inevitably determined to be in as determined before you were even born.) This is the kind of word that’s used to describe fatalism and other really cynical outlooks on life. You invoke this when you have the view of your life being mapped out for you, with no concept of agency in the situation. Even Katou Juri in Tamers, at her most cynical about her inability to overcome death or inevitability, still used the word unmei and not shukumei.

So the point here is that even Yamato, agonizing over what’s in store for them, is not nearly as cynical as Menoa, who’s completely locked down on this fatalistic view of how things are going, with no ability to change it. The official translation also omits that extra sentence to drive in further that it’s “unable to be changed”, which is an important part because not only does Menoa believe it’s inevitably incoming, she’s obsessed with the idea that nobody can do anything about it, no matter what they do -- which is also what Taichi, Yamato, and the others set out to disprove by the end of the movie.

Official translation: "That's why I have to save her and the DigiDestined throughout the world."

L Subs: "That's why I have to save all of the Chosen Children throughout the world."

Kizuna subs: "So I had to do this. I had to save all of the Chosen Children all around the world."

The original Japanese line never mentioned “her” (Morphomon), and that’s reflected in the two fan translations. Because yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to imply that Menoa thinks saving Morphomon is possible -- again, the issue is that she thinks there’s nothing she can do about it, so she thinks she’s doing everyone a favor by preventing them from ever getting to that point.

Official translation: “And now I save myself.”

L Subs: “This is my salvation for you.”

Kizuna subs: “This is my salvation.”

Huh? Menoa’s not claiming that she’s doing this for herself at all -- her entire schtick is that she’s trying to save everyone. She’s saying that she’s doing everyone a favor by giving them “salvation”, so the literal translation is necessary here.

Official translation: "Thanks, Captain Obvious! I mean, it's like we're not the only one's [sic] fighting!"

L Subs: "Of course! We're not the only ones fighting, after all!"

Kizuna subs: "Of course! We aren't the only ones fighting!"

This one’s just disjointed in general. Beyond the fact that “Captain Obvious” is somewhat uncharacteristically dismissive for Daisuke, it’s not that he’s just getting a feeling about the others around the world -- he’s well aware this is a battle they’re fighting for everyone’s sake.

Official translation: "Even if you made a bad [choice] along the way!" “We all have to live with the choices we make!”

L Subs: "But no matter what waits for us after making that choice...!" “We have to live with the decisions that we make!”

Kizuna subs: "But no matter what lies beyond that choice..." “...we have to live in that future!”

This is a plain-and-simple mistranslation. It’s not exactly a good implication to say “your choice wasn’t a mistake, but it sure was bad!” Taichi and Yamato are just saying that you have to have the strength to deal with the future that may come as a consequence of your choices, even if you’re uncertain about what comes next.

Official translation: "We may not be able to change our fate. But...!" "Our lives aren't preordained!"

L Subs: "We might not be able to change our fate. But...!" "We can change our destiny!"

Kizuna subs: "It's true that some things in the present might be fated. But!" "We can change our own future destiny!"

The shukumei and unmei distinction returns again! I understand that the emphasis on “preordained” is an attempt to invoke the fatalism aspect of shukumei, but the nuances that are missing are: the fact that this is Taichi and Yamato directly challenging Menoa’s outright stated ideology with the one they’ve been believing in this whole time, and the fact that they’re saying outright that there’s still hope to actively change it. It's not just about life going one way or another; Taichi and Yamato are going to spit in the face of it.

Honestly, I’m just wondering what the point is of keeping this line’s sub in if it’s not going to actually say anything? (Yes, I know this is me being nitpicky.) The L Subs version chooses to use the “I’m sorry...” line that came from the novel (and was presumably in the original script), and other versions of this official sub have “Forgive me...”, which the English dub also pulled from...? Meanwhile, the Kizuna sub just omits it entirely because technically nothing's in the audio. Either way, pick one or the other, please...

Official subtitles: "Those guys are awesome!"

L Subs: "I knew Taichi-san and the others would succeed!"

Kizuna subs: "Yahoo! Go Taichi's group!"

It’s not just “those guys”, it’s Daisuke specifically being his usual senior-adoring self.

Official translation: “And that was how we finally grew up.”

L Subs: “This is how we arrived at the entrance to adulthood.”

Kizuna subs: “Thus we arrived at the entrance of adulthood.”

There’s very good reason the word “entrance” is used here -- the question of what counts as “adulthood” is vague to begin with, and it’s arguable that Taichi and Yamato still hadn’t even really reached it yet rather than running around in circles with no direction. But now, they have a proper start of the rest of their lives in front of them, and they’re entering a new adventure in its own way. This should not be translated with finality.