#though tbh I never really cared about the high stakes plot stuff. I like the characters though!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Bleeding Heart

book 2 in a YA urban fantasy duology

where a plague caused people to suddenly gain magic based on playing card suits & giving them animalistic traits, where a group of trained Empowered are trained to defend people against evil magic

a power hungry organisation with eldritch ink monsters are trying to gain power and get control over the awakened suits & the main crew have to work together to strengthen their magic and defeat them, to save their city and all of magic

queer, bi, acespec and aro MCs

[twig-tea]

Ohhhhh @neuroticbookworm you've touched on one of my livewires. It is infuriating how romanticized poverty is in romance stories and how much of the 'romance' between a rich and poor person is often just 'they can get me out of this situation that is otherwise literally inescapable'. So many romantic endings sit so poorly with me because the power imbalance was never addressed so the relationship is left feeling slightly transactional/dependent. And so, so often the consequences of as you rightly said inevitable bad decisions fall on the poor(er) person in the relationship and it is infuriating.

I have to admit what you described at the end is not appealing to me either, tbh. Reminds me too much of Boys Over Flowers. There was some of the dynamic you described in Oh My Sunshine Night between the bodyguard/elder brother side dish, in case you're interested!

I feel like they also tried to do what you described in What Zabb Man but they didn't really understand the power dynamics well enough and it ended up just infuriating me more lol this is the real reason why I can't connect to that show; That ending makes me want to scream.

The thing is, I am not interested in watching people who are struggling because they are poor turn away moments of happiness or easing of their situation just because it's somehow morally superior either. That implies that it's morally superior to turn down money or privilege and, ok, maybe, but then why isn't that standard being applied to the rich person too? If anything, it should be more amoral to hold on to absurd amounts of wealth than to appreciate a moment's rest from unfair circumstantial strain, but that's not how morality in shows tends to go. Turning down romantic gestures over and over is also exhausting, and adding to their strain. And while I sympathize with the sentiment, don't like the idea of a character in poverty being used to teach a rich person a lesson about their own insipidness.

I also really struggle with rich characters unintentionally setting their poor romantic interest up to fail being treated as romantic by the plot. The thing is, this is realistic. My brother dated a princess once (and I mean that literally--long story) and she was fascinating but dangerous because she did not understand the value of money at all (her words, not mine), and her carelessness hurt people including my brother. She left my brother $10k in debt, and not because she couldn't cover it but because she didn't realize it would be a problem for her not to. She convinced him to move in with her into an apartment way over what he could afford (his half of the rent was his whole salary at the time), and they put both their names on the lease. When she then left him with almost no warning (not entirely her fault--again, long story), she told the landlord "sell the stuff in the apartment to cover the remaining rent due" and the landlord said "lol no" and charged my brother for the broken lease; Because of course he did. Luckily my brother had a safety net in my mom, but he had just graduated from university and was working a call center job, and still had a student loan at the time, and my father had just gone through bankruptcy. It could have ruined his future or significantly made his life miserable if my parents had been just a little less well off to start with.

This is one of the things I appreciated about My School President; Tinn was so careful to make sure the times he did use his money to help were not actually visible (though that wasn't necessarily his motivation), so that there would be no debt or dependency. And he never dismissed Gun's concerns about his responsibility to his mother, but instead tried to help him find a way to support her while continuing with his dream (and without making Gun dependent on him while doing it). But they were still in high school and the stakes were lower than in some of these other shows; Gun still had a safety net though it was threatened in show; and Tinn understood its importance and helped him maintain it. He never threatened Gun's shop or career, even for what he thought was romance.

This is more of what I want to see; stories where the more rich romantic interest understands the concerns of the person he's in love with, puts in effort to help them improve their situation if they ask and in a way that does not leave the poorer character vulnerable or dependent.

But frankly, any rich/poor romance story that ends with both of them in a million-dollar condo is going to be unsatisfying for me, because a happy ending where there are still really rich people (even if one of them used to be poor) is no happy ending in the true depths of my heart. But it's unreasonable to expect romances to fix capitalism and class stratification, I suppose lol

[As always: I don't actually judge anyone for not having the exact same moral stance as I do, I'm sharing my opinions here for interest rather than to shame or judge anyone for feeling differently! I'm glad people get enjoyment out of the shows I don't, and I will fully agree with anyone who thinks some of my reasons for liking or not liking something are unreasonable.]

While I've reluctantly accepted that Sand's characterization as a pathetic simp in Only Friends (@lurkingshan) is a deliberate framing by Jojo and team to let the narrative punish him for his obsession, I also can't shake the feeling that a lot of these shows we enjoy simply don't take poverty as seriously as it should be. @bengiyo spoke on how Dangerous Romance is only using Sailom's poverty issues as a flavoring for Kanghan, the resident rich boy. The implication is always the same: how these characters are so tired of life that they want an escape, a fantasy where they can forget their troubles for a short time.

What these shows don't seem to understand is that poor people often can't afford an escape. The debt will always be due on collection day. Their future will always be uncertain. And more importantly: they often won't have the financial and/or interpersonal safety nets to catch them when they fuck up. Which is bound to happen, one way or another, when you hang around rich boys who wants to rebel and blow their father's money.

Which is why I want a show to give us a poor boy who can't shake a pathetic rich simp. Someone who can't get enough of him, no matter how many times he gets kicked down. And in the process of writing these characters, I want the industry to actually learn a thing or two about the folks who have no absolutely no time or energy for the insipid, shallow and meaningless gestures of rich casanovas trying to woo them.

[vroomian]

(headdesk slam) Yes, that was 2/2 percent didn’t even realize I forgot to add it in the message until after I sent it and spent like 5 mins internally screaming at myself. I’m a mess of a human being tbh. Really? I’m surprised because it feels like Xi fits perfectly in this AU. Xi as accidental cryptid is the best thing, in both worlds. That’s a relief to hear. My anxiety and I don’t get along so I tend to go to worst possible scenario. You’ll probably regret that soon enough. 1/2

I’m like a magpie if something catches my interest and I’ll fuss over it and go all crazy. Especially now, seeing that you did that hob oneshot and mdzs that is two of the main three bl web novels that I now of. Like, of the three I’ve only fully read svsss and my mind immediately went to wonder where Xi would fit in that verse and at this point he’d totally be where the biggest amount of knowledge is and that my mind went ‘what if Xi was head disciple of Qing Jing Peak?’ 2/?

But that’s pretty unlikely given Xi’s desperate avoidance of feelings, plot, and responsibility. Though I could totally see him as a reluctant head disciple and desperately trying to avoid plot. Plus, definitely the first to notice that something would be off with this new Qingqiu. That said, bullying in his peak would not fly with him so I could see Binghe crushing on this unknown elder disciple.

3/3 I’m sorry I don’t want to make it seem like I want to push you to write another AU when you’ve got enough on your hands. My mind just just went ‘ooh what if this happened?’ And I wanted to share my thoughts with you because I think it’s interesting. So yeah, again feel free to ignore this. I’m like that guy from the meme with the pictures on the wall and red thread when my brain goes nuts lol.

long ask so this goes under the cut

okay there are a million different ways this question could go, because like. is yrz female in this universe? is he male? is he older than the main characters? is he younger? which sect is he living near? is his family nice or assholes? which version of the story is he in? the sssvs version or the actual original demon path novel (or whatever it’s been a while since i read the novel)??? does yrz get a system??? 

because the answers to those questions change the story drastically 

okay so lets do two versions 

one: it’s sssvs. yrz has a ‘background character system’ or something.  he’s gotta have a system otherwise he wouldn't get without a thousand li of cang qiang sect. so this systems chooses him (lets say he’s a guy in this universe) because its low key and yrz is low key and it was like hey lets be low key together!

lol system. 

lol. 

but the system and yrz get along pretty well, and they get into the peak they want -- which is Wan Jian peak, because if yrz can’t join the library peak because of Plot reasons, he’s going with hsi second love. Swords! plus i don’t think there are literally any named characters from the story, except the peak lord. 

so. timeline wise, i think that none of the peak-lords have ascended yet, so yrz does his natural thing --- he over performs and becomes the head disciple for wan jian peak  as consequence and it’s literally just in time for the former peak lords to ascend, so yrz is like. stuck. as a peak lord. 

both the system and yrz are horrified and confused as to how this happened. or, no, by then the system understands the Mistake it made in choosing yrz. on paper yrz is very unassuming! but in reality yrz has no chill. he’s never even heard of the concept of chill. he does everything at 110%.

I think that the bulk of this story takes place waaaay before the sssvs cannon, and lbh is sir not appearing in this fic. instead its -- liu qingge! and mu qingfang! both??? both is good! i think he meets lqg first, when he challenges yrz to a spar in the middle of a high stakes missing because lqg is a meathead jock at that age, and yrz is like. no? do your job? dumbass. (yrz has no idea who this shouty brat is, because the system is taking a nap. it wakes up and kicks itself for leaving yrz alone to do stuff.) yrz is older than lqg and kicks his ass because... well. because it’s hilarious really. so he gains a lqg shaped stalker. 

yrz has a lot of interest in both sparring and healing, and with lqg following him around, yrz spends a lot of time at the healing peak and meets mqf there. mqf gets a huge crush almost immediately but never said anything. it’s not surprising that yrz quickly bonds with these totally cool new disciples -- and then learns that both of the are the succeeding disciples for their peaks. oops. 

system gives up. 

version two: bing-ge edition! 

no system this time around and yrz stays far far away from the cang qiong. he joins a small sect to learn than fucks off to have adventures by himself as a rouge cultivator. so, male version again BUT yrz gets cursed or something and gets the ability to change gender at will because that’s funny and useful. also you know. porn world written by a “straight” guy. there are reasons for that kind of curse imma just gloss over. 

then the plot happens. all of immortal demon path’s many, many chapters are playing around in the background of yrz’s life, but she manages to stay out of it -- until one night yrz gets accidentally recruited by a cult dedicated to bringing down the evil demon lord lbh, because this cult has a book yrz is after. she ends up being used as bait for lbh (because he eats virgins now according to rumors. he’s up to wife number 249 by now so it’s not wrong !) 

yrz gets ‘saved’ by lbh, who’s kind of smirking and going ‘oh, no need to thank me, it was what anyone would have done,’ while totally expecting sex. yrz is like ‘oh, cool. bye then.’ and just. takes the book and leaves. 

lbh: *surprised pikachu face*

and by the time he registers no sex is going to be happening, yrz is long gone and enjoying her brand new book. 

after that, lbh and yrz end up seeing each other (mostly because lbh is trying to impress this woman and nothing is working) and yrz is like stop being a creep, i’m not interested in you. lbh needs to drink his respect woman juice and downsize on his harem a bit. yrz wouldn’t touch that with a twenty foot pool. 

anyway i think it comes to a head when they both get doused in pa pa pa juice and lbh is like oh this is more familiar, shall we? and yrz is like bitch. and goes to a brothel in the city instead. at this point yrz and lbh are more like antagonistic buddies than anything else. lbh has too many wives and zero friends. 

lbh starts developing some squishy feelings and is like what the fuck is this?? gross?? but he says nothing because he doesn’t get it. 

then the cross over happens, bing-ge vs bing-mei!!! and after than happens, yrz is just chilling at home and lbh shows up at her place like really fucked up and subdued. he’s like ‘why him? why did he get the good teacher? what did he do right?’ 

yrz is like... hm. emotions. ew. she trys anyway because she’s finally ready to admit that she does like this trash goblin at least a little. so she takes care of him while he’s being depressed. lbh cooks for her and she’s like. this is so fucking good. thank you. 

and lbh is just in love now. it’s nothing like he feels for his wives, but yrz makes lbh feels safe and accepted. it’s a comforting and comfortable love. yrz’s stupid little house is more of a home than lbh’s stupid palaces. 

look. i stand by the head cannon that all lbh wants is to be a househusband, no matter what version im talking about. 

lbh vanishes for a whole night. yrz is like hm, my house feels empty now. weird! and then lbh comes back and announces that he just divorced all his wives. he doesn’t want to be powerful anymore so can i stay herer with you. 

yrz is like... sure. 

and then there’s a long, long courtship and lbh marries yrz and archives his dream of just being fucking happy. the end!

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[vonlipvig]

Ok, time for my thoughts on The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, now that I’ve finished it! This is probably gonna be long, probably gonna be incoherent, so under a read more it goes!

Alright, overall? I had fun! I really enjoyed the book! I mean, I love the Hunger Games, I love the universe, and I’m always gonna be excited for more content, whatever it is. But I really did enjoy the book! It was interesting, engaging, and ok maybe it had it’s ups and downs, but it was a fun read, and it gives me a lot to think and talk about, so I consider that a win in my book.

I also didn’t have any expectations going into it, so I guess that helped, too. I honestly only found out this book was out by chance while I was reading the HG wiki (and kinda spoiled myself about the rebel bombing, I was like yo did I miss this in the books or movies, whaaa?), so I really didn’t have all that time to get my hopes up or anything. Do I want a Haymitch book? Yeah, for sure. But I think the idea of focusing on Snow was pretty interesting. I love a good villain backstory, getting to see the journey and the evolution (de-evolution?) of that character, seeing them slowly transform themselves into the version we all know and hate. So when I found out the book was out, I was sold!

Story

Going plot-wise, or story-wise first, I think the first two parts of the book were fun overall. It’s pretty cool we get to see a Capitol perspective, which we’ve never really had before (and to see the aftermath of the war, even there, that was pretty interesting). The whole school thing was cute, and felt kinda like, IDK, anime-ish, or something? Does that even make sense? But yeah, it was fun spotting all the ancestors of characters we know, it was cool to see the shaping of the Hunger Games we saw in the future, and although the stakes were high for Coriolanus, I felt it was more chill than the trilogy (I mean, duh, Katniss was fighting for her life). Not that it wasn’t exciting, cause it was--and a lot!--but it was a lot more relaxed, I think.

The Games itself were super fun, as always. The third part was unexpected, and it did slow the story a lot, I felt, though I guess it makes sense. It...did confuse me a bit, at times, like I felt I didn’t exactly know what Coriolanus was gonna do or think--Is that a flaw of the story? Or is it because he himself is conflicted and even lying to himself? I’ll leave it up to you--, but some all the things I thought were gonna happen happened, and I really enjoyed the ending.

Characters

This being Snow’s book, I definitely knew most of the characters were just gonna be pieces that make up his story. I also had the feeling that not many were gonna have a happy ending, and yEAH yeah I was right! While I wish that some had had a lot more depth and autonomy cough LUCY GRAY cough, this was Snow’s story, so it was what it was.

So, Coriolanus Snow, huh? For a while there, as I said, I really wasn’t sure where they were gonna take his character, and it really confused me. We know President Snow, and all the time we’re waiting for him to make the choices that man would make. Sometimes he does, then sometimes he doesn’t...and then comes around to it. Either it’s pretty “realistic”, or kinda confusingly written, but I wasn’t that disappointed, I’ll tell you this.

Regarding him being in love, I actually don’t think he was ever in love at all. Not that he didn’t believe he was, that’s the important part. In this book we see his inner thoughts, we see what he thinks about Lucy Gray, and I HOPE TO GOD that was never meant to be romantic, because it really, really wasn’t! It was possessive, and controlling, and isn’t that what Dr. Gaul taught him, after all? During the Games, as he thought to himself that wow, I really need Lucy Gray to win...because I care about her? Hmm, no, actually no, you’re after the prize. You’re telling yourself that you care about her, but I don’t think you do at all. It’s very cruel but also what I expected from him, so I did like that.

I got confused at first when he actually agreed to go away with Lucy Gray, but if we take into account that he really thought he was going to get hanged for treason, then I can see how he’d do that. That ending with both of them in the forest, turning into the Hunger Games in the blink of an eye, THAT was really exciting and intense. Him screaming Lucy Gray’s name while firing blindly, and being surrounded by the mockingjays...yeah, I needed that shit. That’s the good stuff.

His “friendship” with Sejanus...Oh, Sejanus. Oh, poor Sejanus. I get to have one of these per book, and Sejanus is BABY and I love him. Ok, with that out of the way, goddamn I knew this was gonna end this way and it still hurt.

Something that I thought was a bit silly, was that Coriolanus didn’t...consider that by recording Sejanus they’d...surely kill him? Like, that’s the first thing I thought of? But he was like OH THEY’D PUT HIM IN PRISON...dude, no. I think it could have been cool for him to at least think he’s ok with sending Sejanus to his death, and yeah maybe when he’s at the hanging have a bit of remorse or terror as the jabberjays echo Sejanus’ last words, but yeah, Idk. I still loved that we got that tragic ending. I was convinced it was gonna happen, and I’m happy it happened. Well, not happy, it’s gonna haunt me, but you get the feeling. 

As for other characters, I don’t know what to think about Dr. Gaul, tbh? She was weird, the whole applying Hobbesian philosophy to the HG was...like, I get it, but also...? IDK, it was confusing and strange and I’m not entirely sure that worked as an explanation (I don’t think you can put much of an explanation, really), but whatever. I did like Dean Highbottom in the end, I kinda digged him character and the way Coriolanus’ father betrayed him, it was pretty cool. Also, am I the only one who thought he had a one-sided crush on Coryo’s father? And Sejanus with Coryo, as well? I meAAAAN, how well would that work thematically, hmm!

Aaaaaand then, we have Lucy Gray. I...have some things to say about Lucy Gray. First is that I love her a lot and god, how I wish things could have been different. I loved her spirit, and her vulnerability, and her charm and wit and instinct to survive. But...god, Idk, I just think they really tied her to the male characters, and that kinda bothers me. Like, she needs Billy Taupe or she needs Coryo and Idk! They should have let her be more independent! That irked me a bit, not gonna lie. Obviously, as I said, this is still Coriolanus’ story, but it just rubbed me the wrong way. 

At first I thought, I don’t know, maybe when Coryo shows up in 12 she doesn’t actually want to see him, which makes him angry or jealous? I don’t have a problem with her being kinda in love (I mean, she went through a really traumatic experience, it’s understandable that she’d latch onto Coryo), but Idk, I felt a bit disappointed. 

I did love the ending, I’m afraid. It sucks, of course, but if he was to go on to become President Snow, then that was the only way it could have ended between them. I felt such rage when Coriolanus started sympathizing with Billy Taupe, when he knew he had to kill her. What a betrayal, although I always knew it was gonna be like that! It was so tragic, and I feel so sad for her. I’m glad her music lives on, and that in the end, she had her revenge.

And now, for the ONE THING I TRULY DON’T GET...WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED WITH TIGRIS!? I felt so cheated by that! They introduce her as Coryo’s cousin in the first chapter and you go OH SHIT SOMETHING BAD’S GONNA HAPPEN BETWEEN THEM...AND THEN NOTHING. Like, at the end of the story she hasn’t been betrayed! I mean, maybe it was a case of ooh you can iamgine what happened! maybe she found out about him betraying Sejanus or killing/wounding Lucy Graaaay, but like c’mon. They really baited me with that one, and it sucks.

So...I think that’s it! I had a lot of fun!

[loststormtrooper]

Ive been slowly reading the Splinter Cell books and im almost finished the third one and I have complaints

Spoiler warning I guess for books that are over 10 years old if anyone cares about them.

So the first book was great. They got one of the bond writers to do it and it was so good. Splinter Cells identities have been leaked and Sam Fishers life is at stake throughout the whole thing because for the first time ever, the enemy know who he is. His chapters are in first person which makes everything feel so much more personal. All the other chapters following other characters are in third which gives this nice cutscene kind of feeling that games have when they show something your character wouldnt know. Its a book series based on a game, it just felt right. Sam's daughter gets kidnapped because The Shop (big bad weappns company) wants to stop Third Echelon from getting in the way of their sales and Sam is the one who is trying to stop them and stop them from doing deals with The Shadows which are trying to get the US out of the middle east so their country can take over another. Fisher ends up disrupting these deals and saves his daughter. But like, how it goes is so well. Sams daughter gets invited overseas with her friend and they both ger drugged and kidnapped by someone they thought was their friend! The stakes are high af because they killed off the friend and are going to kill Sams daughter and him if he cant stop all this stuff from happening. And theres the whole war nuclear weapon deals going on that he also has to stop. So good.

Anna Grimsdotir isnt present in this book because they need wiggle room for the next book and shes replaced with Carly who is also an analyst. Theres this nice tight nit friendship between Sams team at Third Echelon with Lambert, Carly, Sam, and and Mike that sets things up for the next book. Also Sams Grav Maga teacher, they flirt a bit, nice side story which leads into the next book. Pretty much everything leads into the next book because even though Sam defeated The Shadows, The Shop is still a major weapons dealer and have the identities of other Splinter Cells and needs to be stopped.

So next book, Operation Barracuda. Sam and his team need to find out who leaked the Splinter Cells information and stop The Shop. Uh oh! It was Mike and he had to kill Carly IN THE THIRD ECHELON OFFICE because she was about to figure out it was him and he escapes and the Triad offer to get him out of the country, he just has to get to the right place and theyll fly him out. Good setup for these cat and mouse chapters where and FBI agent is trying to keep up with Mike. Also Mike was actually planted in Third Echelon years ago and he and his brother have deals with the Triad to sell stuff which The Shop does t like because theure supposed to sell things to them and then they sell to the Triad.

All of these bad guys have one goal though. Theyre dealing with a rogue chinese general that wants to invade Hong Kong. So theres all this infighting and build up to when people, even the bad guys, start to figure more stuff about the other groups. The Triad, being in Hong Kong, dont want to be invaded, but the deals theyve done with bad guy general have provided him with a nuckear submarine that he threatens to detonate on the US coast unless they withdraw from Taiwan.

During all of this that krav maga teacher and Sam have had a few dates and are at Sams place. But when they are walking down the street she is gunned down and Sam is forced to leave her dead body on the street with people around because he cant risk being having anyone looking into who he is, even local police and government because he is in a secret agency. Amazing side story. It's a lot like the side stuff with his daughter in the first book, it gives him more motive outside of it just being a job, these people have killed 2 of his friends, one of which he was really into.

Back to bad guy stuff. FBI guy gets killed by Mikes brother after he goes into a shady place to arrest him. The triad are already there and hes just dead now. But he did arrest Mike so they got info from him which leads same to the Triad. In a pretty cool turn of events the general invades but theres no one to stop him! Oh wait! The Triad takes arms and fights off his army and its rad. Sam had gone into that shady building (just remembered its a night club) and gave them information about the generals attack and then left. It was a different chapter because he wasnt being stealthy, he just walked in and demanded to speak to people and it worked. When all this general vs Triad stuff is happening, Sam is dealing with The Shop. The general is defeated, the leak for the Splinter Cell information is in custody, and The Shop is finally shut down!

Next book... set before the first and has a new writer. All of it is in third person and it doesnt feel like the first for obvious reasons. Theres a handful of spelling errors spread throughout which really take you out of it because now youre thinking about this spelling error.

Starts with Sam having to sneak onto a ship thats going to crash onto the US coast and its packed with radioactive material or bombs? It wasnt clear to me. But he stops it and gets out. Its a pretty one track story whereas the other two books had a handful of stuff going on and it all worked neatly. Third Echelon need to know where the nuclear stuff came from to know who did it. He sneaks back on the ship which is under quarantine and takes a sample or something? There was something about having to get engine manufactuing codes to find out where the ship had done repairs and see where it came from but that branching plot just ends later in the book when Lambert says that his analysts found out where it was from. Sam need to find out where nuclear stuff came from. For reasons i cant remember because nothing in this book is worth remembering half the time, Sam has to go to Chernobyl to collect radiated material to see if they match. Thats not the unmemorable part, how they decided to go there to find it specifically is. Anyway, its a match and they figure out who did it and why by knowing who made the ship and how they got the nuclear material. The whole Chernobyl bit could have been better. It didnt feel like anything was at stake. And there was this awkward side story with a woman who helped him get into the dangerous areas unnoticed where theyd flirt and nothing would come of it and then theres nothing else about her ever again.

Then theres all this stuff of Sam infiltrating other places which leads him to another place which leads him to another place. Its very linear and theres a few chapters where he sneaks into a private island thats impossible to sneak onto but he does and it doesnt feel like anything is at stake. The whole book is about having to find out who did this one almost bombing and poisoned a whole towns water supply with radiated material, making it a wasteland, before the US declares war on the wrong nation for ot. But every time they get more information, they suddenly have more time and need to hurry, but then they do that and get more time but need to hurry! At one point they mention the president will declare war in 24 hours and im pretty sure its been like 4 days since then and nothing.

Also! Theres this terrible character cliche guy i hate. There's like 5 chapters spread out through the book where its this weird guy who is clearly the villain ( not bad guy or terrorist, hes just a bad villain) that talks all fancy and as if hes got this grand plan happening and keeps talking about chess and imagining chess moves after he gets new information. Its annoying and i hate him. Get a new character. It doesnt even have to be him, use one of the heads of the bad guy groups that are already established, god. I've got 6 chapters to go and Sam doesnt even know about that chess bad guy yet.

Tbh im considering skipping the next book because its the same writer and the Conviction books and Blacklist book are written by other people. It hasnt been release who i dont think though. Its all a pseudonym.

So i just finished Splinter Cell Checkmate. Its 2 days after i wrote that whole thing and it gets way better in the last 5 chapters. It was much more fast paced and actiony. The rest of the book was slow and not that interesting. There was a bit that brought back a character from earlier who was shot in the head but the bullet hit ar a weird angle and he was left to die. Sam found him and theres this nice calm part of the chapter of Sam trying to get him out without making his wound worse but he wasnt fast enough and he dies. Then Sam finally gets the location of the annoying chess bad guy with some information from now dead guy. It literally ended with Sam saying "...checkmate " to him which fealt really forced... they never met until now and Sam onlt mentioned chess once in the whole book besides that. I think he played it with a friend for a paragraph while they chatted. Epilogue was ok too. The woman who helped him into Chernobyl was in a wax museume and Sam rocks up with a passport for her to get out and fly back to the US with him. Was weird. They flirted maybe twice halfway through the book and then he rocks up with that. She didnt even know his name until the epilogue because he used an alias.

Anyway, first two books are great, third was super slow but ended ok.

[enigmaticagentalice]

Alice Watches Riverdale Episode 3: Body Double

I’m interested to see more of the Blossom family if Jason wanted to literally fake his own death to get away from his parents

Betty has a point about it being crass to sensationalise the murder of a kid, but wow she comes across as pretty sanctimonious I’m still finding it really hard to root for her on an emotional level

ok I like the idea of her trying to start up the school paper again with Jughead, that’s kind of interesting? I’m trying to find something about her personality to latch onto here

#TeamArchie’sHotAndWiseDad

I’ve never understood being ‘grounded’ like when I was a teen I never went out in the evening anyway?? ‘Oh you have to be here back home at 7pm every day what a nightmare!’ literally I came home from school every day at like 4pm and stayed there, what exactly was the alternative?? Where are these kids getting the money to drive around in their own personal cars and buy endless fast food and milkshakes at the diner from anyway???

Veronica’s new guy really IS very beautiful, god damn

um...so...what IS a sticky maple? ‘It’s what it sounds like’ really does not help me

I don’t really give a shit about this storyline tbh, ‘oh social media bullying and slut shaming are bad’ yeah yeah

I kind of love how weird Cheryl is

also I’m oddly kind of with Cheryl on this storyline, these football players are dicks and all but this all seems kind of irrelevant compared to the other stuff that’s going on? Like...obviously this kind of bullying is really horrible, but to say ‘they’re ruining our lives’ seems a little extreme? A few gross lies on social media that everyone will have forgotten about in like a week seems a bit small potatoes compared to all the murder and student/teacher affairs and lost long sisters and embezzling dads and other stuff

wait...it that Barb???

IT IS OMG

I don’t know how to articulate this but...it feels really like this storyline started out as something about rape/sexual assault and was toned down in re-writes maybe? The extreme reactions here and the whole tone feels like it’s meant to be tied into the whole ‘me too’ hot button topic, what with the idea of getting justice and the emphasis on believing women who have been misused by men and banding together to stop it and publicly call them out. I don’t want to diminish how nasty what these football dudes are doing is, but the reaction here to a bit of douchey mean high school bullying feels so disproportionate in it’s passionately earnest ~melodrama~ that I feel the actual stakes are oddly out of sync with how seriously it’s being taken by the characters. It just feels...off.

that kid saying ‘What the hell man?’ when Jughead ate the cherry off his ice cream sundae is literally the most realistic reaction anyone in this show has had to anything so far

I am kinda of into this subplot with Archie’s music and the Pussycats though, I’d like to see more of them

I’m with Kevin on Cheryl’s thigh high boots

Again I feel like this storyline would be a lot more powerful if this ‘playbook’ was actually a book of these gross dude’s sexual conquests rather than just a book of people they said they’d got with? Because the way they’re playing it here it’s just a bit pathetic, macho bullshit. Seeing Polly’s name in there with Jason’s doesn’t have much impact on me as a viewer because there’s no reason to believe that any of the girls in that book actually did anything sexual with the guys, it’s assumed to be all made up based on the experiences of the girls in this episode. Chuck didn’t actually sleep with Veronica OR Barb, for example, he just got ‘points’ for spreading the rumour that he did. So why all these aghast looks and Betty saying ‘he hurt my sister’ when everything we’ve been told so far is emphasising that these guys are lying about their conquests? Again I feel a weird disconnect between what the show wants this storyline to be and how it’s actually coming across

also isn’t this Chuck dude supposed to be like...super smart as well as athletic? Why would he be falling for this obvious ploy by the friend of someone who vowed to get even with him?

It occurs to me that...this show...isn’t very well written

I love how all the parents seem to know each other, I super want more of all of them #TeamAdultForLyfe

YASSSS ADULT DRAMA I LIVE FOR THIS

lmao why is Jughead off having a much more interesting show in the background of this one

#JugheadIsTheSecretProtagonist

oh hey, slightly-nuts-totally-ready-to-boil-a-guy-alive Betty is suddenly much more interesting! Here’s something about her character I can latch onto!

I love Jughead’s absurd pretentious commentary over this whole thing

So...I feel like in order to enjoy this show, I’m gonna have to try and turn off my brain a little more. I knew the dialogue was pretty clunky, but the more absurd plot holes show up the more I realise I’m probably overthinking a lot of this and expecting too much of it. In fact I think the first couple of episodes weirdly tricked me into thinking that this show was much more thoughtful/well written than it actually is. So I’m gonna keep watching with carefully lowered expectations. It IS kind of entertaining though!

Wishlist for this show:

more adults

more Kevin

stop pushing Jughead - an actually charismatic character - and his genuinely interesting and plot relevant storylines into the background in favour of random bullshit I don’t care about

better writing

[small-birdie]

my take on ready player one

overall, i did like the movie. it was exciting, it was colorful, it was fun and basically entertainment for the sake of entertainment. it didn’t need to be deep or terribly emotional, it was made for great watching experience and references, and that’s exactly what i got. i had a blast watching it. so yeah, good movie! but it did have its flaws, quite a lot, and things it could’ve handled so much better. i want to go more in-depth though, so under the cut, there is a detailed list of stuff i liked and/or didn’t like. INCLUDES SPOILERS TO BOTH BOOK AND MOVIE (and they’re so different) SO BE CAREFUL!

likes:

• the point i already made was how different it was from the book, and i found that i liked that a lot. it felt new and exciting despite me knowing the basic outline of the plot; i wasn’t forced to re-watch what i already read. it wasn’t compliant to the book at all, but it didn’t need to be, and that’s much easier than trying to make it the same and inevitably getting some things wrong, thus getting people mad.

• parzival never getting his high five in a literal sense (like 3 people left him hanging) was hillarious. he did get the actual high five though (i mean, the people) and i felt like it was a good little joke.

• that ioi researcher girl with red hair was so cute and excited about parzival winning!! (also her quote of “halliday is making everyone watch the contest, of course, that’s so… halliday!”). she felt more like a good guy than a bad guy tbh, and that is good because it shows that not everyone who works for ioi is sorrento level terrible.

• special effects department – good fucking job!! the stacks looked awesome, and omg the ioi main “battle” room (the one with white/red circles which the sixers used as the oasis gear) was really well designed! the scenes were realistic where they needed to be (irl) and not realistic where they didn’t (in-game), and the fact that they managed to find that balance was really important imo.

• they did well with camera angles and general scene design; every time the in-game stuff was shown through the virtual reality glasses it fit the scene really well and was done masterfully.

• good character designs (at least in-game avatars) – i feel like they were imaginative enough to be realistically something people would design, yet not ridiculous enough to be distracting. (side note – i’ve heard people say usually there would be much more ridiculous designs, but i gotta point out – the players have to walk around as these characters, in those bodies. making a weird avatar would be an inconvenience to them too; besides, with how popular oasis was, avatars were basically a sign of social status. but i digress).

• following the previous point, i really loved the sixers’ designs. terrifying because they’re all identical, there’s so many of them and they’re so in-synch, and yet really cool-looking.

• aech’s actress has done a really good job, and i feel like her character was very badass even despite the whole thing with shining.

• though the curator’s character was not canon in the book, i really really like the way he was used. i even preferred the way it went about the coin thing to the book.

• HALLIDAY’S PORTRAYAL WAS AMAZING. like, he was done exactly the way i expected him to be from the book, and it was honestly so damn awesome. i’ve also heard people say that he was represented as autistic, and i can’t say anything about that, i’m nowhere near being an expert, but if he was – that’s really good, it’s always great to see representation.

• i did like the main message of the movie. reality is real, and we shouldn’t forget about it even if we have video games such as oasis to escape to. it’s nice to have distractions, but don’t forget to live in the real world as well, no matter how bad it is – instead, try to fix it for the better.

• i’m glad they kept the nightclub with no gravity as a setting, i was wondering what that would look like in live action.

• sho(to) had cool one-liners and i appreciated him a lot.

• (book spoilers!!!) daito being alive was good?? like i’m glad he didn’t die, he was a good character in my opinion and i liked him! though, more on that later.

dislikes:

• first quest. are you telling me not one player before parzival, not ever, not even because of sheer curiosity and/or desperation because there was nothing else to do, decided to drive backwards?! bullshit. i do it in racing video games all the time and those video games aren’t even about to get me trillions of dollars. did no one else know halliday didn’t like rules?

• aech was used as comic relief a lot, and i just feel like her character was a little more serious and a lot more independent in the book, and it could’ve been handled for better things than a few gags about horror movies.

• they didn’t show that aech was gay? like almost not at all? she did try to kiss a (zombie-)girl in that one scene in shining, but that was one throwaway line and i don’t think many people picked up on it. in the book that was almost the entire reason why she was living the way she was (in a van and whatnot) – conflict with her mother due to her sexuality! would be nice to have that acknowledged better.

• art3mis and parzival’s relationship was underdeveloped. like, really underdeveloped. like, “telling the person you knew for three days that you love them” sort of underdeveloped. it wasn’t even clear why parzival had a crush on her in the first place – while the book does specify the whole thing about her blog and how he’s a fan, in the movie z just has a few lines of dialogue with aech before the race, and that’s all we know about art3mis when she’s introduced. then she just proceeds to be mildly rude to parzival and yet he falls for her anyways. could’ve been much, much better, and way less rushed.

• speaking of art3mis, she was at the very least meant to have a much more noticeable birthmark. seriously. she needed something to hide. the way movie presented her, she was still conventionally attractive despite the reasonably small mark, which in no way explains why she was so defensive of her irl appearance. (not to say i don’t adore her actress because i do!! i’m just talking about the character design).

• sorrento was presented as some cowardly douchebag, and i feel like he was really meant to be much more cold and manipulative, facing off with parzival in the final battle for the easter egg, fighting side by side with sixers. but no, he was shown to be a selfish scaredy cat. one of my favorite scenes from the book is when parzival demands sorrento steps down if ioi want his help, and sorrento just smiles and says something like “consider it done”. in the film he proceeded to be insecure and mad about it, and i feel like that made him much less threatening.

• also, sorrento’s allies (i-r0ck and the unnamed lady who commanded his troops) felt sort of… redundant. there was no need for them to be as big a characters as they were. not to say i don’t like the idea of having a badass lady henchman for the bad guy, but she was presented to be sorta incompetent and at times even ridiculous; and i-r0ck was used as a comic relief in moments which didn’t need one.

• they cut out so much of the second act character conflict (or rather, conflict between characters). they kinda tried to do the whole “art3mis wants to stay alone” thing, but briefly and not too well, whereas in the book it was a massive plot point when she stopped talking to parzival. aech, too – there was time in the book when she and parzival weren’t in contact at all because she was mad at him, and when they contacted again, it was only because SHE helped him find the second key, and i feel like that would’ve established her as a much cooler and in general better character if they did that. because of that, z didn’t feel to have as much of a character arc in the movie – he didn’t really change from how he was like in the beginning.

• there are two further points to do with this. first one is, in the book art3mis figured out how to get the jade key on her own, and so did aech. they didn’t rely on parzival showing them the way, they did it themselves because they were smart and logical, and he was too full of himself after finding the first key first to concentrate enough on the second clue. it highlighted his character flaw while also establishing that the other characters are in no way dumber/less capable than him, and it was very important. the movie didn’t do this. while, sure, art3mis was the one to think of the general idea, z was the one who pointed out the movie, and aech’s contribution was overall erased.

• second point is (book spoilers again!), actually, daito’s death again. it created stakes! so much stakes! ioi was actually out to get them, it was real! and it highlighted his relationship with shoto so well, how upset the latter was and how he was mourning, and it was a very good dramatic plot point; so while i’m glad he stayed alive because i don’t like character deaths, it may have been somewhat better if he was in fact killed.

• also, shoto and daito’s general presence in the movie was very different. firstly, they were (i think?) actual brothers, and secondly they were not at all wary of getting close to parzival and co, while in the book they preferred to stick together and barely trusted them. it was a much more interesting dynamic i think, and showed things like they were more likely to play out if this scenario happened in real life. so while i don’t hate this decision, i think keeping it the way it was in the book would’ve been good too, if not better.

• stakes created by a shaking van and sorrento, who was shown to be fully capable and willing to kill the kids before, lowering his gun when they were right in front of him, seemed just a little ridiculous.

okay haha that’s about it! that’s a lot, sorry for the rant, but i tend to get strong feelings about completely random things, and i did really like the movie! i see a lot of hate out there, but while i admit it had substantial flaws, we also mustn’t fail to acknowledge the good parts!

so yeah. have a good day if you read all of this! (and if you haven’t, have a good day too ^^)

[makiitoh]

Why I Didn’t Like Kingsman: The Golden Circle

I genuinely didn’t think anyone would ask, but you guys did! So here I go (it’s very long). Please keep in mind, this is just my opinion. Also, there will be major spoilers under the cut.

@invernalias @axetoyourface @parks-andrekt

1. Gratuitous Gore 

What made the gore and R-rated content of the first Kingsman work in the film was the surprise of the shock value. That long fight scene in the church works because up until then, the villain Valentine doesn’t really register as a real threat, (the characters don’t take him seriously) and the movie reads as a fun and silly spy flick. 

The church fight scene and the subsequent death of Harry means that the characters and audience understand the lengths to which Valentine is willing to go, and hammers home the not-too-subtle point that “it’s not that kind of movie” (”that kind” being a James Bond film)

In The Golden Circle, the gory fight scenes are abundant--which would be fine, except for that they didn’t have a huge amount of bearing on the plot, or on characters. I felt like the movie was trying to shock me, again and again, with the gore, but in no way furthering the story or raising the stakes. The gore wasn’t just gratuitous, it was functionless, and meaningless. I should never feel bored during a fight scene, but there I was and here I am.

2. Insincerity

The biggest problem I had with the first movie was the undercutting of any emotion with a joke, often at the expense of the character or the audience and guess what! The sequel does this too, but even harder.

Multiple main characters are killed off and the audience can’t even really care about their deaths, because the movie makes a joke as they, or, immediately after they, die. Roxy and JB (Eggsy’s dog) are killed off, along with the entire rest of the Kingsman organization, and instead of allowing the characters and the audience to grieve, we get a joke about using alcohol to get through. (And I can not tell you how angry I am that they killed Roxy.) Merlin is killed and his death is undercut by him doing an admittedly wonderful cover of Country Road, complete with a full choir, played as a joke.

One of the very best parts of the first Kingsman is the father/son relationship between Eggsy and Harry. It’s the most sincere thing about the first movie and, I think, acts as the core of the film. The second one actively goes of its way to erase the importance of that relationship--there are a few great acting moments on Taron Egerton’s part that really show how much he misses, and cares for, Harry, who later has a line about how when he “died” in the last movie, he didn’t think of anyone. Harry says that as he died he didn’t have anyone to live for/miss, and I was just sitting there thinking, but what about the guy you just spent this entire movie basically adopting?

All sincerity is now conducted using a female character (Tilde, Ginger Ale, Roxy before her death) as an emotional support, instead of allowing any real emotional support between male characters (again, something that the first film did really well), and I think that’s a shame.

3. Even More Misogyny Than Last Time!

The Statesmen have a tracker that needs to be administered during sex, apparently. Like, I’m not sure what else to say about that? It only ever comes up once when Eggsy has to put a tracker on in a woman, and heteronormativity basically just carried the scene through. Do they track men the same way? Are all the Statesmen straight? None of this came up? Anyway the scene was Bad. 

Edit: oh fuck I’d wiped this from my memory but yeah there’s an entire shot of Eggsy fingering the woman who he’s placing a tracker in (ugh) and the camera goes like all the way inside her vagina it’s voyeuristic and beyond uncomfortable, like I felt diminished and offended just watching it, I felt gross 

As I mentioned earlier, Roxy was killed off, incredibly early on, and with no time to grieve. It felt pretty cheap, imho.

Ughh I don’t wanna keep talking about this. There was more, but I’m already angry, and I need a break.

4. Frustrating Plot

For almost the entirety of the movie, the audience knows more information than the characters do--which, again, would be fine, but they’re supposed to be spies. It’s so frustrating to sit helpless in the theatre, knowing the exact piece of information that the characters are missing, and have them drop the ball just for the sake of upholding a (pretty weak) plot.

The technology used by the heroes is inconsistent and wholly dependent on the needs of the plot--Some things they can hack, some they can’t. They can remotely hack high security doors, but not mines, etc. (Speaking of which, Eggsy somehow manages to stand on a mine while using a minesweeper. This man is a terrible spy) There was more stuff where the tech was very obviously beholden to the needs of the plot, but that’s the one that sticks out to me.

The characters see that there are two robot attack dogs, and fight off one. After beating the first dog, they both relax and begin to leave, forgetting about the second dog even though we know they saw it! I understand heat of the moment/adrenaline/etc. but they’re supposed to be spies! they would notice that shit! 

Also they know that every member of the Golden Circle organization has a Golden Circle tattoo. When they begin to suspect one of their own, nobody thinks to check him for the tattoo! At all!! It does turn out he doesn’t have one (though he betrays them anyway) but they still should have ben thorough. Them checking him for the tattoo and not finding one should have been the time when the audience really starts to believe that Harry is losing his instincts as a spy, making the later betrayal come as a shock. As it is, we already know and like Harry from spending time with him from the first movie (and because he’s Colin Firth) so of course we’re predisposed to trust him when he thinks someone will double cross them.

5. Misc.

Literally all I wanted out of this movie was cowboy Channing Tatum? This I Still Have Yet To Receive. He gets one fight scene and is then benched for the entire rest of the movie. Elton John (the best thing about this movie, by the way) gets more screen time than him. I feel betrayed. All I wanted was cowboy Tatum.

This movie is also pretty incredibly white (though Halle Berry does get a lot of screen time and is generally one of the better parts of the movie, she, like most of the other female characters, is mostly used as a sincerity dispenser, because I guess men just aren’t capable of feelings?) Don’t worry though, plenty of the villain’s disposable mooks are men of colour! Diversity, am I right? /sarcasm

I think I laughed at maybe two jokes in this movie? Most of the jokes were misogynistic tbh. Oh also there was a random cannibalism scene? It was played as a joke, It was weird.

//Maybe I’ll think of more to add to this later idk but hopefully I got my feelings across? At the very least I hope I convinced you not to spend your money seeing this movie.

tl;dr it was even more misogynistic, even more violent (but this time, there was no point/function to the violence, they killed off Roxy, JB, and Merlin (mostly for shock value) without letting the audience or characters grieve, the plot was weak, and the whole thing was incredibly, blatantly insincere.

[aidoru-ojisan]

Hey, now that majority of the Anime of Summer 2017 have been released I guess it’s finally time for me to give all of you my thoughts on the Anime that I have watched this season, I will also be giving an overall rating based on the first episodes and if it’s worth watching or not! Now let’s start!

MB Oji-san’s thoughts on Summer 2017 Anime

1. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits: So apparently this series focuses on a group of... I believe middle school students, try gaining more visitors to their small home town by creating their own action hero group, which is a popular trend in their year... The series does have quite a simple concept and the character designs are quite nice, a cute girls doing cute things show that has actual goals, kinda reminds me of Sakura Quest with the concept of bringing visitors to a small town in the country but lacks the all the amazing things it has, it’s something easy to watch but nothing fantastic, 6/10 (Try at least 3 episodes if you want to give it a shot) *Update: Dropped, I have better things to do rather than watch a sub-par show about a group of girls becoming a live action hero group. Would have probably enjoyed this if I was still a kid

2. Ballroom e Youkoso: I’ve seen this series jokingly called, “The Straight Yuri on Ice!!” that got a bit of a chuckle from me, but knowing that I was never a big fan of any form of dancing I knew that this series would have to do a lot to get me invested to keep watching it, and surprisingly it did, aside from the designs of Haikyuu! the soundtrack and animation of this show is pretty great and I find it quite amazing that our MC who was questioning himself about his future managed to gain such a great passion of ballroom dancing just from watching his now current tutor doing the art himself during a competition, not to mention all the girls in this show seem really cute (especially the one voice by Sakura Ayane) 8/10 (I highly recommend this show, one of the best of this season but do the three episode rule also if you find yourself losing interest afterwards)

3.  Battle Girl High School - Apparently this is a mix of idol and cute girls fight monsters to save the planet series? Well this show has plenty of cute girls, yet the designs are kinda weak (that one girl that looks like Miria from Cinderella Girls always bugs me tbh) the plot is nothing too special, would be something you can get from some random Anime phone game, which this Anime originated from, but tbh some scenes are cute and I did follow this series closely because one of the girls are voiced by Ozora Akari’s seiyuu so... this show might not be for everyone but watch if it if you want to watch cute girls doing cute things while saving the world 6/10 (3 episode rule) *Want to drop, but cannot due to Akari’s VA voicing one of the girls

4.  Centaur no Nayami - Here we have this season’s monster girl series... and honestly I find it a bit lacking compared to Winter’s Demi-chan... sure this series may have some Yuri undertones and cute girls but I find this world’s underlining politics and evolution system a bit unsettling... which is apparently connected to the story of our main cast later on but it seems just so oppressive despite the series’ cute SOL look, it’s good though and if you like cute monster girls go ahead and watch it 7/10 (3 episode rule at best) 

5.  Fate/Apocrypha - Astolfo, Modred, and Jeanne D’Arc, that should be enough for you to watch this Fate series 8.5/10 (Go ahead and watch it, no need to watch all the Fate series, you still should but this is set in an alternate universe) *Update, Changing the score to a 7, not even Astolfo can save this series

6. Hajimete no Gal - the goddamn MC of this series does not deserve Yukana... despite the stereotypes of gyarus, she’s a sweet girl who’s way out of the dude’s league and you almost want to punch him for all the stupid things he does later in the series 6.7/10 (3 episode rule, or watch if you’re a harem ecchi fan) *Want to drop but can’t, I want to see if Yukana dumps the MC’s sorry idiotic ass

7.  Hina Logi ~from Luck & Logic~ - This spin-off of the Lock & Logic series has got to be one of the Animes of Summer 2017 that has impressed me the most, despite having a much more moe style compared to the original series, Hina Logi’s OP animated with paper cut-outs was honestly SUPER IMPRESSIVE, it has got to be my fave OP animation of this season. Not to mention the action scenes are impressive as well, the character designs are nothing to write home and this show does have it’s own share of fan service but it’s honestly pretty fun! 7.5/10 (Watch the original Luck & Logic if you wish to view this one, the original is pretty good would rate it the same score as Hina Logi)

8.  Isekai Shokudou - honestly one of the best looking shows this season, despite not having too much of a fantasic plot, you can call this series “the fantasy version of Shokugeki no Soma without foodgasms” well sexual ones at least, but just a simple laid back series about a regular restaurant owner serving customers from another world with his cute fantasy world coworkers 8/10 (highly recommend, watch if you want a nice looking laid back series)

9. Kakegurui - man the ugly facial expressions... the stakes of the gambling games... the GREAT OP but s**tty ED... the fan service... this is actually a really good series tbh 7.8/10 (I recommend it, watch it if you want a well animated series with some nice psychological moments and high stakes)

10. Katsugeki Touken Ranbu - Ufotable + Samurais??????.... it’s OK 7.5/10 (3 episode rule at best)

11. Knight's & Magic - Honestly I feel like this series is being over hyped, I don’t know if it’s because the main character that was formerly just a working programmer mecha otaku who is reincarnated as a pretty boy voiced by Megumin’s seiyuu or good ol’ Chu Chu Yeah! fhana singing the OP (tbh I kinda feel the opening to be one of her weaker songs but eh that’s me) but I can hand it to this series for having well animated robot fight scenes and monsters, I’m kind of a hipster so I hate over hyped series but as a reviewer I will not let this effect the score I’ll be giving it 7.5/10 (I recommend it to people who want a pretty good looking isekai series with some badass looking mechas)

12. Koi to Uso - Despite the character designs of this series seeming a bit wacky sometimes, the coloring of this series is absolutely beautiful, and can I just say the concept of government arranged marriages to counter Japan’s declining child birth rate and Lilina was enough to get me to read all the released chapters of the Manga? Heads up, Yusuke is best girl 8/10 (highly recommend if you’re into good romance with some drama) 

13. Made in Abyss - Such simplistic character designs yet unique... such a wonderful soundtrack that I was only wishing it could be Post-Rock... wonderful world building of a world so beautiful... this show is also apparently super dark so as a Metal fan... beauty within the darkness is greatly appreciated 9/10 (HIGHLY RECOMMEND but warning, the source of this series shows that the Anime can get SUPER DARK in later episodes so I’ll be giving you a heads up just in case you can’t stomach it, one of my fave Animes of 2017 next to Tsuki ga Kirei)

14.  New Game!! - OVERRATED but... nice Yuri vibes, fan service, cute characters and scenes eh 7.5/10 (watch if you have seen the 1st season)

15. Princess Principal - I just can’t get over the character design choice of this series... moe despite being a serious edgy steam punk spy series... well edgy moe series like Yuuki Yuuna are masterpieces so I won’t let it bug me too much, the OST and scenery of this series is great 7.8/10 (watch if you want cute girls doing edgy spy stuff)

16. Tenshi no 3P! - lolis and some loner teenage dude make music, the ED is pretty Metal but god... dude gonna go to jail 6.5/10 (eh 3 episode rule unless you like lolis go for it) *Update: Dropped! I don’t care for the “Metal that’s always used in Anime” ED, I’m not watching this obvious as f**k Lolibait

17.  Youkai Apartment no Yuuga na Nichijou - this has an old anime vibes, which isn’t a negative statement, it’s positive, simply an Anime about a dude who wants to live in his high school's dorms so that he wouldn’t be a burden to his uncle and his family ever since losing his parents and residing in their house, sadly said dorm is burned down in a fire and he ends up living in a supernatural apartment and finding out he has powers to help others, a really nice laid back series the soundtrack choice can suck at times and the character design and coloring is nothing special but I can feel heart in this series 7.5/10 (3 episode rule at best)

18. Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e - this series impresses me, not only with the great coloring and each character have unique individual designs, just the usage of quotes from writers of great and the concept of the students in the school these series takes place in with only the superior classes only truly mattering is a bit cliched but interesting 7.8/10 (3 episode rule at best)

19.  Aho-Girl - Funny as heck and short, always making for a good laugh and the fan service in this show merely makes me laugh compared to being aroused, love the voice choices for A-Kun and Yoshiko, reminds me of Yusuke and Futaba from P5 8/10 (highly recommend if you want to laugh)

20. Netsuzou Trap -NTR-: Only 10 minutes or less per episode???? DISAPPOINTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well this series already makes me feel conflicted despite being Yuri but damn the Anime ain’t nothing special aside from that 7/10 (uh want Yuri which is super rare, watch it but the NTR element will make you question yourself)

21. Tsurezure Children - Nice, short good romance comedy Anime, makes your heart skip a beat while laughing 8/10 (watch if you want a good short romcom series)

22. Gamers! - I honestly wonder how the studio got all the rights to use all those game refrences, suprisingly is quite a good watch despite the MC being kind of a wimp 7/10 (Watch if you like a different formula to the “club” genre)

23. Teekyu S9 - Time for more wacky Teekyu stuff 6.5/10 (uh you should pretty watch all 8 previous seasons if you want to watch this)

24. Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. - tbh a decent isekai series, not too much of that generic crap and every action the characters do feels meaningful 7/10 (Watch if you want something that’s a mix of serious and comedy isekai)

THOUGHTS ON CONTINUING SHOWS

Aikatsu Stars - Koharu’s back and that’s all I need 7/10 (honestly I see the writers are pulling a “Love Live!” writers move and might make all the future episodes way too similar to the 1st series, which sucks since Stars! felt pretty OK despite the low ratings)

Re:Creators - Overrated, that’s all, this show is getting boring, the girl from the Eroge is saving this show 7/10 

Shingeki no Bamahaut: Virgin Soul - Still good, I’m just wondering if Nina will be OK, cause I don’t want anything bad happening to her 8/10

Boku no Hero Academia - I love Ochako, that is all 8.5/10

Sakura Quest - the new OP and ED are “meh” compared to the first ones but the 2nd cour seems pretty good and it was pleasant to hear fluent Spanish in an Anime of all places 8/10

Sagrada Rest - DROPPED, but it’s OK, JJBA Part 5 will come after this boring ass show too ded for me/10

[antthonystark]

To add to the clary post: expect help when ur stepfather is dying or ur hand is rotting off, spend thirty seconds making out with ur boyfriend after going through a shit ton of trauma, and act a little reckless towards popular characters

i mean…..true lol

like i said in one of my posts on the matter, sometimes it’s not “making” someone else to help, but sometimes that someone else cares about the person or the matter at hand and actually wants to help them….u know…..

okay i was trying to be chill and vague but whatever idc let’s get into it lol so esp. with the 2x09 scene everyone’s like oh magnus was visibly annoyed and didn’t want them there bc he hates them but like chill if you look at it for 2 seconds you can see his annoyance phase out to concern literally the second he realizes that there’s actually something wrong bc….he cares about clary…..(and like more importantly in the narrative of that episode, clary and jace do solve the problem themselves. like, magnus was basically like ‘yeah idk man fix it yourselves’ and nobody was like ‘oh magnus how dare you not help us’? lmao?)

and with luke in 1x06 everyone’s always like oh man magnus and downworlders he protectes them and #g//arrobane and all that jazz…and then suddenly it’s magnus saving luke only as a favour to clary and for no other reason lol? like magnus is capable of, like, making decisions and having his own personal motivations to do things you know lol to me it’s weird that people just strip down his personal stake and motivation in so many of the plots because they want to bolster this weird narrative tbh…..honestly im just addressing the examples you named but for a number of them these are at least somewhat the case (some but not all obviously)

and like…yeah…should she/they say thank you every once in a while? of course they should lol. politeness is a good thing lmao and magnus helps them out a ton and he deserves appreciation not saying he doesn’t (and not saying it’s got nothing to do with shadowhunter superiority pls read the linked post). like i said before it’s not just one thing or the other but people just view it as one extreme or the other, and also o f note i elaborated on how niceties like that between established good people™ are usually not included bc they’re seen an extraneous unless serving a higher purpose (also that post includes some stuff about magnus and his relationship with the protags which also is maybe important lol idk)

magnus is an extremely good person lol and like i said in that post i made that i just linked it is definitely complicated and definitely is sometimes informed by shadowhunter/downworlder dynamics and people have taken advantage of him and his magnanimity so it’s not like it’s a non-issue but…. lord people need to chill sometimes tbh 

and finally the whole 2x09 thing with madzie…….honestly i agree with people about that. because it comes across as though they only cared about the fate of this little girl once it started posing a threat to their own well-being. but i’m going to maybe posit an argument that i don’t often consider, which is just….that maybe that was an instance of bad writing.  bc, my guy, everyone was at the party, everyone knows (including magnus, high warlock who protects his kind, and alec who were also just chillaxing before clary and jace came in) the issue with madzie, so honestly it was just a dumb choice to put that lull in between the end of 2x08 and the start of the save-madzie plot in 2x09 because it makes everyone come across as selfish, clary most of all. like i guess you could argue that i shouldn’t make the excuse of the writers and just take it at face value, so i’ll agree that taken at face value it was a dick move by clary specifically, since iris was talking to clary and it’s her blood oath, so the onus was largely on her. but it just doesn’t come across as a deliberate dick move like clary’s other dick moves, which are in order to establish her flaws, but more of as a writing oversight. to me at least. but that’s up to interpretation. like i keep saying, i’m never gonna argue that she’s perfect b/c she is far from

and then there’s the whole white saviour thing which i think - as usual lol - that this is complicated but overall holds probably less water than most ppl interpret it largely b/c of the function of the white saviour trope for the white people who consume it and also the way that the SH narrative is structured around clary in terms of other literary trope as well so that the common interpretation ppl have is kind of oversimplified and also how the quasi-racial tension in SH isn’t the main thrust of the narrative or clary’s motivation, b/c the narrative is largely very personal for clary as well outside of downworlder/shadowhunter dynamics and etc etc etc. like i said im not completely refuting the assertion that it plays into white saviourish trope but it’s….quite complex - in my view, at least, but what do i know lol im gross and ignorant apparently - and these are by no means my complete thoughts but lord jesus i really dont care enough to write an essay lmao it’s just sort of annoying when one person says something and then everyone echoes it and no one knows what it means tbh 

[themadcapmathematician]

all i know abt transformers is the shia movie and the fact that darren criss plays one in the cartoons i think? should i get into transformers is what i'm asking

Oh god this is my favorite question. I’m not sure how to answer it but its my fave. Pull up a chair. I hope you’ve got some time on your hands.

The short answer: yes. You should at least give it a try. Transformers is a 30+ year old muti-media franchise that gets rebooted almost every 3 years so it basically has something interesting to offer almost any fan. If you end up not liking it that’s cool but there’s a lot to try before you decide.

The long answer is: yes you should and here’s why and here’s a rough idea of all the options you have to sample. I’m about to go on a long rant anon so you can check it out now or later or whatever but I’m just warning you ahead of time.

The basic Transformers plot (which I’m sure you know but I’m gonna go more in depth in a minute) is that a race of giant robot aliens who can turn into vehicles and other things have been engaged in a civil war that has lasted millions of years. This is the basic plot that all tf franchises spawn from although some explore slightly different subject matters. If that doesn’t appeal to you I mean there /might/ be a few other things you might find worth sticking around for because there’s just so fucking much of it, but you’re welcome to turn back now because that’s the basic things tf has to offer: giant robot aliens, cars and planes, fighting, some drama. Those are what tf is best at, with some variation.

It has a very active and long lived fan base and each section of the fan base is interested in different stuff with some crossover. There are people who literally only care about collecting the toys, people who wont try any other series except g1, people who only like the comics, etc. Etc. You’ll probably find people who like what you do pretty readily. If you like the toys there are toy forums and blogs. If you like the cartoons there are forums and blogs made for that too. If you like the comics, same. There’s a pretty active following of the comics and cartoon series on Tumblr alone; I would try searching the #maccadam tag since most tf activity has been moved there since the bay movies came out. Id also use the tf wiki liberally because it has pm all the information you’ll need to know about the fandom and the canon lore. There’s also plenty of fan fiction on Ao3 and ff.net if you’re into that and pm anyplace that hosts fan art has tf fan art.

Now there are several series, including comics, cartoons, the Michael bay films, the cartoon movie, spin off books, and video games. I’m gonna go over my personal favorites because I like and know them best but there are more than these if you’re interested in digging deeper.

(More under the cut)

G1: there are a lot of forms of what fans refer to as Generation 1 or G1 but if you live in the US its likely they’re talking about the very first cartoon series.

Summary: the autobots and the decepticons stripped their planet of resources and went looking for a new planet to continue surviving on. They both crashlanded on earth where they lay dormant for millions of years until conveniently awakened somewhere during the 1980s, where they continue their war all over again

Why you should try it: listen its cheesy as hell and full of nonsense plotlines and animation errors but not only is it good fun but at least watching an episode or two might give you a decent grasp on what spawned this enormous franchise in the first place.

G1 movie: this movie was a game changer. Its technically right in the middle of the g1 cartoon but it works as a standalone film too. while it has many trappings of the cartoon its better animated and has a more consistent and dramatic story.

Summary: Optimus Prime and Megatron fight, OP dies (yes he fucking DIES for the very first time. thousands of 10 year olds bawl their eyes out), Megatron gets mortally wounded, and the Matrix of Leadership (aka an autobot holy item/macguffin [this is the proto-cube btw]) has to choose a new leader.

Why you should try it: decent animation, classics lines, tons of 80s rock music, and it establishes a lot of tf conventions that would be carried over to all series that come after it.

Beast Wars: haha the 90s couldn’t be left out of the transformers fun, now could it? This was one of the first all-cg cartoon series in history and while its not much to look at nowadays, it was a big step in the 90s.

Summary: the series doesn’t center on Optimus Prime and Megatron but their decendants. The war is long over but some factions are starting to clash once again. Several members of these factions do the whole “crash land on earth while fighting” thing except they wake up during times before humans and instead of taking vehicle modes, they take animal forms, thus the name.

Why you should give it a try: it establishes the idea of Sparks for the first time, it has historical significance in the cgi realm, and it has a decent storyline with interesting characters. If you can muscle through the 90s-computer-animation look it might be the show for you!

Transformers: Animated: I dont think its a secret that this is one of my favorite tf series of all times. It was the first cartoon series I ever watched of tf and it also features my favorite toy line.

Summary: Optimus Prime is much less a war hero and more of a ..janitor really. He flunked out of the academy and spends his time repairing space bridges. One time during repairs though, they stumble across the Cube and just their luck, Megatron and some nearby cons are looking for it. They portal away to earth where they, you guessed it, crashland, until they’re awoken sometime in the future and go on adventures in futuristic Detroit.

Why you should give it a try: I like tfa’s art style and story and characterisation best tbh; Optimus is younger and more unsure of himself but also more earnest, with more visible baggage. The rest of his team feel like a ragtag band of misfits (which I have a weakness for no lie lmfao) who are still trying to find their place in this conflict and the future ahead of them. Sari is also one of the more beloved human companions and the show’s take on classics characters feels fresh and interesting, and the interpretation of the autobots and decepticons themselves is surprisingly nuanced.

Transformers: Prime: remember that 90s animation? Kiss that shit good bye my friend. This cgi is some beautiful shit. More than a few fans wish tfp is the art direction the movies had taken, storyline aside.

Summary: the autobots are already on earth, staking it out and fighting a more subdued sort of conflict with the cons. One day they get some human kids involved and stumble across some conspiracy shit and it all spirals out of control from there.

Why you should give it a try: great animation and atmosphere, gorgeous character designs, a solid interpretation go the characters, and it offers a more serious take on the story over all.

Rescue Bots: I’ve noticed this show doesn’t make the list a lot which is a shame? It has a much younger audience than any of then other series but its still quality and one of my fave tf series.

Summary: the ship of four non-combatants who were left in stasis before the war detect a transmission telling autobots to go to earth, so it…goes to earth. There they wake up on some island and are told they’ve gotta start building a repatoire with the native species…but they can’t reveal that they’re sentient aliens yet.

Why you should give it a try: ok ok, most of the series are made for 7-12 year olds with the teen and adult fans sort of in mind, this show…is a show made for pre-K kids, no joke. Its a lot less…murder-y, and this is especially saying something because it came out at the same time TFP did and in fact is supposed to take place in the same universe!

BUT, but it has a consistently well-written story and characterization, it addresses stuff I never thought it would, and its a nice break from the ridiculously high stakes of the other series. Honestly Rescue Bots is great and I wish more people talked about it because its a series totally worth watching, certainly as much as any of the others.

More Than Meets the Eye comics: there are a lot of comic series but so far this is my favorite one lol

Summary: the war is over, Optimus is done with everyone’s shit and splits the matrix in half, giving one to rodimus and they other to bumblebee. And what does roddy do with his newfound matrix half? Decide he’s going on a quest of course! And who better to go with than literally every unqualified misfit the autobot and neutral factions have to offer?

Why you should give it a try: ridiculous shenanigans, horror, drama, intrigue, strong characterisation, and a killer aesthetic. Damn it may not always give me what I want but its got a lot of exactly what I’m always looking for.

There are some video games (Fall of Cybertron, War For Cybertron, Transformers: Devastation), other comic series (Robots in Disguise, G1/UK comics), and the Robots in Disguise cartoon, however I don’t have a decent enough grasp on them to describe them super well I just know they’re pretty good and have had people recommend them to me. You’re welcome to try those as well of course.

Also if you’re into toy collecting or want to get into it there’s a lot of materials you can read and such but my personal advice is pretty simple:

1) go to walmart, target, a store that sells collectibles, a convention, or a garage sale

2) buy a cheap toy that you like. Don’t spend over like $20

3) decide if that was a fun experience or not and if you like having this toy or not

If you liked it enough to keep buying, then congrats, toy collecting might be right for you! Do your research, Don’t blow too much money too quickly, take it easy, have fun.

But yeah sorry this is really long but I do hope you consider giving transformers a try since I know I love it a lot and it really has a lot to offer. I hope this wasn’t like…a crazy response. That a crazy person might give. And that I didn’t scare you away or anything XS

the key is to try some stuff and have fun and if its not your thing that’s cool too! Have a chill night anon

[kinetic-elaboration]

this is why I have a negativity tag fyi

@loreley02​ asked me why I hate S4, and I went back and forth on how I wanted to answer that, or even if I wanted to because I’m not up for stirring up drama either in general or even just within myself. So between that and Thanksgiving it took me a while to answer.

Anyway, I have decided to answer, but it’s still semi-against my better judgement. I won’t be discussing or defending any of this. It’s just out here, read it if you want. Or not.

I initially wrote up a list of stuff I don’t like about S4 but “this is what I didn’t like” isn’t really the same as “this is why I hate it” because tbh I didn’t like a lot of stuff in S3 but at this point, at least, I wouldn’t say I hated it.

Basically I hate S4 for three (and a half) reasons. You might call these the unforgivable sins of the season imo:

Jasper’s death. Not just that he died (though he’s my fave and I don’t believe in “good deaths” so that alone is a big deal), but everything about the way that story line was constructed and handled. His general shafting all season. That he committed suicide. That his suicide was presented as inevitable and that the main lesson of it in the narrative was for Monty and Bellamy, to learn to just let some people go as useless, pathetic lost causes. That Harper was positioned as Jasper Lite so that when she didn’t die Monty could move on pretty much instantly with her and basically treat Jasper like discarded garbage. And so on. Just a train wreck from start to finish.

The half reason is DNR, which was a real travesty of story-telling and probably the biggest disappointment of my entertainment-consumption-life (I explain why here, just skip to “DNR”).

The end solution involving some people going to space. I was HEARTILY anti-space from the moment those leaked script pages came out in, I dunno, February. And I’ve long run out of ways to describe the depth of my hatred for this choice. But basically it just breaks all suspended-disbelief in me. Blasting off from nuclear-war-ravaged Long Island (or wherever) in a ROCKET like that’s even remotely plausible as a thing that could happen I mean I get dumber every time I think about it. It’s like...if I told you about a show that was basically like The 100 in terms of verisimilitude and then said “and in the last episode of the season a humongous kangaroo jumped into the middle of the scene and all of the characters got into her pouch and she hopped them away to safety” would you be able to take that show seriously? I would think not and that’s how I feel about this.

The time skip. I know this show has been treating its "teen" protagonists as adults since, like, s2, but still: I signed up for a show about teens in the post-apocalyptic wilderness, not people in their twenties, most of whose young-adult years got totally skipped. Also, a six year skip allows the writers to do literally anything with their characters' personalities, which...so what was the point of the last four seasons then?? What literally is the point? I'm also not keen on separating the characters out the way they have, especially Bell.arke. The slow burn's been going on too long.

If some combination of these elements were different, or especially if all of them were, I’d probably be primarily disappointed in S4 but I wouldn’t hate it. I’d throw up my hands on the show ever actually being good, I’d bitch a lot probably because that’s what I do, but I wouldn’t be so rage-filled about it.

The primary reason I think the season was bad, quite apart from the above, is that nothing happened during about 90% of the whole season. You could have condensed S4 into a TV movie and it would have been basically the same. And that’s pretty pathetic and frustrating. Again and again an episode's plot would be set up around some allegedly Tense Event that could Change Everything and then, often by the beginning of the very next episode, it ended up not mattering in the slightest. Examples include: the hydrogenerator (useless by mid-season even if they'd taken it), the list, everything that happened in The Tinder Box, Emori's ploy to get that other grounder experimented upon, the conclave.

Not only did nothing happen but all of the faux-happenings were about building tension that, for me, pretty much every time, rang completely false. The only conundrum whose end I didn't predict immediately was in Gimme Shelter, when Bellamy goes after the Coltons in the acid rain. I thought perhaps he might save them. But everything else: I knew they'd sacrifice the hydrogenerator (4x02), that there wouldn't be a war over the tinder box (4x05), that no one would experiment on Emori (4x08), that the conclave (4x10) would end with either the Sky People winning or some sort of pro-Sky-People loophole (or, as it happened, both!), etc., etc., etc.

Also--this was a challenge, given that the season had no plot--but JRoth et.al. still managed to make the show more about plot ("plot") than about characters or relationships. Why was Jasper and Monty's friendship sidelined even though S3 ended with their reunion? Why was Jasper literally an extra in the scenes where Octavia was considering killing Ilian even though he's one of like 3 people Octavia doesn't actively hate and their friendship was actually developed in the first 2.5 seasons? Why were we teased with the possibility of a "smaller" season that "felt like season 1" only to have Raven and a few intermittently-shown friends shunted off to Science Island a few episodes in, literally never to return? Where the hell was Miller the whole season? 

Basically, S4 just revealed to me that what I care about and what JRoth et. al. care about are totally separate. I am interested in characters, relationships, and world building. They're interested in creating (allegedly) high stakes scenarios over and over and replaying the exact same conflict, often in the exact same terms, ad nauseum, forever. Oh, and war I guess. War never gets boring!!

I was much more on the fence than this as the season was airing, but nevertheless here arethe responses I wrote up as the episodes aired. And here is a pretty good and more contemporaneous summary of my disgust by the end of the season.

[bioshvcks]

da:i + trespasser dlc thoughts

i’m chiming in here three years late with my reactions to inquisition + trespasser after finishing it for the first time. if ur interested, i put it under the cut:

DA:I:

okay what....was that. no really. that game was endless and so BIG. i was constantly impressed by the lore & level of details but not by much else tbh

this game was too long. there was too much. there was no atmosphere except for “big” and “exhausting.” there was so many side quests (or even a few main quests) that could’ve been cut out for all the difference they made. so much of this game was a chore to get through, it ended up hindering my enjoyment of it and just made me frustrated & bored in a lot of parts.

so yeah, there’s really no replay value for me, bc it’s just way too long. it’s kinda disappointing.

i don’t want this to be all critcism - i thought the characters were good - cassandra & dorian were two of my personal faves, but once again the interpersonal relationships between the npc’s were still a lot of fun - varric & cassandra were so much fun, KREM AND IRON BULL, also surprising friendships like sera and blackwall which were rlly sweet

i never felt that connected to my inquisitor or to half the people in my party - there was a certain apathy present even when it was abt characters i cared about. everything was so vague when it came to the inquisitor, i know it’s what it’s about (How did they get to the breach, where did the mark come from, etc) but i didn’t feel too connected to my character unlike in the other two dragon age games and i don’t know why

also the final battle was super, SUPER, anti-climatic (the whole end was really) 

and i never really once ever cared about the plot or corypheus or any of that really

Okay and this is the part that gets it’s separate paragraph: THE ELVES. THE WARDENS. AND WORLD-BUILDING

again....what?? firstly, i played this game as a dalish elf. but.....everyone acted like i wasn’t dalish or even elven. it felt like this game wasn’t rlly made for a dalish elf player & it often disregarded that aspect altogether which was rlly frustrating bc i was looking forward to seeing how that would play out but ultimately....it didn’t. and honestly? just generally i’ve always felt like the politics w elves, and even b/w the chantry, templars & circle of magi (though that’s a whole other topic) has always been handled REALLY poorly. i think da:o came closest to really exploring it in a better way but in this game it was just all over place....

and that brings me to the wardens which i was actually mad about....it feels like EVERYTHING we’ve ever been told abt the wardens was disregarded or thrown under the bus and revamped as “unnecessary agents of chaos.” it was really bizarre & disappointing tbh and there was so much potential there but like.....rlly that’s what they went with? also i thought the wardens were heroes yet suddenly no one likes them??? ughghghgh

also WHERE IS MY GREY WARDEN

some of my “big” choices: 

romanced cullen - which i was unhappy with & regretted INSTANTLY i only did it bc i didn’t know who to go for. like i said i didn’t feel invested in too many characters, and i wish i’d gone with josephine, i didn’t rlly care about cullen. i think this game’s strength was friendships and i enjoyed those way more than any of the romances that were possible tbh

i didn’t leave hawke in the fade, i’m not a MONSTER

i was close friends w everyone, i didn’t have any falling out’s or rivalries

cassandra became divine, mostly bc the decision for leilana to be divine comes way, way later than cassandra. it definitely seemed like the game was pushing for cass, which i was happy with anyway

solas was a character who i could never fully take seriously all that much, but his friendship was really rewarding, way way more than i think a romance would’ve been

MORRIGAN: i let her drink from the well. i regretted it straight away, also i wanna say fuck this game for binding her to her mother after all that and everything she went through??? thank god solas killed her at the end there jfc

i disbanded the inquisition  /shrugs/

my last thought about the main game is that really.....this seemed like basically a prequel to the trespasser dlc. i heard so many people say that the dlc was basically the real ending of the game, which yeah i agree with. but honestly this game was...fine. it was average, but it was a lot of time & effort to put into an “average” game, and most of the praise i can offer is towards the obvious work put in & expansiveness of the game. i don’t think it worked well in the almost open-world-but-not-quite-style, it made all the side stuff meaningless bc the story is so linear, so you spend a lot of time running around for not even a little payoff (or only occasionally). 

TRESPASSER:

okay i’m gonna keep this way more short and sweet:

this was far better than the main game

it was less vague, more personal, the world stakes were still high, the lore was reduced & succinct & easier to take in, honestly the main game felt like it was just building up to this

(which is rlly disappointing tbh)

solas & my inquisitor were bff’s so when i found him it was.....horrifying. the tone of his voice, the way he talked, the way he justified the destruction he’s intent on he was absolutely he convinced he’s right. he absolves himself by “letting” people live and not directly killing them now bc they’ll die later. as a great man, jake peralta, once said:

“cool motive, still murder”

also is he a god? isn’t he? who knows

otherwise the party banter was good, dorian essentially giving the inquisitor his skype address was wonderful & broke my heart a little, taking a SPA with vivienne, etc etc, it was the most dragon age either this or the main game ever really felt

this all seems very negative but at the end of the day i am glad i got play & experience inquisition. not sure that i’ll ever do another playthrough but i did enjoy parts of it, i just think that it was too long for a game/story like this.