#waste of actors waste of lore waste of money

[ivi-prism]

I am still so passionately and genuinly baffled and annoyed by the Minecraft Movie.

Yes I have played Minecraft since 2011 and love the game and what I can see from the trailers it looks like an adaptation that I cannot see myself enjoying

But above that. It is infuriating to see yet again a movie that clearly displays the movie industry's worst practices regarding animation.

A Minecraft Movie is an animated movie. It is not Live Action just because it features human actors and it is stylized to accomplish a hyperrealistic look. To achieve its visual identity it is solely dependent on computer-generated images. A team of humans has to use their technical knowledge in design and animation to create this world while using digital tools. This movie is dependent on artist. This movie depends on animation to exist.

Perhaps not the same set of abilities and requirements needed to produce a 2d animated movie or a 3d animated movie or a stop motion animated movie. Each technique is vastly different. But it still demands a team of animators and a team of VFX artists.

Animators and artists that are being exploited by big studios. Studios that refuse to allocate money to other departments because is cheaper to underpay this artist that have to work in bad conditions and are being rushed to finish a movie to jump to the next one.

It is cheaper for studios to decide that all animated movies should be Hyperrealistic CGI because you can exploit these houses to make “Live-action” movies and also go and use their services for every other blockbuster movie. Like that, there is no need to deal with the pesky 2d animators demanding fair pay and their union. That way there is no need to pay those animators looking to make mixed-technique animated movies. Why would studios waste their money paying studios worth of artists with different focuses and technical abilities if they can strip it all down to all be Hyperrealistic CGI done by the three same underpaid and overworked CGI and VFX studios? They make money do they not? Why stop? It is simply good business for Hollywood to stamp out variety and risk from the products they create. It is cheaper to destroy the livelihood of thousands to focus on exploiting a few that can "make the work of all the other thousand people they fired" I am salty yes. A Minecraft Movie does not appeal to me visually, doubt it will have a story that interests me, it doesn't follow Minecraft lore, and as a fan of the game, I just think there were many other ways to do it better. But above all, it angers me because it is the latest installment that showcases how devoided of care and respect the industry is for the artists it needs to survive.

[iicheeze]

3 MONTHS, 3 DAYS, AND 33 MINUTES

3 MONTHS, 3 DAYS, AND 33 MINUTES MASTERLIST

SUMMARY II you've always had feelings for your gray haired senior. To the point that you'd confess to the man in front of the whole Akademiya. Pitying you, he gives you 3 months, 3 days and 33 minutes to make him fall for you. Let the roller coaster of chaos begin!

PAIRINGS || Alhaitham x Gender Neutral Reader, slight Kaveh x reader

TW || FNAF lore dump, claw machines, false brand names put on purpose to avoid copyright, and bad aim

CHAPTER IV — arcade date?? more like FNAF lore dump

“ COME ON, KAVEH!! ”

A loud, hearty voice was heard outside the dorm room, with loud banging coming from the door.

The day has come where both [Name] and Kaveh finally have a free day and they have decided to go to the arcade for fun. Maybe, try to win some prizes.

For it is currently 9 AM, and Saturday. Seriously, they couldn't thank god more as it is the weekends where they're finally (temporarily) free from assignments.

So when the door finally opened, [Name] expected Kaveh to answer it.

Not the big, bulky, strong, big titty, gray haired senior they've been crushing on.

“ Kaveh's at his studio. Stop banging at the door already. ” Alhaitham stated, clearly annoyed by the endless amounts of continuous door knocking.

“ ... ” “ ... ”

“ OH- WAIT WHAT?!?! THAT LYING CUNT, HE PROMISED ME TO GO TO THE ARCADES TOGETHER TODAY. FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. ” [Name] yelled, finally realizing what he said. Too busy to stare at his fat tits earlier.

“ I'VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO IT, THE FUCK. I EVEN DRESSED UP FOR THIS. ” More yapping came out of the [Hair Color]'s mouth.

“ Will you shut up already?! I didn't sign up for you yelling your lungs out. ” The [taller/shorter] male massaged his forehead in annoyance.

“ ... Fine! You're going with me in exchange of Kaveh. Go dress up!! I ain't taking you out looking like this. ”

“ .. Excuse me? ” “ BLAME KAVEH FOR THIS, NOT ME. I CLEARED MY SCHEDULE FOR THIS, MAN. ” “ Alright, fine. Jesus Christ. ”

Kaveh, I swear to god. If you come back, I'll throw your art to the trash compacter.

FONTAINE ARCADE PALACE

The sign glowed in bright blue, as the two main protagonists stand in front of it. From the looks of the building, it seems to have 5 stories, and each floors glowing with bright lights.

“ Holy crap. It's beautiful. ” [Name] remarked, amazed by the sights.

“ Who'd waste their money on some arcade instead of public libraries. ” “ Uhh, Fontaine Co’ . Obviously. ”

As the two entered the building, glowing arcade machines were placed everywhere, claw machines, Maroi Kart machines, Cap Man, and more. Heck, there's even custom trash cans and posters from multiple TV shows and games.

“ This is truly heaven. ” It was so beautiful, [Name] couldn't help but tear up. While the [taller/shorter] man just deadpans.

“ C'MON!! Let's go to the dispensing machine and exchange our money. WE NEED THEM COINS TO PLAY. ” The [Hair Color] exclaimed gleefully, taking the male's hand before running to the nearby dispensing machine.

It's gonna be a long ass day and we all are here for it.

The Pokachu Doll falling from the claw for the fourth time was the last straw for poor [Name]. As they finally screamed in annoyance.

“ ARGRHSGSHSGSKHS STUPID RIGGED CLAW MACHINE. GIVE ME THE POKACHU DOLL DAMMIT. ” [Name] shouted, almost punching the machine before realizing that they could get a fine for it AND get banned from Fontaine Arcade Palace. Before putting their fist down.

Seeing this is so funny even Alhaitham couldn't help but chuckle.

“ Let me try. ” He spoke, gently pushing the [taller/shorter] person aside. Finally putting 5 coins in the claw machine.

2 minutes haven't passed yet, but he somehow got the Pokachu Doll safe and sound.

At first try too.

This man is too dangerous to be left alive. (And a virgin).

As the Pokachu Doll came out of the claw machine, the male took it before giving it to the [Hair Color].

“ HOW- I THOUGHT YOU DON'T LIKE ARCADES?? WHAT. DID YOU USE SOME KIND OF SORCERY?!?!?! WTF. ” [Name] beamed, confused as hell.

“ It's easy. I just use my brain and some calculations here and there. How ‘bout you use your brain next time? ” The man mocked them, a slight smirk showed in his face.

“ FUCK YOU AND YOUR STUPID BRAIN. I CAN DO THIS BETTER THAN YOU. ” The [taller/shorter] person declared, “ Pfft. Yeah, we'll see. ”

[Name] lost by 21 dolls Alhaitham managed to fish out from the claw machine.

“ Oh, Five Nights at Friddy's. ” Alhaitham claimed, as he saw a FNAF game machine while trying to get more Fontaine coins.

“ The game? I know that. It's really hard- ” [Name] scratched their cheek, having a slight flashback of them falling off their chair while playing FNAF 2 at their lecture.

“ I love the part where we find out that the one we're playing all along ever since the first game is the son of William Efton, Michael Efton. ” The male stated, “ What ” [Name] questioned.

“ You didn't know? Some player you are. ” Alhaitham sighed, “ YOU- ” “ Basically, ever since the start of the game. We were playing as Michael Efton, we've both seen that we keep signing up as a night guard at the restaurants of William Efton. The story starts when William Efton had a restaurant with- ”

Oh, no.

He's rambling.

No....

HE'S LORE DUMPING.

“ Can we just get the coins an- ” “ Shh, shh. ” [Name] was shushed with Alhaitham shoving his finger inside their mouth, forcing them to listen.

Taking it out, the [Hair Color] couldn't help but blush a bit. “ I'M NOT A BABY WTF DON'T SHOVE A FINGER IN MY MOUTH. ”

“ It silenced you, though. ” [Name] was speechless upon that statement, now letting out stammers and stutters.

“ Now, where were we? Oh right, William's son, Evan, was severely terrified and had PTSD signs near his father's creations, the animatronics. His older brother, Michael, found out and took advantage of it and.. ”

[Name] got lore dumped by the very same person who they have a fat crush on in within 2 hours.

By the time night arrives, and the clock strikes 8 PM, the two finally decided it was time to call off the day.

“ You may have won our bet of the claw machines.. BUT I STILL WON A PAIR OF KEYCHAINS!! ” [Name] stated, refusing to admit defeat. “ Good for you. I still won, technically. ” “ Ugh.. ”

“ Should I give the cookie keychain to Kaveh as a souvenir? It looks like the type of thing he'd like. ” The [taller/shorter] person asked, “ Don't know. It's yours. ” The gray haired male replied.

“ .. I'll give it to you then! ” [Name] remarked, giving the male the cookie keychain, while keeping the milk keychain with them.

“ Huh? ” “ It's for you! To remember this date! Ehehe! ” The [Hair Color] smiled gleefully, as the man finally takes the keychain with him.

“ Plus, milk and cookies! It's a good pair of a late night snack! You know? ” [Name] added, as Alhaitham kept looking at the cookies keychain.

A small chuckle was heard as Alhaitham couldn't help but smile a little from this stupid action.

“ You're so childish it's stupid. ” “ WHAT- UGH, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, JUST GIVE IT TO KAVEH THEN! I'm going back to my dorm! ” [Name] grunted, stomping away angrily.

“ Hey! Did you tell [Name] that I was busy and I had sudden plans today? Where did you go anyways? ” Kaveh asked while the other male takes off his shoes at the porch of the door.

“ First question, yes. Second, I went to the arcade with them. ” Alhaitham replied calmly, “ WHAT?! AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME?! PLEASE TELL ME THAT YOU SAVED A SOUVENIR FOR ME. OR, MAYBE [NAME] DID?! ” The yellow haired man exclaimed.

“ They did. But I'm guessing they're still petty that you had sudden plans and didn't tell them directly, so, they gave it to me. ” “ WHAT!? Oh god... Fine, I'll apologize directly tomorrow. Just PLEASE give me the souvenir!! ” Kaveh begged.

“ Hmm, let me think. No. Will you let me go now? ” Alhaitham answered, finally going to his room.

“ UGH, FUCK YOU DAMMIT! YOU'RE THE WORST OF THE WORST! ” Kaveh's yappings slowly stopped as the gray haired male closed the door on him.

Looking at the time from his phone, a little Cookie Keychain was seen dangling at the bottom of his phone. Before finally deciding to get to bed right away after such a long day.

He could just do his assignments tomorrow at 5 AM anyways.

TAGLIST || @star-star-fall-inlove @nachotrash @baelloraa @tanspostsblog @kalpie @makimakimi @nishayuro @zomzomb1e @sassy-cat-in-town @aloveablechaos @ceylestia @severedvigility @goubaia @6-022-10-23 @duhsies @suwnshine @xiaos-wife1 @kysrion @kunikuzushisbeloved @mariposa666haruka @sunsinrinn @milkm4nz @klementime @beesgobuzzbuzz @perhapseven7eggs @fluffyxcloudz @orionicchaos @1-800asimpforfugo @thelonelyarchon @hysteriablues @danseidol

BOLD MEANS I CAN'T TAG YOU!! IF THERE ARE ANY CHANGES TO YOUR USERNAME, PLEASE TELL ME! TAGLIST STILL OPEN!! <33

AUTHOR'S NOTES || srry abt the postpone ive been busy these past few days 😞 ANYWAYS DID U ENJOY 🥰🤭

[mrstsung]

Hot take but i don't think mk12/mk1 will survive long enough to ever get "polished" to live up to it predecessors.

Wb is in the process of selling several branches of its gaming companies.

The dissatisfaction with mk12/mk1 is apparent. For various reasons but still dissatisfaction none the less.

People really think mk11 did worse is clearly gaslighting themselves into validating their poor purchases before the game could fully cook. Mk12/mk1 is clearly rushed. Even if you're not into fighting games,you can clearly see that.

Their pr and press doesn't really deliver and actually tell us anything. Practically hot air at this point. Disingenuous af. And empty promises.

Mk11 is by no means perfect. It had serious issues coming out and theb game devs struggled . But it had also a bigger budget,more time,and support. None the less.

Mk11 also had award winning actors and voice actors/actresses. That also helped their sales.

The story wasn't the best. Plotholes from hell. But it was fun and easy to follow. I would have to say that even non gamers would have fun. Because there's actually stuff to do. And you didn't have to wait for little pay off.

People complain about the grinding in mk11 but what are y'all playing for then?

Dont you want stuff to do in the game? Grinding how? The difficulty or the fact you gotta actually play a damn game and not "press x to win" ? Either way thisbis mortal kombat not some chill game like minecraft or animal crossing where you can turn off your brain and chill. Mortal kombat is a fighting game,fighting games have action,action is DOING SOMETHING! I can't believe i have to explain this but here we are.

Mk12/mk1 isn't doing good because it's a good game. No. It's barely scrapping by because nostalgia bait and clickbait. And by the time you realize that. Nrs already has your money and you get a box of air. Nothing but aesthetics,cosmetics,nothing useful. Peopel said the gameplay got better. But for what point? So we can play half baked versions of the characters that clearly nobody else actually bothered to research? New world ment new characters. And this feels more like taking what is and was and should be mk worlds. And wiping their ass with it and said "now fork over 100 bucks timmy"

Not even joking at this point.

Look mk11 for all its troubles in the beginning,it is nothing compared to the shitshow we have now.

The next game should do better than the last not the other eay around. But this keeps happening. A lot People wouldn't say the pervious games were better,if the new game was actually competent enough to stand on itself. It's going into its first year and people are already bored.

Why should mk12/mk1 be praised for mediocrity?

Honey nrs is giving you the bare minimum with this game. And people still wanna praise it.

Pffft.

What does it truly offer as a game that it's predecessors did not? Gimmicks and that shit doesn't count. What does it offer thats ACTUALLY DIFFERENT? Nothing.

Taking the same characters,same story,same crap,and changing genders,roles,and the integral parts of the lore. Doesn't make it a good game. Especially when it doesn't come from a place of genuine respect or care. They want you to buy shit. It's all about sale sale sale. Because they are not just money bankrupt but creatively so too.

I wouldn't mind mk12/mk1 if they actually had all and i mean ALL COMPLETELY NEW CHARACTERS. and fire god liu was put in an exposition role and not a playable character on the roster. Like raiden was long ago at some points. That would have been actually fitting. (My personal opinion but i like liu falling to the darkside so much and it's such a waste)

Again.

Mk11 had faults but at least im not bored to death.

[tomorrowusa]

North Carolina seems to be the vortex for MAGA extremism this year.

We thought that the GOP candidate for governor Mark Robinson was off the scale.

Meet North Carolina’s GOP Governor Candidate: A Hitler-Quoting Extremist

But Michele Morrow, the GOP nominee for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, makes Mark Robinson sound almost mainstream.

In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates. “I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to a user sharing a conspiracy theory who suggested sending Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.” In another post in May 2020, she responded to a fake Time Magazine cover that featured art of Obama in an electric chair asking if he should be executed. “Death to ALL traitors!!” Morrow responded. In yet another comment, Morrow suggested in December 2020 killing Biden, who at that time was president-elect, and has said he would ask Americans to wear a mask for 100 days. “Never. We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!! #JusticeforAmerica,” she wrote. CNN reached out to Morrow and her campaign multiple times but did not receive a response.

But wait, there's more!

Morrow also promoted QAnon slogans and tweeted that the actor Jim Carrey was “… likely searching for adrenochrome” – a reference to a conspiracy theory shared by QAnon believers that celebrities harvest and drink the blood of children to prolong their own lives. Media Matters, a left-leaning publication, was first to report the QAnon tweets. All together, Morrow tweeted “WWG1WGA” – the slogan that stands for “where we go one, we go all” and is commonly associated with the QAnon conspiracy – more than seven times in 2020. Central to QAnon lore is the notion of the “Storm,” a belief there will be a day when thousands will purportedly be arrested, subjected to military tribunals, and face mass executions for their alleged crimes, with Donald Trump leading efforts to dismantle them alongside other QAnon “patriots.”

Morrow seems to get off on executions a lot. Her addiction to QAnon (who hasn't been around for years) is not at all out of character.

Sadly, such Republican candidates are hardly unusual these days.

To defeat such MAGA fascist extremist psychopaths it will be necessary to become more politically active in real life this year. That means volunteering, donating, and being more visible as pro-democracy Americans. And not just in North Carolina but nationwide.

My new favorite slogan this year is a classic rallying cry from civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson:

Nobody will save us from us but us.

[dojae-huh]

Omg no I wasn’t trying to be a pessimist 😓(DJJ anon)!! I’m fairly new to the fandom and saw a lot of people on tw really enjoying DJJ and hoping this wouldn’t be a one time thing,since they had more experience than me in fandom culture I assumed it could be a possibility.

Oh and in regards to the Wayv stuff I agree with a lot of people that said they also don’t get “properly” promoted bc they are the foreign unit. The treatment that companies give their non-Korean idols is awful sometimes.

Well, if you are new to the fandom, then one thing you should learn is not to believe everything that is said by the fandom. People feel emotions, like dissapointment or irritation, and look for someone to blame for it or to find an easy explanation that will satisfy them. "SM hates its foreign idols" is one of them.

Have you heard of Lay? He is a Chinese member of EXO. He was expelled from trainee programme for a fight, I think. He begged LSM to give him a second chance, promised to amend. He was taken back and debuted. Later on he was given a company in China by SM. Because of the Chinese ban and other complications he can't properly participate in the activities of his group, but he was still promoted (Let's shut up and dance), and is still a part of his group. Lucas is from Hong Kong. Despite his scandal, and SM scratching his (and Hendery's) single and pulling him out of NCT2021 activities (lots of problems, lots of money wasted), he is still with SM. Other companies expelled members from groups for smaller scandals, not trying to protect them.

WayV debuted later than Dream and 127, they got 2 years of Covid, Lucas' scandal, WinWin being absent from the activities, postponement of at least two comebacks because of politicians dying in China at the time of originally set dates... WayV is an unfortunate unit, who has just recently picked up the pace. Its album sales are far behind the other units, even DJJ. Both Dream and 127 had small venues, took years to build up their fanbase.

Look at WayV's first MVs and sincerely tell me the MVs were cheap, that there is no concept and lore.

Not to forget that Ten, a Thai, got his solo songs before any Korean members. And not as a part of NCTLab strictly for YT, he promoted on music shows before Taeyong.

SM wants money. It invests the same amount of money into trainees of all ethnicities (audition, studios, lessons, dorms), why wouldn't it like the investment back?

It's very hard to promote a group in China. They are more into solo celebreties, actors and singers. SM needs to be creative and change tactics along the way. Now WayV is targeting CEA, branded as a "group that sings in Mandarin" and releases songs in English.

As for DJJ. I personally doubt it will last many years, but there should be a comeback before DoJae go to military.

[thebopkabbalah]

NOTES ON TELEVISION P.2

in chicken pox isolation, despite a long distance from t.v. shows in general and a will to read/watch films, i did end up consuming a lot of television. so here we go - this is from the last week or so, dating between 27th november to 4th december 2022. there are spoilers below. 

house of the dragon finale (repeat watch, hotstar) 

i rewatched the entire season and was very satisfied with spending more time in the GRRM universe, though here i’ll talk only about the finale. for an ending, it’s a pretty standard and solid delivery that, on my first watch, really kept the tension building towards the latter half very well -- on my second watch, though i knew what Vhaghar was going to do, just the visual of her overhead was enough to make me tense again. couldn’t quite connect with rhaenyra and daemon as a unit this time, especially when he does what he does. it seems a little out of line - was it just for the sake of unpredictability? or was this a development of his characterization? i don’t know. i think one more extra thing i love about HoTD was the music, the world building and production/costuming...just absolutely excellent. it’s still not quite as lived in a world as game of thrones but it could reach there. i think they need to stop hurrying so much? GODDAMN EMAA D’ARCY IS SO HOT. i’m very happy to see non-binary folks on screen. cannot wait for season 2, i’m a bit obsessed with the GRRM universe. ugh. 

the crown season 5 (netflix)

let’s be honest, this was a pretty shitty/average season. nobody except the actor playing diana was the least bit convincing - the camilla actor looked shockingly like her so really well done there. but the queen, the king, charles etc etc very average. i also found the narrative building/construction incredibly weak, loose and disconnected - what were the episodes moving towards? there was no direction to what i was watching and mostly, i skipped through the season only pausing to see diana. the season also seemed very pro charles-camilla, which was very odd and unsettling. definitely a waste of time, even someone as fucking brilliant as lesley manville seemed wasted in the show!!!! who cares to be honest, we could put this money into more interesting historical / period dramas now, really. awfully done. 

interview with the vampire (downloaded)

well well well, what a sexy little romp this was. there are some incredibly compelling things about it  - um, jacob fkn andersen for a start??? wow. also the beauty of being able to say a queer black man in a historical-supernatural setting, dealing with so many things, it was really fucking wonderful. sam reid is also incredible charismatic, would find myself wondering - ugh, why am i rooting so much for him??? the costuming was off the fucking charts. their child-sister was alright, improved later but not convinced by the actor tbh. i was also unconvinced by the lack of sexual intimacy/queer sex (hello???), it was always only ever suggested types, i thought the whole dubai set-up was too weirdly done, i didn’t find the actor playing Rashid/Armand very convincing or compelling (props for muslim representation but couldn’t we have picked another actor??) and the journalist also felt a little one note, not very COMPELLING.....especially for a show with so much promise!!!!!! music was lovely, the sexy vibes were almost perfect - but we could have seen more lore, more world building? idk. lots of fantastic queer, race and class politics!!! a mixed bag of being horny, happy and confused!!!

dead to me season 3 (netflix) 

this one started out okay, a little too on the nose with the hit and runs and overlaps to be honest but now it’s really dragging itself. it’s also like too much put together without much thought? jen is pregnant, judy has cancer, they’re making all kinds of claims to the fbi and the police? it’s getting harder and harder to take this universe seriously. before all the orchestrated chaos that seems to have little impact on the viewer, i was actually laughing. the dialogues were great first half, despite the hit and run gag etc, and i was living for this amazing female best-friendship on screen (YOU ARE MY FUCKING HEART! is something i want to scream at my best friend one day too!!!! its such a great moment) - but ya halfway through it seems to lose its steam, purpose and earlier energy?? why does jen’s house start looking like an ad shoot??? why is the fbi made up of only one agent who lives in a motel?? it’s like the show wants to create a number of different rules for its universe - campy? dark comedy? telenovela-esque?- idk, something’s off this time round -- or maybe i’m projecting too much realism? let’s see, two episodes left now. 

wednesday (netflix) 

ah! wheuew! after hearing so much from my flatmate, being shown that incredible dance sequence and the praise from my cousin as well as constant tumblr trending, i watched this in the span of a day or so. shouldn’t be so proud of super fast consumption but this was really very good!!! nearly excellent!!!! the music is absolutely exceptional, i will be hearing jenna ortega’s cello solo in my head for a while. she’s also absolutely PHENONEMAL. i love her and enid’s friendship, i was crying at that hug bitches. other characters are also great, though not given a lot of time to develop/gather depth. do agree that the black characters felt very detached from their racial identites even as racial politics is part of the show??? it was a lil weird. gwendolyn christie is a gorgeous one, though she stood often in only one pose. was this deliberate? catherine zeta jones did not fully convince me - but the 1990s casting was too good. that bee friend of hers was ok ok, some of the twists were expected, some were wildcards which i enjoyed. i really enjoyed this so much, surprisingly - i don’t really see the CW ties that many critics have pointed out, the tone is very much its own/certain/great. jenna ortega holds the whole damn thing together so perfectly. i would contest that the CGI/production is sometimes a little off and the narrative is weak in places, even the dialogue falls short at moments...but damn it, i enjoyed it so much. now im going to go back to my typewriter too!!!!!! 

[hashtagloveloses]

to be fair to people, the current state of how film and TV is made (which is half the reason writers and actors are striking right now), has made it so that there are less episodes, shorter seasons, and cancelled shows, which leads people to both expect but also NEED information faster to decide if it is worth spending time (and in the case of movies in the theater, limited ticket money) on. you have people of all ages now trained to expect something to play out in the first 1-3 episodes or a certain number of MINUTES even, because if it doesn't go insta hit viral in those first few weeks, the streaming service will cancel it and then pull it from the service before most people have even heard it exists down the grapevine of word of mouth.

some might say "oh this is tiktok shortening people's attention spans" and i do think there is some merit to that, but it is also that because of how algorithms work, and how companies/executives/etc are often wrongly interpreting them, our brains have been trained to see patterns and make decisions faster. i scroll to the next tiktok not because it's too long and i can't concentrate on it, but because the tiktok algorithm prioritizes longer watch times, so people put all the important or enticing info at the beginning to keep people watching and stop them from scrolling away, and my brain has been trained to see the patterns of how they do that, and it can now recognize if i will want to watch that video in the first 3 seconds based on that pattern i have learned. someone might stop watching a TV show and try something else because they have literally infinite options of movies, TV, youtube, twitch, tiktok, books, games, podcasts, and more to entertain them that they didn't have before, and even more limited time and money than they had before, and if they've been TRAINED to know what they're watching will end quickly or get cancelled or disappear, they'll come to expect the information to make the decision "is this worth my time" faster. if a movie you spent money and gas to see in a theater that you could barely afford doesn't get to the point or to something enjoyable or worthwhile to you fast enough, you're less likely to enjoy your theater experience and go again, in a climate where people are seeing less in theaters anyway.

all of this is because the studios don't want to pay actors, writers, directors, crew, etc more money for additional seasons, or additional episodes. all of this is because our society internationally is collapsing so that a middle class barely exists and we are all choosing between seeing an expensive movie and the gas budget that week, or we're exhausted after being overworked and don't have the energy or time to get into something new that takes some time to unfold, and want to turn our brain off, and have so little leisure time that we don't want it to be wasted.

one great example of this is my current favorite anime, trigun stampede, a reboot of a cult classic hit that was a really big gamble because it is a CG reimagining of its source manga, which wasn't that popular in japan, but the original anime was beloved especially in the US. after season 1's release, info has come out about how lovingly crafted it is, as an expansion on the manga's story and lore, with the original writer and artist's blessing and participation. but most people didn't know this when it was announced or initially marketed, and it was panned by people upset at the changes that were for really good and interesting storytelling reasons, because they didn't know the context and came to a quick conclusion. (there is also a lot of pushback on the CG animation, which is a discussion for another day.) season 1 ended up being a sort of prequel to the general storyline people knew from the manga and the original anime, and everything from the story to the character designs was developed knowing the characters would evolve over time. but this would require people to wait and see, especially for a season 2 or whatever the next continuation of stampede will be, and to hope season 1 was successful enough both domestically and internationally to warrant further continuation to see those planned changes through.

the key here is that people don't have the time or expectation to watch something unfold slowly, because they, very realistically, don't think it'll happen. the late capitalist media machine, whether it is in the US, or japan, or on tiktok, or anywhere else only allows for 1 chance for something to sink or swim, and if it even marginally sinks for 1 second it is deemed unworthy and can never go further.

there is ALSO the cinemasins-ification of movie/film discussion online that prioritizes nitpicking, but also in general the week to week examining of minutiae magnified by algorithms that PRIORITIZE engagement so they mostly surface criticism and bad takes people fight over, so people are almost primed to see fault in things, and pick them apart without giving them time even to finish. (add on to that the fact that they assume some things won't get finished at all, and it compounds the problem).

I think people have truly lost any ability to be patient with storytelling.

‘I don’t understand this’ They’ll explain it if you wait.

‘I don’t like how this episode left things hanging’ There’s a continuation next week.

‘This character is flat’ Wait for them to be fleshed out.

So many of the complaints I see about shows lately are people being confused by things THAT THE SHOW WANTS YOU TO BE CONFUSED BY THATS THE FUN OF MYSTERY AND FORESHADOWING YOU ABSOLUTE GOBLINS THE MAIN CHARACTER IS ALSO CONFUSED AND THEYRE GONNA DO A BIG REVEAL AND EXPLANATION LATER IF YOU WOULD JUST FUCKING WAIT

[gaykarstaagforever]

Disney...come on...

Is this all we're doing with Star Wars now? Hours of flat, pointless lore shit only the worst people on the Internet care about (because they're mad that you got it wrong), with a tiny random cameo by part of Yoda at the very end?

You paid like $4 billion for this property. And you made one mediocre trilogy that was itself mostly confused references to the old movies, two good seasons of one TV show (The Mandalorian), then a whole bunch more TV and movie crap that amounts to pointing at the logo and going "See? SEE?!"

I didn't see Andor and I absolutely do not care about more stupid Space Conflict lore garbage, but people seem to like that. But people also seemed to like Rogue One, and, besides Donny Yen, I fucking hated that movie. But I also actually liked the Solo movie, so apparently I live in a pocket dimension that consists of exactly me and no one else.

My point is, you need to goddamn figure out what it is that is worthwhile about this IP, and focus on that. And the answer is "the three genuinely good movies from 50 years ago."

Those movies were a fluke, in that they were way better than they had any right to be, entirely because they were written and produced by boring Hollywood professionals who were just doing a job they were probably sick of. That's how that happened. The rest is Baby George Lucas bouncing around, screaming about how he likes Flash Gordon and DUNE and Triumph of the Will. And we know that second thing is not enough to make good movies, because that's what the Prequel Trilogy was, and aside from the podracing, those were also mid to awful.

...People also seem to hate the podracing. I guess that's another me in the pocket dimension thing.

Whatever. Stop making Yoda bonus DLC at the end of crap. Stop making weird CG versions of old and / or dead people bonus DLC at the end of crap. Just hire boring Hollywood people to do more stuff with the 70s characters, recast with young sexy actors, because that is all anyone likes and is coming here for. The rest of this is just wasted time and money.

"YEAH BUT THAT WAS BACK WHEN STAR WARS WAS 100% WHITE AND STRAIGHT, YOU TROLL!"

It's not my fault Disney keeps putting brown lesbians in bad movies and TV shows. One could argue they are only doing that because they KNOW this stuff is shit otherwise, and hope to hide behind their virtue-signaling. Which makes the brown lesbians look bad. And that's not good for anyone, especially the brown lesbians.

If you need Disney Stellar Struggle to provide you with queer media representation, you need to stop being a small child in Kudzu Country. They're not qualified to do that, and they do it terribly. Go elsewhere for that. Stop rewarding their shit version of that. Speaking as a big fat homo, I'd prefer Disney shut up and go back to the one thing they're good at, which is paying skinny teens to over-dance to remixed pop versions of cartoon movie songs from the 40s and 50s in overpriced theme parks. That's also lame, but in a fun way. Bad queer representation in crap scifi media isn't even the fun kind of lame. It's just embarrassing and gross.

Hire boring Hollywood people and let them make a good movie about good characters that people care about, that weren't specifically engineered solely to deflect criticism with pastiche liberal bullshit. Stop letting executive vice presidents of analytics stop the entire production and order rewrites because a computer told them people in Eastern Canada need less shots of fingernails. You can't make art nor product like this. As proven by the last 15 years of forgettable pointless Disney shit.

Luke Skywalker and R2 can hang out exclusively with brown lesbians. No one would care if it was written better.

...Okay. Obviously Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and Shad Brooks would still care. But they are easily shouted down.

The writing (and production in general) are the problem, here. Probably because of this virus of "design by executive committee" shit, that is also murdering the MCU.

Disney has a LOOONG history of being bad at live action stuff. See the late 60s through the mid 90s. And always for the same reason: executive demands, based on mythical market "research". That has been demonstrably wrong and useless for 60+ years now.

Yoda isn't a cool extra. This is supposed to BE ABOUT Yoda. Stop using him as icing on your flavorless virtue-signaling cellulose cake.

[marierosejosephtascher]

I hate the last Fantastic Beasts movie, because it has Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen playing exes but the plot/writing is so bad that I can't even enjoy it. 😭😭😭😭

[maybe-im-dark]

So i discovered Amazon prime has Queen of the damned in their membership included now and i decided to finally give it a watching. To say that i'm disappointed is an understatement.

First of all: Who was this movie even made for? Like what's the target audience? As a common fantasy movie watcher you're not gonna be able to understand a thing because the lore behind the vampire chronicles isn't being explained and as a fan you're disappointed because there's a huge chunk of the actual story line missing and the rest is a complete mess. And i'm not critisizing the actors because they did a wonderful job with what they were given!

The movie already starts bad. Okay Lestat is sleeping because he is so disappointed in the world. But we're not given an explanation as to why! Why is he feeling that way? We would know if there had been a movie about the vampire Lestat! Because in order to for QOTD to make sense, you need to know what happened in Lestats backstory! Also Louis is missing, which rids the movie out of the depth of Louis begging Lestat not be influenced by Akasha and feeling betrayed by the fact the love of his undead life has run off to be with this evil Vampire Queen.

Moving on to Lestats movie backstory: Why was it changed to Marius as his maker? It doesn't make sense! It's a really important detail that Magnus made Lestat and there were a lot of dead young men looking just like him with blonde hair and grey eyes and he was finally the satisfying result in a series of failures! Also it's not explained why Marius is keeping watch over Akasha and Enkil which is a very important part in the book! The fact that they themselves sort of chose him to do it and why he was never able to get a reaction out of them!

Regarding Maharet: Oh boy. Her story was completely left out. Common viewers were sure confused why she was so adament about Akasha being stopped. The whole connection between her and Akasha was non existent in the movie! Also Mekare was missing so the whole ending of the movie didn't make sense.

About the Talamasca: No explanation as to what exactly it is and why it even exists and how Jesse came to work for them. Also David is supposed to be an elderly man, in his early to middle sixties! Paul McGann is an awesome actor but his reasoning being to old to be a vampire at the end doesn't make sense if he is portrayed as someone in his 40s with not a single grey hair to be seen!

Akasha: God bless Aaliyas soul in heaven! She did a great job portraying her. But this version of Akasha did not do her justice! It didn't show that her plan wasn't to kill all humans, she wanted to kill all the men, because women are superior in her eyes! Why would you leave that out?

Also the movie has a really weird pacing! When it reached the climax i was actually questioning if i was watching a cut down version. One moment Lestat sees Akasha is actually evil and selfish and it looks like he is questioning her and in the next he is by her side and we get the fight scene. Like...what? Where do we see the others joining forces to fight Akasha? Where do we see him being in a conflict about loving Akasha but not wanting to see her destroy the world?

So all in all this movie is a goddamn mess and a sad waste of money.

[archibaldtuttle]

Stranger Things S4 had me worried at first,

when I heard about the outrageously high budget.

[no spoilers ahead]

For those not in the know, Stranger Things Season 4 was allotted a 270 million dollar budget, which comes down to an average of 30 million dollars per episode. To put this in perspective, the first seaons had 6 mil per episode, Season 2 had 8... And to put it in further more perspective, the first Jurassic Park film cost 63 million, so the equivalent of two episodes for S4. This had me worried.

Usually, when shows or film sequels have their budget rise sharply, it means the producers believe they can make a profit off of it, which means making at least twice the budget BACK. And (in the US at least), budgets are not set depending on what the project needs, but solely on how much the producer thinks they can make. Emphasis on *think they can*. And it has happened time and time again that, when a sequel gets a bigger budget, the people in charge of the project do not know what to do with it and therefore just drown it in CGI and useless subplots and ridiculous camera work.

I might have underestimated the Duffer Brothers on this one however. These guys clearly, obviously adore 80′s horror and they will do anything to do their inspiration justice. They did not spend 270 million on drowning everything in shitty CGI and they did not run away with the money either : each episode ranges from 45 minutes to 1 hour and a half (for episodes 1 through 7), and they pulled out all the stops. They build so many sets, so many *huge* sets, because they are still passionate about the physicality of their world. They play around those sets with great long takes and inventive camera work, the editing is much, much better than it was in the previous three seasons (and it was already pretty good don’t get me wrong). They gave all of their actors time to shine, they go deep into their world’s lore with an almost childish glee...

It’s not perfect by any means. But at least I’m confident in stating that they did not, in fact, waste the ridiculous budget.

[side note : the budget is still ridiculous. they should not have been given that much money in the first place. it’s just refreshing to see creators stick to their guns and make something out of it]

[mrstsung]

Ask game time!

Original post:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

who’s your main(s)? (character you play as most often): in most mk games i play shang tsung,kung lao,scorpion,or raiden. The rest i can wing it with but those i can get down quicker than the others on the roster.

who’s your favorite character(s)?: shang tsung(big fat duuuuh!) Kung lao(my first videogame crush,so him baby),scorpion(hanzo hasashi is the only scorpion i will die on that hill). Those 3 are my top 3 faves.

what character do you think is underrated?: honestly,shinnok. I don't understand why he isn't utilized more and better. It's honestly sad and a waste of potential. Although i can say this for a majority of characters especially the "villains" or bosses. It's honestly a crime. A close 2nd is maybe onaga. Like god damn man he could have been so fucking cool.

what character do you think is overrated?: dont hate me but. Liu kang. Specifically fire god liu kang. Like don't get me wrong i love liu just tye very specific one i have in my head. Like i feel the story revolved too much around him. It was worse than johnny cage and the bladedashians and special forces trying to take center stage. And that was awful. But sadly,how they did liu kang was worse because they could have wrote it better. In fact it felt like it was leaning into liu becoming what he hated and we could have had shang tsung,lao and raiden teaming up to stop liu. Liu realized what he has done and then stop the bigger bad and exile and atone for what he's done? I mean holy shit man talk about waste of potential.

character you hate having to fight against?: ok you mean in game or as if i was actually in mortal kombat? Well. Gamewise,i still get scared fighting shao kahn,even if he isn't at his best. It's still scary. Look childhood gamer trauma rage is a bitch. (Looking at you mk:sm/mortal kombat shaolin monks for the ps2!) But one I'd be scared to fight irl would be a bit of everyone but shang tsung. Oh not because he could kick my ass,that's a given. But the fact that soul snatching sexy sob would know i like him...a lot. And that magic is scary af man come on. He can shapeshift,shoot flaming skulls,suck my...soul. with 500+yrs of martial arts experience. Wtaf,how could you not piss your pants in terror?! But anyways. Shao kahn overall tho. (Fucking bastard owes me still)

how did you get into the series?: mortal kombat shaolin monks for the ps2. But shortly after that i started to play the og arcades more. Mk2 to be specific. Then i saw the mk 95 movie. Good shit,even to this day. Mk could learn a thing or two about its roots but that would require nrs to give a fuck.

what was the first entry you played?: see above.

favorite entry in the series?: mk shaolin monks. Mk2. Somewhat of deadly alliance. Maybe 3 or 4 but im very picky with it. As much shit as i gave mk11,I'd rather take it than mk12/mk1(2023) fr. The only good thing about it is shang tsungs voice actor,and even then i just am sad how they've done things. Not even for blorbo is it worth the money or investment.

favorite entry-specific (re)design, if you have one?: honestly i prefer mk11 aesthetic wise minus a few personal nitpicks. But overall visually it's beautiful. So yeah. Mk12/mk1(2023) all it has is aesthetics and none of the spirit of mk. Honestly it feels like one big joke or excuse to do a movie cheaply as possible. I dont know man,i just am sad about mortal kombats current state. If you were an old fan like myself,you'd understand. Im not saying some things aren't interesting ideas,i just feel the execution of said ideas have been piss poor and some things honestly should have stayed in drafts. I feel they are trying too hard rn to be "relevant" and not give out a good story. Or just reinventing their own lore....AGAIN. and it's annoying at this point. So much many people are making their own lore and shit because canon lore sucks. The world Building in mk has never been solid and thats it all weakest point imho.

favorite canon ship?: i only do self shipping. I dont care for canon ships. Or canon x canon ships.

favorite non canon ship?: same thing as above.

if you could pick a guest character, who would you pick? (can be as detailed as you want here): duke nukum. It's about fucking time. But they'd butcher him now. So im not sure.

if you could pick a character from any of the earlier entries to bring back, who would you choose?: honestly they need to get their story right before adding any characters to the roster otherwise to me its lip service. But I'd love bo rai cho to return. Plz. For the love of elder gods,can i have funny drunken master back?!

which do you prefer doing first/more: completing the story mode or completing towers?: honestly if local play/ vs mode is shit. Towers and storymode mean nothing. If you can't 1v1 your friends in the same room. I dont want it. But I'd play towers above storymode. I'd love storymode more. If the story was actually good or consistent or konsistent in this case ;) . But fr in all seriousness,nrs NEEDS to get their head in the game anf out or corporate ass,if they wanna see this not blow up in their face once hype dies down and people move on to something else. Which it will happen. And is happening.

favorite fatality?: honestly i fucking love shang tsung soul swapping inside the opponent and exploding/killing them from the inside. Fucking simple but badass af. Like fr imagine seeing that shit irl,terrifying. Which is what we need. It's so extra. But it fits. Other than that. There isn't many fatalities i dont like. Cept mk11 johnny cage but thats because it goes on too damn long. We get it johnny!

favorite stage?: honestly shang's throne room,warrior shrine,the deadpool,and visually? Shirai-Ryu fire gardens. Absolutely stunning.

favorite stage theme / ost?: all of mk(original),mk2,and mk shaolin monks tracks are the best. Mk shaolin monks for atmospheric ambiance. The og arcades the first mk and mk2 for absolute bops. Tho deadly alliance has good dance and tencho edm vibes. Tho everyone can kollectively agree that the og theme is the best. Come on man!

opinion on any of the non-game media? (the live action films, mk legacy, the animated mk legends films, etc): ok mk95. Still is the goat for a reason. Mk legends films are good visual and animation wise but story is too fast paced for my taste. And can be better but still ironically,better than the current games storywise. I hate to say it but yeah. Honestly they haven't made and non game media for me that really speaks to me yet. But if they do. I'll let ya know.

skin / kosmetic you want to be in mk1?: dont care for mk12/mk1. But if they could bring back mk9 shang red robe jammies for shang that would be appreciated. Give me that much plz.

do you prefer hanzo hasashi or kuai liang as scorpion?: if you say anything else but hanzo hasashi you need to log off and not talk to me ever again. Hanzo hasashi IS SCORPION. anyone says otherwise is not a mk fan. Period. I will fight you!

which character reveal for mk1 shocked you the most?: like i said. I do not care for the new game. It's more pissing me off that shang tsung who has been a staple for mk is reduced to dlc. Twice. And you can't even get him rn in the new game less you got money or pre order codes or some shit. And that's why i feel that the new game is shit. Because you shouldn't have to pay money for a half baked game. For a character you should have already had. Especially if they are a main focus in the storymode. So yeah. Nothing shocks me.

have you ever cosplayed an mk character? if you haven’t, would you want to, and who would you choose?: i have. I have done 95 shang tsung. And am going to do a genderbent fem hanzo hasashi scorpion (THE ONLY SCORPION IS HANZO I WILL STILL STATE THIS. ONCE AGAIN!) soon. So stay tuned. Future cosplays I'd love to do is fujin,kung lao,kitana,and a genderbent Johnny cage (jenny cage?)

do you have any cool merch? (figures, posters, shirts, etc): got some cool shirts and a few cosplays and little stuff like that. Pendents. But i wanna get some figures but holy shit dudes it's expensive. Oof. But some day. Some day. I will obtain that scorpion figure. Some day. Wish they had shang tsung merch more. Ugh.

[mrslittletall]

It is now time for my review of Nier Replicant... and I won't put all the numbers in there! Who decided to name the game like this? Let's go over my points as usual. Graphics As a remastered games, of course they weren't the best. The character models looked fine, but were pretty stuff, the backgrounds were a bit muddy. The cut scenes looked really well though, loved how smoothly everything was animated and the character expressions. What I also liked was the boss design. They got some really unique designs in there and the effect on the shades was really cool with that ripple of letters appearing on them. Music/Sound OMFG, like Automata, the game SHINES here. The music is amazing, there is literally not a single bad song in the OST, a lot of them turned into my favourite songs of all time and I could stand in the Aerie and listen to Cold Steel Coffin for hours. Outside of the area and battle songs, there are a LOT of emotional songs for cutscenes to set the mod. They are so fitting and wonderful, beautiful. And the best thing? At certain parts of the game the emotional song replaces the area song for a while, letting you dweel in the feels for a while longer. Like in Automata, lyrics are used in a lot of the songs, in the chaos language often, which adds even more depth to the already high quality songs. While in Automata most lyrics were clearly duets or like songs though, in Replicant a lot of the lyrics are actually "ominous chanting". But it works, it works so well. "The Lost Stone", "The Aerie", "Snow in Summer", all have ominous chanting and I wouldn't have it any other way. Some of the songs even get into a music box version. The moment in the Shadowlord fight when the music changes into the music box version? That hits me every single time, every single damn time. Outside of the music, the voice acting. It's phenomenal. Every major character (I played with english voices) has such a good voice and delivers their lines beautifully. Brother Nier and his childlike naivetity in the beginning, turning to bitterness and rage as an adult, Kainé whose voice actor clearly had fun delivering all the f-bombs, Emil, with the voice of a cute innocent young boy and my favourite, Grimoire Weiss, whose voice drips sarcasm and which I absolutely love. And even the side characters had great voices, like Devola and Popola or the Red-Bag-Couple. Every single NPC was voiced as well, even the ones without names and I didn't find their voices to be annoying. Only voice that annoyed me was kid Gideon. Gameplay Ok, I can't praise the game too much here. It's not a bad game, not at all, BUT... Let's start with the good things. The battle system works well. You can use the four trigger buttons to use martial arts or magic and use your weapon with the square and the triangle button (yeah, I played on PS4). You have a range of different weapons, but there isn't really much difference between them. In the end I just equipped the weapon with the highest atk power. Upgrading all of them feels like a waste of time, unless you really want to read those weapon stories. The bosses are pretty unique and have to be fought in different approaches, but of course there are also a few "hit them until they stagger" bosses. The magic is pretty fun to use and you can use word edit to customize it a bit. Ok, but now the buts... That were mostly the sidequests. A few of them were fine and really worth it... and then I got a sidequest that was like "Bring me ten titanium alloys and ten broken lens." Which are super fucking rare items! So you basically ran into the same area multiple times to farm them and earn like 20.000 G for it.... and you probably have so much money already that you don't even need it. Yeah, a lot of the sidequests boiled down to "Farm some materials for me". Even Brother Nier commented on it, because he often said "That will take a while." I would have wished for more side quests like in Automata, they certainly bettered the process there. I just wonder why they didn't tone down the farming sidequests

in the Remaster a bit. Farming for rare items is a drag in this game and you sadly need it for 100 % (remember all the weapons to upgrade?) So yeah, definitely don't rec to 100 % this. Maybe do the sidequests, but I wouldn't do all of them a second time. Also, in order to see all the endings, you have to play through the second half of the game a bunch. That gets a bit repetitive... Story/Lore Yeah, time to SHINE again. I know this sounds strange, because I was a bit bummed that Nier Automata left so much lore outside of the game, but that kinda didn't bother me here? Probably for once, because my friend explained it to me and second, because the main point of the lore/story I could figure out myself. At first, the game left me pretty confused. We were in 2053, it snowed in summer and there were these kids, these shade creatures and these books and everything went horrible horrible wrong. And then we were 1.400 years later and saw the same kid and his sister just walking around like nothing happened? What? Regardless, I moved on and slowly unraveled the mysteries. Halfway through route A I thought that shades might be humans, but didn't had all the puzzle pieces yet. Only at the very end was it clear what happened. Also, thanks to Automata I knew about Devola and Popola being androids. Like my friend put it "They are the biggest walking spoiler for Nier in Automata." But like... I absolutely love the lore and the story of the game. See, the story is about Nier wanting to rescue his sister. Of course we should be on his side, right? Those big bad shadow creatures got her! Of course he is our hero! But then Route B happens and we get to see the side of the shades... and it turns out that they never were the bad guys at all. In truth, neither the Gestalts nor the Replicants are the bad guys here. I read in a Youtube comment that Yoko Taro designed the game about "Humans will be able to kill other people when they think they are right." That is what Nier is about. That is literally what the game is about. The last battle with the Shadowlord? Just a desperate brawl between two boys who both think they are in the right. We see this a lot in the shade stories, but it is especially prevelant in the story about the wolves and the shades in the Shadowlord's castle. The story... is about humanity... and somehow it tells a beautiful story about humanity, even though there aren't humans in the game anymore... Also, the main characters? Adorable, great, precious! I love all of them! I love Brother Nier, I love Kainé, I love Emil, I love Grimoire Weiss. They are written so WELL. I definitely feel like I want to hunt down the lore that got omitted this time, because I very much fell in love with the world of Nier. Hm, maybe when I play Automata again with the Nier knowledge stuff makes more sense as well... Overall: I give this game an absolute rec when you like good music and good stories! And when you want your heart ripped out of your chest and trampled over it several time.

[duhragonball]

‘21

Amidst all the popular hype for seeing the end of 2020, it didn’t hit me until about lunchtime what the real highlight is that I’ve been waiting for: For the first time since 1999, the year finally ends in “numberty-number” again.    It low-key irritated me that we had to call it “two thousand three” and I was relieved when “twenty-thirteen” caught on, but it still wasn’t right because it was too short, and now we’re back in the sweet spot, and I should be safely dead by 2100, so that’s one less thing I gotta deal with.

Really, even “numberty hundred” rings true to me.    “Nineteen hundred” sounds like a year.    “Twenty-one-oh-six” sounds like a futur-y year, which is even cooler.   So did “Two thousand five”, until I was actually living in it, and it sounds even worse now that it was a long time ago and adults will talk about their childhood happening in that year.    Daniel Witwicky would be old enough to get married and grow a fancier beard than me.    That’s nuts.    My point is that, honestly, it’s the year 3000-3019 that I have to worry about, so if I ever decide to go vampire, those will be the years I hide in the ocean or force society to reset the calendar, whichever’s easier.  

I spent New Year’s Eve finishing Superliminal, which I bought on Steam after I watched Vegeta play it on YouTube.  It has a similar look and feel to the Stanley Parable, so if you liked one you’d probably enjoy the other, although Superliminal has a different theme.  I kept hoping I’d find some secret passage that I wasn’t supposed to take, and a narrator would scold me for finding the “Chickenbutt Ending”, but it doesn’t work that way.    Superliminal’s all about puzzles and awesome visuals, but it does have the same soothing design aesthetics as TSP.   Honestly, I enjoyed just wandering around in Stanley’s office, and Superliminal does the same thing with a hotel and several other settings.   It’s nice.

This got me thinking about how I kind of did everything there was to do in The Stanley Parable, and I sort of wished they would add new stuff to the game, but I’m not sure there would be much point to that.    I could play the older version, but it presents the same message, just with different assets.   The Boss’s Office would look different, but it’d be the same game.   And this got me thinking about various “secret chapters” in pop culture.  Secrets behind the cut.

I first heard about this idea in the 2000′s, when fans invented this notion that there was a secret chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.    I read a website that tried to explain the concept, and of course it lauded J.K. Rowling with all this gushing praise for working an Easter egg into the book, a literary work of “well, magic.”  

That pretty well sums up my distaste for Harry Potter, by the way.    These days, JKR has thoroughly crapped all over her reputation and legacy, but in the 2000′s it felt like half the planet was in a mad rush to canonize her as a writing goddess, to the point where fans were congratulating her for writing secret chapters that didn’t actually exist.   The idea was based on lore from the books about Neville Longbottom’s parents.    They were patients in a mental hospital, and he’d go to visit them, and they would give him bubble gum wrappers, intended to demonstrate how far remove they’ve become from reality.   The secret chapter lies in those wrappers, which all read “Droobles Best Blowing Gum” or some such.    What if Neville’s parents were only pretending to be mentally ill, so as to throw off their enemies?   Naturally, they would want to stay in contact with their son, so the bubble gum wrappers would have to contain coded messages.    Said code involves unscrambling the letters on the wrappers to make new words, like “goblin” or “sword” or “Muggle” or “Dumbledore”.    The problem is that you can also use it to make other words like “booger” or “drool” or “booobbiess.”   Play with it enough, and you can make the code say anything you want it to say, which means it’s no code at all.   

But the idea was that the not-yet-published sixth HP book would reveal all of this gum wrapper nonsense, and Neville would decode the messages and discover all of his parents’ super-cool adventures.   I’m not sure why we needed a secret chapter if Book 6 was going to explain all of this anyway in several not-secret chapters, but that was the whole point.   Fans didn’t have Book 6 yet, and they were so desperate to read it that they started trying to extrapolate what would happen next based on “clues” from the previous five.    That’s like trying to figure out what Majin Buu looks like by watching the Androids Saga.   I guess some wiseguy would have guessed that he’d resemble #19, but that’d just be blind luck.  

And when you get down to it, this whole secret chapter business is really just a conspiracy.   This is literally how Qanon works.   Some anonymous jackass posted vague “hints” on an imageboard, and people went goofy trying to interpret them and figure out what would happen in the future.   They call it “research” because they spend a ton of time on this, but there’s no basis to any of it.    It took me a few minutes to figure out that you can spell “Muggle” with the words in “Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum”, but that’s not research and it doesn’t prove anything.   But all these guys keep looking for “Hilary Clinton goes to jail next week” and lo and behold that’s all they ever find.   

In the same vein, the gum wrapper thing was really a complaint disguised as a conspiracy, disguised as a “magical secret chapter”.   At least a few fans wanted to see more Neville in their Harry Potter books, they wanted Neville’s parents, or someone like them, to have cool spy adventures or whatever else.   The point is, they clearly weren’t getting what they wanted out of the printed works, but they didn’t want to turn against their Dear Beloved Author, so they started casting about for an alternative reality, one where J.K. Rowling wrote a cooler story and hid it in the pages of the one that actually went to press.    So instead of just saying “Hey, Order of the Phoenix was kind of a letdown, I hope there’s more ninjas in the next book,” they said “Rowling is a genius because I wanted ninjas and she’s definitely going to give them to me, I have the gum wrappers to prove it.”

The same thing happened all over again when the BBC Sherlock show took a turn for the nonsensical.    I don’t know from BBC Sherlock, but I watched the fascinating video critique by Hbomberguy, and it sounds like the show did tons of plot twists until it stopped making sense altogether in the fourth season.    If you skip to 1:09:00 in the video, you’ll hear about fan theories that suggested that season four was supposed to be crappy, as part of a secret meta-narrative plan that would be paid off in a secret, unannounced episode that would not only explain everything, but retroactively justify the crappy episodes that came before.    But it’s been a few years and it never came to pass, so I think we can call this myth busted. 

Most recently, I think we’ve all seen a lot of talk about the final season of Supernatural, where I guess Destiel sort of became canon but only one guy does the love confession and the other doesn’t respond.   But I guess he does say “I love you too”  in the Spanish dub, which means the English language version was edited for whatever reason.    It’s not exactly a secret episode, but the implication is that there’s more to this than what made it to the screen.    So the questions turn to what the screenplay said, what the writers and actors wanted to do, etc. etc.    My general impression is that SPN fans are a bit more used to crushing disappointment, so they’re not quite as delusional about this show being unquestionable genius, like Sherlock and Harry Potter.     Maybe this is an Anglophile thing?   Like, if you suck at something with a British accent, people will accept it more unconditionally?   

I had seen something on Twitter about how there should have been a secret Seinfeld episode in the 90′s.    Someone suggested it at the time, they tape a whole episode, then wait until 2020 to air it, because by then it would be worth a fortune.    But they didn’t do it, because it costs a lot of money to make a TV episode, and if you don’t air the show right away, you aren’t making that money back any time soon.    Yeah, you might recoup a fortune someday, but Seinfeld was making a ton of money then.    It exposes the fannish nature of the idea.    A fan would love to discover a cool secret chapter, but a content creator isn’t necessarily keen on making a cool thing and then hiding it where few people would find it.  

I thought about doing this myself recently.   Maybe Supernatural gave me the bug, but I thought “I’m writing this big-ass story, so what if I wrote me a secret chapter for it?   Wouldn’t that be cool?”     But no, it wouldn’t be cool, because it’d be the same work as writing a regular chapter, and the same stress I feel when I hold off on publishing it.    Except I’d just never publish it, I’d put it in some secret hole on the internet and hope that some superfan who might not even exist can decode whatever clues I leave.  

I mean, it’d be awesome if it got discovered and everyone loved it.    “Hey, I found this hidden chapter!   Mike’s done it again!”   And I could bask in the glory.   But what if no one finds it?  Then I just wasted my time, right?   I want people to read my work.   My monkey brain needs the sweet, sweet validation of those kudos and comments, folks.   Once I realized that, I understood why no one else would want to do a secret chapter either.    Easter eggs are one thing, but the bigger bonus features they put on DVDs were pretty easy to find, and with good reason.

I think that’s what made the Stanley Parable so appealing to play, because it teases you with the idea that you can “break” the game and find some extra content that you weren’t supposed to see, but as you go exploring all those hidden areas, it gradually becomes clear that this is just part of the game; you were meant to find all these things, and that’s why they were put here.      It’s hidden, but he secret aspect of it is just pretend.   

I suppose that what I like about games like TSP and Superliminal is the illusion of secrets more than the secrets themselves.    I like roaming through the hallways, having no idea what I might find ahead.    I kind of wish I could open all the doors, and not just the ones the game designers put stuff behind, but the reality is that there’s nothing on the other side.    I used a cheat code once  to explore the unused doors in TSP and it’s just a bright white field on the other side.   Interesting to look at, but not much of a reveal.   Honestly, the doors themselves are more appealing than anything that could lay behind them.  

And that’s probably what makes secrets so fun.   They could be almost anything, but once you open the present, the number of possibilities drops to one.   If they had ever made that Secret BBC Sherlock Episode, I doubt it would have lived up to expectations, but fans could amuse themselves by imagining what could have been in it.    In the end, though, things usually don’t justify the hype.  For every Undertaker debut at Survivor Series 1990, there’s a Gobbledygooker debut at Survivor Series 1990.   It’s impossible to manufacture a secret with a guaranteed payoff.   

[ladywinterwitch]

Infamous Winter Soldier

Pairing: Sebastian Stan X Fan! Reader 

Summary: You were convinced by your eight years old Brother to attend Wizard world con. He absolutely wanted to see his favourite hero, the winter soldier. During the photo op, you catch the hero's eye.

Warnings: Just fluff, it kinda turns into a social media AU at the end (but it’s not, it’s just texts)

Word Count: 2987

A/n: Y’all this is more like a fever dream than anything, but a girl can always dream ;) But one thing’s for sure: I have met him and I assure you he is that charming and sweet. So sweet.

                                                 (Gif not mine)

You yawned, then procedeed to shake your head a bit, squeezing your eyes to try and stay focused. You've been up til late to finish an assignment for college, even though you knew that the morning after you would've had to wake up early. Why? Your little devil (no, in reality he was a sweetheart, but you really wanted to hate him for this) of a Brother convinced you to take him to Wizard World Con after your parents said no. 

-That’s totally your responsibility y/n. Try to take him home alive, will you?- those were the last words that your mother said to you before your departure. 

So there you were, driving a two hours trip, sleep deprived and with the only thing that keeps you alive awake being a cold brew latte from Starbucks. But someone else, precisely an eight year old way too hyperactive, was definetely more awake than you. The only thing stopping you from getting Harry to actually drive in your place was that he doesn’t have a driver license.

-Swoooosh! y/n look out! Captain America's shield is coming your way!- Harry screamed too loud for your liking. You rolled your eyes, narrowing them a bit for the noise, but playing along anyway.

-Oh no, help me.- you responded with the tiniest bit of enthusiasm that you could find.

-Don't worry, the winter soldier will catch with his metal arm!- he made a noise that was supposed to resemble the metal impact -You're safe now. Thank Bucky now.- He shoved a little action figure in your face and you gave it a slap.

-Harry don't do stuff like that! I'm driving. And who the hell is Bucky?- you huffed and then asked. You really didn't want a car crash to happen, especially not for a damn toy.

-What? He's the winter soldier! Bucky Barnes. You don't know that?- he said shocked.

-You Always call him Winter Soldier, and I haven't seen the movies, so no, I didn't know.- you responded.

-Don't worry, I'll fix it. So, James Buchanan Barnes was born on march 10 1917..- he started to tell his whole story, comic and movies and lore, just to be sure to not miss anything.

You mentally cursed yourself for asking and just hoped that at least this actor is a good person, if he was a duchebag, you probably wouln't have responded to your actions. Not just because it would be a tremendous disappointment for your brother, but also because your gas, money, time and sleep would've been wasted.

-

Harry finished his storytelling, and you murmured a 'Thank God' and commented that it was very interesting. But, even if it was a neverending ramble, it had been actually quite interesting. You never saw the movies, but now, hearing all that story, you thought about how difficult it must have been to bring everything to the screen. Not just story-wise, but also emotionally. All the dark things that he'd gone through.

-We're here buddy.- you announced as you parked outside the building.

-Yeah!- he cheered and clapped. You both got out of the car and while you were walking towards the entrance you saw some people. Some of them were in costume and some weren’t, but everyone had their pass on.

-Shit, I almost forgot.- you muttered looking in your bag and pulling out two passes and your IDs. You passed one to Harry while you kept the documents, and he put it around his little neck.

-Okay, now let's go inside and take look at the schedule c’mon.- he nodded happily and you went inside. You found yourself in the lobby and saw a sign that gave directions to the various rooms. You took the main corridor and arrived in a big common lobby, where a lot more people and several booths were present.

You walked in between, looking around. Some of the booths were mainly selling nerdy stuff, some t- shirts, some art, and so on. Others, that were empty, had above them a large paper board with a collage of the actors faces and their names.

-How's Bucky called again?- you asked your little brother.

-Sebastian Stan.- he answered, then pointing somewhere on your left.

-There! That's his table.- he ran towards the booth and you sighed, following him. You looked at the board and kinda tought that maybe it wouldn’t have been that bad. There were different photos, with different haircuts, but his handsome face was still the same. Blue eyes, sharp features, pink lips and a smile to die for.

-Well, damn.- you whispered to yourself, feeling definetly more awake.

Then you looked at the day’s schedule and saw that his first panel was at ten am. It was now nine thirty, so you wouldn't have to wait too long. You decided to go take your seats in the hall, and on the way you saw a few very long queues and your heart dropped a bit. It was going to be a long day.

-

The panel began exactly at the indicated time, and when the host annouced Sebastian, everyone cheered, screamed and clapped. He entered the stage with his fist in the air and a big smile.

You weren't exactly in first line, but you were close enough to see his figure clearly. He had a light grey tee shirt under a darker grey jacket, black jeans and brown suede shoes. His brown hair were slicked back and quite short at the sides, he had a scruff that adorned his sharp face.

You felt your stomach flutter a bit. You had never seen a man that attractive before. Not in real life at least. You were definetly going to watch those blessed movies once you got home.

-Hey everyone! How're you doing? Good? Yeah lemme hear ya!- he exclaimed with a big grin, laughing when the crowd cheered louder. You smiled and whoed a little with your Brother.

The panel begun and as the questions went on, you found out a few things about him: He couldn't take a compliment if his life depended on it, he was really smart and thoughtful, he was a dork but the adorable kind, he liked 80's rock and Star Wars. At some point a fan was so nervous to ask him her question that someone screamed 'someone give her a hug' and by everyone's shock she did recive that hug from Sebastian himself. You were a few seats away from the mic and took that opportunity to take a better look at him.

He squeezed her in his arms even raising her from the ground, and when he walked away laughing she fell on the floor. Same girl, same you thought.

After that little interruption the panel ended smoothly. He thanked everyone and said that he would see them at the photo ops.

You and your brother walked out of the hall to buy a snack. On the way to the vending machine you couln't stop thinking about him. You were bewitched by his voice, his mind and his appearence. How come you never found out about him before today? Harry was always talking about that Winter Soldier, but you thought that his interpreter deserved the same, if not more attention. But he was a little boy passionate about superheroes, so it was normal for him to prefer the punch and adventure kinda guy than tha thoughtful one.

-

Sebastian had his first photo op session and after his autograph session at four pm, and honeslty you didn't know what to do until then. It was just midday. So you looked at the schedule and opted for another actor's panel that was at three pm, maybe getting out a little early to take place in the queue.

From one to three pm there had been a lunch pause for everyone, so you and Harry went outside to eat a burger at a near diner. To get away from the crowd for a bit, but also because the food inside was hella expensive.

You had enough time to do everything calmly and you even had a brief call with your mother to update her.

-So, how was he?- she asked with a little excitement.

-Honestly? Surprising.- you laughed a bit.

-As good or bad?-

-Good. Very good. He seems like a very genuine and sweet person. We just saw his interview though. Maybe up close he'll be an asshole. But I doubt. He seemed like a really down to earth guy.- you heard her giggle a bit.

-My daughter has a crush on the superhero uh?- you blushed.

-What? No, no. I don't even know him, mom.- you quickly responded.

-Hey, chill honey. I was just messing with you. But I wouldn't blame you. You know, I've seen those movies under your brother's torture, but those pretty blue eyes didn't escape me. Nor did his even prettier face.- your mouth was agape.

-Mom!- she just chuckled like a schoolgirl.

-Oh, let an old woman dream a bit y/n. - your smirked and rolled your eyes.

-You're not old. Your fifties seem thirties, mom.You’re doing good.- you heard her sigh.

-My babygirl, always speaking the truth.- you laughed, shaking your head.

-I'll hear you later mom.-

-Later honey! Kiss the pretty soldier for me!- you hang up, shaking your head again. She was shameless.

-

This other actor's panel was interesting but not as much as Sebastian's one. Or maybe it was because you couldn't really concentrate. In any case four pm came rather quickly and you went outside to queue, and boy, did you wanted to run away.

An enormus line of people was already there, waiting. You told your brother to stay in line while you tried to see where it began. The first girls were in front of a closed blue tent, a big large bodyguard in front of it. You sighed, defeated, and went back to Harry.

After a few minutes the queue started to move. You were just behind the middle, and almost felt sorry for the people in the back, but you wouldn't have moved for any reason in the world.

You played a little with a game on your phone, looked at the notifications, the news and even searched for the weather broadcast for the day after. It was supposed to be sunny, just like today.

Speaking of sun, you began to feel a little hot, so you took off your black leather jacket and were left with your pale pink short shirtdress. You really liked that dress because it reminded you a bit of the 50's. You loose braid fell from your shoulder on your back when you slipped off the jacket.

You looked at your brother that apparently was more social than you, because he had been able to found a few other children to play with. Then you gazed at the line and you were surprised when you saw that just a few more people were in front of you. With all the people in front of you you were honestly surprised that it took just twenty minutes, but on the other hand, it didn't take ages to take a photo either.

You put your phone away, not wanting to waste any more battery before you got to your hotel in the evening. A lttle past five it was your turn. The bodyguard checked your passes and got you in.

Your brother straight up ran to Sebastian, hugging his hips, his head barely reached his stomach.

-Hey bud! It's good to see you too. What's your name?- he chuckled squatting in front of him.

You remained in the corner watching. You didn’t buy a photo, so you weren’t supposed to appear. You had your arms crossed, your bag and jacket pressed on your chest. You grinned looking at the scene.

-Harry.- he answered proudly. Sebastian nodded, keeping his smile. Then he looked up, straight at you. His gaze locked on you. Your smile faded and a tremendous blush took place.

-And who's that, Harry?- he asked, a little smirk on his lips.

-That's my big sister y/n!- he exclaimed. Sebastian got up putting a hand on your brother's shoulder.

-Isn't your sister taking the photo?- his look never left your figure.

-Uh-Uhm...no, I just accompanied him.- you responded nervously with a gesture of your hand. He shook his head making a fake disappointed face.

-Nah, you're too pretty to not be included. What do you think pal?- your brother begged with a c'mon and you reclutantly gave up, passing your jacket and bag to the assistant with an apologetic smile. Then you walked to them and you were finally face to face with him. He was taller than you, your head reached his ear more or less.

-Hi.- you said, not really knowing what to do. He flashed a big grin.

-Hi to you.-

-Mr, there's still line outside.- the assistant said and you looked away embarassed.

-Yeah, sorry. Big smile.- Sebastian said, while he circled Harry, who was showing off his non existing muscles, with one hand, and the other was placed on your waist, pulling you closer to him. The little tug making you instictively place a hand on his chest. They were both smiling, so you did your best and gave the camera a small shy smile of your own.

-Done!- the photographer said. You moved and the assistant gave you your stuff.

-Thankyou.- you said to the handsome man. He winked.

-My pleasure.- after that you exited the tent in front of you. You brother went away jumping from the joy, while you stayed behind, walking slowly. You still didn't process what just happened. You touched unconsciously your side, where his hand was, smiling like an idiot.

-

You went to fetch the photo, and while Harry was basically flying with happiness, you couldn't stop yourself to look at how close he was holding you, your hand on his chest your rosy cheeks and his handsome grin. Your heart was about to burst.

The photo ops were over about half an hour later, and the authographs should’ve been starting in fifteen minutes. Your mind wasn't giving you a break. You kept repeating what happened in your head. At first you felt like a damn teenager in love, but then more bitter questions started to take place in your mind. Was he joking? Was he always this flirty with everyone? Was he even single in the first place? Was he just trying to get you to relax or was he hitting on you?

All these questions almost made you decide to not accompany your brother at the autograph booth. But then you just decided that you just couldn't do that, so you took a deep breath and went to queue. This time you arrived a little early, so you were on the first half thankfully. The wait was just about ten minutes.

You were next. Harry left to you the task to give him the photo to sign, just because you were taller and had better access to the table. You slipped the picture under his eyes and as soon as he recognized you, he looked up and smirked.

-Hey again.- he said with a suave tone, signing the photo. -Hey bud, are you having fun?- he asked and you looked at the little boy next to you with a smile.

-Yes! I'm your biggest fan! The winter soldier is my favourite character- he told him. You returned your gaze to Sebastian and he took the photo in his hand, passing it to you. A small smile on his lips while he watched you. You gave him a shy smile in return and felt yourself melting. You took the photo and thanked him again.

-Thank you bud. And thank you.- he spoke to you. You gave a small nod and went on.

-

After the autographs you went around a bit between the merchandise booths and ended up buying a winter soldier backpack for your Brother, then you went out to grab dinner. It was just six thirty, but you were both hungry. You eated then you sent a text to your mother saying that everything was okay. You didn't wanted to go into details.

Then you drove for a few minutes to the nice hotel you booked for the night. As soon you stepped into the room, Harry changed into his Avengers pajamas and started to watch tv.

You unpacked the only change you brought, then you wanted to put in the suitcase the documents,passes and the other stuff, but your eyes fell on the back of the photo. You took it into your hand and saw that a yellow sticky note was attached at the back.

Can't give u my number, but feel free to text me in instagram dms Seb ;)  

You were  shocked. Sebastian fucking Stan asked you to text him? You went into the bathroom with your phone, needing a moment to recompose yourself.

-Oh my God.-  you did a face palm. Walking up and down the little bathroom, you nervously toyed with the phone in your hands.

What should I do? I mean the worst that can happen is that he'll not respond. But he should, 'cause he did write the note.Your mind was spinning. You looked at yourself in the mirror.

-Oh, fuck it.- you huffed and opened instagram. You had an account but had barely two posts. You weren't the type to post or stalk people, but you did follow a lot of pages with art, photography, music and movie stuff.

You searched his user and then tapped to the dm icon. His profile pic was a black and white photo

You wrote at least five different senteces, but then went for the simplest. Then you closed the app, blocked the screen and waited. You decided to refresh yourself in the meantime. You brushed your teeth and just when you were about to take off the make up on your eyes, a notification popped up.You took the phone and unblocked it with shaky hands.

You closed the app and went back to your room with a smile plastered on your face, and almost didn't notice that your brother had fallen asleep. You you covered him with the bed covers, turned the tv off and then changed into your pjs and went to bed. You couln't wait for Tomorrow.

So, first off, I feel the need to precise that OBVIOUSLY the chat is fake and photoshopped. It’s kind of obvious, but ya know not everyone has enough braincells I guess. Just to be sure. Anyways, hope you liked it. Let me know what you thought <3

[chiseler]

THE CHISELER INTERVIEWS ANDY McCARTHY

Chiseler: Please tell our readers when you began digging into obscurantist concerns -- these strange and neglected corners of New York history. Give us a sense of how it all started, and some idea of the scope here. Andy McCarthy: I worked as a New York City tour guide on the red doubledecker buses between 2004 and 2011, and Times Square was one of the highlights of the tour. The tour began and ended in Times Square — New York begins and ends in Times Square.  The history of the world's entertainment district is a big subject — lots to talk about and always more to learn. Plus everyone hates Times Square.  Elmo probably even hates it. So it was even more inspired to find the appreciation for the experience of it as it is now in the present.  Like going to a Starbucks in the East Village and finding yourself talking to the ghost of Joey Ramone, who loves the Tall Blonde.  West 42nd Street in particular was always a synapse-inducing subject — it isn't that it's obscurantist (except maybe for understanding the real estate chronology), but that there are a million ways of approaching it — it's the brightest neighborhood in America after all — the old theaters, the showbiz history, labor action, smut lore, the "cleanup" and failed redevelopments before the final wrecking ball in the 1990s, etc. Anyhow in 2012, film programming friends were putting together a series that revolved around the history of W. 42nd Street — they called it THE DEUCE, after the nickname for the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The idea was to program a movie that once played in one of the theaters on the Deuce, and I would perform an intro monologue/ slideshow about the history of the theater. We did our first screenings in the backroom of Videology on Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, and then evolved to the proper movie chambers of Nitehawk Cinema in 2013, where as of March 2020 we have done about 80 screenings. Don't call me an expert but the pop legacy and damaged psyche yielded by the Glittering Gulch has consumed my research panascope like a large bucket of stale popcorn you can't stop shoving it in with gulps of fountain Coke during a matinee of Wolfen. For the last six years I've worked as a reference librarian at NYPL at Fifth Ave and W. 42nd (not the Deuce).  My division is US History, Local History, and Genealogy - we get all the NYC history questions.  At NYPL the resources available in researching each month's DEUCE spiel far surpass the amount of tips bagged at the height of tourist season by the Naked Cowboy.

Chiseler: When I was 15 or 16 years old, a suburban Jersey kid, I would occasionally take the bus to Port Authority with $20 in my pocket. It was a magical place in the 70s and 80s. Can you tell us something about the porn scene in those days, maybe its larger history, and how it relates to the evolution of your Nighthawk Cinema?

McCarthy: I’m generalizing, but the porn business in Times Square seems a combination of obscenity laws and the real estate market (versus the city and state imposing change).  Obscenity laws had increasingly loosened since the 1960s and by the 1980s so many cases ruled in favor of pornography that the pursuit of smut peddlers evaporated like dots of old money shots on a mattress at the Elk Hotel. Sure Edwin Meese led a commission against porn in Reagan's Morning in America as a coalition of the religious right against the entire ethos of the 1970s, but it doesn't seem to have achieved anything other than beleaguering feminist activists who opposed the rampant exploitation of women in pornography only to find a black hole of political alignment with right wing morality police. Live sex shows and bestiality periodicals were then the product of free speech.  Meanwhile, big business had no interest in occupying or redeveloping the commercial spaces in Times Square.  But landlords held on to the old buildings and theaters — occupied by movie theaters, sex shops, etc. - waiting for a future time when the demand for Times Square real estate upped the value and they might cash in.  The neighborhood became a sex district mostly because these were the only businesses that would pay rent in the area — which most New Yorkers supposedly avoided. And it was the 1970s — the white middle-class had fled, it was a party town, the city was broke, its own redevelopment efforts continually failing on the Deuce, where the racial patron and hangout demographic was majority Black, and drugs and prostitution were viable business. But the theaters on the Deuce mostly didn't play porn.  The Victory (today the "New Victory") played triple-X and the Harem was a 24 hour porn box — but you had more opportunity to see First Blood or What's Up Doc? in the 8 or 9 other theaters on W. 42nd between 7th and 8th Avenue. XXX theaters were elsewhere in Times Square than the Deuce. Whether it was magical depends on one's experience of it at the time.  Times Square has always been a fantasy factory and the DEUCE movie series we do exalts going to the movies, and even when the experience back then was rough, most reminiscences of people seeing movies on 42nd Street is a memory of great impact.  We do not celebrate that it was so bad it was good (the same way we do not program movies that are "so bad they are good" — that crap is for bored minds who are less able to form an independent thought than the digital diode Coca-Cola sign at 47th and Broadway) — but it is a combination of place and experience in a matrix of moviegoing: there are many stories to tell about each theater, and the movies we program may take on new life in the forgetting chambers of Nitehawk Cinema. If porn ended up characterizing the business of Times Square when obscenity laws and real estate allowed it to, then no surprise — such is history…

Chiseler: I’m with you on “so bad it’s good” — a goddamn disease. I spend years of my life hunting down non-canonical titles, not with the tacky idea of establishing an alternative canon, but with the goal of subverting the very notion of canons. In other words, I’m seeking great films that establish their own criterion for greatness, compelling viewers to recognize them on their own ground. To expand your last answer a bit, would you mind dwelling on a few titles you’ve screened and tell our readers why you selected them?

McCarthy: OK — the DEUCE is a group effort. First off we are thankful for Nitehawk Cinema to have hosted the series for so long. I only do the intro monologue / slideshow on the history of a theater, while my co-jockeys — seasoned film programmers Joe Berger, Max Cavanaugh, and Jeff Cashvan — program the screenings, which are always a 35mm print, sprocketed by boothmaster Pro-Jo Joe Muto.  The 35mm signature touch seems to be one of the ongoing draws for the audience, who routinely sell out the 90 seat theater, ahem...  Cashvan puts together a list and Max tracks down a print (if one exists).  The selections hinge on whether the movie once played in a theater on the Deuce, and the availability of a 35mm print — the experience of history in the screening zeroes down to the technology too.  The movies are chosen because they have creative merit and yield enough for the viewer to determine if they are good or bad — or anything in between, which is much more interesting. Also we gotta honor the faith of the ticket-buyers and uphold any rep of the series, and not hash up some dumb time-wasting crap.  Some of the flicks might be obscure, like Night of the Juggler (a gritty 1980 NYC exegesis on the type of race and class tensions too familiar under the U.S. presidency of the hurrahed bastard) or Teen Lust (bizarre sex romp directed by that-guy character actor James Hong) or Combat Shock (Vietnam vet psychodrama shot in Staten Island, including the Nam scenes), and other flicks are not obscure, like A View to a Kill or Tommy or Luna or Runaway Train...  The crowds continually seem to enjoy a genuine going-to-the-movies experience; there is never any of that ironic insecure brainless hipster douchebag laughter that you get at some of these retro screenings that sizzles my nerves like hamburgers and franks on the grill at Grand Luncheonette at 229 W. 42nd Street next to the old Selwyn Theater — both places long gone.  I saw Lost Weekend at BAM one time and was surrounded by people laughing at Ray Milland suffering from delirium tremens. What kind of loser pays $15 to act like that at a movie?  Anyhow - those types don't come to these screenings.  Some people come no matter what is playing, others for nostalgia or a particular love for a movie, others for whatever.  No one is coming to experience the reenactment of a W. 42nd Street theater in 1982, which is not the intention — if it was we would just play grade-Z spaghetti westerns or Porky's sequels and allow smoking in the theater.

Chiseler: I realize that COVID puts a fairly long-term kaibosh on movie theaters. Where, if anywhere, do your hopes lie for continuing your work? Night of the Juggler ranks among my favorite films, by the way.

McCarthy: I am working on a book that corrals all the research I've done for the last 8 years.  As far as reopening movie theaters, I have no clue. That is up to Nitehawk etc. The series is a theatrical communal thing. We haven't all been in touch about carrying things through the quarantine because there is no virtual alternative. As for Juggler it's too bad the movie is super unfindable. But how and where we obtained a one-time-only print will remain as undisclosed as a Gambino wiseguy taking the fifth.