#where the promo has actually made me want to watch a movie and has actually gotten me excited

[robotpussy]

sorry im still thinking about how everybody in barbie (2023) is called barbie or ken (apart from midge and allen) and while its disappointing that barbie and ken's friends like christie, teresa, brad and steven haven't appeared i understand why they didn't do that. While we don't actually know if they'll still show up in the movie (doesn't seem likely), i think they did this to appeal to everybody not just people who are really into barbie. like most people/people that don't really pay attention to barbie don't know the names of their friends, they just refer to them as "[defining feature] barbie"

also i think its funny that everybody in that world is called barbera and kenneth. but there could still be hope that barbie's friends do show up if they bothered to put a spotlight on midge and allan (but i still think its all just for comedic purposes, because allan is a forgotten character and midge had controversy surrounding one of her dolls. plus midge and allan will probably have something going on in the movie because canonically allan got midge pregnant and you know, midge is pregnant in the movie)

[crazymuffin1]

this post is for people who wonder what the hell is going on with the venom movies/fandom because they havent watched it

if youre seeing it on your dash and dont want to scroll very long press J. if youre on mobile. cope.

venom the last dance is the third movie in the venom series and people who haven't watched the movies are probably wondering whats going on. whoever you're following has probably posted or reblogged some sort of eddie brock x venom thing. yes of course. mlm ships are popular and theyre the main characters. of course theyre gonna get shipped. just like stucky or other hot main male characters. nothing really special about these guys. right?

wrong! because as opposed to the other ones being non-canon ships where we just look at everything and say "thats gay" or look at it through shipping tinted glasses, symbrock is a bit special.

to start off with! the source material! the comics! im not gonna make this part long, just a bunch of images with short descriptions and you can interpret it however you want (click for full image)

panels ofter referred to as "the ones where they have sex"

no comment

even spider-man knows

aaaaaand the comic writers/artists also know

theres more (like how they have a kid and eddie experienced morning sickness...) but this is about the movie! not the comics!

first movie moments. im skipping smaller moments and i'll try to not write out the whole plot.

eddie and venom go through a whole car chase scene on a motorbike, and the moment eddie calls him cool, they get his by a car. often interpreted as venom losing focus from the praise

-omg why would that lead to venom losing focus?? because venom, on its planet, is a loser. bottom of the barrel. an outcast. and someone called it cool. venom sees that eddie is also a bit of a loser on his planet. theyre two losers together. Eddie asks why he doesnt just kill him and hop to another host, but venom says that hes a good match (other bodies reject the symbiote, and die from organ failure/eaten from the inside) and venom is "starting to like him" venom also gets a bit stuck on the moment that eddie says we instead of i. its both of them. together.

later eddie finds out his organs were failing (venom was starving and was working on fixing it) and when they get seperated the way he acts is kind of framed like a bad breakup. its not "im free from this parasite! yippie!" its "i trusted you and you hurt me. we're done" sort of breakup. venom tries to say he was trying to fix it but eddie ignores it (not the exact words but if you look at it you'll get it)

eddie gets taken away by the bad guys and venom hops on eddies ex and they reunite. and its not just reunite.

its this

thumbnail shows human face but it does not start off with that.

fun fact! theres a sort of deleted scene where eddie asks "who was i kissing just then?" and she says "mostly me" and then we hear venoms voice saying "well actually it was mostly me!" ALSO at the end of the movie, she says it was venoms idea. this was venom and eddie making out. not eddie and his ex. they do not get back together. she has a new boyfriend and they've moved in together so its serious.

venoms original purpose as to why the symbiotes are on earth was as a scouting party for an invasion force. venom changes his mind on being on the invasion part. eddie asks what REALLY made him change his mind "you did eddie."

also after the movie was in theaters they made an additional romcom trailer to promo the dvd/blueray release. the movie. framed as a romcom. im not kidding. on sonys official youtube. for both movies.

speaking of both movies, the second one has them breaking up! full on divorce after fighting and arguing!! very sad. and then venom goes to a rave (october, there are costumes, hes fully transformed) and says "i am out! of the eddie closet!" HES COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET. one person at the rave has a mask on that says "kiss me" and venom says "sorry no, not my type" THEN WHAT IS YOUR TYPE HUH??? MEN?? SWEATY LOSER GUYS??? his hosts keep failing because theyre not as compatible as eddie. and after having fun venom is sad and wishes eddie could've seen him. they of course, get back together* after some apologizes and because they need to fight a serial killer who also has a symbiote (carnage) because previously, they went to interview him, he insulted eddie, venom got mad on eddies behalf and grabbed him, resulting in getting bit, and that spawned a new symbiote from the blood. also the serial killer, (cletus kassidy) went to bust out his girlfriend who upon seeing his tentacles breaking her glass cage, called it hot.

*when they get reunited (anne helps out again) theres no kiss this time, and annes fiancee, after seeing them fight, says "those two need some serious couples counseling"

after a big climactic fight and mutual reassuring that theyre a perfect match for one another, they flee to some random place in mexico where they sort of have a love confession. theres an extended deleted version of it but i think many of us think they cut it down to save it for the third movie. also they get transported to the mcu in the post-credit and then re-appear in the post-credit of spider-man where theyre just sitting at a bar asking the bartender about the blip and thanos. venom decides to go skinny dip but they get transported back to their universe. net zero gain.

THE THIRD MOVIE

hasnt come out yet. but the promotional things. the trailer. my god the tiktoks and twitter clips?? WHY IS THE TIKTOK VIDEO CAPTION VENOM X EDDIE 4EVER??? HUH???? WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME!?!?! IF I GET QUEERBAITED IM GONNA EXPLODE WHY IS ONE OF THEM FRAMED LIKE A COUPLES COUNSELING HELP GUIDE.

i cant post this one on tumblr but this tiktok is a slideshow, one image of venom and eddie from each movie, and the background song is "I've loved you three summer Lover - Taylor swift" with the caption "it's a love love relationship"

WE JUST WANT THEM TO KISS AGAIN AND HAVE A MUTUAL, EXPLICIT, LOVE CONFESSION. AND HAVE 4 HOURS TENTACLESEX SCENE. (not necessarily in that order)

and the first trailer that came out for venom3 has the line"eddie, my home [long pause] has found us" like girrrrrllll for a full 3 seconds i thought he was saying that eddie is his home.

[swearingcactus]

Obscure Far Cry Promos and Content

I'm a big far cry fan, which means I have to make my own food in this economy. But sometimes I just want some ACTUAL canon or canon-ish or even just canon-adjacent content, y'know? It has gotten to the point I go into youtube rabbit holes or watch a remarkably below average hallmark movies for 5 minutes of an actor's screentime to hopefully hear Jason or Ajay or whoever talk. And so in these quests, I've found a couple obscure promos. Gonna compile them here for myself mostly :)

Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3 - The Voices of Insanity: Doctor Earnhardt //a live action video with Alec Earnhardt's VA

Far Cry 3 - The Voices of Insanity: Vaas //same thing but with Michael Mando

Hoyt Audition Far Cry 3 //the last part of "The Voices of Insanity" videos, couldn't find the one from Ubisoft's own account but someone else had posted it on youtube

Far Cry 3 for PS3: TV Spot

Far Cry 3 -- Island Survival Guide: Psychopaths, Drugs & Other Dangers // video narrated by Willis Huntley

Far Cry 3 -- The Savages: Vaas & Buck // this video shows a rare render of vaas with tataus on his arm!

Far Cry 3 | The Tribe: Citra & Dennis //this video has a deleted scene where Jason hallucinates the tatau snaking up his arm

Far Cry 3 -- The Tyrant: Hoyt

Far Cry 3 - Insane Edition // this is a promo done for a special edition for the game, Michael Mando probably couldn't shoot the promo himself and just voice acted, and so they used another actor and made it so the camera never sees Vaas's face.

^ There is also a survival guide titled Face Your Insanity written by post-Rook events Jason Brody as part of the Insane Edition.

Far Cry 3 | E3 2012 Step Into Insanity Trailer [NORTH AMERICA] // this has a few close-ups of Jason and Vaas switching places with each other

Far Cry 3 Interviews (via @lulu2992)

Far Cry 3 Tweets by Jeffrey Yohalem, the lead writer. (also compiled by @/lulu2992! Thanks again!)

Far Cry 4

Divya Kandala's Blog (archived on the Wayback Machine) // Divya Kandala is a fictional journalist who wrote a blog about her travels to Kyrat, her blog's basically world-building promo for FC4. You could also find the house she stayed at in Kyrat!

Far Cry 4 TV Commercial

Far Cry 4 | Kyrat Tuk Tuk Stories //this is the MOST we see ajay in third person in promo content

Far Cry 4 - CGI Trailer // this isn't exactly RARE but it took forever for me to find that clip of ajay's eyes reflecting from the kukri. plus he looks EXTREMELY caucasian which really doesn't help the rumors I've heard that they originally wanted Jason again as FC4's protag

Comedy Central Far Cry 4 Commercial feat Danny Pudi & Donald Glover

Far Cry 4 and Childish Gambino: The Collaboration | PS4, PS3 // a music video for Crawl by Childish Gambino done as a collab

Old Archive.Org link to the Far Cry 4 webpage that had a choose your own adventure campaign

^ and the youtube video to promote it

Far Cry 4 | Behind the Scene Trailer 1/3 [Europe] // developer vlogs when they visited Nepal and interviewed the ghurka that became base for Golden Path, you can see the village that resembles Banapur a lot!

Far Cry 4 Performance Capture Interview // you can see Janina Gavankar, Amita's actress doing some mocap in this

Janina Gavankar Talks Far Cry 4 - ^ and the interview with her after

World Gameplay Premiere - Walkthrough E3 2014 - Far Cry 4 // this was to showcase gameplay but they eventually took out this entire mission where you have to wingsuit to Ratu Gadhi (Yuma's fortress), which is a shame because it looked very nice.

Far Cry 5

i'll be honest, im not a fc5 girlie, so i dont usually do a lot of digging, and im pretty sure these are actually not obscure at all. but these are trailers i found that really blew it out of the park. the marketing team for 5 really went HAM

Far Cry 5: Teaser Trailer | Ubisoft //this has a peggie banging someone's head to a church bell rhythmically with the gorgeous view of Montana mountains as backdrop and i for one, find it hilarious

Far Cry 5 | The Sermon - Live Action Trailer

Far Cry 5 | The Baptism - Live Action Trailer //somebody once mentioned this one has Joseph looking like Trevor GTA and i have never quite known peace ever since. it really also shows the reality of how Joseph is actually just really Unwell, and lore that Joseph killed Pastor Jerome's daughter that never showed up in-game.

Far Cry 5: Anything Can Happen, Everything Will - Live Action TV Spot | Trailer // mixes live action and game CGI renders, pretty cool actually!

The Making of Far Cry 5 | Behind the Scenes of Ubisoft [Documentary]

Far Cry 6 Comics

not gonna put in FC6 stuff because they're actually very easy to find! lots of trailers and mocaps and interviews on youtube :) Far Cry 6 actually has a more obscure lore in their comics

Far Cry: Esperanza's Tears comic // this is a Juan-centric prequel comic that features a completely new country, lore about Far Cry universe's political landscape, and lots of cameos from 3-6's characters! very interesting read especially if you're a sucker for backstories like me

Far Cry: Rite of Passage comic // this is more popular as it features Anton telling Diego the backstories for 3-5's villains.

There is also a book titled The Official Far Cry Survival Guide written by a fictional character called Hunter Nash, who supposedly grew up with Hope County-level of a doomsday prepper dad and winds up as a journalist who travels to the locations of 3-6 and wrote how to survive each location accordingly. It's adorned with official artwork of the games and plenty of survival tips. Not much lore-wise, but cool nonetheless! it also fuels my co-workers au ideas but that's personal.

i have actually found stuff like a really old MTV show called Undressed with Gianpaolo Venuta where he uses his Jason voice for his character, and how Patrick Kwok-Choon, the new voice actor for Ajay does voice acting in Thomas the Train Engine and Paw Patrol, and an indie movie with Greg Bryk where he wears fun sunglasses like Joseph, but that's neither here nor there to the franchise, so eh. // i'll edit this post if i find more, so maybe check back sometimes!

[jokerous]

Did you see Joker 2 yet? What did you think (without giving away spoilers, of course)?

Hi, anon. Yeah, I saw it today and, without giving away any spoilers, I just wanna say I’m glad there won’t be a part 3. These are just a few fresh thoughts that won’t leave after watching (but honestly I should’ve live-blogged it).

Whereas Joker (2019) felt breathtaking with its soundtrack, cinematography and Joaquin Phoenix’s brilliant acting, the sequel felt like a cheap fan-made parody (some are waaaay better btw and The Joker Blogs is a masterpiece in comparison lol) of the first movie and it killed the movie for me. I had deliberately decided to avoid tumblr and instagram before watching Folie Á Deux, because the more trailers and promos I saw the less I got excited for the movie. And, guess what, that didn’t save the movie for me either.

Someone has said that if you are a Joker fan, this movie just isn’t for you. And boy aren’t they wrong. With each tedious minute of the boring and endless trial sequence, I was sitting and thinking how differently the real Joker would act and react (I’ve no idea why they would have taken The Devil’s Advocate comic book as a reference?).

The movie genre wasn’t an issue for me, it was everything else that ruined the movie. But, without any spoilers, the ending was both fitting and yet pathetic because I felt like both Joaquin and Todd were so done with this and the second movie has only proven that.

Lady Gaga, as talented and creative as we know, love and admire her, has failed to embrace the role of Harley Quinn for me. I know, I know, it’s Elseworlds and there are a bunch of comic books where she is a bit different from her OG version, but in every scene I kept seeing Lady Gaga who was trying to sing badly and almost out of tune… but that turned out to be not enough.

There are three scenes in the movie, that I’ll be referring to as THE SCENES™️, or Scene #1, #2 and #3.

The first one is between Arthur and Lee, and I’ve never seen anything more cringeworthy in my life lol. The trailer was deceptive and that scene was actually horrible. Thanks God for FF dot net and AO3 because the fans do get it, and the creators of FAD, sadly, don’t. I really was expecting the same scene would be coming between Lee and Joker, as a compare and contrast or something, but it never did? :D And that was reaaalllyyyyy disappointing. I mean, really.

The second scene with Arthur and the guards was brutal, awful, but believable (I actually thought they were gonna cut his face? But then I was like oh OH). Too bad it’s gonna be turned into a meme real soon real fast. Because we live in the society.

The third and final scene felt like a relief to me? I was thankful it was over, honestly. But then (I might be wrong) I started thinking about the parallel™️ with that psycho inmate and Harley doing the same thing to Joker/Arthur and the thought that Arthur imagined her (AGAIN) is still giving me a headache asdfghjk.

So, what did Gaga say in the movie? “Let’s give the people what they want?” If only… 😩

[peach-fiz]

I actually didn't even bother watching the second season of Loki because of the cheap marketing and inconsistent storytelling.

It just felt like the plot was lifted off somewhere it would have made sense, and a character with a similar ego was replaced with Loki and goes through an arc that might have made sense for a blank slate character, but not someone who already has a backstory.

Loki doesn't even feel like Loki after three episodes in S1. The whole point of having a show like that just seems to be about the TVA and Sylvie.

Also the whole genderfluid thing. They 'confirmed' it in the promo and had a line in the script that went completely against anything they just said.

I knew at once that the writers, directors and other parts of production were really just pulling it in different directions and it would probably sound like a jazz trumpeter and a metal guitarist trying to improvise after knowing each other for 15 minutes.

I've been meaning to watch it just so I can have educated opinions on all of it but it's just,, so hard to get into. I definitely agree the marketing was cheap, they did with the 80s McDonald's like they did DB Cooper!Loki and made it centric to the advertising because McDonalds was also getting something out of it which is kinda ass seeing as realistically Loki Laufeyson would burn 6 of them down before he ate in one 😭

I personally don't like either of the major ships in the show but the forced Sylki shit in season 1 really got to me. Like not only did she completely replace him as the main character in HIS show, she's also a variant of him who he wants to make out with and overall it just reads as lazy writing and it's extremely disappointing that Mike Waldron has been put in charge of Multiverse of Madness and The Kang Dynasty since, due to the popularity of the Loki TV show. I was talking to my boyfriend about this last night but it kinda reminds me of the complaints people had ab the last Indiana Jones movie but opposite? Like everyone complained his best friend's daughter was gonna replace him bc she's a Mary Sue and she rlly isnt, she's more reminiscent of Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark she just doesn't wanna fuck him. But the difference is Indy is a character who's majorly blank for little boys to project themselves onto. Which is great!! It works for those kind of movies, but they're not character development centric like the individual mcu movies tend to be. Loki is characterized in a way that he's drowning in identity issues and family problems and he experiences growth in every installment whether it be positive or negative. It doesn't make sense to take the formula of an Indidna Jones movie where he meets up with a woman who's typically a love interest and has her own issues that are only slightly touched on because that's not the focus, and they go do the plot.

Sylvie is not an Indy Girl, they straight up are trying to replace Loki with Sylvie. And you can tell the character wasn't supposed to have as much importance as she does in the show bc the character was worked on more after the actress they chose was buddies with a producer ( and this is no hate to the actress I'm sure she's delightful everything I've seen her in in terms of interviews has been lovely ).

I also absolutely agree they should've just made a tva mini series to introduce the tva rather than bringing back a dead character who soon will not make much sense anyway because Tom Hiddleston is getting older (and also he deserves to branch out in his career).

The genderfluid thing was a cash grab and it sucks ass, they just want money for acknowledging things already canon in the comics, same with confirming him as bisexual.

My boyfriend is actually writing a fic on ao3 called Find Me that's rlly good if you want Loki content that isn't related to the show.

(YES this is shameless promotion sshhhhshshsh) but fr the loki TV show makes me more confident in my screenwriting bc t h a t got put on disney plus. I'm also working on a Loki show rewrite in my spare time!!

[nancydrewwouldnever]

When you mentioned Albert posted only one of her movies - I’ve felt for a while now, since basically she got a little fame, that she’s now thinking she’s too “big” for her home country stuff.

Her showing up to the ghosted premiere (which btw why? She didn’t do anything except look like she played dress up in a thrift store) but ignoring every other single movie premiere or promo she had last year, never sat right with me.

I had my doubts about her intentions, and wanted to reserve judgment because I did feel people were projecting too much negativity on her.

But that solidified it for me. She actually has quite a few projects that released between last year and this year and she never did any work to promote or even show up to support with her costars for any of them except the one mrs Harris premiere. And it was in NYC. She didn’t go to the one in Paris which would have made more sense - but it’s felt to me for months that she goes where the bigger chance for clout is, and that’s just the kind of person she is.

For someone who hasn’t been known in this industry for very long at all, she IMO has not hustled or had to one bit. The way she treated her WN show and cast - also left a bad taste for me.

This has nothing to do with her friends or who she married. This is just my issue with her as a person.

Last year when the dating rumors really started to peak around February (right after the Vegas stuff), ppl were watching her IG movements and she had a film premiere at a Europe festival. The premiere happened and all the cast showed up to promote and work the media duties except her. She did a random zoom with CNN PT - and everyone assumed she was hiding in ATL with CE. Her background was white so there was no way to tell where she could be.

I remember thinking, if it was true and she chose to hide out in the US (stay at home? His house? Who knows) OR even just hide out in her own house in PT to play into a narrative, instead of promoting her own work, this girl legit fumbled the bag before she even got it.

It’s people like this that I don’t feel deserve the attention they get. It’s a shame because there are so many better talents and harder working, more willing to hustle, and more willing to climb the ladder - that could have been the promotion opportunities she got. It’s really a damn shame.

Okay, I really don't want to post about her, because I have no interest in giving her the attention, but you took all that time to write all that out. To me it's been very clear since last year that she no longer has any interest in doing any promo for any of her Portuguese language films, only her new English language films/projects. If you hadn't thought that before, it became very clear this week when she posted about an English language project being released next year instead of the Portuguese language film being released now. It's a very stark comparison when you look at Joana, who puts the same amount of effort into promoting all her jobs/projects, regardless of the language or where they were filmed. I suppose she's decided she's moving on to another phase of her career, which is more Hollywood/International based, but it still leaves one with a certain impression of ingratitude for all the people who gave her jobs when she was starting out.

And, no, let's not start talking about her here, please.

[crispycreambacon]

I thought I'd share the sketch of this poster/book cover as well as my initial concepts! You can click the "Read More" button for more in-depth explanations on my design process.

Thhis is all for my latest fanfiction, Snip Snip, so if you'd like to check that out, then...

Now let's crack in!

For the release of "Snip Snip", I actually had several different directions in mind! One was a comic of one of the scenes from the fanfic—specifically the one where the Professor breaks down in front of Kate and Joyce with the line "I don't like being a woman"—and the other was a series of doodles showing the Professor's transition. Unfortunately, both directions met dead ends as I couldn't find the motivation to do either. The most progress I made were these sketches.

If you're wondering, "The first one looks familiar..." that's because I reused that pose for my first promo art! It was too good of a pose. I couldn't waste it :P

But anyways, after a period of getting extremely frustrated over the lack of progress, I realized my main problem: I was biting off more than I could chew. I didn't know this at the time, but I was dealing with burnout from school assignments that made drawing more ambitious ideas like the ones I had very difficult. Hence, I had to scale it down. It made me think, "Why not do something like a movie poster or a book cover?"

That's how the sketches at the top of the post came to be! I consulted a friend of mine over which pose to choose, and he picked the third one which I understand why so. The obscuring of the Professor's face not only made it cool, but it adds symbolism in how we don't really see his true identity—the real him—until his transition. Here's the first sketch!

As you can see, the title is on the top left corner! However, I moved it to the bottom for two reasons

It's advice I learnt while looking up how to make movie posters since moving the title to the bottom tends to bring more focus to the illustration above.

I couldn't find a font that fits! And the idea of doing typography again (especially after the Keep Yourself Safe poster...) was really not what I signed up for.

But then it left the problem of the top corner looking empty. It was too distracting! So what did I fill it in with? The subtitle: This is their story. The composition is now more balanced, and also the subtitle tickles me.

As I said before, I looked up movie posters for this! Special thanks to the Nashville Film Institute and Muse by Clio for their articles that guided me during this poster making process. I will say though I got really sidetracked watching Filmmaker IQ's The History of the Hollywood Movie Poster 😭 It's really interesting, I'd recommend watching it!

One thing I learnt is that movie posters limit their colour palettes. Of course, this is good advice for art in general, but movie posters emphasize on its colour usage to attract the audience with their simple yet bold schemes. It is a piece of advertisement after all! Following their footsteps, I limited my colours to the primary colours (red, yellow, blue) and purple to make the scissors pop and allude to the nonbinary flag colour scheme.

And from there, it was just a matter of experimenting with rendering! I wanted a mix of pop art and storybook illustrations, so I mixed lineart with lineless, and I wanted to retain the energy of the sketch while still polishing it, so I cleaned the sketch, merged it with the colours, and painted on top of it rather than make a separate lineart layer.

Overall, I'm extremly proud of the end result! The struggle of figuring out the promo art for this fic has been tormenting me since the beginning of the year, so I'm glad to bring it to an end. Thank you for reading my ramblings! I hope you learnt something or at least had fun? Either way, have a good day!!

[27emailsicantsend]

I just have a question to ask about Tim's IG post, "Not Canon (at this time)"? What does that even mean? Does that mean it'll be canon when spinoff is happening? Or...I am trying to figure out what he meant by that, haha. I think it's hint hint for a spinoff, am I right or is it something else that I might misinterpret it?

Oh I wanted to talk about this so thank you for sending!! For anyone who is curious, it was this post:

This is not the only hint he has made about a possible spin-off.

He’s said (I can’t go find all the direct quotes right now but I can give you what I can remember and I’ll post some pictures at the end):

-he’s wanted 5-7 seasons since the beginning

-he feels like the kids are graduating high school for now but the “next obvious place is college”

-he has brought up ideas to the network but nothing is official for now

-he has specifically mentioned Ricky and Gina and where THEY are going next (in the picture above and other interviews)

-he has a “surprise” for everyone after the show ends… which looked like something at East High but I haven’t seen the actual surprise. Unless he was talking about their Wicked song, but even then the picture of him mentioning the surprise didn’t look like the Wicked song set up… it looked different. (I’m so sorry I don’t have this picture but if anyone has it feel free to reblog with it!)

-he wanted the franchise to be “Degrassi”-esque with lots of spin-offs and seasons and such. It was never meant to end here.

Not to mention when Josh and Sofia were asked about a spin-off they just giggled and shrugged nervously but made jokes about it being a rina college spin off (the body language is suspicious and telling)

And the official HSMTMTS account (which I believe Tim has some control over) posted a really cryptic tweet/insta about how “happy endings are just the beginning”

HSMTMTS cast was invited to D23 I believe? This year which is only for announcing NEW things usually so it’s kind of weird to slot a show that’s ended?

I find the amount of promo we’re getting from Tim and the official HSMTMTS account is… bizarre for a show that just ended? Maybe we’d get stuff for a few days but they’ve been hammering it home like we’re getting a new season next week. I don’t really watch promo for a lot of other shows though, so this could be a normal amount.

We also know that the strike is impacting a LOT of things, including promotion or talks of new shows. Tim wouldn’t do a movie/show for this without his og cast on board, so I feel like they’re waiting for the strike to be over to start things.

All of this to say, I do think we’re getting more but the strike really halted any of that coming forth for now. But with how good the show did, the contract Tim just signed with Disney, and how we were really starting to get moment with these characters (not to mention views and $$$ it was bringing in for Disney), I would be SHOCKED if we didn’t get more.

Tim purposely ended the show where he did because he wanted it to end on a high note and close the “high school” chapter, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get another. I think Disney was probably ready to offer him a s5 but he didn’t want to risk it… with a new show, he can at least probably get 4 more seasons.

(don’t ask me what the hell is going on with bunk’d and their 7 seasons… I’m still trying to process that)

[blazehedgehog]

Most obvious question in the world, maybe, but hey, I'm interested! What'd ya think of today's Sonic Central?

There was a part of me that really regretted watching it. They definitely had a lot to announce, but a LOT of it was like...

Mobile games I hate (because of f2p mechanics) or cannot play (because they are in Apple Arcade jail).

Merchandise I either can't afford (Lego), don't want (a motorcycle helmet) or don't have space for (statues and action figures).

After a while I started to get that melted brain feeling like when you watch too many late night infomercials in a row. I could feel my fight or flight mechanism trying to kick in. Framing one of them as an actual infomercial did not help.

The two ones of most interest were, one, the Sonic x DC crossover.

We're going to be getting two years (24 issues?) of some sort of alternate universe where The Justice League is made up of Sonic characters. I don't know what to make of it, but I'm willing to keep an open mind about it.

There's a part of me that wonders if this is Sega testing the waters just in case IDW folds -- my understanding is they aren't very stable right now, but then I suppose the same could be said of a lot of the North American comics industry. I don't read much outside of Sonic, but I absorb some degree of the culture through my friends, and I know Marvel and DC aren't doing super well in the comics space either right now, and that's been an ongoing, long term issue (long enough term that it's been cited as the driving reason Marvel pivoted to the MCU over a decade ago, since the comics biz has been suffering so much for so long).

I floated "maybe Sega is shopping around in case IDW folds" in a Discord earlier and was told pretty definitively that's unlikely, and I think that's fair. You never know, but DC also did that ridiculous Looney Tunes crossover series a few years ago.

They just do weird stuff like this. Which is nice, really. More power to them.

The other notable thing being more information about Sonic X Shadow Generations. A peek at Mephiles, a look at more levels and bosses, and the possibility that through the time distortion Shadow finds himself in, he may be able to see and interact with Maria and Gerald again. There's mention of "correcting the timeline," which could mean a lot of things. I'm used to hearing that in comic books, where it means "we get to clean up clutter we don't like."

Speaking as someone who does not like their involvement in the story, would be funny if Shadow Generations ends with Shadow somehow making it so Gerald never made a deal with the aliens. In theory it wouldn't change our Shadow; for the same reason that in Sonic 06, defeating Iblis in the past did not get rid of him in Silver's future (see also: "Classic Sonic is from another dimension.") But I think it would be cool to say "I didn't just kill him, I erased him from the timeline."

But yeah. It continues to look cool. Cool enough that I preemptively spent my Twitch earnings to pre-order the game after the show. I won't get paid those earnings for another three weeks, but it's fine. Hopefully.

I guess they also announced they're going to be putting up the Shadow Origin series for free on Youtube starting today, when it originally sounded like those would be exclusive to the Digital Deluxe on PS5. Now the Digital Deluxe is merely getting "extended and deleted scenes." At least they'll be included with the game this time, unlike most of the other animations Sega's put out to promo a new game.

But it's very telling that their "one more thing" was a Sonic movie 3 feature that was basically just one of the... producers? writers? director? standing on the backlot telling us "the movie is going to be so good you guys" while interspersed with clips from the one and only trailer we've seen. I can feel myself being carried away on everyone else's hype for that movie, but the realistic expectations in my heart is that, bare minimum, I personally won't like it.

Outside of that first movie I haven't felt like this series has been put together very well and I could see it all crashing and burning with this third movie.

[meraki-yao]

This is gonna be really personal, and really venty and probably really selfish, and I’m most likely gonna delete it in the morning, but I feel like this is the only place I can talk about it, so I’m just gonna shout this into the void. If you’re not in a good space either, please stop reading and keep scrolling.

I’m not in a good place in my life right now. Truth be told my mental health has been shit since I was 7, but this is the worst I’ve ever been. Long story short, I was pressured into a college major that I didn’t want by family, and I thought I could pull through the four years of school, but it’s the first semester of the second year and I can’t handle it. I do not suit this major, nor do I find any purpose or joy in trying to deal with it. I hate it, I struggle with, yet it consumes all the time in my life. It’s been like this since the start of college, and it’s just getting worse. It doesn’t help that adults around me keep telling me how good this major is as a career and how I need to start looking for internships. It’s gotten to the point where I’m mentally and physically unhealthy, and I skipped school for the entirety of October without anyone but my sister knowing because classes gave me panic attacks. My parents aren’t people I can talk to about this because 1, they invalidate mental health issues as my fault for not trying hard enough because engineering and science came easy to them 2, they’re the ones who put me in this position in the first place. My sister listens but I help her more than she knows how to help me, and my friends are all busy with their own stuff.

I am seeking professional help on my own, I have bimonthly counselling which helps, and I recently started taking prescribed antidepressants. But for me to find a psychiatrist for a diagnosis on my life long issues and more meds, or for me to start looking into switching a major (which is a fucking arduous process where I am, fuck), I need to wait till I’m done with my exams which will be the last two weeks of December

So for the following month, I’m stuck, and fucked.

RWRB saved me in a way. I accidentally stumbled upon the trailer when it came out and suddenly I had a source of joy, a reason to keep going and keep looking forward to the next day. RWRB made me the happiest I’ve been since January of 2022. I can’t explain why, maybe it’s how I relate to Henry, maybe it’s how firstprince’s relationship is so beautiful, maybe it’s how it’s a rom com, I don’t know. But I have a couple of movies/shows that make a huge impact on my life, and RWRB is one of them. Waking up to something new, waking up happy with something to look forward to felt so good after so long of wanting time to just pass by me. I’ve haven’t watched a movie on repeat since I was 6 and repeating the original Lion King. I started this account because I had so many thoughts about the movie and I wanted to share them.

And I know it’s not the healthiest to hook all of my sanity onto a fandom/movie. But I’m not in a space where I can deal with my actual problems directly right now. And I do have other things in my real life that make me feel a bit better, but RWRB really has been the most effective/impactful one right now.

This is also the first time since Infinity War in 2019 were I followed a movie’s promo and release rather than discover it when all is said and done. And it happened to coincide with the strikes. Which again I’m supportive of and proud of the agreements they achieved, but the timing of everything just makes me so upset.

I thought that Prime would keep it going for a bit, especially after the strike resolved. And right now I’m not saying they’re definitively not doing anything. We don’t know that.

But I thought they would release a new deleted scene on 18th since that’s the date the last two deleted scenes were released, and it was the 100th day since release. When that didn’t happen, I thought they would release it on Thanksgiving. I lost sleep over waiting for it. But that didn’t happen either.

I got an anon ask who kindly but objectively explained the situation on the business side. And after reading and answering those asks…

I felt really fucking bad.

I kinda just lied down, panting and trembling.

It kinda felt like drug addiction withdrawal. Which is a morbid thing to compare it to, because if it weren’t for my myriad of problems this would just be a hyperfixation, but withdrawal is genuinely the only way I can explain my reaction (but to clarify I never actually did drugs)

And the following days I just had this ache and weight in my chest.

I think the reason my reaction is visceral is because RWRB is really my only, singular source of unbridled happiness right now. It’s literally the only thing I’m trying to hold on and stay afloat for, the reason I wake up in the morning. I thought Prime would keep going for a while with a relatively fixed monthly schedule of something new, but that broke off.

And that’s not to say that the fandom isn’t included in my RWRB happiness. I still fucking love the fanart and fanfics I come across.

But the jump from August and September to now, and my worsening issues because of school, it just hits harder.

I’m kind of at a lost right now. I’m getting worse in my own life with exams that I’ll definitely straight up fail (and I used to be a star student: I’ve needed academic validation my whole life) on the horizon, and I feel like I’m losing the only thing I held on to for the past couple of months.

I’m fucked and I don’t know what to do.  

[bleachbleachbleach]

Maybe you've answered this before, but which of the bleach movies are you favorites? Do you like them in general? I feel like I've watched the DDR 100 times, but the movies aren't really talked about much in general it seems....

Neither of us really think about them as discrete "movies"—we take them more as a collection of elements, many of which we find very appealing. I think we’ve rewatched them almost annually since 2020, but I’m not sure either of us could actually explain to you what happens in them. We’re too distracted by the dazzling glamor of the Elements.

I will say, like you, Diamond Dust Rebellion holds a special place in my heart! It was the only one that premiered during my first stint with Bleach, and I definitely have vague but fond memories of watching a raw copy on an 11" iBook that I assume was approximately 120p.

Here are my personal favorite Elements from all the Bleach movies—some of which are scenes, some of which are character moments, and some of which are honestly… the laundry lint equivalent of "things that were part of this movie" that I still really love because, as this post will immediately make clear, I have serious Blorbo Disease.

MOVIE 1: Memories of Nobody

1. Commuting: Honestly obsessed with the fact that Hitsugaya and Matsumoto spend so much of this movie commuting. They just keep… going back and forth between dimensions? AND FOR WHY. Peak Gotei efficiency!

2. Bridge Whimsy: The scene where everyone jumps off the bridge into the water and are super duper extra about it. @dont-look-up has a great gifset of Renji and Rukia trying out for the Soul Society Diving Team. 

Hitsugaya and Matsumoto are also great in this scene. They’re both crouched in the same nook of bridge for some reason? And when Matsumoto encroaches on Hitsugaya’s space he wordlessly moves her arm out of the way and it’s so casual and non-eventful. Love that for them but also love that for the animation, because it’s an "unnecessary" non-eventful movement that got to be drawn and animated. You can’t have unscripted movement in this medium—it adds nothing and everything! Unfortunately, searching "bridge" on B3 didn’t turn that gifset up, so it wont’ be includd in this post.

3. Blobby Hisagi: Speaking of animation, Hisagi basically only appears in this movie as a blobby smudge of color in the background. My co-blogger put together a comprehensive account of every time Hisagi shows up in this  movie, and it is a post I love dearly.

* Honorable mention to the kidou cannon, which comes up a lot in conversation, considering how little reason there is to do so. But THE KIDOUUUUU CANNONNNNN

MOVIE 2: DiamondDust Rebellion

1. LAWSON TRUCK!!!!

There’s a transition scene where a Lawson truck randomly drives by and I am OBSESSED with it. I mean, I love Lawson, which is a Japanese convenience store chain. But most of the stores/brands in Bleach are either generic or made up, as is true of many anime. Yet there’s a real, honest to god Lawson Truck in this movie. It makes me wonder if there was some kind of Lawson promo that went with DDR’s release. Anyway, I see you, Lawson Truck. I love you.

2. Hitsugaya's Bow: After finding himself in Ichigo’s bed after passing out in the forest outside Karakura (and, one assumes, bleeding all over his sheets), Hitsugaya leaves without a word in the dead of night. But he still takes the time to bow at the Kurosaki house, as thanks for its hospitality. I love this quiet, quotidian gesture in the midst of a whole lot that is neither quiet nor quotidian. 

3. DETECTIVE BYAKUYA. BYAKUYA, ON THE CASE. This is best explained by my earlier post about this.

It’s best dramatized by the second music video I’ve ever made in my life, a tribute to Detective Byakuya and Law and Order: Soul Society.

We have a whole tag for Detective Byakuya (and more posts to yet to be written!):

4. Hisagi/Kira vs. Hitsugaya is one of my favorite short fights (maybe one of my favorite fights, period??) in Bleach. Hisagi gets to be incredibly cool and use a bunch of kidou and backflip onto a torii gate. Hisagi and Kira are then immediately annihilated by Hyourimaru’s shikai once Hitsugaya decides he doesn’t have enough HP left to deal with this shit, but Hisagi and Kira were very cool up until that point!

I’m certain Hitsugaya is capable of annihilating Hisagi and Kira whenever he wants, but I do want to note that it wasn’t exactly a fair fight. Hisagi and Kira didn’t want to hurt him, particularly since he was already heavily injured. Hitsugaya, uh, did not have similar qualms.

5. ZABIMARU EXPREEEEEEEEEEEESS

Soul Society’s most exclusive, breathtaking way to travel. (cue Jrock cover of Disney Aladdin’s "A Whole New World")

MOVIE 3: Fade to Black

1. Byakuya Discovers Doors: One day I’m gonna get it in gear and make a gifset for this, because this scene is the BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME IN MY LIFE. There’s a full sequence of Byakuya combing through the Kuchiki Estate and opening every single door. Just walking around. Opening all the doors. In the dead of night.

And OKAY, the context for this is that he’s in Detective Byakuya mode; he can sense that something is amiss but isn’t able to discern what—he’s searching for anything that will help the missing pieces fall into place. (The missing piece is Rukia’s entire existence.) But it’s not like he tells any of his retainers this so for all they know he’s just going around opening all the doors in the dead of night, and they have to quietly follow behind him and close them all, murmuring, "ah yes, our Lord Byakuya, always working. Very thorough examination of doors and hinges tonight." I love him.

2. Hitsugaya is 11th Division's Foster Captain: Hitsugaya is working with Ikkaku and Yumichika in this movie for some reason—like, goes out to Inuzuri with them, even as he’s left Matsumoto behind to do work with their actual division. This is important to me only because it’s not the only time he’s been the 11th’s foster captain?? I’m not even talking about the Advance Team arc, which is something else entirely. In the Bount arc, when Zaraki is similarly indisposed/unreachable, Hitsugaya also ends up in charge of the 11th. Like, who decides this???

Anyway thank you, whatever bureaucratic processes makes this happen over and over again; I appreciate you. I’m sure Hitsugaya Suffers every time. (But he also probably prefers this over any other option, because the second option is probably just "idk 11th go freeball it do whatever you want!!". Also, Hitsugaya is always volunteering for this stuff.)

MOVIE 4: Hellverse

Okay, we just saw this movie (well, we just saw all of them, but this one was last!), but I’m not remembering a lot of it right now because it’s low on Blorbo Disease triggers. I do very much enjoy the Six Hearts gang running around in Squarespace (Hell)!! But this post is very long, so I’ll just say:

1. Byakuya Projecting by offering his fairly lengthy opinions about Ichigo and Yuzu, considering he’s known of Yuzu’s existence for about 2 seconds and she has been bereft a soul and comatose the entire time. 

2. Why is Hitsugaya even here, edition 90009: I love the fact that Hitsugaya is part of this Hell Portal team at all. Byakuya and Ukitake make some sense, in that Rukia and Renji are the Gotei officers most involved with this. But why is Hitsugaya there lol. I like to think that he thought it would be a good opportunity to learn about portals, and considers this professional development.

[breebers]

AOTV Thoughts

Some thoughts on “All Of Those Voices” after last night’s screening. TLDR - I remain very fond of Louis , but I did not think this was a good documentary. I’m a new pandemic-era fan and just a lurker so no one will see this - it’s just to get thoughts out of my system (harhar).

My overall impression leaving the theatre was that the film was cliche, disjointed, and unsettlingly superficial considering the seriousness of the topics it tried to address. It had moments of charm - Oli was an unexpected highlight - but they felt like little treats. It didn’t say or do anything new for serious fans, just recycled narratives and footage we have mostly seen before. And because of the disjointedness, I think the general public would find it confusing. I don’t understand the audience, purpose, or timing for the release.

Performance Footage

The thing I found most confusing was the relative absence of great performance footage. Giving the timing of the doc’s release, I’d thought it was going to be a vehicle to sell concert tickets. But there’s actually relatively little footage of Louis singing for more than a few seconds at a time. And the hero moments that stuck out most, at least to me, were Little Black Dress and Night Changes (which is a bit ironic given the focus on him finding his solo voice), and COACOAC.

I assume this has something to do with Louis’ changing feelings about Walls, and the fact that he doesn’t really feel like it represents him as well as FITF, as he’s expressed in interviews. It’s disappointing, since that’s what I was looking forward to most! I thought they’d filmed the shows for the FITF release, but none of that made the movie either. :( Honestly, the IG reels throughout tour did a better job of making me want to go to a show.

Louis As Songwriter

I loved the moment where Louis talked about being proud of his 1D songwriting credits, but unfortunately that idea didn’t carry through to the rest of the movie.

Nothing about the process of writing Walls, which is maybe because his old narrative no longer works. But surprisingly very little about the writing of FITF either. No FITF songs mentioned by name other than BTM, which was only in a text overlay. Nothing about what the songs or the album mean to him, or even about the creative and collaborative process aside from when it was written logistically. He doesn’t even say “Faith In The Future” until the end credits, I think?

We got so much more on Louis as a songwriter in the album promo interviews - the doc is still very heavily focused on his anxiety around vocal performance, esp. with all the Helene. Which is interesting, of course, just a bit jarring given what he says about writing for 1D and what we’ve heard him say elsewhere.

On Loss and Grief

I have an enormous amount of empathy for what Louis and his family have gone through, and I truly admire his resilience. I found the deep love Louis has for his family and this part of his story moving, of course, but I also found it somewhat disconnected. Resilience is a useful trait, and moving on is healthy, but the impression from the movie is that that just happened by sheer force of will. And maybe it did, that seems very British! But I would have liked to have seen more about how Louis processed his grief, the support he received from people around him, whether it affected his songwriting and approach to his career. Structurally, lumping together the 1D breakup, deaths in his family and COVID as a series of obstacles to be overcome through perseverance alone just felt like it was a likely oversimplification.

On COVID

Again, this too felt like an obstacle identified and then not followed up with. I was really surprised that there wasn’t later discussion by Louis, the band or the fans interviewed that part of the magic of tour was being able to come together in-person again after lockdowns. This was certainly part of the joy for me as I watched lives all tour (my local show was maybe the only one that got cancelled and stayed cancelled.)

Fan Representation

This was very much my academic area in another life, so I could go for ages. But in short, I did appreciate that this was a much more positive representation of female-dominated fandom than we normally see. It was respectful and it celebrated fans and mostly took them seriously.

But it had a pretty narrow focus on a certain type of fan. Given the things Louis has said about his relationship with his fans elsewhere, I expected a deeper and more diverse look. I would have liked to hear from fans about what Louis’ music means to them, about growing up alongside him, about fan projects and communities and the experience of live music after years locked away. Instead it was just camping and getting as close to him as possible. (Props to the fan who wrote the essay to convince their mom to let them camp though - I used to use the same tactic!)

I get that it would be a lot of work to take a really deep look at fandom - and it would be tough to dodge the beautiful rainbow elephant in the room - but I think it was possible to do a bit more. Even just along the lines of what Louis often says in interviews.

Fatherhood

I’m agnostic about BBG. But even setting that aside, I was uncomfortable with this particular narrative thread. My own issues are obviously part of that - I was raised almost entirely by my mom, with an absent father who complained about not seeing enough of me and my siblings but showed no inclination towards actual parenting. It is very easy to seem like a good father flying a kite on a beach or goofing around backstage at your concert. It is much harder to actually do the work of raising a child.

The way the fatherhood narrative popped out of nowhere - you would think the child just materialized from thin air the way it’s framed - was very uncomfortable. The way the sharp contrast to the closeness Louis described with his mother who had an unplanned baby (and perhaps similar distance with his biological dad) went unacknowledged. The way he claims to see his child at every opportunity, but the second half of the film focuses on him having a blast travelling the world on a tour bus and makes zero reference to that being challenging from a parenting perspective. The overall impression is just the total absence of responsibility, like children are fun accessories to help you feel good about yourself at 1/80 concerts.

There were lots of “aww”s at my screening, and I guess those folks just don’t have daddy issues? I can’t speak to Louis’ actual reality as a father (or lack thereof), but the way it was presented in the movie, at least, was such cheesy “rich, absent dad who doesn’t get it” cliche. It felt like a weird choice for someone who has said he wants to be so private.

The Voiceover

This is a very specific thing, but I really didn’t like the explanatory narrative Louis did throughout the whole thing, filmed in the studio. It felt scripted and impersonal and all at the same emotional level. I would have preferred if there had been multiple interviews over the course of the years they were filming, for some variety and progression over time. It really sucked a lot of the emotion and vulnerability out of things.

What Might’ve Been

The frustrating thing about all this is there are like, four different and very good possible documentaries within AOTV. But it feels like instead of doing any one thing properly, they tried to do everything and in a rush.

It could have been a beautiful film about his personal losses and how he’s recovered and grown from them, but it would have had to show more of that process.

It could have been a really fun tour documentary - the backstage stuff with the band was a highlight, but it would have had to included way more performance footage.

It could have been a cool narrative about the buildup to FITF but would have needed to include more of his songwriting process, what the songs mean, and the album release shows.

It could have been about his relationship with fans, but would have required more extensive and thoughtful interviews, with a more diverse group.

Instead, it tried to do all those things, but each at a surface level, and ended up unsatisfying and confusing. It felt like they didn’t have a plan going in, and sort of just scrambled stuff together as best they could with the footage they had. Which I think is a real shame because Louis deserves the chance to tell his story. I just don’t think this documentary did that effectively.

Why did this happen? Maybe it was his changing relationship to Walls and the awkwardness of overlapping albums. Maybe it was scheduling and deadlines and COVID. Maybe he can’t tell his full story and there’s just no way to disguise that without it feeling awkward. Maybe Louis just doesn’t understand his own fanbase very well, or he’s trying to change that fanbase. Maybe it’s just bad story structure. Whatever the reason, it’s a big missed opportunity and I am sad.

[honoringthehorrific]

I watched X (2022) after Pearl (2022) and here's what I thought...

Lord have mercy it's been a while hasn't it? Lets churn out one for the new year! As always: Spoilers under the cut! <3

I'm gonna do this one differently than my usual reviews since I haven't seen the movie in a while, instead of my typical play by play I'm gonna just tell you what I thought and talk about specific scenes. Now, I know this movie was the first in the series, but I was more drawn to the look of the prequel, and I hadn't heard much promo for this movie until my dad watched it alone and boasted to me about it being one of the most fucked movies he's ever seen and I knew I had to watch it. I will say if you're going into this movie expecting some super disturbing gore-fest...Prepare to be disappointed. Don't get me wrong AT ALL the blood and effects are beautiful and i thought the amount of violence was perfect. However don't be fooled. Anyone who says this movie is gross or disturbing or fucked up may just be echoing the point the movie is trying to make.

This movie is about getting older, its about sex and porno and being free but I genuinely think the main focus is getting older.

When we meet pearl she sees herself reflected in Maxine and that's made painfully clear by the choice to cast Mia Goth as BOTH Pearl and Maxine. Pearl consistently watches Maxine almost out of jealousy but I would even argue out of mourning...She's seeing this girl come to her home, This beautiful girl who looks just like her when she was her age, making those movies the projectionist showed her when she was younger. Seeing this girl with a boyfriend who wants to make her a star, with friends...I imagine its painful to a degree...

Pearl repeatedly expresses sexual desires she still has but can't act on them because she's too old...Harold's heart can't take the strain sex would put on it and she has no other outlets as the young adults are either disgusted with her and reject her advances (RJ and Max) or treat her as if she's a child. (Bobby Lynne) I loved these characters so much. While it pays homage to one of my all time favorite slashers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, It isn't like your typical slasher. These kids are lovable. These kids you want to see make it...Except maybe Wayne. You get snippets of their personalities and their motives as time goes on: Bobby Lynne wants to be a star like the other girls but also she thought about becoming a nurse because her nanna used to get confused. Jackson is a Vietnam vet who actually shows Howard immense respect unlike the typical rude kid persona we see in movies like these. RJ wants to make serious movies and is a cinema buff but he also cares a lot about his girlfriend Lorraine. Lorraine, while being the typical "pure" virgin character, also wants to join in and experience something new. Maxine came from an Evangelical christian household and seems to be escaping that constricting life with Wayne. One thing that I think is incredibly sad is when people mention how "fucked up" this movie is, the focus seems to center not on the gore or effects but...on the fact that it displays the elderly in a sexual light and wanting to still have sex. It's interesting because even in the movie, despite certain characters discounting the elderly couple (Wayne mentions something a long the lines of Harold forgetting how to use his dick) there is this scene where Bobby-Lynne is explaining things to Lorraine, and it's not a main focus in her statement, but she says that in the sex industry nothing matters, gay, straight, your race, or your age. I think we have a really idealized version of MILFs and Cougars, Older women with sexual desires, when we forget that often those "Older women" can look like pearl...

I thought the underlying message of even the elderly can want love and sex was sort of romantic and beautiful? I wish more people picked up on it and I'm certain I'm not the only one who did. It's just strange talking to anyone i know in person who saw this movie talk about it like it's so nasty and grotesque when it seems like the gore is somewhat minimal compared to the typical slashers I know these people watch? Now that's not to discount the effects AT ALL I loved what we did see when we saw it, RJ's blood spatter on the headlights, Wayne getting his eyeballs gouged out (that one actually made me cringe in my seat!) All of these were done pretty well while at the same time having this sort of....at home feel? I'm really not ragging on them i love practical effects and i don't know how much of this was practical but some of the effects feel like someone did it by hand, It felt akin to watching a movie from the 80s vs one modernly. Which honestly could have been the feel that they were going for.

The ending was sooo good too. I loved finding out that Maxine had some sort of tie back to this TV preacher we keep seeing. I loved the scene where she repeats him and you can hear on the TV him speak before her, "Say it with me now!" The one thing I don't like is how pearl turns on her at the end? Calling her a whore and what not however, I don't think this is out of character for pearl, she has a lot of outbursts like this in her prequel movie, the one that i can think of mainly is the scarecrow scene if you've seen Pearl (P.S. if you haven't oh my god?? go watch it?? even if you hated X I think Pearl is a reaaaally good stand alone film!) I do think it was fitting even if i didn't particularly like it. The end where Max drives off, hitting pearl on the way seems soooo fitting too. The comparison of pearl and max through the movie, their confrontation at the end where max wins and hits her with the truck after she falls and breaks her hip...It feels fitting maybe because of how the elderly and the young butt heads...Maybe how the young typically come out the end because the elderly pass away...I don't know maybe I'm reaching too far on this one. Over all a pretty good movie, I'd give it a 7/10 just because it seems like for how people hyped it up and the trailers hyped it up the gore and story elements just didn't scream at me that this was a fucked up movie. It definitely feels like a weaker movie compared to pearl, pearl worked so good as a stand alone film and I feel like X had potential to be that good? I think this was still a very good movie! I recommend it :) --- Post Notes: I'm sorry this one took so long. It's been a while since I actually watched X and I was really worried about this review not being as solid or as consistent as my pearl one. I think it's still all over the place but I wanted to give you guys this because i think there's at least a handful of people that I've kept waiting on this :) If I missed anything and you wanna pick my brain on it I'll respond to any asks or any replies (Note replies are gonna get responses from my main account @playboycreature cause this is a side blog)

[toyota12]

Steven Universe Future Episode Tier Ranking explanations

Before starting, know that this ranking is purely subjective on my part and I don’t expect people to share my opinions on them. Feel free to read the explanations.

Little Homeschool, S: For what it's worth, this does serve as a good introduction to Steven's conflict this "season" and Steven's fight as well as his acquaintanceship with Jasper does seem to set up a sort of student-mentor relationship between the two.

2. Guidance, C: On later watches of this episode, it seems to retread that ground Little Homeschool had already established, with Steven needing to be taught a lesson opposed to teaching others a lesson, and the part where Steven gives a balloon handling job to someone with a literal pincer for a hand pratically screams at you that his idea is going to end in disaster. Also the ending gets kind of muddled where it tries to spin Steven's meddling into positive despite the episode trying to portray it a problem. The reason this episode is not lower on this list is because I did enjoy seeing Steven called out on this, however muddled it was, and Steven's habit of assuming he knows what's best for others and doesn't consult them on how to help has been a thing that's been consistent with his character since the main show, and especially during the early seasons.

3. Rose Buds, D: If there was any episode that made it clear that most new characters and plot points introduced in this season exist soley for Steven's development and nothing else it would be this one. Not only do the Roses show up at the same time Steven is trying to figure out where to put Pink/Rose's portrait, it's never explained how the human zoo is somehow able to fly, and the fact that only three of the Rose Quartzes want to see Steven despite them all being free thanks to him and the fact that they waited two years to do so is kind of hard for me to believe. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to focus on Steven's character, but this episode comes across as if I should ignore the contrivances in the story in order to enjoy the episode.

4. Volleyball, S: Initially, I was turned off to the episode because watching the promos, I knew this would be the episode Steven would have that outburst that destroys the reef and I've gotten tired of the whole "Pearl acts a pathetic while pining after Rose/Pink" storyline that was seen in the main show. However, what made me enjoy this episode is when the Pearls and Steven get to the Reef. I did enjoy seeing the different ways all three of them act towards the subject of Pink Diamond cracking Pink Pearl's eye, as well their own forms of denial. While Pearl sparks an argument because of her denial, Pink Pearl tries to brush off how the incident affected her, and Steven goes to great lengths to avoid talking about it and attempts to deny he is anything like Pink. Something I could probably point out objectively though is the contrivance of how Steven couldn't break the shell trapping the two Pearls, which is used for the sake of Mega Pearl being formed (especially since he could nearly lift Spinel's injector, which is 50 times his size, with his powers drained in the movie), but beyond that it's still an enjoyable episode.

5. Bluebird, D: As much I've wanted the idea of Steven finding gems that actually enjoyed the pre-era 3 system, I barely enjoyed this episode. One of the things I disliked is the Crystal Gems suddenly wanting to give Bluebird a chance despite, A. Knowing her and what her components have done and B. Never being shown to do so with any other gems both in the main show and the movie. There is nothing wrong with trusting people have changed, but the CGs have never shown any prior instance of wanting to do so. And I'll bring this up when talking about the Diamonds in Homeworld Bound, but half the time it feels as though the characters are written to act vastly different from their established characterization specifically to contrive a narrative where Steven is the only one not adjusting to Era 3. Another thing to point is how this episode feels like it should have been much shorter than 11 minutes long. In that runtime, the episode tries to do fake-outs where it's "Bluebird is evil, and she can't be trusted, joke's on Steven, he was wrong," and it does this through the episode four times before finally getting to the point that they (Eyeball Ruby and Aquamarine) were out to get Steven. One final thing to point out and this is brought up in later episodes is how is Steven suddenly able to activate the pink state conciously. If the Crewniverse was going with the idea that it's uncontrollable, shouldn't he be tapping into this state accidently? But if he can do so willingly, is it really under his control or not? One of the reason this is in D and not F is because while it's unlikeable to me, it doesn't infuriate me as much as the F-episodes do.

6. A Very Special Episode, F: The moment it was revealed this episode was non-canon to the rest of Future, it made want to skip this episode without trying to rewatch it. I honestly, have never liked Sunstone as a character as she has always come off as a character who belongs in one of those shows for pre-school children. Also the aesop of "don't overwork yourself" feels like it could work in any other show and feels too on the nose for a series meant for slightly older audiences. Also the franchise as a whole has always suffered from a tone problem where it constantly switches between moments that are childish and silly and moments that are meant to be played for drama, and this episode was definitely the former category for me.

7. Snow Day, S: Although this episode features, two of the most cliched lessons out there, "growing up doesn't mean you have to stop having fun," and "parents needing to stop treating their kids as if they were still little," what makes this episode enjoyable is how it's able to have you sympathize with both Steven and the Gems' viewpoints (although the gems and Steven haven't been seen spending that much time apart since the "season" started), and how both were able to reach that by end of the episode. I don't care much for the anime references, but for the most part, Steven tag was entertaining. Also how Future seems to portray Pearl as on a winning streak in Future with this episode having her shapeshift for the first time in millenia (and eventually eating for the first time as well).

8. Why So Blue, A: What makes this episode not reach S-tier for me is the fact that despite this episode being the only one that is not purely Steven-centric, outside of the foreshadowing of Steven going too far with fighting Jasper with Lapis nearly doing that in this episode, almost nothing plot relevant seems to come from it, nor does it have seem to have anything to do with Future's storyline. Nice Lapis or "Freckles" is never seen again, not even in a silent cameo. This episode is still good as a standalone episode, Lapis' song was great and Steven's dynamic with all the Lapises was good as well.

9. Little Graduation, C: One thing that annoyed me about this episode upon rewatch is despite the fact Steven almost crushed his friends and himself to death, albeit unintentionally, neither party seems to treat this as something of actual concern. In fact, most of Steven's breakdowns in his pink state is treated as if he were an ordinary human having a breakdown and trying to hide it, with those around him unaware of serious his issues are. If that were really the case, it would make both Steven and his friends reactions towards this understandable, but since it isn't it makes them either uncaring or incredibly stupid. Steven doesn't treat his unintentional endangerment of others as something of actual concern until after he does this a third time and endangers Greg, and no one confront him about until then as well, which makes me think, oh so now they finally care about whether or not Steven could hurt people when they didn't before. The reason this isn't any lower on the list is just like, Guidance, there is still continuity from the main show in which, Steven has always shipped Lars and Sadie as a couple to the point of being intrusive on their relationship, and how the latter reemphasize how they want their privacy from Steven by not telling him about it.

10. Prickly Pair, B: I believe the dynamic between Steven and Cactus Steven was developed great, and I did a post of the ties it has to Pink and the other Diamonds. Two things, I didn't like about it is first, how easily the gems were curbstomped by Cactus Steven once it eventually grew into a monster, leaving Steven to be the one to talk to it, which seems to have carried over from the main show, and second, despite becoming aware of how Steven has been struggling none of the gems seem to confront him after this episode and go back to being oblivious or not focusing on it, making the ending seem inconsequential to the story.

11. In Dreams, B: Despite this episode having an admitedly heartwarming moment between Steven and Peridot towards the end and the various dream sequences, Steven's new power of being able to overwrite a VHS tape, while interferring with the TV while sleeping seems like too much of a strech for me to believe. Also I have never bought Steven's line of "I don't know how to be friends if I'm not fixing stuff for people," because it implies that Steven doesn't have a life outside of gem activities, which both the main show and the movie would beg to differ on since at least half of their screentime is spent doing Beach City shenanagains, so this line is mostly false by that logic.

12. Bismuth Casual, A: While this episode features another one of Steven's lines that I don't buy: "If they were enemy gems, we'd be friends by now," implying that Steven instantly became friends with most of his enemies, which both the show and its fandom have gone out of its way to debunk, Steven's conflict of not knowing how to connect with Connie due her being away for some time did peak my interest. Also the rest of the episode is hardly dragged down by that aforementioned statement.

13. Together Forever, F: I have always hated this episode the moment I watched it for the first time, and most of that had to do with Garnet's actions in this episode. She basically came off as repeating the same anger inducing moments from Steven's Dream where she says Steven would only want to visit Pink's pallenquin more if she tells him why he shouldn't, which is nonsense. You seriously mean to tell me that if she were to tell Steven Blue Diamond is visiting the pallenquin, he'd still want to go? And the reason I bring that up is because that's exactly what happens here. Garnet tells Steven she didn't stop from proposing to Connie because she didn't see a future where he didn't, which sounds more like she's making excuses for herself because she just unfused when Steven came to ask for her advice. That's not even mentioning how this episode portrays Ruby and Sapphire as more incompetent than they've ever been portrayed as for the sole aim of having Steven propose to Connie. I usually fine with characters intentionally acting bad for the sake of learning a lesson afterwards, but I think there's a difference between the former and having characters act like idiots or out of character for the sake of conflict. The closest comparison I can give to this is Think Positive from Regular Show, where Mordecai and Rigby act more incompetent than they've ever been for the sole aim of arousing Benson's temper and nothing else.

14. Growing Pains, S: While this episode follows up one I can't stand, I very much find this enjoyable. The montage of Steven at the doctor are somewhat funny for the most part, and the part where Dr. Maheswaren explains how a traumatic childhood could cause later issues down the line are very informative. The final scenes with Steven and Greg where they discuss the former's issues are very heartwarming for me, and the ending as well is also good.

15. Mr. Universe, C: Upon rewatch, the ending of this episode seems to want to continue to have Steven cut people out of his life opposed to showing his healing or reconnecting for the sake of the breakdown at the end. The subtle parallels between Greg and Pink's early life are good for the most part, but the reason I brought up the aforementioned statement is because of how I can pretty much guess how the ending is going to turn out the moment Steven and Greg arrive at Greg's childhood home. Also Greg telling Steven, he was "better off than he was" feels very forced for the sake of the fight as well considering how this comes an episode after he just found out the extent of his son's issues.

16. Fragments, A: The reason this episode isn't any higher on this list is two-fold. One: how it has the aforementioned issue Crystal Gems and Steven himself finally showing concern over the latter's powers and the possibility that he could hurt someone after not treating it as anything of actual concern until this moment. Two: How it continues the inconsistency of Steven conciously tapping into the pink state when it's been said to be uncontrollable, which again makes me wonder, can he control himself while in this state or not. Besides those two problems, the training montage as well as the final fight with Jasper are good. I previously didn't mind the revelation that gems could unshattered, the first time, because I thought it was going to treated as a one time thing that only Steven could do so shattering would still have that feeling of danger to it.

17. Homeworld Bound, F: Another episode I despised upon the first watch, which only grew more detestable on rewatch. The first reason for this is because the changes where the Diamonds learn to use their powers in reverse and them suddenly wanting to help other gems seems to come up out of nowhere. What was their incentive to want to do so in the first place since in the movie, even though they regretted how they managed the system and treated Pink, it's made clear that they had to be told to enact the reforms they did by Steven, but now, in literal months in the show's canon, they suddenly want to change without him? This continues the problem I have where it feels like this only exists, just so Steven is the only one struggling to adjust to Era 3, with the episode essentially saying, "even the Diamonds are doing better than Steven now." Gems being able to be uncorrupted permanently completely contradicts the show runners saying how it would take longer for gems to recover from corruption the longer they’ve been like that. A YouTuber made the point of latter episodes feeling like wanting to one-up each other on Steven’s breakdown, and I agree with them. This episode seriously wants me to believe Steven would jump at the opportunity to shatter White Diamond (or at least consider doing so) after just shattering Jasper last episode. The revelation that Yellow can just unshatter gems effortlessly, even without every piece not only renders the arguments how shattering is the worst thing to happen to gems null and void, but adds more fuel to the fire of how it's absurd no one figured out Rose and Pink were the same gem. If Yellow had simply unshattered the "shards" of Pink Diamond, she and the others would have known they were fake, also am I expected to believe the Diamonds couldn't tell the difference between real and fake gem shards, how before The Trial no one questioned how a simple sword could shatter a Diamond, the gem equivalent of a god on Homeworld, but that's all I'll say about that.

18. Everything Fine, F: The reason this episode also made it in F is because I've gotten tired of the whole "Steven tries to solve a problem, but only makes things worse" and "everyone ignores Steven's problems just because he asked them to" that has been dragged out for the entire season up until this point, and also the reason I can't get behind people saying how Future teaches people how to ask for help with their problems since Steven rarely does so. The fact the intervention at the end only happens because Steven subconciously sent a gif to Connie is ridiculous. Neither Steven nor any of his family or friends (except for Connie) try to actually confront this problem in any meaningful way, while the intervention itself is only the last few minutes of the episode while rest of it repeats themes that have become far too familiar at this point.

19. I Am My Monster, D: Many things rubbed me the wrong way about this episode. The first is that I don't understand what the Diamonds were thinking, trying to use their powers on Steven again after it already failed in Homeworld Bound, that didn't work then, and it's not going to work now. The second is the contrivance of The Cluster showing up after Steven knocked everyone over. The reason I call it that is because Spinel's injector ripping Beach City apart wasn't strong enough to awaken The Cluster, so why is this the thing that gets its attention? The last thing how much it annoyed to me to see the very over top crying scene of the gems and Greg when they blame themselves for Steven's transformation, and not just in the way it was supposed to. I personally saw it yet another moment of the gems being too incompetent to actually do anything to help in any meaningful way, and the fact that they all had to be told off by Connie didn't help in the slightest. Most of Future feels like she's the only person that takes notice and treats Steven's problem with the urgency they need while everyone else doesn't (which includes Steven himself to an extent). The reason this isn't in F as well is because I did enjoy the part where everyone hugs Steven and relates their experiences to help him. I know there are some who say the gems forcing themselves on Steven would only make things worse, but it's mostly on brand with the franchise at this point, think of how many times Steven has chased someone down to get them to open up about their feelings. Also the part where Steven cries profusely at the end was a good scene, however the majority of this episode hardly makes me want to revisit it.

20. The Future, D: This ranking is mostly because, even though the parts where Steven says his goodbyes to everyone and hands them each gifts are good, the fact this episode once again has Steven and the gems not talk to each other about their problems until the last possible second really annoyed me. To me this only comes across as the characters not having really changed in the slightest despite Steven saying how the gems have grown more protective of him since the last episode. It's more a case of listen to what the crew says and ignoring what they show, since that's what sparked this entire conflict in the first place, them just not talking to each other, and again how Steven only does so the moment he's about to leave really doesn't feel there's been a change in their dynamic.

[memryse]

@nelson-and-murdock-and-page posting this reply publicly so i can promo my faves <3

my personal favourite style-wise right now is paperstxrs, she just has such lovely designs she’s basically the reason i’ve decided i’m learning to sew the minute i finish my study abroad. like this dress made me want to cry from how pretty it is i love everything she’s ever made actually

i really love bernadette banner, she’s a historical fashion youtuber who exclusively uses historical methods (so no sewing machines. she’s crazy) not necessarily the best for actually… Learning to sew for that reason but she makes a lot of cool dress history videos, some really funky sewing projects and just generally insane videos but you’d never guess it because she is just so classy victorian lady.

rachel maksy is my favourite all rounder i’d say? she’s done a lot of vintage projects (i am very much in my 50s clothes phase the past year or so this is important to me) but she prefers more hobbit-y nature whatever vibes these days and. yeah she does a lot of random projects of the “you wouldn’t actually wear these but it’s really fun to watch her make them” variety. and she’s also just really funny

sewstine primarily does historical costuming, and she blends fashion history into her projects really well! for instance i really liked her version of blackbeard’s fancy jacket in ofmd where she discussed the costuming of the show and what it would have actually looked like. she’s also done a few other movie/tv show recreations and some videos on minority rep in media though i haven’t watched those myself so. can’t speak to how good they are

i haven’t watched too many loepsie videos but i really enjoyed her teuta matoshi inspired series and i definitely do plan on watching more of her! however i can say definitely watch that series if you like watching people make the most bubblegum pink clothes imaginable which I Sure Do

i really really love mina le who by all accounts doesn’t belong here because she’s not a sewing youtuber but she makes a lot of really interesting videos about fashion trends, costuming in media, film/tv reviews etc. and she also always refers to her viewers as completely insane things like “my consumption hotties”, “my evil hags” i really enjoy that

and lastly karolina żebrowska who does a lot of skits in full historical costume but she does make more informative videos and a lot of reviews about media costuming as well!

one off rec: sarah spaceman’s strawberry dress video which is half making a recreation and half discussing the history of the dress’s popularity, lirika matoshi as a person and the actual ethics of making dress recreations i really enjoyed it. she mostly does cosplay stuff other than this video though i believe but i Really liked this video

need to finish my empires catchup so i can finally watch rats smp…

[daisiesonafield-blog]

It’s easy to think every single thing is part of a conspiracy but it’s not usually true. Olivia and Harry are a big tabloid target now, so all the tabloids are going to be coming up with their own angle to get clicks. Every single celeb couple regularly has engagement rumours. US started it and then the even lower level tabloids piled on. DM obviously checked if Harry was confirmed to attend and when he wasn’t, they ran with it. If he doesn’t go, he will look like a dickhead though. He’ll look like he’s abandoning Olivia and also the project. Is she going to sit at the press conference by herself? Just her and Chris? Can’t see the studio loving that. And I feel badly for the crew who worked hard on the project only for its director (and Harry) to make it look asinine.

Hi dear,

Yeah that's pretty much what I meant when I said it's all promo and promo is all lies.

It's clear they're trying to handle this bc they would've been absolutely insufferable with holivia and Olivia inserting herself in every single press piece. But now they've pulled back due to the backlash, and she's not playing the leading role of 'Harry Styles' adoring girlfriend who watches her bf every night on tour' - you know every Harry fan's dream! Anyways, I digress. What I mean is, she would've been on tour with him and doing pap walks, and they would've released even more interviews and articles about her/him/dwd had it not been for the RS backlash. So they're "laying low" until the controversy blows over.

But the point of my post and what I said was pretty much that this is all just bs drama to drum up more press and interest in her and DWD. Ofc some of it is just trashy tabloids jumping on the 'hot topic of the moment', but a lot of it is also what they've pushed to go ahead. Haven't you noticed how in all of this drama there has been very little targeted towards Harry? Nothing about him "cheating with Olivia". They mention it, sure, but they're not making it into a scene. Tabloids would love to use any and all scandals for their own profit, and yet they're not using this. This would make it even more dramatic. And there's no mention of Harry's situation or anything in regards to the drama. Just a ton for Florence, Olivia and Shia. That's in part bc Harry hasn't commented, but also bc they have a tight grip on the narratives they let out there. Harry's image is that of a sweetheart so they can't very well have endless tabloids about him being an outright asshole. And they do control that.

I'm not sure about Daily Mail checking, bc The Hollywood Reporter actually said H was confirmed to attend. So like I said, they're just creating more drama so people tune in to the event and they get more clicks.

Once that's over they'll surely release a new wave of drama until the movie is out. Or use whatever dumb ass arguments come out of Olivia's mouth during her interviews.

I agree H would not look good if he pulled out of the festival last minute. I just worry what they'll do once there. Obviously everyone is expecting him and Olivia to have their big "red carpet couple debut". Hopefully this recent wave of backlash slashed those plans. They should not do that. They should absolutely not have them together and put H with Florence - who plays his character's wife. That's what would make the most sense. Now if Flo is actually backing out of press, then put him with Gemma and Olivia with Chris, bc isn't he her husband in the film? Or am I mixing it up? Whatever. The point is, any sane team would not want on set romances in their movie press tour. It's about the characters not the actors. Except Olivia has made damn well sure this movie is about Olivia Wilde and her life. "The Victory Project" de damned.

--

I don't even know where I'm going with this. Clearly I'm tired. In more ways than one.

All you get is me ranting.

Note: related to this