#I also wish they would've gone with more detailed designs! you can do so much more with 3d models and I feel like they were lacking a bit

[bishopony]

Sunny n Hitch, as I make my way around the G5 cast. I really prefer Hitch's blue color from the concept art ^^'

[adobe-outdesign]

Could you review Loudred? Did you ever play MD:E?

(I have not, but these reviews mostly cover design so it wouldn't affect my opinion much anyway.)

Whismur is probably the least interesting out of this line, but it's still a a pretty neat creature. This line is themed around sound, so naturally Whismur is timid and based off of quiet sounds, getting upset by the loudness of its own crying.

It also breathes through its ear canals, which is an interesting detail.

Visually, I love its eyes. They capture its timid and freaked-out personality perfectly, and are just such an interesting and distinct design. Otherwise, it's fairly standard fair, though the ears covering its ear holes is a nice touch. The base color is pleasant, and the yellow accents help to break up the body a bit.

I do wish that it retained the purple color of its evos, however; it's a bit strange that it and only it is a different color from the rest of the line, and we have a lot of pink-ish round Pokemon already. I also kind of wish there was something more sound-related in the design beyond just the ears, which are an easy detail to miss.

I feel like they were going for something with the volume marking and hole on its back, but it also just looks pretty awkward. I would've given it a longer "tail" and maybe bent it to a degree, or just left it off (though I do like the continuity it creates with the rest of the line).

Loudred is where the line really gets interesting. While I personally like Exploud a bit more, Loudred here does a great job at both making sense as a middle evo and having a unique design that's not just a transition between point A and B.

Visually, the most obvious addition here is the loudspeaker ears. They're weird, they're fun, they tie into the theme, and they're distinct to it. I do think I would've gone for yellow instead of black, but I can also see the argument that the black helps draw attention to them, as they are the most important part of the design.

Beyond the ears, Loudred also has a gaping mouth with four teeth and yellow lips that kind of reminds me of a hippo, which also helps convey the idea that this thing is Really Loud. The yellow around the mouth is accented by yellow pads under the feet, while the rectangular teeth are matched by the shape of its hind claws. It's a great design all around—reads easily, showcases its theme, and looks unique.

My only nitpick would be that I do wish Whismur's eyes were portrayed in some fashion, given that they were so distinct. I can see dropping them to an extent due to them looking very timid, but even just having Loudred's eyes still be closed at this stage might've helped retain a bit of that element. That's obviously not a big deal though, given how strong the rest of the design is.

It also has the same "tail" issue that Whismur does, though the volume symbol going up is a nice touch.

One thing I really like about this line is that they're not really based off a singular animal, possessing hippo-like mouths on bipedal bodies with claws and all sorts of interesting other anatomical quirks. While there's nothing wrong with Pokemon based on a specific pre-existing thing, I do love a good monster, and Exploud here in particular is really good at that.

Instead of retaining the boombox look of Loudred, it exchanges the loudspeakers for a lot of organ-like pipes—which both allow Loudred to have a unique element and make Exploud feel like a suitable enhancement to it. It does, however, retain a few elements of Loudred's, such as the color scheme, gaping mouth, and teeth/claws, which ensure that the two look like they belong together.

I really like the overall shape of this thing—how the formally awkward hole in the back has been extended out into these really cool exhaust port-esq twin tails, how the pipes around the head form a crest that somewhat reminds me of a dinosaur, the angular jaw shape and arm, etc. It all comes together perfectly and gives it an incredibly distinct shape and design that I love.

The closest thing I have to an issue is that it's a shame the volume marking was lost on the back, and it's a bit odd that the eye suddenly turns red for no reason. Those are super minor, however, and this is still a great design overall.

Side note: I like that it only raises its voice in battle and instead makes whistling noises for communication reasons, presumably to avoid deafening others of their kind. That's a nice bit of attention to detail.

So as a whole: this is a very strong line. Each stage ties back to their main theme but has some element in their designs that's different in each evo, maintaining continuity while also making each stage enjoyable in their own right. The actual creature designs are top-notch and memorable. 10/10, would yell again.

[rappaccini]

toh finale thoughts

as before, the animation is stunning. the attention to detail is unmatched and the fight scenes were gorgeous.

damn vee literally did nothing in the end huh

and the caleb-evelyne thing sure never mattered.

the dreamworld was cool. wish they'd gone into more depth with luz and belos paralleling to make that hallucination feel much more impactful. as is, it just feels like luz is cosplaying him rather than we're learning some deep-seated fear in her psyche. the 'you've been the whole villain all along' thing really falls flat if we never receive any indications that it's possible for luz to become that.

bringing it back to luz eda and king was great. i missed this trio.

i find the collector clip show funny.

deeply appreciate them not asspulling a redemption for belos. yes, most people can be reached with kindness and forgiveness... but some can't. most people are doing the best they can. some are not.

i definitely think that the whole 'Luz is a Good Person, You Guys' thing that takes up the first half of the special is the writers trying to address the bullshit criticisms of her character and the badfaith flattening of amity in particular into a generic mean girl. which, well they're not assassinating the chars to appeal to those fans, but they also didn't need to address it either.

love the symbolism of luz getting killed and resurrected, getting to meet god and gain power from him

the gnarly entropy luz's body gets was a great design.

so's her titan form. it's so magical-girly but that's part of the charm. luz gets to not just dress up as her favorite character, but be something her own.

the animation in this fight sequence is stunning.

don't like hunter being demoted to support crew in the final showdown with His Abuser. no one deserves this confrontation more than him and he doesn't even get a chance to tell belos to fuck off and give luz the green card to beat his ass. she just goes lion turtle while he's stuck on the blimp. again, they wanted season 3b zuko so bad they skipped all the most important parts of that arc. in this case, zuko facing ozai during black sun, telling him he's wrong, and saying he'll leave his defeat to the avatar.

like. this is Luz's Fight, being that she's the protagonist and the emperor's foil. but hunter needed to participate too. the bare minimum would've been him and luz having a private moment where he gives her his blessing to pulp his uncle.

sure, give hunter something to do helping the folks at the archives, but he doesn't know them like the hexsquad do.

also again i wish they let luz keep her glyph magic instead of moving on to a palisman. toh spend three seasons building up luz's new unique magic style only to say 'sike! it was a placeholder until she could get the Exact Same Thing Everyone Else Has'. yes camila and the hexsquad get to use it in the climax, but it's luz's magic. it feels wrong that she dropped it as soon as she got a cooler replacement. there had to be some way for her to integrate it more prominently into her titan magic.

belos as final boss had to happen. relieved they didn't make it the collector at the last second. giving him no forgiveness and handing over his destruction to the people he hurt and the literal land he colonized was excellent. smart sidestep of the Kid Protag Can't Kill rule that feels thematically coherent (stares at atla). especially him being melted by water like a classic fairy tale witch

and making him the literal heart of the rot, to match the metaphorical one he was the whole time.

luz keeping her dorky self, but now having the confidence to call herself luz instead of luzura? wonderful.

archives. clever way to sidestep killing everyone bc kids cartoon.

love hunter being adopted by darius. it was properly built up and they seem like a great match personality wise. it caps off hunter's need for a new family (not to mention a new father figure who actually loves and cares for him), and darius's need to redeem himself for his complicity in letting belos abuse his nephew.

salty fandom side note: my controversial opinion is that Hunter Noceda the headcanon reeks to me of a group of people who earnestly wanted to see a pair of adopted male-female siblings being the main characters of a cartoon of this nature, projecting that dynamic onto two friends who aren't related or the same species, who definitely do have romantic tension that just never goes anywhere, who briefly live together as teens being cared for by the same adult after having never known each other as children, and whose parents aren't/will never be married, hallucinating it into Two Literal Siblings, having that interest whipped into an insistent fury that it's the Only Interpretation Allowed by lunter antis/the most rabid lumity stans who wanted an excuse to declare the ship problematic, and since it being abusive would mean blackwashing hunter's character and that was out of the question, they went with it being incest by the vaguest of technicalities, therefore literal 100% no-different-from-two-bio-siblings-fucking incest, therefore anyone who likes lunter becomes depraved, abusive, somehow also homophobic and therefore a 'valid' target for mobbing.

anytime i see art of luz and hunter in a pose that could be interpreted as romantic, and the word 'siblings' is slapped in the description i just think 'so you definitely know what you drew and that people would see it that way. you're just too insecure to let people interpret it as they please, huh'

anyway, hunter deamonne was the right choice. given how quickly hunlow got smashed together to Protect Lumity's Innocence, i'm relieved the writers didn't asspull hunter into the noceda family just to please the fans.

(.... to the people who want luz to have a sibling from the boiling isles who was adopted by camila to protect them from belos, THAT'S VEE)

speaking of ~hUnTeR nOcEdA~ who wants to bet the next ironclad luz-and-hunter-are-siblings pivot will be 'obviously darius and alador marry because they were onscreen together for one shot, and since lumity marry, and hunter is darius's adopted son, they are siblings-in-law and therefore the Exact Same Thing as literal full-on-related-siblings-who-were-raised-together.' fucking. idiots.

or maybe the even more elaborate mental gymnastics routine of 'obviously darius and camila will marry, making luz and hunter stepsiblings'.

either way, it's canon that these two characters who aren't related... aren't related. i feel like people need reminding of that.

i love ending on a time skip epilogue

i appreciate that rebuilding the isles is a work in progress that'll take years. no magical everything-is-fine-now-that-we-killed-the-bad-guy

their college designs are great

palisman carver hunter works. give him a quiet life surrounded by the wild magic he was denied, helping to create things

gus and willow's endings are solid. gus living his human world loving dream, willow getting to beat ass. good for them.

amity certainly was doing... something?

luz staying in the magical realm is great. this story is about not having to choose a category or group to ally yourself with, and finding your own path. it was never going to involve luz going back to the human world forever.

i do wonder if she finished hs in the human realm though. i think that's an important aspect of her character that's been overlooked-- she came to the isles to find the belonging she didn't find in the human world. she needed to go back to the human world, even if only temporarily, to show how her adventure changed her as a person. i'll give it a pass given how truncated this season was. her hs days were probably cut for the first special. still hope she got to have them to some extent.

love the nocedas buying the portal house. best of both worlds is the best ending.

pour one out for flapjack.

again i acknowledge that hunlow's buildup got totally wiped out because s3 had to be truncated. yes, it probably would've been much more developed if s3 got to be a whole twenty or even just ten episodes. sucks. still don't like them as a couple. still reeks of 'we need to pair up the biggest threats to lumity together so Nothing Can Touch Our Baby' and it's still annoying when they coulda just written all four characters better from day 1.

again amity is here to be The Girlfriend. it's wonderful and groundbreaking that a disney cartoon gets to have its main couple be two female characters who get to be a couple onscreen during the run of the show but it's still such an undersell of amity as a character. wish she got her own role in the story as an individual.

so in full review... yeah toh is a mostly-great show with some gaping weak points. even with all the issues i have with it, it's unquestionably beautiful to look at, full of fantastic ideas and characters, made by people who deeply loved what they were doing and mostly stuck to their guns. if this came out when i was a preteen, i'd have loved it.

but that being said, preteen me didn't watch it. adult me did.

adult me appreciates all those aspects and especially how the creatives chose to die falling on their queer sword instead of letting the mouse censor things and water down the message. but adult me does think there are some gaping holes in the writing that keep toh from being one of the All Time Greats. avatar come again, this is not. it's close, but not quite there. i'll recommend it to everyone forever, but i Will talk about the issues too.

yes, the romance is one of my big issues. lumity was just wlw kataang. it was cute and you saw it coming, and Yes I Sure Am Glad It Was Able To Exist... but it totally overpowers and consumes amity's individual character. not to mention that all luz and amity's individual character arc moments could have been better satisfied by pairings with hunter and willow respectively. it's just odd that a show this strongly written failed so hard in this regard, and either didn't at all realize that their two main couples should have swapped partners, or definitely knew and consciously chose to go with the worse option because they wanted wish fulfillment.

but more than that, the biggest problem with toh isn't actually that it was shot dead by disney before it could finish its story on its own terms. if anything these three supersized episodes showed that it was capable of efficient storytelling all along and just didn't do it. season 1's pacing was really fucking bad, and introducing hunter in s2 was a massive mistake. even if they did get two-and-a-half seasons, they still could've ended on such a stronger note if hunter was in s1, and if they actually let the plot get rolling before s1e18.

and on the fandom end of things i'm most happy that the worst people in the fandom will move on to find another children's cartoon to make unbearable for everyone else. ideally the lunter shippers can finally poke their heads out and have fun with the (disclaimer, in the event some nutjob reads this:) non-canon ship. including and especially multishippers.

in general, it's always fun to see how fandoms develop after the dust settled. which headcanons, aus, and theories gain prominence, which discourses are forgotten. which ships and characters aren't remembered fondly, which ones will get a retroactive groundswell. what aspects of the show will be loved, which will be critiqued.

[lunex-the-cat]

🌟Background Sentries🌟

God I cannot believe I got this far. Even if for design fun, 12 whole characters. I'm happy to present them all together in this height chart!

Do you have a favorite of them? I'd love to know!

Marking this as sorta like a checkpoint, I wanted to ramble write down some of my thought processes from when I was designing the characters. What I was going for, what little personality I imagined for them as I went along the way and my self critiques after the fact. You can read all that below the read more.

⬇ ⬇ ⬇ The references ⬇ ⬇ ⬇

Arson:

Arson's reference made me think of 2 things when I saw it. It surprisingly gave me cowboy vibes and I knew immediately this guy is fuckboy bastard. A complete and utter jerk. And he is. He is a demon and loves to make people angry or get in fights.

I love Arson so damn much, but being the first one I designed out of the bunch, he's the one I'd want to give the most revisions to. Mainly 2 big things. First is the colors with the eyes. The values with the sockets and the eye lights are too similar and that makes it a lot tougher to make out his eye lights. I think I wish I'd gone with a brighter shade of yellow.

The second is that I wish I had made him a lot wider, buffer. It's the image I had in mind from the start, but unfortunately, I hadn't figured out how to do that yet at the time of drawing him. So, while if I draw him again in the future, he'll be bigger. For this reference, he shall remain a string bean.

Also, as a last little nit pick, I shouldn't have accidentally hid one of the buttons on his vest with his arm lmao.

Pax:

Pax's name means peace and given the green color of his magic, I think inevitably, he's some kinda healer type. With the bright pastels of his body, it would've been real easy to go the small and cute route. Which I do like, but isn't what I felt with Pax.

Instead, I wanted to take a cute pastel look on the body and a maybe softer personality and build up the opposite around that to contrast. Big, tall, and intimidating and luckily by the time I did Pax, I actually kinda knew how to do a broader body type, so of course I jumped on that. No idea if I actually pulled off what I wanted there.

I wasn't really sure where I was going with the outfit aside from that I was gonna color it dark. Warrior-ish I guess. Kinda gives a ninja vibe to me now if I'm honest. His outfits had so many different tries in the sketching stage. There is one other thing that was intentionally planned with the clothes. I tried a reoccurring shape theme with rectangles in his outfit. Being of the newest batch and still pretty fresh in my mind. I'm not really sure about any changes I'd want to make yet.

Hecate:

There isn't a ton I'm going to comment on despite Hecate being one of my favorites. Going by the reference, I wanted Hecate to be a little creepy, little mysterious. Her robes and such I did wing pretty heavily, but I think I did well enough with Hecate in the idea I wanted.

Their name is that of the greek goddess of magic and I think that also lends well to the sort of eldritch deer vibe he has going. Even though Hecate is creepy, I don't think they actually want to hurt anyone. Doesn't mean they don't unnerve everyone with their near unchanging expression, though.

Zanna:

2 big thoughts I had with Zanna. I wanted a sorta water or mother goddess vibe for Zanna and she had to have the blank but striking, brightly color sockets. Admittedly, it wasn't Zanna who had to have that detail, but I wanted a character with that look real bad. I'd wanted to figure out how to incorporate the makings on the body from the reference but couldn't figure it out. In the end, I suppose having her be a bit more simple is better.

Zanna's name means lily. Sorta a life goddess feel, watering plants and such. I think she actually was a goddess in her AU, being in the Pocket Void now though, she no longer holds such power or doman. She accepts this and doesn't try to use the sway she no longer has.

Vini:

I like what I ended up with Vini but I didn't have much of an image for her going in. If I where to change anything, maybe I'd mess around with the clothes and see about more details for them because they feel a bit simple.

For personality Vini is really sweet but a bit of a gossip. She has trouble keeping secrets and likes to know everything that's going on socially. She never wants to hurt anyone but with her loose words she may end up doing it on accident sometimes.

Aromel:

Aromel's name is a type of strawberry but they aren't sweet. They're pretty but bitter. Blunt and not trying to be social with many. Aromel might've been an angel, or something holy in his AU.

Change wise I'd probably wanna mess around with the clothes colors a little more, cause the singluar bit of green on the chest draws away a bit to much from the eyes.

Verdin:

Verdin's name was so close to being Tanager but a few friends liked Verdin more. I swear I'm gonna use that name at some point. In anyway a verdin is a bird with yellow on it, so that's really all the explanation needed for the name.

Kinda wish I'd given him a bird's tail like I imagined but aside from that I don't think I'd wanna change much about him. God ribs are hard though.

Knew from the beginning Verdin's an action and adventure type. Kind and sociable but also a little bit mean in his bluntness.

Fun note Verdin has the smallest color palette.

Delta:

Delta's name is in reference to the symbol in math which is also displayed on the letterman jacket she wears. I wanted school jock vibe for Delta. Sorta a sporty look I tried to do but I think she's also very smart academically.

While being a very talented and smart person, Delta gets into trouble all the hecking time. It's not on purpose but she has a temper and when someone makes her angry, she has a penchant to make others angry too.

The hair was very fun to color and it being fiery is some simple symbolism towards he being easy to make mad. She's probably one of Arson's favorite targets to tease.

Ryder:

I saw Ryder's reference and knew basic features wise, that reads girl. IE, pink and purple, blush and eyelashes. So of course I decided, yeah I'm going to make this a man. Along the way also gaining a biker aesthetic. Underneath that leather jacket the sleeves of the t-shirt he wears where totally ripped off to make that bow he has on his head.

Even though he's pretty obviously an underfell monster I think Ryder's actually pretty dang friendly. Might have something to do with the perseverance purple eyelight he has.

Cho:

With Cho and their reference, I really liked the feeling of a sorta broken butterfly. Damaged but still beautiful. He's definitely a survivor of some horrortale variant. Horrorswap? Idk. He's quiet kind and I think they like gardening.

I had done some pretty light googling with Cho's name. From what I had found it means butterfly in Japanese and beautiful in Korean. I really do not know how accurate that is but even if it's not I just like the way Cho sounds when said.

In any way the wings I think are definitely the strong point of the design and the clothes the weakest. I wasn't fully sure what I was doing with the clothes and even now not fully sure what I'd change about them. Probably the colors.

Tyrian:

Tyrian's name is in reference to royal purple/tyrian purple because of the prominent purple in their reference/palette. I actually looked up the color tyrian purple and used the specific hue for the color their magic in the palette. Which bouncing off from there I wanted to give Tyrian a very rich, royal look. He could maybe use more jewelry in some way but I did get the look I imagined in the end.

I also tried a reoccurring shape theme with him, using lots of little diamond shapes and trying to make the eye shapes on his wings a little more diamond shaped too.

Floss:

Floss I was trying to experiment with pushing bodily proportions and am so happy I did. I love his massive hands so so much. I gave him such a massive fluffy coat cause I wanted to push on the fact that his body is actually really tiny.

His name comes from the term fairy floss, which is another thing cotton candy is called. This is in reference to his pink and blue, cotton candy color palette.

Floss is a little gremlin type of guy. Enjoying climbing on people like jungle gyms, poking, other weird but generally harmless fun. Even though he's quite the chaos type, he doesn't actually speak most of the time. Usually using his massive hands for sign language. Possibly selectively mute? He does like to hum and make noises a lot though.

If you happened to read all my ramblings, thank you so much!💚

[silverinia]

I came for Baranski, I stayed for Baranski - a quick Christmas On The Square review someone* actually asked for

(* thank you, anon)

Disclaimer: I am in no way a professional of any sorts when it comes to film and I'm not a journalist either. The last movie review I've written was probably for a school assignment in eighth grade. I didn't do research for this and I've watched the movie exactly one time, so this is just for fun.

It was a Sunday, Sunday the 22nd of November, nearing the end of the train wreck of a year that is 2020. I woke up on an air mattress around seven am, my head aching, my throat itching with pyrosis and light nausea, it was still dark outside behind the closed blinds in front of the windows, when I slowly realised where I was, one of my best girlfriends sleeping next to me in her bed. I had crashed at her place after a warm, fuzzy evening of mulled wine, tacky Christmas movies I would never watch alone (Christmas Chronicles and Holiday Calendar, which I quite honestly didn't enjoy at all, but the company made it fun anyway), doing our nails, wearing the fun kind of face masks for a change and smoking too many cigarettes, as the soft pain in my head informed me right now. She woke up an hour later and the morning went by with coffee and reheated pizza for breakfast, when we decided to watch another movie and I realised that it was THE Sunday I'd been waiting for through Zoom interviews and Dolly Parton twitter memes and the infamous wig gate that will be briefly discussed in the following, and so we clicked on the small icon in the Netflix menu that said "Christmas On The Square".

And oh boy, was it a ride.

To start off, I should mention that I have a hard time watching most modern day American Christmas movies, as I noticed quite vividly again when I watched the two aforementioned Netflix productions last night. The character development is always foreseeable to say the least, the plot lines are plain clichés hunting each other like they're the kids in The Hunger Games, and the writing is generally so bad that you can join the actors in reciting the entire scripts on your first watch. I watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas once a year while I'm gift wrapping and pause every fifteen minutes to shamelessly stare at forties Christine Baranski (I think we should all turn away from the birth of Jesus and instead count our years based on Christine Baranski's date of birth) in flamboyant nightgowns and short Christmas themed dresses, looking so fabulous that every interpreter of Santa Baby ever could only dream of it, I watch Love Actually at least five times a year to lust over Hugh Grant, cry with Emma Thompson and miss Alan Rickman, I enjoy Bridget Jones, which I would definitely consider a Christmas movie, and that's it. That's my yearly Christmas time entertainment routine and I can barely tolerate anything beyond, because I'm still traumatised from the time when I was around five years old and on a holiday family visit where had to sit through National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, the dumbest movie I have ever seen (my apologies if you like it but also, who hurt you?), with my cousins. I hated it. I hated every minute of it. And it scarred me for life.

But this was a Christine Baranski movie, I knew she was going to play the lead and so I was pretty much as excited about this as I could. And the fact that Dolly Parton wrote the whole thing didn't hurt either. As I said earlier to my friend I was watching it with, I have the pop cultural taste of a fifty year old gay man, a quality I am most proud of, and this simply ticked off all my boxes.

I expected something similar to a Mamma Mia experience that wouldn't cause me to crave packing my bags, give Covid the finger and run off to Greece. Light-hearted entertainment, easy to stomach, uplifting music and so little plot that the simplicity feels like a creative choice. That's what my pained, hungover brain knew it could cope with and that's not what I got.

The movie started and I was immediately in the zone. I saw Christine Baranski's name in the front credits (an experience that never fails to make me scream "Yass Queen" at the screen, regardless of where I am and who I'm with, as if I'm the sobering result that pops out of the package when you order Jonathan Van Ness on Wish), the setting was wonderfully corny (I grew up watching Gilmore Girls once a week, so give me warm fairy lights and a gazebo and I'm perfectly happy) and as my friend wondered whether Dolly Parton, in her exaggerated homeless attire that didn't make her look shabby at all, was green-screened into the setting because she stood out so much (which she was because the background dancers were dancing in slow motion, but to be fair, we were probably still a little too drunk to notice that from the start) and I told her I thought that it was just the natural glow someone who's Dolly Parton simply carries with them everywhere they go, I was happy. This was the movie I was prepared for. A movie in which the most problematic thing would be stereotypical characters and the wig they hid Christine's real, flawlessly handmade by God herself hair under.

And then, around five minutes in, Christine Baranski's childhood love interest was revealed as she pressed her perfect pointy nose against the window of his shop and sang about her unrequited love.

And suddenly, things started taking turns at a pace I was still way too sleep-deprived for.

Suddenly, in the middle of my general amazement at seeing Christine Baranski do literally anything and laughing loud at her impeccable comedic delivery, there were unresolved daddy issues, hanging prominently at the wall in her marvellously designed house (she literally says "Daddy" at one point and I couldn't help but think that only someone with her vocal skills could keep from making it sound cringe-worthily kinky). One moment, I was clutching my chest above my heart while she was bonding with little bartender Violet and munching on pretzels while downing some whiskey in that elegant way only Christine Baranski can bond with ten year olds who had it rough, eat pretzels and down whiskey, and the next she felt responsible for said girl's mother's death (which she kinda was too, but I'm not the boss of her). I was still busy making fun of how the very annoyingly, but when you're snacking on pizza with extra cheese at nine in the morning also highly funny, slow talking pastor's name was Christian, and suddenly there was a cancer scare.

It was a lot, a hasty sprint from major issue to major issue with a hint of comedic relief every now and then, and it didn't get any less until the very, rather poorly resolved, end.

The entire, constant up and down was followed by the movie's peak of suspense, the near death of precious Violet, something I couldn't even get too invested in because I was still so busy worrying about Christine's MRT results (I was truly fucking worried), not to mention that I hadn't even started to really process the sudden revelation of the love child and how it had affected her character's actions until this point. Was her constant tendency of pushing people away, as we've seen most clearly with her angel in training assistant who's name I cannot recall right now, the result of her broken trust in her father who practically ripped her son away from her after she had just given birth to him? Was it a result of her never getting the closure she needed with plaid flannel wearing Carl she was clearly still in love with? Maybe both? And what of the many issues was it that made her so incredibly shaken up when Violet blamed herself for her mother's death? Was it 'just' due to the fact that the closed pharmacy was on her, or was there more to it? Was it because she had grown up without a mother herself? Or did I miss a major piece of information because I was momentarily distracted, dumbfoundedly staring at Christine's very blue eyes? No time to ponder on that, little Silverinia, because here comes unconscious Violet in an ambulance, WEE WOO WEE WOO WEE WOO!

I'm not going to go in depth about what plot lines I thought were especially carelessly handled and why, real standouts were the sudden forgiveness towards her father who had still acted like a shitty asshole even though he might have had his reasons, because giving the baby up for adoption just wasn't his choice to make, and the fact that I kind of didn't buy how quickly Regina managed to forgive herself, especially for Violet's mother's passing, considering how deeply her tall, slim, dare I say angelic and entrancing figure was buried beneath the weight of all her issues. It felt rushed and incomplete, but that's as detailed as it gets because my major point is something else.

I think this movie made the great mistake of trying to be more than your average, flat, happy ending Christmas movie. I think no one involved thought it was possible to make it a big hit if the only real plot would've been great Dolly Parton music, fun ensemble dance choreographies, Christine Baranski's outstanding acting skills, fun settings and costumes and a redemption arch with as little plot as it could possibly take to make Christine likable to those who aren't already lost forever in the rabbit hole of being obsessed with her (poor fuckers, can't relate). They didn't notice that with the legends that were involved, they could've easily gone the Mamma Mia way. And I think that's why they tried to include heavier plot lines than most creators would've chosen, experiencing loss at an early age, struggling to find closure, dealing with sickness, teenage pregnancy, parents forcing their choices on their children when they affect their childrens' lives first, adoption, and the fear of losing your kid.

It was a lot and I don't want to say that it didn't work because my friend was crying, like, pretty hard and I questioned my entire existence all through the movie in not the worst way, and I did enjoy it a lot while watching. The "grief is love with nowhere to go" line was a real standout, for example, where the attempt of complexity DID work. It positively gave me fleabag season two, "I don't know what to do with it now, with all the love I have for her." - "I'll take it. It sounds lovely. You have to give it to me." feels, and that's about the biggest praise I can come up with. BUT (and this is written in capital letters because it's the big but) I'm also totally convinced that I wouldn't have enjoyed it if they hadn't cast Christine Baranski for the lead role. In my humble opinion, the hasty, not really at all resolved plot of this movie only worked because Christine Baranski is just a fantastic actress. She quirks a mocking eyebrow and you laugh. She parts her perfectly painted red lips and you immediately hang on them because you don't want to miss a single breath she, a literal goddess, graces us mere peasants of people with. She smiles and you're happy. She laughs and even while she's still laughing, you can't wait to hear her do it again. Her eyes fill with tears and you feel goosebumps on your arms, her voice slightly trembles, a breath hitches in her throat and you feel your heart shattering to pieces. As Chuck Lorre once said, this woman could read you the phone book and you would end up laughing tears because she just gets the job done. She knows what she's doing, she's an absolute pro in her game, and it doesn't matter, not even a little bit, what she's working with, because the work she eventually delivers with it is always at a minimum of 200%. I forced my friend to watch this movie with me because I adore this woman, and I felt for this movie because I felt for her. It wasn't the plot that sadly brutally overestimated itself, it wasn't the songs that I obviously enjoyed, nor the comedic elements that truly made me laugh a lot, it was all her. I came for Baranski, and I stayed for Baranski. This woman can do anything. She can even look graceful in a terrible wig job.

(side note / unpopular opinion: I actually didn't think the wig was all too bad. It wasn't good, actually far from good, but for me, nothing can match the awful wig game of Mamma Mia 2. I loathed that wig, I absolutely cannot stand it. So this didn't feel all that terrible. It definitely wasn't the most problematic part about the movie.)

I enjoyed watching this. It was a nice distraction from all the bullshit in the world. Watching it today was the first thing this year that actually brought me something close to excitement about the holiday season, even though everything will be very different and probably not quite as jolly this year. But it just gave me good vibes and as someone who did not watch this as a film reviewer, that's the biggest part of what leads me to enjoy a movie.

Will I watch this again? For sure. Will I enjoy it when I'm not hungover, having freshly done nails and munching delicious pizza for breakfast? Probably not as much, but it'll still have Christine Baranski in it. Would I recommend watching this? If you share my obsession with Queen B, one hundo. If you don't, probably not.