#OH AND don’t forget the copaganda!!

[frogfacee]

byler is going to be canon in an unforgettable way but at what cost

[nightcoremoon]

it is hilarious that people will insult belittle demean and tear into the avengers movies or the legend of korra or halestorm or whatever is popular and claim they’re the worst of the worst bottom of the barrel sub F tier trash available on the market. true they’re not perfect and true they’re not everyone’s cup of tea and true they’re semi poppy and commercialized but this is a capitalist hell hole and you have to commercialize yourself or starve and taste is subjective and nothing is perfect. except maybe lord of the rings. but whatever it’s unimportant.

that is still in the barrel. that is still drinkable. still tasty.

I have seen what is under the barrel. I have seen the moldy rot-infested barnacles infesting the bowels of the industry. I have seen horrors that you lesser minded folks incapable of viewing the big picture couldn’t even begin to fathom. I am the protagonist of an eldritch horror novel and you are just a bystander NPC programmed to repeat what you hear and are told to believe from social media. you are a slave to tiktok and instagram and twitter thinking that whatever is the most popular thing at the time is the worst that you can get, but I am here to tell you that you don’t even know the first thing about objectively bad media.

morbius is the single worst marvel property ever made and yes that absolutely includes daredevil, ghost rider, Xmen 3, fantastic four: rise of the silver surfer. because at least they’re all still good stupid fun popcorn movies (except for silver surfer holy shit that was bad but even then I’d still rather watch that one twice than ever lay my eyes on morbius ever again). and please note that this is five atrocious marvel movies that are not part of your most hated cinematography universe. THERE ARE FIVE MARVEL MOVIES THAT ARE WORSE THAN THE “MARVEL MOVIES” THAT YOU ALL CLAIM TO HATE. and don’t even get me started on the dc movies (suicide squad & catwoman) and dark horse (spawn). and superhero movies in general. I haven’t even touched Netflix originals or other similar garbage.

Sierra Burgess. Tall Girl. The Kissing Booth. Secret Obsession. Swiped. Food Boy. MUSIC. CYBERBU//Y. ARTEMIS FUCKING FOWL. DON’T FORGET THE LAST GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING M NIGHT SHYAMALAN TRAINWRECK AIRBENDER (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ and how about Disney’s remakes? Shyamalan’s rest of the garbage pile? Every single shitty offensive terrible movie Paris Hilton paid for with daddy’s money??? Master of Disguise. Zoom. Cat in the Hat. N O R B I T. Loqueesha.

LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THAT LOQUEESHA IS A BETTER MOVIE THAN IRON MAN OR CAP 2.

“I don’t know what loqueesha is let me look it up.

oh.

oh no.”

Oldboy remake. Cats and Les Mis remakes. Half of Adam Sandler’s filmography. I could go on for hours here.

tell me korra is bad when PPG2016 exists. tell me halestorm is bad when brokencyde exists. tell me any film you’ve heard of is bad when video brinquiedo has a shittier ripped off lower budget & RACIST version of it.

you don’t know what you’re talking about. you only adopted the garbage. I was born in it. raised by it. molded by it. the first time I saw a genuinely good movie I was already grown, by then it was nothing but fun to me! yes I quoted the worst nolan batman movie but blatant copaganda it may be it’s still better than a significant portion of other films on the market especially now that streaming is the way of the future, a way to enable mediocre directors to churn out dozens and hundreds of hours of bad content than you decide to ignore and instead throw rocks at some of the only worthwhile viewing experiences available without cash. although occasionally you do get gems like EEAAO.

it’s the same old bandwagon as always. the haters will just move on to whatever the spotlight shines upon next.

[algernoninwonderland]

So, Optigami! It wasn't a very eventful one, or rather, a lot happened but since it was inconsequential for the most part, not much of anything actually happened at all. It was a bit frustrating, to be honest. Not horrendous, not by any means, but I wish this episode had done more.

The Good:

Nathalie! We hadn't seen her in quite a while! Optigami is indeed a pretty smart idea. You go, Nathalie.

DJWifi is nice and cute, pew pew!

Shadow Moth goes to the bathroom, fully transformed. It's ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous! Shadow Moth in any setting is ridiculous, but this in particular was really funny. I don't know if it was on purpose and I don't care.

It makes sense for Audrey to become Style Queen again. This is one of the times in which that repeat akuma makes sense considering the situation.

Kagami proves herself to be the best, once again. For about three seconds but these are three great seconds.

That Adriennette lift scene! It was cute and fun for the most part. Adrien is slowly becoming the awkward one and I quite like it. He's protective of his friends, and this includes Marinette.

Max is a good egg. I like Max. He understands what heroism is. It's good. He's good.

What are Luka and Wayhem doing in the air vent? It's stupid. But funny. And therefore great.

They're doing all sorts of funky things with the Eiffel Tower this season and I'm here for it.

Sentimonster Nino is a smart idea. The execution is another matter entirely, but the idea is neat.

Nice Miraculous unification there.

Gabriel knows that Alya is a person of interest… Now that could be interesting!

The Bad:

We're back to “Marinette fawning over her celebrity crush Adrien Agreste” and it's not entertaining, it's stale. That's season 1-3 stuff, I had hoped we'd move beyond that and it looks like we haven't.

I can't buy that this whole magazine thing has so few guests and half of them are Adrien's schoolmates.

Almost nothing is done with any of them, I appreciate that we get to see more of them but nothing is going on with them at all. Outside of Nino and Alya, they're all here for three seconds, barely get any lines…

They can't spell “Magazine” right. And Magazine is also spelled with a 'z' in French. They just don't care.

That Lorem Ipsum text again. We can clearly read it. The shot lasts for like a good five seconds. We can clearly tell that it's gibberish. It just breaks the immersion. Yes, I know it's to avoid different takes for each country but c'mon, at least do it in French! Very minimal effort has been put into this.

Some really horrendous rendering, these piles of gold look very much like these 2000s bowling alley CGI videos, which, for a show made in the late 2010s and early 2020s, is concerning.

Very little of this episode feels tense and suspenseful which, for a “locked room” plot, is a bit of a shame. If you want to remake Die Hard so badly, you should pay attention to the mood and tension of the scenes and also you shouldn't forget all the copaganda.

Chloé is terrible and uses her sister as a human shield. But this moment has no weight at all. Wayhem and Luka, I understand, they're not particularly close and it's just funny that Wayhem is a coward. But Zoé and Chloé? Their relationship is more meaningful than that, surely it should be treated with more levity. Right? Think again.

Oh, come on, Nathalie, you're supposed to be smart, and yet you just… Stop because Marinette isn't in your database? That's just cheap writing and the writers being unable to follow through with their own ideas.

Some cheap identity reveal fakeouts. I'm entirely desensitised to them and so are many other people, I'm sure.

The whole Sentimonster Nino thing and Alya feeling bad afterwards… That latter part doesn't really work.

Gabriel knows he should look into Alya some more, but it's a last minute thing and you immediately get mood whiplash when the end credits' upbeat song kicks in.

The Ugly:

Nothing. There's nothing outstandingly rubbish about this episode. But there aren't many good things about it either, is the problem.

It's not a bad episode, but it's not good either, it's somewhere in the middle and I found myself wanting more, but not in a good way.

[halohamilton]

"I think it's important to note and add that there are poc also IN the fandom who also have issues with this who shouldn't be talked over or dismissed either. There are valid reasons to be upset within and out of the fandom" YES!!! a lot of people in the fandom, particularly yts forget this. Yes we can sympathize with his closet but him accepting a role in a movie this behind and frankly a little tone deaf esp regarding copaganda is also upsetting to us! How are people not seeing this!

It's become simply a "Oh well his character is gay yay!" and "oh Emma might be queer yay!" etc. and dismissing other issues completely or simply addressing the queer community's valid concerns about this and dismissing the racial issues completely.

I haven't seen one person who is white publicly acknowledge and talk about both of these things. There are definitely people in the queer community outside of the fandom who will be upset particularly poc! But there are poc within the fandom too who understand the closet situation, who are happy he gets to play a queer role and (I do think he deserves to) who will still have an issue with what he's playing because it! Is! Still! An! Issue!

I don't know how many times I'll have to say it but there are for sure poc particularly black people being demonized and dismissed entirely of their concerns because him playing a white queer cop is more important to some people in this fandom.

Or

Some people's only concerns are of the GP queer community entirely and not acknowledging poc in the fandom who have valid concerns too.

When I tell you it is becoming tiring and frustrating to be a poc in this fandom, I mean it.

[strrawberrymilk]

Hi I was tagged by @kingon33 to do these questions from the Brene Brown podcast!! Thank u lol these are cute :)

1. Fill in the blank, vulnerability is: terrifying

2. You are called to be very brave, but your fear is real and you can feel it in the back of your throat. What’s the very first thing you do? Text or call everyone I care about to ask what they think I should do haha

3. What’s something that people often get wrong about you? Oh I have no idea lol. I guess people often think I’m very unfriendly/don’t like them when really I just have anxiety and have trouble talking 😭

4. Last TV show you binged and loved?The last show I binged was Jane the Virgin but I wouldn’t say I loved it although I did….watch it all over like 2 weeks so ummm maybe sopranos?

5. One of your favorite movies: this is difficult I watch a lot of movies…the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the original robocop LMAO it’s total copaganda but it’s fun and the special effects are pretty neat

6. A concert you’ll never forget: hmm it happened recently so it’s on the forefront of my mind but I did get to see rex bell perform rex’s blues at the old quarter and it broke my little heart and then repaired it and was incredible

7. Favorite meal? Rn baja shrimp tacos🧍🏻‍♀️🦐🌮

8. A snapshot of a moment in your life that brings you great joy: a cross country road trip with someone I miss very much about 2 years ago!

9. What’s on your nightstand? Like lots of crap bc I’m messy but notably a flag for my hometown, sparklers from Fourth of July and yarn for knitting

10. One thing that you’re deeply grateful for right now: that I moved across the country to the place I did, it has def changed my life for the better in many many ways

Okay once again just tagging any/all mutuals who want to do it 💕😇

[gold-onthe-inside]

Hey there

Favourite criminal minds episodes from any season?

oh god this is hard to choose. i did just go on a whole rant about doubt (because it really is a good episode) but i have favourites for different reasons. only doing seasons 1-7 because there are so many ugh

season 1: the ones that stood out for me the most was 'derailed' and 'the fisher king' (somebody's watching was just a painful episode, i'm sorry lila/reid shippers)

season 2: ngl, s2 was pretty good. my absolute favourite this season was 'lessons learned' is an AMAZING episode mostly because it highlights the brutality that happens in Guantanomo Bay and the way the system treats threats to national security. i'm sorry but no-one should be treated that way, not even a terrorist (which could totally be another post).

highlights include:

'the boogeyman' is actually one of my favorite episodes purely because the first time i watched it, i predicted the ending and it made me feel so big brain.

'north mammon' is also a really good episode purely because it tried to add some backstory to JJ. (if only they had kept up that momentum 😔)

obviously 'profiler, profiled' makes an appearance because OMG SHEMAR'S ACTING please i wanted to cry.

also mentioning 'the big game' + 'revelations' - i know it's a horrible representation of DID but i can't help it. it's an amazing episode.

'jones' was pretty good too, purely because willifer and also the concept of the abused becoming the abuser and how that doesn't invalidate the trauma they went through

season 3: obviously as explained in my previous post, 'doubt'. that episode almost made me forget this show is copaganda. in close second comes 'scared to death' even if it does kinda villainise a therapist. but still.

notable mentions:

'about face' gets a mention because it was rossi's first appearance and also imo emphasises how criminal profiling is not a science how had rossi been wrong, a woman could have died.

'in heat' is a beautiful episode because it shows how much pain LGBT+ people feel (speaking as a closeted bisexual) when they come out of the closet and then get beaten back inside. also gives us willifer and derek being pancoded

'the crossing' fucking devastated me. the whole battered wife plotline, why wasn't the whole plot based on that? i wasn't even paying attention to the other plot. the whole scene at the end, her killing her husband and then cleaning it up. when i tell you i screamed!!

THE FINALE!! OMG!! 'lo-fi' and 'mayhem' EXCUSE ME? MY GOD GIVEN SOLACE?!

season 4: the whole damn season, are you KIDDING me? who told them to go so hard? 'minimal loss' is by far my favourite (platonic spemily!!), even more than 'amplification' (moreid!!). overall their best season FIGHT ME!

i should add that i HATED the pigs finale. i refuse to name it. that tragedy, jesus! i don't even know what message they were trying to send us there, what, be afraid of intellectually disabled people? i'm sorry but what the FUCK? by far the most ableist episode i've ever watched (second most is coda but we'll get there)

season 5: '100' made me bawl. like a baby. i hate that episode. 'mosley lane' was incredible, thank you MGG my lord and saviour. 'the uncanny valley' also made me cry, potentially harder than 100. just the sheer 180 spencer reid gave from treating that poor girl's father to the way he treated her, i'm sorry it just, hits me so hard. and what morcia stan could forget 'exit wounds'?

season 6: ooh this was a great season. starting off strong with the premiere, 'the longest night', brilliantly written, loved shemar's acting, a wonderful episode, i have never felt less sympathy for an unsub. '25 to life', another wonderful derek-centric episode. derek is, hands down, one of the best profilers on the team and i have and always will trust his judgement. 'today i do' was another one that i didn't completely hate. the psychology behind that episode made sense, it was something i could definitely understand. and obviously, the whole ian doyle arc was amazing. i loved that.

okay, i've talked about 'coda' before. it was a great episode with one, one tiny flaw. i never understood the anti-seavers before today. y'all are fighting for the wrong reason. she is the epitome of ignorant ableism. she accused a child, A TEN YEAR OLD CHILD with autism of homicide. she accused a child of killing his parents. because he had autism. and the defense. the only defense. they could think of was that statistically, that sort of crime had a financial motive. are you kidding me? he was a child. that was raised with love and kindness. are you kidding me? i'm sorry, spencer playing piano with said child barely won me over.

season 7: off the top of my head, 'it takes a village' because reid's outfit and omg it was so brilliantly written. 'dorado falls' was pretty good, the PTSD was fairly accurately written. 'there's no place like home' purely for reid's frankenstein reference and willifer again. 'hope' was wonderfully written, my favourite penelope-centric episode ever. 'true genius' because it resonated with me so hard. the burnt-out gifted kid thing. i get it spence. 'snake eyes' because it was reid-centric and i loved him in that episode. also portrays gambling pretty well. it's often not seen as a serious addiction on tv, probably because it benefits big corporations. 'foundation' because it's a derek-centric episode and literally every derek-centric ep is amazing. and finally, 'hit' + 'run' are amazing episodes because willifer, emily completing her arc and spencer in a doctor who stume. let's just say this season did wonders for spencer's attractiveness.

kay, i'm gonna stop here or i'm never gonna stop. but those are my favourite episodes and why for every season.

[earhartsease]

There's a whole genre of US/UK/Canada tv shows that's "copaganda where a gifted civilian teams up with a detective to solve crimes and one of them is hot" and I find myself binge watching them like a car crash - and the more of them I watch the more obvious it is that they're all written to the same formula. Like they all have the same episodes, examples:

The big poker match

The fashion show

The strangers on a train

The "exotic magic" (either voudou or Chinese)

Oh and let's not forget, they all have an ep that's "cop shoots a perp but doesn't actually see their gun and feels terrible angst but of course it turns out the perp did have a gun"

Oh yeah and the constant "chasing a perp but they get away because the cop is too ethical to shoot to disable/bust a lock/whatever" and come on, have you seen the news?

And it's fascinating and repellent and I don't get why I'm still watching the damn things except to reinforce my sense of repellence at cops and because I'm a sucker for found family even when it's poisonous I guess, sigh

[incomprehensiblelentils]

Lentils’ 2020 Christmas Movie Rankings

My wife and I watched a lot of Christmas movies this year, and I thought it would be fun to rank them based on which ones I think were most watchable and enjoyable. I’ve left out a few that we watched during this time period, which are classic Christmas movies (Miracle on 34th Street), action movies set at Christmas (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3), or older romances set around Christmas (While You Were Sleeping and You’ve Got Mail), because it’s not fair to rank these amongst, well, some of the movies we saw.

my top 5, for those of you who don’t like reading (which is fair): The Princess Switch: Switched Again, Dashing in December, The Princess Switch, Jingle Jangle, Happiest Season.

my top 3 Chaotic Christmas Movies: A New York Christmas Wedding, 12 Pups of Christmas, The Princess Switch: Switched Again. Please watch these movies if you enjoy chaotic plots. Please especially watch the first two I listed because holy shit my summaries do not properly convey the chaos.

The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020): Some people on the internet have been VERY RUDE about this movie and I’m sorry they don’t appreciate a true chaotic holiday gem when they see it. This movie involves two Vanessa Hudgenses, Scheduled Vanessa and Spontaneous Vanessa, who are distant cousins and not twins, switching places to try to facilitate Spontaneous Vanessa getting back together with her ex the baker, but Scheduled Vanessa is intercepted by a third cousin Vanessa, Horny Vanessa, who wants to take Spontaneous Vanessa’s place as queen. I don’t want to spoil anything that happens in this movie so that you can experience the batshittery for yourself, but I found every second absolutely delightful. It also has two very good romantic couples who are cute and who genuinely seem to like each other, which is not something I can say for every movie on this list!

Dashing in December (2020): This movie has gay cowboys, is set on a ranch, and features a squaredancing scene, so if that isn’t your bag, you are probably not going to like it very much. I found it deeply charming and the only reason it isn’t #1 is that three quarters of the way through, the lead suddenly turns back into a giant jerk for no real reason and that was very upsetting. But it all works out in the end. The main romance is very cute, there are horses, the horsemanship doesn’t totally suck ass, and there are some fun side characters. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s pleasant.

The Princess Switch (2018): Again, some people are mean about this movie and they shouldn’t be because it is CUTE GODDAMMIT. It is absolutely The Prince and the Pauper but with two Vanessa Hudgenses, but also, it shows the aforementioned two good romantic couples falling in love and they are delightful. I am not saying this is a great masterpiece of romance, but the filmmakers actually tried to give these characters reasons to like each other, which, again, is not true for some of the movies on this list.\

Jingle Jangle (2020): I kind of feel bad putting this movie on the same list as TV movies that were obviously just shit out by Hallmark or whoever, because this clearly had a lot of love and heart put into it, and it really shows. I was so immediately charmed by this movie that I didn’t even mind when it immediately went in very silly directions. I don’t know if the plot makes sense at all (a cute robot shows up for seemingly no reason other than that cute robots are fun!) but it doesn’t have to, because everyone is having so much fun and there’s so much joy in this movie that I was just happy to be along for the ride. Also, I would love to see an entire movie in the stop-motion style from the opening scene.

Happiest Season (2020): I absolutely understand why some people didn’t like this movie, and I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t dislike it, and also, it’s MY movie, and I love it, and I’m not interested in fighting about it. It helped me come out to my parents and also featured two of my faves kissing and that’s all I need. 

Noelle (2019): I was previously under the impression this movie was bad, and I don’t know why, because it’s a little embarrassing and cheesy at times, but it’s sweet. I suspect what will make or break it for you is if you like Anna Kendrick, and because I like Anna Kendrick, I like watching her play a neurotic Claus sibling trying desperately to fix the problem she accidentally caused. One weird thing though: this movie tried to convince me about halfway through that she was both spoiled and selfish, and I don’t actually think that’s true at all. I think she was a little naive and sheltered and wanted people to like her way too much, but she’s not really shown to be a selfish person - she’s constantly paying attention to other people in the real world and her brother is the one who refused to admit that he wasn’t cut out for the Santa gig and instead fucked off to “find himself” or whatever. It was weird! But anyway, I liked this movie a lot.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1998): So this movie...one Christmas Eve when I was in high school, I was having trouble falling asleep for whatever reason so I went downstairs to get some water. My mom happened to have the TV on and this movie was just starting, and she invited me to join her. Fun fact: this movie went to theaters and it stars Jonathan Taylor-Thomas and Jessica Biel. It is one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen in my life and at no point does anyone in it actually behave like a human being. It’s about a smooth-talking jackass who has to be bribed to come home for Christmas and then, after one of his dumbass moneymaking schemes lands him in hot water, he gets abandoned in the middle of the California desert wearing a Santa suit and glued-on beard. He then has to beg, lie, and cheat his way home for Christmas dinner so that his dad will give him a vintage Porsche they fixed up together. I have no defense for this character; he is insufferable and only becomes marginally less so by the end of the film. But also, I have to watch this movie every year (usually with my mom, although not this year for obvious reasons) or it doesn’t feel like Christmas. 

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish (2019): We own this on DVD and have seen it three times. In our defense, we wanted to support Gregg Sulkin from Runaways and Isabella Gomez from One Day at a Time, both of whom feature prominently in this movie, and also sing songs. This is just Cinderella But At Christmas, and if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, I don’t think anything I can say will change your mind. I will say that the songs are amusingly autotuned, there’s a disabled dog that’s very cute, and I personally think that the leads have slightly better chemistry than some of the pairs on this list. But it is literally just another Cinderella Story movie.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019): This movie is Thor (2011) But At Christmas, and it would have been slightly higher except I always forget about the plot where at the end the knight becomes a cop. Bad, obviously! But anyway, the plot of this movie is: nice but clueless dude crash-lands on Earth for Reasons and bumbles around trying to figure out what’s up, while falling in love with a nice lady. That’s just Thor and you know I’m right. And for as dumb as this movie is, at least it’s ambitious. I have learned that Christmas movies can do one of two things to please me: a) have actors that have decent chemistry and charm and are fully committed to whatever nonsense is going on, or b) have absolutely batshit chaotic plots. This movie is like a 4 out of 5 on the chaos scale and I like it a lot, besides the copaganda. I hope this also gets made into a trilogy and Cole isn’t a cop anymore.

A Christmas Prince 3: The Royal Baby (2019): I will get into my problems with the first two Christmas Prince movies later, but my main criticism is that they are kind of boring and not chaotic enough. This one decided to make up for that by incorporating a missing ancient treaty, a curse, and a ghost, as well as a subplot about Girl Power (I use this semi-ironically) and a subplot about cousin Simon potentially committing treason again. I was so excited that things were happening in this movie the first time I watched it that I may be a little biased, but oh well. Oh, I was also absolutely terrified it was going to be racist and it is...mostly not? There are a few questionable moments but like mostly it’s fine.

Christmas With the Prince (2018): I wanted to watch this because the summary on Netflix did not match the summary on Google at all, and that’s because, uh, they’re both sort of right? Ostensibly this movie is about a pediatric oncologist who comes back into contact with an old almost-flame, who just happens to be the prince of a tiny European country, because he fucked up his leg and needs somewhere private to stay. And apparently a pediatric oncology ward is the best place for that? But then after they fall in love this random Russian lady shows up and is like “that’s my fiance.” This happens maybe twenty minutes from the end. Anyway, this movie isn’t great but I liked the lead guy way more than I thought I would and it has some cute kids in it.

A New York Christmas Wedding (2020): I...am at a loss for words to describe this...motion picture. On the surface it is a cute idea: a young Black woman, Jennifer, is getting married to her boyfriend on Christmas Eve, but she’s given a chance by her guardian angel (stay with me) to go back in time and redo her life, after losing touch with her childhood best friend, Gabrielle, who she was always in love with but never confessed her feelings to. She wakes up in an alternate timeline, where she and Gabrielle have been together for years and her beloved father is still alive. Then the movie, uh...veers off into some very odd places! They go to their Catholic priest and ask him to marry them, and he is like “but the Bible” and they are like “but that’s bullshit” and he’s like “shrug” and then later during a sermon he’s like “actually that IS bullshit, everyone gay in this church come stand up here with me. We love you. Also we’re going to perform a wedding now” and then he marries Jennifer and Gabrielle. And then Jennifer’s angel shows up and is like “you have to choose between this life and your old life now” and then uh...I really hate to spoil this next thing. It is the weirdest choice I’ve ever seen a movie make and if you’re even the slightest bit interested in this movie, I think you should experience this plot point for yourself. I’m going to put the batshit spoiler in ROT13 in case you want to avoid spoiling yourself. (GJ: fhvpvqr) Wraavsre'f thneqvna natry erirnyf gung ur vf gur fba bs Tnoevryyr, jub va gur bevtvany gvzryvar tbg certanag nf n grra naq ure snzvyl frag ure gb n ahaarel. Fur zvfpneevrq naq fhofrdhragyl qvrq ol fhvpvqr. Uvf anzr vf Nmenry Tnovfba. Anyway, uh, this movie isn’t very good, unfortunately, the adult leads have no chemistry and Gabrielle’s adult self is actively unlikable (the teen versions of them are cute!), but I think it’s 1000% worth a watch for the sheer chaos of it all. I...recommend it for that, I guess? Oh, also there’s a sex scene that plays a slow sexy version of “O Christmas Tree” in the background and I felt like I was losing my mind. 

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018): As I said in my commentary on the third movie in this series, the worst sin this movie commits is being kind of boring. It also manages to make the romantic hero, Richard, even worse than in the first movie, where he was just kind of useless and petulant, because in this movie he is actively failing to do anything to revive the failing economy of his country. I have seen people complain that the prince in The Princess Switch and Cole in The Knight Before Christmas have no personalities; they are delightful compared to the wet paper bag of a man in this movie. Rose McIver is adorable and I don’t think any of this is her fault, she’s doing her best in these movies, but woof.

12 Pups of Christmas (2019): The Google summary of this movie, which we found on Hulu, is this: “Struggling to keep his dog GPS locator company afloat, Martin expects his new hire, Erin, to help him save the company and find homes for 12 puppies that were left behind after a photo shoot. As they work together, Erin and Martin begin to discover each other's positive qualities and find love just in time for the holidays.” My wife and I love dogs, so we put this on, expecting cute dogs. This movie contains approximately 80% chaos and 20% cute dogs. It opens with our heroine, a canine therapist, coming home from work to have dinner with her fiance and best friend. We find out that Erin and fiance are moving to California soon for her new job (they live in New York). Fast forward a few days to their courthouse wedding, at which point her fiance and best friend confess to having an affair, and she is dumped. Heartbroken, she moves to California alone, and ends up moving into the company-provided house. It is just a two-story house (??) that the CEO’s sister owns (???) and rents out to employees (????). Also Erin is, as the Google summary says, expected to come up with some grand idea to save the company. And there are 12 random puppies also. They are cute puppies. Oh, also Martin, the CEO of the dog collar company, hates dogs for some reason. Martin’s sister is aggressively friendly towards Erin in a way that I interpreted as sapphic. At one point, after they find a home for dog #3, Erin’s former BFF shows up on her doorstep (?????) begging to be let in. She insists that the fiance was also two-timing her, and she has proof that he had FIVE OTHER GIRLFRIENDS ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY - “that’s why he’s a traveling businessman”!!!! Erin never asks to see her proof, but I guess she believes her, because she lets her inside and then makes her take care of the remaining eight dogs out of spite. I guess they make up at some point. Anyway, somewhere in here Erin and Martin are starting to fall in love and also come up with a way to rebrand the business, so hooray for them. We also learn that the reason Martin hates dogs is that his beloved childhood dog, uh, ran away? Disappeared? Got eaten? He insists that “not knowing [what happened to him] was the worst part,” but I was out here expecting to see the child finding an actual dead dog like it’s John Wick or something so this was a little anticlimactic. They go on a business trip to New York talk with Important Japanese Investors, during which they fuck (it is? romantic? allegedly?), and then the morning of their meeting Erin’s shitty ex shows up in the hotel lobby to bother her. Martin decks him square in the face for not leaving her alone, and then someone calls the cops, because I guess this movie said ACAB, and both dudes get arrested and Erin has to do the presentation alone. And then in the last five minutes Martin gets out of jail and Erin says that she gave the presentation to the investors...in English, and their translator was twenty minutes late, and so the investors understood none of what she said. Thankfully we are spared actually seeing this “joke,” but they do play racist music over her explanation. Then Martin reconnects with his rich dad who bails out the company instead, and also he adopts the four remaining dogs. This movie was fucking bananas and very bad and I need more people to understand exactly how bad. Watch this movie.

A Nutcracker Christmas (2016): Amy Acker has two Christmas movies and this one seemed more palatable than Dear Santa, so here we are. I like to watch Amy Acker be cute and dance, and she has an adorable teenage niece in this movie that she’s helped raise. In this movie she’s a former ballet dancer whose sister (hilariously, one of the Wynonna Earp lesbians) died in a tragic car accident, and she never got to dance the part of the Sugarplum Fairy. Spoiler alert: she gets to by the end of the movie. Unfortunately the love interest is basically Satan incarnate and does not deserve her at all, so unless you like yelling at romantic leads I can’t really recommend it. 

Godmothered (2020): This movie is just, uh, Enchanted but worse, and also it should have been sapphic and it isn’t? Poor Jillian Bell is doing her best and is adorable, but it’s not enough to save this movie for me. If Disney were not cowards she would have fallen in love with single mom Isla Fisher. Oh, it also ends with the very white younger daughter doing a public cover of “Rise Up” by Andra Day that the audience joins in on, which, considering its use in the BLM movement the last couple years, felt, uh, not great to me.

A Christmas Prince (2017): It’s maybe not far to compare this to the rest of the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe, because it was the originator. But also, it’s pretty boring. Sorry. Simon, or Fiddles (Fake Hiddles/Tom Hiddleston) is the best character.

Married by Christmas (2016): Apparently an alternate title for this is The Engagement Clause, which is sort of funny. Anyway, this has Jes Macallan and we, being big fans of Legends of Tomorrow, lost our shit when we found this on Christmas Day and had to watch it. The plot is that Jes’ character runs the family business, but their shitty grandma died and left a clause in her will where the business goes to the husband of whichever granddaughter gets married first. You would think that Jes’ sister and her fiance would postpone their Christmas Eve wedding to give Jes time to set up some kind of platonic wedding for business purposes, since Jes’ entire life is this stupid business, but nope, they immediately turn into monsters who are determined to get their hands on the business for ???? reasons???? It’s not very good, as you can tell by how low it is on the list. Jes Macallan is not a convincing straight businesswoman. I wouldn’t even really enjoy this movie as an Avalance AU.

A Princess for Christmas (2011): Here we are, the worst one Christmas movie I watched this year. I don’t actively harbor any ill will towards Katie McGrath, although I confess to feeling a bit “her?” but it’s fine. I was hoping this movie would enlighten me to her appeal. Instead, this movie actively got on my nerves in multiple ways, including trying to pass Katie McGrath off as a normal American retail worker instead of an Irish vampire/sorceress/supervillain/fairy/whatever she is. Her accent is shockingly awful, which I’m not sure is actually her fault, is there a reason her family wasn’t just British? That wouldn’t have saved the movie but it would have made it just slightly more palatable. At every turn it makes the worst choices, including a scene where Katie’s character puts on a rap song and she and the prince dance to it in an attempt to show them “loosening up,” and then the mean grandfather comes in and demands that they “turn this ghetto music off.” YIKES. I know these movies are the whitest movies ever by design but was that racism necessary? The only Black people I actually saw in this movie were some of the servants, I think? Speaking of the servants, at the end of the movie there’s a grand ball and Katie’s dress gets fucked up, and she’s about to leave the country, and then the servants are like “don’t go! We pooled our money to buy you another nice dress!” which, also yikes! This movie has a real classism problem. It also was so boring I zoned out of it multiple times, and I have sat through Manos: The Hands of Fate and Birdemic multiple times. This movie has no chaos whatsoever and I hated all the characters. 0/10 do not recommend under any circumstances.

[teledild0nix]

I love your black lesbian Sherlock and Watson so much, but I have to ask, what is Lestrade like in this au? regular dude? trans guy doing his best? trans girl doing her best? this au is important to me please know this

Oh my gosh thanks!!! I’m actually not a huge fan of Lestrade. I am just not that interested. And my Sherlock is pretty openly suspicious of police. I don’t really have a backstory for Lestrade yet, but Sherlock’s life calling is helping people who aren’t treated fairly by the justice system, so I do expect to see some tension in her relationship with Lestrade whenever I get to write it. I think who Lestrade is as a person will matter less to her than the fact that Lestrade is an agent of an oppressive institution. And to be perfectly honest, I feel like that convention of making the character who falls into a marginalized demographic a police officer (so that the creator can use the “representation” as a screen from criticism) kinda smacks of copaganda!! 

ACD seemed to have fluctuating ideas about Holmes’ relationship with Lestrade. When we first meet Lestrade, Holmes calls him and his rival Gregson “the best of a bad lot” (I think that’s how my Holmes will see Lestrade) but still scoffs at his abilities. There’s one story--The Norwood Builder, I believe--where Lestrade is about to have the wrong person EXECUTED, and he’s positively gleeful about being right when (he thinks) Holmes is wrong. That’s pretty uh. Pretty fucking ghoulish. 

But there’s another story (I forget which) where Lestrade tells Holmes that the Yarders are proud of him, and Holmes gets all choked up. ACD had fluctuating ideas about a lot of things, bless him! But I uh. I don’t like cops. So that will probably be clear in how I depict Lestrade. Great question, thanks for asking!

[dereksmcgrath]

I can’t say this is how I thought Stain would be re-introduced into the series.

Or that Horikoshi would keep bringing back unnamed minor but pivotal characters from previous chapters.

This is a chapter that is doing more to appeal to the heart than to the mind, but damn if it isn’t effective.

“Who Are You Really?” My Hero Academia Chapter 326. By Koehi Horikoshi, translation by Caleb Cook, lettering by John Hunt. Available from Viz.

A persistent thread in my reviews has been to criticize All Might’s role as a teacher and a mentor. My initial criticism was comparatively minor way back when I first compared his style of teaching to Aizawa’s and, to my chagrin, I have to admit that Aizawa has been the more available teacher. (“Available,” not necessarily “better”; see how both of them aren’t very good at handling Bakugo.) That can’t be so surprising, as Aizawa is the homeroom teacher and is probably the teacher we have seen most involved with Class 1-A throughout the series. But All Might’s availability to Izuku and the rest of his students has always seemed limited, to the detriment of this series and All Might’s character progression. It’s definitely a choice by Horikoshi to keep All Might in this position: he has functioned largely as a symbol for others rather than an actual presence in their lives. It’s frustrating that, although it has been rare, I have to acknowledge Bakugo was correct about something--All Might’s presence around Izuku has caused its own set of problems.

And I don’t think this chapter actually arrives at anything else for All Might except to have Stain of all people reinforce that, no, All Might is doing the right thing, he’s fine, just get over himself and get back to being a symbol that inspires others.

I’ll say more later about whether MHA can subvert some of its own qualities--in light of something recently published about its potential role in copaganda--but so far, it never feels like this series has done what it needs to yet for All Might to have a new role in this series after retiring as a Pro Hero. Some of this owes to missed opportunities: if I remember correctly, we’ve only had All Might serve as a teacher during the first simulated battles for Class 1A (the one where Izuku finally takes on the name Deku) and in a few OVAs and side stories (two where he plays a villain; one where the students end up in a zombie haze). Add to this the gag around his “Teaching for Dummies” book for shallow pep talks to the students, and this is really disappointing for a character, whom many of us see as an allegory for living with disabilities, is shown to be struggling but not really arriving at an answer to his struggles.

I know that for Izuku and the others it’s only been less than two years since Chapter 1, but for us we’ve been with these characters for a long time. What I’m trying to say is that, while I appreciate this chapter reminding us that All Might promises Inko to watch over her son, and while we have seen him trying to cook for and cloth Izuku during this vigilante arc, it’s disappointing that we still, this many chapters later, don’t have a read on what exactly All Might is contributing aside from being a symbol.

I get the sense that the story itself knows that it doesn’t have as much of an answer for what role All Might has anymore either, as it keeps hammering that point so that we’re told more about how others see All Might than how he has agency for himself. Granted, this chapter gives considerably more interiority for him than we have received in previous stories: I appreciate the flashback showing young All Might having witnessed some property damage and that being one part of his motivation to be a Pro Hero, and I really enjoyed how Caleb Cook translated his narration and dialogue, infusing it with both some of All Might’s corny humor and deadly serious demeanor, something I could hear Christopher Sabat performing in the English dub.

But by the end of this chapter, we’re told three things that we already know or could have figured out:

First, All Might inspires others--even though, aside from Izuku, Bakugo, and Todoroki, we haven’t seen his considerable influence on his other students. (That’s a missed opportunity fan artists again have done better at showing, compared to what supplemental canon material like the OVAs and light novels could but haven’t shown. If I could only re-discover that Tumblr fan art from years ago, where depowered Toshinori was secretly helping Class 1-A students without them realizing who he really was.)

Second, the woman All Might saved in Kamino Ward appreciates his sacrifice--even as she’s not directly engaging with the legitimate criticism that his role as a symbol has indeed brought Pro Hero society to his collapse.

Finally, Stain still believes in All Might--but this is freaking Stain, a murderous vigilante and not exactly our most reliable source about whom to admire and hate.

It’s bizarre but not surprising that it’s a fundamentalist like Stain that gets through to All Might. That has its own uncomfortable qualities: if logic and facts won’t work, have Stain in a pseudo-preacher role extolling the virtues of the idolized All Might. It’s also hard to take seriously when Horikoshi’s drawings make Stain’s proselytizing look so grotesque, how his mouth and eyes are drawn so that he looks crazed. I wonder if making Stain look as such wasn’t intentional, to make Stain look just uncanny enough so that we are not taking every last thing he says seriously.

It’s not that Stain is entirely wrong about what works and doesn’t work in Pro Hero society. The problem is that such truths are couched in the perspective of an extremist who decided Iida’s brother deserved to be disabled just for not living up to All Might’s standard.

(I will avoid bringing up too many examples of Vigilantes, in which both Tensei Iida and Stain play major roles, except to say the following: as of yet, Vigilantes offers no new information about Tensei to ever clarify why Stain thought he deserved to be attacked. It’s not as if Tensei was secretly a corrupt Pro Hero: he was no worse and no better than your typical Pro Hero, so his only crime was being part of an imperfect system. All of this only makes Stain’s actions come across as more inhumane, even as Vigilantes does show him fighting some people who, as awful as this is to write, “have it coming” far more than someone like Tensei.)

If I’m not here to give Endeavor a redemption arc, I’m certainly not here to give Stain a redemption arc. To the credit of this chapter, it isn’t trying to redeem Stain. But I shudder thinking that really annoying question: what if Stain was right?

“Stain was right” arguments are ones I’ve wrestled with, ever since I took a long break from reviewing the anime episodes, right at the Stain Arc. And I appreciate that the series wrestled with that idea, too, back when Denki literally said Stain was cool, only for Iida to have to admit that Stain made good points. That’s pretty much where I’m at--that Stain made good points, not that he’s cool. But Stain making good points is as tiresome as the “Magneto was right” or “Cyclops was right” memes: some people just say that to sound edgy, some people say that to appeal to a fictional example whose ideal cannot match our reality (not so different from Stain spouting ideals that aren’t working in a reality), and couch ideas that are either so extreme that only a villain would pursue them (even if that villain is a Pro Hero--again, see Endeavor) or so important but are easily dismissed because we pretend that’s villainous when, no, it’s not. Reforming Pro Hero society is needed; undermining those needed reforms by having a mass murderer like Stain supporting them gives other characters an excuse not to follow through on them. It’s too convenient--as convenient as Stain leaving behind Tartarus info for All Might, but that’s probably something I can address better when later chapters show what information Stain actually shared.

Even with my criticism, I can’t fault Horikoshi exactly for this approach, having Stain be the voice of reason. Within My Hero Academia, Horikoshi has repeatedly acknowledged the problems with Pro Hero society ever since All Might told Izuku that someone without a Quirk can never be a hero, Pro or otherwise. That fixation to make Izuku internalize that notion, then later learning All Might himself was born Quirkless, shows what a toxic idea it was. Stain exists to introduce this problem, have us entertain that he may be right, then forget about it and get back hating on the villains--before, as we are at with the anime right now, showing that even the villains are victims of this society, and while their actions are not justified either, that this problem is far bigger and in need of immediate reform before it blows up in people’s faces. And, oh look, it has blown up in people’s faces, as Pro Hero society has now collapsed. Stain being the voice of reason was a long-term project to let the readers wrestle with these questions before finally coming down on the side that, no, this system cannot persist as it has.

And then Horikoshi acts like, actually, sure, we can let this system persist as it has--because Izuku said he’ll bring back what was there before, and Stain says All Might’s work as a symbol was fine all along anyway.

Just today Anime Feminist published a piece on copaganda in anime and manga. I have to give myself more time to review the piece, but I bristle at the notion of MHA as copaganda for two reasons. First, as I hope this and previous writing has shown, MHA is self-critical of what is going on: a system that allowed someone like Endeavor to become the Number One Hero is transparently not a good system, a system that had Nagant doing extralegal assassinations is not a good system. This story knowingly shows that these are wrong--so it’s perplexing that Izuku would want to still keep that system. That leads to my second reason: the story is not over yet. It is likely my enjoyment of this series that is making me far less critical than I should be, and I need to take responsibility for my bias, but I don’t think it’s fair for me to come down on this series until it reaches its conclusion, at which point I can gauge how much it is copaganda and how much it is direct indictment of this kind of policing. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I appreciate Izuku being willing to reform the system rather than destroy it and start from scratch--but I also think it’s naive of him to not just say, “We’re getting rid of this system and starting from scratch.”

Despite my criticisms, I do think this chapter did very well at pulling an earned emotional response from me. Even as my brain is rebutting so much that this chapter shows, my heart is moved by what transpires for All Might. Just about every beat of his story worked in terms of emotional appeals, with Horikoshi doing excellent work setting the scene: we overhear All Might’s earlier as-yet unseen conversation with Ectoplasm, we understand All Might witnessed Ochaco and Izuku’s speeches but was too afraid to approach that scene (that detail hurt: the dude was too afraid to even show his face in public), we see him finding Izuku’s discarded mask and his memories failing to bring food to Izuku, and then we pan up to see Stain has been watching him the entire time. I also appreciated the revelation at the end where All Might figures out what we already know, that Stain has been tracking him for some time now, whether or not he really believed this far thinner man was the All Might he remembered.

I also enjoyed All Might’s resolution even in the face of potential death--more so because it finally made All Might interesting again. Why was he so resolute? When he spends this chapter questioning whether he is a legitimate hero, it doesn’t seem like he’s necessarily resolute still due to his confidence as a hero. Furthermore, from just about everything we’ve seen, All Might’s confidence was out of his physical abilities, training, and the ability to uplift people’s spirits--all of which has taken a toll on his physical and emotional health. Was he confident Stain wouldn’t try to kill him? It didn’t seem like All Might had a death drive; it would be out of character for him to give up on Izuku and his students so easily, and it would unfairly end his story before he had one last chance to redeem himself, for himself or the audience, before he is finally gone. Yet he’s so morose and not putting up a fight that I can’t get a read on what is going on with him. I don’t say any of this as criticism of Horikoshi’s writing or choices; I say all of this to indicate that it makes All Might more complicated, something he’s needed to get the audience to give him some attention after he has been sidelined for so long, and as the story risks making the audience think he’s as lacking in value as he himself feels. As I said before, it’s still problematic given how many of us have read All Might as an audience surrogate for living with disabilities, but within the story itself, and looking at All Might as a person, not a symbol, it’s not unbelievable that, in this situation, this man would think this way about his role.

And bringing back the woman All Might saved in Kamino is a nice touch--and emotionally devastating. When I read those spoilers days ago, I figured it was another throwback to the earlier chapters, Horikoshi indulging in these when he brought back Izuku’s bystander and even gave him that rousing speech. Seeing this woman take on that major a role to the story made sense: I figured it was just another trend by Horikoshi. But I didn’t expect how moving all of that scene would be, with Stain narrating and again referencing the Kenji Miyazawa poem, then the rain stopping but All Might obviously crying--it got me, despite all logic, it moved me.

For all the criticisms I have about the logic to this chapter, I uncomfortably acknowledge how well Horikoshi played into the sentiment. Add to it the different ways Horikoshi teases out different emotions from All Might, even when his eyes are obscured by the shadows of his depowered form, and he has come a long way from what I see in his earlier works like Oumagadoki Zoo. I’m embarrassed, after spending yesterday saying Betten Court handled better facial expressions than Horikoshi given what Horikoshi accomplished with this chapter.

Plus, this woman has that bizarre Quirk where she somehow is puffing up the bottoms of her feet through her shoes, and somehow Horikoshi is still thinking up such goofy superpowers to give people that I never would have thought of.

This chapter has been a weird experience. I don’t like feeling like I’m being taken in by the visuals and emotional appeals even as I know there is something off with the message being conveyed. As I insist, by logic alone, it has a lot of flaws that have me cautious and, by complicating matters or leaving things unanswered, want me to keep reading to see if Izuku and others actually do make a better system to replace this unfair system that inspired people like Stain to take such unwarranted actions. Then the emotional appeals kick in, and that still has me hooked on this series, because it is trying to take complicated matters of how a society functions and connect it to the superhero stories I enjoy reading and some authentic human emotions. I just wish more of that authenticity could be lent to All Might, to make him more of a fully realized character than what he still seems to be, a symbol for whatever the readers project onto him.

[roboromantic]

I’ve been kind of avoiding RBA because well. Much as I love the show it’s got really blatant copaganda and I hadn’t realized just how exhausting it was to watch until I was like “if I watch it right now I’m gonna scream“

I’m back to the point where I can keep watching it but between the weeks I missed and quite a few episodes leaking I have a Lot to binge watch so LET’S GO episodes 19 and 20

_____________________________________________________________

these are Clearly out of order which is annoying but oh well

eeehhh not as exciting a relic as I thought; I definitely prefer the Energize stuff coming from the bots collabing with Doc Greene

NO WAIT LET HIM SPEAK I WANTED TO HEAR THAT

did Medix just get TFA!Ratchet’s power? lol

dfgdgjgfdgfdfg Wedge…

y’know that almost looks like squilsh

aw, poor Hot Shot

gd I’ve missed these kids

I don’t think that’s how volcanos work but oh nvm Hoist and Hot Shot are gonna take care of the pressure

also this is Literally just episode 2 of the original show

shfgfsjdfgsjghj I’m glad Whirl is embracing her role as air taxi instead of pulling a Hot Shot

“now I LOVE my Combi-Cannon!” “And what about that awesome guy who gave you that mixing advice?” “How could I forget?” 👀👀👀

h. how the hell did Chuck even get the feather duster to stand upright like that in the first place

_______________________________________________

is he just telling them to tread more carefully bc with the exception of Whirl they can’t really do anything about their weight. Maybe Medix can pick people up with his magnet?

oh HELL yeah

Medix you CANNOT expect me to believe there is no kind of dancing on Cybertron

oh HELL yeah gimme new Griffin Rock lore

I love everything about this

msfkfjkghdjdgk

I’m pretty sure that’s not how pirouettes work but O K

:C

Convenient Teaching Moment Emergency: start!

aw :D

I’m pretty sure he coulda just walked along the edge and not risked falling or the board collapsing underneath him but O K