#a bunch of incredible actors all trapped in hell together

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

it is Gregg's turn to suffer today, so we are watching the Spartacus series so I can "well actually" through every episode with all the things I know about the 3rd Servile War and sometimes read from my Plutarch books. this is what he gets, a revenge history lesson

[callmemythicalminx]

The Last Of Us 2: We Need To Talk About It

*Spoilers ~ ye have been warned!

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I’ve held this off for as long as I could, but I’ve given up resisting- we need to talk about The Last of Us 2. It’s an incredible masterpiece, there’s no doubt about it. The graphics are beautiful and incredibly realistic, and the gameplay has made bounding leaps in progress since the first game, offering a more exciting and intense experience for the player. The actors have of course done incredible jobs and the sound design is amazing. Altogether, a pretty amazing game… Except for one thing- the story.

The first game was widely loved for many reasons, but most prominently, and I’m sure many will agree with me on this, the story and the characters are what made it stand out and still hold up to this day. Joel and Ellie are amazing characters, incredibly complicated and realistic. The former was a man we as players grew to love, after seeing the horrible pain he had to go through and the hardships he faced. We saw him do unspeakable things, hurting and killing many, all in the name of survival. But still, we cared for him, because we saw him grow to love too, risking all to keep his new daughter safe. Ellie was a young kid, forced to grow up too soon in a world that didn’t really care about her. Faced with the fact that she was the possible saviour of humanity, she had the weight of a brighter future on her shoulders. In each other, these two characters found someone to care about again. Joel saw the daughter he lost and couldn’t protect. Ellie saw a father who wouldn’t leave and would help keep her safe.

After seeing the bittersweet ending of the first game, we waited for 7 long years to see Ellie and Joel return to our screens once more. Trailers promised new adventures with the pair, as well as the much-anticipated impact of Joel’s actions after taking Ellie from the Fireflies and stopping the creation of a possible cure. Even when leaks about the story were released, the majority of fans held strong to the belief that Naughty Dog would lead us well and would give us a great sequel to finish off an incredible generation of progress, leading us into a new age of video game storytelling.

Oh, how wrong we were…

Make no mistake here- I know Joel isn’t a hero. What he did at the end of the first game was incredibly selfish. I’ve always seen him as an anti-hero because of his sometimes cruel and violent actions and that can’t be forgotten. Undeniably though, he is still such a beloved character, who we can’t help but connect too because he’s human and vastly complicated. He was also living in a world where people are doing much worse things to survive. Darker, more evil actions that weren’t close to anything Joel ever did. Can he really be blamed for some of his actions, when seeing what other surivors had done? When I first played The Last of Us, I couldn’t help but sympathise with him, especially as I saw him slowly become more caring again after meeting Ellie. He’s incredibly interesting too in terms of characterisation because he’s neither good nor evil- he’s just human, trying to survive in a nightmare world.

Obviously, playing as Joel made a world of difference as to how we perceived him and whether or not he was a hero or villain. If we’d been playing as a completely different character, perhaps a Firefly, we would have most definitely seen him in a different light. This is where Abby comes in. I’ll give Naughty Dog credit here, it is a really interesting concept to introduce a playable character who’s seen the other side of our famous duo’s actions. It’s a great way to make us think even more about the consequences and the effect we have on our environment. As the daughter of the lead surgeon meant to operate on Ellie, Abby has seen the negative effects of Joel’s actions first hand.  This opens up a widely explorable concept for the player to experience, offering a new complicated character who has seen her own pain and hardships just like Joel and Ellie did. She’s sure to be liked… Right?

Unfortunately, no.  

In the span of two weeks, Abby has become one of the most hated gaming characters of all time. The reason why- bad storytelling.

I understand what the game was trying to do, I really do. I see what the story was trying to tell and portray, but the writing and pacing ruined this before the game had barely even started. I know I can speak for most when I say that I was expecting Joel to die, either it be naturally or inflicted by someone (or something) else. Naughty Dog know how to tug players’ heartstrings, as we saw at the start of the first game when Sarah was killed. It was bound to happen, though I didn’t really want it to. Joel deserves a worthy death, one befitting of his character which would complete his arc and bring a conclusion to his story. What we got instead was single-handedly one of the worst character deaths ever presented in a video game.

Joel dies at the hands of Abby, less than 2 hours into the game after we’ve seen him for only 10 minutes or so. He and his brother Tommy willingly walk into a very suspicious situation, in the most stupidly uncharacteristic way, revealing their names and where they’re from. They say this to a group of 10-20 strangers, in a building where they can easily be ambushed and restrained. Abby is at the helm of this group, driven to Jackson for one thing- the need to avenge her father who Joel killed. After hearing who they are, the group is obviously more alert and ready to strike. Joel then says, and I quote ‘Y’all act like you’ve heard of us or something’… Bear in mind here, that our Joel from the first game knew he was a wanted man and that he couldn’t trust anyone. Hell, he didn’t even trust Ellie for a good while before he started to care for her. But here he willingly gives his name and acts shocked when it’s recognised? This is not the Joel we know, who’s incredibly smart and can see a trap a mile off.

In one of the most sickening occurrences I’ve ever seen in a video game, Abby then shoots Joel in the knee with a goddamn shotgun. Tommy, of course, jumps into action to help his brother but is quickly restrained and knocked out. While listening to Joel’s horrific groans of pain as he lays wounded on the floor, Abby then has the audacity to ask him to ‘Guess’ who she is? Other than the fact that this is incredibly cringy, there’s no way in hell Joel would have the faintest clue who she is. He doesn’t run a family check on everyone he kills, does he? She could be the daughter of a random soldier he killed or some other nobody.

Ever a badass till the end, still having no clue who she is, Joel tells Abby to get on with whatever she has planned. She gets someone to tourniquet his leg while she collects her weapon to end his life- a golf club of all things. After calling him a ‘stupid old man’, something that both upset and pissed me off too much, Abby then begins to start beating Joel to death. You play as Ellie now, as she tries to find him. She enters this group’s hideout to see her father hunched on the ground, curling in on himself, spasming because of numerous brutal hits he’s received to his head. His face is bloody and bruised, his eyes barely open as a pool of blood spreads around him. We feel the horrendous pain Ellie does as she’s quickly restrained and forced to watch Joel meet his death. She begs, rambling for him to get up and leave, but there’s nothing she can do.  Ellie’s horrified cries are ignored as she begs for mercy and with a sickening crunch, Joel receives one final brutal blow to the head.

And he’s gone. Like that.

If this was written true to the character we know and love, Joel would have never entered that building and given his name that easily. Neither would’ve Tommy. These are two seasoned veterans of a zombie outbreak, who have seen the horrid measures people will go to when provoked or desperate. Is the game really trying to tell me that they’d trust a bunch of suspicious-looking kids, walking willingly into a crowded area with no weapons, standing apart instead of together? Joel didn’t trust anyone in the first game, why would this change?

Regardless of the fact that he’s in Jackson now, which is ‘friendly to travellers’, and that he’s grown ‘softer’, he’s still not gonna be trustworthy of strangers. By and by, Joel is still a wanted man and he knows this, he took away the world’s chance at a cure for Pete’s sake. Secondly, this is plain and simple a terrible death for Joel. Not because of how he died (because this is a zombie apocalypse, after all, it’s going to be brutal even if it’s awful to see) but the fact that this happens the way it did and the placement of it. There’s no closure to his character arc or to the rift between himself and Ellie that’s, at this moment, unknown to the reader. He didn’t die saving Ellie, which as cliche as it sounds, would have juxtaposed beautifully with Sarah’s death at the start of the first game. Imagine how satisfying it would have been to see that Joel would be willing to die for Ellie after he’s been focused only on surviving and himself. Imagine if he’d died in Ellie’s arms just like Sarah did in his…

The timing is also really bad considering we’ve barely seen any of him in the two hours we’ve played. When we see Joel die, it doesn’t feel as impactful as it could’ve been. We haven’t seen any new or old encounters with him and Ellie, except for the small seconds at the start as he retells the end of the first game. We haven’t had a chance to fully reconnect with him. His odd actions further distance us away from him because he’s not acting like he usually would. Therefore we’re left with a horrifying death that feels hollow, strange and disconected.

Abby does not help make this scene any better, which is a shame, because I think if different choices were made to push this death further in the game, we could have had a chance to care for her or at the very least begin to like her. Instead, we have no clue as to who she is or what her motivations are before this. All we know is she’s looking for someone. To then see this new character kill someone so beloved, in the most brutal way… Players are gonna hate her immediately! I hated her immediately! And like I said, her dialogue in this scene is atrociously bad, especially when she insults Joel. That really felt like you were adding salt to the wound there Naughty Dog.  

Imagine if you will, what a better death or a change in chronological order of Joel’s death could have done to help the story. If we’d got to know Abby more, playing as her for longer than two hours, she might not have been as hated. The player could have begun to like her and sympathise with her, slowly realising who she is and at the same time, seeing the damage Joel has caused in his selfish decisions. She could have still killed Joel, but towards the end of the game, so that the player would have felt more conflicted about her doing it after seeing her past, seeing the pain that she went through. The game could have reminded us that Joel is still an anti-hero. Imagine that? If the game had made us admit to ourselves that, though it’s painful to watch, his death might have just needed to happen to make up for the loss of everyone he killed? It could still have fit the environment they’re in too, with a brutal and harsh death that could’ve come out of nowhere, but still felt justified in the story. Tess in the first game had a brilliant death, befitting of her badass character, yet still shocking and realistic to the world she lived in. Instead of becoming a zombie, she instead let herself be shot after bravely standing outnumbered against the enemy while Joel and Ellie escaped. It was a great death and Joel had every right to one of his own. 

Maybe he didn’t even need to die for his actions at all though? Let’s not forget that he’s not the only one who has done bad and unspeakable things in this broken world the characters live in. He’s not irredemable, he’s a complicated human being who has had to adapt to the world around him. Think about some of the groups we came across in the first game- is Joel really worse than them? Yes, he took away the world’s chance at a new begining, but did it even deserve to start again after seeing how horrid people had become? Imagine if your loved one was sacrificing themself for a world that didn’t deserve it? Imagine if the cure might not even work or be possible to create, would you really just let them die? Joel’s only human, he acted with his heart instead of his mind. I have no doubt that Abby would probably do the same, or Ellie, or any other character who had those same choices ahead of them. Joel’s actions were selfish, yes, but he shouldn’t have to die for it. I wouldn’t want to lose someone I cared deeply about, just for a possible cure that would save an unworthy world.This is why we aren’t finding fault with the fact that Joel died, it’s HOW and WHY it happened that’s got us so pissed off.

What makes his death and the story even worse is the ending of the game. All the pain and trauma Ellie goes through killing all of Abby’s friends to find her becomes worthless. Why- she lets her go free. After fighting her twice and losing her fingers during one of those fights, Ellie suddenly has an epiphany and realises that revenge isn’t the answer. She lets Abby go. Once again, I understand what Naughty Dog were trying to do here and once again it could have worked.

‘Revenge is bad’. It’s been in many games and this message has worked beautifully in most too, like in Red Dead Redemption 2 for example. It worked beautifully in the game because it’s something that Arthur makes reference to a lot, reiterating the fact that ‘revenge is a fool’s game’. We see that pan out when John gets revenge at the end of the game and pays the price for it. The reason it fails in The Last of Us 2 is that this message comes from nowhere. Ellie has killed hundreds of people leading up to her final fight with Abby and she’s lost even more in the process too, including friends, her family and now her ability to play the guitar which was the final big thing linking her back to Joel. She’s brutally murdered many, torturing others so badly that she turned into a shell of herself afterwards. She suffers from PTSD because of Abby’s actions, seeing the death of Joel repeatedly, leaving her physically and emotionally weak. It doesn’t make any sense that after all this traumatising violence and pain, she suddenly gives up on the notion of revenge when she’s just about to kill the murderer of her father. The most disappointing thing is this message could have still worked if done correctly. If she could have realised revenge is pointless sooner, this wouldn’t feel as out of place as it does. Why does this one person, the murderer out of all people, change Ellie’s mind, after killing so many? Sure, you could say she has a family now and she was reminded of them, but then why would they have such an impact at the point of Abby’s near death, when Dina begging Ellie to stay didn’t work in the first place? It’s. Bad. Writing.

Abby and Ellie have both hurt each other equally, killing family, close friends and their fathers. Instead of killing each other, the story could have led them to realise together that Ellie is still the key to saving humanity, and with Abby’s link to the fireflies, they could somehow still create a cure.

Imagine. That. How fulfilling that would have been? Instead of the horrid, pointless ending we got instead.

Joel’s death could have brought the two together, connecting the Fireflies once again with the cure to right the wrongs he did. He could have realised that Abby was looking for him and willingly sacrifice himself to make up for what he did, completing his arc like I mentioned while also dying a fitting, badass death. He could have left a note for Ellie to read, explaining his actions, to say sorry and to show that he knows this is the only way to fix what he did. At the end of the game, Ellie could have looked out on a recovering world, singing her own rendition of Joel’s song, this time full of new beginnings in the face of great sacrifice.

That’s how you finish a story and a character’s arc. I’m no world-class writer, but I could imagine many different ways this same story and message could have panned out but with better writing, pacing and time, telling a tale of angst and sadness, while opening up a new chapter of hope and healing. The real end of the game leaves you feeling hollow and depressed, unfulfilled in the journey you’ve just experienced. Games are at their basic principle means of enjoyment, we play them to escape our lives and to have fun. They can be dark, harrowing and painful but still an absolute pleasure to play. What doesn’t help in defence of the game’s story is that the game director Neil Druckman said himself ‘For us, with The Last of Us specifically (Uncharted is a little different in our creative approaches), we don’t use the word ‘fun’. That feels… wrong to hear. If video games are not enjoyable, then what is the point in playing them?

I think it really says something in particular when the most enjoyable part of the game is a flashback between Joel and Ellie where there’s no real action. It’s just them, exploring a museum for her birthday, talking and joking and it’s the best part of the game hands down. It doesn’t include any of the new brilliant gameplay and while stunning, doesn’t really have much visual impact either. What makes it so special is just seeing the characters we love interact and have fun like it’s a scene cut straight from the first game. After 7 years, us fans were yearning to see more of Joel and Ellie’s cute relationship, so to only have that and a few other small scenes is so… unsatisfying. If we had more of their adventures before Joel’s death, I know that many people would have been much more accepting of it. It would have definitely been more impactful, having given us the chance to reconnect with them both again. Going back to Ellie on her revenge path after that museum scene was so depressing. It’s such a shame that further interaction between them was just forgotten about and thrown aside. They were such a big factor in the first game’s success, so to see them barely together felt too strange. Though we play as Ellie for the most part, it began to feel less and less like Last of Us and more like some new zombie game. Playing as Abby so suddenly too and for so long just further implemented that weird feeling. It’s a real shame because I really can’t stand her at all now. But she could have been a great character if the story was much different.

I can’t help but feel that the story feels patronising and degrading to its audience in some ways. Some of the choices and plot lines feel very disrespectful to the characters and fans, simply because of what it expects of you after forcing you through unwanted pain and misery. Let’s not forget also that we were lied to in the trailers. Showing numerous clips of Joel as his oldest self to reel us in, then change them to be flashbacks? Flashbacks which happen to be the only good pieces of storytelling in the whole game. It’s just wrong. And quite frankly it’s disgusting. Video games are expensive nowadays. We already knew many fans were gonna buy it anyway because we’re loyal to what we love. But to intentionally make that push, using lies, to secure sales for an expensive game from a huge fan base… it’s disrespectful.

As a whole, I can see what Naughty Dog were trying to do. They were trying to create something different, do what they wanted instead of what the fans wanted. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s ballsy and creative to do something like that with a well-loved franchise. Rockstar took that same leap when they created Red Dead Redemption 2, forcing you to play as Arthur instead of the beloved John. It worked for them because they wrote the story well enough so that you’d have time to explore this new character and grow to love him, especially when faced with his actions and his mortality. Arthur dies brutality but fans still love the game because it was a fitting and wonderful way to finish his character arc.

This idea fails with The Last of Us 2 because the player isn’t properly engaged with the story before shit hits the fan and their favourite character is dead. I have no doubt that if it was written differently, if we’d been able to see more of Joel before his death and had more than two hours played with Abby that this story could have actually worked. The message that ‘revenge is bad’ could have worked. Ellie and Abby both have the same arc, experiencing something traumatic, being consumed by revenge, then ultimately realising it’s worthless to kill. We could have followed the same arc with a much better version of the story we actually got.

Instead, it feels like the game is intentionally pissing us off, continuously ruining that idea, first by making us watch as Joel is brutally and stupidly killed so soon, then secondly, by then forcing us to play and connect with Abby for 50% of the game when that seed of hate for her has already been planted. This is another one of the moments in the game where I feel like we’re being patronised. Is it really fair to paint us in such a bad light for not wanting to play and grow to like Abby, when we saw her as a stranger brutally kill our favourite character? Is it really that bad for us to hate her after she has caused so much pain when we’ve only known her for two hours? It’s such a shame because she could have actually become a new well-loved character.

I’d just like to say that while I think the story is bad, no one who was involved in the making of this game should be attacked for it. Video games, especially in this age, are such hard things to make because so much goes into them and I don’t want to discredit anyone’s work. Regardless of my or anyone else’s opinions on the game or its story, the team at Naughty Dog have still poured hours of time and effort into making it. They shouldn’t be receiving attacks or hate, we can still discuss the game and our opinions while being respectful. The actors shouldn’t be receiving hate either, they acted brilliantly with what they were given. Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey especially should be credited for their work. And Troy Baker, though he was only in it for a short while, deserves an award just for that final ending scene between Ellie and Joel- it made me cry buckets. He made this character come alive beautifully and he deserves all the praise for it. And so do the rest of the cast, who did exceptionally good jobs.

In my eyes (though it sounds bad) The Last of Us 2 doesn’t exist as a game. In my own perfect world, it’s actually just badly written fanfiction posted to Tumblr or Wattpad. As goes in my made up ending, Joel and Ellie move to Jackson and restart their lives after the end of the first game. Eventually, he tells her about what happened and there’s a rift between them for some time, which is, of course, to be expected- it was a momentously selfish thing for him to do. Over time though, Ellie learns to forgive him and the rest is history. Because there’s no real canon ending, anything can happen. So… Did they eventually create a cure? Who knows. Did they stay in Jackson, happily living out their lives? Maybe. Did Joel die a badass and sacrificial death protecting Ellie? Possibly. Or did Joel die eventually in old age, surrounded by his family, holding his daughter’s hand as he passed away?

I hope so…

He may have been a complicated anti-hero. He may have even been a villain. Regardless, he still deserved a respectful death and in my perfect makebelieve ending…

He got it.

🌟🌟/5

Photo Credit ~ some from @ inora_miller on Instagram

[dungeons-bat]

Mister Blue Eyes (1st Chap)

Warnings: Bad words, nothing else.

The complete fic --------------------------------------------- As I finished, the whole restaurant started clapping.

“Thank you very much, you all, for your time. The Coffee Shop closes in half on hour, and you have ten minutes before the kitchen closes. Order your food now or never. The bar keeps open for the whole half hour. Thank you very much again.” - So I left the stage and started to put my stuff in my bag. As soon as I got inside my house, I had a quick bath and slept. I was tired as hell.

The next day. My boss asked me to sing during breakfast, which was unusual, giving the fact that I only sing, sometimes, at noon to 14:00 and four times a week 20:00 to 22:30. And today is not even my day of work. Anyway, he asked, and I have nothing to do, so extra cash will not kill me. After some time I saw a man getting inside the shop, and I was sure I’ve seen him somewhere, I just don't know where. It was already annoying, I kept looking at him, trying to figure out from where I’d know him. I could not guess. He was for sure British. I heard him talking to the waitress. So, how did I know this man? I kept repeating to myself all his physical characteristics. A bit long, reddish light brown hair, blue eyes, athletic body, and seamed to be 1.90, or 1.85, maybe. Seams to be 35 years old, not older than 45. He noticed that I was looking at him, and locked eyes with mine. But I quickly moved my eyes away, blushing. But Lord, that man was handsome. And he kept looking at me, and I was already regretting being in the stage. I just wanted to hide my face somewhere. I could feel my cheeks burning, everyone should be seeing me blushing. When I finished my songs, he was still there, but he had finished his breakfast a while ago. I just decided to forget him. The problem was: in the next day, I decided to have breakfast at the restaurant, and guess who was there? Mister Blue Eyes. And I suppose he remembered me, because sometimes I caught him looking at me. It was even hard to eat, you have no idea of how hot he was. I decided that if I keep seeing him, I would eventually ask him where he studies, or where he works, so that maybe I can discover why I seem to know him. But if I don't see him again, I’m going to leave it quiet. Guess what? I kept seeing him. Sometimes he would just show up at night, when my performances were a bit better, since it was like ‘fancy dinner time’, and would just ask for a table, drink something, but eat nothing. He was just there, for two hours and a half, alone, watching me perform, doing nothing else. One day he brought another man. That day we were having an event, and I was singing better songs, like Frank Sinatra, or Elvis Presley. We were serving the most fancy food I’ve ever seen, and Mister Blue Eyes showed up on a gorgeous suit, dark blue. With the suit, he was wearing a shirt and tie that matched the blue shade. When he arrived I was already singing, and I literally tripped when I saw him, that man knew how t look just fine. The man who was seated with him was wearing a normal suit, black with a white shirt. The strange part was that the guy was always writing something, while Mister Blue Eyes kept looking at me. One day I just gave up. “Hello sir, I see that you come here constantly, and I have the feeling that I’ve seen you somewhere else. My name is Isa, by the way. It’s actually Isabela, but let’s stay with Isa.” - I was shaking, nervous as hell. “Hi Isa. I’m Tom. Thomas, actually. But I don't believe we’ve met. Don’t be shy, have a seat.” - He said, showing the chair in front of him. The name Tomas did not ring a bell, but it just gave me a stronger impression that I did yes know him. “Before anything, I would just like to say that I really enjoy your performances. You are incredibly talented.” - And that’s when I thank my parents for the education they gave me, because talking to this man made my brain melt, I could just answer stupid and simple things, as thank you, or, you don’t have to be so kind. “So, Tom, what do you work with?” - I would just ask those

idiotic questions that you make when you want to get to know someone. “Oh, well. I’m an actor, actually.” - He simply said. Oh my, this is? No, it can’t be. I don’t believe it. Who is the only British actor, blue-eyed, with reddish hair and named Tom that I know? Is he freaking Tom Hiddleston? My face turned white. “Hey, are you OK?” - he asked, but I was in shock. How could I not recognize him before? This is The Night Manager, Tom Hiddleston. This is Loki, Tom Hiddleston. Oh my freaking Lord. I’m freaking talking to Tom Hiddleston. “My God, you’re Tom Hiddleston.” - I don’t know If I should have said that, but I did. My brain was just not working any more. “So I guess you have just discovered from where you know me. Have you ever seen anything I’m in?” - Now is when I decide if I’m going to tell the truth, and he’s going to think I’m a crazy creep. Or, I’m gonna lie and say no. “I don’t mean to seam like a creep, but I’ve seen some.” - And he showed me a look that seemed to mean: ‘Oh, really?’ “That’s interesting. Care to tell me which?” - I can’t just tell him. I’m totally going to sound like a crazy creep. “Well, I’m a huge marvel fan, so the MCU in general. And the Loki series. Also, I’ve seen the Night Manager, and Kong. Besides, my two personal favourites, Crimson Peak and High Rise.” - At least he did not seem annoyed. “Wow, I’m surprised that you did not recognize me when you saw me the first time. Not that I’’m the famous actor, or nothing. But you’ve seen quite a number of projects I'm in.” - Yeah Tom, I also can’t believe I did not recognize you. His phone rang, and he took a quick look before saying, “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt our conversation, but I need to take this.” - I just nod, and he stood up, going somewhere else. I was still in shock, that was Thomas William Hiddleston, flesh and bones, in front of me. After some minutes, Thomas came back. “Sorry to keep you waiting, it was my publicist, I’m currently trying to get a paper on a series, and he was telling the date of my audition.” - Who would not want him on their show? “Well, I think you know some stuff about me, so if you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for living? I mean, do you live with your parents? Are you on college?” - Great question. “I live alone. Not alone, I have my cat. I always wanted to act, but I was afraid I would not get any work, since I’m not good, so I stick with my second option, law school. I graduated just this year. And I work at a firm, it was not that hard getting the job, thanks Harvard. I also work here, as you’ve noticed, but that’s just because I like to sing” - I explained. “So by yourself literally. What about your parents? If you’re comfortable in telling. Also, Harvard? Wow” - My parents? Left them as soon as I could. “I just don't have a great relationship with my parents, so as soon as I could leave their house, I did. They didn't have to pay college because I got a scholarship, so that was easier.” - “I believe it is your turn to ask the questions, miss.” - What could I possibly ask? “Well, I already know the answers to the questions you have asked me, so it makes no sense for me to ask. Let’s see. What do you like to do? Any hobbies?’ - What could Mister Hiddleston do when he has nothing to? “I love to read, I also love theatre acting. So normally when I’m bored I’ll read something or find something good to watch. I’ll go take a walk with my dog, Bobby. I also like jogging, I do it every morning. And yeah. I think that’s it.” - Mental note : Tom’s dog is called Bobby. “What a bout you.” - He asked. “Well, I also enjoy reading and theatre. I normally spend my whole day reading with my cat. I love to write too , I have never published anything, but I have quite a number of books saved in my drive. I like to go for a walk, and my cat comes with me, do not judge, he is a dog trapped in the body of a cat. And yeah, I love boxing too, I do it two times a week. I suppose that’s it.” - Now we hope that I’ve said nothing wrong. “I look forward to reading something of yours, Isa.” Oh, right on the jugular.

“They are really messed up, like, bad. They are really not good. Not worth anyone’s time, especially yours.” - Like all of them together can make a good bunch of crap. “I think you’re not the one to judge.”

[spkothdvldotmp3]

Fun fact: Michael (the archangel)’s gay little brother (Castiel) fell in love with Michael’s vessel (Dean) and convinced him to say no to Michael possessing him, so Michael took the next best thing, Sam and Dean’s half brother Adam. Adam and Michael then spend ~10 years trapped together in hell, about 1200 years because one month on Earth is one year in hell (Sam and Dean/the writers forget about them for a while). Over this time, they apparently grow incredibly close, so when they eventually get out and return to the show, they have insane chemistry, and are paralleled to Dean and Cas a whole bunch. They chemistry is extra funny because they are played by the same actor. The man is really good at acting in love with himself.

Michael's gay little brother fell in love with his vessel so he said fine, I'm gonna take the vessel's gay little brother instead and accidentally fall in love with him too over the course of approx 1200 years

first of all, thank you, i love you

second of all, i read the name adam and honestly! out loud!! went, “ohhh yeah! i forgot about him!” which seems about par for the course if i’m being honest

[ginnyzero]

Retelling Old Stories

I've written a book based on old fairy tales and legends and am currently reviewing the Shrek movies in Action Movie Friday. (Shrek 2 post coming next, I hope.) I thought I'd talk about retelling fairy tales, myths and legends.

Myths, fairytales, legends, these are the stories that are near and dear to our hearts. And let's face it, they're familiar, comforting and popular. Fairy tales such as The Sleeping Princess, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast have been told over and over to young children for generations. These stories are oral traditions passed down from generation to generation and have strayed quite a bit from their horrific and sexist roots. So much, that outside of a few key points their original creators may not recognize them anymore.

These oral traditions form the basis of the hero's journey which can be found in high fantasy stories such as Lord of the Rings and Science Fiction stories, such as Star Wars. They've been satirized (Ella Enchanted, the movie), parodied (Shrek) and outright made fun of (Mirror, Mirror) and also taken far too seriously (Snow White & The Huntsman.) Just as much as they've been played straight (see the Elemental Master Series of Mercedes Lackey.) And they've been mixed together until almost unrecognizable. (The Princess & The Frog, Frozen, Once Upon a Time, the 500 Kingdoms also by Mercedes Lackey.)

The great thing about fairy tales and myths and legends is that they have a very low risk level. People are far more likely to pick up something to read of watch that is relatively familiar to them and that they know they already enjoy rather than a brand new concept they don't understand and aren't sure they'll like. Fairy tales are comfort food. People know they like them. And given a choice between a concept they aren't sure of and a fairy tale based media, they're more than likely to choose a fairy tale based media.

So, how do you go about retelling these fairy tales and making them fresh and new for your audience? This was a question I (sort of) asked myself when I started to write the Dawn Warrior. (Available in Ebook & Paperback.) How do I take Sleeping Beauty and make her different without relying on, say, what we know of her through Disney or from Grimm, not the TV Show. (Which honestly, isn't much in either case.) And make them partly relevant without losing making a good story?

Change the Roles:

What if the Princess really isn't the Princess? What if she's the bodyguard in disguise that's protecting the real princess from assassins? (The Decoy Princess, Dawn Cook) What if the Princess is also a spy? (The Princess Series Jim C. Hines) Maybe Prince Charming is actually an actor!

I mean, come on, in real life unless your Prince William and Harry and work for the British Royal Navy, royals don't really have adventures. (I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of Queen Elizabeth either.)

Or, maybe the Princess and Prince aren't really the good guys after all. Maybe it's the Big Bad Wolf or the evil stepmother or even the sea witch. (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire) Or, to borrow from Hoodwinked, the Big Bad Wolf is really an investigative reporter trying to do an expose on Red Riding Hood. (I mean, she can't be all that sweet and innocent.)

A good example of this was a recent Sleeping Beauty movie that was in the horror genre. (Unfortunately I heard it was a really bad horror movie.) The Sleeping Beauty in the movie was supposed to be the damsel in distress and ended up being both the trap and the villain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdEo_t-iVbM

(I'll just leave this here.)

Change the Setting:

Fairy tales in SPACE!!! (Lunar Chronicles, Marissa Meyer) Okay, there aren't a lot of fairy tales in space. I think I saw another example on instafreebie the other day. In fact, there aren't many romances in space either. (I was listening to a podcast about an indie author who was doing this and she was the first writing romances set in the backdrops of aliens?) But, this is like Star Wars. Greek Myths in SPACE!!!! (Seriously, Star Wars is built around the classical hero's journey. The franchise even freely admits it in their authorized literature. I've got a book by Bantam called Star Wars: The Magic of Myth that goes through it step by step.)

This is one of the easier ways to make fairy tales seem more relevant and seems to be currently the most popular. Grimm the TV Show, Once Upon a Time (in Wonderland), The Harry Dresden Files, and Fables, all take fairy tales and legends and drop them into the middle of the modern world. I include Harry Dresden, not because he's playing out a fairy tale so to speak, but he's some sort of misguided Prince Charming type on his own hero's journey. The book Charming by James  Eliot, takes the character of "Prince Charming" plays it straight, and makes it a bloodline that is involved in some sort of knighthood charged with keeping the mundane world safe from the evil things that go bump in the night set in modern times.

Mercedes Lackey took a slightly different approach with her Elemental Masters series. She took fairy tales, played them straight, but set them in Edwardian times right up through the First World War. By doing so, she was able to show how the beginnings of the modern world like industrialization and rail roads and wars fought with machine guns instead of swords were effecting the world of magic and the magical creatures. (For instance, all the pollution made it easier for evil or nasty type elementals and creatures to thrive and good elementals and creatures that couldn't abide cold iron were dying off or going into hiding.)

Change the Genders:

Let's face it. Fairy tales are pretty sexist, no matter what your gender is. I had in the first draft of the Dawn Princess an entire rant by Roxana, who is a 'Beauty Asleep' about the differences between how a female Princess who is cursed to sleep and a male Prince is cursed to sleep and how neither tale does royalty any justice whatsoever.(Seriously, in the male version, when the Princess who had been sitting by his bedside took a nap, the clock should have reset, the Prince shouldn't still have sneezed and been woken by the maid.)

Maybe it's really Prince Charming asleep in the Castle and well, Beauty has to belt on her sword and gird her courage to get through the hedge and kill the dragon. Or, the tower bound male Rapunzel is intruded upon by a Pirate Princess who is looking for gold, not love. Maybe it isn't a brave little tailor but a brave seamstress! Or it is a male who is captured by a bunch of cannibalistic female bandits.

...

Okay, there is taking some things too far. (That story is terrible no matter what.)

Apply some Common Sense:

In fairy tales, things don't always make sense. I read them and go "why? why would they do that?" A lot of times Princes don't get punished for their ill deeds. Another Prince comes along, "saves" them and they go about their adventures without showing any sort of remorse for what they did in the first place. Princes don't become goose boys or shepherds or kitchen tweenies.(Or at least, not very often, I think Faithful John/Hans is about the only one I can think of.)

No, those punishments are reserved for Princesses who have been tricked into changing places with their maids and end up being goose girls or in the kitchen. (I can think of half a dozen variations of that tale.) And the Princess, instead of finding a nice baker or farmer to settle down with who appreciates her, instead figures out how to reveal her plight to the Prince who actually married her uppity maid/sister and seems happy with the maid/sister and once the maid/sister is out of the way, marries the Prince. (The Prince was tricked, happy to be tricked and the Princess took him anyways? That makes no sense.)

A really good example of this is the original and horrific Beauty Asleep tale. In the original tale, the King comes upon Beauty Asleep in her tower and rapes her, while she's asleep, repeatedly. In fact, he gets her pregnant with twins. The babes are born and he doesn't even take them with him! No. He leaves them with their sleeping mother. One of the babes gets hungry, as babies do! And sucks the thorn out of her finger that was keeping her asleep. Beauty wakes up. The Queen finds out about her existence. Tries to kill her. The King kills the Queen in turn and ends up marrying Beauty and bringing her and his twins to the castle.

Just what the ever loving hell?

It's good to be king?

No, really, the Queen should have taken Beauty's side. They could have killed the King for being an adulterer and ruled the kingdom together setting up the twins as the heirs. Female solidarity. Because the story as written is insane.

There's a post wandering about tumblr about swan maidens and selkies. And how awful the stories are about the men who take the swan maiden's cloaks and the selkies' skins to force these women to be their brides. One of the reblogs adds the caveat that it feels like these stories don't take into account the actual nature of swans and seals. Swans are pretty. They look graceful.

Swans are mean, they hiss, they bite, they're incredibly aggressive and they can break bones. Approach with caution. Don't try to steal from them. Don't try to pet them. Aggressive swan is aggressive. Okay. Anyone who steals a swan maiden's cloak deserves the punch in the face!

And seals, seals aren't all that nice either! Zefrank1 hasn't done a true facts about seals, but maybe he should. Male seals are called bulls for a reason! Elephant Seal bulls charge at each other when they fight. Leopard Seals are considered one of the ocean's more dangerous predators and take on whales and sharks. Seals train well to do tricks. Look,  just, don't mess with them because not only are they cute and have sharp teeth and claws, they're smart. Do you really want to mess with the woman who can steal all your nets and drive the fish away and beat you to a bloody pulp? Seal fights involve mud wrestling.

Add some reality to the stories. Give the actions of those involved real consequences. Change the personalities to actually reflect the animals they are sharing their bodies with.

Mash things together:

This is another popular tactic and TV Tropes calls it the "Fractured" Fairy Tale. Think how in Once Upon a Time, (spoiler alert) Rumpelstiltskin is also the Beast of Beauty and the  Beast and his father is Peter Pan. And he's the grandfather of the Truest Believer and thus the "father in law" of Emma Swan the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. And that barely dips a toe into the confusing of Once Upon a Time Family relationships.

Mercedes Lackey also did a version of mixing up of fairy tales in her 500 Kingdoms. In the 500 Kingdoms, The Tradition is a form of magic that ties to make fairy tales happen no matter what type of tale they are and no matter if all the pieces are actually 100% correct. Fairy Godmothers are there to steer the tradition so that disaster doesn't strike constantly. (Because what if the Prince of the Cinderella tale was actually a Princess or well, a Prince who was too young, too old, or just liked other Princes.)

Fables does this as well. Prince Charming is the same Prince across Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty ends up marrying the Beast in her second marriage. (Prince Charming is good at wooing, not staying.) The Gingerbread witch of Hansel and Gretel ends up being the witch who puts most of the tales in action across the Enchanted Forest. The last arc I read, Rose Red was making her own version of Camelot (and there was much trepidation about how that was going to turn out, probably badly.)

Grab a bunch of different stories that seem to work well together, stitch them together in a way that makes sense or seems fun. It's okay not to always tell the exact same tale.

Add Real People's stories:

Look, if you're going for a more empowered woman in your stories. There are plenty of women in history that were actually pretty awesome. And I'm not just talking about Esther from the Bible or Rahab. (Both pretty awesome ladies.) There were female pirates and female queens who outwitted and beat their male counterparts to be on the throne and to keep themselves out of jail. There are female scientists, female snipers and well, I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find something a woman did in real life that men get praised for more often.

In fact, one person go so fed up with the way fairy tale princesses are praised at places such as Disney, they created a site/book for girls about such heroines at Rejectedprincesses.com.

Youtube has videos labelled things like Top Ten Badass women from History you probably don't know about. (But if you'd read Rejected Princesses you actually might!)

So, don't be afraid to use some real world inspiration to give you ideas about how awesome your female characters can be.

And these are just a few ideas on how to take something old and make it something "new."

In the Dawn Warrior, I took a bunch of these. I applied some common sense. Changed the Princess' role. And really mashed some things together. But, I kept a medieval fairy tale like setting because I wanted to keep this series different from my other series, Heaven's Heathens MC, which is a light science fantasy that could read urban fantasy if you squint at it. (Or maybe it's the other way around.) Two series set in the modern/future world seemed a bit silly to me.

Mostly, my advice is if you want to retell a fairy tale or myth or legend, have fun with it. Take your ingredients, mix them up as needed and don't sacrifice your story for message. (Because really, that gets old very quickly.)

Whelp, now if you like fairy tales there are plenty of pieces of media in this post to check out. Happy reading/watching/researching!

[demidon117]

Suicide Squad Review

***Author’s Note: So, this is a review I wrote about Suicide Squad in a week long fury binge. IT IS LONG AND IT IS NEGATIVE. If you liked Suicide Squad, great! Don’t let me keep you from enjoying the things you like, these are just my angry, personal feelings about a movie. This is a seven-page review; like I said it’s long; if you read the whole thing, and agreed with it, give me some notes! Maybe follow? If this gets attention then I’ll post more film reviews here. Thanks for reading!*** Suicide Squad. Where do I begin?

   Well, first, this movie leaves me with such an irrational fury, I needed at least an hour of ranting and raving before I could sit down to write this. The lack of understanding of the original characters is astounding, its attempts at trying to be an all-out action movie and superhero team up are laughable, and its manipulation of emotions to try and get a response out of the viewer is sickening. This movie doesn’t only fail as a superhero team-up movie, it also fails as an action movie, which is inexcusable since we have movies that have already done this correctly. But, enough being angry, let’s get into the reasons why this movie fails so spectacularly. 
    Amanda Waller wants to create an off-the-book, black-ops squad of the worst of the worst to do tasks that no one else wants to do. So, she hires Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Diablo, Captain Boomerang, Katana, Enchantress, and a team of Navy SEALs, all the while the Joker tries to save Harley and Enchantress’s brother saves her. Do you see the problem here? There are way too many characters in this stupid movie. It’s obvious what this movie wanted to be, it wanted to be the Anti-Guardians of the Galaxy. It wanted to be dark and gritty and prove that DC could produce the same kind of movies Marvel could and give us a big superhero team-up. Except, that Marvel devoted several movies establishing characters before throwing them all together in a big blockbuster, and Marvel also knows how to devote time to showing these characters as relatable people. Suicide Squad tries to establish even more characters than the Avengers or Guardians did and do it all in two hours. But, hey, what about X-Men? They had a lot of characters and that movie was good. Yes, it was, but that movie already had the team established and didn’t give us background on every character in the movie. It focused on Rogue, Wolverine, and Magneto and that was it, and it was enough. This movie tries to develop every. Single. Character. And it doesn’t work in the slightest and it’s manipulative and disgusting. Half of the characters don’t even need to be in the movie. We don’t need Enchantress’s brother, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, or the Joker. Hell, I’m not even sure we needed Rick Flag and his group of Navy SEALs. The movie is so saturated with terrible characters trying to take the spotlight that it’s maddening. The only characters that were really interesting and had any depth at all were Katana, Diablo, Harley, and Deadshot. Those four could carry a movie and it probably would’ve been fine. But, I’ll get to that soon enough.


    The next problem is the villain they’ve got to fight. The character, Enchantress is is inhabiting the body of a scientist who’s in love with Navy SEAL Rick Flag, the leader of the Suicide Squad and basically the bodyguard/parole officer of Enchantress. Enchantress is some old god witch who was trapped in a doll, along with her brother Incubus. She escapes from Flag and frees her brother and the two of them try to take over/destroy the world for reasons. Do you see how complicated that is? In a movie where they’ve got Harley and the Joker trying to love it up, Deadshot trying to take care of his daughter, and a dozen other plot lines that don’t matter. The villain is too complicated for a movie like this, and she’s too powerful. The Suicide Squad isn’t a group of superheroes. There are only two Meta-Humans in the team, the rest are just highly skilled people. They’re a strike force, not a superhero team. Enchantress is a powerful goddess type character and her brother is equally powerful, if not more. This is not the job for a bunch of side villains. Especially when they go out of their way to show the Flash and Batman in the movie. A villain of these stakes needs to be saved for the Justice League movie. I mean, it’s such a powerful villain, ANOTHER city has been completely destroyed and abandoned, the aftermath yet again saved for another movie. When will these stupid movies address the destruction without destroying a city? All this death and destruction is becoming meaningless, and I hate to say it, but boring as well.

   So, it fails as a superhero movie, what about an action movie? No. In fact, that part is even worse. The movie takes two hours, and it’s split up into two halves, the first half establishes the characters and the second has them fighting. If you don’t know, this is a terrible idea. Firstly, the first half of the movie moves at a mind-numbing pace. I could take in what they were saying just fine, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t care about any of these characters because it didn’t give me time to care. It just kept going and going without giving you time to breathe. It introduces the main characters fine, I suppose, but then it tries to establish the dozen necessary plot lines. Let me tell you something, Fast Five had a lot of characters, and it had to establish a lot, but it didn’t do it in the span of just an hour. Sure, some of the characters were returning from previous movies, but people can sit down and watch Fast Five and enjoy it without seeing the previous four movies. Then, there’s Hardcore Henry, another great action movie, that keeps the plot moving at a comfortable pace and it would stop to have serious character moments and have a deep scene or two. “But you can’t compare those movies!” Some may cry, “Those aren’t genre movies!”

   That doesn’t matter. Suicide Squad desperately wants to wow you as an action movie without caring at all to make it coherent or exciting. The second half of the movie moves at a snail’s pace compared to the first half. It kept dragging on in muddled blackness. The fights were boring because there was too much going on. Yeah, that’s right, there was too much fighting in the fight scenes, so much in fact, that it sucked all of the fun out of the air. There were too many people fighting, I couldn’t tell who was supposed to be impressive or not. Am I supposed to focus on Harley? Katana? Croc? Deadshot? Because lord knows it sure as hell ain’t Captain Boomerang. He throws, like, two boomerangs in the entire movie. Two. And his damn name is Captain Boomerang. Not to mention, most of the fight scenes in this movie are just people walking around shooting guns. It’s boring to just watch people walk around shooting guns. It could be impressive if it just happened once or twice, but it happens every time there’s a fight scene. The SEALs in this movie are so efficient that they could’ve carried the movie, it’s like they wanted to be Battlefield LA. So the movie, at the big climactic battle scene takes an hour to play through and it’s boring as sin. There are hardly any super powers in this movie about a comic book, y’know, the thing these characters are known for? “But, what about the end? There are super powers then.”

   Oh yeah, that. Spoilers here, so skip to the next paragraph to miss it. Though, I’m not sure why you’d want to. Anyway, at the end of the movie, the characters end up fighting Incubus, Enchantress’s brother. Anyway, they’re getting the snot kicked out of them, and the whole movie, Diablo is building up to something, saying he’s holding back, and thus far, he’s been impressive, so what could he be holding back? Well, the fact that he turns into a giant flaming Aztec skeleton, and I’ll be perfectly honest, it was amazing. He shows up speaking Spanish in a demonic voice and just throwing fire at the Incubus and punches him and it’s awesome. And then he runs out of juice and his pinned to the ground by, well that’s okay, they’ll save him right? No. They don’t. Despite the fact that he’s weakened the thing and that Katana already showed that she could cut off hands and that they obviously had enough time to save him because they took the time to debate it, they use a high powered explosive to kill Diablo and Incubus. But, they kept Captain Boomerang, because “Hey! Wacky Australian antics!” So, one of the two characters I cared about died, thus ruining any chance I had to watch the second movie.

   Anyway, the superpowers are kind of cool and the effects are impressive, but it’s hardly seen in the actual fights and it’s just disappointing. Like, I get it, you want to show how dark, edgy, and serious these characters are because they use lethal force, but seriously, it’s so boring to watch because it’s just shooting guns. Katana who could’ve been the most fun to watch, and would’ve been incredibly popular among those sword wielding weebs, is hardly seen because Will Smith and Margot Robbie are the most famous people in this movie. And the movie knows that because they get the most lines, the most screen time, and the most development and it sucks. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with most critics in that they were fantastic. Will Smith brings a depth to Deadshot most people didn’t know, even though his backstory and motivations are stock and generic, and Margot Robbie does a great job as Harley, I honestly can think of anything she does wrong, it’s all the fault of David Ayer for ruining the character. Like, who wears underwear to a war-zone? I’d even accept a stupid skirt. And I wouldn’t say there were bad performances, per se, just bad characters, so it made the performances hard to care about. Well, one exception, Jared Leto as the Joker is one of the worst things I’ve seen in the history of the universe.

   I usually like Leto, I think he’s a pretty good actor. He was good in Mr. Nobody and Requiem for a Dream. He did a good job of being a douche bag in Fight Club, though, I’m beginning to think that wasn’t all acting…

   Anyway, his portrayal of the character was just all wrong. His laugh, his mannerisms, his antics while the movie was being filmed, it’s just… Stupid. It’s easily the worst Joker performance I’ve ever seen. Especially when we’re coming off the heels of Heath Ledger’s legendary performance and Mark Hamill’s iconic voice and laugh. There’s so much inspiration on how to do the character right, and the fact that this movie got it so wrong, it makes me feel ill. And I’m all for taking the character into your own, but this portrayal is just so wrong. Leto just doesn’t have the necessary charm or intimidation to ground such a character. Worst of all, he’s not funny. Say what you will about The Joker, but he was funny. He’d crack jokes, he’d play pranks, yeah he’d kill you, but he’d still try to have fun. This Joker tries to be more realistic as a gang leader, kind of how Heath Ledger made his Joker more realistic as an avatar of chaos. Leto is able to make the Joker erratic for sure, but it’s so stupid. There’s never any reason as to why people follow him. Ledger promised people a revolution, Hamill ruled them through fear, Jack Nicholson was already a gang leader when he became The Joker. Leto? Well, he’s erratic. All we see is that he knows how to use guns, like every other character in this movie. So, why is he in charge? There’s never a moment where we see why he’s in charge, only that people follow him for some reason. Finally, my biggest problem with this entire movie, the worst thing that happens, the thing that makes me so damn angry about it, is how it plays up the romance of Harley Quinn and The Joker. 
    Let me be clear, in case you don’t understand, the Joker is the evilest creature ever put to paper. He is not sympathetic, he is not caring, and he is not someone to be put into a relationship with someone like Harley Quinn. Their relationship is not loving and romantic, it is abusive. From her conception, Harley was meant to show just how heartless the Joker can be. He would hit her, berate her, and use her as a human shield, but she followed him because she had Stockholm Syndrome. She was tricked into thinking she was in love with him. And the Joker knew that. So he’d drag her along and play along with her delusions, so long as it benefited him. The current run of the Batman comics shows the Joker being so monstrous to Harley it’s honestly hard to read. The Joker and Harley are not a loving couple. So, whenever this movie shows The Joker caring for Harley in any way, it makes me sick to my stomach. It’s because of this stupid movie that people started romanticizing the two again. This part of the movie is so big and important to the story that I can say this is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The Joker does not love Harley, he just can’t and just won’t.

    Finally, there’s a bunch of superficial garbage that I hate about this movie.  The music is so irritating. It feels like they wanted to do what Quinten Tarantino does with having a soundtrack of recognizable songs that flow with the story. Except they don’t flow with the story in the least bit and are way too recognizable. It really feels like they had a list of popular songs and just slapped them in during the late stages of editing. Listen, music is shockingly important to movies, watch a movie on mute and you’ll realize how important backing tracks can be, even during quiet scenes. You can have popular songs in your movie and have them work, Tarantino does it, dozens of other action movies do it, but they do it sparingly. This movie feels like an iTunes playlist was shoved in. It’s so irritating and it pulls me out of the film each and every time a new song comes on, and it sucks because the original score is honestly pretty good. That’s one of the few things I’ll give to DC movies, the original score is usually pretty good. I can’t hum any of the melodies, but I remember a scene where Diablo shoots fire for the first time in the city, and the thing that struck me the most, was the music, it was loud and dramatic and perfectly encompassed the shock, horror, and amazement we needed to feel at that moment. It’s just such a shame they had to drown out all of it with annoyingly recognizable music.

 Then there’s the editing. IT’S SO DAMN DARK. No, not the story and subject matter, the actual brightness in the movie was too dark, so any of the fighting scenes in the movie were practically impossible to see. I don’t know if it was the Amazon Video version, but I had to adjust the gamma on my screen to watch the film. I’ve never had to do that before. Then, during the scenes where they were introducing the characters, they had these neon graffiti effects show up and had caricatures of the characters. It was actually kind of cool, if not trendy, which is actually bad, so I guess this compliment doesn’t work, but whatever. It would’ve been nice if that color was peppered throughout the rest of the movie because the rest was so muddled in blackness that I couldn’t tell if this was a horror movie or a superhero action romp.

   I remember right before this movie was released, they actually had to go back and reshoot some scenes to make it funnier. And I thought, “Great, it’d be nice to laugh unironically,” But, guess what, it wasn’t funny. It was obvious they added scenes of Captain Boomerang and his gross fetish with a pink unicorn because it was shown twice and completely forgotten about. This stupid unicorn was important enough to bring into a war-zone, but as soon as he dropped it, it was forgotten. Then, when they showed people getting evacuated (which was an obvious attempt at trying to show us “Hey! We learned from Man of Steel!”) there was a girl walking around with her friends in party dresses and said something like “This is the worst birthday ever.”

   Why? Why would you add that? It wasn’t funny, thousands of people are dying/dead, and you’re going to take time out of your two-hour movie to shove in a line like that? No. That’s not okay. It’s not funny, it’s not amusing, it’s insulting and completely ruins the immersion. I was never more aware I was watching a stupid movie than right there and then.

   NOT TO MENTION, the first half of the movie just feels like extended trailers all smashed into each other. There’s undeniable whiplash when they enter the city. Actually, they had two different editing studios work on this film. Like, DC just didn’t know what to do, so they had two different studios work on it, and instead of thoughtfully using the edits to make a good, coherent plot, they literally smashed the two different versions of the film together to make some disgusting half-trailer-half-cinematic monstrosity. Honestly, this would probably explain the piss poor pacing of the first half.

   So, I’ve been ripping at this movie, being angry and ranting, but not giving any real ways to try and fix this movie. And yes. There are ways to make this movie work. And yes, there are ways to make it work. Keep in mind, this is all coming from my own story choices. Were I in charge of the movie, this is how I’d write it. 

    The first thing to change is the villain. The Suicide Squad is a hit squad, meant to do secret operations you don’t want people to ever hear about, or to take down a target that only super-villains could take down. This Enchantress character, as I’ve said, is too powerful for these characters to take down. So, instead of them fighting Enchantress, have them go after the Joker. I’m not kidding. This would set up a lot of moment of conflict for Harley and would give Margot Robbie something to reach for other than edgy scene girl. The flashbacks into her and the Joker’s past would have more meaning and show how manipulative he is into tricking her into loving him. This would also set up a good relationship between Harley and Deadshot. They had undeniable chemistry together, as I expected of Will Smith and Margot Robbie. I’ll admit it, I wanted Deadshot and Harley together. Sue me.
    The next thing would be to cut out most of the characters in the Suicide Squad. All you need are Deadshot, Harley, Katana, and Diablo. Why? Well, for one, these are the only characters in this stupid movie that have any decent backstories, and for two, they all have incredible potential to make good characters. Send those four after the Joker and it’d add up to something pretty tense. Hell, you could even keep Batman in the movie like the animated feature they made. Then, you stop using that horrible soundtrack. The original score was good enough, don’t keep throwing in pop songs. It’s not fun and it’s distracting as hell. Then you use ONE studio to do the editing, and I’d say that’d add up to a pretty enjoyable film.

   I just can’t believe DC ruined another movie like this. If I were them, I’d immediately drop the rest of the plans they had for future movies because there’s no way they can salvage this universe after Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad. This movie was just poor decision after poor decision, and instead of making a movie that’s so bad it’s good, like The Room or xXx, this film is just bad enough to be infuriating.

[jillmckenzie1]

Dwayne Johnson Fights a Building

Die Hard is the greatest American action movie ever made. Released on July 12, 1988, there are an awful lot of reasons why it shouldn’t have worked. Casting the lead role of John McClane wasn’t easy. The studios really wanted either Al Pacino or Richard Gere, but neither was interested. Stallone passed on it. Schwarzenegger passed on it. Eastwood passed on it. Hell, even Frank Sinatra passed on it.* They had to settle for Bruce Willis, a motormouthed television actor.

Weirder yet? Despite only being known for fairly obscure English TV, Alan Rickman landed the iconic role of archvillain Hans Gruber. This was his first film. Ever. Even weirder? Director John McTiernan read the novel the film is based on and promptly got rid of most of the story and characters. Why? The book itself is not what you would call a laugh-a-minute. It’s gritty. Serious. The villains are a group of bloodthirsty terrorist fanatics. McTiernan wanted a change. A sense of joy.

Take inspired casting, precision directing, and clever screenwriting, put them together, and you end up with a film that casts a long shadow. Die Hard made $83 million in 1988, which adjusted for ticket price inflation comes out to somewhere around $187 million. It also spawned a sub-genre, in which a lone hero is unwillingly thrust into a dangerous situation located in a single location and does battle with a brilliant mastermind.

There are a lot of Die Hard copycats. A freaking lot. Some are very good, like Speed (Die Hard on a bus) and Cliffhanger (Die Hard on a mountain). Others are okay, like Under Siege (Die Hard on a battleship) and Olympus Has Fallen (Die Hard in the White House). Still others are straight-up Not Good, like Sudden Death (Die Hard in a hockey arena). It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a Not Good copycat. Whoops — shouldn’t have said that, because Skyscraper has been inflicted upon us, and ladies and gentlemen, it is Not Good.

I shouldn’t start sighing audibly at the very beginning of a movie. Sigh I did when we’re introduced to Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) in a flashback to Ten Years Earlier. He’s a member of a hostage rescue team, and when a mission goes wrong, the lower half of Will’s leg is blown off. As so often happens, his surgeon Sarah (Neve Campbell) saves his life and they fall in love and get hitched.

Yeah, Will now has a prosthetic leg, which is kind of a bummer. But Will and Sarah have two cute-as-a-button kids, Georgia (McKenna Roberts) and Henry (Noah Cottrell), so I guess it evens out. Better yet, Will runs a small business charged with assessing the security of skyscrapers. His pal Ben (Pablo Schreiber) even recommends a cushy gig for him at The Pearl.

What is The Pearl, you may ask? Located in Hong Kong, it’s the world’s tallest skyscraper standing at 3,500 feet and 240 stories tall. The Pearl is the brainchild of the bewilderingly rich Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han), and to paraphrase Jurassic Park, he’s spared no expense. The building has state of the art fire suppression systems, top-notch security, and what looks to be a quasi-holodeck in the penthouse. Why is there a quasi-holodeck? Well, the rich are very different from you and I, apparently.

Anyway, the Sawyer clan has moved into a lovely apartment on the 98th floor of The Pearl. That’s inconvenient due to the presence of Kores Botha (Roland Moller), a heavily-armed mercenary leading a team of likewise heavily-armed mercenaries. They proceed to disable the fire-suppression system and set the 96th floor on fire. Why would they do such a nefarious deed? So they can steal a McGuffin, silly! Unfortunately, Sarah and the kids are home and have gotten themselves trapped. As Will prefers his family not on fire, he must brave both the flames and the baddies to rescue them.

Look, if you’re going to rip-off Die Hard and cast Dwayne Johnson as the lead, you immediately have yourself a Rock-sized problem. Johnson is a hulking mass of muscle, and he looks like he could rip Hans Gruber’s head clean off. Do you really want a movie where he smashes his way to victory? No, you don’t, because that’s dull. Off the top of my head, I can think of two ways you make this film defy expectations:

Constantly put Johnson in situations where his strength and physicality won’t help, and he has to rely on his wits.

Have Johnson and the kids get trapped, and Neve Campbell must save the day.

That’s just two scenarios. I thought of those sober and on just two cups of coffee, and I am not a professional filmmaker. Rawson Marshall Thurber is, having previously directed Johnson in the kind-of funny Central Intelligence. Here, he’s getting serious with a slickly-directed film that immediately starts moving and doesn’t let up. That’s a problem, because for a movie like this to work, we first need the environment established. Thurber rushes through the description of The Pearl so fast, we never get a sense of its geography or character. He does a nice job with some vertigo-inducing setpieces, and he’s aided by cinematographer Robert Elswit** in making the fiery mayhem look pretty.

Thurber also wrote the script, and this is where it starts to make me cranky. When the bad guys begin their siege in Die Hard, what’s the first thing John McClane does? He runs away and hides on another floor. That terror is a totally recognizable human emotion, but we rarely feel it here. Dwayne Johnson’s Will is another highly trained badass, and his character is, at worst, uneasy at times. Most of the characters seem unencumbered by personalities. Lead villain Botha is generically evil, and his underlings aren’t much better. There’s a henchwoman who constantly scowls, a snide hacker…and then a bunch of other guys with guns. If you have a big personality like Dwayne Johnson as your lead, you need antagonists that are credible threats. Compare the blue-collar underdog John McClane to the tactical genius Hans Gruber and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s not the fault of the cast that they have so little to work with. Neve Campbell tries her best, and even gets a little ass-kickery thrown her way. She’s a skilled performer and there’s no reason she couldn’t be a credible action lead. As Sarah, she mostly looks terrified, and that’s a massive waste of her talents. I liked Chin Han’s Zhao, despite playing a two dimensional billionaire.

Then there’s Dwayne Johnson and the constant conundrum I have with him. First, understand that he’s an incredibly skilled performer. To be involved in the WWE, you have to be both a credible athlete and a strong actor. Looking at his filmography, I see he’s done films like The Rundown, Pain and Gain, and Southland Tales and delivered strong performances. Also looking at his filmography, he usually plays the same guy over and over. He’s the same guy in Fast Five, the same guy in San Andreas, and the same guy here, the ultra-competent slab of beef who can deliver a haymaker or a quip. It’s all variations on a theme, and understand that I not only like Johnson as a performer, but also he seems to be a good guy. I just wish he’d take risks as big as he is.

Buried beneath the CGI fire, the boring-as-hell McGuffin, and the perfunctory action beats is the seed of a good movie. Imagine an action movie that utilizes all the weird details of modern supertall structures.*** Imagine Dwayne Johnson playing a flawed hero with the odds against him. Imagine a villain that could plausibly beat him — easily. If that movie ever gets made, it’ll be a worthy successor to Die Hard. Until then, we’re stuck with Skyscraper.

  *This is a completely true statement. Die Hard is based on Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever. The novel is a sequel to The Detective, and Sinatra starred in the film adaptation in 1968. Sinatra’s contract stipulated that he had to be offered the sequel first and, completely unsurprisingly, the 73 year old turned down the role.

**Elswit is Paul Thomas Anderson’s usual cinematographer, and he shot There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights. Why was this wildly overqualified guy hired to work on Skyscraper? Probably because he was also the director of photography on Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

***Which you can learn a little more about here.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/dwayne-johnson-fights-a-building/

[denniskismet]

Diane Birch - Nous

In case you overlooked Diane Birch’s magnificently dark, brooding, melancholic yet hopeful EP Nous in 2015, there is now a vinyl version with an extra track to complete the story. Inspired by Hypatia, the 4th century mathematician and astronomer Hypatia who was (literally) torn to shreds for being too progressive and, oh, a woman, the record was written, produced and released by Birch herself on her own label, Hymnpatia (we see what you did there, Diane). Here the piano prodigy daughter of a Seventh-day Adventist preacher talks us through the eight tracks that make up this stunning piece of work. And the title? Yes, if means ‘us’ in French, but mainly it’s Greek for ‘mind’, ‘intellect’ and ‘common sense’. If you possess any of the latter, you will use it and get to know this record. 

What was the genesis of Nous? When did Hypatia first cross your path, and how does her story tie in with the record?

The theme was inspired organically by an overall state of mind which I suppose was brewing for some time. I found myself looking inward and starting to question so many of my beliefs and ideas about the world and realizing how subconsciously programmed I was, even though I've always believed myself to be progressive and unconventional. As I started to evolve within I noticed the same kinds of struggles and shifts outside in the world. The divine feminine was a very strong theme for me with Nous. Realizing how suppressed she had been within not only myself but in the world. Hypatia was of course an inspiration given the threat of her power within a patriarchal system. We are still fighting the same battles that so many strong women have given their life for, so she was a muse of sorts for the opening.

When did the title come to you? It’s beautifully ambiguous.

A friend had texted me a quote from a book she was reading and 'Nous' had been described as 'the finest point of the soul'. This really struck me and I researched it further. The older philosophical definitions point to 'awareness, understanding, intuition' etc... I also liked the ambiguity of it as it could also be referred to as 'we' in French, which seemed equally appropriate.

We won’t lie: the phrase ‘additional saxophone recorded by Stuart Matthewman in NYC’ blows our mind. How did you snare a member of ACTUAL SADE?

Ha! I'm also a huge Sade fan. Stuart has been a good friend of mine for quite some years now and also happens to be one of the loveliest people on the planet. He has such a signature sound and one that I felt would evoke the smoothness that I wanted on the album.

You recorded the album in Berlin. How did the city influence this album, do you think, if at all?

Berlin was a wonderful place for me to focus and I was deeply inspired by the history and manner in which the city has risen from the ashes of its past. It was also incredibly therapeutic to be in an environment where I could fully express myself without the pressure of NYC socially, financially, logistically et cetera. I felt very free there and the musicians were wonderful, as well as the studios filled with pristine German gear that would make any audiophile's mouth water, ha ha.

‘Thank you to my muse and partner in crime, Meshakai Wolf’, you write, and that Nous would not exist without him. Can you expand on that?

Meshakai was my boyfriend at the time and we also moved to Berlin together. He was a massive support in every phase of the album and practically dragged me out the door and into a studio from being curled up in a ball on the floor wanting to quit music. He was my muse and a creative collaborator on videos, album art et cetera, and we also wrote the lyrics for Kings of Queens together.

Ordinary Angels is the extra track on the newly released vinyl edition. Why did it need to be on here to complete the story?

Ordinary Angels was an older track like so many others bumming around in my hard drive. I'd always liked it and felt it was a shame that it never had anywhere to go in terms of a release. When we agreed a vinyl pressing with Rough Trade, I thought it would be nice to make it special and add a bonus track, so I threw it in the mix.

It’s such a great short phrase on the sleeve: ‘Produced by Diane Birch’. Are we right in thinking this is the first time you did everything yourself? Was this important to you, a moment of: ‘I’m ready’?

Yes, it meant a lot to me to feel like I'd really done something on my own. After so many years on a major leaning label and a team of people around me, I had really lost sight of my own creativity. It took a hell of a lot of work for me to build myself up to a place where I believed in my singular vision again as I had done so many years ago when I was just starting out, and it was a very rewarding experience to prove to myself that I had the power to create and do it all myself and not be at the mercy of everyone else.

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Nous by Diane Birch, track by track

Hymn for Hypatia

“(And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not)”

It is a phrase in ancient Koine Greek that I crafted into a chant as an ode of thanks to Hypatia who had so many gifts and talents, yet was too powerful and bright for the times in which she lived. 

How Long

“I'm a fool, I'm a fool for cryin' / but you're just cruel, you're just cruel to leave me dyin'”

This song is about waiting to find vulnerability, empathy and ultimately love from someone that is trapped within their own perspective.

King of Queens

“King of Queens with no means to rule / there will always be a crowd to fool”

This song was inspired by the NY Mets. As someone who's never cared about baseball, I found myself in a conversation with Meshakai one day about why on earth he would spend so much time and energy watching, supporting, and caring about a team who always seemed to be losing while they painfully drag along a seemingly depressed yet unwavering fan base. As he started describing his love of the game and the Mets in particular I was struck by the poetry and romance of it all and how layered the love of the game actually was. The flip meaning of it for me again points to patriarchy and the extent to which the “kings” are still trying to assume their dominance, yet without the embracing and honouring of the divine feminine they don't have the means to “rule the world” in a deeper sense. 

Stand Under My Love

“Big sky come crashing down / there has to be a place for us in this world / with a little shelter from up above / little lies at every turn / I wanna be the face you trust in this world / when you need a little shelter / stand under my love.”

This song was inspired by wars, within ourselves and out in the world. The idea that so many people have nowhere to turn, no one who understands. It was what I wanted to sing to the refugees, even to the terrorists, to anyone that felt so pushed to their limits of living that death seemed the only option.

Walk On Water

“Take a step out, love is an ocean / we can walk on water / on water.”

This song came about regarding the relationship between a father and a son and the limits to which ego and pride had cemented a certain dynamic and behavioural pattern between them. The idea that we place limits on ourselves and our relationships with people based on our conditioning which has no absolute truth or meaning other than what we continue to give it. Borders were a strong theme in the song, and how dangerous they can be within ourselves and within the world. Again the refugee crisis had a big impact, seeing how parallel the messages were for me.

Woman

“Ancient mother of the skies / hiding behind my eyes / come out in the open before the world is broken / I am, I am / the shape of your shadow / the blood on your arrow / woman, woman.”

This was written as a kind of prayer for the divine feminine within myself and within everyone. I was really struggling to ditch the maiden seat and feel worthy of stepping up onto the throne within. I was also calling out in humble gratitude to the women who have fought to their heights and depths, often sacrificing everything for their higher calling.

Ordinary Angels

“Some kind of law / some kind of split-second magic / gone without a trace.”

This song was written during a period of pretty bad depression for me. I had been experiencing very nihilistic thoughts about life and death and perhaps confronted with yet another blow to the already exasperating desire to find meaning and magic in anything at all. It felt as though the veil of innocence had been ripped off, the drugs wore off and the lights came on to reveal there were just a bunch of actor angels wearing glow stick halos and all this time I had believed they were other worldly beings. It was my Wizard of Oz moment, I guess.

[nettvnow-blog]

Joe Menconi | Blurred

Kyle Anderson and Joe Menconi are changing the way men do comedy, especially in the web series world. While the community is flooded with your typical bromance or asshole characters, Joe and Kyle bring humor in their flaws as they take on more exaggerated versions of themselves in Blurred. With season two premiering tonight, jump down below and see what co-creator Menconi has to say in our exclusive chat.

netTVnow: Where did the concept for Blurred come from?

Joe Menconi: Well Kyle and I are roommates. We have been wanting to make something together for a while and had a running Google doc full of bits and situations that kept coming up or that we simply thought were funny. We were going to just try and shoot a few sketches but said screw it and wound up going for the web series. On paper it was over ambitious and we were probably quite stupid for thinking we could pull it off. But we just wanted to make something we liked and that we thought was funny. It’s really just a heightened version of us in the show. We weren’t trying to change the game we just wanted to get out quality content and look to build on it. And also to have a link to send our parents so they knew what the hell we were doing out here.

netTVnow: What led you two, to working together?

JM: We actually both went to the same college (Indiana University) but didn’t know each other too well. I left after two years to do improv in Chicago while Kyle had been making comedy videos. Once I made the move to LA we had a lot of mutual friends telling us to connect. Like I said, we wound up becoming roommates and are basically brothers now. Like Ryan Seacrest and Carson Daly. But we found we had a similar voice comedically. Maybe it was delusional confidence but we felt like we had good chemistry that would hopefully read on camera. 

netTVnow: Is this your first web series, if so what were you surprised to find about working in that medium?

JM: I was in a small web series about a year and a half ago when I first moved to LA and again, Kyle had made digital content as well. I think we were surprised by how many web series were out there. It’s been cool finding this indie film and web series community. People are doing really cool stuff. It’s awesome that anyone can make something and it can be seen at any time. That of course can work the other way because it’s pretty diluted and hard to get your stuff seen. There’s a lot of bad content and a lot of good content. Which I guess is the internet in a nutshell.

netTVnow: All the episodes are great, do you guys have a favorite one? Mine’s definitely the first one when you do the handshake from Parent Trap!

JM: Thanks Michelle we appreciate that. Yeah ‘Double Date’ seemed to be the favorite. I think the first few and the last one were our favorites. But yeah the handshake was kind of an improvised thing on that day of shooting. We had just written down “montage” and when we got to it we felt like we had to do the hand shake. So two grown adult males tried to perfect it in their apartment in about ten minutes. But yeah we both grew up on the Parent Trap, Lohan version of course. Quaid is unbeatable in that.

netTVnow: I love that you guys can poke fun at the stereotypical guys that we often see on television, what was it like writing the script and putting this together?

JM: It probably looks slightly more intentional than it appears. I feel like for whatever reason that is a trend for guys in shows. Especially around our age. The idea that they have to look cool and always get girls. Which is absurd to me because that doesn’t happen ever. It comes off fake and dishonest when you see that stuff on TV. Unless you’re one of those hot LA guys with the jaw line and the dumb angled face, I don’t know who is that cool.

Neither of us play instruments we're not that dope. The thing I do like is we always are the ones that lose. We’re the butt of the jokes. It’s more fun to live in that space as dudes and also is more relatable. When we write, especially more in season two, we had fun trying to push us into looking more lame and failing harder. We really are two giant, harmless, dumb idiots. We’re always in our heads in real life. So we just tried to heighten that and call it out in the show.

netTVnow: If you don’t mind discussing budget, many web series often work with little to no budget, what was it like for you guys and how did that play a role into filming?

JM: We’re an open book, Michelle. See. That was a dumb thing to say right there. Sorry. But I think the biggest thing it does is force you to wear multiple hats and learn quickly. I think we both learned so much about how things are made from the two seasons we’ve done. We often change jokes on the fly and have to be cool with losing scenes or bits but have to know which ones we can afford to lose.

Problems always pop up. No matter what, it’s inevitable. It was a crash course in indie film making. And as stressful as it was at times it’s so cool to figure out how to work like that. We’re all friends. Our small crew is all friends too, so we enjoy that kind of collaborative process and all of us just trying to figure it out. We were working with a much bigger budget on season two. In fact, we had no budget for the first season, which was great but brought on a whole new bag of anxiety.

netTVnow: What’s your favorite part about web series?

JM: Being able to do your own thing and trying to make the type of show you want to see. There are no rules. It’s like recess in grade school. A lot of people think they know what you “should do” or say “this is how you make a web series,” which is kind of bullshit to be honest. Nobody knows exactly what they’re doing and it has to be true to the people making it.

We personally tried to not listen to that stuff. We really only have one rule - if we both think it’s funny, we do it. Again, it’s cool we live in a time where we can do this thing. We don’t have to just audition next to a bunch of people that are better looking, went to a better acting school than us. We can make stuff happen for ourselves. We trust what we’re doing and have a lot of fun trying to make people laugh.

netTVnow: What can audiences expect in the second season?

JM: For the ‘Joe’ character to be heavier. It wasn’t done on purpose but it’s just the truth. We’re very excited for this season. Working with a bigger budget this time around allowed us to shoot at some really cool locations. There’s a lot more meat to the episodes. They’re significantly longer and it allowed us to tell more of a story in each episode. You still get us being stupid we just were able to add cooler stories over that relationship. We also have some really awesome actors/actresses and comedians this season. People that we’re genuinely fans of comedically. In the first episode alone, you’ll see a lot of really talented human beings. And better looking people than us. So if you don’t like looking at our faces there’s more appealing people to watch. 

netTVnow: Will Kyle and Joe finally get girlfriends?

JM: Wow, we have so many threads to our show I don’t know if we can give it away! No, that’s of course not true. But I think you could guess most likely not. Kyle and Joe are still not ready for girlfriends I don’t think. We were able to show a few realer moments relationship wise which was cool. There’s also a lot more stuff about our relationship this season. We get in a confrontation in one of the episodes and it’s really hard hitting dramatic stuff. TNT type stuff. Blurred knows drama. And you can pull quote that.

netTVnow: Do you guys have any upcoming projects you can share?

JM: I am in a really cool short film that I should be able to see by February - March. I’m excited for it. It’s a very sweet and funny story called One More Thing: A Hoard Alone Story. I got to work with an incredibly talented writer/director named Amanda Kinchen. She’s awesome.

Kyle's currently in production on some hilarious sketches that he's been working on with another comedian. They'll be putting content out throughout the upcoming months. Additionally, Kyle and I are also doing a video series for a new nutrition/lifestyle brand called hustle up. We’ll be going into production on those after season two of Blurred is locked. And we have a couple things we’re working on and are hopeful for. But those are ‘maybes’ which of course means absolutely nothing in this industry.

netTVnow: Is there anything else you guys would like to add?

JM: Thanks for this, Michelle. I don’t think I swore once which I’m proud of and will make my mom happy. But yeah, no just watch our show. Please. Validate us. Season two premieres Thursday, February 16th on our YouTube channel, with a new episode every Thursday following that date with five total this season. I think people will really enjoy where we went with it. @blurredseries on all the socials. We will be continuing to put content on that channel following season two so please continue to check that out and subscribe or whatever we’re suppose to say. Alright, I’m done. Did I do okay? I feel like I talked way too much. Thank you again, Michelle!

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