#because. i. want to be accused of fetishizing an entire race. apparently.

[blurrymango]

When I look at her. The faggotry leaves my body. And my only desire. Is Asian women.

She is not thicc but she's a trained soldier or whatever so she could still crush my head between her thighs. Thank ffuck for that.

[shadowtraveled]

would love to know your thoughts on rinsha dunmeshi. or on rin and kabru :-)

OH!! i love rin honestly lightning damage and unaffiliated spellcasters will get me every time.

i would have loved to see more of her, but i do really enjoy kui's style of storytelling where she gives us the information about a character that will tell us exactly what she wants us to know. it reminds me of the way someone described suzanne collins' writing as surgically precise—she has more information about characters and the world, but she included what would get her story across most effectively. kui gives off a similar impression, and i think rin is a good example of that.

sorry readmore because that was getting long already.

rin's backstory is really interesting to me because it helps us to extrapolate so much more about the world and the other characters in it.

for what it's worth, i don't think it's terribly likely that her parents were practicing ancient magic. they were immigrants of a visibly different ethnicity, though, and they were magic users, which othered them doubly in the northern continent, and that otherness cost them their lives. this is sort of a running theme in dungeon meshi overall ofc, but i think a lot of discussion surrounding dungeon meshi discrimination focuses on the elves. which is fair, since they seem to be the most significant world power and they're weird race elitists as elves in fantasy frequently are, but the story does not want us to forget that discrimination is complex and so is otherness. tallmen may not be respected by long-lived races, but in communities where they do have power, they're still perfectly capable of leveraging it against others. they seem to have a particular bias against magic, but really anything people deem weird or creepy is enough to land you in trouble: laios faced constant rejection and, in some cases, severe harassment just for being autistic; kabru's eye color was enough to push his mother to the fringes of society and get her accused of witchcraft, suggesting that "weird or creepy" is regularly conflated with "magic" in tallman societies; and falin's affinity for magic led to her isolation and ostracism as her mother frantically tried to suppress it. rin's parents, meanwhile, were outright executed. the nature of these reactions to anything unfamiliar or non-standard are definitely meant to convey something about tallman societies in the world, but i think rin and kabru's situations specifically lend some explanation as to why falin is so forgiving of her parents. they didn't really know what to do with her, and some of the things they did to her were harmful, but she seems to see them as trying their best to protect her, perhaps because she knows the emergence of her magic could have put her in immediate physical danger but didn't.

with that being said, i'm surprised rin doesn't have more of an aversion to tallmen, but maybe kabru made enough of an impression on her that she developed some hope for them.

her dislike of elves, meanwhile, is entirely understandable—her interactions with them seem to be framed as emblematic of how they treat short-lived races in a way we don't really see with the others. milsiril objectifies short-lived races but does seem to... kind of care, otta fetishizes them but seems to... kind of care, mithrun's squad only get to be patronizing for a bit before it becomes apparent they bit off way more than they could chew, and mithrun isn't invested in these designations anymore. but the elves that found rin treated her like evidence, then like a toy, and then they got bored and ignored her, and then she was evidence again, and then she got adopted out to elves who kept her like they would a pet. miserable fucking experience, and a very thorough and efficient way of expressing just how little the elves are socialized to consider the humanity of the other races.

as for her relationship with kabru... i'm glad they had each other around. it's impossible to be surprised that she latched onto him in her circumstances, and i think it's sweet that she was the one he stuck with (despite the implication that milsiril was raising other children alongside him that he ostensibly would have spent more time with).

i also love how apparent their closeness is! rin gravitates to kabru, and if i'm remembering right, most of the time she speaks it's to him. that immediately established to me that she is uniquely comfortable with him, and interestingly it goes both ways! it's less apparent with kabru, because he's a lot more social than she is, but vitally, he lets the mask slip with her. she's the only character he goes out of his way to tease, and sometimes he takes it a little bit into "alright that was kind of mean" territory, which sucks of him but is kind of the point. kabru's interactions with rin are the earliest ones where we see him fuck up or be a little bit of an asshole, and that's almost certainly because she is a person he feels comfortable enough with to not try to game every conversation. kabru being a little bit of a bitch is the first time we see him not trying to be charismatic. and she gives it RIGHT BACK lmfao it really conveys the feeling that these two are kind of "safe people" for each other, even if they're bantering a little meanly. very charming, top-tier childhood friend dynamic, no notes.

editing to add:

^ YEAH THIS IS IT thank you @gerrykeay i think this really captures the spirit of her revulsion with regard to things like magic school (and its graduates), etc... she seems to think of magic school as this sort of lofty opportunity only people with a certain level of social standing are able to access (which seems to hold a level of truth) and reject it on the basis that something like that is fundamentally incompatible with who she is as a person, and that's probably the same reason she remains unaffiliated despite knowing practicing magic without organization ties is potentially dangerous for her. these systems rejected and failed her family and her, so she rejects them in kind.... god i'm so obsessed with the way practically every character has a main character backstory and motivations this really is like a ttrpg lol

[theconservativebrief]

Like all ghastly failures, The Happytime Murders is not “so bad it’s good.” It’s just bad: a boring flop, an unfunny comedy where nothing’s at stake. The plot is shot through with inexplicable inconsistencies, and the jokes and quips are so leaden that they thud like flamed-out turds.

If you’re feeling too optimistic about the world, then it’s the film to see.

Certainly “puppets, but dirty” has been done before, but never this stupidly. The movie’s sole virtue is its short runtime — it barely reaches an hour and a half — but it outstays its welcome long before it reaches the end. There’s some notable comedic talent onscreen, particularly Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, and Maya Rudolph, but they’re wasted on a halfhearted premise, sluggish pacing, and slapdash execution.

Let me put it this way: If the demons in the Bad Place made movies, they’d make this one, and then probably brag about how bad the reviews were to sell some more tickets, and the whole point would be to torture you and me.

The range of faces made during watching this film. STX Entertainment

When Jim Henson came up with Muppets, he was trying to make TV puppets that could have a wide array of emotions. What he came up with was a cloth-covered foam rubber puppet that seemed to be talking and emoting in ways that were familiar to humans, but not so human-like that they were creepy.

The result has always been pretty funny, and occasionally touching too. Puppets and people living alongside one another, without anyone really acknowledging how strange it is that these puppets move around freely, makes everyone laugh. Henson’s creations entertain everybody, in both innocently wholesome ways (as on Sesame Street) and slightly more grown-up but still generally PG-rated ways (as on The Muppet Show).

The idea of dirty Muppets is funny partly because so many of us spent our childhoods with squeaky-clean Muppets on Sesame Street teaching us the alphabet and basic Spanish and the rules of kindness and sharing. Transgressive Muppets and Muppet-like puppets that are mean and misanthropic and sexual and otherwise deviant are a shocking inversion of that. We’re inclined to laugh because the juxtaposition is weird and aberrant and a little shocking. That’s worked for movies like Meet the Feebles and musicals like Avenue Q.

But “puppets, only dirty” isn’t enough to hang a movie on, any more than “female protagonists, only dirty” is a surefire home run. The Happytime Murders is (purportedly) a movie, so it needs things like setup, characters, plot, dialogue, and narrative payoff. Maybe try to throw in some funny situations here and there that will surprise the audience and make them chuckle. You know. Make a movie.

The rabbit and the P.I. in a puppet porn shop. STX Entertainment

I don’t know what happened with The Happytime Murders — especially since the screenplay was reportedly in development for a decade — but everyone involved seems to have forgotten what a movie is.

Directed by Brian Henson, son of Jim — who has directed a few features before, including The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island, and a lot of Muppet-driven TV — and drawn from a story and script by Todd Berger, The Happytime Murders sets itself up as a riff on detective noir. But the attempt never goes beyond the most surface-level homage, resulting in something herky-jerky and listless, incapable of doing anything interesting with its eye-catching premise.

The story concerns an LA private investigator named Phil Philips (voiced by Bill Barretta), the first puppet on the LAPD before he was booted from the force after being accused of purposely failing to shoot a puppet perp. Now working from his own practice on the edge of Chinatown with a non-puppet secretary named Bubbles (Maya Rudolph), he finds himself caught up in a case in which the stars of a children’s TV show led by a woman named Jenny (Elizabeth Banks) from decades earlier start to turn up dead, one by one, blown to fluff by a mysterious assassin. At the same time, he’s hired to solve a case of blackmail for a (puppet) femme fatale, who’s also a raging nymphomaniac.

In an unhappy fluke, Philips becomes a consultant to the LAPD on the case, and is paired with his former partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy, whose appearance in this film just makes me sad), to solve it before even more puppets are killed. It is not, shall we say, a happy time.

Actually, “not a happy time” is too gentle — this movie is a drag.

As The Happytime Murders unwinds its plot, it makes less and less sense. That’s not because, in the manner of classic sunshine noir, it turns out that things are more complicated than they seem; it’s because as Philips and Edwards solve the mystery, some glaring plot holes turn up that seem due more to shoddy writing and editing than forethought and philosophical investigation.

But look, it’s puppets. Obviously not everything needs to make sense.

The puppet and the former TV star (Elizabeth Banks) in The Happytime Murders. STX Entertainment

This is, however, supposed to be a comedy, which means it needs some kind of humor to stay afloat. Sadly, this is not the kind of comedy that seeks to deliver clever jokes or quippy one-liners; this is the sort of movie that sets a very long scene in a porn/sex shop for puppets (involving graphic depictions of several different fetishes) and leaves the “joke” at that. It’s not just annoying, it’s also interminable.

In fact, most of the scenes involving sexual humor — like one in which silly string is a stand-in for an enormous quantity of a certain ejaculatory bodily fluid — seem to have been edited with the knowledge that this situation is way less funny than it should be, and therefore the scene has to be extended as long as possible to bludgeon us into finally laughing. (We also get several pantyless crotch shots of a female puppet, lots of drug use, and … well, I guess what I am saying is please, please do not bring your children.)

Melissa McCarthy is technically a co-star in this movie, and though her steady output has been uneven at times, she’s one of the most talented and bankable performers in the business and a reliably funny comedic actor, particularly in female-driven raunchy comedies.

So why, then, does the movie treat her as second fiddle? There are occasional sparks of cleverness — one scene in which she and Maya Rudolph get to play off each other for a bit while breaking into an apartment has the feel of a buddy comedy we’d actually want to watch — but she’s a definite accessory to her not-at-all-funny puppet partner Philips, and the movie feels off-kilter as a result, like it got edited wrong.

The screenplay feels strangely distracted, too. In its early scenes, the movie seems to want — in the manner of the similarly soul-draining Bright — to use different species (elves, orcs, fairies, puppets) and their relationships with humankind to say something about race and policing. In this case, the puppets are maligned and mistreated by humans; the entire film seems set up as a comment on misconceptions about puppet-on-puppet violence.

The PI and the dame. STX Entertainment

This is already, at best, a very unsteady plot device (issues around race and policing are still about humans, for one thing). But at least Bright has the decency to keep up the theme through its entire runtime. The Happytime Murders introduces it for the first act, then more or less dumps it entirely, apparently to make room for more extended sex jokes that go nowhere.

The Happytime Murders will doubtless garner comparisons to Sausage Party, the 2016 raunchy animated hit about horny groceries. Like or hate that film, it had both an idea in its head (about religion and pluralism) and a lot of hilariously crude originality.

But The Happytime Murders seems to have recycled ideas from other raunchy puppet movies, filtered them through layers of garbage and dreck, slapped on the least imaginative noir trappings possible, and then lifelessly insisted we had better laugh, because here is another puppet making a penis joke. You know what kind of time you’ll have.

The Happytime Murders slinks into theaters on August 24.

Original Source -> The Happytime Murders turns raunchy puppet comedy into inexplicably boring dreck

via The Conservative Brief