#for that reason i was probably the most annoying person possible to watch the remake with

[leafykat]

ATLA LIVE ACTION RANT/MANIFESTO

After watching it I started typing and couldn't stop. Sorry it's really really long and probably not very coherent.

(Since I wrote this, Big Joel put up a vid on his side channel talking about his thoughts on the first episode and he had a lot of points I agree with so watch that too if you’re interested) <- eta: ok jk sorry it already got taken off youtube it's only on his patreon now

I really dislike starting the story with the beginning of the war. It's like they don’t trust the audience enough to care about the protagonists without laying out all the Big Important World Context out right at the start, or they don’t trust us enough to understand non-linear storytelling. I’m trying really hard not to just hate on changes simply for being different than the show I grew up with, because god knows I have my own issues with it. There are scenes that are nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line remakes of the original, which makes the parts they change really jarring and frustrating. I don't mind the way they combined some episodes or storylines or changed some details, like, June being the one who hits on Iroh instead of the other way around, but other changes just feel like they either miss something fundamental (to me) about the characters or the story or are just… arbitrary, which is almost worse.

One thing that REALLY frustrated me right from the start was that Aang wasn’t actually trying to run away. He goes flying to “clear his head” and gets caught in a storm coincidentally right as he says “ok Appa let’s head home”. Why? Everyone treats him like a coward anyway. Everyone is way meaner to him than in the cartoon about something that, in this version of the story, objectively was not his fault. Why? In the cartoon, he feels intense shame that he wasn’t there for everyone, even though he was twelve and about to be taken from the only person that wanted him to have a childhood, and he got so overwhelmed and scared by what the world expected from him that he tried to run away from it. In the live action, he gets to reunite with the spirit of Gyatso, who says, “you couldn’t have done anything if you had stayed. You just would have died,” (paraphrasing bc I can’t be bothered to give it more views just to get exact quotes) which is fine, I don’t think he needed a spirit world reunion with Gyatso but I can accept it. But if that’s what that gives Aang closure, what is the point of changing him to be less responsible for disappearing? In the cartoon Katara is the one who reassures Aang and helps him process his guilt, representing the people of the present who he can still help. The live action has the voice of the past, the people that he’s ‘failed’, reaching forward in time to absolve him of any sins. And remember that in this version he literally was trying to go home. It just feels like they’re trying to remove moral complexity from his character.

Less importantly (except to me maybe) I think that showing us the Air Temple pre-genocide removes impact of seeing it for the first time in the cartoon. I loved Aang hyping it up to Katara and Sokka, unwilling to believe that it could have fallen. It almost makes the viewer think maybe some of them could have survived in secret. Then, the contrast between his idyllic memories and reality start to sink in. It was an incredibly hard-hitting moment, dulled in live action by the audience having seen exactly what happened to the temple already (including an incredibly hamfisted “you can’t beat us while we have the power of the comet!” line from who I think was Sozin.) I think Momo is pretty cute though.

Another thing that pissed me off was the way they handled the Agni Kai: They combine Zuko's duels with Zhao and Ozai into one, where Zuko not only fights back against his father but gets an opportunity to deliver (presumably) a winning blow and hesitates. This choice weakens important aspects of his backstory and, to me, flattens his relationship with Ozai: 1) That he was never a prodigy firebender like Azula, feeding the inferiority complex that Ozai fostered 2) The Agni Kai was meant to be public humiliation, meant to teach Zuko ‘respect’. It was in front of hundreds of people, and it was a thirteen-year-old child against a full grown firebending master. Zuko prostrates himself and begs his father for mercy. His refusal to even fight embarrasses Ozai by exemplifying the 'weakness' Zuko's mother 'instilled' in him. In his duel with Zhao, Zuko makes a conscious choice to be merciful despite Zhao telling him to “do it” and kill him. Despite knowing how the fire nation views it as weakness, as cowardice, especially in this specific setting. It foreshadows his later choices, and shows his innate kindness. Combining the two duels doesn't allow us to see that parallel nor that growth. Reducing his act of mercy to a mere hesitation in the moment of victory, furthermore, reduces his agency.

In fact, the adaptation softens a lot of Zuko's role as an antagonist, giving most of his actually villainous actions from the cartoon to other characters. They keep him capturing Aang in the South Pole, but Zhao leads the attack on Kyoshi village, they remove the episode with the pirates (s1e9), combine aspects of episode s1e15 ‘Bato of the Water Tribe’ with ‘the Blue Spirit’ (s1e13) and ‘the winter solstice’ (s1e7/8) removing three instances of Zuko capturing or attacking Aang in favor of one with Zhao capturing and Zuko rescuing him. But I guess they add a fight in Omashu. Look, this is inevitable as a result of combining 20 episodes into 8. I don’t really mind streamlining a lot of these episodes, nor removing others (having episodes like ‘the great divide’ and ‘the fortuneteller’ only referenced as rumors Zuko hears in a bar is cute, to be honest), though the change to the Bato episode where Sokka merely has a flashback of his father implying he thinks Sokka is an incompetent warrior is a really unnecessary and bad change, to me. But they took out almost every instance of Zuko posing an actual threat to Aang and replaced it with one fight scene in Omashu. To me, what it feels like is the show runners know Zuko is going to become a Good Guy and thus they don’t want to make him act too Bad.

On the topic of Kyoshi island: giving Aang a reason to go there aside from wanting to ride the giant Koi, whatever. Removing Sokka’s chauvinism, okay, I guess. But it ends up replaced with extremely awkward flirting between him and Suki that feels motivated by nothing beyond each being the first non-relative young adult of their preferred gender either one has ever met. Whether or not you want to have Sokka start off sexist, and that could be a whole conversation on its own, him humbling himself enough to ask Suki for instruction was an important moment of growth for him that he doesn’t really have in this version. And they don’t even put Sokka in the dress and makeup!!! BOO! Also minor moment but I think it’s also sus for the show to have Suki remove her makeup as soon as it’s time for her to be a love interest and then just not wear it again. BOO!! She looked really cool though. It’s not like I think her first appearance in the cartoon is full of depth or whatever, and I think the cartoon turned her into a cardboard cutout as soon as she became a love interest, but it’s like the live action clipped through a wall straight to my least favorite parts of s3 Suki. It’s just disappointing. I also don’t like Aang being able to just talk to Kyoshi and his other past lives so easily but that might just be my cartoon-purist talking.

I didn’t mind putting Jet and Teo into Omashu, even though I think Danny Pudi’s ‘I had no choice’ justification for working for the Fire Nation holds up less well when he’s in a position of privilege in an Earth Kingdom stronghold as opposed to protecting a community of refugees in an isolated air temple. I don’t think they needed to add the Cave of Lovers plot from season 2 into the mix though. Not only that, but to rework that plotline so that 1) Aang isn’t even there, 2) it’s Sokka’s idea to put out their lights and follow the crystals, 3) that’s not actually The Solution 4) badgermoles can sense…. Emotions???????? Sorry that’s so fucking stupid it makes me angry. They include the legend where Oma and Shu learned earthbending from the badgermoles, so why would these giant creatures have learned to sense human emotion instead of the pre-existing explanation from the cartoon: sensing the world through the earth. You know, the thing that connects them to Toph’s earthbending. I guess setting up stuff as far away as… next season… isn’t important. They used the stuff from the season 2 episode “the swamp” for aspects of the winter solstice plot anyway, which is where Aang originally had a vision of Toph and thus was able to identify her as an earthbender in spite of her appearance. I guess they can come up with something else, but it’s just a decision that feels arbitrary. Sokka could have had his flashback without the spirit vision, but since this is before he meets and loses Yue they needed something, I guess. At this point I’m describing these changes not necessarily because I think they’re inherently bad but because I want to describe how fragile this jenga tower is getting, and how unnecessary they feel.

Ultimately it’s like… the things they’re the most faithful to are all the most surface-level easter egg references, while missing or changing the actual soul of the source material. Gran Gran gives the opening monologue word-for-word because Fans Will Get It. They include Bumi’s rock candy trick and lettuce leaf joke but make him resentful and angry at Aang for no reason I can understand. Sokka isn’t sexist anymore, he just has issues where his dad apparently thinks he ‘shouldn’t have lives in his hands’. Ozai is… wait- is he tearing up while he scars Zuko’s face?

I know we all love Daniel Dae Kim but we did not need Ozai so much this season, let alone Azula, let alone Mai and Ty Lee. We especially didn’t need a scene where Ozai praises Zuko to Azula while belittling her. For the record, because people defending this scene seem to think the issue is that the rest of us fail to understand that Ozai is playing his children against each other: That is not the issue. It’s that he did not play his children against each other in this specific way. He uses Azula to show Zuko how much he fails to measure up and threaten his position as heir, and he uses the example of Zuko’s failure to keep Azula in line. If she’s good enough and Zuko is bad enough maybe she’ll become heir. After all, that’s what happened to Ozai and Iroh. They are allowed to change this dynamic in adaptation but personally I think it’s a change for the worse, and the shot of tears in his eyes as he abuses his son lends credibility to an interpretation that maybe he does want Zuko to succeed. Lol. The cartoon focuses on Iroh’s reaction, his inability to watch, instead of Ozai’s… emotional conflict? Or whatever.

Katara and Sokka getting stuck in the spirit world as a replacement for their fever in The Blue Spirit is fine, I think condensing that plot and the winter solstice works decently. It’s fine that they changed Aang’s motivation for finding Roku to be getting info on how to save his friends instead of getting crucial info about Sozin’s Comet. After all, they clumsily introduced that in episode 1. It’s honestly fine (Read with as much cope in my voice as you want.) Combining that with Zuko’s half of The Storm is also…. Okay, even if I’ve already described why I don’t like how they adapted Zuko’s backstory. What frustrates me is that The Storm parallels Aang and Zuko’s backstories in a way that works really well with the events in The Blue Spirit. In fact, they’re back-to-back episodes. But the live action has moved Aang’s backstory to the beginning of the first episode. So instead of getting to see how they’re both constrained by the roles and times they were born into, and how heavily others’ expectations weigh on both of them, we have to have Aang explicitly spell it out for us. Rewatching these two episodes of the cartoon I was just really struck by how efficient the storytelling is. All Aang has to say after he’s saved Zuko is that he misses his friend from the Fire Nation, and that he wonders if he and Zuko could have been friends if they’d been born into a different time. All Zuko has to do is attack him in response. Because we’ve just seen why they can’t be friends in this time, in this world. The live action has to create some plot point about Aang having stolen Zuko’s diary, and Zuko having researched Airbender culture or something. They bond a little bit over brushes before Aang goes like ‘why don’t you turn against your family?’ The conversation (before that part) is cute, just like, not a good replacement for trusting the audience.

I guess once we’ve gotten this far it doesn’t matter much that Katara and Sokka have been captured by Koh, because of course they were. Yeah, they changed how it works, yeah, now he steals your face once you’ve succumbed to despair or something. Whatever. At this point it feels like nitpicking to point out that what made Koh so scary was that he would steal your face if you showed him any emotion at all. Who cares anymore.

^ok I wrote most of that before having seen the last two episodes, which cover the last three episodes of the first season of the cartoon. Dude it got even worse somehow. It’s been a couple days and my friends and I rewatched all of s1 of the original show in the meantime.

First of all, the changes to the dynamic between Hahn, Sokka, and Yue were completely inexplicable to me. Yue gets nominally ‘empowered’ in the sense that she’s no longer trapped in an arranged marriage to a total shithead, but at the same time they made Hahn seem like a… genuinely good guy? He’s humble, asks Sokka for his expertise, and nobly accepts that Yue broke up with him. When asked about it, Yue says ‘he’s great, he’s just not the guy of my dreams’, before kissing Sokka. (They also reveal that she was the sexy fox spirit that flirted with Sokka in the spirit world —I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t think it mattered at the time— so I guess we are meant to believe that Sokka is the boy of her dreams. Which we know from these two and a half conversations that manage to be way less cute than the awkward/shy flirting from the original show.) Even if they wanted to completely change Hahn’s character, Yue’s conflict in the original show was between her heart and what she saw as her responsibility to her people. They could just as easily have kept that element: that she isn’t in love with Hahn, but that for Political Reasons can’t just break things off. That’s way more interesting! But I do love a forbidden romance, so maybe that’s just me. The adaptation does say that they were at one point betrothed, which raises more questions than it answers. If both of their parents were anticipating this marriage so much that they set it up years in advance, why were they okay with her just breaking things off because she didn’t like him like that? Are arranged marriages in the Northern Water Tribe (I’m so sorry I forgot the name they gave it in this adaptation) purely meant to be love matches? There’s no financial or political element at all? Even for a princess? Whatever. Hahn still dies, this time it’s just offscreen. This time I’m actually a little sad for him, if just for his wasted potential.

They actually take out the engagement necklace stuff altogether, including the history between Pakku and Katara’s grandma, and the story of how and why she fled. I don’t really know why but maybe they thought “you lost the so-called love of your life to backward practices” was a weak reason to change his mind. So instead they have it that he doesn’t change his mind but it turns out Katara doesn’t need a master anyway because she’s already good enough to be a master! Despite not having been able to waterbend ‘more than a thimbleful’ before meeting Aang, and us not really getting to see her train at all. Gran Gran gave her the waterbending scroll she stole from the pirates in the cartoon, so I guess we can assume that contained everything you’d ever need to know. She loses the fight but wins the hearts and minds of the people. The women of the tribe support her when she goes against Pakku and go “we want to fight too!” Oh, did I mention this is all after they realize the Fire Navy is at their doorstep, so it’s less a fight about the right to learn waterbending than about the right to fight in war. And then again the issue of Katara needing to learn from Pakku is sidestepped by her magically being good enough now on her own. I don’t actually mind the change to include other women from the North standing up against sexism but to be honest I don’t understand taking out the betrothal stuff. It was a deliberate parallel in the cartoon- women trapped in loveless arranged marriages and also forbidden from learning any waterbending aside from healing. But whatever, it’s a choice. I can live with it.

What I don’t like is the way they’ve undermined Katara’s journey in season 1. Aang teaches Katara how to waterbend at first, and she also doesn’t learn to heal on her own before an elder shows her how to do it. In the cartoon, she’s been trying and figuring things out on her own all her life. Her hunger to find someone to teach her is a major motivator for why she wants to go to the North Pole. We see her struggle, get intensely frustrated and jealous that Aang picks up waterbending more naturally than she does, and work really hard at it. Her dedication and hard work are what Pakku eventually praises about her when he teaches her. He compares her to Aang, who is naturally talented but distracted. This is after an indeterminate amount of time, but whatever, condensed timeline, 8 episodes, whatever. We don’t even see Aang waterbend at all this season, which is kind of wild to me. I guess if you take out the Summer Solstice Comet deadline to master all four elements (which they did) Aang doesn’t really need to rush. Instead they kind of just have Aang have a thing of like “I have my friends to help me” which is….. ok….. Oh wait, is this why they don’t care that much about foreshadowing Toph? Are they just not gonna bother having Aang learn the elements and just have her show up and join them for whatever reason? Is that why they just totally removed ‘The Deserter’? Wait sorry, I’m assuming they’re planning that far in advance at all, my bad.

Okay also like I have to talk about this because it bothers me so much. Zhao was handled so badly. Whatever, have a Fire sage just give him the moon/ocean spirit exposition in a flashback instead of the way it unfolded in the cartoon (I guess we’re already not bothering to set up the great library since the gaang already met wan shi tong, I guess that’s… fine… Appa can get captured a different way, if they’re even going to bother with that plotline in season 2. If they’re even going to do a season 2.) Sure, the moon and ocean spirits are only in the physical realm and vulnerable for ‘only one night’ now as opposed to permanently. Zhao knows this but not that they’re fish. Okay. Whatever. Blah blah blah. Those are personal nitpicks. But what really gets me is that in the end, Iroh and Zuko kill Zhao. Or rather, Zuko doesn’t finish him off, Zhao tries to attack when his back is turned, and Iroh finishes him off (similar to the way their Agni Kai in the cartoon plays out.) In the cartoon, Zhao and Zuko are fighting, Aang-as-Ocean-Spirit grabs Zhao, and Zuko reaches out to try and help Zhao, which Zhao refuses. He chooses to meet his fate at the hands of the spirits he provoked rather than swallow his pride. This is such a good conclusion to Zhao’s character! The live action also fails to set Zhao up as a formidable firebender, which is also not strictly necessary but I think complements other elements of his character well. His first episode in the cartoon includes the Agni Kai between him and Zuko, establishing Zhao both as a firebending master and as someone who values his ambition and pride above all else. In s1e16, ‘the deserter’ we see him as the embodiment of fire’s destructive hunger: he is baited into destroying his own ships in his desire to “win” his fight with Aang. He gloats of how his siege of the North Pole will earn him a place in the history books, and to win he is willing to kill the moon, against Iroh’s exhortations. In the live action, we get a weird revelation that he was working with Azula, and she was the mastermind behind a lot of his plans? Huh? He also “reveals” that Ozai was only ever using Zuko to “motivate his sister”, which is both incredibly heavy-handed and completely redundant. I guess I should mention that the finale has a couple scenes thrown in where Azula is doing firebending training to pass some kind of arbitrary Test Ozai has set for her, while Mai and Ty Lee watch and tell her that her dad is like, being way too hard on her and she knows he’s manipulating her right? Thanks girls!

Anyway, I guess since the live-action completely removed the golden child/failure dynamic between Azula and Zuko we needed something to replace it. The “my father always said Azula was born lucky. He said I was lucky to be born” line summed up that relationship dynamic nicely. Oh well, who needs it. Instead Zuko is good enough to have beaten Ozai in a duel at 13, but Ozai decided he was weak for hesitating. Meanwhile Azula is struggling to meet his expectations. He banished his heir on a mission that, for the last hundred years, was considered a complete dead-end, so that he could, uhhhhh, Motivate her when he miraculously started succeeding. Masterful gambit, sir. Okay sorry to harp on that again. Back to Zhao. Actually, what else is there to say. He has a couple funny lines but he’s just not the same guy at all on either a superficial or deeper level. It’s so disappointing. It’s also just a really weak choice to make Iroh and Zuko responsible for his death. Maybe they couldn’t figure out how to make the special effects look good when the ocean spirit picked him up. It just misses the point of Zhao’s ultimate tragedy, to me. The man so lacking in self-control, so ambitious, so assured in his own superiority, that he saw the spirits themselves as his prey. To be destroyed by the forces he tried to destroy is so poetic! Instead let’s water down Zuko’s mercy and Iroh’s pacifism.

This is all I can remember at this point aside from nitpicks. Do I think the Koh vs Kuruk backstory needed to be spelled out like that? No. Did we need to almost have Momo DIE to get Sokka and Yue to the oasis? Not really. I don’t think the way Zhao “assassinated” Zuko in the live action made as much sense, but we took out the pirates so oh well.

When you get to a certain point I guess the question becomes ‘how much can you change in an adaptation and still call it an adaptation’. What do adaptations owe to their source material? Where does the spirit of a story reside? If the same plot beats happen, does it matter if characters are different? If the characters are faithful, does it matter if events are moved around? If the destination is the same, how much does it matter how you get there? What do I personally want to see in a ‘live-action’ adaptation of Avatar, this show that I loved so much growing up? Well, assuming that “don’t make one” isn’t a possibility, I would have preferred they follow more in One Piece’s footsteps. That adaptation wasn’t perfect either, and it condensed around 100 chapters of manga into 8 hours, but it really felt like it got the characters right. Avatar had a tough job too, but it condensed 7 hours 40 minutes of cartoon into 8 hours of- wait. No. Well at least we got the cabbage merchant.

[riddlerosehearts]

can i be honest and just say that the snow white remake deciding to get rid of the romance is SO incredibly annoying to me because like... snow white's prince is what people like to claim the princesses are. he doesn't have a canon name, he doesn't show up anywhere except at the beginning and end of the story, literally all he does is sing to snow white and kiss her, he essentially has no personality and his one and only purpose is to be a love interest. rachel zegler claims that the original snow white has no function beyond "someday my prince will come", but really, she's an abuse victim who chooses to be kind, to have hope and to dream of love, and to take control of her own life by doing housework for the dwarves in exchange for being allowed to stay with them. the prince is the one who has no function beyond "one song", other than to rescue snow white and make her happy!!

but the thing is, he wasn't planned to be such a nothing character!! walt wanted to do more with him, if only they hadn't had so much trouble animating him at the time. and i was hoping so badly that the remake would flesh him out and give snow white a truly beautiful romance with her prince, like she deserves, because there is nothing wrong with an abused teenage girl, or any girl for that matter, wanting to find true love! but disney has decided that actually there is, i guess?! i was hoping maybe they could be childhood friends who met before snow white's parents died, because in the original movie it seems possible, to me at least, that they already knew each other and that's why he was so comfortable sneaking past the castle walls and joining in on her song, and why she was so immediately enchanted by him. that maybe the reason she was surprised at first and tried to run from him was because her abusive stepmother didn't want him around and might harm him. or if not that, maybe he wants to work out a trade deal between his kingdom and hers and he comes by and introduces himself like a normal person instead of sneaking in. but instead they're just getting rid of him entirely and at this point i'm surprised the cinderella remake gave kit and ella such a beautifully developed love story instead of just removing prince charming and making cinderella some kind of shallow girlboss.

and then also, they're not including the dwarves all because peter dinklage complained that it's stereotypical to have a story about dwarves living in a cave when, um, they literally fucking don't?!?! it's kind of a pretty significant plot point that the house snow white is staying in is their house and they just work as miners 😭 i'm so tired of celebrities who probably haven't watched a disney movie since they were in diapers thinking they need to say shit like this. AND this whole decision is not even working out for disney because now they're also getting slammed by actors with dwarfism who are understandably disappointed at losing the chance to audition for those roles. when they could've just idk, kept the dwarves and taken the opportunity to be inclusive and give work to a highly underrepresented demographic instead of removing them based on blatantly false information?? and if the dwarves working as miners is still considered stereotypical/harmful, then why not... give them a different job that isn't?

sorry it's just. ugh. disney would be nothing without snow white and every single time i see promotional stuff for the remake it's all just the cast and crew disrespecting snow white and trashing it and saying they're making it better by cutting out its most important elements. i have nothing to look forward to with this movie anymore (not that i was looking forward to it that much to begin with) because apparently the only thing it shares with the original is its title character, and i'm sure she'll also be nothing like her animated counterpart.

edit because i didn't really expect anyone to see this: idk if the whole "getting rid of the romance" thing is true because after writing this i remembered that i've also heard something about the prince getting replaced with a new "robin hood-esque" love interest named johnathan?? so if they're still keeping him then there will still be romance i guess, it just won't be the classic fairytale romance snow white is associated with, and my frustration toward them choosing not to develop the prince into an actual character still stands. ESPECIALLY SINCE i also read that snow is supposed to "ride into battle with him"?! snow white?! imagine if in cinderella (2015) they changed prince charming into a roguish robin hood type and had ella fight battles with him. it would've been so weird and so far removed from the animated cinderella in a very jarring way. i hate it. also, because of an annoying tag i got on this post i also feel the need to add that i do NOT have a problem with "political correctness" or rachel zegler being latina lmao. i do, however, have a problem with her insulting the original snow white while openly admitting that she has not watched the movie since she was a child.

[abbinurmel]

I spent the past couple hours tailoring this aimless rant on YT, in response to a person merely saying how much they'd love for a reboot of 'Cow & Chicken' on adult swim, cos they could say whatever they like on there. I posted it here, cos YT doesn't wanna allow me to post anything right now, which is probably for the best.

This is gonna be a dumb rant. I got sucked down a rabbit hole, cos this is a favorite topic of mine to talk about and I'm procrastinating horribly on purpose on a lot of dull paperwork. So strap in before reading my garbage. You're warned now, don't hafta TLDR or whatever, thanks, I already know. …Anyways. For those who care about irrelevant, shitty opinions:…I love Cow & Chicken. A lot. On paper I know exactly why it seems like a great idea to reboot on 'adultswim', purely on the merit they do things more outrageously. I'm certain many would watch this. It's actually kinda weird there hasn't been one yet, when you think about it, given this age of rehashes. It already has the raunchy humor and gross art down, seems like a match made in heaven, right?- It'd be easy too, "Cow & Chicken" wasn't exactly lavishly drawn or had a big cast. Well… Much as I think there could be a slim possibility of it happening, for it to be good, and IF they do good, to be wildly entertaining…I don't think "Cow & Chicken" is going to ever get actually rebooted. And I don't think it benefits from being rebooted, either, which is really the only reason you should try to reboot things ever in the first place. The lore of an IP needs to benefit in being revisited, somehow, and ESPECIALLY, SPECIFICALLY, if brought back for adults. It is very unlikely gonna be executed right, ironically BECAUSE of this show's already semi-adult nature. And the reasons why, is endemic to why a whole lot of current modern shows, and movie/live action series remakes, are suffering too. -And no, it is NOT due to the reasons some of you're likely thinking of. It is NOT cos of any tired old: "things are just too safe and WOKE /PC culture now!" theories. (That sort of affair is highly subjective/means basically nothing or very different things to different people. Pretty impossible to gauge due to how all over the place/ludicrously out of touch with general fans censors and networks can be, no matter what their political leanings or personality is. Which can and do range all over the place. So I won't go into that topic as it's an entirely different problem to what I am talking about. Plus I was there for the 80s and 90s, its pretty silly to say we can not get away with any wild things these days, cos let me assure you, by comparison, there is a LOT technically more we CAN do and say now, in both kid's and adult shows, that would never get by in a million years 30 years ago. You couldn't even just say the word 'kill', 'poop' or 'die' then, most the time. Let that sink in.)

…See to me, if it ironically hadn't ever been restrained by censors/made for kids, C&C might've been NOWHERE as good. Like. At all. It might've actually been one of the worst CN shows aired. Just 100% annoying gross-out show laziness, like a lot of shows of its era. The main reason it didn't flop was cuz 1) duh, Charles Adler, the main voice, and 2) it did its 'thing' the way original 'Ren & Stimpy' did. It didn't beat for beat copy them. Their writing/visuals just simply knew how to cross the line JUST enough, keeping the raunchy humor tucked in JUST as far as they could push it, but knew also on the whole how to always stay utterly light hearted, simple and goofy. That's where its core identity is. It's the dumb blithe enthusiastic Innocence of pretty much the entire cast, and the goofy simplicity of the plots/gags, while they get to say out the side of the mouth much more 'mature' sinister things….It works purely b/c of that contrast; sometimes with innuendo being camoflauged extremely subtly, sometimes NOT subtly at all. -But it would always go ping-ponging gracefully between the two. Never too much Idiotically Innocent, or too Smugly Adult and Crass. It would do this, with actual wit. It didn't JUST have gross visuals or say dirty jokes. It did all this with a theatrical, self-known flair. Shows like C&C and its fellow Golden Age shows basically are very good at doing what franchises like Monty Python were known for, and what Regular Show and Gravity Falls and similar would do later on, just with more visual ugliness.

…Meanwhile, a lot of other 1990's/current shows DO NOT have this memo. They do not have that balance, they lack the awareness of what is the difference between 'sneaking in occasional very dirty jokes with wit' and "throwing every and any kinda joke at a wall and not even bothering to look at what sticks." A LOT of 'gritty comedy parody reboot' things are doing this, and also doing this same idea just with the "dramatic tropes" instead of comedic tropes too. ….Including Ren & Stimpy itself. -Once 'The Ren & Stimpy Show' moved to SpikeTV, they went fully 'adult', and by direct result went 1000% downhill. I don't ascribe that to just poor writing(the original has flat stupid writing too), or ugly looking animation (so is the original). Not even John K.'s…ahem, history. If you fixed his behavior, and abusive attitude; made all his notoriously horrible bad jokes tamer, I still think 'Adult Party' would've tanked, because doing this concept in of itself is a fool's errand. It's not just rebooting nostalgic childhood IPs that's the problem, but specifically attempting to repackage something that was already a mild bit 'tawdry', so now that it is INTENTIONALLY for adults only. Whenever the entertainment industry does that 'gritty effect', be it games or movies or Netflix or comic books, it's 8/10 doomed, because you essentially neutered the core joke or appeal. You've taken away the cool 'taboo' point of saying hidden naughty/clever things, in a story you're not SUPPOSED to. You're able to state and do whatever you want, and so there's not only no leash to hold down any of the weaker ideas, there's almost no "rebellious challenge" to its bite whatsoever, even when those jokes/story ideas succeed. Noone is gonna be shocked or laugh nearly as much when a Red Guy says "KISS MY ASS!" unironically in an adultswim show, as they would if he says "KISS MY ASS!!!!!!….-Her name is GERTRUDE! :D" -and then happily pulls onstage a donkey wearing a big bowtie in on a rope, because this renders it now a pun and technically 'child safe' to flaunt now. (This isn't a real joke from the show btw, I'm only making this up for convenience. But you get the idea. It's the precise sort of silly thing you know he'll do. :P )

Neither the audience nor execs are 'prey' anymore for the writers to be creatively poking the boundaries with, when you remove that expectation. It's different if your IP started with an already adult geared story to begin with, but, when it's a full on polar opposite shift in tone and/or age demographics like that, it's almost always pulled off in a confused messy way, because even the original work's creators themselves, (IF they're even kept around, or are familiar with the source material if they are new), are trapped now in completely unfamiliar territory. Without a deeply wild reinventing of the show's lore or main tenets(a thing which nobody has ever been upset by on the internet!), it usually doesn't have anything else to stand on, especially with a purely episodic comedy show, like Cow and Chicken is. Once you take out this 'vulnerability' in our dynamic, between child/censor guardians, and writers, this main core joke of not knowing what the writers are and are NOT actually going to get away with is gone, and so much of the stakes now is irreversibly lost. Sometimes being hidden from the details is what makes a gag all the more funnier, or a scary scene all the scarier, or a cringe scene all the cringier. If we take away this, things lack a lot more of the colorful shock & ridiculousness. The main DNA in these classic "deranged shows", like Ed, Edd n Eddy, Ren&Stimpy, Rocko and C&C, that a lot of nostalgic fans, and current show-runners often alike forget; is the simple fact that such shows had to weigh the balance of: 'being a sincere kid show' and 'trying to get away with something they're not supposed to'. …With very deep emphasis on the words: "GET AWAY WITH". To me, a show is not getting "away" with something good, be it a message, a joke, a deeper sense of drama, if you constantly always spell it out for us, and we know you lose nothing and have to take no creative risk by displaying it for the audience. You're not really earning a prize, if someone just right at the start, hands you a medal. In other words….Every good memorable/subversive classic cartoon show, is not beloved just because they got to have crazy visuals, or say and do unhinged jokes. …You needed to be MEMORABLY STRANGER for having those qualities, in the first place. If you do something unhinged and bizarre, but coming in I expect to see it, is it really an unhinged show?

See, there's a reason why most of the frequent reboots of Scooby Doo like 'Velma' atrociously fail. And it's not because they changed someone that was formerly white, or made someone like Shaggy have a different name, or backstory. Or even because they overhauled an old wholesome character into a rude, toxically mean, judgemental unpleasant character. Yes this does affect some tastes, but on the whole, that wasn't the core problem for most watchers. LOADS of shows have a morally awful, pompous, or an incompetent, chaotic mess for a central protagonist, or reinvent them in some way if they come from an old property. Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast did more or less exactly what "Velma" does, where they took an old IP and completely transformed their roles/upgraded their style of humor for a more adult audience. Rick & Morty has a toxic main protagonist. South Park has four of them. Family Guy and American Dad has them, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, the list goes on. Even kid shows do this, and sometimes get away with it well too: Dan Versus did it well so did Ren and Stimpy, again, back when it understood how it worked. Having a mean protag or changed fundamentals, isn't why so many reboots don't work. …What happens with bad modern remakes of Scooby Doo, (and not just in shows like Velma), is often that they forget how to make things have that beautiful sense of contrast, that Cow and Chicken does, in its writing. They do not know how to both show this is a show rooted in something sincere, WHILE ALSO saying outrageously dirty/surreal/mean/pompous or dark things inside that vessel. The appreciation for the context of its background, is what makes shows like 'Mystery Inc.' and 'Zombie Island' work, while Velma and other SBs, do not. If we took Cow & Chicken, stripped it of it's irony, what else do we have except yet another dime a dozen weaker show, constantly going 'haha, me say the rude words!/do the gross bad thing again!' adult oriented show, with no fangs? Another exhausting reboot, which takes yet another unoriginal idea, robs its reputation, and wastes our time? …There's a way to do this kind of thing right. I just do not think most people, not even some of the most talented in the business, have the freedom or ability to do so. Not even Samurai Jack, a legend of an animated program, escaped this 'update it for adults!' treatment unscathed. If you're gonna update something for adults, you really have to think about WHY it was good in the first place. Not take just what you had, and stamp lots of expletetives or flashes of red to indicate actual blood on there. You need either to actually SAY something, completely useful and different, or, just stick to your guns with the old formula, and do it so well it exceeds the hype for the original. Which is also near being impossible to do. Hence, it begs the question, why do it at all?

…Sorry for this TEDTalk, I just love being an absurd mess at 2AM when I have better more boring adult things to do.

[weaselbug]

I kinda wanna talk about the mana games

at least the ones i have played

secret of mana

while this game is good, but holy crap. so many issues with it, namely magic spam, its almost impossible to beat some bosses without not letting them attack you at all. but ultimately a good game, can get annoying at times, and not really a game i would plan on playing again. worth your time, but only once. and the story isnt amazing, but the world is so wonderful that i love it anyway.

trials of mana (secret of mana 2 if you're like me, and a huge nerd)

this game is great! first things first, a 3 choices. what characters do you want! pick 3 out of 6. which most combos are very good. although I wouldn't recommend picking three magic users. but go ahead most of the game is pretty easy, although still with magic spam, there is less of it, and very easy to run out of mana.

then there are the jobs, which there are 3 levels to, the first one you just have. but then you get to choose between light and dark, which then goes to another choice between light and dark. and a game with 6 different characters all with 4 different ending power ups, this game is great.

although there are some parts where the difficulty spikes for some reason, expecially a boss with a human sized person where he just one shots all your squishys (if you have any)

there is one point where you are stranded on an island and have to interact with a random rock to progress, so watch out for that. and it kinda has a problem with you going "where the heck do i go" the remake fixes this, but in like, the worst way possible, still doesnt tell you where to go, but just gives you a way point on your mini map. i dont know which one is better.

storys ok. they are all your tipical affair, "go slay a dragon" or "go save the kingdom" or "go save your brother" but honestly, i think its ok that its story is nothing to write home about, its just enough to get you to care. and thats all that matters.

technical problems: two stats just, dont work. that being luck and dex, they are mostly useless exept for the ninja character. then they unlock their spells, but thats it. and crits never happen, ever. so one of the final jobs for one of the characters is completely useless and you probably shouldn't pick it.

the music and world is great, that is what mana strives on, the world and music.

adventure of mana (final fantasy adventure)

this game is pretty good, for a game boy game at least, first off, this game is hard, not in the "oh man i gotta try again, i almost had it!" hard, more of the "fricken dang it! this game is too hard!" and there is one part which is getting pretty regular in these games, where you have to circle a tree like 3-5 times in order to progress. or have to wear silver armor to get into a cave.

and it has a system where you can choose to wait and charge up your attack to do a big attack, which is really fun and i love it. all mana games have this in common. which is one of the reasons why i love them.

legend of mana

oh this one is great too*.

oh so so many choices to make, im a simple person, give me meaning or non meaning full choices to combat and i am a happy camper. and this one has no shortage of them. first, choose your gender/character. then pick where you want to have your world, (some parts you cant pick cause they dont have enough sea.) then your off. but then you can choose between 11 different weapon types, which i wont list off here lol.

then there's the pets, which are fun at first, then you find the asterisk, which that every single system has one. first off, they have made every system overly complicated and over all, useless. why should i make a new sword when the store bought one is just fine, AND i have to put all the ingredients IN ORDER to get the right sword, and you have no idea what that is without a guide.

you can place down the worlds the way you want to, which is fine on a first playthrough, but you will be locked out of content if you do your placements wrong. but i found it fun to just go through the game as i wanted to, then go with a guide. and the story is really well written. made me care for all or at least most of the characters, and the world and music are beutiful as all get out. even listening to the abandoned city makes me almost cry.

but over all, the game was designed with the idea that you would replay it a lot, which is a fun idea. rouge likes (hate that name btw) are a testiment to that. over all, great game. just with a few blemishes, that might be a little ugly but oh well, the whole thing is pretty good. i just wish the pets were more enphsised and all the systems were made more impactful and easyer to understand.

[fishpuncher]

Reviewing Resident Evil games I’ve played for fun

I bought the Resident Evil 2 remake in April of last year and since then I’ve become a fan of the franchise, so I figured I’d do a little review of all the RE games I’ve played listed in sort of release order (remakes taking place of originals)

Resident Evil 1 Remake (2003)

The third RE game I played after the 2 remake and 7, so my introduction to the older games/originals. Honestly a lot of fun, it took me a while to get used to the fixed cameras and the controls (I used the updated alternate controls, not tank) and I never really mastered it but the game is super good. Great puzzles, great atmosphere, and it still looks pretty great 18 years later. The story is also good and isn’t particularly convoluted like some of the later games get lmao

Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019)

The first RE game I played, and what got me hooked on the franchise. I never played the original so I have nothing to compare it to, but this game is almost perfect imo. The puzzles are good, the environments are amazing, and the characters are likable. Mr. X is terrifying (at least in my first playthrough, he’s a lot less scary in subsequent playthroughs) and his chase music is phenomenal. Overall I can’t recommend this game enough.

Resident Evil 3 Remake (2020)

Pretty much everything I said about 2 is applicable to this one as well. Jill and Carlos are great characters and I only wish we got more of them. I know people say that the remake is way shorter and cut-down than the original, but I haven’t played it so I don’t have that frame of reference. As a standalone game, it’s extremely good and the final boss fight is extremely badass.

Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X (2000)

My introduction to tank controls. The game is extremely good, and I’m enjoying it immensely. It can be quite punishing if you forget certain items or don’t conserve your ammo, as I’ve read about players getting to the final boss and having to restart the game because they didn’t bring an item that the game doesn’t even tell you to bring. Luckily I’m an item hoarder in these games, as I’d already grabbed the item before I couldn’t go back for it. The puzzles are good as always, if not confusing as I’m forgetful and have to look up where new items go as I don’t want to spend an hour searching every wall in the game. My main complaint is the sniper battle halfway through the game, as the hitbox for it just seems random more than anything. I love that we get more of Chris too. His casual “Hey” after being thrown by an explosion just kills me. Steve is whiny though and kind of the worst.

Resident Evil 0 (2002)

Pretty okay game, but one that I can’t really recommend. The partner system was pretty good, and made for some amazing puzzles/gameplay at times (getting split up at the beginning and then getting split up in a castle-ish area later). I thought both of those were great uses of the partner switching and more than justify it. However, the reason I can’t recommend this game is almost entirely due to the way you’re supposed to handle items. I play the RE games like a hoarder, every single item goes in the chest. Except this game doesn’t have a chest. You have two inventories with only six or eight (I don’t remember) slots each, and no item boxes. Instead, you can drop items on the ground and pick them up again later. For a hoarder like me, that means a whole lot of backtracking when you advance to the next area. Another annoying thing was the final two boss fights, as they were confusing for my simple brain since one of them is legit just shooting them until they die, but there’s never any indication that you’re affecting it, so I’m running around the room looking for something else that will kill him. In the final fight, it’s the same thing, except the game makes a point of showing you certain parts of the room that are obviously interactable, so I immediately run to those. Only those aren’t used until the second phase of the fight. I like Rebecca and Billy though, and hope that they’ll return at some point.

Resident Evil 4 (2005)

Very fun game, the over the shoulder is a welcome respite from the fixed cameras of 1 and 0, even if it is still tank controls. Leon is very quippy and I’m not a huge fan of his constantly hitting on the woman on the radio, but he’s an entertaining protagonist for sure. Escorting Ashley through most of the game isn’t that bad, as you can have her hide sometimes, or she’s pretty decent at taking care of herself (though I definitely accidentally killed her a few times oops). I thought Ashley was like 15 for the entire game so her asking Leon if he wanted to fuck at the end of the game absolutely floored me (though I’m still not a fan of that unnecessary comment honestly). My main complaint is that I was playing the Steam version at 60fps, but QTEs just do not work at that framerate, so I had to lower it to 30fps just to get through certain parts of the game (I did that minecart section like five times). Overall a great game, though I wouldn’t say it’s the best in the series, as many do.

Resident Evil 5 (2009)

People say this one is bad, but it’s such a blast playing co-op with a friend. I didn’t have to deal with the AI partner, so I can’t talk about that, but this is such a good co-op game. Getting to a spot where you both need to interact with it and mashing the button so Chris yells “SHEVA SHEVA HURRY COME ON HURRY SHEVA” over and over is always funny and always annoying when you’re on the receiving end. I still don’t really get the story and how Umbrella and BSAA are related or anything, but the gameplay is super fun, I highly recommend this one if you’ve got someone to play with. Although, we did have to install some files in order to play online co-op, but it’s a pretty simple process.

Resident Evil: Revelations (2012)

This one is rough, as I got halfway through it before I got bored and quit. The game introduces Raymond as a bad guy pointing his gun at you, then there’s a flashback and his backstory is “guy silently standing in corner of room.” Back in present day, five minutes after being introduced as a bad guy, he’s helping you out. Jessica isn’t that bad but her character design is incredibly awful. The first minor thing is when she’s on a mission with Chris in snowy mountains and she’s wearing pounds of makeup. Then later they have her in a wetsuit but some hair is outside of it??? I guess so you know she’s a sexy woman. Plus her wetsuit is literally missing a leg. It leaves her left leg completely bare. The dialogue regarding her is sexist too. Overall, the gameplay is very meh and the plot is kind of dumb, even for RE.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)

My second RE game to play, but probably the first one I watched. This game is amazing and I highly recommend it. The first person makes the setting much scarier, and it lets you relate to Ethan and immerse yourself more. I like that Ethan is just Some Guy with no training, he just walks his way through this whole mess like a champ. The boss fights are great and the characters are so memorable. Not to mention the DLCs for the game are wonderful: playing a fucked up version of 21 and then fighting goop monsters hand to hand are seriously fun.

Resident Evil Village (2021)

The most recent RE game and quite possibly the best. Village combines the first person perspective of 7 and the inventory system of 4, making an incredible game. The four lords all have such different environments and it makes for such good variety. My favorite one was the Silent Hill-esque house with the dolls, as scary as it was. The Duke is a fun character and I love that he’s part of the story. Chris’s section at the end turns the game into Call of Duty but it’s a fun massacre through the village, easily destroying enemies that have troubled you all game. Overall one of my favorite RE games.

[thephantomporg84]

As much as I love the trope of characters that hide that they have a lot of negative feelings by putting on an act, I really wish it was made more obvious Dante's cuhrayzee wahoo pizza man act is partly a front, since it kinda seems like people don't notice? Sure there was DMC2 but DMC2 is treated as barely canon by most, and Dante's characterization was one of many big complaints about it.

Oh god I totally feel this Anon. 1,000% agree, as someone who love love loves this trope, too. Lol. It’s why I devour a good DMC story on AO3, especially if the writer knocks this trope out of the park.

But yeah. That was sort of one of my bigger nitpicks about DMC5 as a whole. Like. While I do appreciate that the game (and series, really) can be played and the story does mostly work if you’re not invested in it and taking it at face value / just want a good action game — which is a super helpful tactic to bring new people in with such a gap between titles — I hate how it ruins the context of a lot of stuff.

Vergil (as V) all but looks directly at the camera and says ‘I’m a bastard and did what I did because I was afraid/wanted to be loved and protected’ but Dante’s internal conflict is wayyyy more subtle and it’s cheapened if you really have to spell it out, imo — because I feel like the ‘negative feelings behind a goofy exterior’ thing is easy to portray hard to give real depth to. As in, it’s easy to make Dante be cuhrayzee and swing his chainsaw motorcycle around, but hard to show that it’s an act to fool others (as well as himself, probably to some degree). Unfortunately, on top of all that, lot of people aren’t gonna wanna bend over backwards like you, me, and others have done to discuss and pick Dante’s (or any character from any series, really) personality apart.

That said: I don’t think there are nearly enough contextual clues present in any of the games to make this more apparent, either. I remember some guy made a pretty good video a few years back about how the anime proves Dante is actually depressed on YT, and that video blew up and got nearly 100-150k views (which is a lot, esp. when you consider how dead this series was ‘till E3 2018), and a lot of people were ‘shocked’ and ‘never noticed xyz indicator’ before.

Like... If you give me a scene and have given me all the clues I need, but they’re super vague and I miss it? That’s on me, and totally my bad — another reason to replay the game with a more watchful eye. But I feel like DMC has left way, wayyyy too much out about how Dante feels to even do that, now.

I think one of the best examples of that lack of any kind of solid clues about Dante’s personality is in DMC5: In game, Patty calls to invite him to her birthday, and is loud and chatty and kind of annoying. Dante just seems to cringe and brush it off/hang up. If you weren’t familiar with the anime, then you might just brush it off as a gag, or see it as a brief throwback/cameo if you were. Either way, you could chalk it up to ‘oh wow wrong number / what an annoying girl haha.’ But then if you look in Before the Nightmare, which isn’t even available in any language except Japanese, we see that Dante is incredibly uncomfortable at the idea of being around ‘normal’ people, and I believe it even mentions that he plans to make it up to her.

This ties back into my complaints about putting so much meat from the story in the side material, and then not even making the side material available with the game or even easy to access. I feel like putting that kind of interesting characterization in side material is almost criminal lol. Because that makes the whole scene have so much more weight — especially because it sets up that this man is clearly uncomfortable with what he is, possibly now more than ever, and is about to be asked to kill his brother, again... because of what they both are. You also lose that family dynamic of Nero experiencing the same type of isolation as Dante without even fully understanding why.

And if that wasn’t enough, you also lose some AMAZING bits of characterization if you never read Before the Nightmare like:

Dante still sending Grue’s (from the DMC1 novel) two living daughters / their other caretaker (Morrison looks after them, too) money. Dante also had to mercy kill Grue’s oldest daughter. He sends it to them from using money out of his own savings.

The former patrons of Bobby’s Cellar (re-named Grue’s Cellar) and those in the mercenary world immensely disliking Dante, and fully blaming him for the deaths in that bar, Grue’s death, Nell Goldstein’s death, and the hospital invasion/massacre that happened in the DMC1 novel. So, Dante is even hated in the mercenary world, and shoulders the blame for a lot of stuff that he didn’t do / has probably lost a lot of work because of this — and a lot of it is stuff that Gliver (👀) did or instigated.

The caretaker of Grue’s girls absolutely hating Dante, even though the sisters defend him, and he most likely knows and just says nothing. The caretaker even remarks that she thinks he’s a bad omen and she ‘Hopes he’s dead’ and that ‘If he’s alive, I’d love to stick a shotgun up his ass’.

Lady noticing that the qliphoth is growing in Redgrave City, and then noticing the name on Dante’s guns later — then wondering what the connection was there — indicating how little even people like Lady really know about him.

Like, holy shit that’s just a few things and it already adds so much depth to Dante’s character that’s not there in the games alone. I know I’ve said a million times not to take the series that seriously or in realistic terms, but... I mean... even ridiculously goofy stuff like JoJo’s has really well developed, layered characters that will surprise you / break your heart in the blink of an eye. So it’s not impossible for something like DMC to make some stuff a little more apparent.

Oh, and as for DMC2 — if it hadn’t followed the trend at the time of randomly making your protagonist into a dark/angsty/edgelord version of themselves, and had given the angsty turn some logical explanation, then I don’t think it would have been quite so hated (at least, janky gameplay and rushed design aside). Itsuno said that’s the one he’d remake if given a choice to do a remake, and I can’t help but think he wouldn’t say thay without having some ideas on what he’d do differently.

(SORRY I KNOW THIS IS SUPER LONG. But it’s something that really irks me a lot because it could be SO GOOD if handled a little better lol.)

[frumfrumfroo]

What are your favorite movies and TV shows outside of SW? I’m looking for new things to watch since SW was so disappointing

My tastes are pretty eclectic, so I will stick to just things that are either similar to sw or are in the reylo-esque romance wheelhouse and have happy endings:

Chuck. It is a goofy, light-hearted action-adventure show with extremely endearing characters and a very prominent central romance (seriously, heavy romance and there is a lot of payoff for it, you will be FED- it's kind of slow burn but also shockingly NOT slow burn, they are deep into it pretty much immediately). The main couple is the classic Stoic Badass gradually softened by an innocent they have to protect who is a liability in battle but full of the Power of Heart. Chuck is The Heart btw. He is of that vanishingly rare male Beauty (of B&tB) type. He's incredibly generous and open, Sarah is prickly and closed-off. It is Quality. Very much a gender-swap of your typical cliche anime couple lol. I would recommend stopping at the mid-season finale in season 4, because it's downhill from there. The beginning of season 3 is very rough, but it's definitely worth it to stay for the back half, imo. There are several great endings to choose from before things go to shit, so we don't need to talk about the finale. Probably the most tonally similar to SW thing possible without being high/space fantasy. More humour, more silly, but definitely has a spiritual kinship. Has the best THE BEST 'secret revealed' scenes I have ever seen in anything. If you're into that and were hoping for that in ep IX, you need to watch Chuck.

The Shop Around the Corner. 1940 romance/drama film. You've Got Mail is a remake of it. Jimmy Stewart being profoundly adorable, Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard of Oz), various amusing side characters, and an absolutely deathless double blind 'secretly in love with the workplace nemesis' plot that can and probably has been a great reylo AU.

Mirromask. Fantasy/coming-of-age film. Touted as a 'spiritual successor' to Labyrinth by the filmmakers (one of whom is Neil Gaiman) and let me tell you, that is extremely apt. Beautiful, magical, laden with symbolism and Mask Discourse, and has a great ship. I quote it regularly.

Speaking of which, I'm sure you've seen Labyrinth? If you haven't seen Labyrinth, drop everything and watch Labyrinth.

Legend (the Ridley Scott director's cut, not the theatrical cut). Sumptuous fairy tale, runs on proper fairy tale logic, stunning to look at and overall captivating. Tim Curry. Tim Curry as a lonely tragic lord of darkness who tries to seduce the heroine and has drippingly overwrought monologues.

Howl's Moving Castle. Fairy tale adventure/romance film. Beautifully animated, has the ending you want.

The Silence of the Lambs. Thriller/drama film. Actual masterpiece. Use it as a gateway drug to read the books and rejoice that Clannibal is canon and it is spectacular. Just SotL and Hannibal, you don't need to read the other two. Stan Clarice Starling and revel in that ending. Most triumphant 'villain'/heroine ship of all time (he is not technically a villain but for shorthand's sake).

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Terry Gilliam 1988 fantasy/adventure film. THE TRIUMPH OF IDEALISM OVER CYNICS I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW HEALING IT WAS TO WATCH AFTER THE TROS BULLSHIT HIT. Jonathan Pryce's spiritual villain is basically Chris Terrio and it is cathartic to see imagination and sentiment conquer him.

Sabrina. 1995 romance film. Modern fairy tale with Harrison Ford. Rejecting what you thought you wanted all your life for the thing you actually need, growing up but still believing in magic, beautiful character development across all the leads. Could be (and is irrc) a fantastic reylo AU.

The Scarlet Pimpernel. 1934 adventure film. High romance, secret identities, play-acting, people who aren't at all what they appear to be, falling in love with your own spouse, Big Heroism, guile and wit and audacity. It makes me do little kicks like a happy baby. This is one of the 3-5 films constantly tied for my favourite film of all time. There is a good quality rip free on youtube. Watch it and fall in love with Leslie Howard (this is possibly my favourite acting performance of all time).

Oh, related note. Pygmalion 1938 or My Fair Lady. (The musical is based on this film and borrows from it heavily, including its much more romantic ending compared to the original play.)

The Mummy. 1999 action/adventure/romance film. Very tonally similar to sw. A fucking great time, A+ characters.

EVER AFTER. 1998 romance film. The flawless and perfect and best ever Cinderella adaptation. This is the most satisfying film in history, maybe, the ending is so good it is amazing it exists. Also, it has Richard O'Brien being slimy. Huge selling point. Grapples with identity and stewardship, is brilliant.

Fruits Basket. drama/romance anime. I haven't watched the new version yet, but it's following the manga so I know the story. The original anime didn't do the whole plot (because they caught up with the source material) but it's wonderful and I still recommend it. The central ship is (spoiler.........) a B&tB type where we eventually discover the main love interest both feels like a figurative monster and turns into a literal monster. He has an incredible speech about his relationship with people's fear, it makes me weep. I called the endgame from the first episode and always thought it was obvious, but there is a red herring love triangle dynamic. It's really not annoying, though, because it is a red herring. (I hate love triangles)

I am Dragon. Russian monster romance film. Beautiful, simple fable with a really great heroine.

Jane Eyre. 1943 Gothic Romance film. It's Jane Eyre, byronic hero x sensible heroine love story with much atmosphere and Gothic drama. I stan this version because I am an Orson Welles fangirl and I'm also not convinced it can be improved upon. Elizabeth Taylor's film debut btw.

Hellboy. 2004 action/adventure/romance film. Defying destiny, reconciling identity, monster romance. The complete package and a great time. Tonally similar to SW and probably thematically closest to it out of this whole list. Don't watch the sequel.

Beauty and the Beast 1987 tv series. Exactly what it says on the tin. Deals with the classic B&tB themes, but in a different way. He's not cursed and will never transform into an ordinary man. The first season is very episodic and 'case of the week', but the second season gets more into character drama. It's dated, but if you give it a chance you can get past some of the cheese factor and it's really a unique experience. Its concerns are SO atypical that it feels like something fandom would make rather than a mainstream network show. It was so massively, insanely popular with women at the time that a record of Vincent (the beast) reading poetry topped the album charts. Also Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Stop at season two. Point of interest: George RR Martin wrote for this show.

Stargate (the movie not the series) sci-fi fantasy about a nerdy guy who accidentally a hero.

Possession. 2009... mystery/supernatural/romance. Okay. This is a whole thing. Lee Pace and Sarah Michelle Gellar. It's based on a Korean film I've never been able to find for some reason, but being Hollywood they ruined the romanticism and nuance of the original in the theatrical cut to make a shitty punative ending. However. If you buy it on dvd and go to the alternate ending (which follows the original story) with around 20 minutes left (scene after Lee Pace's character wakes from a bad dream-go to deleted scenes and select the alternate ending), you will get a very, very interesting character study/thriller/redemption about sincerity within deception, compassion, and a major question about second chances with a positive answer. It's kind of dark and kind of astonishingly idealistic at the same time. The heroine makes a very powerful choice, twice over. It's fascinating. If you're into the conflicted and uncertain period in reylo, the part where he is most ambiguous, and you wanted more of that and much darker shades to it, you might be really into this. Also, it should be noted, there is a MASSIVE height difference and they show it off. The film is flawed (and the seams show on the Hollywood rewrite) but idk, it's fascinating. Shocking to me that they even got to shoot the original ending. It is pretty balls to the wall with its themes on forgiveness.

I would recommend getting into kdramas because there is a wealth of female-gaze tropey amazing content, but always check the ending before getting invested. My all-time fave is the 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, but it's not sw related at all lmao. It has a happy ending with all the elements you'd want, but it's not satisfying in execution, so that's it's major flaw and I find that pretty common with kdramas. One that is maybe more relevant is My Love from Another Star, which has a hero who is a little bit like Ben in personality. The heroine isn't my favourite, though. It does have a decent ending.

Oh yeah- brain fart. Kurosawa films and classic westerns were both very influential on SW. Or you can combine both and watch The Magnificent Seven.

[fishymom-art]

She-Ra Recap (SPOILER ALERT)

ALRIGHT, AFTER 3-4 DAYS OF BINGE-WATCHING, I FINALLY FINISHED IT!!

And I’d like to tell you about every wonderful moment/thing in the show (and why you should watch it, if you didn’t). Right in time to all the hype around the end!

- Glimmer going from that little girl who couldn’t control her powers to a powerful queen and sorceress that can oppose her own father, who was one of the strongest sorcerers of all!! She became unbelievably powerful and honestly? The best character development.

- Entrapta’s character. I knoooow I talk about her a lot, but she is literally the reason I watched the show and I have all the right to continue talking about her. She is a very interesting character. She is a loner, no one has ever been friends with her without her annoying them. Even her own staff don’t like her. When she tried joining the Princesses Alliance, everybody would always tell her how “wrong” she is in their image. That’s why it was so easy to pull her to Horde’s side. She could close in herself again, dedicating herself to First One’s tech. And suddenly, she found people who didn’t judge her for who she is. Especially Hordak. He didn’t care how “wrong” she is, he wasn’t the best himself and he admits it throughout the show. He saw that she could be a good friend if you give her a chance. And he did. And I fucking love the Lab Partners.

- The fact that no one, even the villains/antagonists cares about ones  personality. Especially sexual orientation. Heck, Horde Prime used love in his privilege and that was the most normal thing. No one gets surprised at Bow’s dads, no one gets surprised or uncomfortable with Netossa and Spinnerella being wives and no one CERTAINLY doesn’t get uncomfortable with Catra and Adora. Love is one of the most important topics in She-Ra, although not directly. We are shown that love can come in different forms, friendship (Bow, Glimmer, Adora and Catra), teamwork/support (literally almost anyone, but I will go with Lenny, Rogelio and Kyle, because they got a nice character development too) and relationships of course. And no one will question who’s your partner in crime! Hordak - one of the main villains- and Entrapta - an outsider princess? Great team, friends, lovers, think as you wish. Glimmer and Shadow Weaver? Heck yeah, teacher and student (also, imho, Shadow Weaver deserves the world), and Perfuma with Scorpia, supporting each other through every step. Love love love!!!! Only love can win against evil! (Love and some hardcore weaponry)

- Can we please bring up Swift Wind? The best loyal steed a hero can have. Honestly, I didn’t like him and the fact that he talked made me uncomfortable at first. But he is such a funny character! And I think he is a great supporter to She-Ra. I love him.

- Every ship you have is canon! Like, literally, no matter who you ship, they totally have some kind of a bond and there is no way they couldn’t be a couple. But I won’t let you ship Kyle with anyone except for Rogelio, I am sorry, I don’t make the rules.

- Everything characters do has a meaning to the lore. Every their action influences the future. And this is sooo cool! It lets you theorize a lot, you get engaged a lot more, because you know that character’s decision will have consequences. Mostly to their own character which is the next thing.

- Mentality. We can see how actions influence the characters. The fight between Adora and Glimmer specifically. They couldn’t trust one another at some point, which influenced the way they handled things. Also, Catra sending Entrapta to Beast Island, allowing a portal to open which led to... khem, some bad things (Season 4. I don’t like Season 4. It’s all wrong without Angella). We can see Adora, always judging herself because everything depends on her. That’s a realistic behavior for a hero, because you feel that everyone blames the strongest one if the team loses. We can see Catra having issues with herself after she pushes Scorpia away, realizing how much of a bad friend she is. And so on!

- WRONG HORDAK. Ok, I was watching She-Ra with @captainleemon​ and he disliked Wrong Hordak, but COME ON. He is a BABY! He is a literal face of “giving a second chance”. He was such a relief to watch! While Season 5 was all intense and serious, Wrong Hordak was there being a complete sweetheart and I thank Heavens for blessing us with him.

- I talked about it already, but D E S I G N!!! In the original show, every woman character was overly sexualized. Men too, of course. You can’t be a hero if you’re not buff and sexy!

Look at Bow!!! Yes, he lost his cool mustache, but he became realistic!!! You don’t need to be buff to be strong! And he is SUPER STRONG!

Also, look at ENTRAPTA!!! Yes yes, that’s her! Imagine remake Entrapta wearing that sexy clothes, Hordak would lose it XD. I think their new costumes fit their personalities and work better now. I don’t think flying around on your hair and working in front of a computer is as comfortable in a dress as in a jumpsuit. 

- Everybody deciding it’s time to confess their love to one another in the end, because hey, we will probably die, why not? First Glimmer to Bow, then Sea Hawk to Mermista (although he did it a lot before), Hordak kinda admitting he is soft for Entrapta. And Catra like “well, if everybody does that, I might as well follow the majority”. Can’t believe they invented love.

- The Best Friend Squad interrupting Huntara from flirting with a woman in a bar. That’s all, that’s the thing.

- Micah being a complete dork, when young and when old. 

woah, that’s a lot. BUT WE’RE NOT DONE YET!!!!

- My favorite is probably the fact that they mixed magic with technologies which is my all time favorite thing!!! The planet is a weapon??? First Ones were making technologies using magic??? LIGHT HOPE?? My gosh, it gives you so much possibilities! And also an excuse to do whatever you want with the tech and not explain it scientifically , it will all work, because it has something to do with magic. You have to explain how tech works, but you don’t have to explain magic ;))

- This show made me SO EMOTIONAL. Every character has a meaning and I am happy they didn’t kill or hurt characters without a purpose. I am talking Angella’s death. I’m still not over it. I was hoping she’ll come back in the end, but ugh.... well, you have to learn how to move on.

- ksjthrtliuhriuy THE INTRO AND HOW IT WAS CHANGING DEPENDING ON WHAT WAS HAPPENING!!! Scratch that, THE INTRO ITSELF!!! Imma do a fucking cover, you can’t stop me, it’s one of the best intros I’ve heard in a while. It can fight Gravity Falls and Steven Universe.

- Sea Hawk’s shanties. Period.

Ok, I think that’s all. If there’s anything I will remember, I’ll add. You can also add something yourself, if you want! Thank you for sticking around!

[zutaralesbian]

Hey anon. I guess I somehow accidentally deleted your ask because I can’t find it anywhere lol. So I’ll just answer it like this.

Anonymous asked: Black Sails, Zutara, and Jaime Lannister

Black Sails:

Favorite character: Max. But sometimes when I’m deep in my feels, it’s Eleanor. I love my ambitious Slytherin wlw and fandom doesn’t appreciate them enough.

Least Favorite character: Obviously characters like Peter Ashe and Thomas’ father are awful but out of characters who were regulars at one point or another, it’s a tie between Woodes Rogers and Charles Vane. God I hate. And I also hate that Eleanor got stuck with both of them as “love interests”.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Max/Anne, Max/Eleanor, Flint/Thomas….Max/Idelle, Idelle/Featherstone

Character I find most attractive: Max. But all of the Black Sails women are gorgeous. 10/10 would bang all of them.

Character I would marry: Max

Character I would be best friends with: …..Tbh I don’t think I’d personally click with any of them. They’re all very extreme and I’m more laid back lol

a random thought: It’s a good show with an exhausting fandom. Which is a shame considering it’s not a very big fandom to begin with.

An unpopular opinion: I don’t ship Silver/Flint. And I feel like there’s little point to be heavily involved in the fandom because of that since like, 75% of the content is about them. I also don’t really give a shit about any of the male characters except for Flint, Jack, and Mr Scott lol

My Canon OTP: Maxanne I love those lesbians. But Maxanor is a close second.

My Non-canon OTP: Max/Idelle. Also Eleanor/Miranda (fandom converted me to this one)

Most Badass Character: Flint

Most Epic Villain: Eh none of the villains were very compelling to me tbh

Pairing I am not a fan of: Eleanor/Rogers and Eleanor/Vane. The Worst.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): I still loved her but….Eleanor. *sighs* Ever since they made her hookup with Rogers her storylines were going downhill.

Favourite Friendship: Flint/Miranda they make me cry. But also just Flint/Women in general.

Character I most identify with: I don’t strongly identify with any of them but I relate to aspects of both Anne and Eleanor. Anne because of how she’s kind of a late blooming lesbian who realized her love for women (and lack of attraction to men) during her twenties. And Eleanor because of her complicated relationship with her father. My dad isn’t as shitty as Mr Guthrie but he is awful and for some reason I can’t make myself completely stop caring about him. That’s why I get so mad when people give Eleanor shit for wanting revenge on Vane for murdering her father. Some people really lack empathy in that regard tbh.

Character I wish I could be: Flint. I’d love to start a war in the name of fighting homophobia.

Zutara:

When I started shipping them: I think it was sometime during my second watch of the series. The first time I watched it was when it was airing and I was just a kid, so I basically just automatically supported the canon pairings lol. But then I watched it again as a young teen after reading Zutara meta and fic and began to see the magic.

My thoughts: I love them so much. The best ship that never was. I love how many parallels they have with each other. The sun and moon symbolism. Their push and pull dynamic. The way they built a friendship in canon based on mutual respect. I could talk all day about why I love this ship tbh

What makes me happy about them: That the Zutara fandom is still going strong and producing great content. It pretty much makes up for it not being canon, honestly.

What makes me sad about them: I feel like Zutara is often very misunderstood as a ship? A lot of people (including Bryke) see it as a “dark ship” and that isn’t how I view them at all. I’m sure there are some people who do and have shipped them in problematic ways (especially back in the day) but most people in this day and age that I've seen ship them in a post redemption way after Zuko and Katara had already become friends. So...that makes me kind of sad lol. Also the way their friendship has been butchered by those stupid comics.

Things done in fanfic that annoys me:

Demonization of Aang and Mai. It's so unnecessary and I like both characters on their own. (Aang is actually in my top 5 ATLA characters). I hate character flanderization in fic in general (even towards characters I don't like) because it's more than often ooc and takes me out of the zone.

Things I look for in fanfic: I think canon divergence and AU's still set in the ATLA universe are my favorite kind of fics to read for ATLA in general. It's an expansive world and story and I think people have a lot of room to be creative with it.

My wishlist: For their friendship to not be ruined in the upcoming live action remake. (I don't have a lot of faith lol)

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: My second favorite ship for Zuko is probably Zukka. But Zuko is so damn shippable as a character that I could come up with plenty of alternatives for him. Katara...with a girlfriend. Or Haru. They had cute potential and I still resent the fact that they gave him that dumb mustache lol.

My happily ever after for them: The two of them getting together a few years after the end of the war after continuing a strong friendship that eventually became romantic. They do marry someday down the line but Katara spends a lot of time going back and forth between the Fire Nation and the South Pole. After Zuko hands over the duties of Fire Lord to their oldest, they end up retiring somewhere between the two nations.

Jaime Lannister:

How I feel about this character: I enjoy him a lot (although when I say this I'm mainly talking about book! Jaime. I didn't know what D&D were doing with him most of the time lol). He's super complex and his arc is one of my favorites out of the books.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Brienne. They are my OTP of ASOIAF. But I'm not expecting a happy ending for them *sighs*

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: Tyrion. Their relationship is much more complicated in the books than it was on the show (especially with how they left off with each other) but it still gives me feels.

My unpopular opinion about this character: When it comes to the great Jaime Lannister debate between Jaime/Brienne and Jaime/Cersei shippers (about whether he can be redeemed or not) I'm somewhere in the middle lol. I don't think his arc is one of redemption. And actually, what I think could possibly happen with Jaime/Brienne is that they'll both admit that they love each other but ultimately mutually decide that they can't be together due to how different they are as people. But I also don't agree with the idea that he's not developing at all. And a lot of his development is due in part to his relationship with Brienne.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I hope we get some canon validation of Jaime/Brienne in the books. But not in the shitty way that the show did it.

Favorite friendship for this character: I guess I'm just going to say Tyrion again? It's been a while since I've read the books but I can't think of any hugely impactful Jaime relationships outside of Brienne, Tyrion, and Cersei.

My crossover ship: I don't do crossover ships

Thanks! :)

[lena-haloways]

Rank the nooras ❤

Oooh, thank you for this question, I love that character so much ❤

1. Zoë - I can’t explain how much I love my zoë. She is really like the og noora, but has also something unique and it just takes og character and makes it even better! She is so strong, but also so vulnerable, she is feminist, but also understanding and soft. I love og noora, but she had flaws that I feel they handled better with zoë. They stayed true to the character, but made it even better. I feel there is a lot more emotion in zoë. It really breaks my heart watching her suffer, more than usually and more than I tought it would 😭

2. Eleonora - she is actually a lot different than the og noora, she gives a different vibe, she is so much more gentle and soft and she is my second because I can identify with her the most. She is the biggest introvert out of all the nooras and as one, I can totally understand her and the way she thinks and behaves. She is such a good person, with such a big heart and so much love to give, she is so caring and beautiful in and out. So gentle and so understanding and she really feels so real to me because I see a lot of her in me. She is beautifully written and I love her so much.

3. Noora - the reason I love season 2 the most is because noora is my favorite character. I can identify with her in a lot of ways, and I like her feminism and heart and how strong she is. She will always have a speacial place in my heart because she is the original one and she started it all. Without her, there wouldn’t be any other and she will always be so dear to me.

4. Liv - when I answered the question including who my favorite noora remake is a few weeks ago I wrote zoë and liv. And now I did place eleonora above because I’ve watched her season until the end and it just made me realize after it ended how much I love her and how much I can identify with her, so that’s the reason why liv is now placed lower than her. She is also so strong and caring, such a good friend and is great, independent, talented, caring and really beautiful in and out. At the begininng of season 2, I did find her being a little too hard on noah, but I still love them and her. She is a real queen.

5. Mia - after just season 1, mia was my favorite noora and I still love her sooo much. I even feel a little guilty for not placing her higher and it was a really tough call between liv and her, but after a lot of thinking I had to go with this order. The reason why I placed liv higher is because I think she handled the whole situation with engel a lot better than mia with kiki, and liv just generally seemed like a better friend during that whole situation. But, I still love mia so much. She is the strongest and probably the biggest feminist and I just like how determined she is and how they developed her and her relationship with alex in a way that didn’t make her loose who she is. I honestly wish I could be more like her.

6. Nora - tbh, I know too little about her because she didn’t get her season yet, so she is not that developed yet. But, I do like her for now, I like how they are handling her right now, and how she has similarities with the og noora, but is also more unique and not just a copy. She gives that certain vibe that I like and I’m really interested to see her season. I hope I’ll get to like her even more.

7. Manon - I don’t have much to say about her, she is mostly a copy of og, but not as good, and she is okay. I don’t have anything against her, but I’m really sorry about how bad they handled her and her relationship with charles in season 4. I didn’t even understand the whole drama and I don’t get what was all that about with her and sofiane. Like??? It really seemed like she knew imane liked him, I mean yeah, she asked her and she said she doesn’t, but still, it was so obvious and even if she wasn’t sure, you don’t just go and date your best friend’s possible crush? Idk, I’m just really confused with how all of that played out, and they didn’t even explain it properly. Same thing with charles. She was so against getting back with him the whole season and then she just got back with him all of a sudden without a word od explanation?? So confused about all of that, it was so unnecessary and rushed and it makes just zero sense. She was just so out of character during the whole season 4 and I’m really sorry about how it all played out, because she is really not bad and she definitely deserves better. Getting back with charles was a big disappointment for me.

8. Grace - didn’t like her at all in season 1 and in season 2 she did got better and I do think that SA was handled the best with her (except maybe with zoë, but I still have to see that playing out ‘till the end to judge), she was cute with daniel and she did grow on me in season 2 a little because she did get better. But, I’m still not the biggest fan, it’s not anymore that I don’t like her at all, I do, but not a lot. She doesn’t really give me noora vibes and sometimes she annoys me. But, I really liked how she put daniel in his place, telling him what happened happened to her and not him. That was really powerful and strong. So, she is okay, but not as much as the og, and I do like her, but she is just my least favorite out of all the others.

~ask me anything skam/remakes related~

[mst3kproject]

1112: Carnival Magic

Those of us who have heard of Al Adamson tend to associate him with movies like Psycho-A-Go-Go and Blood of Dracula’s Castle, so it’s weird to see him trying to make a family-friendly talking animal movie.  He fails at it, of course, but I don’t think that’s got anything to do with the genre.  Al Adamson just wasn’t any good at making movies.

Markov the Magnificent is a carnival magician who can talk to animals.  You’d think he’d use that in his act but instead he mostly just annoys the other performers until they insist he be fired. This leads to the secret coming out… but it’s not Markov’s powers that are revealed, it’s those of his buddy Alex the Chimp, an animal who can talk to people.  With Alex on stage, and Markov finally using some of his mind-reading and spoon-bending abilities, the carnival is suddenly the biggest thing in town.  Unfortunately, some of the attention they attract is the wrong kind, like that of a scientist who would like nothing better than to dissect a live chimpanzee, I guess just because it’s the evilest possible thing to do.

Out of curiosity, have any of you ever seen a chimpanzee in a zoo?  If so, you may have been surprised that it didn't look like the ones you see in movies.  Movie chimps are skinny and pink, while zoo chimps are dark grey and look like they could tie you in a knot with one hand while lifting a small car with the other.  Why is that? Because every chimp you've ever seen in a movie, tv show, commercial, or circus is less than about seven years old. When chimps reach puberty they not only become much bigger and stronger, they quickly realize that humans are smaller and weaker, and it gets very difficult to convince them to wear cute costumes anymore.

A movie about saving a talking animal from evil scientists so he can pursue a career in show business sounds like it ought to be fun, I guess.  It would probably work better as a cartoon, where we could be confident that no real animals were abused in the making of it. Even so, most of what actually happens in Carnival Magic is just kind of dull and depressing.  Occasionally you do get an attempt at something ‘zany’, but it never quite lives up to the kind of antics a description of the plot would lead you to expect.  When Alex decides to steal a car and go for a joyride, for example, that sounds like it ought to be funny, but it somehow just never works.  The music is an oddly un-fitting banjo piece and the screaming girl in the back seat reminds us constantly how dangerous this would be in real life.

(If you’ve ever tried to look up this movie on Wikipedia, by the way, you will have doubtless discovered that Carnival Cruise Lines owns a ship called the Carnival Magic.  Should I ever find myself on board, I believe I will decline any offer to dine with the captain.)

When Alex is not getting up to supposedly hilarious hijinks, the movie has two modes. One is pastel people wandering around the carnival apparently having fun, and the other is the various characters telling us about their traumatic backstories.  Markov’s pregnant wife died in a car wreck, leaving him with nothing but a talking ape and a broken heart.  Stoney the carnival owner forces his daughter to dress and behave like a boy so she won’t remind him of the wife who left him.  The carnival publicist ran away from home to escape a controlling and abusive father, and so on.

Of course you can make movies about this stuff.  People make some very good movies about this stuff.  Most of those movies, however, do not include scenes of chimpanzees wearing bras on their heads.  Seeing this kind of material in Carnival Magic makes it feel like we just tuned in to that hilarious sitcom our friends have been urging us to watch, only to catch the Very Special Episode in which one of the characters did drugs or had cancer and then it was never mentioned again.

I think the ending is supposed to be about the entire carnival coming together to save Alex from the evil scientist, but we haven’t seen any sign that Alex has unified them.  The people around Markov are already his friends and already committed to the survival of the carnival as a whole.  If Alex had inspired carnies who were on the point of running away to become accountants or something to remain with the show that would be one thing, and they do succeed in saving Alex, but the scene is presented as if it’s a climax without a story.  It’s also absolutely ridiculous watching the carnies sneak up on the secret chimp dissection lab, because they’re all very ordinary, out-of-shape people in street clothes doing their best to act like they’re on a police raid.

The evil scientist, Dr. Poole, is kind of a strange inclusion, himself. In my review of Octaman I remarked on how a lot of movies set up a conflict between scientists who want to study something and showpeople who want to ruthlessly exploit it.  The 70’s King Kong remake is a pretty good example, but in that movie – and in many others – those who want to put some oddity on display for money are the bad guys and those who want to learn from it are good.  Carnival Magic inverts this by suggesting that to study something is to destroy it, whereas to show it off is to help it be enjoyed by all the world.

There is a point to be made here.  A fair bit of what we know about anatomy and physiology of both humans and other creatures has been learned by doing atrocious things to both the living and the dead.  I don’t think, however, that Carnival Magic was the right way to make that point.  For one thing, Dr. Poole’s desire to dissect Alex alive makes no sense.  It’s not Alex’ physiology that makes him remarkable, it’s his behaviour.  Watching him alive could surely teach us infinitely more than taking his corpse apart.

For another, the options we’re given is Alex being a specimen or Alex being a literal circus freak!  Arguing that science should leave an animal alone to live out a happy life in its natural habitat seems reasonable – telling science to leave the same creature alone so it can perform for crowds of strangers is kind of horrifying.  It’s like if Free Willy ended with the titular whale returned to the aquarium having been saved from a taxidermist or something.  Sure, it’s better than death, but the audience still knows that this is not what’s best for this creature. If we’re supposed to believe that Alex wants to be a star, then that should have been established at the beginning of the movie, perhaps by him escaping Markov’s trailer and trying to entertain people.  One or two short extra scenes about this would have made the whole arc much more palatable.

Several characters describe Alex as being something more than an animal, so I think we’re supposed to regard him as a character in his own right.  This doesn’t seem entirely successful, because Alex doesn’t come across as having goals or desires of his own.  He happily goes along with whatever Markov wants to do, and when Markov’s not around he wanders about getting into mischief with no real sense of direction.  Part of me wants to believe this is an intentional attempt to portray a non-human mind that simply doesn’t prioritize the way we do.  Another part just wants to call it bad writing and I’m not sure which I ought to listen to.

As characters go, Markov’s not a great one, either.  Main characters in a movie ought to have a chance to learn and change, but Markov is pretty much the only human in the movie who doesn’t.  Ellen learns to break free of her father and become her own person, and Stoney learns that she can still love him regardless.  Dave the PR guys learns to be patient with women.  Kirk the tiger tamer grows more bitter and hateful until it destroys him, while his girlfriend Kim comes to realize what an ass he is.  Markov is exactly the same at the end as he was at the beginning – a guy with weird powers that he doesn’t put to any good use, and a talking ape for a surrogate child.  Perhaps nearly losing Alex is supposed to show him how much the chimp meant to him, but he already spent half the movie telling us that Alex is all he has.  He knows he’s got issues related to the death of his wife but seems unwilling to move past them.

In my review of Cry Wilderness I noted that it edged out Carnival Magic for the coveted title of ‘Worst Fucking Movie of Season 11’ mainly by being more racist. There’s a bit of racism in Carnival Magic, too, and it’s got a similar flavor although it’s not nearly so all-pervasive.  Cry Wilderness had its slightly magical Native Americans, here to help and support the white people.  Carnival Magic mostly cannot be bothered to have anybody who isn’t white say lines, but it still manages to have its slightly magical Buddhist Monks who raised Markov and presumably taught him his powers.  This is dumb, and actor Don Stewart sounds like even he doesn’t believe it.

Considered as a whole, Carnival Magic is pretty messy and never manages to settle on a tone.  Alex’ antics, Kirk’s revenge, and the various personal stories don’t quite feel like they’re all part of the same narrative. If I go back to that ‘sitcom’ metaphor, it’s like several episodes combined into a movie, but instead of being stitched end-to-end like in Riding With Death, they’ve been intercut to look like they’re all going on at once and it still doesn’t feel like a unified whole.  Yet for all that, there’s something weirdly fascinating about it.  Maybe it’s the contrast between the cheerful carnival setting and the often dark personal stories.  Maybe it’s trying to puzzle out what Adamson hoped to accomplish by the juxtaposition.  Whatever it is, it’s another reason I’d rather re-watch this than Cry Wilderness.

[moistwithgender]

Monthly Media Roundup (June-July 2019)

Well, I neglected doing a post last month, and now another has passed. I haven’t done too much, about three games each month and not anything else media-wise, so let’s get it all done right now!

Little Nightmares (PC/Steam): 

These types of spooky “cinematic platformers”, like LIMBO and INSIDE, never really scare me or fill me with dread. Part of this may be that due to the trappings of cinematic platformers. Checkpoints are very fair, and nothing is too difficult because priority is on delivering the story. Little side challenges exist, like trying to light all the candles or break all the porcelain dolls in the short 3-hour run of the game, but these are also pretty reasonable, even if you’re in a chase sequence. I’m reminded of a youtuber I briefly followed who talked about how horror games aren’t scary anymore, and somewhat unintentionally delivered the point that as you become accustomed to the limits of a medium, and therefore are less likely to be surprised by it, you’re also much less likely to be scared by it. It’s a somewhat unfortunate and inevitable trade-off to becoming more invested in a hobby. When I was a kid, all games held infinite possibility, and so an NPC in Harvest Moon telling me that wild dogs came out at night led me to think that night time held the possibility of ENEMIES in a game without combat. What the NPC meant was that you should build fences. As an adult who has spent my life playing games, I can tell you that a game is almost never going to put you in a situation without the means to deal with it. If there’s going to be combat, you’re going to know how combat works before an ambush. If there’s an escape sequence, you’re going to be in an area that facilitates your escape (often a narrow space that leads you in a direction while also making it as harrowing as possible). Games are theme park rides, and while learning that can make seemingly difficult games more manageable and enjoyable, it also gradually disillusions you. Thankfully, there are always new things to learn if you keep an open mind.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS): 

2019 has been about thoroughly enjoying the games that I considered overrated in my young adulthood. I joked on twitter that 70% of my personality was disliking Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time, and honestly, it might as well have been. I earned a lot of undeserved respect in college through arrogantly spouting hot takes about “objectively good art”, and a lot of people reasonably assumed this must mean I know exactly what I’m talking about. The way I process art and media is much looser and more personal than it used to be, partially due to burning out and becoming too exhausted to deal with other arrogant people. I think a lot about how tiring I had to be for other people to talk to. Watching Tim Rogers bleed his personal trauma into his video series on the subtleties of FF7’s japanese script was the most instrumental in turning me back toward the game. When Square Enix revealed gameplay footage of the remake at E3 this year, I was hooting and hollering with the longtime fans.

But, this is about Zelda, not Final Fantasy. I had already played through OoT, as hurriedly as possible, just to say I had done it. It was the better part of a decade ago, at the urging of a then-girlfriend who had nostalgia for it. Frustrations with the Water Temple in the original version are valid despite it being largely well designed, due to some minor shortsighted-ness that blows up into nagging issues, but I think I had put myself in the headspace to dislike it from the get-go. Similarly, I didn’t want to do any collecting in the game as a whole. I had convinced myself that there was no joy to be found in collecting in games (a take bereft of nuance). When the point of Zelda games is to inspire the player to explore every nook and cranny in search of rewards, going in as a player and stubbornly trying to avoid any of that ensures that you’ll miss the point of the whole experience. I’m not sure what it was that made me want to go back. It might be that I wanted to prove my younger, cockier self wrong, and pave over my old evaluations with more nuance. 

It certainly worked out that way, as several previous opinions changed entirely. Ruto used to be annoying to me, but was now one of my favorite characters. Doing all the little minigames felt rewarding in itself, and in turn I was unexpectedly rewarded with important items (they really did bet everything on the entire world they’d made). The Water Temple, now tweaked for a bit more convenience in the 3DS version, was extremely interesting. The side quest to acquire the Biggoron Sword was easily doable, whereas I had grown up assuming it impossible. And the story which had never appealed to me (because I wouldn’t let it) now felt relatable in a way I hadn’t expected. Link intends to do good, but through unfortunate circumstances and honest mistakes becomes unable to take part in the world, and it spirals downward for years as he remains trapped in a room, aging but inactive. Something about that mirrors my own experiences with depression. Sure, Link, can travel back to his younger self at any time, but there’s still a powerlessness in the inability to affect the seven year gap. You can flash back, but you can’t change what you’ve lost.

Banjo-Kazooie (N64): 

You know, as a kid I probably would have just accepted that Grunty was evil, but as an adult it’s hard not to see her as a product of her environment. Obsessed with asking her cauldron who the objectively prettiest in the world is, she seeks out and kidnaps the younger girl given the title in an attempt to steal her youth. Every character in the game describes Grunty as ugly, rather than evil, and even her own sister shows up in every area to tell you how gross she is and how terrible her lifestyle is. I ended up sympathizing with her more than anyone else. I’ve only played half an hour of Banjo-Tooie, but it was a relief in multiple ways to see her pivot to straight up murder after rising from the dead.

Despite playing Donkey Kong Country multiple times growing up, I’d never really grown to love Rare’s in-house aesthetic of big-eyed cartoony animals. It might be hypocritical, but Smash Ultimate’s reveals for both King K. Rool and Banjo (and) Kazooie made me see the charm in these characters. Something about how Smash canonizes characters as essential pieces of game history always causes me to drop any negative pretense and adopt them as favorites. It’s a little intellectually hypocritical, but I can’t help liking what I like. After the trailer for B-K in Smash, I immediately started up the original game in Retroarch. Thankfully the core I used was advanced enough to play the game without issues (the same cannot be said for Tooie), as other alternatives were expensive or hard to get a hold of. While the slightly-mean humor and talking animate objects took a bit of getting used to, I get it now. I get the children’s show aesthetic they were aiming for, and I appreciate the feel of the physics and control of the interspecies friendship of the protagonists working in tandem with each other, even if the game is at times quite difficult.

Dragon Quest I, II, & III (SNES): 

Yes, I did play through three JRPGs in a row! And yes, you might notice that the hero of Dragon Quest XI (and VIII, and IV, and III) was also announced for Smash Ultimate. They recently released, as of this writing! A lot of what I’ve been playing has been influenced by outside forces, whether it be Nintendo news or friends, but I’m not bothered at all when otherwise I might not have the energy to play anything. The games I’ve been playing are also ones I’ve intended to play for a while, so the excuses have been convenient for me. Though, actually, this decision had less to do with the Smash announcement and more to do with the upcoming re-release of DQXI, which seems to be related to the original three games, known as The Erdrick Trilogy. I had heard that you can play XI on its own, but that there is an extra layer of appreciation to be had if you’ve played the original trilogy. Me being me, I naturally queued them up. I chose the older fan translations of the SNES remakes, and though I did finish them, I can tell you that they have their fair share of bugs (DQII even has a game breaking glitch I had to finagle through using save states across multiple versions, phew). Besides that, those old translations lack the modern localizations of the games, so if they namedrop something in XI, there’s a chance it’ll go over my head. Oops! If you want to play these games, the best versions are currently on mobile phones.

Around a decade ago I was in early college, with no friends except for those still in high school or at another university. I was very lonely and nervous. I started playing Dragon Quest V purely by chance, and it served as the perfect salve for that loneliness, with its lonely child protagonist traveling around the world accumulating found family. It’s one of the more poignant and cathartic JRPGs I’ve ever played, and for the next decade I would actually be bothered that the rest of the games didn’t live up to the catharsis of DQV.

In revisiting the roots of the series, and playing it through to see how it develops from title to title, it finally clicked with me, and continues to click with me, as I keep learning more about the series. Rather than comparing every entry to DQV, I should have been comparing them in order. This might sound obvious, but it really did make a world of difference to see that V’s narrative is placed on top of the foundation the previous games set, rather than a singular case of lightning in a bottle. And the games have always featured loneliness, but in differing contexts, and to different degrees. The hero of DQI is almost entirely alone through the full game. In DQII, the princess comes from lonely circumstances, and one of the princes comes down with a sickness that leaves him temporarily unable to help his friends. In DQIII you can make as many team members as you want, but you grow up with an absent father, and your own good deeds receive bittersweet resolution. They are all games built on simple settings and followed through with empathy. The series is at times disarmingly heavy, which is part of what makes the games as memorable as they are. You’re never quite as prepared for Dragon Quest as you think you are.

As of this writing I’m currently half-way through a replay of Dragon Quest IV, and I’m enjoying it a lot more. I’m looking forward to replaying V. I have no idea what VI will be like. I’ve heard it’s a lower point in the series, but that’s what I heard about II as well, and I ended up loving it, so who knows. Dragon Quest is good.

---

Well, I managed to catch up. I didn’t get into the finer details of the DQ playthroughs, but DQIII is honestly so good I don’t want to spoil it for anyone (you should play these games). Maybe in August I’ll actually get back to watching and reading things. Maybe I’ll try to keep these things to a single paragraph per item, to make it more manageable to read. Let me know what you think, if you think.

[chris-crossed]

My thoughts on the Charmed reboot trailer

Alright, here we are. I’ll put the trailer first for anyone who has not yet seen it and the rest is under the read more. I’m going to be pointing things out chronologically to hopefully make the most sense.

“Yeah, we’re gonna nurture it so hard.” That is such a weird line, it’s making me cringe. But it’s minor issue and comes down to personal taste so it’s not important. Moving on.

It’s not a show about witches unless there are some black birds, right? From what I’ve read about crows and witchcraft (in the 10 minutes since I started writing this post) they are usually seen as bad omens, so the use of crows here is probably to show that the mother is in danger. Which is a bit clichéd, but at least it has some relevance to the mythology. 

Would anyone actually believe that the mother fell out of the window? It’s a large window with a deep windowsill, and the two sisters have to really lean to see out of it. It’s unlikely that the mother could have fallen accidentally. Additionally, the detective is saying there’s no evidence of foul play (after 3 months, good job, evidence might drop onto your desk any day now). I don’t know where they learned to “detect”, but I’ve seen enough crime shows to know that the broken glass on the floor in the attic means that something shattered the window from the outside (shown later in the trailer). Which is a sign of foul play, or at least a sign that the mother didn’t break the window falling through it. The writing here feels a bit cheap and lazy. They needed the mother to be killed in a way that would appear to be an accident, like getting pushed out of a window or drowned. They should have done a better job at making it look like an accident or chosen some other method. I wonder what’s on the report, though, if the sister is under the impression that the detectives aren’t looking. 

“You’re obsessed with mom’s death.” “Obsessed?” “Yes, obsessed.” Good dialogue *slow clap*. “Obsessed” no longer sounds like a word to me. 

The photo is so shoddy looking, like a poorly made manipulation. There’s no reason they couldn’t have taken a real picture. I mean, they have the house and the actress, they could have found a baby and taken a picture. 

There are some continuity issues in the frozen diner. In the background outside there’s a guy in plaid, dodging something. The next time we see him there’s suddenly a pigeon next to him and he’s in a different pose. But there are always going to be continuity issues, so it’s whatever. I don’t really get what triggered the sister to freeze the diner in the first place though. The powers are supposed to be tied to their emotions (unless they decided that was lame and they’re not doing that), and she’s just having a normal conversation with her girlfriend by the looks of it. Not particularly stressed or upset or desperate for more time like Piper was in the original. 

The oldest sister is definitely upset or annoyed by something, so it makes more sense for her power to be triggered. I can’t really tell what the guy was trying to say because the editing of this part is so choppy. It goes from 0 to 100 in a second. This is the sister I think has the most potential though, she seems to have more depth (and acting ability, oops) than the other two. 

Which bring us to the youngest sister discovering her powers. They changed her power from premonitions to mind reading, not sure why that was necessary to be honest. But it seems like the power is touch-activated, like she can read the minds of people when she touches them. So it has some similarities to Phoebe’s premonition power. In my opinion, mind reading is less useful because the premonitions could show past, present and future, whereas mind reading is just the present (I would assume). 

The dumbest thing in the whole trailer is the Whitelighter. Firstly, he’s supposed to be a guardian angel but he abducts and ties the sisters up. That’s not very pacifistic. Secondly, they’re not even using the term “Whitelighter”, he’s just an “adviser to witches”. Makes me wonder if they are going to remake the whole magical community and get rid of Elders, Whitelighters, leprechauns, fairies, nymphs, etc. Thirdly, I’m getting definite Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibes. Maybe it’s the British thing. 

The youngest sister doesn’t like wearing witch costumes on Halloween, not even slutty ones. I feel like that line is a dig at Phoebe doing exactly that. What’s wrong with making a protest statement and showing cleavage at the same time? I guess they’re remaking the show to be feminist, so they can’t have women owning their bodies and wearing whatever they want, right?

The spell is in latin...I think it’s latin. One of my favourite parts about the original show was that I could recite the spells and pretend to be a witch. I still know some of them by heart and it brings me such a nostalgic feeling. The spells are really meaningful too, the actual wording matters and the sisters write their own spells which adds an interesting and unpredictable aspect to each vanquish. Having them recite latin is not going to be that. 

I don’t feel like this reboot is going to be particularly good, or exceptionally bad. Since they are making it contemporary it’s understandable that some things had to be changed in order to keep up with what is popular these days, and I like the representation of POC and LGBTQ+. But that’s about it. Nothing really intrigued me or made me want to watch the whole show. Not just because I love the original Charmed and nothing can ever replace it, but because the reboot feels very YA, with aesthetics similar to the Vampire Diaries or the Secret Circle, which I don’t really care for. Of course, it’s possible the show will be very different from what it looks like in the trailer. Either way, I probably am not going to watch more than the first episode. 

I think that’s about it for my thoughts! Feel free to discuss and share your own opinions.

[littledonkeyburrito]

I will wear jeans in hell

1. Do you think it’s rude when people speak slowly when talking to people that don’t know English well? No, it’s helpful, especially if the english speaking person has an accent the other person isn’t used to. I wish people would speak slower to me in spanish. The worst is when you ask them to speak slower and they repeat the exact same thing at the exact same speed. Speak slower but don’t be condescending.

2. What’s irritating you right now? My heater isn’t warm enough and my feet are cold.

3. Do you feel comfortable with answering personal questions? Depends on the question. I like telling stories about myself and my life but I don’t enjoy getting into emotions and stuff.

4. Would you ever sleep with someone to get a job? Depends on the job and who I have to sleep with.

5. Would you ever travel by yourself? I have, several times. And I will again at the end of the month when I go to Paris, although I’m hoping to be able to meet up with someone to go to Disneyland with.

6. When was the last time you consumed alcohol? I had a beer yesterday I think. Or maybe it was the day before, idk

7. When will you see your best friend next? January at the absolute earliest

8. Have you ever broken a bone? No

9. Would you introduce the last person you kissed to your parents? Sure, but not as my partner

10. Are any of your friends virgins? Yeah

11. Was your last kiss, standing up, sitting down, or laying down? Standing up

12. If you could seek revenge on someone would you? There was one person I was pretty cranky at for a while but I don’t care anymore.

13. What plans do you have for tomorrow? No plans. I would go grocery shopping but tomorrow is sunday so everything will be closed.

14. What time did you wake up? I woke up to construction sounds and got annoyed because it was way too early for that kind of noise but I looked at my phone and it was 11:30. Still went back to sleep for another hour though.

15. Have you ever found a bug in your food? I have this one memory as a kid I had had a sleepover at my friend’s house and in the morning we were having breakfast in his dad’s cafe next door and I got pancakes and there was a wasp in it. I didn’t actually care, I ate around it.

16. What is most of your junk email from? Currently mostly from Dick Smith and a job search website

17. Do you have any upcoming appointments? what for? Flight at the end of the month. Does that count?

18. Would you be content to turn out just like your mom? Very much so, my mother is an amazing woman.

19. What is one skill you would like to have, but don’t want to work towards? Probably something super boring like knowing how to be an accountant or something. It would be useful to have for jobs and stuff but so boring to actually achieve.

20. Do you have letters of the alphabet that you like? Which ones? Not in english, but in spanish I like ñ because I like drawing the squiggle and also x because it’s pronounced differently depending which country you’re in.

21. If you could pick one topic for everyone in your country to learn more about, what would you pick? For australia, human rights and ethics so that they can start treating aboriginals and asylum seekers with a bit more respect.

22. How do you feel about people your age having children? I just don’t understand why

23. When was the last time you were at a park? Probably sometime when I was in panama. I don’t think I’ve been in a park since I’ve been back

24. Could you fall asleep right now if you tried? Wish I could, but no. Otherwise I’d be in bed.

25. Do you feel like going to funerals helps you in the grieving process? I have never been to one so I don’t know.

26. Who was the last person you heard snore? Panama guy

27. Do you think it’s possible for an 18 year old to be ready to get married? I think you should experience the real world before you commit to something like marriage. But hey, to each their own.

28. Have you ever had a dream about someone on tv, or a show? What happened? Yeah many times but the dream that comes to mind I had while I was in Colombia. I dreamt that I was on a yacht making out with Henry Cavill.

29. Have you ever taken a nap in an unusual or especially uncomfortable place, i.e. on top of your keyboard, under a table, etc? When I was at uni I would curl up in the bay window at the end of the aisle in the library and nap in the sunbeam. I have slept in trains and buses on terribly bumpy roads. I can even sleep on planes now. I’ve definitely napped on some floors, maybe head down on some tables too. Look, I just really like sleep okay and I can always do with a nap when I travel.

30. What was the scent of the last lotion you used? It was just one from the grocery store. It has argon oil in it which I assume gives it a certain smell.

31. Do you have any strange co-workers? I don’t currently work but there were a few weirdos at my old job.

32. When was the last time you had a headache? No idea, I don’t get headaches very often and if I do they’re minor so I wouldn’t remember anyway

33. Is anyone jealous of you? I hope so. Half the reason I use instagram is to make everyone I went to highschool with jealous of my current life.

34. What was the last thing you had to mentally prepare yourself for? that would have been for quitting that telemarketing job.

35. What’s something you’re currently dreading? Not finding a job and having to organise a move back to australia

36. If your living space could smell like anything in the world, but it would ALWAYS smell that way and you could never change it, what would you choose for it to smell like? I don’t know. Maybe citrus, or baked goods?

37. What’s something you wish were taught when you were in school? Actual life skills.

38. How would you describe your sense of humor? Varied. But mostly I like goofy, wholesome humour where nobody is the butt of the joke and nobody gets hurt.

39. Do you ever notice other people’s body language when you’re speaking with them? Sometimes

40. Is there a meal you simply cannot eat if it’s missing something (a salad without croutons, a sandwich without cheese, etc)? No..? I’ll eat just about anything

41. Is there something that other people see/hear and automatically think of you? You would have to ask those other people

42. Do you ever just feel like you need to be alone for some reason? Yeah, I often prefer to be alone when I’m at home. It stresses me out to have someone in my space for too long.

43. If you got paid $5 per survey you made, could you make a living just doing that? I probably could but it would old really quick

44. When was the last time you wore something totally inappropriate for the weather? Does this happen often? Every day in central america because I always wear jeans.

45. The last time you went out of the house, where were you going and what did you do? I was going to the corner store probably.

46. Do you have a friend that has a tendency to “dump” you whenever they get a new partner? One friend did that for a while. He would stop hanging out with me whenever he started dating someone. But then he got a long term boyfriend and got better about managing his time between his partner and his friends.

47. Would you ever want to go on vacation with just one of your parents? I have travelled a few times with my mum. I get a little frustrated travelling with dad though.

48. In summer, do you prefer to wear dresses or shorts and tops? Or maybe something else? I will wear jeans in hell

49. Have you ever had an unusual type of milk (eg. oat, rice, almond)? I just want milk that tastes like real milk

50. How many cans of soda would you say you drink in a week, if any at all? When I lived in australia I had a can of pepsi max a day bc it was my caffeine hit for work. Now I buy a 2L bottle of coke zero maybe once a week. Probably works out about the same tbh

51. When you’re at home, do you spend most of your time in your room? I live alone so I get the whole place to myself. I only spend time in my bed/bedroom for sleep

52. If you like to sleep in late, have your parents ever told you off for doing so? Ugh my dad was so annoying about that. I was a nigthshift worker and yet he still found it weird that I preferred to sleep in to any time after 10am. Like, dude, I only go to bed at 7am. There’s no way in hell I’m getting up any time before 2pm. Now my brother works those hours and I’m sure he gets the same crap from dad.

53. How much stuff do you take with you when you go on vacation for a week? If it’s warm weather, I can pack for a week in my backpack and won’t have to do laundry. Cooler weather is harder because I have to pack layers and a jacket. But I still plan on only taking my backpack for my 4 night stay in Paris.

54. How old is your oldest living relative? My grandad is 88 in a couple of months

55. Could you willingly live on a vegan diet? I wouldn’t want to.

56. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, are you sad that there’ll never be another book or movie? There will definitely be remakes in my lifetime.

57. If you’re an only child, do you wish you had siblings? If you have siblings, do you get along? My brother and I don’t get along. We’re better now that we’re both adults but we’re definitely not friends.

58. How long have you had the shirt you’re wearing? About a year and a half. I actually bought it to take on my trip to india. I wanted loose long sleeve shirts to keep the sun off me but not overheat me too much.

59. Are you a slut? Idk, maybe sometimes.

60. What happened last time you got drunk? I drank at home and watched Star Wars. That was it.

61. What do you want right this second? Kinda need to go to the bathroom tbh

62. How are you sitting? Sprawled out on my sofa

63. Did you sleep alone last night? Yeah

64. Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow? Yeah

65. What were you doing last night at midnight? I think I was playing the sims

66. Will you have sexual intercourse within the next two weeks? Probably not

67. How many cigarettes have you smoked today? None, I don’t smoke

68. Do you like potato chips? Yeah

69. Do you think you are pregnant? I definitely am not

70. You’ve had sex within these past 10 days haven’t you? Ha! I wish

71. Do you have a good relationship with your parents? I do

72. What were you doing this morning at 5:30? Sleeping

73. What were you doing 2 hours ago? Watching netflix

74. Do you like the ocean? Yes

75. How many windows are open on your computer? One window, 5 tabs.

76. Do you know anyone named Matt? I have 2 Matts on facebook.

77. When was the last time you talked to a sibling? Was emailing with my brother a few days ago

78. How late did you stay up last night and why? Went to bed around 1am. Didn’t get to sleep until ~5

79. Would you rather go to Greece or Hawaii? Ooh tough choice. I think maybe greece but I’d also like to visit hawaii at some point. Although tbh neither of them are super high on my list. Top trip I want to do is all of latin america from Mexico to Argentina. Also want to hit up Madagascar. 

80. What color is your underwear right now? Navy blue

81. How is the weather right now? Cold.

82. Are you too shy to ask someone out? Yes but there’s nobody I want to ask out

83. Have you ever fired a gun? No.

84. Do you like to travel by plane as opposed to car? Depends where/how far I’m going and how much it’ll cost.

85. Do you like to cuddle? Sometimes

86. Do you need to get anything from the store right now? If so, what, and why? I need groceries. But it’ll have to wait until monday.

87. Have you ever had to take a stool or urine test? Why did you have to do this? Urine test a few times. 1) drug tests for work, 2) while I was doing a medical trial a few years ago, 4) routine std check 3) got a UTI :/

88. Is there a food you eat that others find weird or gross? Some people think vegemite is weird and gross but those people are wrong. Also some people don’t understand how I can eat so much chilli.

89. The last video game you played - did you play alone or with someone else? I played Mass Effect 2 earlier today, alone.

90. . If there is a disc in your computer, what disc is it? Sims 3 Supernatural.

91. Do you shut down your computer every time after you use it, or do you leave it on? I just put it to sleep.

92. Do people ever drive down your street really slowly? Does it creep you out? Anyone who decides to drive down my street has already made a mistake. There is no possible way to do it quickly. It takes time and a person guiding you so that you don’t scrape down the sides of your car. This is a pedestrian street.

93. Do you live in a very diverse community? Yes, this is a pretty multicultural city

94. Did you waste your first kiss, or did it mean something to you? Do you think that people should save their first kisses just like their virginity? It meant something to me at the time, I don’t care now. People can do whatever they want with regards to their first kiss or their virginity.

95. Do you know anyone who has had salmonella? Did you ever have it yourself? What about e coli? One of my work friends got salmonella and it hit while she was on shift. I was at the other end of the site and could hear the conversation between her and the then-supervisor over the radio. It actually messed up her immune system and she kept getting colds and flu more often for about a year after that.

96. How many weeks of summer do you have left before you have to go back to school? 1) I don’t go to school, 2) It’s not summer

97. Who was the last member of your extended family to visit? Where were they visiting from? My Dad visited me back in May. That was the last family member I saw.

98. When was the last time you went on a train? Where were you going? Whenever I last went grocery shopping I’d have gotten the metro there and back. Last long distance train would have been to Castellón to get my yellow fever shot before I went to Colombia.

[mommyofmanyhats]

10 Best Easy Family Halloween Costumes with Kids

If you want to go to a party, Disney or trick-or-treating as a family, you might be looking for possible costume ideas. There are a variety of costumes that allow the entire family to fit within a single theme, no matter the number of people in your family or the ages of your kids. Here are just a few of the best easy family Halloween costumes to choose from if your have kids.

Best Family Halloween Costumes from Cartoons

If you have young kids, they will probably want to become one of their favorite cartoon characters for Halloween. Here are some great family Halloween costumes to embrace the cartoons that the whole family will love.

Aladdin

A very popular Disney animated movie is Aladdin, especially with the remake this year. This is a fun movie when you want to dress your family up as these characters. For example, you can dress as Jasmine and Aladdin, while the kids dress as the Genie and Abu. Some people also like going the other direction and mixing up Aladdin and Jasmine with some of the evil characters like Jafar. This mixes it up and keeps the costumes entertaining. For a dog or baby, you might even find a magic lamp costume.

Flintstones

Some families just love to hop in the car with the family dino pet and see a movie at the old drive-in… and what’s better after a long day at the quarry? If you’re a close family then we think a Flintstones group idea is perfect for you. Fred, Wilma, Pebbles, even Dino can get in on the Stone Age fun. Just watch out for your dishwasher. He will try to tag along, but you tell that warthog to get back under the sink until you get home!

Ninja Turtles

If you’re that family or group of friends that love to get together over a nice hot pepperoni pizza, then you already have a ton in common with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Maybe, you might not know karate, kung-fu, or how to use a Bo staff, but you know how to eat a pizza like a bonafide TMNT. You just might be surprised how easy it is to look cool with a pair of nunchucks, assuming you don’t whack the back of your head accidently with them. Since there’s four turtles, it makes a fantastic costume group idea, and even if you have one more, there’s no reason not to add April, Shredder, or Splinter into the mix. Just watch out for that ooze… it totally has a secret.

Easy Family Halloween Costumes from Movies

There are so many classic movies to draw inspiration from when looking for great family Halloween costumes, but here are a few of our favorites. With many of these movie options, you can mix and match who gets to be who. And there are tons of cute dog costumes to add in with the mix.

Wizard of Oz

When thinking about a family Halloween costume idea, try to think of any movies or television shows where there are multiple characters you can make a costume out of. The Wizard of Oz is perfect because there are a lot of characters to choose from. Whether you have a small or large family, it should work great! If you have a baby, you can go as Dorothy, your husband can pick either Scarecrow, the Lion or the Tinman, and the baby can be dressed as toto the dog. If you have a dog, he can be Toto, and your kids can dress as other characters or even as the witch to mix it up a little.

Superhero Family

Superheroes never go out of style, and instead keep getting more and more popular. Look at all the popularity of the Avengers this year. There are tons of ways to do a superhero family costume. Each person can dress as their own superhero, even if they are supposed to be in different universes. You can go as the uber popular The Avengers, or you can even find a superhero movie with an actual family, like The Incredibles. You can even  recreate your favorite heros and villians from the X-men.

Willy Wonka

Why not go with a Willy Wonka theme? Whether you are a fan of the classic or remake, this is a timeless story that creates some really fun costumes. You can go as Willy Wonka, Charlie and some of the other kids, but there are other ways to do it. Remember that anything you can make into a group of characters is easy to turn into a family Halloween costume everyone will love. Perhaps a fun option is to go as Willy Wonka, a Wonka bar and an Oompa Loompa.

Nintendo Family

Do you and your friends or family love nothing more than to sit down with a controller in your hands and play video games all night? (I sure did in the late 80s) Mario isn’t the only one having fun here; there is Link, Donkey Kong, and tons more that you’ll recognize from the world of Nintendo. So, whether you all go on an epic quest to have the best Halloween ever, or you just hit up the local go-kart track, we think you’re going to love these costumes. Just don’t let anyone throw down a banana peel on the track. Those are so annoying.

Power Rangers Family

Not only are the Power Rangers perfect for families because it has cross-generational appeal, we think it makes everyone involved look fun and colorful and fully capable of some mighty morphin’ shenanigans. Don’t be surprised if you have a lot of people come up to you saying, “Go go…. you!”

Star Wars

You can’t go wrong with a Star Wars costume group. It has everything: timeless designs, classic characters, and something for the young and the not so young alike. Mom and Dad can be Han and Leia, while junior gets to live out his galactic dream of becoming the renowned bounty hunter, Boba Fett. If one of you goes as Luke, just remember to hang onto your lightsaber.

Ghostbusters

If you’re looking for a classic movie-themed costume, who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters! The original Ghostbusters movie came out in 1984 and was an instant classic. During the original movies, one of the most popular characters was the big Marshmallow Man.  A group of guys will love zipping up a Ghostbusters costume with an inflatable backpack included. Kids will love acting silly as the oozing green blob, Slimer, and even newborns can get in on the fun in a Stay Puft bunting!

Other Tips for Family Halloween Costumes & Party Fun

Is your family planning a Halloween party? Here are some more of our Halloween costume ideas and tips for planning the spookiest party for your friends.

Top 16 Funny Mens Halloween Costumes

Top 29 Easy Scary Halloween Costumes to Scare Your Socks Off

Halloween Food Ideas: 18 of the Spookiest Treats and Drinks

Top 24 Unique and Easy Couples Halloween Costume Ideas

  The post 10 Best Easy Family Halloween Costumes with Kids appeared first on Mommy Of Many Hats.

from Mommy Of Many Hats http://mommyofmanyhats.com/best-easy-family-halloween-costume-ideas-kids/

[bigfootmoviereviews-blog]

Savage 2011

Grade C+

Ahhh, how refreshing, something with some effort and thought put into it. It’s not great, but it is ok. Owen sucks at his job, the guy in the costume is a bit small to be scary, but the guns are actually firearms (not just BB guns), most of the actors are decent, you get to see the beast and the gore effects are not all CGI. This is was actually entertaining, something that hasn’t been seen on the blog before, and best of all, it’s available for free on YouTube. All of these have been actually, but this is the first one worth watching, especially in comparison to most of the Bigfoot movies out there.

The Plot:

Well, this is neither found footage nor a total bargain basement affair, so the plot will actually take a little effort to describe. Ok, so there is a forest fire that is disrupting things at a national forest, one of the rangers there is our “hero” Owen. Owen isn’t important yet though, and he’s also pretty bad at his job. We also have a guy trying to do research on bigfoot and his guide, a couple fleeing the law, a corrupt… mayor? I’m honestly not quite sure what his exact title or roll is in this. Anyways, this is actually worth a watch, so turn back now if you don’t want it spoiled.

Ok, Bigfoot is displaced by the fire, kills a bunch of firemen and a ranger. Owen is called in to look around. Meanwhile a Bigfoot reacher in a Prius and a lola hunter begin looking for the animal. And finally a couple name Gabrielle and Richard are there to hide from the law while poaching. The forest fire is making a lot of camper leave, and Owen continues to be bad at his job. Prius and Jack wander around and chat about Bigfoot. Gabrielle and Richard are there to poach, not for anything in particular mind you. Owen checks in on them, and though he clearly knows they’re not on the up and up, he just wanders off. Owen is bad at his job.

Richard is killed by Bigfoot, it then chases Gabrielle until she runs into Prius and Jack. Owen then meets the four of them when they wake up, somehow handcuffing Gabrielle while she was asleep without waking anyone up. He then makes Jack confess that all the evidence that he has shown Prius so far is fake. Owen tells them to leave, and takes Gabrielle off with him. He manages to crash his truck, but they are rescued by Jack and Prius. Those two are then killed. Owen then takes Gabrielle and runs to his house where is his pregnant wife is waiting for him with the beast in pursuit. Owen is bad at his job. Gabrielle manages to handcuff herself to Bigfoot to keep it trapped so Owen can blow up his house and kill it. Then it turns out that the mayor or whatever he is, started the forest fire as part of some poorly explained and silly subplot about remaking the town as a tourist haven. Owen punches him.

My Thoughts:

That's a very mild forest fire, so either these guys are great at their jobs, or terrible at it.

Why are you smoking? That's just an awful idea.

running would be a good idea. two firemen hear growling and see bushes thrashing. after a pause one is pulled up a tree

screaming, cut to credits

Oh Man, Tony Becker is playing Owen, so you know this shit is gonna be good

Who’s Tony Becker again?

Mr Cop, why are you singing to no music? Could you not afford the music rights

Why would tires squeal on a dirt road?

Apparently this is the last fireman, all the others got squatched

And the cop got squateched. And instead of driving away, calling it in or grabbing a weapon he’s just gonna sit there

Judging by the angle of attack, this sasquatch is really a honey badger

Annnnnd the fireman got squatched too.

No actual bigfoot seen yet, just stock roars

And now we have a guy bird watching at dawn from his front porch using magic binoculars to watch previously recorded footage of a hawk at a different time of day. Odds are this is out main character, possibly the mighty Owen foretold by the credits

They just got up and she’s already nagging him (wife comes out and asks if he’s gonna sit out here all day.) It’s early, you’re still in your nightgown. Why you gotta be so confrontational so early? And why would you put on makeup before your shower?

IT IS! IT is Owen. Things are gonna get poppin now!

Owen is being called in to deal with the situation, that bigfoot is screwed.

(cut to a cabin with a record player going with old music, we see boots with blood dripping down)

Dude, don’t pee in the middle of the room, and that ain’t normal. Go see a doctor

Oh I see, you’re making a mess while trying to skin a rabbit, and then rubbing the bloody pelt on your face.

Wait, is this German Guy? You know the one, from Das Boot? And Wing Commander? And Primeval? Oooh. Owen, you’re out, German Guy is the new Owen. At least until we learn his name, then you can go back to Owen status

Who calls a bathroom a “pisser”? Savages

Hmm, city slicker girl doesn’t seem to fit in. I bet she dies. (girl and guy stop at a souviner shop selling bigfoot stuff, he goes to the pisser while she wanders the store, and the owner gives her shades cause her BF is a dick)

CS girl’s boyfirend is a dick, which means we will hae to wait for far too long for his death sadly.

And that scene was necessary for… reasons.

And now we have a Prius stopped byt the side of the road so we can have yet another person who will die. I can tell by his face he’s going to be annoying

YAY its german guy again! ANd his name is Jack. Ok Owen, you’re Owen again,

And now I fell like an idiot. That’s not German guy, it’s some other guy. I’m much less happy now

CS girl drives past and Prius guy stares at her longingly

Prius wants to study bigfoot, Jack wants to kill it

THey… they used CGI to make the “Ranger Station” Sign.   Why? Just, Why?

People want their money back cause they can’t camp. The audacity of some people

The ranger in  the station wouldn’t last 10 minutes at walmart

So.... Owen assures the people they are safe to camp and they have his word, then tells Martin to give them their money back… so he just undermined the value of his own word

Yes, this is a Ranger station interior, not the directors living room. Sure. we can believe that

Hmm, Owen is worried about his house to the east in case the fire changes course. I’m sure that isn’t foreshadowing

Uh oh, looks like Ray was the one who got squatched

Whys is Jack hanging with Prius guy if he doesn’t like him?

Oh, it’s so he can title drop

Jack is tring a little too hard with a batman voice

BF is RIchard, and he’s still a dick. Gabrielle is CS girl

Why do the rangers uniforms not match?

Wow that is a stereotypical redneck. Bill runs Bigfoot towing

Why is the blood not mixed evenly?

Ok Jack, you packed your bag, why are you now pulling tools out of your truck, giving them a look, then putting them in the bag. Why didn’t you just put em in the bag to begin with?

Gabby, shallow stagnant water isn’t where those kind of fish live

And Owen closes in on abusive dick husband

Hahahaha! Poop. Always funny (Prius and Jack are hiking)

Pretty good performance as Owen questions Richard and Gabby

You’d have better luck with your parabolic microphone if your were not in a pit

Well look at that, disemboweled firemen have comedic timing. And Prius needs a shower

Jurassic Homage at the bigfoot store. Makes no real sense though, you’d have heard the truck and equipment long before it knocked over your pickled eggs

So the establishing shot shows it is dusk, but its still clearly daylight on Richard, and a different film quality on the bird, got it

Richard clearly knows nothing about firearms, birdshot wouldn't be good against anything that can make those noises

And now he just ignores the big growling animal that was just a few feet away because it was quiet for 5 seconds. Clearly he is a master poacher

His death was not nearly painful enough, one punch

And now we see gabby at a different time of day. These woods are magical

I don't think her splashing water on her face warrants the scary music we hear

Oh no, someone spilled tomato juice about two feet upstream from her. Cause that's the only way you could get it that cloudy.

And that is more CGI blood than is in human body

And his corpse isn't even in the water….

Well at least she was smart enough to grab the gun

So, it’s a little undersized, but an ok costume. But he apparently went to the Sabertooth From X-Men Origins: Wolverine School of Running. And it didn’t look good in that movie either

(Gabby is being chased, prius and jack her her shoot and close in. Jack says he’s gonna shoot it, prius knocks him down

I know the script direction probably called for Prius to be patting Jack down for weapons, but it just looks like awkward groping or trying to start a tickle fight. Wither way, not appropriate

Prius needs to realize you don't get to whine when someone hits you back, and that you were working together until you tackled Jack. So it really doesn't make sense for you to ask jack to work with you now

That was a totally needless diversion

Wow, owen is bad at his job, he apparently did know the bus hasn't been running here in years

Cryptic radio message is cryptic

So, you couldn’t clearly see each other thru like, 5 leaves? And neither of you is a bigfoot, you both know there's a bigfoot, why are you pointing guns at each other?

Like seriously, this is not dense woodland, I’m pretty sure I can see a road

Head ranger is clearly meant to be giving off Mayor in Jaws vibe

Uh oh, she shot the clerk, and I bet she doesn’t have a cousin named Vinny to help her out

Huh, Owen is the one saying the can't shut down the park.

“I know where a murderer is, they may flee. But I'm gonna go get milk and bring it home first. Then go arrest them myself” Owen is really bad at his job

With only half an hour left it doesn’t make much sense to start pushing this real estate subplot, that honestly appears to be non-sinister in nature and wouldn't actually add to anything

Uh oh, Owen is calling his wife just to say he loves her, he may be dying soon

It’s amazing how well Prius cleaned the blood and shit off himself

It's more amazing that Gabby is off sitting in the shadows by herself after her trauma So, she saw Bigfoot, up close, and she thinks they’re crazy for looking for it

Prius, using the Rings trilogy to justify looking for Bigfoot doesn’t make sense, BECAUSE NO ONE WAS SAYING HOBBITS WERE REAL!!! Homo Floenciensus is called a Hobbit because the books were popular, not because people think the books happened!

Prius, Jack has made all sorts of references to seeing a Bigfoot again, and now when he out and out says he saw it before, you somehow act surprised.

So apparently bigfoot can haul a man straight up a tree and vanish from sight, then just reappear. Or its just bad camera work

Jack, seriously, please go see a dentist

Jack, why are you pulling a gun on Owen? That's just stupid? Also, how did Owen find them? And how did he put cuffs on her without waking her

Soooooooo, Prius wants to look for Bigfoot, that’s been his whole life up till now, but now he wants to pause that so he doesn’t let the girl he just met out of his sight, even tho he knows she's a murderer

And now Prius refuses to leave. Prius, learn consistency.

So now we find out Jack is a con man, all the sightings they had were fake, but they’re gonna keep hunting it

Cause Owen sucks at his job, and didn’t make sure they left

Oh no, the foreshadowing is coming true, how could anyone have ever seen that? The fire is going east

And owen crashes his truck. Cause he sucks at his job

No seatbelts or airbags, Owen, you deserve the brain damage

Oh no, someone spilled velveeta shells on a dead racoon

So, hack just let Prius get wacked for no reason, and Prius got some great bigfoot crotch footage before he died

Owen, you still suck, it takes 45 seconds to say, “the fire is coming, we need to leave”

It motivates people more than screaming, we need to leave over and over

And going into the attic is not a long term plan, the fire is coming

Just keep hitting it with the axe

Why do you have a gas line in the attic?

Sooooooo, it can lift a truck, toss bodies around, but once gabby is handcuffed to his arm, he can't move………..

And they lose the house, that the fire is coming towards anyway…..

Oh, and now they try to tie the fire into the development plot by making the head ranger the one who started it.

And the head ranger, hudson, who just drove up to owens destroyed home, is surprised to see him there…

Owen, why are you apologizing for the wildfire and bigfoot attack? You didn't cause either of them. Of course if you had a gun you might still have your house, gabby would be alive, and you could sell the corpse

Well, those logos aren't clear rip offs

Why would you frame a shot of the traffic built up to get into the renamed park but fram it so we could see the first car in line, and make it clear there is no reason for them to be stopped?

Also, why the roar at the end? Are you trying to set up a sequel? Cause bigfoot running rampant through a packed campground sounds fun

Overall grade, C+ the deaths were too short and not shown enough. Jack needed more of a showdown than one shot and swinging an empty rifle, Richard should have had a little more effort thrown in, maybe a short chase and the bigfoot killing him more slowly. It would have also been more poetic if Prius was killed by Bigfoot using a tool of some sort and being so caught up in the moment that he doesn’t realize the danger (like the professor in Beast from 20K fathoms)

And as always when a monster has poorly written super strength, it annoys me when a beast that can toss people about and dismember them can be overpowered with a character using one hand

Worth a watch though. The Jaws subplot should have either been further expanded upon or dropped entirely since it really does seem tacked onto the end to drive home the message that… development is bad and makes bigfoot kill people?

And Owen still sucks at his job