#like all the little film tricks they use to get the audience in the same mindset as the player are so cool to think about

[silentsockfeet]

tlou hbo s1 ep1 thoughts (spoilers obviously)

really love that we spend half the ep following sarah through her day in the life, it’s the film equivalent of her being the first playable character in the game. we as the audience spend so much time with her and if you’re not familiar with the story i imagine you’d assume the rest of the show is meant to be around her, only for that to crumble later

the curtis and viper dvd 😭😭

i like how much they show off tommy and joel’s dynamic, specifically in the car scene. tommy mostly acts with emotion and impulse and relies a lot on joel to make the decisions, while joel is the one thinking rationally even when stakes are high: planning them a route to the highway, trying to guide them through the crowds, etc.

an obvious thing to point out but the accuracy of the sets is astounding!! sarah’s room, the austin roadsign (this one specifically broke my brain), the boston QZ, it’s all so goddamn good

LOVE the change to having joel gathering supplies to go and find tommy, it says so much about his character but also their relationship. joel at his core is still a deeply loving and protective person even after twenty years in an apocalypse has forced him to build a harder exterior. but he’s also still stuck in the past, still seeing tommy as the sort of immature younger brother he has to keep watch over

gaslight gatekeep girlboss tess everyone say thanks anna torv

i LOVE that they gave us a glimpse into how the fireflies dealt with ellie before confirming she was immune, i always wondered how the fireflies would’ve reacted to her showing up claiming immunity. the level of paranoia from the fireflies and the responding sass from ellie was exactly how i’d imagined it to go haha

also just really like the world building of how a military-occupied QZ works, with the job system and the radio post with people lining up to send messages to loved ones

obviously happy that gustavo is working on the show but there were so many times a score from the game would play in the show and there’d be this weird disconnect in my brain where i’m like ‘wait that’s not where the music is supposed to play’ LOL

joel little spoon confirmed

so so obsessed with the expansion of tess and joel’s relationship, the way tess is able to calm joel down and get him to think clearly, the way she is clearly so supportive of him going to find tommy. they were able to say so much with so little about who she is as a person and to joel

in game ellie had already met marlene once before she was infected so it made sense that she would go to her for help after, but in the show she’d never met marlene before, makes me wonder why ellie went to her/the fireflies or if that had even been what elllie had intended. maybe she just got tangled up with them and had to make do? or it could be possible that [redacted] survived long enough to escort her to an outpost and explain the situation

joel info dumping about construction in the middle of a manhunt i love this man

“kim you don’t have a fuckin ear on your fuckin head” PLEASE that line was so funny. absolutely uncalled for

bella is so goddamn good as ellie. the mannerisms the sass everything is just so spot on. there were moments when she even sounded just like game ellie it was astounding

ellie’s interest with joel’s violence is so intriguing, i feel like that’s actually a fairly sizable difference from the game. in the equivalent game scene ellie was kinda shocked that tess and joel killed the soldiers, whereas in the show she was fascinated by it.

and also depressing lol, it’s something that she’s surrounded by but has never really had to do before so i think she views violence in an aggrandizing way, kind of like the heroes in her comics. it’s really depressing to know that one day she’s going to get to the point where she realizes just how taxing violence truly is

in hindsight i should’ve known they were gonna end this ep on the reveal of ellie’s immunity, it’s such a genius cliffhanger for people new to the story

[gnomeantics]

for those unable to attend the livestream i present:

NOTES FROM THE HATCHETFIELD HALLOWEEN PARTY 14th October 2023, 01:00 BST (my time!) / 13th October 2023, 17:00 PDT (their time!)

Note: These notes are at times a little nonsensical and useless and just quotes. This is because it lasted from 01:00-04:00 for me meaning I was incredibly tired. Please bear with <3

Section 1: Nerdy Prudes Must Die talkback

Started with chiptune of Feast or Famine and then chiptune of Jane’s A Car

Steph’s dad may be dead but at least she has a boyfriend <3

Joey was eating beef and potato stew for most of the first segment

When Jeff was asked for the inspiration for The Summoning: “[…] I don’t know. That just popped in my head. It could be true.”  (His answer was Wizard of Oz.)

Section 2: Hatchet Town Trivia Challenge

I tried to keep track of “chat vs cast” points but lost count and failed rather miserably

Nora’s last name is Beanie. Nora Beanie

Jeff is “an avid lover of baby-water” (water pure enough for babies to drink) and “widely known as Doctor Spreadsheets” (my notes just say “baseball game”)

Every time the world destroys, Ted dies twice: once as Ted, once as homeless guy

Lex helped deliver Hannah by teleporting her out of the womb through the Black and White

Greenpeace Girl’s name is Harmony Jones!

Wilbur Cross murdered Duke Senior (Duke Keane’s dad) this may be explored in future.

Section 3: Workin’ Boys

All of my “notes” here are just gushing about the characters. I have written nothing useful enough to be put here

Section 4: Workin’ Boys talkback

Chad was not included in WB because it was deemed that nobody could live up to the legend. This spawned the “Darren 4 Chad” movement in chat

The Workin’ Boys album will be out around next week if all goes to plan. It is 5 tracks and would include Mariah’s version of the Show Stoppin’ Number monologue as well as at least some of her singing it (as seen in the show; hoping for a full version!!)

Mariah’s character in the audience was called Woman.

Lauren’s character in the audience was Courtney, Thrash’s girlfriend from Killer Track

Paul Gabriel’s character was Paul Gabriel

Linda Monroe auditioned for Workin’ Girls and was the only one who didn’t get a part (Ruth was chosen over her). This is why she was happy to see it crash and burn

The programmes made for Workin’ Girls had very detailed bios, which hopefully when in full quality will be readable when paused. This may set up the potential for the Workin’ Girls actresses to be in future HF projects where this can be explored

Jaime will hopefully be in the next Starkid musical!!!!

The Black Book was originally supposed to debut in Workin’ Boys, in its original form in 2020

The 2020 version was planned as a feature-length film but eventually it was decided that it was confusing and remodelled.

The Summoning was supposed to be in Workin’ Boys – the producer would have tricked Hidgens into making the girls perform a ritual; it was realised that this didn’t make much sense so the song was transferred to NPMD

Section 5: The Future Of Hatchetfield

Hatchetfield was supposed to be finished by 2020

Starkid is not going to be exclusively Hatchetfield in the future; their next full-length musical will not be Hatchetfield

NMT3 is hopefully going to happen provided there is enough interest! It was supposed to happen in the same year as NMT2 but they take a long time to write (much longer than a full musical) so that couldn’t happen

NMT3 would conclude Lex and Hannah’s story after Yellow Jacket

It would be produced more face to face like a TV show – Nick said “less Zoom call-y”

It would include stories withheld from NMT1 and NMT2

It would entirely depend on how much interest, particularly views on NMT2.

It would be Halloween themed.

“More things akin to Workin’ Boys would be nice” - Nick

The episodes would be:

Bottle Imps

“Bill Woodward has been chosen to test CCRP’s latest and greatest product: Bottle Imps. These reality-bending buddies will bring their owner the one thing they desire most. When his new imp, Lovely, leads him to his soulmate, Bill decides to use his magical companion to play matchmaker. But to help Charlotte find the man of her dreams, Bill will have to bend the Imp’s rules. Rules he’s been warned, must never be broken…”

Frankenruth

“Desperate to see a naked body, Ruth Fleming and Richie Lipschitz volunteer at the morgue of St. Damian’s Hospital. Their terrible plan becomes exponentially more terrible, when they become unwitting subjects in the experiments of the body-snatching madman, Doctor Lazlo, who claims to have conquered death itself. If Hatchetfield thought Ruth was bad before, then they will cower before the unspeakable horror of… Frankenruth!”

Becky Barnes Climbed A Tree

“Becky Barnes is on top of the world! Not in a literal sense, of course. She’s deathly afraid of heights. After years of struggle, Becky’s life is finally everything she dreamed it would be. She’s engaged to her High School sweetheart, Tom Houston, and the two have a surprise baby on the way! But as the couple prepared for the arrival of Baby Marie, a shadow from Becky’s past returns to haunt them.”

Devil’s Night

“Tim Houston has a crush. Unfortunately, it’s on his older, mature, and totally cool babysitter, Grace Chasity, who he fears will never see him as anything but a snot-nosed little kid. But when a devilish maniac with murderous designs on Grace attacks Hatchetfield the night before Halloween, Tim must protect his beloved, or join the killer’s growing body count. It’s another slashing adventure on the night HE came home… Devil’s Night.”

Miss Holloween

“It’s Halloween in Hatchetfield once again, and Miss Holloway is celebrating the same way she’s done for decades, staving off the horrors that go bump in the night. But when Duke gives her an invitation to his wedding, the dejected Miss Holloway begins to chafe under the terms of a contract forged many years ago. She strikes a new bargain, but unfortunately her creditors are known for their tricks, not treats. Just as Miss Holloway gives up her powers in exchange for a mortal life, a monstrous new threat rears its ugly head. As All Hallows Eve descends, and all Hell breaks loose, Miss Holloway must save the town or die trying… for real this time.”

Orbweaver

“Lex Foster had a life once. A home. A boyfriend. Now there is only the road, and her sister, and the fear of the men who are hunting them. As Hannah Foster watches Lex sink deeper into despair, she is certain of only three things: Webby is gone. She cannot help them. They are alone. Elsewhere, an old soldier awakens from a catatonic state. Returned from some unimaginable Hell with a mission. He knows that somewhere two magical girls require immediate evac… then maybe some coffee.”

As NPMD was conceived of first, it was supposed to be a Nerdy Prudes series: Nerdy Prudes Must Die, Horny Campers Must Die… (this was turned into NMT2’s Abstinence Camp)

The next Hatchetfield full-length musical would probably be about Miss Holloway if there was enough interest.

There is the possibility of a full movie set in Hatchetfield if there is enough interest. (Workin’ Boys was like a trial for how Hatchetfield works in film)

It would be called Cast Party Massacre

“The Hatchetfield Community Players. You will never find a cattier troupe of two-faced thespians. But when the blood begins to flow at their latest show’s cast party, they must consider: is there a secret murderer in their midst? And more importantly, who amongst them is a good enough actor to pull off such a performance? Can they set aside their petty squabbles and tangled romances, or is it curtains for this ensemble? Who will survive… the Cast Party Massacre!”

It would possibly feature the girls from Workin’ Boys.

The licencing rights to TGWDLM will be available soon!

[drdemonprince]

TV Glow was devastating. incredibly effective visually, thematically, and performance-wise. Schoenbrun has leveled up in a major way since World's Fair, which I felt like I was five years too old for, both in terms of references and from having seen too much weird shit in this life to be impressed by her version of what's "scary" online.

This movie was far more creatively ambitious and emotionally resonance -- it having a bigger budget certainly helped stretch its legs, and Schoenbrun used it to its fullest.

Justice Smith's acting made me want to cry. He shows a true reverence for the material that few cis actors would; far from viewing the character as a little exercise, he transforms into her discomfort and sadness. His little voice warbles and the way his face softens with hope at a few crucial moments made my heart break for him, knowing already that the dreams he'd barely let himself hold onto would never come true.

I can't believe an Emma Stone produced wide release movie is about transgender egg drama here in 2024. jarring for something that once felt so private and esoteric to be broadly relatable to audiences now. it's fitting, given the movie is about a mass-release TV show that a handful of tender freaks think must be about something so much more than this world would ever let it be. kind of a funny trick there.

is this a movie about depressed isolated queer people whose minds curdle around a random media property because loneliness makes the brain turn inward and eat itself? or is it the tragic tale of a woman who never realized her destiny and allowed the matrix to keep plugging her repeatedly back in?

you can read it both ways at once and it's best if you do. some equipped with fandom goggles with elect to see it only in the more fantastical light.

There are already dozens of people coming out as transgender for the first time in their lives in the Letterboxd reviews of this film, saying they recognize their repression in Owen, their egg at last busted open by this heartbreaking tale of a life unfulfillingly lived. I get it -- before I transitioned, the same thing happened to me with Casey Plett's incredible story collection, A Safe Girl to Love. There is something painfully enchanting about the forever-unrealized trans person whose suffering we imagine would be escapable if only they could admit who they are.

But what do you do when you have overcome your fear of being "crazy," left your old world behind, and passed through that veil to become the person you were always meant to be, only to find that you are still stoop-shouldered and awkward, still overlooked with your heart cut out of you, apologizing to others for your asthma in between your death rattles? What if you never get all the poison out? After you figure out you're a hero from another dimension, what will you do if you can never get back?

I find myself asking these things, as a person who used to fantasize that transitioning would solve all my problems. The imagined future transitioned me felt so distant that it was easy to push him off. And then after years passed, when I finally reached out to claim him, I discovered he was just as awkward, lonesome, insecure, and unhappy as I was, because he was just me. If i'd always been transgender, then I'd always been unhappy for deeply transgender reasons back then, too, and I'd already known a whole lot more about what it meant to be me than I'd thought that I had. Fantasies had been a seductive distraction from the world that was trying to kill me, and they suffocated me whether I denied them or if I believed in them.

This is a movie about fantasies, and the suburbs, and about being transgender. And it's bleak, but I think some who are on the cusp of making the same realizations as Owen can't fully know why yet. Life on the other side of knowing is more liveable, but I can't explain why. It didn't make things better. It wasn't the great escape I had hoped. But it did force me to confront who I was and how many monsters there always had been all around me. And that's better than living in a fantasy.

[ryuichirou]

Do you have any headcanons for dynamics between Ortho and the other first years?

Sorry for the late reply, Anon! I really love it when Ortho is grouped with the first years, I am still so happy that he is officially a student now lol

Here are some thoughts…

Ace performs card tricks for Ortho. Well, he does it for everyone whenever he feels like it, but Ortho is always very excited for those; but he kind of sees them as puzzles, as if he has to figure out how the trick works. Ace thinks it’s weird… still, he likes having an invested audience, so he doesn’t really mind. Ace is also quite curious about Ortho, his search system, his relationship with Idia, his purity (does he have one), so he asks a lot of questions, but Ortho just says it’s a “se~cret” most of the times. Oh, and Ortho is extremely good at seeing through Ace’s tricks.

Ortho helps Deuce out with homework sometimes! And if they are in the same classroom for some reason, he’ll be happy to give him a hint or even a cheat sheet, although Deuce doesn’t really like those. Still, Ortho loves both being useful and having to be stealthy about this thing just so he doesn’t get yelled at by the teacher. This is such a fun experience to him… But also, he asked Deuce for help once too. He didn’t really need it, but he really enjoyed listening to Deuce’s poor explanation. They also talk about bikes a lot (with both Deuce and Epel).

Ortho is excited to get along with everyone, but Jack is still a bit confused about how he is supposed to feel about Ortho. He is pretty neutral about him, but Ortho was eager to find common ground with him, and it was jogging. Ortho doesn’t get to use his running gear a lot, so running with Jack is a great excuse to develop and upgrade the gear further + befriend Jack! They also talk about siblings, and it’s funny because while Jack talks about taking care of his younger siblings, Ortho talks about how he makes sure Idia doesn’t forget to eat…

Ortho hangs out with Epel quite regularly actually due to being so close to Vil and the Film Research club. Maybe it’s because of the fact that both of them are small and a bit childish, but he is the most playful and mischievous with Epel; he teases him, but they also have a lot of mutual “>:3c” moments. So sometimes Epel feels like he actually got himself a sibling, but then he blinks and suddenly Ortho acts like Vil’s perfect little assistant. Epel doesn’t get how he can do both, I guess it’s because he is an AI…. (not really, Epel)

Ortho and Sebek don’t really interact all that much, but Ortho is still as intrigued by him as by any other student. Finding common ground with him also turned out to be the most difficult…  but he did listen to his ode for Malleus once! He was very patient and stoic, and Sebek has enough of understanding of an AI to think that Ortho wouldn’t mind him talking for like 4 hours. He was very satisfied because Idia’s younger brother was a much more pleasant person to talk to! Even though Ortho didn’t really say much… but he learned a lot that day (Idia immediately told Ortho to delete all this data, it’s useless noise lol)

Whenever Grim can’t see something because of his height, Ortho grabs him and flies higher so both of them could watch that thing they couldn’t see… a couple of shorties.

They have gaming tournaments pretty much regularly! You know, with the gaming system they got as a gift for Yuu and Grim. And things gets bloody because the boys are competitive, and Ortho is one of the most competitive ones. He doesn’t care that he is a computer, the fact that no one can beat him is just skill issue lol

[kenisle]

(free of spoilers until the read more)

i like how deadpool and wolverine was able to work with audiences’ associations of actors + characters.

it’s not something that can really be done with comics, where between changing artists (or just each artist’s evolving style/human inconsistency), so many characters having the same base design (eg how almost all the robins, bruce wayne, and clark kent are just White Guy With Short Black Hair and Strong Jaw), and the same distinctive costume getting passed around to various characters (eg the captains america).

if you want a comic reader to know who a character is, you almost always have to explicitly introduce them, or else it could be damn near anyone under all the layers of ambiguity listed above.

with movies/tv though, aside from a few recasts, actors’ faces aren’t subject to nearly the same degree of variance that a drawn character is, so if an audience member recognizes the actor from a previous film, they automatically know the character on the screen. any explicit introduction of a returning character is for the more casual viewer but usually isn’t necessary as long as the character’s basics are established up front.* the smaller, contained scale of established movie/tv show canon compared to the amorphous behemoth that is comics canon helps a lot as well.

this means reintroductions are short and sweet, if present at all (and in this film can be explained easily by dp’s fellow fanboy enthusiasm when necessary, rather than just the writers blatantly using him as a mouthpiece), and simply the face of a returning actor affords a ton of depth to a character that couldn’t be developed in this installment. it doubles as a way to devote more time to other things in the movie and a way to reward returning viewers.

DP+W SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

*in dp+w, seasoned viewers recognize pyro from X2, but we also get a refresher of his deal, both new (his allegiance in the void) and old (he has fire powers), so while his trajectory is a bit more clear with the wider context from X2, nothing he does is totally out of left field/unsupported by the text in this film.

so, while previous marvel movies have taken advantage of this shortcut to reduce weighing down the runtime with exposition, dp+w also snatched the golden opportunity to play a prank on the audience with it which i adored.

see, while there have been many cases of the same character being recast with different actors during marvel’s long run, very rarely was there one actor who played two DIFFERENT (major)** characters.***

**looking at you, stan lee.

***the only other example i can think of atm is oscar isaac, but he was basically unrecognizable under all the makeup and costume for apocalypse, so this trick wouldn’t have really worked with him anyway. hence “golden opportunity.”

so when chris evans’s cloaked form strode onscreen, audiences (and deadpool) were already well familiar with the cameo game and reasonably assumed he’d be reprising his more recent, more popular marvel role of steve rogers, only for the rug to be pulled out from underneath them at the fateful “flame on!”

not that there weren’t hints, of course (ie evans’s hair its natural brown rather than rogers’s more blond, the uncharacteristic taunt of “dick-for-brains” that even caught dp a little off guard, not to mention the total lack of signs outside the movie that evans and rogers would be returning to the mcu, or the illogic of doing so in a movie about deadpool and wolverine of all things), but the filmmakers know their audience and their expectations very well, resulting in what i found to be a hilarious and effective bait & switch. it was also, in my opinion, a much better direction to take the movie.

instead of nonsensically reviving such a central character that has already been given a complete arc almost as an aside in this movie that had little to do with him in the first place, they brought back a relic of movies left unfinished, remembered fondly but distantly (if at all) under the barrage of newer, flashier franchises. AND they did this knowing the old fantastic four films would soon be replaced (again), so it’s not like this johnny was ever gonna stick around. this was simply a lovely homage — a bid not to forget that we cared for those movies, too, and they’re still important to us even when the story gets rebooted.

instead of doing the same mcu bullshit we’ve grown tired of, they fed another line back to a central thesis of the movie: dying timelines (old, discontinued films) who have lost their anchor being (popular interest, production, etc.) shouldn’t be cut short (forgotten, discarded, disregarded) just because they’re not the prime timeline; there are still people living there (fans and creators caring about them) and value to be found in them.

and they were able to execute it in such an exciting, funny, and memorable way because of this connection between actors and characters that doesn’t exist in comics.

[camzeecorner]

THE PERFECT DAY. 🤍

Summary: Ivory takes her friends out for their birthday, planning every detail to ensure they have the most amazing day. She goes above and beyond to make sure it's perfect, filled with fun activities and special moments they'll never forget.

(A/n: this is heavily based during fall/winter time I have extreme holiday fever and I seen an edit the other day, this just feels perfect. Just a birthday appreciation post.)

Warnings: none, pure fluff

Sturniolos x fem!reader bsf

♡₊˚・₊✧♡₊˚ ♡₊˚・₊✧♡₊˚ ♡₊˚・₊✧♡₊˚ ♡₊˚・₊✧♡₊˚ ♡₊

“Hey guys, welcome back to my channel! I hope you’re all having such a beautiful day. If I have new audiences, my name is Ivory.” Speaking into your vlog channel, you greet your subscribers with a soft smile, your eyes sparkling with excitement. Finishing your intro, you clap your hands together enthusiastically. Today was a special day, and you had meticulously planned every detail to make it perfect for the boys' birthday. “So, my three boys are turning 21 today, and I have such spectacular plans for us all. I’m so excited for this!” Glancing off to the side, your eyes catch the clock hanging on the wall, reminding you of your schedule.

You planned to take the boys out for a delightful breakfast first, and after some quick research on your phone, you decided on IHOP, a favorite for its delicious pancakes and warm atmosphere. “Okay, so I’m gonna get ready. I’ve already showered, and now I need to do my makeup and hair, then get dressed.” Pausing the camera, you walk over to your pristine white vanity, grabbing your makeup clips to pin your hair back. As you film the process of doing your makeup, you start chatting about some of the recent events in your life, catching your viewers up on the little moments they might have missed. Your hands move skillfully, applying foundation, eyeshadow, and mascara, transforming your look. Then, you transition to styling your hair, sharing tips and tricks along the way, making your viewers feel like they are right there with you, part of your exciting day.

Walking to your closet you grab the outfit you decided on the night before, quickly getting dressed you slip it on. Due to the chilly fall weather you decided this was a cute and safe option.

Getting in my car, I place the gift bags down in the back. Turning on my cozy playlist, I start the car and continue talking to my camera as I pull out of the driveway, making my way to the Sturniolos' house. After a 20-minute drive, I pull into their driveway and text Nick to let him know I’m outside. Shortly after, I see three familiar faces walking towards my car. Smiling softly, I unlock the car. Chris gets in the passenger seat, Matt behind him, and Nick in the middle. Turning towards them with a bright smile, I exclaim, “Happy birthday, guys! This is amazing.” I pull them all into a hug, hearing thank-yous being tossed around.

“I have gifts for you guys. Nick, can you hand me those bags by your feet to the left?” Grabbing the bags from his hands, I begin to read the name tags and hand them to the owners. Watching them and capturing the moments on my vlog, I giggle at all the excitement floating around in the car. I had gifted the boys tickets to see an upcoming Lakers game in the winter. “Shut the front door,” Nick exclaims loudly with a gasp. Laughing again, I look at their faces, watching as they look at me in shock.

“So, guys, it’s around 9:40 right now, and I’m about to take the boys to our first location of the day,” I say, turning to look out my window while fixing my hair out of habit. “Any guesses?” I ask the boys. “Dude, it could literally be anywhere. I don’t care, I’m just fucking starving,” Chris says seriously, looking at the camera. “Same,” Matt quickly chimes in. “Well, I personally wouldn’t say anywhere because that’s a damn stretch, but...” Nick jokes while side-eyeing the boys. Giggling at their jokes, I begin driving, making small talk with the boys here and there. “Table for 4?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Okay, follow me.”

Getting seated by the window, I pull out my phone to capture the stunning autumn scenery outside. The leaves, in shades of red, orange, and gold, create a picturesque backdrop that I can't resist photographing. Glancing over the menu, we all quickly agree on the same delicious choice: pumpkin spice pancakes topped with rich icing and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.

As I sip on my warm, aromatic coffee, I find myself immersed in a lively conversation with the boys. Suddenly, Nick exclaims, “Wait, we look hella good! Take a pic.” He hands Matt his phone, and we pose for the camera. Nick, ever the goofball, flashes a peace sign and puckers his lips dramatically, while I smile brightly beside him.

After Matt snaps the picture, we huddle together to check it out. “Omg, that’s so cute!” I exclaim, feeling a wave of happiness as I look at the photo. The moment is perfectly captured, and I know it’s one I’ll treasure.

We all sat together, eating our food and laughing with each other. The atmosphere was filled with joy, and I cherished every moment with them. They always knew how to keep a smile on my face. After a good minute of eating and talking, we all headed back to the car, ready for our next adventure. I had planned to take the boys to a pumpkin patch where we could each pick out a pumpkin to carve tomorrow with their family.

Turning my body to face the boys, I announced, “Okay, so… this next activity is so mind-blowing. Are you ready? We are going to…” I paused for dramatic effect, looking at the camera with a big smile, “a pumpkin patch!” I waved my hands in the air enthusiastically, and Matt gasped. “Bro, I love you seriously. I love pumpkin patches.” His words warmed my heart, and I smiled back at him before turning to start driving. We all sang along to the music, laughing and smiling, enjoying the moment.

I had put a lot of time and effort into planning their special day, making sure it was perfect. The boys had helped me in so many ways, and I had so much love and appreciation for them. When I first began filming on YouTube at 16, I never imagined how much I would grow up online, sharing my stories and days with my viewers. I met the triplets four years ago and decided to film a car video with them. Initially, the fans were unsure about the idea of me joining their lives, but they soon realized I only intended to be their best friend, and that’s exactly what happened. I never had romantic feelings for any of them; they were my platonic soulmates, my boys, and they made me happy.

Pulling into the grassy area, I parked the car and got out, fixing my skirt as I did. We all began walking towards the pumpkin patch, marveling at the multiple rows of pumpkins in various colors. Each of us quickly found our perfect pumpkin and carried it back to the car, making sure to grab some baby ones too. The day was shaping up to be everything I hoped for and more.

The day had quickly passed as we went home back to my house to unwind for a bit. We had watched some movies and caught up on anything that happened recently. We had a dinner at my parents house in roughly 2 hours, after that I had the biggest plan of the night. The boys had told me how they always loved watching movies where families would go ice skating together. It sounded perfect for today. I had informed the boys parents and mine as well about the information for later. We would meet separately so the boys weren’t suspicious of anything. Changing my outfit I grabbed my purse meeting the boys outside.

"Hi mom, hi dad," I greeted warmly, pulling them both into a tight hug. After a moment, I stepped back to let them greet everyone else. I joined in helping set dinner up on the table, while Matt and Nick took care of the plates and glasses. Chris was deep in conversation with my mom about YouTube, excitedly sharing how well their channel was doing. I couldn't help but smile at their connection; it truly warmed my heart.

Once everything was ready, we all sat down at the table, joining hands to say grace. "I just want to say thank you for putting food on our table and blessing us with a new day. We are entirely blessed every day. We are wishing Nick, Matt, and Chris a very happy and special birthday." We all cheered, digging into our food and making small talk with each other. Dinner flew by quickly, and we all pitched in to clean up, ensuring the kitchen was spotless before we left.

We said our goodbyes and headed to my car, buckling our seatbelts. I started the engine and began driving to our final destination. "So, guys, we're coming to the end of our special night with just one more activity," I said, speaking to my vlog camera. I had made sure to capture videos and pictures of everything we did today so I could upload them later.

We sat in comfortable silence, enjoying each other's company and the soft music playing in the background. About six minutes away from our destination, Chris broke the silence. "Where are we even going?" he asked, turning to look at me. I just smiled and stayed silent, keeping the surprise.

The boys had always told me they wanted to experience ice skating with a big family, like they had seen in Hallmark movies. Today was perfect for that. As we finally arrived, I spotted my mom's car with Marylou's parked beside it. "Shut the fuck up, you did not," Chris exclaimed as we all exited the car, stretching our legs.

"So, to end the night off, I decided there was nothing more that could make this day perfect for you guys except this..." I said, turning to look at the ice rink, the lights twinkling in the night.

Turning to look at the boys, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with emotion. "Stop, I’m gonna cry. I love this and you so much," Nick said, wiping his tears before pulling me into a heartfelt hug. Embracing his warm body, I wrapped my arms around him, running my fingers up and down his back soothingly. Suddenly, I felt four more arms encircle us, realizing it was Matt and Chris joining in. We stayed there, wrapped up in each other, basking in the warmth and love we shared.

After a few moments, we slowly pulled away, and I smiled at them. Matt then pulled me into a separate hug, gently kissing my hair. "I love you, kid," he whispered, and I chuckled at the endearing nickname. "I love you too," I replied, feeling a deep sense of gratitude.

"And I love you too, maybe even more," Chris added, wrapping his arms around both Matt and me. The love and bond we shared felt unbreakable, making this moment truly unforgettable.

We skated for what felt like hours, just enjoying the time spent with our families and the people we loved most. I truly felt happy for myself and the triplets. As I smiled, replaying the moments in my head, I gathered myself together and skated towards them, ready to pose for the picture.

"Okay, on three say 'Let’s Trip!'" the volunteering man announced. "LET'S TRIP!" we all yelled in unison. The flash from the camera went off, and we all burst into laughter. I never thought I would have people like them in my life. Every day, I feel blessed to see them and talk to them.

As I looked around, I felt a deep sense of happiness, knowing I had created the perfect special day for my perfect special boys. The joy of being surrounded by such love and camaraderie made this moment unforgettable.

Tags- @its4lyric

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THEM!!!

[paperclipninja]

Ok, I don't know exactly where this is going but I can't stop thinking about the fact we got the Crowley/Aziraphale meet-cute in the opening of season 2 and the way the layers of storytelling utilised the same literary conventions our fave demon and angel were inspired by when trying and get Nina and Maggie together.

We get to see Aziraphale and Crowley's understanding of romance and love, or more importantly, their understanding of what they think it should look like, through their misguided set up attempts, and this primarily reveals to us, a) they're both hopeless romantics and b) they have no idea about the subtle and real indicators of love or a burgeoning relationship between two people. But that's ok, they're celestials whose only reference points are books, films and each other (the most unreliable sources of all, exhibit a: Aziraphale telling Crowley Maggie has a 'pash' on Nina).

You know who does know about those subtle indictors of love and blossoming romance? The very human people watching the show. And so throughout the season we witness a series of tropes and moments that indicate Aziraphale and Crowley are indeed the ones whose love story is unfolding, and as viewers we are drawn into certain conventions that we are conditioned to assume will play out and resolve in a particular way. The nebulae creating meet-cute, the ongoing forbidden relationship that continues to build, the friends to lovers dynamic through the centuries and of course, the comfortable and cosy present-day lives, with 'our car' and 'our bookshop' and drinks at pubs and a relatively open existence together.

With each insight into the past, we catch the cues that indicate the developing affection, trust and care between the two; the way Aziraphale looks at Crowley when he realises the crows are goats, the way Aziraphale and Crowley cover for each other with Job's children, the bullet catch ('nough said) and the drinking of wine afterwards. When humans engage with literature or film, we understand the subtext of such moments, something angels and demons seem to miss as they focus on the overt gestures of romance and love in storytelling as confirmation of its existence.

In the present day, its the perching on the same chair, Crowley knowing the angel's different tones, the way they pop into the room at the back of the shop for private conversations, Aziraphale grabbing Crowley's arm, Crowley answering the bookshop phone with, 'Fell's bookshop, we probably don't have what you're looking for and we wouldn't sell it to you anyway'. While these are only a few of the prompts we are given, our brains piece together this storytelling along with the body language and expressions throughout, understand that all these aspects combined flag a romantic relationship developing and so we are swept up in the love story.

The way the flashbacks are interwoven with the present day is disorientating, because we are simultaneously seeing the sweetness and complexity of the developing relationship over time while in the present, Aziraphale and Crowley begin to fall out of step. Yes it starts with Gabriel's arrival and Crowley vs. Aziraphale's reactions and responses (there are many excellent posts that discuss this in great detail), but any misalignment isn't happening all at once, it in itself is like a dance; they move apart but then move together again, as an audience we think oh no, tension! oh good, that's resolved! However the neat trick here is that with each move apart as the individual characters undertake their own journey within the story, the distance grows a little greater. Meanwhile the interactions between the two characters do not necessarily shift dramatically and the set up through the storytelling still suggests that any threats are ones they will face together and it will be ok in the end.

Even the ball, I wanted to be all *swoon* and swept up. Everything that was happening on my screen told my brain that it should be feeling excited and full of all the feelings of seeing these characters finally starting to make a move, like I should be feeling giddy like Aziraphale seems to be because, just like the attendees at the ball and the very literature that inspired it, there's the music and the soft lighting and the smitten little angel face. But it's all those things and also none of those things, because as has been so brilliantly pointed out in this insight, this is all juxtaposed with the demon invasion happening outside and Crowley's futile attempts to convey the seriousness of the situation to Aziraphale. Crowley is doing the movements but he's not part of their dance in that moment, the dance they've been doing for centuries, and as a viewer it feels off kilter.

But we've seen their story unfold, we know that the love and the relationship is all there, and once again we see Aziraphale and Crowley fend off Heaven and Hell, both taking individual risks to do so and protect each other. Heck, we see that an angel and demon can put their differences aside and disapparate off into the universe together, our brains are poised, but also wary at this point because it can't be this easy, can it?

Crowley has to have it explained to him why their plan didn't work, Maggie and Nina sit him down to do so, and in that moment we are also being told that you can't just be pushed together, the timing has to be right (cue small alarm ringing in the back of my head). Despite this, and we know Metatron is never good news, we, as viewers, are held precariously in the hand of the storyteller as Crowley's emotional declaration clashes with Aziraphale's news in a way that side steps the expectations that have been building throughout the season. The final moment of Aziraphale leaving hits SO hard because the expectations many of the storytelling conventions set in motion are subverted at the very last minute. And it's absolutely brilliant.

Just to be clear, I know there is far more complexity in the show, the characters and the storytelling, and tbh I don't even know if any of this rambling makes sense. But the fact is, my tiny mind is just awestruck at the layers of meta in the way our no.1 angel and demon are calling on literary conventions to try to make two people fall in love, while we're watching these conventions in action showing us two people falling in love. The result?

The most incredible tension, yes between the characters and their sudden divergence (which was actually not so sudden after all, we were just a bit distracted), but also tension in the storytelling as the duality of the love story and the individual character stories collide head first in that final moment and we are left trying to untangle our expectations from the reality of what has unfolded.

(that last paragraph should probably have been the whole post honestly)

[tenderhungering]

Have you noticed how women are used in the film? Their suffering, grief, ambitions and even deaths. It all benefits the men.

yes, i have! i think it was during the first time i watched with two of my friends that we mentioned how fucked up it seemed to bring in lilly. she was an abused child in circumstances that june describes as inhumane and now she's supposed to come on and chat about said abuse.

to better delve into this though, i'm going to do a little ramble on each female character (i've been meaning to this regardless so this question has me excited!)

Lilly

as i mentioned before, lilly, to the public, is an abused child who has been rescued from a cult and is now the subject of dr. june's book. i believe that june really did care for lilly but she in a way, was still benefiting from her by writing about her. something to study while parenting. reminds me a bit about parents who write about raising troubled children.

jack brings them onto the show almost because he knows how shocking this is to audiences, to have survived what lilly did. i think that fear and shame but also desire kiss on the mouth. the public both fears the occult but want to learn more, there is some sort of fascination with the idea of someone being in it and being able to get out of it (would people do the same?). lilly is a spectacle. she is to go from not knowing the outside world to standing in front of the camera and expecting to behave like a typical girl her age. it's almost like she has to prove herself well-adjusted after her trauma.

june explains to her that everyone having a demon inside of them, acknowledging that lilly's might be a little more literal but because the demon serves as a stark reminder of her time in the cult, it's similar to someone working around their triggers. everyone has hurt in them. like a therapist helping you work with carrying that hurt rather than just suppressing it. clearly the demon leaves lilly exhausted, upset and feel not like herself. she's crying after her scene and asking june as to why she's hurt her, and apologizing for whatever happened when Mr. Wriggles was there. she is not in control of her actions. but jack wants more. he's momentarily sympathetic but realizes that it's getting him higher ratings. the more hurt is displayed, the happier than the media is.

even in the final scene, when the demon possesses her, we can see it in her face that she's distraught. confused. but all the camera does is zoom in on her expression,

June

june is so intriguing to me as a character because it's almost as though her instinct toward things is a calm and collected behavior, one that thinks of the ethics of it, whether anyone will get hurt, but her decisions are so easily swayed by jack. and he knows exactly what to tell her too. Everyone finally take you seriously. It is the 70s so there's no surprise that misogyny is rampant (though the 70s did introduce the second wave of feminism, she may be a representation of challenging attitudes as well). june is a very passionate woman in her studies, she'd be considered an expert in the field but this is almost immediately dismissed as soon as she's introduced as a doctor. you call yourself that. is that what you believe you are? can you prove you are?

i think it makes june feel better if everyone has a distance from lilly - hence writing a book about her. you can know lilly through the pages. you don't need to make her suffer for views then, you can educate yourself on what was happened to her and understand she's hurt more than necessary. she might've felt the need to write the book for them both. lilly need to be understood and emphasized with as more than just a "child of d'abo". but jack invites her with the idea of simply talking about said book, one of her biggest accomplishments and instead wants to treat them like some sort of circus act. do a trick for me, june! you know how to! it's not enough that you tell me you know, you have to show me, you have to prove yourself to me, the camera makes it real.

it is that logic that sometimes makes her feel inclined to prove herself. and sometimes this is at the cost of her own morals.

Minnie

my beautiful wife,,,

i love minnie. so much. i've written a bit about how i think she was prior to her death in other asks but i never quite touch so much on how much she was exploited by both jack and the industry.

to be ill is a personal affair. and it was on all the tabloids whenever minnie was diagnosed with cancer (even if she did not smoke! i mention this because while smoking might contribute to lung cancer, it did feel like an odd mention that they'd pay so much attention to whether or not she did? it might've been to emphasize how sudden this all was but i'd also like to throw in that perhaps she was also just taking care of her voice! she was in theatre.) she has no privacy to mourn the gradual loss of her life. some people believe the cult was implied to be the one who had made this illness manifest for her which is awful in its own regard and more so when one considers the fact they did it to get to jack. almost as though minnie is an extension of himself and not his own person.

jack inviting her to the show could very well be done just because he wanted to invite his wife (though it does feel a bit odd he waited till she was sick to do this. maybe it was some sort of public gesture of affection, they both live to entertain, it's their job) but there's something saddening about the ordeal. it's almost as though knowing minnie was sick was not enough, the public had to see her in order to have some sort of confirmation. and the immediate comment about inviting her over being followed how even then, this wasn't enough to surpass johnny carson is morbid to say the least. almost as though minnie had just been used as a way to gain better ratings. sympathy ratings. i don't want to remove any agency of minnie, it might have been her decision to go on the show but the public's reaction to is that is what is more concerning.

even her death was simply a sacrifice. she was nothing more than a missing puzzle piece to have jack move forward (or downwards?). something that would benefit jack. as all the women in the film have been. each with such distinct personalties and motives to what keeps them going (or who are still amidst figuring out what they'd want out of life) being only part of a larger scheme where men are the benefactors. the grove only allowed men. the cult birthed sacrifices from their women. women are a stepping stone. a chess piece. something that needs to bleed for someone who demands it.

i love writing about how compelling these characters are! so sorry if sometimes my ramblings feel leaning more towards just dissection rather than downright analysis! i hope it gave some insight though!

[howtofightwrite]

Shocker! I just found out that wrestling is actually chereographed? How? To me it looks like a real fight. How do you chereograph something like that? It is quite confusing. And I suppose wrestling isn't actually for combat then but mere performance art? Then how is ever listed as a sports competition when really it's all fake? That makes no sense. I wonder how many of these "champions" woulld be losing their fights if it was actually combat. Are they athletes or actors?

So, this is a lot of questions, and some of them are a little bit out of my range of expertise, so let's clear what I can.

Are professional wrestlers actors or athletes? Yes. It's both. They're actors in the sense that they're putting on a performance. They are playing characters. Perhaps the best way to view it is as a kind of serialized stage-play with mock combat. They're athletes in the same sense as any stunt actor.

One critical thing to understand about the matches is, these aren't competitors dueling it out, these are coworkers working together to stage a visually engaging piece of art. That you didn't realize that is a serious credit to their work.

I dislike using the term, “fake,” in regards to wrestling. It's not a competitive sport, that's true, but is live theater, and in that sense, simply calling it fake feels dismissive. This might sound weird, given the content, but these are very demanding roles. Playing a professional wrestler has a very strenuous physical component. It's not, “real violence,” but the same can be true of almost all of the media you consume. Including competitive sports like boxing or MMA.

I'm also slightly fond of professional wrestling in the abstract (even though I'm not a fan of watching it.) Modern film and TV have a very bad habit of forgetting about stunt performers. It's a very physically taxing, and even dangerous job, while the performers themselves are basically forgotten by the audience. Wrestling is the rare exception to that. You don't (generally) have stunt doubles, so the performers (or, at least their characters) get the limelight.

Now, it's important to understand, there's a lot of ad lib components to professional wrestling, especially when they get to the ring. While everything is going to be roughly outlined, there's a lot of times where the specific exchanges, and dialog, will just be the actors playing their characters for the camera.

The choreography is another mix of planned events and ad lib adjustment in the moment. Some stunts will be planned out in advance, while others will be executed in the moment. If you're curious about this, there are some pretty good documentaries on how this stuff is handled, but a big part is that the performers are playing up, and whiffing, the violence to put on a good show. There's a lot of tricks designed to help the performers. One of the popular submission holds (I forget which one off hand) is specifically designed to help the downed fighter. It is literally designed, so their “opponent,” can give then an opportunity to recover and catch their breath. It's also an opportunity for them to signal to the other performer if something has gone seriously wrong, and if they've been injured.

Asking which one would win in a, “real fight,” is a little like asking which of the stock clerks at your local supermarket would prevail in a battle royale; it's not the point, and it's not their job. Professional wrestlers are there to entertain you, they're there to put on a show. They are not there to hurt each other.

Competitive wrestling does exist as a sport, but it's very far removed from “Professional Wrestling.” If you want to look into that, you can certainly dig up videos. It's not especially popular, and hasn't been for over a century. Professional Wrestling evolved out of the competitive sport, and progressed into increasing levels spectacle to help offset dropping ticket sales. So, there is a clean line from the sport to the performance, but the modern incarnation is almost unrecognizable. This should answer the question of why it's often branded as a sport. It used to be one, and it keeps that label via its legacy, rather than what exists today.

-Starke

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[firespirited]

I think one of the reasons Constantine 2005 holds up as a rewatchable film is that it's unashamed of what it is: a comic book film for teens and adults.

It makes no attempt to make itself likeable, no winks at the audience, little to no exposition let alone explanations for the world... In the same way it makes no attempt to be edgy either. Constantine's needle drop is nothing modern, all the jump scares happen in well lit moments, suicide is talked about and shown unflinchingly, if a little too romanticised as post hoc sacrifices and demonised through a catholic belief system for me.

I would have expanded Rachel Weisz's character, she's pretty shallow: no ambiguity about her work as a police officer and little reaction to having been violently possessed. We get about 20 seconds with her when she regains psychic powers - Weisz gives the best she can but it's not enough dialogue and time to convey the multiple ways she reevaluates her life.

This is a movie that has the 'noir' time for showing that Constantine is brooding and lonely, a little bit of that time for our female protag would have been welcome. That's also a waste of a fantastic actress who could have infused more humanity into this film.

The special effects aged well because of the use of miniature sets and good lighting, the colour grading is refreshingly saturated: our characters are monochromatic but there are pops of vivid colour for the mood. This is an early example of neon noir.

Papa Midnight doesn't try and fail to do a haitian accent, Chas isn't given enough space to feel like comic relief even if you get the sense that's what Laboeuf was aiming for. The priest and assistant are given a bit of inner life which sort of makes up for Constantine being quite flat for a man who's supposed to be desperate and angry.

Constantine looks and feels so much better for comparison with similar films that treated the audience like they could be tricked with cleavage, shadows and jokes. I feel like its rating could be quite different if the fantasy/horror/comic book genre hadn't been so misused. It feels fresh next to a dozen monster movies, less one dimensional than classic noir but slightly flatter than a grown up detective story with two full main characters. That's filled by a fantastic cast of supernatural beings with star turns by Tilda Swinton as Gabriel and Peter Swinton as Lucifer for the adrenaline packed final act.

I used to think of Constantine 2005 as Constantine's american cousin but over time, I've grown to appreciate Keanu's Constantine more as a solid incarnation of a Constantine at the end of his rope.

8/10: like Blade, a good dark comic book film that's a fun and thrilling ride.

[googly-eyed-plank]

If The Outlaws had YouTube Channels (Part 1)

RANI • She'd seen how fun it looked to get on the social media train from various other people at school, but she was never allowed to make accounts herself when she was really into it, but did anyway, behind her parents' backs. She'd often use filming equipment from school or her mother's phone whilst she was busy, and send the footage to her school email for editing on the library computer, but wittled it down to filming on her own phone once she'd gotten one. • (Pre-Community Service) She started out with basic little things, like making lyric videos of her favourite songs - she was young at the time, so not all of the early ones have exactly the best colour palette, but they still did well in spite of this. Once she was older, and had her own phone, she moved onto trying to make study help videos, in a bid to make her own study sessions less draining, and made a fairly successful series on certain subjects (primarily mathematics). • (Post-Community Service) The uploads lessened, and the study series ended, and while it was a stupid idea, the thrill of potentially being found out enraptured her, and she began doing discrete haul videos of all the items she'd "bought" that day. These were less popular. • After running away, all her videos have since been privatised, and she unsubscribed from everyone else's accounts. She still follows Ben on an alt. • Rani currently has 40 subscribers, who were interested in the channel before it went idle, and forgot to unsubscribe. The Community Srevice guys used to be subscribed, but unfollowed at various points in time. • John was happy to unfollow after finding out about Rani dumping Ben, and Greg did so too, as he felt bad for Ben (given he's also been dumped numerous times), Ben took a while to unfollow, but did a few weeks before meeting Tori, and Gabby (with a little convincing there was no "tea" to be seen) and Myrna also did the same after this.

BEN • He started the channel a little while after he was dumped by Rani, deciding this would be a good venture to keep himself occupied instead of thinking about her, and finds himself actually enjoying it. • For the content? Cooking tips, mostly. Making food is one of his passions, and making people happy through something so simple is something that means a lot to Ben. While he won't do any tutorials for special dishes (gotta keep those recipes secret!), he does take requests for other things, and often replies to comments to try and help out others and their cooking journies where he can. • Often livestreams making a dish to allow for people to ask questions, and uses any donations to place in the fund to pay back Rani's parents for the loan. • He also promotes the foodshack from time to time, and manages to build a nice little community for himself. • After meeting Tori, she shows up on his channel quite a lot, most often on livestreams, where they reminisce on things that've recently happened, and joke about as Ben cooks. • Is doing very well for himself and currently at 3k subscribers and counting (some of his audience transferred over from Tori's channel). His biggest supporter is Tori, and he always pins the lovely comments she leaves on his videos.

TORI • She created her account on her 13th birthday, after also recieving her first ever pair of rollerskates. She had tried rollerskates before at a friend's party, and had always wanted a pair of her own as a result, so once she got them, she was only too excited to show them off. • Her first video was reviewing the skates and tattling off different facts and specifications she'd been researching leading up to this moment. • From there, it was mostly a lot of practising videos, and showcasing of cool tricks she'd learnt or come up with. At the end of each year, she'd upload a "best of" compilation, edited together with the help of her father. • By the time she was 16, she felt fully confident in her abilities, and while she still had some things to learn, she started making more tutorial videos, and reviewing/trying out other rollerskates she could get her hands on (at one point, a rollerskating place even sent her a free pair to review on the channel after liking her content for the last pair of theirs she'd bought). • Sometimes goes to the skate park to show them off, and livestreams with the use of a camera off to the side (managed by her dad), and a GoPro for different angles. Once she met Ben, he began manning the miscellaneous camera for her, so the lives became more frequent. • Once she and Ben starting dating, he began to appear a lot more in her videos, often holding the camera and giving commentary, and sometimes even being given lessons to see how he would do. • On special occasions (such as her birthday), Tori would begin recording small and sweet vlogs to upload, just letting her audience know how things were going. • Tori currently has around 10k subscribers, thanks to her stunning moves and the additional help of one of her skating videos getting somewhat popular on another platform. She's thankful for the happiness she gets to give to people through her content.

[thealmightyemprex]

Universal Month :Jaws 2

So this is my first official review of Universal month ,where I look at one of my favorite film studios ,Universal

Now where to start with universal,Well I am already working on a big project for the Universal Monsters so cant do that yet .I was gonna look at the silent classic Man Who Laughs ,but while thats still on the table ,Im gonna wait to do it

Of course there is a property very unimous with Universal and Summer ,the big blockbuster hit JAWS .....But I've talked about Jaws already ......But I havent talked about the sequels

In this 1978 film Police Chief Brody (Roy Schieder ) fears another shark is attacking Amity Island ,and things get tense when his own sons get involved in the danger

So before I go into the film I might as well share my thoughts on the franchise....A franchise that kind of is surprising it is one .The first film I actually recently revisited on the big screen and it is a perfect thriller ,great characters ,great suspense ,good scares ,and a nice mix of horror and adventure .While I had never seen Jaws 2 till today ,I had seen Jaws 3D which to my memory is shlocky fun and Jaws the Revenge which is...Bad....Just bad .I also wanna mention I rode the Jaws Ride at Universal Studios Florida THREE times,and I miss that ride cause it was cool

As for my thoughts on this film...There are things that work,,,,,,,But its more interested in being a greatest hits album

OK so sequels are a tricky thing to do .Basically a sequel is supposed to be like"Hey gang you like these characters and this world,are you curious what happens next " ......But often the reason for a sequel is less "We have a story to tell" as much as "Hey this made money ,I want more money ",and honestly its hard to think of a movie that lends itself least to a sequel then JAWS cause its pretty one and done ,its a very simple story :Big fish is eating people,three guys go to stop it ,the stop it .Thats it,and having ANORTHER shark attack with these same characters in this same location feels stale.Also for a seque to feel necesarry ,t must care about what happens to the character after the story is done.......And while I like Martin Brody,I just dont like him like that .To use another sequel others find unnecesary but I like ,Psycho II,where I totally care about what happens to Norman Bates after the first film and see potential in taking him in new directions.MArtin Brody however to me is a one and done character ,he beat the shark ,thats it

IRonically while I dont think Brodycoming back is that necesarry ......He is the best peart of the film,Roy Scheider is a damn great actor so he sells his paranois ,love for his family and the best scne in the movie is him after he is fired realizing he hsa no clue what to do next .Honestly the film does hit on a neat idea for a sequel ,as it couldve explored Brody's PTSD .He is clearly traumatised,and that is something I do wonder about after thrillers and monster movies,once the monster is slain how do you pick up the pieces after that .....But the trick is to do that well,the shark shouldve either all just be in Brodys head (Which as cool as the Shark just being a metaphor for Brody's trauma would be,theyd never do ,you need a real threat or else audiences will feel ripped off ) or make it ambiguious at first and reveal the Shark in the third act ......Which leads me to the movies big problem

So in the original film the Shark is not seen a lot,but it is built up like crazy,you FEEL its presence and when it does show up it is super scary ...Here it shows up too much ,it shows up early with little fanfare and frankly it doesnt look as good to me .It lacks presance and menace.Yeah it eats a helicopter and I think giving it burn scars to distinguish it from the first shark is neat ,but I dunno I didnt find this Shark that scary.Also the final fight with the Shark was a bit of a "Thats it ? " for me (Though I like how they kill it )

Cast is good,but I have nothing to say,as I really dont care for anyone except for Martin and Ellen.We have some teens in trouble who I didnt want them to get eaten ,but stil cant remember their names .The douchey Mayor is back,and while I love seeing Muarry Hamilton ,I struggle to believe this guy didnt learn his lesson after the first film...Then again,politician

Also I loathe South Park and the whole Member Berries thing that was popular for a few things.Call backs and nostalgia for a previous film arent bad things.....But maannnnn I was getting annoyed by the refrences to the first film"Oh remember the Orca ? Remember Hooper? Well they arent in this movie but we will bring them up"

I dunno.....Its not BAD ,its well made,and like I said I like seeing Schieder again but,,,,OK maybe this will make sense.This feels like a movie MADE to be shown on TV .Like your flipping channels ,spot Jaws 2,and are like"Eh Id rather watch the first one ,but this'll do " and just mindlessly watch it.

My final thoughtsa re it is a mediocre OK movie ,with a good performance.....That is overshadowed by a much better movie.I guess watch if your curious,but honestly just watch the first film

@ariel-seagull-wings @countesspetofi @piterelizabethdevries @the-blue-fairie @@themousefromfantasyland @princesssarisa @barbossas-wench @professorlehnsherr-almashy @amalthea9

[ostensiblyanimated]

MyGO does something really interesting in its third episode. the entire episode is from the perspective of Tomori, a quiet and introverted character, and it's meant to give the audience a glimpse into her alienation. it's a really effective storytelling tool which has some truly incredible moments throughout, especially when mirrors are involved and we're given a glimpse of the character we're sharing our view of the world with

let's make something clear. this episode is fantastic. I was considering giving up on this show, but I gave it one more episode, and this episode proved to me that I should keep watching. it's more than just a quirky production choice, but a unique method of storytelling that I haven't seen used in animation before, one that made me care for the character of Tomori in a way that would have been difficult in any other way

I also think the episode is a major letdown because it struggles to commit to its central gimmick. and to be fair, it's a difficult gimmick to commit to. it demands that the episode shy away from common production shortcuts like crowd shots or scenery and only focus on the parts that the character notice. they're certainly able to make that work sometimes, like the shots on the bridge, but there's more than a few times where we see a shot which simply just can't work from Tomori's perspective

but the point where this really begins to bug me is that the continuity of shots rarely lines up. we get a lot of snappy editing which doesn't easily comply with the continuity of how her perspective should be working. shots snap from one character to the next and it feels jarring. I imagine that part of the issue is due to how difficult it would be to have such long shots throughout the episode. this concept taken to its fullest would demand that each scene be a single take, which is unfeasible in animation. cuts simply just can't be that long.

but, occasionally, Tomori blinks, so why didn't they use that more when they wanted to move from one shot to another without turning? include the continuity of turning from one character to another sometimes, and have her blink when you don't want to do that. sure, the trick might be clear, in the same way it's clear for every one-take film that occasionally turns the camera in a dark place quickly, but it wouldn't ruin it

the effect is often very immersive, and that's when it works best. motion, when Tomori is looking around or walking, or interacting with the world, is where this episode shone. but often, it's that she merely serves as the camera, and there's little thought for where she should actually be placed in a scene

the worst part of the episode was this

out of nowhere, in the middle of the performance which serves as the emotional climax, we see Tomori amongst her band. and then we don't, and it's back to seeing the world from her perspective. it's a jarring moment, since it comes out of nowhere and serves no purpose. perhaps if it was given more weight, it could be that she symbolically is finally seeing herself for real. Tomori had appeared in mirrors several times before, but this is different. it breaks the effect, and for what? it's just a really baffling choice to make that almost feels like a mistake for how much the rest of the episode had committed to this

I think it's incredible that this was tried at all, and I think the effect it has is still incredible, but it's disappointing to look at this and see how easily it could have been elevated even further. as-is, this is a singular episode in the history of anime. I just wish it had committed further

[thehermitbear]

SA representation fucking sucks.

I will say beforehand that if you are a fan of Vivienne Madreno's works, I am not criticizing you specifically. You're fine to still like the show and I actually do admire you for being able to look past major flaws. I am also aware that other survivors are on different legs of their journey's, so this may not resonate with every survivor. I just want to give a heads up that I may use strong emotional terms in this. I feel strongly about how rape is depicted in media and it is a dealbreaker for me depending on how it's handled. ----

I don't believe it when people say Viv wanted to depict male SA victims properly, or any SA victim of any gender at all. I've had it told to me a few times that was the intention. I then tried to watch the show, and stopped promptly partway through episode four after the Poison music video. My first gut reaction as someone who spent years being sexually abused still clings to me. I also feel the need to note that I have almost no tolerance for the act of rape depicted in media of any kind. How the fuck would you feel if you were Anthony? You were tricked. Told a lie that ended up in you somehow addicted to drugs to numb the disgusting reality that you'd sometimes get gangraped on camera for millions to enjoy your misery, humiliation, and dehumanization.

And then you get drawn in bondage gear, bent over, terrified, about to get gangraped on camera for all of Hell to see. I did not get abused like that, but I was definitely used for pleasure as just a baby teenager who thought my value rested solely in how 'hot' my prepubescent body was to older men. This is important for my perspective, I promise. I fucking hate bringing this up, but I feel like some background is needed. I was at the naive age of fifteen when I went on seemingly innocent a date to a mall. The older boy I went with then raped me in public in several locations, and I was too scared to fight back because I'd always been a quiet person. People filmed me. They looked at my exposed body in disgust and whispered what I could only imagine was 'slut' and 'whore'. Words that don't deserve the hate they are backed by. He dumped me after he was done using me, depositing me on a curb. My mother picked me up an hour later. I have never been the same. Keep in mind, I gave you none of the visceral details of what he specifically did to me beyond raping me. Because it doesn't matter. I then had no direction, and used shitty coping mechanisms like hypersexuality and jokes deflecting my trauma and drugs because there is little to no guidance for people like myself. I was soon trapped again by a man in his late twenties who asked me to do sexual favors for him and his friends on camera via 4chan. I only agreed because I was a kid in need of comfort, and I stupidly thought they cared. From there, I won't explain what I've thrown my body at in order to feel any fucking thing, but it was a lot. I will give you a happy update to say I have mostly recovered. I am married to someone who loves me, scars and all. Back to my issue with the writing of SA in Hazbin Hotel, I felt that it lost all of its meaning the moment Viv decided to animate the actual act of Angel's rape in the Poison music video. Even heavily implied, the audience can easily tell he was about to get violently gangraped on camera for entertainment while unable to vocalize. How does this help SA survivors, exactly? Again, if you're in your stage of healing where you want people to see how you were raped, please just sit with your feelings for a while. I say this with love. That is self harm. No one needs to see how you were raped. They need to see how it hurt you afterwards. That's the bit that actually needs to be told. Don't give your rapist any the attention. At the end of the day, there is no justification for rape. There is no justification for showing it in media either. The people who know it's terrible don't need visuals of the act itself. You can easily imply it and focus on what actually matters. The aftermath of an SA survivors story is undersold. The way it damages the fucking brain needs to be spoken about more. (Literally, my brain is damaged because of what happened to me) The only thing that showing rape as an action in media does is create cheap shock value for some, more material for others who seriously need to unpack why they find it arousing in the first place (no hate, I've been there), and at the very worst retraumatize survivors (also happened to me). Allow me to frame this another way please?

Imagine a rape victim being approached by someone who claimed that they wanted to tell their story as a side plot in their new show. They are told that it will be in an animated R-rated comedy musical. Understandably, most people would be hesitant to agree. Not that it's impossible, but it has to be done a certain way. For the sake of this story, they agree.

How would they feel if they then saw one of their assaults animated as a pop music video?

Animation takes longer that live action does. You really have to commit to drawing something like that.

Personally, I would be furious. I would be horrified that the showrunner decided to let my abuser win again by painstakingly animating exactly what my abuser did to me. I'd feel like I was put on display again twice over for a fictional audience and for a real one.

I hate how SA is represented because it doesn't matter how it happens. What matters is how it affects the people after, how the abusers are (ignored because they have "futures") treated, and how society is not at all ready to address this issue.

It's a dealbreaker for me that Viv decided to show Angel's sexual abuse. Whether good intentioned or not, and it shows to me, someone who's had extensive therapy regarding my own abuse, that she does not understand the material she's trying to work with. Even if she is supposedly working with SA victims or if she is one herself, I fear she missed the mark here. Impact matters more than intent. Thank you if you made it this far. This has been bothering me for a while, I just needed to write my thoughts down and hopefully find like-minded survivors.

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: Pacific Rim

My last Film Friday got devoured by the Needs To Finish Editing beast. I figure it's time to get back on it or the Can't-Be-Arsedosaurus is going to devour this habit entirely. Today I have my mind on my monsters and my monsters on my mind, so let's talk a bit about monsters, Kaiju to be more precise, and the giant robots that fight them in Pacific Rim

So earth is being invaded by giant semiaquatic lizard monsters called Kaiju, which is a bad time for all involved except possibly the Kaiju . Instead of devolving into secterian violence and short-sighted ass covering, however, humanity takes the NERV approach to the problem and builds some goddamn giant robots called Jaegers to show the aliens that humanity is not going down without a fight. It is, however, not easy for a regular-sized human being to pilot one of those darn things, and to lessen the load of the body-melding technology that makes it all work, each giant robot has not one, but two pilots, working in hopefully perfect tandem.

The most interesting part about Pacific Rim for my money is how absolutely confidently the movie establishes and delivers its world building. The entire setup in the above paragraph is delivered in the start of the movie, and there's very little dwelling on any of it. Other stories would've had ponderous origin stories or lengthy exposition that they desperately try to justify by having characters walking, or ideally running, and talking, or having a character that just don't know anything about anything.

Not pacific rim though, it sits you down and goes "Ok, here's the shit you need to know and some symbolism to boot, now things gone screwy and Our Guy needs to do some hero stuff." It's perhaps not the Saving The Cat-approved approach, but you know what? I admire how TCB it is, it seems like Guilermo Del Toro really wanted to get to his giant robot story, and didn't want to waste any time to get there.

In general, the movie is full of efficient storytelling like this. The Drift, which is to say the shared mind state that the pilots enter to control the Jaegers is an instant character backstory revealer, allowing both the characters and the movie as a whole to spend less time on it. No need to wonder what the hell Mako's problem is, we saw a montage about it just a few seconds ago, and both the characters and we know that there is a difference between knowing what a problem is and knowing how to deal with it, so there's no real drop in the interpersonal drama because of it either.

Anyway, I have gone WAY too long in this here essay about the Giant Robots Fighting Godzilla-movie without talking about either at any length. So, let's get nerdy on it why don't we. The Kaiju vs Jaeger scenes are spectacular, the Kaiju designs are all fun and unique but visually unified enough that they very much read like a united force. It does, admittedly, stretch the suspension of disbelief that these monsters are all unique and yet get custom names mere seconds after being spotted, but I like to believe there's one Kaiju nerd in the cellar of the Shatterdome whose sole job is coming up with code names for the monsters.

As for the Jaegers, I will say this is the closest a bipedal combat robot big enough to use a cargo ship as a wooden sword has come to making sense. The VFX and especially compositing is excellent for the time it was made, and there's some very real-feeling weight to how they move and some close-enough-to-real physics to their abilities and weapons that makes them feel very present. The same is true for the Kaiju, but we've seen giant godzilla monsters pull that trick off before, so it's not so impressive although I will admit the fight scenes do benefit from both parties feeling like they belong.

If I may diverge from my usual formula here, I feel I must say this, and this seems like as good a place as any. Holy fuck is this movie a blessing for the bisexuals in the audience. Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi, playing protagonists Raleigh and Mako respectively, are attractive people, hope I'm not blowing anyone's minds there, but their chemistry in this movie is just Something Else, and it's honestly developed in a way that I see way too seldom.

It isn't just that they're good actors doing good work either, although I'd argue they are, but a question of being given good material. There is a relationship between these two, this, I would claim, is unambigious. That said, exactly what these two are to each other can be curiously hard to pin down. I still can't tell if it's romantic, sexual or platonic in nature after many re-watches, but whatever it is, it's great and intense in a way that's hard to describe. In some ways they even seem a bit like rivals, like how Raleigh sasses Mako for disproving of his sparring partners and Mako shooting back that it's Raleigh's bs she's disapproving of. In a lesser movie, this would've been awkward or played out with a joke. In this movie, which is great, our two heroes duke it out in a sparring match that is charged with some kind of energy that, if nothing else, tells us that these two will either make each other better or way way WAY worse

Actually, while we are talking about queerness, let's keep it up for a spell. It isn't explicit, but I personally find the relationship between excitable Kaiju Nerd biologist Dr. Geiszler and choleric stick-in-the mud mathematician Dr. Gottlieb deliciously queer. It could be their impeccable Bernt & Ernie-vibes, as expertly portrayed by Charlie Day and Burn Gorman, respectively, or how they both realize that their goals of understanding the Kaiju requires that they each cede grounds to each other and their respective fields and risk life and limb for each other in an experience that changes them forever. It's not an open-and-shut case as far as I'm concerned, but I like it better when read to be queer, so it's worth a mention.

Before I close, I will indulge in another thing I don't do often. In general I try to avoid arguing with the nitpickers and the plothole brigade of the world because that's an endless drain on my limited mental resources, but there is one particular such plothole that have been bothering me for a while. At a particularly dramatic point in the movie Mako and Raleigh deploys a retractable sword to deal with a flying Kaiju, which, apparently, has the CinemaSins wannabes of the world pipe up shrilly to ask why they didn't use the sword before in the prolonged Kaiju battle that this exceedingly anime move ends.

The interesting part about this plothole is that there are two good answers to it that coexist in my mind. For one, they didn't need it, as the Jaeger's other weapons did just fine, arguably better than a sword would, and in the time before Kaijus coming out two at a time, running out of ammo for the Big Very Sufficient Plasma Cannon just wasn't a problem. For the other, the world building actually explains this one, as the opening exposition montage mentions that the blood of the kaiju is hazardous and the source of some sort of malady nicknamed Kaiju Blue. Now since this is a movie, punching and kicking yields only small amounts of blood, while swords all but exsanguinate people on the first stroke, so better to stick with punches and kicks and the occasional self-cauterizing plasma burn. Now, as to why our heroes didn't deploy The Anime Weapon a bit earlier in the process of being dragged into the stratosphere, I couldn't tell you. I could argue that the added altitude could make the kaiju blood disappate over a wider area and thus prove less of a problem, but odds are good this one's just for dramatic effect, which I'm honestly fine with.

Anyway, to try to wrap this up. If my gushy, infodumping tone wasn't a clear indication, I love Pacific Rim. It's a movie that doesn't try to self-consciously excuse its genre trappings, it goes "yeah, kaiju, you know those, giant robots you know those, let's have some fun with it." Despite being made out of many familiar parts, it's arranged in a fresh and exciting way, and the joyous love the filmmakers show for the source material goes a long way to making it approachable. This is the greatest translation of old nerdy interests into a fresh new IP since Star Wars, and it makes me sad that it didn't transform the industry in a similar way. It's what nerd cinema should have become in the time of global streaming, but alas, the passionless nerd pandering turned out to be easier to make and, probably, more profitable. Alas, what could have been, I suppose. At least we'll always have that kickass Ramin Djawadi soundtrack.

[woodswolf]

Oh!!!! 9, 29, & 38 please!

fic writer ask game

9. Tell us your favorite thing to drink when you write

I'm gonna be real with you anon, I drink diet Mountain Dew like it's water. Something something self medicating for ADHD (NOT THAT IT FUCKING WORKS)

29. Which fic would you most like to have fan art done for?

TITLE DROP TIME: catch/cradle. This is the first entry in one of the "sequel" lines from DLD, but I might end up putting it in both series on AO3 because (1) they're all the same chronology, just with different contexts (let you think over that one for a little while with the riddle), and (2) some of its contents are specifically relevant to the main series between callbacks to DLD and calls forward to... WELL. We'll just leave it at that :)

I had intended to do this title drop in the upcoming spoiler post, but I still have to respond to comments and write chapter 5 and FUCK man I have had no fucking time for anything these past few weeks. Anyway.

There's a lot of really fun stuff that could have fanart in this one. A lot of Images. If the true form of the Pikmin's side of DLD is a wordless graphic novel and the true form of Olimar's side of DLD is a stream-of-consciousness As It Is, the true form of several specific scenes of catch/cradle would be a film, because there are a lot of framing tricks you can pull off in film that don't really work the same way in text mediums.

(Mostly that you can show-don't-tell without specifically "showing" and thereby "telling". There is one specific location where if I could avoid describing it in detail and leaving noticing specific elements as a purely visual thing — or, to put it another way, to leave the POV character on the level of context they would be on and allowing the audience to pick up the very specific references to previous events and how another character has chosen to contextualize them — would be better than having to say "okay so this thing is in the doorway and this thing is on the wall in a central position and this thing is over here and etc. etc." because there is SO much little reasoning behind some of these things and I would want viewers to react to it organically rather than for it to have ANY attention called to it.)

The dev title for this line of sequels would be the brave and sacred earth for a lot of reasons. As I broke it down to my partner in DMs:

"Sacred earth" as in a play on "sacred turf", because I don't intend to touch the primary topic of this sequel line in ANY fashion ANYWHERE else EVER again - it's too wholly holy to be messed with so trivially. There can be any number of stories set in this chronology, and I do in fact have some very low priority ideas that I would probably only get to years down the line if ever, but the way I see it, there's simply no point for me to ever touch this "kind" version of the base concept without treating the events of DLD chapter 4 as part of its canon. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine why — but if you can't quite figure it out now, the tags that I'll be adding to chapter 5 will make it obvious. Probably. Technically this is a me thing because I have BEEF with another story for not handling a similar subject exactly how I would have.

"Brave" as in:

38. Pick three of your fics and share a song to go with each

I have a 3 hour long playlist of DLD series songs. So!

catch/cradle: The Weight of Us by Sanders Bohlke.

The time has come, let us be brave The time has come, let us be brave Shake off all of your shame The time has come, let us be brave The time has come, let us be brave Let us be brave Let us be brave

This just really sums up the emotional arc in a way? Sometimes things are a change for the better, but recognizing that they are better introduces impossible amounts of guilt that these things that are better are not what was before. I could elaborate further, but really that's what it comes down to.

Other contenders: The Trap by Tally Hall, On A Good Day (cover) by Spencer Pugh, Our Love Remains by rei brown

[TITLE REDACTED] (codename: DLDP3): Body to Flame by Lucy Dacus.

Believe me, I'm speaking plainly and painfully Trying to stay elegant, eloquent and delicate to you I see you holding your breath with your arms outstretched Waiting for someone to come rip open your chest

Lamellamar song of ALL TIME. There's an entire scene (not written, just an outline) that I posted in a more artsy Discord server like eight months ago that unfortunately got ignored. But! Holy shit this one is so real you have no idea.

Other contenders: The Calling by The Amazing Devil, Two Ravens by Hawthorn

dogs leading dogs: By My Side by Uzo Aduba and the Godspell ensemble cast.

It's a really hard choice, because I can't even say that there is a single song that encapsulates all of base DLD for me, but By My Side comes really, really close. I can't even pull out specific lyrics because it's just. All of it. Our two dogs are each all three of the follower and the pebble and the betrayed, and it keeps the same tender-yet-tragic tone of everything except chapter 6 (which is kind of its own thing, you'll see when we get there).

Other contenders are mostly songs that are INSANE fits for specific scenes without being Encapsulating, so here we go:

I'm Your Man by Mitski is a second overall pick for "THE DLD song". It's not quite the right tone, or at least not anymore, but it came out right when I was starting the initial drafts of this project so I can't not mention it.

Gravedigger (Acoustic version) by Dave Matthews. This one was actually intentionally referenced in-text but we haven't seen that yet (it's in chapter 5).

New Normal by Jack Stauber is a good summation of where we're going to be left off on one of our timelines.

Wanderer's Lullaby by Adriana Figueroa is one that I've regularly come back to for some of the more emotionally difficult scenes. The last ~300ish words of vi. love (as an absence) were written to it, as were a few portions of the Pikmin parts of chapter 5.

The Woods by San Fermin is more of a general chapter 1 song, but as a result it carries relevance with the entire rest of the fic.

How Did I Die? by Einstürzende Neubauten is also a more general song but it doesn't match as well as I'd like in some ways. It does, however, mirror the structure very nicely — there's a clear change between the "body" and "epilogue" of the song.

Thanks for the ask! :D