#making my shark hyperfixation everyone's problem

[queersturbate]

why do you hate squid game? i'm not being judgy or anything i'm just genuinely curious

hello anon! this might get long and i will make a lot of comparisons to aib because they are similar plot wise and they're both from SE asia (korea and japan) so i feel better about comparing those two than, say, an american show. also AiB is the best show i've ever seen period but also the best show to use this plot of competing in deadly games.

thank you for not being rude about it or anything i know people like it and i dont want to be rude about it, but personally i just dont see the appeal.

i'll put my thoughts under the cut because i know some neurodivergent people are hyperfixating on it rn and ik how it feels to read hate or criticism on a hyperfixation, so i want everyone to not be bothered.

warning i do get very critical of it so if you like squid game please dont read if you'd be bothered! these are just my opinions!

to start off, I am four episodes in. I will watch the rest, but from what I've heard, the ending is disappointing. Which idk how tf that's possible because the entire show is disappointing. But anyway, i will give it a fair chance of course but so far i hate it and im not sure if it could redeem itself. @olympiansally and I (i also talked about it with @uppertwist) are watching it and I think, collectively, we've said 7 okay things about it. 5 of those things are from me. And im the most negative person ever especially when im watching a show with a similar plot to my favorite show and it gets more popular despite it being incredibly inferior. My main approvals are, they made Korea look very peaceful (even tho the color correcting is shit :( srry) and that scene where that one guy catches our main character in the red light green light game. i really liked the reveal of that.

speaking of characters that I cant name, it's because the characters are incredibly annoying and boring. I cannot pay attention to them long enough to even learn their name. I can recognize our main character's daughters name and that's only because its said a bazillion times but i can't remember what her actual name is by myself. I think there's also a character called Sang-woo ? and i only remember that, if im correct at all, because of killing stalking. but anyway. the characters are very stereotypical. Bad dad, divorced, needs money, in trouble with a loan shark. I've seen it a million times i get it. Pretty girl is a badass, doesn't smile, has a small knife (lol), has a kid brother she's protective of. Again, a million times. Blahblah the other characters are forgettable even more so. Also people comparing sang-woo (?) to light yagami? idk what he did yet but dont insult me OR light like that again omg. also the actors are a little bad i wont lie. the main characters faces sometimes are exaggerated and i find that funny lol but idk.

as far as everyone saying "it's a great commentary on capitalism" every time im like okay...how? because i have seen zero people actually giving it an analysis they just SAY its a great commentary on capitalism. and here's the thing: i've seen it yeah? it's not. it's just "poor people need money. are willing to die for it." like woooow congratulations you broke barriers! no one has done it like that before! /s literally all im getting from this is "look at these POOR people! POVERTY!" tbh i wanted to see some rich people in the game. I wanted to see some millionaires that are so greedy and confident in their ability that they'd participate in the games just to get more money that they didn't need. and are competing against people who genuinely need the money but dont care BECAUSE they're so fucking greedy. to me, that would make the capitalism commentary a little better than just ".....POOR PEOPLE need... *assistant whispers something to me* MONEY"

another problem i have with it is how they frame food. I dont trust shows that frame food as this disgusting thing and make it look and sound so grotesque. maybe it's just my ED talking but I hate it. They frequently had food shown and it was an awful experience for Lu, twist, and me. And im not even talking about him licking the cookie, which was so fucking gross and went on TOO LONG, but EVERY TIME they showed food it looked disgusting. The characters were chewing with their mouths open, they amplified the chewing noises, they framed it with this uneasy feeling. Similar to how they framed the dinner in coraline in her own world. it looked disgusting. and im not just being ignorant and saying "korean food looks so disgusting" although i've never had korean food i've seen k-dramas where they frame food to look appetizing or just ?? fucking NORMAL. to compare to alice in borderland, they only had a few instances where they showed food because they didn't have to use it to give you an uneasy feeling. The first time it's shown, is when Arisu gets into a car and sees rotten vegetables, but it was important to the plot and world building to show you that in this alternate reality, time moves different so the vegetables have rotted. The food was rotten and looking disgusting yes, but it was never meant to be eaten, arisu was never going to eat it. it was for world building. the second time is when ari, chota, karube, and shibuki are all eating dinner together. they showed canned food because that's what wouldn't have rotted by now. they werent being gross about it they were just eating and talking about their theories. just people eating. and i love it. the third and last one ill mention is when Usagi cooked arisu some food because they hadn't eaten for days and needed to. you didnt even see them eat on screen but usagi had a whole thing of "your body is telling you that you're hungry, your body wants you to live." also the food that she cooked looked good! it looked comforting! idk maybe my ED makes me very cynical about how shows and movies frame food because i dont like it when they frame it as disgusting.

anyway this is getting long! the visual aspects of it are stupid, the game sets look stupid, the color correcting is bad, the camera angles are boring and lu's film degree has bestowed upon me the knowledge of "it has no point of view and every shot is the most obvious one", next! the blood looks boring and the physics of it are inconsistent. blood can be inaccurate and i'll still love it, but they were boring with it and it looked bad. next- the fact that apparently the pretty girl pickpocketed main character in .2 seconds when she didnt even see him coming so she wasnt prepared enrages me, next- episode two is so fucking boring i couldn't even tell you what happened in it. next- the way they revealed the money in the piggybank was boring. next- the black and white scene in the beginning explaining the squid game was stupid and annoying. next- the plot of deadly games is my favorite plot of all time and yet i dislike this show. they fucked up. and finally, the stairs they had that is an art reference is stupid lol there wasn't any need for that and they should've done it in black and white like the original art so the teal color and the people would stand out but it's too fucking busy with the multiple bright colors. not everything has to be bright and saturated, netflix calm down.

oh also, this feels very much like a typical netflix original. i call it netflix original-y. very basic and boring.

[synthwave2010s]

Hello, I saw you state on your page you were disappointed by Tokyo Ghoul. If I may ask, what specifically disappointed you?

So, first of all, sorry I took over a week to respond to this. Work and life and such and I knew I had to actually find the words to adequately express my feelings wrt Tokyo Ghoul. I just want to be clear that I genuinely love the series. It was the first manga I really read (as opposed to just skimming through) and it usurped my last hyperfixation, Evangelion, when I had never even considered that to be possible. I own all of Re:, and the rest of the series between English and Japanese, along the the first calendar, the trump cards, and the redrawn first chapter. Not to brag or flex but just to illustrate how passionate I am. My description is meant to be cheeky, otherwise I wouldn’t still drown my tumblr in TG imagery.

With my fan cred out of the way, I want to talk about why I was so drawn in. I feel like I have a very hard time finding media of any kind that really does it for me. Most times I’m settling but with TG  it has absolutely everything I’m looking for. A tight but complex story full of engaging mysteries paired with masterfully written characters that dramatically but realistically change over time coupled with masterful use of the medium it’s made in. I can’t think of anything that so perfectly utilizes this type of visual medium. I remember seeing glimpses of white-haired Kaneki towards the end of S1 and little rumors of how much he changes over the series and that was what finally got me to actually read the manga.  

I feel like this quality persisted with :Re even if many times people declared the latest chapter was the sign that Ishida had finally sold out or jumped the shark. I would tell people online and irl to have faith in Ishida’s writing because far too many times people would fall for or misread the set up he was establishing only for the resolution to be met with applause. I remember the ultimate troll that was chapter 143 and how people genuinely thought that was it and how robbed they felt for not getting their final fight and how much of hack Ishida was only for ch 144 to drop and just shoved all their comments right back into their face. This really cemented Ishida’s brilliance once and for all. I knew he would come through. He had every time before that.

However, then there was the dragon arc and the conclusion. The arc starts right after aforementioned moment of brilliance and I was prepared for the endgame of the series. I liked how Kaneki was now the problem. It made sense considering he still was making the same mistake over and over again and really needed something dramatic and terrible to break this cycle and Ishida needed something convincing to unite the ghouls and humans. However, you can tell this was rushed. It took one moment for generations of conflict and oppression to be overcome? Please. Everyone just flipped for the sake of convenience. Then this arc that felt so much like set up was over. Kaneki was recovered, totally fine, and all he had to do was go with Ayato to kill Rize and that was it. No resolution for Tsukiyama, Shirazu, Ihei. Eto reappearing for a single frame. People were brought back from the dead like Iwao. Everything was just nice and easy and neatly tied with a bow. It was nothing like years of writing I had been used to and it left such a disappointing taste in my mouth I was just glad it was over.

Now, I recognize that Ishida was having health problems stemming from overwork from writing TG. I’m glad that it being over has given him the free time to recover. I don’t want you to think I think Ishida owes me or anyone anything. He did the work and I will always appreciate it. However, the ending was really rushed and sloppy and it’s affected my overall feelings of the series of the whole.