#moderate review

[the13problems]

Musical review - &Juliet

Contains semi spoilers, so don't read below if you are really hoping to see it.

Also, this is a personal review - I know for a fact that my opinion differed greatly from those I saw it with.

Synopsis - William Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway have creative disputes when writing bad Romeo and Juliet fanfiction together in an attempt to work out their martial issues.

Songs: A pop-laden jukebox musical. Having never seen a jukebox musical before (aside from the movie Mamma Mia!), I can see why they would be very difficult to write - none of the songs are purpose built and so, sometimes slot in awkwardly or feel much too on the nose. Music in musicals typically has a purpose, to show something the characters wouldn't be able to say for whatever reason. However, this largely isn't the case with &Juliet and so the songs feel shallow (there also was so many songs used, to the detriment). This, combined with all the songs being "top of the chart hits" made it feel tacky and lazy. The final song - Justin Timberlake's Can't Stop The Feeling was literally there "just because". I think there were only a few times I enjoyed the use of music in this show, and most of these were for comedic purposes rather than for character growth or plot development.

Plot/characters: The fanfiction plot is convoluted and the character presentations are shallow so I didn't ever feel like rooting for anyone as no one really gets a clear direction. Or, if they do, no character gets fleshed out beyond a few traits. I think this is because there's three romance plots in the one 'fanfiction plot'. But I think that does fit with the 'meta plot' of "two people fighting to create THEIR ideal story and losing direction", which is what I enjoyed the most.

Effects/Costumes: The costumes and backgrounds effects were really nice, I liked the 'modern Elizabethan' interpretation. The lighting and visual effects direction were also great (if a bit on the nose), and I think the casting was done quite well. The choreography was okay, but all the cast seemed to have really put their soul into it, which was good to see. Actually, hats off to the cast and crew, they made it into a fun, boppy performance.

Final thoughts: I don't this this was a great or even a good musical, but it was a fun performance.

2.5/5

[bandtrees]

>be me >update my warriors oc fic on ao3 and ffn >receive a pm >

>

>check this guy's profile >

>obvious fetish fics in favorites >favorite authors are mostly young warriors fans >sent the pm an hour after i posted my fic update >fetish miner who just pms every warriors author they see >politely respond "no i don't, sorry!" >close ffn for the day >next morning >check my fic stats on ffn >see my warriors fic has a new review >check it >

[girlwarlock]

maybe it's a coincidence but it's a lil sketch that when i searched the ''intrusive thoughts'' tag (due to some curiosity from a post that crossed my dash) that this thing come up. @wip @changes I really don't like this kind of targeted communication, whether this kokobot is something that tumblr is cooking up internally or whether they're a third party getting the info from tumblr for this kind of targeted spam.

[achillessulks]

What happened to your Goodreads? On my end, it looks like your „Want to Read" list was purged :(

Yeah I think the whole account got deleted actually, I sent an email to the customer support but I suspect it’s just gone because people have been mass-reporting me for a while because of a couple of my more popular reviews (namely The Song of Achilles). I guess they finally won though because if that’s really the case then I’m just absolutely not coming back lol

It sucks because I had that account for over a decade (and mysteriously it wasn’t until my TSOA review blew up that I started getting reported all the time! funny, that) and put a lot of effort into it, especially the reviews where I talk about translations and compare different ones etc., but I guess if I’m not spending time writing reviews then I have more time to actually read books.

Anyway I guess you can follow me here on this account if you want. I can’t promise I will post very much (I do not like social media) but feel free to send asks or DMs and I’ll usually respond to those if I can 👍

[karmaphone]

"we're sowwy we said epileptics should pay us money to not be kiwwed or pewmanentwy injuwed by our app/site, pwease don't be mad 🥺'

[gumptioustactition]

Mean Girls(2024) is a film which is loudly ashamed of itself. It is self referential and cheeky - it cuts itself off to remind you that you're watching a movie MUSICAL, isn't that silly? Aren't movie musicals SILLY? Why are these teens SINGING? Isn't that RANDOM? The backing tracks have been gutted and sound empty, while the actors at some times sound like they would have benefited from a second or third take, such as Cady's verse in Revenge Party, or look completely dubbed, like Regina in Someone Gets Hurt. The choreography in many songs is lacking and nonsensical. I'd Rather Be Me is filmed like a made-for-YouTube music video, not like a scene in a movie. Stupid with love sounds like it was sung by someone who had never heard the song before but was given the lyrics and a generic royalty free backing to sing over, and finishes with choreography which was made to be easily cropped to a vertical format and posted on tiktok. It is generic and boring and BAD. Cady sings the line "I am filled with calcu-lust" like she's serenading a slug she found on the sidewalk. After being shot in the behind with a horse tranquilizer.

The vertical angle worked...somewhat, for Sexy. It was a clever choice to frame the song as something Karen was shooting for her Snapchat, but it again suffers from a gutted backing, poor choreo, and cluttered visuals when the screen is filled with poorly framed, shot, choreographed, and edited clips of other actors performing for their smartphones, which later devolved into, again, something that is visually more like a music video than a scene from a movie. Avantika is a talented vocalist, she did not need to be autotuned!!! Let her sing!!

Damien's solo song Stop was cut, which is the reason I am going with for him being given Cady's wild-themed lines in Apex Predator. You are reading that correctly - the song in which Cady compares highschool to the animal food chain she knows in Kenya was instead given to Damien, who has no reason to be singing lines like "they scatter like mice from a jungle cat". His fling with The Beast from Stop is hinted at earlier, just before Meet The Plastics, but is otherwise dropped.

This is an issue presented throughout the film. In its haste to point and laugh at itself at every juncture while shoving in orignal songs in a desperate attempt at winning Best Original Song, character moments are dropped. Karen does not get to report the weather. Janis is not manipulative. We do not know who Cady Herron is, aside from that she is obsessed with Aaron, and yet her obsession is sedated, so she is not even allowed that. What Ifs replaces It Roars, a song which is better and does more to introduce Cady's character, which is to say, Whats Ifs does anything at all. The hints of jungle bounce from Cautionary Tale, It Roars, Stupid With Love, Apex Predator, and More Is Better have been erased, leaving behind clean pop idol Cady Herron who we know nothing about. If you are going to take out all hints of her childhood, you should at least replace them with something! Her leitmotif is meant to indicate when we are seeing/hearing Cady Herron for who she is, getting a glimpse at her true self before she covers it back up in concealer and glitter. Mean Girls(2024) leaves Cady as glitter all the way down.

(Note: In several areas of the movie, lyrics are changed for reasons I can't discern. A verse of Stupid With Love, which references Cady's first crush on a Kenyan boy, is completely cut, and in Sexy the line "Sexy Elanor Roosevelt or Sexy Rosa Parks" Is changed to "Sexy Elanor Roosevelt or Sexy Joan of Ark". In both cases, the change was jarring. A more understandable change, but one I still dislike, is that from calling Janis a Space Dyke to calling her a Pyro Les.)

Scenes where the chaos of the school hallways are portrayed using animal-like choreography are cute and clever(Meet The Plastics), and the representations of the soul-sucking nature of social media is represented well by filling the screen with vertical facecams and overlaying voiceovers. What's Wrong With Me was exactly what I expected, and that isn't an insult! It is the only moment in the film in which the snarky "LOL what is happening??" angle works for it, as Gretchen Weiners vents her troubles to Cady, who has no idea how to handle it. Revenge Party was a pale imitation of its musical counterpart, but the replacement of the soundtrack with a marching band version paired with whispered vocals was lovely in the context of the scene.

Megan Thee Stallion killed it.

2/10. This movie was 112 minutes long, and a complete waste of nearly two hours. It is the worst of both worlds. If you want to listen to the musical, watch the musical. If you want to watch the movie, watch the 2004 version.

[oodlenoodleroodle]

Hmm. Today I searched my main blog for the word "gijinka" because I wanted to see all of the Pokemon gijinka drawings I did years ago (to decide whether I want to mention them to a pokemon fashion blog or not) and dutifully the app showed me my posts...

...except for one, which was flagged as inappropriate. And the android app didn't have any sort of button on it to appeal. So I went to my computer and to the "review flagged posts" thing on the correct blog...

...and that post was not there. It was not on a list of posts that I can appeal.

I copied the link on the mobile app and sent it to myself in a message, opened the link on the desktop and hello and hey presto, here is the post as a flagged post, with a button to press to appeal it!

If I had not happened to search my blog for gijinka posts, I would never have known that my post is flagged, since it didn't show up in the review flagged posts list.

And now I can't help but wonder what other posts of mine are flagged and hidden. What posts of yours are? I can't trawl through my entire goddamn blog on mobile to see whether there are hidden flagged posts :S

.

Oh and the cherry on top of this whole thing, is that the only post in my Review Flagged Posts list is a reblog of a political commentary photography project by Aria Watson, where she wrote direct quotes from Trump onto women's bodies. This post cannot be appealed, even though it does not violate any rules. :))))) I looked on the help pages on how to send a link to a post that needs to get reevaluated, and there is no way to do it.

(In case a staff member happens to see this post, the post that needs to be free is the #signedbytrump post: longingforus/154212582785/)

[solvicrafts]

Oh look I found one out in the wild.

[orcelito]

i hate anytime anyone says like "You should just do this one specific thing with writing bc it's the superior way of writing and everything else sucks" bc im like well what if i dont want to do that with my writing. i rather like how my writing is as it is. & then it makes me feel self conscious of my writing. bc brains are bitches i guess.

[seaalgae]

i'm not reblogging any other version of the media literacy/regular literacy/scientific literacy post because there's a degree of Online to most of them, but i feel like the big issue with a lot of Online is that nobody is able to evaluate a single source in a steady stream of bullshit, no company wants you to evaluate a source while you're on their app because that will take you off said app, and even if you were willing and able to evaluate a source, nobody knows how to do that effectively

[mariocki]

On the 24th of July 1979 the cast of Bent, including stars Ian McKellen and Tom Bell, joined members of other West End productions in protesting increased VAT on theatre tickets. In August, McKellen wrote a piece for Plays and Players magazine:

"The march through London's West End on 24 July was a high-spirited and invigorating experience. At least 4,000 members of British Actors' Equity were on parade, representing every theatre in the country. I was under the Criterion Theatre's banner with the cast of Bent, who were reinforced by the box-office and stage staff and by our manager, Ian Albery. At a brief rally at the Opera House in Covent Garden, its director John Tooley welcomed us all; Trevor Nunn was there with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Peter Hall cabled his support from the National Theatre. Such unity of workers and employers, of commercial and subsidised theatres, was an example to other troubled industries. But then, we had an urgent case to present to the House of Commons, where the day ended as we lobbied our Members of Parliament."

[keirametzbrassknuckles]

what is a champagne goth

Goth but designer goth. Champagne taste but make it bats. The dark lipstick is Dior and the pointy toed boots Chanel. Black velvet duster coats and cartier earrings, prada bag for a night out paired with an old Victorian blouse and winklepickers. Black silk slip dresses and teased hair. The absolute rejection of all things tackily mall goth and a way to be true to yourself and your own style while still being able to move within the upper echelons of society - as an eccentric, sure, but an accepted eccentric who speaks the visual language of wealth and upper class sensibility (and yet is equally at home in the smoking area of a metal bar should the evening turn out that way. )

[specters]

they/them spoilers if any of you care -- there's a lot to say about this movie BUT all that really needs to be said is that the message it puts across is "if you fight back, you're the bad guy" which is frankly insulting. also at one point the campers randomly break out into song because this movie loves abrupt tone changes. guess what song it was. just guess. (it was f**kin' perfect by p!nk)

[thebluestbluewords]

I posted 1,832 times in 2022

116 posts created (6%)

1,716 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sparrowmoth

@callous-and-misunderstood

@irethsune

@dizzydizney

@thebluestbluewords

I tagged 1,712 of my posts in 2022

Only 7% of my posts had no tags

#blue’s queue - 271 posts

#blue's queue - 250 posts

#twst - 244 posts

#not descendants - 95 posts

#my fic - 94 posts

#descendants cast - 87 posts

#princess posting - 72 posts

#fic ref - 65 posts

#descendants - 43 posts

#mal bertha - 37 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#on the opportunity to be like ‘yes clearly that’s what was going on’ and then decide to be more subtle about her power plays in the future

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

no thoughts head empty post notes app fic directly to tumblr (references to child abuse, bad parenting) *

“Bad dad club represent,” Mal says dully, waving one hand in something almost like a cheer. “Wooo, go team.”

“Should I leave?” Evie asks.

“Your dad’s dead,” Mal says, after a long moment during which Ben contemplates the merits of throwing himself out a window rather than walking back into any room that his father is in ever again. “I don’t think that really counts as being a shitty parent, but absent could count if you want it to.”

“My dad’s dead too.” Carlos says, standing up and pocketing his phone in one smooth motion. “C’mon Evie, we can go get snacks or something.”

“If you’re sure that you’re all going to be okay in here, and not try to burn any buildings down,” Evie says, looking at Mal, “I think that’s a good idea.”

Mal waves a gracefully scarred hand.“The bad dad club requests chips.”

“Granted.”

“Then begone from my sight, dead daddy issue gang.”

Evie leans in to press a kiss to Mal’s forehead. “Don’t cause any major incidents, okay? And have fun, I guess.”

“We won’t.”

“I might,” Jay says, from where he’s curled on the floor with his homework. “I love talking shit about my father.”

Ben’s face still feels raw. “I want to kill my dad.” he says. He’s not thinking straight. His voice is still hoarse. He can feel the air being crushed out of him. A war hero for a dad is all well and good until the villains are gone, there’s no more wars to fight, and the beast can’t put his claws away to handle the kid he’s somehow been given.

There’s a moment of shocked, dead silence, and then everyone bursts into noise all at once.

“Babe,” someone who is probably Evie says, “We don’t have to-“

“…can kill him for you if you want, not like it would be—“

“To reconsider methods?”

Mal is cackling. Loudly. She’s the easiest thread to pick out, so that’s what Ben focuses on. She’s cackling like her mother, rough and full-bodied and creepier the longer it goes on.

“That’s the spirit! I can have a spell within the week!”

54 notes - Posted March 1, 2022

#4

D2 was a bop actually

“Ben,” Evie snaps, “Stop. Just. Stop that.” 

“Why?” Ben asks, already freezing. He’s not dumb. The Isle is obviously a dangerous place to be, but he’s got some guy in a pirate hat staring at him, and the VKs are all about confronting people who stare at them in the hall at school. 

The guy who’d been staring at him leers, and Evie jerks him backwards before the flash of silver in the guy’s hand can make contact. 

“That’s why,” Evie whispers, both hands on his shoulders. “This isn’t a paradise. It’s the Isle. You have to blend in, or we’re not going to have enough of you to be worth taking back with us.” 

The guy in the pirate hat is laughing at them, until there’s a ripping noise, and then a gurgling one, and he’s not laughing anymore. He’s on the ground, actually, and there’s something dark and wet staining his shirt. Something fresh, that is. There’s a lot of stains already on the guy’s clothes. 

Jay tucks something small and shiny back into his pocket. The guy is still moving, but the way the blood is spreading makes it sort of clear that he’s not going to be moving for much longer. 

Ben decides, rather abruptly, that he’s going to look at Evie and only Evie until further notice. 

Evie seems to agree with this decision, if the way she’s pulling on his shoulders is any indication. 

“Head down,” Evie instructs, tugging on the knit hat she gave him in the car. “Don’t look at anyone, don’t say hello, and definitely don’t try to shake hands with people. They aren’t going to just wish you a good day here.” 

“Keep your hands in your pockets unless you’re stealing,” Jay adds. “And uh, maybe don’t try that either. You’re not carrying anything valuable, are you?” 

Ben is smart enough to just shake his head. He’s carrying a number of valuable items, from the ring on his finger to the ID and money in his wallet, but he’s starting to get the idea that he should keep his mouth shut and his head down here, and that even talking about any valuables is the quickest way to lose them. 

Not that he can’t replace the wallet, if it comes down to that. 

And as long as nobody steals the fingerprints off his fingers. That would be… problematic. 

Well. The court buildings could probably use an update to the fingerprint scanners anyway. And it’s not like most villains are going to escape the isle anytime soon. Especially not if Ben is here, instead of at home passing laws to open the isle for the children of the villains. Who may or may not have murdered people. 

It’ll be fine. 

Yeah. 

“Yeah,” Carlos says, echoing the sentiment Ben is trying to repeat to himself. “and you either slouch or strut. None of your royal galavanting everywhere. Shoulders down. Look like you want to be somewhere else.” 

That part should be easy. “I wish,” Ben says, trying to comply with the instructions. His shoulders feel too wide to slouch properly. “I want to be somewhere else.” 

Evie reaches over and pushes his shoulders down and forward, halfway rolled, like he’s hunching over a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day. Or like he’s trying to his his laptop screen from someone. A secretive posture. 

“Yeah, well,” she says, going for Ben’s hip next. “We need to get Mal, so you need to blend in long enough to get her out of here alive with us.” 

Ben slouches, trying to match Evie’s posture. “Sure.” 

Evie frowns. “You’re cute. Look mean.” 

Ben isn’t good at looking mean. It’s one of his best features, usually. Nobody questions his intentions back home when he can just smile and tell them that he’s doing research for a school project, and them beam politely at them and start spouting facts about the history of chocolate trading in the Atlantica provinces in the 1600s until they go away and let him get on with his actual reading. 

Still, it’s worth a try. Ben’s had teachers who are mean, and it’s usually something about the eyebrows. 

“Like this?” he tries, scowling a bit. 

Evie’s lips quirk up in something that’s almost like a smile, but meaner. The kind of smile that Audrey would give right before she made someone cry. “Sure. And never, ever smile, okay? It makes you look unhinged.” 

Ben frowns at that. “Thanks.”

Evie slaps his shoulder. “No!” she exclaims. “No ‘thank you', and drop the ‘please’ too. Just… be chill.” 

61 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

#3

Mal should be allowed to kill

“You…” 

“I killed my mother,” Mal gasps, looking just as shocked as the rest of the assembled crowd. “She’s really dead.”

Fairy Godmother scoops up the crushed body of the lizard, which had been quite set on escaping to freedom just moments before Mal’s attempt at capturing her under a bowl had ended rather badly. ”It would certainly seem that way.” she agrees. “It’s a funny thing, how the most powerful among us can be felled by the smallest acts of kindness, isn’t it?” 

“I was trying to capture her,” Mal says, still looking sort of shocked. “I wanted to keep her in an aquarium and torment her every day until she shrunk down to nothing.”

Fairy Godmother frowns, still cradling the body of her greatest enemy in her cupped hands. “That’s not very kind of you, dear.” 

“My mother has never been kind to me,” Mal says, looking a bit like she’d like to crush another one of the world’s most powerful sorceresses under a glass bowl. “The love in her heart was there because her stupid familiar is still up on the rafters, and I’m sure she caught a glimpse of him and remembered how nice it is to have a creature that’s entirely under your control. She doesn’t love me. People don’t love their favorite tools, especially not when they fail at getting you out of prison and try to betray you. You wouldn’t love a hammer if it kept turning around and hitting you instead of the nail, right? My mother valued me as a tool. She’s never once loved me, and now,” Mal turns around to face the assembled crowd of her friends, a little cluster of bright clothes and shocked faces amidst the pastel crowd of Auradon royalty and their families. “She’s never going to hurt us again!” 

A murmur goes through the crowd. 

“Maleficent is dead!” Mal shouts. “Long live the new king!” 

This is a sentiment the crowd understands. 

“Long live the king!” 

“And death to my mother!” Mal adds, under the rising murmurs of a crowd who is starting to process what they’ve just seen. “May she rest in hell where she belongs.”

94 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#2

“I’ve never actually used a shower before!” Jay shouts. “My dad didn’t let me use the nice shit at Maleficent’s place!” 

“My mom didn’t let me use the nice shit!” Mal calls back. “It’s left knob for hot water, right knob for cold.” 

There’s a moment of silence, and then a creak, and the sound of rushing water. 

“If you don’t condition your hair I’m going to disown you.” Evie says softly, leaning her head up against the crack in the door. “It’s—“ 

There’s a clunk, and then the sounds of several bottles falling off the edge of the shower. 

Jay yelps. “Fuck.” 

“It’s the purple bottle!” Evie chirps helpfully. 

Another clatter. 

“There’s two purple bottles,” Jay calls, voice slightly strangled sounding. “And they’re both fucking heavy and one of them fell on my fucking nerve point.” 

“Dark purple!” Evie calls sweetly through the door. “The light purple one is for Mal, it keeps her color fresh.” 

“Take that back!” Mal snaps. She does not dye her hair, and Evie knows it. 

Evie sticks her tongue out at Mal. “No,” she says “I’m not lying for you anymore. We’re supposed to be learning how to blend in either the good little princes and princesses now.”

“By not lying,” Mal grumbles. “Which is what you’re doing right now, you terrible witch.” 

“I would never.” Evie says sweetly, leaning against the door of the bathroom. “I’ve never lied once in my life ever.” 

107 notes - Posted June 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

MORE heartslabyul fam?? In my gdocs?? It's more likely than you think

A little bit of Heartslabyul upperclassmen fic, playing directly with @mintmoth 's Overblot AU idea. (After overblotting, the overblot-form of the student hangs around for a bit causing problems as a sort of magical leftover)

+

“No offense babes, but he’s sort of harshing the vibe here. Can he like, leave?” 

“No.” Riddle says flatly. There’s something dead about his eyes. It would almost be a nice change from the burning rage, except for how it’s mostly just worrying.  “He’s a physical manifestation of my worst qualities, borne of my magic. He can’t physically leave my presence.” 

“But like–” Cater waves a hand. “He doesn’t follow you to the bathroom.” 

Riddle sighs. Deeply. 

The overblot shrieks in pure, unbridled rage. “HE IS RIGHT HERE! WERE I TO LEAVE I SUSPECT YOU WOULD CONTINUE THIS DISRESPECTFUL DIATRIBE AGAINST MY CHARACTER AND I REFUSE TO BE SPOKEN ABOUT IN SUCH A WAY!!” 

“Cool.” Cater lifts his hand to draw in a fresh mouthful of smoke. “If we promise to shut up about you, will you leave?” 

“NO.” 

“‘Kay. Do you want to join in, or do you wanna like, go do some more homework or something in the corner?” 

The overblot’s face crumples a bit. “Homework is a worthwhile way to occupy our time here as students. If I were to go and do that, would you join me?” 

“Nah. It’s Friday, babe. Time to relax for once.” 

The overblot glances back and forth from the desk to Cater, eyes flickering even more than they normally seem to be. The creepy shadow realm thing makes it hard to tell exactly what his face is doing most of the time. Beyond rage. That comes through perfectly well. Also the screaming, that really helps with the emotional projection there. 

“I do not want to relax–” he tries. “I would rather see my time put to good use.” 

He sneaks a glance over at the actual flesh-and-blood Riddle, who seems to have given up and is sitting on the floor. 

Cater follows his gaze. “Yeah, even Riddle has to relax sometime. You’re allowed to not be a manifestation of evil all the time, y’know. You could try chilling the fuck out. Eating a pastry or something. You want to join us?” 

“No.” The overblot-riddle says, but he’s not screaming anymore, so it’s still progress. “I would rather sit in the corner and pretend not to see my housemates waste their time on frivolous pastimes that will ultimately destroy their lungs and hearts before the age of forty-five, thank you.” 

Cater laughs, because he hasn’t actually managed to destroy his lungs with smoke yet, despite what the overblot (and Riddle too, probably) thinks. “Sure. We’ll be over here having fun if you change your mind.” 

“I will not.” then overblot says stiffly, walking over to his corner. “In the rare case that you come to your senses, I will be in my corner.”

341 notes - Posted August 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[softichill]

Man. Fuck discourse of literally any kind