#shazam for birds basically. I love you birds

[frogball5000]

birds make me so happy. today I've been using the merlin app to record and identify birds around me by their song. makes me glad to know who I'm listening to :)

[owlpellet]

Hi I saw your post about having 12 species of birds in your backyard so now I’m genuinely asking: what’s your advice for bird watching? And getting those birds into my backyard?

so i'm not what anyone would call a comprehensive resource but i can offer a few tips, yeah!

for making your yard attractive to birds:

birds do not like open space, as it makes them vulnerable to predators. they need lots of foliage to hide, so place any feeders or other features in places that aren't wide open. if you do not have a lot of plants in your yard, change that if you can!

diverse plants will also attract nectar-feeding birds and insect-eating birds, and are sort of your "natural" feeder setup. you can check if your area offers grants for pollinator gardens.

a non-stagnant or regularly-changed water feature (fountain, bird bath) is also very attractive to birds. in hotter climates, i would say it's an essential addition.

different types of feeders and food attract different types of birds. you can draw hummingbirds with nectar and bright flowers (they love fuchsia), most songbirds with black oil sunflower and safflower seeds, a whole variety with different suet, corvids with peanuts; doves and juncos and corvids prefer tray or ground feeding, little songbirds like something they can cling to, etc. research what kind attracts what you want to see, or make a diverse setup if you have the space. you can usually avoid feed that has millet, most birds will just hurl it everywhere.

don't feed birds bread; it's empty fluff and just fills them up. seed is boring but fine, they don't really have a concept of food being "boring"

clean your feeders every time you refill them (and change hummingbird feeders every few days regardless); there are several contagious avian diseases and you want to avoid outbreaks. your feeders will become known as foul and the uninfected will move on.

if you live in an area that has them, figure out a way to rodent-proof your feeders, like squirrel baffles. they'll destroy your whole setup and scare away all the birds (you can try to set up a special squirrel feeder, but they do not respect borders).

consider nest boxes! make sure they can be opened for cleaning, and don't have any harmful materials in their construction.

check if your town has a backyard birding store, like wild birds unlimited or a locally-owned equivalent. there will almost always be an old woman who may or may not work there willing to dispense advice about your local birds.

keep your cats indoors

for watchin them birds:

get the merlin app on your phone; it's kind of like Bird Shazam and can help you ID based on its song

if you want to get more serious, you can also get eBird and report your findings/keep a checklist

if you don't have a fancy zoom lens camera, get a pair of binoculars! they're good to have even if you do. you can even take pics through them with your phone.

the best time to watch birds is from about sunrise to late morning

don't interact with the birds, save for outlier circumstances (rescue, one lands on you, etc)

yard-watching and trail-watching are pretty different when it comes to ethics and how much humans and birds should be interacting. in general it's frowned upon to feed birds in wilderness areas to attract them, whereas urban birds are already accustomed to human presence. it's also frowned upon to play mating songs to attract birds.

don't go off-trail trying to find birds you can hear. it's dangerous for you and upsetting to them.

your area might have local birding meetups, or online groups where people report sightings and good spots.

there's uhhh probably a lot more i'm forgetting to add but i think this covers the basics!

[velociheroviridi]

finally watched Blue Beetle today and honestly it was so good. it also made me cry 3 or 4 times. Rude.

buuuut it's been giving me thoughts, cuz this is like the first DCEU movie to delve into the more so "second generation superheros." Cuz ya know you have Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, etc, all first generation superheros (Captain Marvel/Shazam can be argued to be a mix of both), but here's Jaime, the second/third person to take on the Blue Beetle identity AND is 22yo, much younger than the others. Anyways tho, this is to say, this sparked thoughts of more movies with second generation superheroes and ofc my mind went to the Nightwing movie they mentioned possibly one day being a thing years ago, and me and my so started discussing and BASICALLY, if I was in charge of the DCEU, this is what I would do Batfam-wise:

Release a Batman and Robin movie with Tim as Robin (since in Justice League they showed that Jason is already dead)

Then release a Nightwing movie, since he'd already be kind of introduced in the Batman and Robin one

Then a Batgirl movie, but with Steph since it would be too late for Barbara, and they already fumbled with Cass's char in Birds of Prey (unless they're willing to have a redo) - and since Tim is currently Robin, you could also have Stephanie's step in as Robin included

Then a Red Hood movie, since Jason would have obviously been discussed and introduced in Tim's movie since it's so intertwined with his origin

Then a Son of Batfam movie introducing Damian and having Tim move on to Red Robin

Then perhaps an Oracle movie or Signal movie, idk Oracle could come before Damian's

Then a possible Batfam movie, including the previously mentioned chars plus maybe Luke Fox, Selena, and maybe bring in Clayface and Harley? Or you could keep it more low-key with just the main members and kinda have all the previous movie mesh together and see them all actually interact with each other, that would be fantastic actually. Like a whole "you've seen them individually but get ready for a movie with ALL the superheroes you love" and it can be half family comedy ya know? I'm in love with this idea now, I need it

Then perhaps a Batman incorporated movie introducing all the members of that

Here me out: Nightwing 2: Titans with all the ogs involved like Donna. and then you gotta have Wally

Ok so this is as far as my brain has thought but like...c'mon guys, c'mon DC, PLS

[penny-anna]

Hi, you said that you have daemon AUs for other fandoms, and I am intensely interested in that, if you are willing to share!

YES i got loads of those to rec!

like a tiger (defying the laws of gravity) by Fiachra

"Billy hated how he picked her up so gingerly, when in any other case he’d just pull her against his chest. He hated how holding his daemon, the most natural thing in the world, felt so clumsy and awkward with his new hands. He hated how he could feel Cassi’s heart racing through his fingers, how fragile she felt in his grip."

Shazam! But they have daemons

requisite shazam daemon au

Two Halves of a Whole by penguistifical

Geralt doesn’t take much notice at first when the small brown bird alights on his table.

tehehe i've recced this one before, delightful little geraskier daemon au

Honest Souls by trinityofone

There was something wrong with Spike’s dæmon.

might have recced this one before also? i think it was the only buffy daemon au i could find! got some great worldbuilding going on i love it

The Swan Princess by Mad_Maudlin

She just rolled her eyes at him. "He hasn't got a daemon, stupid. That's how you know he's an alien."

11th doctor daemon au!! personal fav of mine & inspiration for my dr who daemon fic :3

Eidari by Joysweeper

A series of short stories set in a version of the Galaxy Far, Far Away in which the Force is entangled with Dust, and humans and some near-humans have dæmons, animal-shaped manifestations of their consciousness or souls. Luke and his dæmon, Peregrine, are weird and always have been, but they do have one friend who doesn't seem to care. However, there are limits to that acceptance.

ahhh i love this whole series. wish there was more of it.

Without Any External or Physical Form by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)

Lucy and Mr. Tumnus discuss history and hypotheticals over tea, in the second summer after the end of the Witch's reign. Daemon AU.

cute little narnia fic!!

Feel Me Up, Babe by willowbilly

The first time that Jake and Amy touch each others' dæmons, it begins with Jake asking Amy if she wants to feel his booby.

The booby in question is a blue-footed one, and his name is Yaakov. The name Yaakov is basically the same name as Jacob. But like. Older and traditional-y. Basically, Jake's mother and Jake's mother's dæmon had consigned them to being “Jake Jake” the way in which that poor meme wolf was “Moon Moon,” and Gina was never going to let it be forgotten.

heheh brooklyn 99 w daemons, love that

Radium Dial by authorperson

“Radar,” they say, all of them, and he can always hear it coming before they even open their mouths. There’s always a smile there, like they’ve figured him out, and every time they’re wrong. “Because of her, right? The antennae?”

Radar and Eleanor keep em guessing.

ohhh if you only read one fic on this list please have it be this one, my no 1 favourite daemon au, i love it so much <3 read the whole series. absolutely outstanding.

[megamindsupremacy]

I posted 17,721 times in 2022

That's 17,718 more posts than 2021!

607 posts created (3%)

17,114 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@batshit-birds

@phoenixyfriend

@sohotthateveryonedied

@galahadwilder

@dannyphantom-justiceleauge

I tagged 2,250 of my posts in 2022

#mads posts - 449 posts

#i should make an ask tag - 151 posts

#dc - 89 posts

#ask game - 83 posts

#danny phantom - 52 posts

#billy batson - 49 posts

#batman - 49 posts

#shazam - 44 posts

#captain marvel - 38 posts

#goncharov - 37 posts

Longest Tag: 141 characters

#billy’s standing there like 🧍‍♂️ because he can’t hear them from where he’s standing all he knows is that the pair are arguing and now it lo

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Shazam has a tiktok account that’s solely dedicated to doing dangerous things because he’s basically invulnerable

4,200 notes - Posted January 17, 2022

#4

Dr Seward is SO determined to not be in a Gothic novel and honestly I cannot fault him for this

4,512 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

#3

Shazam has a Twitter and everything he posts is just straight up lies but nobody can figure out if he has a super weird life or if he’s messing with all of them (it’s both)

5,780 notes - Posted February 9, 2022

#2

Billy trying to figure out why villains keep throwing glowing green rocks at him and then being surprised when nothing happens and he rocks their shit so one day he brings like a backpack full of Kryptonite up to the Watchtower to ask Batman what the fuck it is only to nearly kill Superman on accident

7,446 notes - Posted January 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

DC Twitter must have been INSANE when it got out that Superboy’s dads were Superman and Lex Luthor. Holy shit. The memes. The ship wars. The homophobes. The mpreg jokes. People would have lost their fucking minds. Lex Luthor releases a statement like “he’s a clone of me and Superman no birth was involved” and people are like KINDA GAY OF YOU TO HAVE A SON WITH ANOTHER MAN, LUTHOR. Lexcorp’s PR team locks themselves in a conference room and refuses to come out for love or money.

17,466 notes - Posted April 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[underthe-redhood]

Couple questions (I hope my longer asks aren't too much of a bother I tend to ramble lol)

Does batsis have a favourite JL hero? Or hero in general?

Who is Batsis' superhero best friend? (You know how the bats tend to have a corresponding Kryptonian/Amazonian)

Does batsis have a favourite gothamn rogue outside of the birds of prey? Bc we know the robins aren't as impartial as they try to seem (Cass and Clayface for example share a love of ballet/theatre and have been shown to bond in the comics)

What is Batsis' weapon? (Dick = escrima sticks, Tim = bo staff, Damian = sword, Jason = guns/motorbike)

Does batsis have a colour? Either favourite personal colour or colour for her suit

- 🐌

you’re not a bother at all! i actually look forward to getting these asks! i definitely ramble a lot myself so i totally get it lol

her favorite is either black canary, because she’s like a more low-key icon for feminism, cyborg because he gets the struggle of being a teenager in modern society but is still a mature adult that she can turn to, or shazam because he’s an actual kid in the justice league and it’s really refreshing to be around him. as for best friend, however, if we don’t count bart then it’d probably be wonder girl (cassie)

for gotham rogues i’d say either enchantress (does she count??) or maybe dead shot bc she has a soft spots for dads who care about their kids no matter what

i spent a lot of time trying to imagine a weapon for batsis and i just can’t come up with anything. i think maybe like batgirl she just uses batatangs but they’d be bluejay shaped?? but i’m trying to put off writing about it specifically in case i come up with an actual good idea lol, i feel like she’d have something kinda small and maybe basic like nunchucks maybe??

for favorite color, definitely blue but also purple!

[togepls]

our friend took us to see birds of prey and it really was a lot better than I had expected it to be and holy shit I related to Harley and that egg sandwich from the beginning so hard

[crazyw3irdo]

I see you’re also a Riddler fan. I gotta ask, how do you feel about his portrayal in the upcoming pattinson batman movie?

anon my beloved thank you so much for giving me this opportunity because i have ranted about this to multiple people irl but i don’t think i’ve fully lost it on this blog yet. long angry rant under the cut.

TLDR: i hate it

first of all, i can’t talk about what they’ve done to my beloved puzzle doofus without addressing the larger problem that dc movies have as a whole: the “dark and edgy” factor. i’ve done a bit of a rant on this in my tags recently here but that was really just a side point to what i was talking about at that moment. basically, fans want characters to be happy. movie makers continue to not understand that. i’d thought the dceu was moving more towards the actual fun stuff lately- shazam, birds of prey, and the suicide squad were all amazing- but as much as i love robert pattinson and think he’ll do a great job it’s not. it’s not looking good. i don’t want another grimdark movie. i want fun.

when i first heard that ed was gonna be the main villain i was just. very concerned. like. i would love to see him in a movie. i would love my good riddle boy getting to be funny and over the top but i just wasn’t sure if they were going in that direction and just… it’s clear that’s not it. and it’s not even in a direction i could understand?? like i knew in my core they wouldn’t let him be camp, but to jump so far into. whatever the hell that outfit is was just entirely unexpected.

i know comics can change canon characterization around from comic to comic and that combined with various fanon interpretations that how everyone looks at specific characters can be different, so i’d like to quickly take a moment to express my ideal form of the riddler that might just include a lot of projecting:

he’s a guy who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. he’s a guy who wishes he had someone on his level. he just wants attention. he does like batman, he respects him, he thinks that since batman can solve his riddles that maybe he isn’t as lonely as he thinks, but batman still locks him in arkham and as smart as he is he doesn’t understand why. he’s like a child acting out because it’s the only way he knows how to get attention. he’s a gifted kid with burnout. he struggles so much socially that he tries to reject society by focusing on riddles and intelligence but still wants that social attention. he’s a campy theatre kid that loves showing off. he’s a smug little bastard trying his best. he pouts when he doesn’t get what he wants. he’s autistic. he’s gay but nobody wants him. he and oswald are divorced.

i know i likely won’t ever get my ideal riddler, but really just what hurts me the most is there are so many ways to make him edgy and just out of character enough that would still work so much better than whatever this is. make him a snobbish asshole in a clean pressed suit sneering at those below him, make him a rejected loner who wants to prove the world wrong through any means necessary, make him a jigsaw-like character with deadly escape rooms, hell make him an r/iamverysmart “you say you want to improve society and yet you still live in it? checkmate. i am very intelligent.” and it’d still be better than whatever the fuck this is.

and good god the costume. the fucking costume. edward has fucking standards. what the absolute fuck were they thinking? i get if you don’t want him looking like the jim carrey version or the early comics where he had that amazingly terrible skintight bright green spandex, i don’t expect him to wear that, but in almost every other version of the riddler he wears a suit. that’s his thing.

look at the arkham & telltale games versions. look at how good these are. he’s not even wearing a suit in arkham knight, but it still works

yeah they’re not live action, but you know what riddler looked fucking amazing in live action?

i have very mixed feelings about the gotham tv show, especially for someone who never watched it, but just look at his fucking suits. it’s amazing. they’re iconic. they’re beautiful.

what the fuck is this. who is this and what did they do to my little riddle lad. i hate this. it’d be better if he was in secondhand party city onceler cosplay.

[im-frickin-trying-okay]

Random BNHA Headcanons

(This is my first time doing this 😭)

Summary: A bunch of random BNHA headcanons. So, basically the title. The only reason I’m adding a read more is because I want it to be easier to navigate my page, lol

Bakugo is oddly nice when he first wakes up, but he's not exactly a morning person. He's less "I hate the world, why am I awake???" And more like "I'm extremely comfortable and the only thing that can ruin my mood is becoming less comfortable." He likes hovering between awake and asleep, y'know? Which is why if he's sleepy, his guard drops. When leaving the dorms, if he hasn't fully woken up, he goes from "outta my way, shitty-hair," to "mornin' Eijirou," and by the time he's actually aware of what he said, Kiri's already freaking out. If he's in bed all day for any reason other than being sick, he's probably soft for at least a few hours.

Kaminari's the type to wake up at 2 AM with an idea, go to jot it down, and then realize that he wrote a ten chapter book and now he's late for class. He'll probably put it into a google doc or something, so he can continue to add onto it throughout the day. I also feel like he probably will also randomly get a question and then spend hours researching it and any surrounding topics, before rambling to Kiri about "bro, if I went to the beach, I could make a bunch of glass! Probably! Maybe!" And then have to try and convince his friends that he can just make windows if anyone needs them.

Sero had added moves to his skill set, and practiced particular actions, with the sole intention of mimicking Spiderman. When Kirishima questions him on it, he compares Spiderman to Crimson Riot. They have a conversation that's essentially fanboying, both of them saying "we are not bringing All Might into this," and then more fanboying.

Jirou has an extremely eclectic music taste. If you can name a song, she probably knows it. She can memorize full melodies and all the lyrics within two or three listens, because she's just that good. Some people call her the human Shazam, because if you play the first five seconds of a song she likes, she'll immediately know what it is. She's also called out artists if they made a clear rip-off of a much better song. Her music taste is all over the place, which therefore makes it superior. However. This does not stop her from listening to the same six songs on repeat for a week. The six change a lot, though.

Koda has trouble with bugs, especially big ones. They scare him. But he has pretty much no issues with tigers, lions, horses, or even wolves. He loves animals, he really does. If you just showed up at his doorstep and shoved a bear cub in his arms, he wouldn't really question it, because he'd be happy to have a cute animal to play with.

Todoroki believes himself to be the opposite of moody. His definition of moody is switching emotions for no reason. He, personally, doesn't feel any emotion until something happens that day, be it a thought or an event, and his emotions stay fixed like that until something else happens. He could be having a great day, and then suddenly, it's a horrible day, and he can't figure out how people just "get over it." He does, however, find that unless something REALLY bad or REALLY good happens, his brain does a little emotional reset when he goes to sleep. Like, go to sleep feeling down, wake up feeling kinda meh.

Kirishima has considered re-dying his hair. Come on, hot pink is so manly! How could he not consider it? But he eventually resigns himself, because red just is his color now. Also, I feel like once, before dorms, he was really out of it, so he went to class with his hair down, and this was the first time anyone had seen him like that, and everyone was just confused as hell. Especially Bakugo. "Your hair's less shitty today. What the fuck."

Uraraka takes part in stupid bets all the time. Partially for the fun, and partially for the profit. She once floated Bakugo to the ceiling for 26 minutes before she had to put him down, because Kiri said that if she survived, he'd give her a dollar per minute. She ended up having to go to the recovery girl's office, but at least she got her money.

Mina is one of the few people who can understand and keep up with Deku's mumbling. This is not because she specifically tries to, (like Uraraka) or because she's known him long enough, (like Bakugo.) She's just used to gossipping with Hagakure at 4 AM, and therefore can understand high-speed low-volume speech. She's called him out on things before, but only when she's interested. She completely tunes out things about All Might and heroes and whatnot, but if he ever has anything to say about his classmates, specifically about Uraraka, Todoroki, and Bakugo, (because she, Hagakure, and Denki placed bets,) she hears every word.

Iida secretly loves to break the rules. He acts strict in front of anyone who he respects, or wants respect from, but after he thinks everyone's asleep, he relaxes, doing things that he considers rule-breaking without any remorse. Denki heard someone walking around outside while on one of his late-night internet searches. After finally willing himself to break away from an article about pandas, he popped his head out of the door to find Iida sneaking around. After some silent observation, Denki realized that not only did Iida just get back from breaking curfew, but he casually stole Hot Cheetos from Bakugo's room on the way back to his dorm. He said nothing the next day, at least not directly, but he sorta shoved Sero and Iida in the same room so that they could be bad influences on each other.

Despite it being a major part of her quirk, Hagakure almost never feels invisible. She has a lot of friends to talk to, she can wear cool outfits to stand out, and she is always talking. The only time she's not talking is during stealth training, and when she's using said stealth training to spy on people.

Tsu's little "ribbit" thing is actually just for fun. It feels right to do it, so she does it. Nothing wrong with that. However, pretty much everyone else assumed it was a part of her quirk. It took an insane amount of convincing to get that idea out of their heads. Deku was proud to be one of the few who never actually associated it with her quirk. He could prove it if he wanted to, actually, but that would require showing someone his notebook, which would open a whole other can of worms.

Oh yeah, speaking of Deku's notebook, he has multiple. Six to be exact. One is on his fellow classmates, one is on most pros, one is on the LOV, one is specifically on All Might, one is on his own quirk development, and the last one is a narrative of what's happening in his life, which is why he's constantly thinking as if he's telling a story. He mentally narrates everything that happens in his life, although he sometimes wonders if he's dramatizing things because of that. His internal monologue is constantly running its mouth, and sometimes he ends up speaking over it.

Tokoyami really likes plague doctors. He just does. He wants a plague doctor mask so he can walk around with less judgement, or maybe more, who knows? He just loved the concept. He claims that they're just really cool, which most people agree with, but he's never told any of them that he likes them because he saw a plague doctor mask for the first time at the age of six, and immediately thought bird man.

Sato likes baking, but he can't cook normally to save his life. Well, he can, but he can't. He hasn't burned water, and he knows how to do the very basics, but he can't function without a recipe, not to mention the fact that he's googled how to saute mushrooms three times and still doesn't get it. Baking comes pretty naturally. Exact measurements, precise times and temperatures. Cooking does not. Eyeballing ingredient amounts, guessing if the flame is high enough, trying to figure out how often 'stir occasionally' is. He actually once asked Bakugo if he had advice, to which he responded, "Why the hell are you asking me?!"

[enchanted-lightning-aes]

what are your favorite movies/shows Enchant???

(you are amazing love you!)

hey there, carmen! uh, thanks for teh ask, i guess. ✨🌟🌟🌟

i guess my latest favorites are dceu movies atm. mostly birds of prey and shazam if i'm being honest. i'm more excited about their newer stuff than m.cu. 😌

don't get me wrong, i still care about m.arvel (as much as i hate to admit it). however, dc's been surprising me lately by giving me what i wanted from m.cu's phase 4: found family, lots of women, and nuance to their characters.

in fact i'm still mad a certain character that i hated (i mean i hate him less now bc his show helped me understand him more) had a lot more stuff than one of favorite m.cu characters did. 🤧🤧🤧 just dceu, basically.

how about you??

[hometothecanyonmoon]

cue emotional post!

uhhhh henloe! making this post has me on the verge of tears so please bear with me.

if you think i’m making this post as my version of “emotional otb admin who confesses their undying love for other admins”, then you’re absolutely right.

can i start by saying, i love you all???? now that you know that fact, let’s go ahead. i have never celebrated pride before. it was joining the 1d fandom that led me to explore different identities, that confirmed that i wasn’t a cishet girl. the fandom gave me the courage to ask myself questions, and find answers to them. it gave me courage to change my name, my labels, my pronouns, as i kept on learning more about myself. it introduced me to the queer community, something i had never been exposed to before. i have to thank louis for this. becoming his fan has changed my life. when OTB released, it felt like my “oh” moment. though it took me months after that to actually come out, the song gave me the push i required. which is why, i was overjoyed when i got the opportunity to work on this project.

we had a shit-ton of setbacks, leading to tears and frustration and angry keysmashes. huge UAs that could have changed the course of the project refused to respond to us. twitter was the absolute worst. they thought we were trying to push the attention away from Project KMM, when in reality KMM had died before it even began. before we even began. many people didn’t even know there was a project for OTB. personally for me, it was the worst month of my life. my life was once again torn apart.

through all of this, though, this project was the thing that kept me alive. it gave me a reason to power through the worst of days. it gave me a reason to ignore everything else going wrong in my life and focus. it gave me a reason to not scream when my mother laughed at homophobic jokes, because i knew i had to stay alive for this project.

the friends i made in this time feel more like my family now, instead of my biological one. so this is a post for all of you.

@dyingstars-x : seven!! they came up with the original idea. i don’t know what queer louie spirit possessed you, but i’m so so so glad you decided to post this. that one post had my mind dancing in circles and bursting with ideas. they have been the best parent to all of us, looking over everything, coming up with concepts in a few hours’ time, keeping us sane. idek how to put it into words but mostly- seven’s contribution has been priceless.

@saintqueer : JORDANNNNNNNN!! while all the admins have been working super hard and being amazing, hear me out- jordan is the backbone of this project. she reached out to seven, and within just a few hours of us confirming the project, they got to work!! their twitter talents are unmatched, trust me. she’s been so good at dealing with the UA drama; i truly could never. they also made tiktoks!! i want to say so much but i can’t formulate my thoughts. but you should all hail jordan. they just make me go dshfdkjfkdjhskfndk

@rainboww-paradise : mimi! despite her busy schedule she took out so much time to brainstorm with us in the first few days. (we literally said hi to each other and started brainstorming for themes it was a Mess). she kept on making time to make amazing graphics, and share gorgeous ideas, as well as being a person you can always rely on for motivation.

@thosefookinavacados : A!! they made all the wonderful playlists you can use, as well as handling the drabble fest with me. we were both diving into it with no idea of what to do, but we figured it out together. they’ve been the most hilarious companion in this.

@herefortommo : emma!! she gave you the streaming updates every day, as well as making those uquizzes???? it was really fucking hard, i don’t know how they managed to come up with so much. they always shared tumblr asks and all the nice comments you left on our uquizzes, and it was so much fun to read them. she also figured out how to use shazam and tiktok and deezer 😭

@1dwoodchuck : nicky!! she handled twitter most of the time, and she was SO good at it. like, seriously. she found out more about the UEFA league and kept coming up with creative ideas for tweets. she kept talking to UAs and roped most of them in to help us ✨✨

@fishandfrog and @secretheartmp3 who both helped us a lot at the start, even though they were busy afterwards 💕

honourable mentions to @staff for including us, UnitedByPop for writing an article about us, promoting it so many times, and including it in their monthly round-up. they did so much for us. also!!!! i was looking forward to this- a huge huge thank you to @dailytomlinson , especially cristal @ltyear for helping us when literally no one would. they’ve boosted our posts so many times and supported us, and it means a lot. you’re now my favourite UA. mwah.

special thanks to @thetriangletattoo , flo, who was basically part of the team without being a part of the team. she was so so so supportive of us, making gorgeous art, and giving us permission to share it on that bird app! they always used their twitter account to use our hashtags and boost our tweets. we always shared those tweets in the server, and every time we confessed our undying love for her. they were even featured in the staff post, and that’s huge! she was literally the sweetest angel ever, and we love them a lot ✨ (ps they also introduced the found family trope to this project, so yes flo, now you are my family)

lastly, a huge thank you to all the content creators of this fandom, whether you made fanart or gifs or graphics or wrote a fic. this was all made for you. sharing love and kindness is what fandom is about, and i hope this month highlighted that. this fandom has become my home, and i’m so happy that i get to share it with you wonderful people. thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for taking part, giving this project your time, and making this happen. thank you to everyone else who participated, whether it was boosting tweets or streaming or simply reblogging posts. your contribution is priceless.

thank you.

love, rae

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Wonder Woman 1984

The first 3/4 of 2017’s Wonder Woman was my favorite film of that year. The last 1/4 was my least favorite film of that year. What can I say, I have a complicated relationship with the DCEU, and the part I keep getting disappointed by is the big smash-em-up, explosions everywhere, muddy mess of orange/blue filter in the “climactic showdown” between hero and villain. I just don’t have the patience for it anymore, and I was so hoping that the Jazzercise vibes of Wonder Woman 1984 would do something different. 

As it turns out, this movie was trying to warn me like so many stories that have come before - be careful what you wish for. Just how badly did my wish go bad? Well...

I’d already heard some questionable things about the movie before I tuned in, so my expectations were tempered but I guess it was on me. I should have known better than to wish for a story with reasonable pacing, some kind of consistent tone, villains with discernable motivation, or a Wonder Woman movie that was actually about fucking Wonder Woman. I’m not even mad as much as I am puzzled. That and tormented by Pedro Pascal’s manic televangelist energy in my dreams. 

Some thoughts:

I have never wanted to go anywhere as much as I want to in 2020, and the place I want to go more than any other is Themyscira. Love this first sequence. Why is the whole movie not about Themyscira??

If the Olympics were like this whole long Amazonian warrior triathlon, I would be WAY more into track and field. 

Also I legit don’t understand the problem with her taking the short path? Like, it’s there for a reason? She just caught up to her horse? Someone explain this to me.

So this mall...basically the hub of American commerce in the 80s that was practically printing money, it made it so fast...is secretly a front for antiquities trading on the black market? And these unorganized-ass dipshit criminals who seemingly just walked in off the street and decided to engage in some light robbery today are after antiquities? Sure, Jan.

Ohh I miss Waldenbooks so much!

This thwarting of crime sequence in the mall feels so...cheesy. Schlocky, almost. Like a 50s comic book come to life. I dunno, it just doesn’t feel like the tone I was expecting. In the context of the whole film, we really blew our action load in these first 2 sequences, and also this is the last point in the movie in which Diana actually resembles her character from the first film.

I would also be stammery and blushy when talking to Diana Prince for the first (and second) time, but I’m kinda getting a gay vibe from Barbara. This meet-cute + date is definitely playing up romantic vibes. Kristen Wiig is so good at characters like these - in less than 2 scenes, I have such a clear picture of who Barbara is, what she wants, what she fears, and that’s all down to Wiig’s choices. [ETA: This makes it all the more infuriating when Barbara suddenly is like “I want to be an apex predator” when nothing about her character’s reaction to getting positive attention indicates she would want to start shitting all over everyone else.]

Pedro Pascal is skeeving me out as our villain Max Lord, which really just shows his range, because normally I love him and find him wildly charming in everything. But he’s playing this oil baron creep to the max, as they would say in the parlance of the 80s, and it makes my skin crawl. 

The mechanics of how Steve Trevor returns are wildly confusing. Why is this other guy involved at all? Are we supposed to be ok with the idea of Diana fucking *some other dude’s body* without his consent just because Steve’s spirit/consciousness/whatever is inside the guy? Also that guy DEFINITELY got fired from his job after going AWOL for a whole week, right? 

I am thrilled with Steve’s clothes montage. One of my favorite things in any 80s film, and his enthusiasm really sells it.

I do really like Diana and Steve playing detective, following clues, crafting theories. In spite of the absolute dumbassery of how Steve came back, Chris Pine and Gal Gadot have incredible chemistry and I do find their scenes together delightful. 

I think that’s why it’s so frustrating to me the way their entire relationship was handled. If the whole point of the wish going bad is that it has a cost, wouldn’t it have been better, instead of making Diana weak, to have Steve slowly start to be more and more of an asshole - aka not the Steve Diana remembered and loved? Make her realize that the Steve she knew and loved is really gone and she has to stop letting his memory hold her hostage. Maybe his last moment of self-awareness would be realizing that this wasn’t who he really was, and she was better off just remembering who he was and moving on rather than trying to hold on to this thing that isn’t good for her? 

The sequence with the fireworks made me emotional. The only time I’ve ever been on a plane on the 4th of July was when I was coming back from a visit with my uncle in Dallas. He had flown me, my mom, and my grandma down for a whirlwind trip, and we flew back the night of the 4th. I got to see fireworks from above for the first time, and it felt so magical. My uncle passed away 2 months ago, and feeling that magic again (via Diana and Steve) made me miss him and all the adventure he brought into my life something fierce.

Am I supposed to be like...anti- the idea of Barbara absolutely kicking the shit out of this drunk catcaller who attempted to assault her earlier in the movie? It feels like the film wants us to be like “oh no that’s bad” but my empathy goes on vacation for attempted rapists. 

Like...did anyone do ANY kind of fact-checking on this script? The Maya haven’t been “wiped from the face of the earth” there are still 6 million of them living in Central and South America. Escalators were invented in the 1890s for fucks’ sake. PLANES IN THE 80S DONT WORK LIKE PLANES IN 1918. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT ALL THOSE SWITCHES DO STEVE. Also...just because the plane is invisible doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist anymore. Isn’t the whole point of radar to detect things that you can’t, y’know, SEE? Seriously, how many people fiddled with this script until it turned into an incomprehensible mess?

Did I Cry? OK yeah, I did when Diana and Steve had their conversation after they escaped the White House. But I feel like I should have cried more then, as well as earlier when Diana tells Steve that she only wants this one thing. I love Gal Gadot in this role, but I do wish her acting expressed a little more emotional depth and honesty for the moments like this that should really tug on the heartstrings.

I know Wonder Woman is bulletproof, but are we saying she’s also...immune to electricity? 

If there’s one thing that living through a global pandemic has taught me, it’s that we can’t rely on the inherent responsibility of every individual person to do the right thing in order to save their community (or the world). So the climax of this film really feels like a big ol’ fictional FUCK YOU to every person who has been quarantining since March as the US government twiddles their thumbs and relies on personal choice to lower infection rates. I know they made this film during 2019 and had no idea what would be coming, but this entire sequence was the most horrifying, short-sighted, offensive way to have good overcome evil I could imagine for a 2020 movie. “Just count on people to do the right thing and everything will be fine!” We’re WELL FUCKING PAST THAT, Diana. 

And maybe this is my debbie downer pessimistic ass, but the message “the world is a beautiful place the way it was” feels like some real bullshit. Do you mean the world is a flawed, complicated place where beautiful things exist DESPITE all the violence, inequality, and poverty? Ok, that I’ll buy, for sure. But “Everything was fine the way it was!” is uhh not what I would have gone with. That’s a first draft edit if ever I heard one. Seriously, how did this make it through MULTIPLE studio drafts and no one thought to point this out?  

I literally had to go back after the credits were over and rewind to figure out what happened to Pedro Pascal at the end. If I not only don’t care, but also can’t remember what happened to the villain at the end of the movie, that’s a big motherfucking problem.

I was giddily delighted by that first post-credits scene though! Probably the biggest moment of joy I felt during the film.

For being a Wonder Woman movie, it feels like there’s so little actual Wonder Woman IN the movie. The first film is rooted firmly in Diana finding her place in the world, understanding and coming into her power. This feels like she’s a bystander in her own life, and her most significant moments are always in the context of someone else’s narrative arc. And there’s nothing that comes even close to the breathless wonder of that No-Man’s-Land scene, aka one of the best superhero movie moments of all time. 

This doesn’t have the knowing wink of Aquaman or the nuanced character arcs of Birds of Prey. It doesn’t have the childish glee of Shazam! or any of the nonsensical grimdark bullshit of Zack Snyder’s entire ouvre. It feels like Wonder Woman 1984 suffers the same fate as its protagonist - a profound lack of presence or drive. Sure there are some fun sequences, and the actors are doing the best they can with a weak script, but it’s just not enough to save it. In a year where I saw so few contemporary films (focusing more on catching up on past films I’d missed), I can’t think of one that disappointed me more. 

[the-princess-with-pancakes]

A few words about Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey

I know right? they changed the title after almost a week of screening. What a plot twist.

I was pretty hyped about this movie. No mather the trailers, they were just fine, but the cast and what I was hearing about this, made me very excited. After changing the head of DCEU (or The Worlds of DC (what a weird name)) every movie coming out with the DC logo was remarkably good. Aquaman (2018) was a lot of entertainment, Shazam (2019) was fun, Joker (2019) was great and emotional at times, it didn't win two Oscars for nothing (but I'm still #teamdriver). So what about Birds of Prey: And the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)? (I like the old title better)

Now we get to the good stuff, so watch out for *SPOILERS*.

The characters, especially the main one, are the best thing about this movie, so we are gonna start with the One and Only Harley Quinn. This is one of the greatest character redemptions in the last few years. She was an awful character Suicide Squad (2016), her only two roles were to look sexy and try to be crazy. That's no way to treat such a wonderful antiheroine. But this movie changed it completely. She finally got some depth. She finally doesn't like she's from a teenager's dream and she finally is funny. About her depth, they added Harley a good between movies' midstory. Which is good, but not great, because I still want to see, how the Joker sents Harley to space, she would be saved of course, but it would be entertaining. No one said this can't be done in future movies tho... Coming back, the few scenes, where she tells Black Canary drunk, that the Joker broke with her, or when she destroys the Laboratory, or when she watches TV with the kid, it shows, that she's human, not just a 1-dimensional disappointment. And combined with Margot Robbie's acting talent and her love for the character, she plays, it makes the movie great of itself. But she's not the only great thing in this picture and that's the best part. Seriously, I can't talk about her enough, so just one more thing, the costumes, wow, wonderful. More of that, please.

She's not alone tho! Not in the third act at least. I mean the Birds of Prey. Because they fight with her. You know. I'm pretty satisfied, how they have written these characters. Although they have a lesser role, then the original (better) title would say, but, that's not really a problem. Black Canary (my Injustice 2 main BTW) is great. I haven't seen that character anywhere else then Injustice 2 and Young Justice (2010-), so I can't say much about it, but I heard she's different here. I don't care tho, she's great, a very well written, after Harley, probably the best-written character here and the second with most screen time. She's badass but also warmhearted. It took me a bit, to get used to the design, but the actress does such a wonderful job, I can't be less mad about it. Montoya isn't the best, but she's still fun. Who cares about the age, when the actress plays as well as she can and does a great job? She's based on detectives from 80's cop shows, so not much to say about here. She's just good. The Huntress, I haven't seen such a badass character made fun off so much, without hurting her image. Such great work from the writers' side. Just explicit.

The humor is the third-best part of this movie. We'll talk about the second-best in a second. The jokes mostly got me. I'm not a big fan of in-your-face humor, I like more the background jokes, but I have to say, I found most of them really, really funny. The sandwich scene was for me a little too much, but for example, the part in the police station was just the best. Or at the carnival.

The choreography during combat is just amazing. As I remember correctly, people from the John Wick team were hired, to do the stunts, so it looks astonishing. Each of the main characters has a different combat style, which just adds to the visual madness of the fight scenes. And the R category adds even more to it. Watching so many legs brake in so many directions, hurt even me.

So there were like two villains. One side villain, but we're gonna talk about him first. I like Victor Zsasz from the Gotham (2014-2019) tv series and that's really the only expression that I saw of him till now. He's different, from what I can remember, less of a silent type and more of a talking psychopath, but he's still enjoyable to watch. He got nothing on the Black Mask tho. Ewan McGregor was a great casting decision. I haven't seen him earlier playing a villain, just the good guys, mostly Obi-Wan, but the job he does here is amazing. You can see, he has so much fun, like it was his childhood dream, to play a face-cutting gangster. My only problem with him was, that he's a little underused.

But that gets into the "bad stuff" category. The movie is great, but the is no movie without flaws. And the biggest is probably the plot. It's basic. it's just a race after a diamond. The backstories of the protagonists were much better. But it's not a big problem tho. The characters, action, and humor are on such a high level, that that doesn't even bother much. The saddest thing for me is the underuse of Black Mask and Bruce (the hyena named after that hunky millionaire Bruce Wayne (I wrote it with a smile on my face)).  After a while and a lot of thinking about it, I got to an impression, that the underuse of Black Mask in the third act (or the final fight for the most part) was that to show, that he's not the unstoppable, evil monster, that his describing himself as, but just a guy. So I let myself to turn a blind eye on that. But WTF writers! You have a fucking hyena, that we see in like two scenes and doesn't even rip two guys into pieces. I'm mad about it. And why one and not two? The more hyenas, the better.

You probably heard from the internet trolls, that that's just a big budget propaganda movie. It hates guys. Another Charlie's Angels (2019). Yeah... No. It doesn't. Showing strong female characters isn't a propaganda. It does not tell you, that man are the worst and you should hate them. I can't understand why someone would even think that. I saw the 1-stars wave on IMDb and got a little affraid, but don't worry. It's a wonderful movie, not for everyone, but definietly not like the basement trolls descibe it.

The SPOILER FREE zone is active from now on.

So to sum up. It's a great movie, with funny jokes and action like from a John Wick movie. It's not for everybody, but it's just better because of it. Because it is its own movie. And that's a not seen very often in blockbuster superhero movies. (Can we even call it that? It's not that big bugdet and it's about antiheroins) If you haven't yet, go and watch it. It deserves a little boxoffice boost.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

The DC films have been a mixed bag, to put it lightly. As of 2020, for every fun and enjoyable superhero film like Wonder Woman, Shazam, Aquaman, and Birds of Prey, there has been a film that was reviled or polarizing. Dawn of Justice and Justice League are both common punching bags, but there is one movie that stands out as the single most despised film in the DC cinematic universe so far:

Suicide Squad.

A lot of this comes from just how unashamedly blatant the film is at being a rushed cash in on the type of quirky superhero movie that Guardians of the Galaxy helped popularize: a bunch of wild and wacky antiheroes team up, fight a big problem, make one liners, and become a family, all while an awesome soundtrack blares in the background. It seems like the easiest thing in the world to rip off, but there’s a lot of heart and charm in Guardians that it’s not easy to replicate. And if you ask most critics… this movie did not.

Opinions on the film tend to range from lukewarm to outright hating, with IHE and the [REDACTED] Critic all throwing in their two cents. Perhaps the most damning review of all came from Mick LaSalle, who wrote:

“If you know someone you really can’t stand — not someone you dislike, not someone who rubs you the wrong way, but someone you really loathe and detest — send that person a ticket for “Suicide Squad.” It’s the kind of torment you can wish on your worst enemy without feeling too guilty: not something to inflict permanent damage, just two hours of soul-sickening confusion and sensory torment.”

There’s not much love for this, is what should be abundantly clear. And it’s really a shame, because there is stuff this film has going for it, but it wasn’t really enough to stop DC from basically hitting the soft reboot button and snagging the actual James Gunn to make a sequel while also doing their best to downplay that the events of this film actually happened. But now with a few years of hindsight, I have to go back and wonder like the heathen I am…

Is Suicide Squad REALLY that bad?

THE GOOD

Yes, amazingly, there is some good stuff here, mostly to do with the casting. At least half the cast is just pitch perfect for their roles. Famous rapper and YouTube Rewind star Will Smith as Deadshot is, of course, one of the standout examples; he brings a lot of charm and charisma to his role of an assassin who really loves his daughter, but then again, this is Will Smith. It’s hard not to love the guy in anything he does. Viola Davis as Amanda Waller is another inspired bit of casting, and she truly owns the role, and Jai Courtney is perhaps the most consistently enjoyable member of the Squad, Captain Boomerang, the exact sort of stupid D-list villain who SHOULD be getting screentime in a movie like this.

Of course, the very best bit of casting is Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, in Harley’s big screen debut. Robbie has such an enthusiasm for the role that shines through even with the clunky script, and while she would definitely improve her craft for her outing in Birds of Prey, her performance here still has that spark of zany fun that Harley needs, cementing Robbie as the perfect star for the role. Frankly, that’s the feeling that can be gathered from a lot of these really good performances; they’re good, but they lack proper refinement, and so are stuck spouting the stupidest, corniest, clunkiest lines imaginable. But yes, really the worst thing you can say about Harley in this film is that her outfit is absolutely atrocious and demeaning.

While we’re on the subject of Harley Quinn, tough… while the whole situation with the Joker is something I’ll get to shortly, I think their relationship in this film is actually done well in many aspects. I’ve always preferred the original idea of “Mad Love” over the glorified domestic abuse that Joker x Harley has often devolved into, and while there is a bit of the latter, the fact that Joker literally goes out of his way to save Harley at every opportunity to the point he’s a definition satellite love interest is really good. Of course, this was thrown out for Birds of Prey, but I do think it worked in the context of this film.

Of course, we all know that the greatest aspect of this film is REALLY Slipknot, the single most powerful member of the Squad. I’ve already written an entire Psycho Analysis on why he’s the greatest villain in the history of cinema, so just read that for the rundown on how our man Slipknot climbs his way into your heart and mind.

THE BAD

So there is just a lot to go over here.

First, there’s the soundtrack’s implementation. As a blatant Guardians ripoff, everything the characters do needs to be punctuated by some sort of awesome music to tie the scene together. The difference is that where in the Guardian movies the soundtrack is used as a storytelling tool to help subtly emphasize points that the narrative doesn’t want to spell out for you, Suicide Squad just has these songs because they’re cool and because Guardians did it. Why is “Black Skinhead” playing while Deadshot tests his weapon skills? Why is “House of the Rising Sun” playing during Waller talking about the Squad? What exactly do these songs add besides background music? The opening montage of everyone in the Squad is particularly bad because the songs are just switching up really quickly as the montage goes along, which echoes a complaint I had about Little Nicky, of all films: “One of the more noticeable problems is the usage of music; in the course of one single scene, they play four different songs, and all of this is in a span of about one or two minutes. Just pick a song and stick to it for fuck’s sake!” About the only song that is really properly utilized is “Heathens,” which plays over the (admittedly cool) credit sequence.

Now let’s get into the characters, because for every awesome character in this film, there’s two that just absolutely suck or are so underutilized it’s laughable. Probably the worst case of this is Killer Croc, who despite being a stunning practical effect and probably the reason this film scored an Oscar, does pretty much nothing for the entire film, save for a short bit in the ending where he swims. You’d be entirely forgiven for forgetting he’s in the film, which is not something you should be saying about a Batman villain of this caliber.

Katana and Diablo are both characters who should be awesome, but the story givers them nothing to do and rushes their character arcs, respectively. Katana is yet another character you’d probably forget is there, even though she has a lot of fascinating elements to her character (some of which are detailed in her infamous introduction, which don’t worry, I’m working towards it), but nothing is really done with her. Diablo is actually one of the best and most fleshed-out characters in the film, but the narrative just completely fails to justify him or his ultimate heroic sacrifice; by the end, he claims the Squad is like family, but they’ve never really done anything to earn this. Like, think to the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy, where we have moments like Drax standing up for Gamora and Groot sacrificing himself. These moments only work because the characters had their relationships built up over the course of the movie so that there is a punch when these things happen. Suicide Squad really just throws it in just to have it.

Then we come to our villain. Enchantress is yet another villain I once detailed on Psycho Analysis, and my opinion on her remains unchanged. While she most certainly has a cool design, she is absolutely not the sort of world-ending supernatural threat a team of snarky jackasses should be fighting on their first mission together. The Squad should have had a mission more grounded in reality, and that can’t happen when you have an ancient interdimensional witch causing a Luddite zombie apocalypse through the power of interpretive dance. There’s also the fact that there’s never really any reason given to care about the character of June Moon, the host of the Enchantress, so the desperation of Rick Flag (a character so boring and pointless I didn’t even waste time mentioning him before) to save her comes off as hollow as most of the movie’s other emotional moments. Overall, Enchantress is just a boring generic doomsday villain who feels wildly out of place in the story and just doesn’t do anything to make herself stand out.

Then we have Joker.

I’m not really going to get into Jared Leto’s obnoxious behind-the-scenes antics, because that has little bearing on his performance, kind of like how his performance has little bearing on the film. As I mentioned before, this Joker is nothing more than a satellite for Harley. This is probably a good thing, because despite being called Joker he’s pretty divorced from most other interpretations; while he plays up the thuggish, brutish elements the Joker does typically have, everything else about him is just so jarringly non-Joker as to be laughable, from his ridiculous grill to the absolutely cringeworthy “Damaged” tattoo on his forehead. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say he’s the worst villain in a superhero movie ever as some have, mostly because he’s not even in the film long enough to leave much of an impact. I will, however, say that so far he is the absolute worst onscreen depiction of Joker in film. Once again, if you’d like to hear more of my in-depth thoughts on Leto’s portrayal, I did make a Psycho Analysis on him a while back.

But all that aside, the worst aspect of this film is the writing. The writing is just utterly abysmal throughout, and while there are a few good lines sprinkled here and there, a lot of the dialogue is cringeworthy and the story itself is a convoluted mess. The story takes so many nonsensical turns from the get-go, starting with how Amanda Waller thinks a bunch of non-superpowered criminals could take down a metahuman threat; what the hell is Killer Croc, whose only power is “being an ugly cannibal,” going to do against Superman? That’s like if you put Leatherface up against a Predator, who would be stupid en-

...Oh. Right. Well, if nothing else, Amanda Waller has a very bright future as a designer for Mortal Kombat games. Beyond that, as mentioned above, a lot of the characters simply exist and serve little purpose in the narrative, and the ones that do serve a purpose are underplayed unless they’re Deadshot or Harley. You’d think Diablo’s tragic backstory and desire to have a family or Flag’s desire to save June from her curse would be more major elements, but nah. We don’t get much, if any, development on these fronts. And for the dialogue… well, I think this one speaks for itself:

Is It Really THAT Bad?

So I’ve been pretty hard on this film overall, I think, but here’s the shocking twist: I don’t think this is the worst DC movie. Frankly, I find the claims that this is the bottom of the barrel in terms of superhero films a gross overexaggeration. F4ntastic and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are far and away worse films with little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever in them. At the very least, Suicide Squad is a fun kind of stupid, whereas those movies are bleak, miserable slogs that fail to even try and engage the viewer on any level.

And then, even within the DC movie lineup, I would not say this is worse than Dawn of Justice. Dawn of Justice has a more coherent story, and it in a general sense has better writing, dialogue, and so on… but it isn’t fun, it’s overly long, it’s incredibly pretentious, and it absolutely squanders the coolest concept for a crossover fight that there ever could be, all while giving us a Lex Luthor who is an obnoxious, whiny, sniveling brat who is utterly unbelievable as a threat. Suicide Squad almost seems within the ballpark of being self aware that it’s stupid schlock, and I find that infinitely more respectable than a film that, regardless of its artistic merit, thinks it’s deep and meaningful when it is anything but.

Suicide Squad is firmly on the side of “So bad it’s good,” and even within that category it’s somewhat underrated. I don’t necessarily think this film needs more respect per se, but I feel like it falls into the same category as movies like The Emoji Movie, where it isn’t good by any means but people will rant and rave about how it’s destroying cinema by being apocaliptically bad instead of just saying it’s crappy and moving on with their lives. Like this isn’t a great movie, but at least there’s a couple of enjoyable things, and superhero movies have been through far worse. Its current score of 6 on IMDB is honestly pretty fair. Is it spectacular? No. Could you be watching something way better. Definitely. But is it a trashy, idiotic romp with some good actors and some fun performances in a story so mind-bogglingly dumb that it needs to be seen to be believed? Hell yes.

[the-desolated-quill]

Sonic Vs Harley: Send In The Hedgehogs - Quill’s Scribbles

Unless you’ve been meditating in the desert for the past couple of weeks, you’ll know that there’s a bloody epidemic going on in the world right now. The coronavirus outbreak has dramatically changed our very way of life for the foreseeable future, and us plebs have been having to get used to all these alien concepts such as social distancing, self isolation, vaccines being good and Gal Gadot murdering John Lennon with a tuneless rendition of ‘Imagine.’ These are scary and uncertain times we live in, and this goes double for the movie industry as productions are halted and/or delayed, and cinemas around the globe are shutting shop. This means that streaming services, initially dismissed by pompous filmmakers like Steven Spielberg as being lesser than cinema, has now become Hollywood’s saving grace. Oh the irony!

But I’m not here to talk about that. Today I’m here to talk about how a blue CGI hedgehog seems to be more profitable than Margot Robbie.

Jokes aside, this is actually a fascinating topic of discussion in my opinion. Both Sonic The Hedgehog and Birds Of Prey (I categorically refuse to type the whole title because I’ve got better shit to be doing other than trying to remember how the fuck you spell ‘fantabulous’) were released within a week of each other just as the coronavirus outbreak was gathering steam, and yet the box office earnings of both films are poles apart. Sonic has now become the highest grossing video game movie of all time and is, at the time I’m typing this, the second highest grossing film of the year, beating even Disney Pixar’s new film Onward if you can believe it, whereas Birds Of Prey... well... it’s not exactly flopped as such. The film’s low budget protected it from that, but it’s hardly what you’d call a success, making just shy of the $200 million it would need to break even. How did this happen? Especially when you consider that public opinion of both films a year ago would have you believe that the opposite would have happened. Everyone was massively excited for Birds Of Prey, especially after the string of successes DC have had with Aquaman, Shazam and most recently Joker, whereas Sonic...

...yeah, lets not talk about that.

Now before we start, let me just make absolutely clear that this is just my opinion. Mu subjective opinion. Normally I’d expect my readers to be smart enough to know this, but I’m talking about a DC movie here and I know from personal experience how ‘passionate’ a certain tin foil hat wearing portion of that fanbase can be sometimes. You may recall back in 2016 I received rape and death threats when I had the gall to say that I didn’t enjoy watching Suicide Squad. You know? That beloved classic that nobody fucking remembers or talks about anymore? Also there was that time when Harley Quinn fans started spreading fake rumours that the Sonic movie was homophobic in the hopes of salvaging Birds Of Prey’s box office earnings. And yes, I know it’s not all DCEU fans that are like this, etc. etc., but considering that it only ever seems to be DC fans that pull shit like this, you’ll forgive me if I’m not exactly in a very generous mood right now. Basically, if you’ve seen Birds Of Prey and liked it, that’s great. More power to you. I’m not even suggesting that Birds Of Prey is a bad movie. I’m just exploring the reasons why I think the film may have underperformed and why, possibly, Sonic The Hedgehog overtook them despite outside circumstances. This is not fact. This is just my opinion. It’s my opinion. An opinion. A subjective opinion. It’s my opinion. Okay? Okay.

Also I should point out that out of the two films, I’ve only seen Sonic, not Birds Of Prey. Believe it or not, this will be relevant later on. Again, this is not about the quality of either film. This is merely my subjective observations regarding their respective marketing and box office performance.

So why, according to the fans and the media, did Birds Of Prey underperform at the box office? There are three popular reasons for this. The first is obviously the coronavirus. Less people willing to leave the house and buy a ticket, therefore less box office earnings. Makes sense, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. Lets not forget, Sonic The Hedgehog came out a week after Birds Of Prey and practically steamrolled over the competition despite coronavirus fears. So I’m not entirely convinced of this. The second reason is that Birds Of Prey only has niche appeal because it’s based on a lesser known comic book property. Again, makes sense, but so was Guardians Of The Galaxy and Deadpool, and they were both hugely successful. Obviously I’m not saying Birds Of Prey needed to be as big as those movies. Even if it just made the same amount of money as Shazam did, it would have been successful, but it didn’t. The third reason is good old fashioned sexism, and yes, I agree that may have been a contributing factor, but I think it’s naive to place all the blame on the anti-SJWs who feel threatened by a gang of women kicking butt. Look at the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters for example. That film received a tirade of misogynistic comments from butthurt fanboys, but it still made roughly the same amount of money at the box office as the original Ghostbusters did. The reason it flopped wasn’t because of the fanboys, but because of Sony spending a stupid amount of money on the thing in the hopes of jumpstarting a shared universe. If Ghostbusters 2016 had the same budget as Birds Of Prey, Sony would be laughing their way to the bank right now.

No I think there’s a little bit more going on here. Lets bring Sonic into the discussion and explore it, shall we?

The most blatantly obvious reason for Sonic’s success and Birds Of Prey’s relative failure is the age rating. Sonic is a PG, family friendly film with a cuddly animal as its main character. The film even stars Jim Carrey being his usual goofy self. Kids love this shit and parents will no doubt be prepared to risk a zombie apocalypse to let their kids see it. Birds Of Prey, on the other hand, is a hard R. Strong bloody violence, sexual references, everyone says ‘fuck’ a lot. No kids allowed. Of course that hasn’t stopped films like Deadpool or Joker being such giant hits, but they didn’t have to contend with a global pandemic. Plus, according to what I’ve heard from certain critics, apparently Birds Of Prey’s R rating doesn’t seem wholly justified. That if you were to cut back on the swearing and the gore, it would make no difference to the film. Now you see this is something I’ve been afraid would happen ever since Deadpool’s surprise success back in 2016. That studios and filmmakers would take the wrong lessons from it and make their films R rated just for the sake of making them R rated. We see this with movie studios all the time. One studio finds success and suddenly everyone tries to copy it without considering why it was successful in the first place. The reason Deadpool as well as other R rated films like Logan and Joker worked is because the films justified their R ratings. You couldn’t have told the same story without that R rating. An R rated Harley Quinn doesn’t seem necessary, especially when you consider that there have been Harley Quinn adaptations before that did just as well without being strictly for adults. Hell, the original Harley Quinn story from the Batman animated series was PG rated. So the inclusion of a R rating feels less like a genuine artistic choice and more like trend chasing. And now that Joker has become the most profitable comic book movie ever made, I fear this is only going to get worse in the future.

Another factor that needs to be considered is audiences’ trust and expectation. Sonic The Hedgehog’s journey to the big screen has in some ways become the classic redemption story. After the initial reveal of Sonic the Manhog, fans were understandably pissed off that a beloved video game icon was given such a grotesque re-imagining for the sake of ‘realism’ (snort). As a result of the backlash, the director Jeff Fowler announced they would revise the design and the film was postponed for three months in order to fix it. The result was a Sonic design much closer to the games and this generated a lot of goodwill from the fans. Subsequent trailers were much better received and there was a lot more positive buzz around the movie. Birds Of Prey on the other hand demonstrated the inverse of this. Everyone was hugely excited, but as we got closer and closer to the date of release, audience anticipation began to wane. The trailers received little fanfare. In fact a lot of people were largely unimpressed by it. Why?

Well first we should address the elephant in the room. The fact of the matter is Sonic has a bigger and much more passionate fanbase than Harley does. That’s not to say Harley isn’t a popular character. She is. But I think Warner Bros and DC seriously overestimated how much people wanted to see Harley Quinn get her own movie. She may have been the best thing about Suicide Squad, but considering what a total trainwreck Suicide Squad was, that’s hardly saying much, is it? I mean the villain Sandman was the best thing about Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. That doesn’t mean I want a whole movie based on him. It just means out of all the things I hated about Spider-Man 3, Sandman was the thing I hated least.

And that’s another thing. The fact that Birds Of Prey didn’t try to distance themselves from Suicide Squad I don’t think did them any favours. While Suicide Squad was a commercial success at the time, people haven’t exactly been kind to the film in subsequent years. I mean feel free to read my review of Suicide Squad for an exhaustive list of reasons why the film was less than enjoyable to sit through. One dimensional characters, poor editing, ugly colour palette, casual sexism, David Ayer trying desperately to look cool and edgy, I could go on. So when the first trailers for Birds Of Prey came out and we saw the neon colour scheme and Hot Topic wardrobes make a comeback, I can’t have been the only one who was slightly put off.

Which leads me to the biggest issue of all and that’s the stonking unoriginality of the whole thing. For all their boasting about how feminist and progressive they are, what is it about Birds Of Prey that makes it stand out from other comic book films? Granted Sonic wasn’t wholly original either, but at least they had the novelty of a blue CGI hedgehog to piggyback off of. Birds Of Prey really doesn’t have anything if you think about it. Here’s the impression I got from the trailers. It has the same aesthetics as Suicide Squad, so already I’m getting PTS style flashbacks, and its story doesn’t seem all that intriguing or unique. Think about it. A violent anti-hero has to protect a delinquent child from some sadistic big baddie. How many times have we seen that done in these films? Terminator 2, Deadpool 2, Logan, even Ghost Rider has told this story before. The fact that the characters in question happen to be women doesn’t change a damn thing. They even have Harley Quinn breaking the fourth wall. Like... guys, come on! Surely we can do something more original than this! It feels like the only thing Birds Of Prey has going for it is that its main protagonists are all women. But after the likes of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, that’s no longer a real selling point anymore. You need something else to entice people. Something that Birds Of Prey sorely lacks.

Now I’m sure any Birds Of Prey fans reading this must be getting pissed off at me, so I’d just like to remind everyone yet again that I’m not necessarily saying Birds Of Prey is a bad film. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen it. And that’s kind of my point. A week or so ago, my friend and I knew this was probably going to be our last opportunity to go to the cinema for quite some time, so we knew we had to make our choice of film count. We had a choice between Sonic The Hedgehog and Birds Of Prey, and we ended up going to see Sonic. We don’t regret it. We had a good time watching Sonic. It was a fun movie, well made and surprisingly moving at points. (interesting to note, Sonic also has the main protagonist protecting a child plot, but unlike the films I mentioned, Sonic’s story is told from the perspective of the kid. It’s a little thing, but it’s enough to make the whole thing feel fresh and unique because it’s something not even the games tend to acknowledge. Sonic is a kid and the film plays around with that, which adds to its overall charm). Maybe Birds Of Prey is a better movie than Sonic. I don’t know. But that’s not what this is about. When picking which film we would watch, it was the factors I mentioned before that we considered and I suspect what many other people took into consideration too. Basically we looked at these two films and thought to ourselves which one would we be prepared to go outside and risk our health for in order to see it in a cinema. In the end, Sonic won because, out of the two films, it looked more exciting and more unique than Birds Of Prey, and ultimately we trusted that this film could deliver what it promised. Is that fair? Probably not, but sadly that’s often how these things play out. 

Birds Of Prey may have had a good critical reception, but it ultimately shot itself in the foot thanks to some of its creative and marketing decisions. And if studios take anything away from all this, it should be that relying solely on the gender of the main characters as a means to sell something just doesn’t cut it anymore.

[ravennafleur-de-lys]

Getting to know me: Quarantine Q & A

@e11evenseggos back at it again with the tagging. Thanks, love 💕

1. Are you staying home from work/school?

Yes to work, I’m no longer in school. I don’t think I’d ever say this but I miss retail

2. If you’re staying home, who’s there with you?

My grandmother got tired of me being bored since it was just the two of us about a week ago and sent me to my aunt’s so now it’s: my aunt, 3 of my cousins, my cousins’ boyfriend, her 8 year ago son, a dog, and 2 birds. (They have a trampoline!!!!)

*Edit: my cousins have a trampoline, not the birds*

3. Are you a homebody?

4. What movie have you watched recently?

My cousins learned I had access to Disney+ so, pretty much all the princess movies (we’re all over 20 so idk why exactly but...)

5. An event that you were looking forward to that got cancelled?

My cousins college graduation, my best friends college graduation in Boston (she works at a hospital as does her mom, but they’re both ok) my cousins baby shower in NY (she’s doing well), San Diego Comic Con (didn’t have tickets but wanted to see what happens), I was planning on visiting my brother in LA (haven’t seen him in 4 years) Needless to say I HAD PLANS THIS SUMMER DAMMIT

6. What music are you listening to?

I’m on my Shazam playlist so wtf knows. There’s no running theme. A bit of everything

7. What are you reading?

I’m going through AO3 for basically every ship of every fandom I’m in. Also, finally catching up on the last Atlantis Grail release. (Y’all should check it out. Atlantis Grail series by Vera Nazarian)

8. What are you doing for self-care?

I dyed my hair? My natural hair is really dark brown, almost black. I wanted a dark red/burgundy....it only looks dark red in bright lighting. ALSO BAKING. I love baking and decided to start messing with frosting designs

Tagging @e-ffflorescent @mina-is-babie @heartsick-stranger and anyone else