#the gist is that it has a couple actors who are really fucking good

[necromancy-savant]

More people should watch Conan the Barbarian so I can share my thoughts on it

[echodrops]

Endwalker Trailer German to English Translation

I got impatient waiting to see if someone would post the transcription and just decided to take a crack at translating the German trailer by ear myself.

Text is below, please pardon any mistakes; some of the lines were extremely hard to make out with all the background noise and music playing over them. I made some guesses at who each voice may be, but I normally play in JP so I’m not 100% confident. Also, I naturally took a few grammatical liberties with the translation to make it sound more organic in English. If you notice any big mistakes, feel free to let me know!

- - -

Emet-Selch: And so, another journey begins. Yet there’s no way to foresee its outcome. The future of this world remains… uncertain.

Tataru: Have a good journey, my friends!

Emet-Selch: All that lives must pass away. Love blooms and withers. All beginnings have endings. Enjoy every moment of your existence—because, at the end of your journey, there where souls and stars rest, the truth awaits you.

This chapter tells of the road to the end…

Alphinaud: I… I also don’t know. But we can’t leave them here in the cold.

Every word a wish, every word a legacy.

Lady of Light: It will be your guide and grant you insight into the hearts of others.

Seal each one within your heart and step forward… (1)

Lady of Light: In the darkest hours, seek joy. Only those who press ever onwards will find the true light within. (2)

Krile???: Let us end the suffering. What else can we hope for?

Alisaie: The sky’s in flames. By Nymeia, it really is the Final Days. 

For the final hour has struck.

Mystery Garlean???: The noose tightens, slowly but surely…

????: You won’t take a single life!

Alisaie: Is fleeing really our only option? (This line is really hard to make out, iffy on this one.)

????: That’s why this end is coming much too early. 

Zenos: One thing can be relied upon: where suffering and despair occur, you appear and play your ridiculous role as the protector of this planet. (3)

Warriors of Light,

do you hear the tolling

of the beginning of the end?

Fandaniel: Oh Zodiark, god made by our own hands, please, hear our prayers! Lead us back to better days! (4)

????: Do you really want to destroy such a beautiful world? (5)

Alphinaud: Today, I am once again about to embark on a journey into the unknown. But this time I know I have friends by my side. Thank you, everyone. That means more to me than I can express here. The end is near. Why not share the hours with those close to us?

- - -

Couple of Notes:

1. Several times this trailer uses “schreitet voran” or various forms thereof; this phrase has like a milion translations in English: progress, advance, move forward, step forward, march on, stride ahead... The basic gist is just “moving forward” or “putting your feet one in front of the other” to keep advancing.

2. Fuck Lady of Light, her voice is so unclear lol. I listened to her lines so much I already never want to hear her ever again. Hear, Feel, Think my ass. I am not super confident I got any of her lines 100% correct. Revisions appreciated!

3. Zenos’s line might actually be: Wherever suffering and despair wane, it’s because you’re there and playing your ridiculous role as the protector of this planet. (I can’t tell if he’s saying “passieren” or “versiegen” or something else entirely...)

4. In the English trailer, the first half of the Zodiark line and the second half are delivered by different voice actors! I suspect the second half of the English line is actually being delivered by Fourchenault and is spliced in from another scene in the actual game.

5. Emet-Selch delivers the end title card lines in English, but this line is delivered by someone else in both the German and Japanese trailers. (Whoever delivered this line in German has a fun voice to listen to.)

Biggest differences from English:

1. Lady of Light’s line in English “test and proof of your conviction” doesn’t appear in German. Her line “In darkness, seek joy” also has a very different connotation than the German “In the darkest hours, seek joy.” What does she mean by “true light”?

2. I’m not sure who voices the line after LoL’s lines; in JP it does sound like Krile, in English it doesn’t really, but right now Krile or a new female character would be my guess. Anyway, this line has totally different feeling to it from English to German. “Let me relieve you of your burden; you’ve suffered enough,” being played over the image of the WoL and Azem crystal really makes it seems like that line is directed at WoL; however, the German version is significantly more despairing and seems to be directed in general toward possibly a group of suffering people.

3. Alisaie is more religious in German than in English lol.

4. The mystery Garlean, if he actually is the one speaking, has a completely different line in German than in English. In German, it’s unclear whether the noose is tightening on him--or if he’s about to spring a trap on someone else.

5. German Fandaniel sounds completely strung out in his line to Zodiark. He’s either very tempered, very drugged, or very much making a mockery of the Unsundered.

6. That last line before Alphinaud’s monologue is super mysterious! Who is saying this and to whom? Much more interesting than Emet-Selch’s continued narration from the English trailer, although of course I always love to hear Emet. Emet’s extended narration in English is definitely in-keeping with the pattern of how he is written to be way more of a stage hog in English media, though.

7. Alphinaud’s lines are way, way less death flag-like in German. In fact, it really sounds like he’s reading out a letter (probably written by the WoL), rather than actually saying these things himself. Interestingly, the French version matches the English for death flags, while the JP seems closer to the German version, I think.

Phew, that’s all!

[talkingbl]

The Good and Bad of Make It Right (MIR)

SPOILER WARNING. TW: rape, dubious consent, minors

I wasn't going to do this one for a number of reasons but honestly, my thoughts are so overwhelming that the review just wrote itself so...enjoy I guess

The Good:

FrameBook. If you've watched MIR, you had to know this would be king. Ohm is so incredibly gifted that even 15 year-old him had us all thinking Frame had genuine feelings for Book. Their intimacy just seems so natural at moments that it covers up some of the more amateurish aspects of Ohm's acting. But aside from the incredible chemistry Ohm is able to manufacture as Frame and the vulnerability Toey exuded as Book, it was the unconventional progression of their relationship from competitors (at least in matters of the heart) to lovers that made them so iconic.

Lukmo's character arc. As the series progresses, Lukmo becomes increasingly more sympathetic and is shown to be a loyal, loving friend. By the end of Season/Series 1, you're starting to get all the good parts of him and less of his obnoxious teen-boy "humor."

The first few episodes of TeeFuse. Tee is one of the better characters in this series and much of the charm of the series comes down to Boom's charismatic disposition, Tee's genuine and unquestioning interest in Fuse, and the way Fuse struggles with his feelings for Tee. Because MIR was made in a time before Thai BL tropes were really a thing, Fuse's struggles with accepting his feelings for Tee seem novel and are explored in a much more raw and almost childish way. This inner struggle is different from, for example, that of Pick in Puppy Honey because instead of becoming homophobic, Fuse's mulling over and ultimate acceptance is largely portrayed as more of general indecision and curiosity on his part. Specifically, indecisiveness about whether to break up with his girlfriend. Of course the internalized homophobia is part of why he doesn't accept his feelings for Tee, but not only does he not constantly vocalize it (and no, being in denial about being gay isn't *necessarily always* synonymous with homophobia), but his rejection of Tee also comes largely as a consequence of his already having been in a relationship with Jean.

Most of the actors are the same age as their characters. This roots the world the story takes place in and, by (most likely unintentional) extension, serves as an escape from all of the toxic standards set by shows that cast ripped 28 year-olds to play high school seniors.

The communication between all the couples at one point or another is some of the best in BL. With the notable exception of late series TeeFuse, all the couples have moments of brilliance where communication errors in a typical Romance show would completely ruin the relationships between couples. In MIR, the process of solving communication-related problems is either given realistic development or doesn't need development in the first place due to characters immediately solving any issues that could stem from miscommunication.

Yok as a concept. The fact that he is a main character and is more on the femme side (and has a best friend who is also quite femme) feels like a revolutionary step forward in Thai BL (until you realize it never really happens again 🙃).

The Bad:

FrameBook. This relationship literally should not exist. Its beginning is worse than even TharnType. And it's not really that you can't have characters experience trauma like rape in stories at all, it's just that you shouldn't then downplay it dramatically and then make the rapist a sympathetic character...

Lukmo. I fucking hated this guy at the beginning lmao. He's homophobic, colorist, gross, annoying, and just an all-around asshole. He had 0 redeemable qualities until he saw TeeFuse kiss

TeeFuse. Ch- I just- So Tee rapes a drunken Fuse and its effects are played for laughs, and then they spend the better part of the season not actually being together with Fuse just being completely indecisive about what he wants and Tee just?? doing whatever the hell with discount Saint Suppapong for a couple of eps to, I guess, move on from Fuse? I don't know girl the whole thing was just weird to me.

Most of the actors are the same age as their characters. So let's just address the elephant in the room that all of these kids behaved like adults at some point in the story...ESPECIALLY Frame, Tee and Fuse. This is quite controversial because while it's not out of the ordinary for teen shows to showcase its characters grappling with the complexities of sexual relationships, it is if the actors playing those characters are themselves teenagers. Peak would've been no older than 16 when he began filming for MIR, Ohm no older than 15, and Boom 14-15. And they were not just hinting at sex scenes but actually showcasing foreplay in their scenes.. I understand that it is normal/natural and am not necessarily saying teens can't portray teen issues, I'm just saying that some of it can be seen as a bit much given these guys' ages. Not to mention the fact that the entire approach to sex was very unrealistic. Like, the idea that Book and Fuse would basically be in severe pain for days after having sex just shows a lack of basic knowledge on how average human bodies work and the safe/enjoyable ways to engage in penetrative sex. But beyond the general unsafeness of the sex are some of the ideas that the show portrays as normal in teen relationships that are completely unrealistic--though I find that the most egregious levels of unrealism come in Make It Right 2.

The toilet humor reached new levels of gross with this one.

The casual colorism is just all over the place and is, in fact, one of the main character's primary motivations for befriending another main character (thinking of Rodtang and Fuse here). In fact, I stopped watching MIR 3 times mere minutes into the first episode after Fuse talks about his sister's line of whitening serums. The incessant worship of white skin (and consequent down-putting of dark skin) from multiple characters at several points throughout the show is not only extremely problematic but actually annoying.

The concept of "to get over a girl date a guy" is not even actually the joke it seems to be in this series and is, in fact, played as a legitimate coping strategy. The main problem I have with this is that none of the guys who use this strategy are ever actually interested in men before they try this out. They are painted as straight boys who can magically turn gay at the drop of a hat and, seeing as how it is never refuted, this is dangerous messaging.

I have like a thousand very complicated thoughts on this show but this is a good gist I think. So....yeah.

[nicknags]

About to Live Full-Time in a Van

I’m at a point in my life where I’m straight thirsting for adventure. I feel like I’ve only spent a fraction of my time on this planet actually tackling the world and seeing what it has to offer. Most of the time, I feel more or less in a slump, hiding away in my hobbit hole, daydreaming of the Tookish side of my family but never seeking out the adventure. Well, now I’m seeking and I’m seeking hard.

My girlfriend and I had both lost our jobs due to Corona Virus, so we had decided to live with my parents to ride out the crazy anxious filled storm this whole year has been. It was the first time we had ever lived together, and I am not going to lie, that was one of the nicest things about quarantine. See, we’ve spent most of our relationship in a long(ish) distance relationship living an annoying 50-minutes away from each other; Short enough to where you don’t mind making the drive but long enough to where one day visits are a little difficult. So, having her move in was kind of fucking great! We woke up everyday next to each other, we played frisbee all the time, went on scooter rides, kayaked, had beach days, took trips up to her family’s cottage… It was all wonderful. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Seriously, it couldn’t of been better at my house. We had all found super healthy ways of coping with the pandemic… Except for my brother. He had decided to hole himself away, which I get, it was/is a fucking scary time, but after Sammy and I had spent weeks of including him, he decided to go full psycho. “Fuck you guys, I hope you die in a fucking fire, kill yourselves you over sensitive pieces of shit.” There’s more but I think you get the gist. All of this was said because we told him “you’re being kind of rude” after he aggressively belittled our spiritual beliefs. Whatever, we got over it. Couple days later, he calls my girlfriend a bitch and a c*** because she asked him not to feed her elderly sick cat human food after the vet told her that she shouldn’t. He wasn’t nice about it either, I mean, who’s really nice when they’re calling someone a bitch or a c*** but he got right in her face when she did it. Needless to say, I went off on him and the situation, Sammy moved out, and I haven’t talked to him since.

So, heartbroken that Sammy had to move back home, I started looking into options for us to live together. We thought about buying a house because we had some savings but not enough to where we could get the right house. We thought about an apartment but lets be honest, rent is WAY too expensive and we didn’t know when we would get jobs again due to Covid. It wasn’t until we took a trip to Sammy’s cabin that it hit me… We should live in a van.

Of course! Why had I never thought of it before? I had wanted to move back to LA for such a long time but had struggled to find a way that we could really make it work without living in a hostile or getting a bunch of roommates. Well… What if you just lived in a van? Not like a shitty, run down, rusty gas guzzler from the 90’s. Like, a super nice, renovated, camper van with tons of storage, running water, stove, and bed. It seemed crazy but everyone we talked too kind of had the same response: “Not a bad idea.”

So, we bought the van together back at the end of August and have spent about 2-months fixing it up. We had a bunch of little mechanical issues but it looks like we’ve finally got that sorted out! The sub-floor has been installed, solar panels are mounted, and electrical is being run. All we have left is to finish the wood frame, build the furniture, and we are good to go bb. I couldn’t be more excited! I have been yearning to fill my days with adventure, to explore the world, and experience life beyond my little bubble. Once we’ve travel around the country for a bit, we plan on parking in LA and pursuing our dream of being actors.

It’s been a hell of year. I feel like people say that every year but this year everyone REALLY means it. I’m trying to find the light in the dark tunnel of 2020, and I think my shining beacon is a 2005 Ford Econline with a high top. I never saw my life going in this direction but here I am and I couldn’t be happier. I think if I were to give any person a single piece of advice it would be to listen to the universe, allow yourself to be tugged in the direction it’s pulling. You might wind up in weird, distant lands, surrounded by people different from everything you know, but it’s where you’re suppose to be. At least, I really, really hope so in my case.

[beginagainunsolved]

RYAN: This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we discuss the destruction of Midland Circle, a financial office firm located in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.

SHANE: God, it’s always New York. Why does anyone live in New York?

RYAN: That’s honestly a good point. I mean, at this point, it’s just —

SHANE: It’s irresponsible!

RYAN: You’re right, but let’s — let’s not waste time there. Let’s get into it.

SHANE: I’m ready to be disappointed. 

RYAN: Hey, fuck you!

RYAN, NARRATION: On August 18, 2019, a series of tremors were felt throughout New York City. The epicenter for these tremors appeared to be located in Hell’s Kitchen, a crime-ridden neighborhood in the city.

SHANE: That’s where the horny boy lives!

RYAN: I’m trying to decide if I want to acknowledge that with a response.

SHANE: You just did.

RYAN: Fuck.

RYAN, NARRATION: Over the course of the next few days, more tremors were felt. While citizens were understandably concerned, local government and the media chalked the vibrations up to nearby construction and wrote off all complaints.

SHANE: Typical.

RYAN, NARRATION: Then-talk show host Trish Walker — who was then known as former childhood star but is now better known as a criminal convicted of a number of murders —

SHANE: What a weird claim to fame.

RYAN: It is a pretty diverse resume. 

SHANE: Actor! Talk show host! (In an exaggerated, cartoonish tone) Muuuuuurdeeeeer? 

RYAN: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: Then-talk show host Trish Walker — who was then known as former childhood star but is now better known as a criminal convicted of a number of murders — featured a caller on her popular show Trish Talk who claimed to be a seismologist. The caller insisted that the tremors weren’t a natural occurrence, thus feeding into conspiracy theories as they continued. 

SHANE: Really? Off the word of someone who calls into radio shows? Crazy people call into radio shows, Ryan.

RYAN: I’ve called into a radio show before.

SHANE: My point exactly.

RYAN, NARRATION: Speculation around the mysterious tremors reached a tipping point on August 21, when Midland Circle, a newly constructed office for a financial firm in Hell’s Kitchen, suddenly collapsed inward on itself. The collapse was said to be the result of an earthquake, something many New Yorkers seem to doubt.

SHANE: Why, because some crazy lady on the radio told them it was unnatural?

RYAN: (wheeze) You can’t pretend it’s not suspicious!

SHANE: I went for a walk today and, wouldn’t you know it, it started to rain! That’s suspicious. Isn’t that suspicious, Ryan?

RYAN: Fuck you! Will you at least let me get to the theories?

SHANE: It’s not like I can stop you, is it?

RYAN: No, you cannot!

SHANE: (long sigh) Get on with it. 

RYAN, NARRATION: So, what destroyed Midland Circle? Was it really an earthquake, or was something more sinister at play? And if someone did intentionally destroy this building — why? Let’s get into the theories. The first theory, while depressing, is remarkably straightforward — Midland Circle was the target of a terrorist plot.

RYAN: Okay, so, not very exciting.

SHANE: What, because it’s plausible?

RYAN: The fact that it’s plausible makes it depressing, frankly.

SHANE: Life’s depressing, Ryan.

RYAN: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: This theory claims that there was nothing special about Midland Circle at all. It was a large building in the middle of a populated area of New York, and it was targeted only to send a message. 

RYAN: I’m waiting for the snarky comment.

SHANE: I don’t really have a lot of jokes in my repertoire about terrorism, Ryan.

RYAN: Fair enough.

RYAN, NARRATION: The theory goes on to say that the local government and the national government teamed up to cover up the attack in order to prevent widespread panic throughout the city while they found and dealt with those responsible.

SHANE: Again, depressing but plausible.

RYAN: Yeah, there’s not really much to say about this one. It’s, uh…

SHANE: (shrugging) Maybe? 

RYAN: Yeah, it’s a maybe.

RYAN, NARRATION: The second theory claims Wilson Fisk, a prominent crime boss in New York, was responsible for the destruction.

SHANE: Wasn’t he in jail at that point?

RYAN: Haven’t you ever seen a mafia movie? They can get stuff done from jail!

SHANE: I don’t think that guy was in the mafia, I think he was just kind of a dick.

RYAN: (wheeze) Jesus Christ, you can’t call the Kingpin a dick on our show.

SHANE: Why not? What’s he gonna do?

RYAN: Have you murdered?

SHANE: For making fun of him on the internet? 

RYAN: I mean, maybe!

SHANE: If I die for making fun of someone on the internet, Ryan, I’ll die happy.

RYAN: What the hell is wrong with you?

SHANE: Hey, Willie, baby, take Ryan out too! We’re a package deal!

RYAN: I hate you.

SHANE: Yeah, yeah.

RYAN, NARRATION: This theory suggests that Midland Circle Financial wasn’t as mundane as it appeared. According to some sources, several people involved in the business had old ties with Fisk, leading some to suggest that his old business partners were using his imprisonment as an opportunity to move in on the Kingpin’s territory. 

SHANE: Didn’t we just do a mob episode?

RYAN: I thought you liked mob episodes.

SHANE: We need variety, Ryan! My fans demand variety.

RYAN: Your fans?

SHANE: You don’t have any fans.

RYAN, NARRATION: The theory goes on, claiming that Fisk had his loyalists plant explosives within the building and blew it up while his old business partners were still inside. Whether this was to take out the competition, send a message, or some mixture of the two depends on who’s telling the story.

SHANE: What evidence is there for this? Beyond the fact that some people claim that a couple of the guys involved in this company maybe knew Fisk?

RYAN: …

SHANE: Oh my god.

RYAN: Hey, I’m just reading the theories!

SHANE: You can accuse Wilson Fisk of murder, but I can’t call him a wuss? That’s a double standard.

RYAN: Hey, he’s probably proud of his murders!

SHANE: I guess he did work hard on them.

RYAN: Put that up on the fridge!

SHANE: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: The next theory involves a secret government plot.

SHANE: I knew these were too dull.

RYAN: (wheeze)

SHANE: You always do this! You put in, like, one or two plausible theories to get my guard in, and then you say ‘secret government plot’ like it’s normal!

RYAN, NARRATION: Like the last theory, this one claims that Midland Circle Financial wasn’t a normal financial firm. According to this theory, it was actually a coverup for a HYDRA base in New York City.

SHANE: (long, continuous groan)

RYAN, NARRATION: HYDRA, while thought to have been defeated in World War II, has already reemerged once as the foundation for SHIELD, which was dismantled and reassembled shortly after the reveal. This theory states that it was SHIELD who destroyed Midland Circle in an effort to further cripple their old rival.

SHANE: So, to be clear, you think HYDRA build a functional base in the middle of New York City, where Captain America lives?

RYAN: I mean, to be fair, they did manage to hide under his nose in the organization he worked for.

SHANE: You know what? I don’t say this often, but that’s a good point, Ryan.

RYAN: Thank you, Shane.

SHANE: I still think this theory’s a load of shit, though.

RYAN: I know you do.

RYAN, NARRATION: This theory does lose some traction when you consider the collateral damage, however. While SHIELD is known for operating with a gray morality, it does seem a little risky to blow up a building in the middle of the most populated city in the country.

SHANE: They would’ve just sent Black Widow.

RYAN: Just Black Widow?

SHANE: She’d take ‘em all out.

RYAN: Actually, that’s fair. I bet she’d take them all out.

SHANE: Black Widow, if you’re watching this, please be my friend.

RYAN: She can do better.

SHANE: That’s why I didn’t ask her to be your friend. She’d never stoop that low.

RYAN: Ouch.

RYAN, NARRATION: Our next theory is an old favorite — aliens.

SHANE: No. Goddamn it.

RYAN: You didn’t think we were going to have an alien theory this episode, did you?

SHANE: I hoped. I foolishly hoped.

RYAN, NARRATION: There are several versions of this theory. One claims that Asgardians, perhaps including Thor, destroyed the building on accident while celebrating.

SHANE: Thor partied hard and blew up an office building? That’s the theory?

RYAN: That’s the gist of it, yeah.

SHANE: I want to hand in my resignation.

RYAN: I won’t accept it.

SHANE: Ugh.

RYAN, NARRATION: Another version points the finger at Kryptonians, such as Supergirl, Superman, and the two Superboys. This theory has gained some traction in recent months —

SHANE: Because Supergirl ripped up a bunch of bridges?

RYAN: (wheeze) Yeah.

SHANE: I mean, who hasn’t ripped up a bunch of bridges? I do it every Tuesday!

RYAN: Is your goal just — are you trying to see what superhero you can get to murder us first?

SHANE: I would love to be murdered by a superhero, Ryan.

RYAN: I would love it if you were murdered by a superhero, too.

SHANE: That’s a lie.

RYAN: Supergirl, if you’re listening, please kill this man. It would be an incredibly heroic act.

SHANE: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: Another theory suggests that Midland Circle Financial was a coverup for a cult.

SHANE: How did you find one weirder than aliens? I’m honestly impressed.

RYAN: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: The basis for this theory falls with the paper trail following the ownership of Midland Circle Financial. Some sources have claimed that, if you follow the shell companies involved in Midland Circle back far enough, you’ll find the same signature on documents dating back centuries. 

SHANE: Wait, wait, wait. So it’s an immortal cult?

RYAN: I was getting to the immortal part, yes.

SHANE: I want to go home.

RYAN: Suck it up.

RYAN, NARRATION: Tracing back, this theory then links the owner of said signature to a man who ran what many claim to be a cult compound just outside the city. The compound recruited young people off the streets of New York for decades, focusing its attention largely on the Chinatown neighborhood.

RYAN: So, there is a basis for it.

SHANE: I’m not saying cults don’t exist, Ryan. I’m just saying I have a hard time believing a cult bought an office building in Hell’s Kitchen and blew it up.

RYAN: And I’m saying you need to rethink that.

SHANE: No.

RYAN, NARRATION: There are several reasonings behind the destruction of Midland Circle attached to this theory. One claims it was a ritualistic sacrifice, similar to mass suicides witnessed in other cults. Another states that it wasn’t the cult who blew up the building, but that its destruction was designed to take out the organization’s leaders.

SHANE: Does — does the mystery cult have a name, Ryan?

RYAN: … You’re gonna laugh.

SHANE: I’m positive I will.

RYAN: The Hand.

SHANE: (wheeze)

RYAN: It’s real!

SHANE: I’m gonna start up my own cult. Call it the Ear. 

RYAN: (wheeze)

SHANE: So, when (exaggerated air quotes) “The Hand” did jobs, were they called hand jobs?

RYAN: (wheeze) Stop, this — this is serious! People died!

SHANE: Oh, so they were deadly hand jobs?

RYAN: (wheeze)

RYAN, NARRATION: The final theory is perhaps the most mundane — that the official story is the truth, and an isolated earthquake took out Midland Circle.

RYAN: Now, I know you’ll probably like this one — 

SHANE: Why, because it makes sense?

RYAN: Because it’s stupid.

SHANE: An earthquake is stupid, but an evil cult named after a body part is not?

RYAN: No, just — an earthquake that only took out one building? Seems a little convenient. 

SHANE: Maybe Quake did it!

RYAN: Why would Quake take out an office building?

SHANE: That mutant kid?

RYAN: Why would he take out an office building? 

SHANE: Why would Supergirl? Or Wilson Fisk? Or a fucking cult? It makes as much sense as any of your theories! Don’t discriminate against me.

RYAN: Nobody’s discriminating against the white guy.

SHANE: … Fair.

RYAN, NARRATION: So, what’s the truth behind the destruction of Midland Circle? Was the organization behind this building a simple financial firm trying to strike out in New York, or was there something more sinister at play? And who brought it down? With the rubble clear and the bodies buried, it seems the true story of this terrifying chapter in New York’s history will remain… unsolved. 

WHAT UNSOLVED MYSTERY DO YOU WANT TO SEE NEXT?

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

HIStory’s ranked (no one asked, but here i go)

so i was sittin here, talkin to myself about the HIStory series’ and was like ‘hey, i should rank them’ (which i’ve seen a few other people do, but mines a lot more rambling than there’s because i can’t shut up lol) 

so here’s my views lol (ordered from worst to best, imo):

6) My Hero (HIStory1) -

probably universally acknowledged as the worst episode, and i’d be inclined to agree with the masses on this lol... not only is the tone and humour of this series so weird and disjointed, but the entire story line literally makes no sense lol?? it’s unclear who the audience should be rooting for (especially as it goes out of it’s way to paint our protagonist as really unlikable lol, not to mention the love interest is the dullest character ever conceived like ???), as well as this the ending feels completely unrelated and bizarre... 

i think this concept /could/ have worked if the guy the woman was inhabiting (which sounds weird without context, but like she’s dead lol) was somehow also inside his head? or if she got to see his memories or whatever & tries to adjust her personality to match the guy’s, causing love interest!dude to fall in love with the guy... (like i could go into more detail, i basically hav an entire au written in my head lol, but yh...)... that way, her letting go of him in the end would feel so much more well set up? especially if she was generally more understanding and likeable.. 

i think overall this series just fails in telling a decent story lol... & the cringe is even beyond what i can handle lol

5) Obsessed (HIStory1) -

people might be surprised to see this one so low down, especially since i know a lot of people really love this series (& if u do, no hate to u btw, ur allowed to like whatever u want idc), but i realllllly don’t like this series... like at all ...

the plot is weird anyway, which isnt inherently a bad thing, but then u add on the really bad couple and it’s just...... bad lol... like everything about their relationship is built on lies and deceit, and even more so than that it’s built on a lack of mutual respect and fundamental trust for each other! tall guy (i don’t know names soz) feigns memory loss in order to get closer to short guy (btw, the scenes with them being domestic were really sweet, & i firmly believe this could have been an alright series for the actors if the story line wasn’t so bad), short guy’s whole existence in that universe was a lie lol (like i know there’s no easy way to tell someone ‘lol well i’m technically from the future’ but still), then there’s the whole resolution at the end & it’s just so ??? frustrating lol!

nothing bugs me more than seeing conflict in relationships (on screen or irl) that could be solved simply by TALKING TO EACH OTHER GODDAMNIT & isnt lol... my other issue with this series is the fact tall guy 100% forced himself upon short guy in the tent & like we’re just supposed to accept it cos ?? he’s saying no and pushing away but actually he wants it because he loves tall guy ?? like fuck no i’m not accepting that lol! 

basically, bad & bizarre story & characters, & gross tropes just makes this hard for me to watch and enjoy lol... i think, like in my hero, this could’ve done with being a different story altogether lol... (maybe tall guy actually did lose his memory & he falls for short guy all on his own with no predatory intentions?? idk something like that)

4) Right or Wrong (HIStory2)

this one & my number 3 are very much tied tbh, but this one is just slightly lower just because i’m not as big into the couple as i know a lot of people are... & it’s not necessarily the age gap, cos i dont actually mind age gaps in pairings (just as long as the younger one isnt a minor, obv... and also i think any gap that’s 30+ years is a bit weird lol..).. i think my big problem with this is i dont really see why younger guy (again, i have no idea of any of these characters’ names lol) would fall for the older guy? like the older guy is obvs going thru some issues, and hasnt been taking care of himself or his kid properly because of them, but like we dont rly see a lot of why he’s a great guy? like we get the sense young guy is attracted to him, but like love is more than just thinkin they’re hot lol... idk lol this might just be me tbh i just couldnt see why he’d be interested lol

i did like the whole family side though, and showing how a man who was previously with a woman can still end up with a guy (bisexualityyyyy (or some variation of that thereupon)) is something you dont always see in media, so i thought that was pretty cool! (even if the ex-wife thing was kinda lame lol...) 

i think overall i see what this series was going for, and that it actually did an alright job in some parts... the biggest problem is that it’s kinda just forgettable lol... maybe that’s why people like obsessed so much lol? maybe it was a train wreck but ohh boy at least u wont forget it in a hurry lol!

3) Stay Away From Me (HIStory1) -

i’m a bit torn about this one, cos there are parts of it i actually really like (them going from rivals/enemies to being good friends to being more), and other parts i really didnt (the stereotypical squealing yaoi fangirl friend)... & tbh, i kinda wish this had just been a show about the budding friendship between the 2 guys... it almost feels too forced to me that they’re made to ‘fall in love’ when i actually think them both becoming less selfish and learning to respect each other as step brothers & friends is actually already a really great story (& i know that it doesnt fit with the whole ‘HIStory’ thing, but stories of platonic brotherhood/’bromance’ are just as important as gay representation... isnt a /substitute/ for representation, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always so beautiful to see decently portrayed non-toxic friendships between guys... ok this is a rant for another day tho shhh)

i think maybe why i like this one more than the other HIStory1′s is because kinda nothing happens lol... it’s not overly complex with weird unexplained magic things happening, it’s just a simple story lol... is it still tropey as hell? of course lol! but i think the ‘realism’ of the world really helps, and i def think this was incorporated more into HIStory 2, which i’m really glad about...

overall, this is a relatively harmless series & is actually quite sweet at times... the kiss is awkward as fuck tho (there, i said it lol...)... it suffers the same forgetability as right or wrong tho... 

2) Crossing the Line (/Boundary Crossing) (HIStory2) -

ok, so here’s a series i 100% love & totally agree with the hype around lol! i hav no interest in volleyball (or any sports tbh), but the way this show handles the friendships and dynamics between the characters is really well done, especially for a series that’s only 8 episodes long! i also really love that none of the characters really fall into any stereotypes (which is a great improvement from HIStory1 i can tell u lol), and are given the space to actually have some growth & nuance at times?! 

(nuance? in MY HIStory series?? it’s more likely than you think!)

the main couple have really amazing chemistry, and the way they get together doesnt feel too out of place or that it’s going to fast, it just sorta flows really nicely... even the side couple are pretty well done (though i wasnt that big into them on my first watch, just cos the whole overbearing older brother thing was kinda annoying... i liked them more as the series went on tho...)

i kinda dont have any major complaints? which is bizarre cos i always hav complaints about things lol... maybe my complaint would be that they all look way too old and attractive to be whatever teenage age they’re supposed to be lol... (but tbh that doesnt take anything away from the story so i’ll forgive them lol...)... i think maybe i wouldnt consider it my favourite because the story line didnt grab me like the number 1... but i really cant fault it in terms of what it delivers lol, legit such a well put together series!

1) Trapped (HIStory3) -

lol i think anyone who’s been following me for the past few months aren’t in the slightest bit surprised this is my number one... i just love it too much lol!

from the incredibly well written and well acted characters, to the interesting and engaging (even if a bit ridiculous) plot, to the beautifully told romance , it really has it all doesn’t it!!! & i think even if this wasnt an enemies to lovers thing (aka one of the most godtier of all fanfic tropes), there’s so many things going for this series that make it worth watching! i have a few complains about editing choices and a few bad trope plot points which were just unnecessary (plus the fact we missed out on a lot of background info on some major characters lol...), but like despite everything this series rly struck a chord with me deep down in my soul lol

i could go waaay more into detail (and maybe i will one day lol... tho not rn, i’m v tired), but the gist of the matter is: i really love trapped lol

(conclusion)

Even though i’ve complained quite a bit here, i am so grateful for the HIStory series’ for bringing really interesting, and a little mad, stories with gay characters and story lines, with a big emphasis on happy endings! there are so many lgbt stories/characters in things that end up dying or just have bad endings, which just sends this horrible message that lgbt people aren’t worthy of having happy endings, which is completely untrue! 

So i look forward to future HIStory’s, even if some of them are gonna be bad (& maybe none will live up to the trapped!shaped bullet firmly lodged in my heart lol)

fin~

[thefilmfatale]

Always Be My Maybe and How to Ruin a Rom Com

There is an art to a good romantic comedy.

Let me preface this post with a confession: I am a rom com enthusiast. Go ahead, turn your nose up at me, you snobs! But I unabashedly love romantic comedies. Yes, I’m aware that the genre is much maligned for being painfully predictable and vapid, but it would surprise you how tough it actually is to produce a solid rom com that hits all the right notes.

You see, there’s a formula. Boy Meets Girl (yes, I’m being deliberately heteronormative for this example, put your pitchforks down). Girl plays hard to get. Boy persists and wins her over despite how much the lady doth protest too much. A conflict introduces tension and separation (”Gasp! This was all part of a bet?!”), throwing the relationship into jeopardy. Boy performs Grand Gesture™ to win back Girl’s heart. Girl forgives Boy and the two gallop into the sunset. Cue Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” as the credits roll.

The formula works, but only if the filmmaker can trick the audience into believing that this on screen romance has real stakes. To do that, you have to have a script that at least pretends to explore an interesting relationship which, as it unfolds, gives the audience butterflies and makes them want to root for the star-crossed lovers. Without audience investment, you have no rom com.

To get the audience to invest, you need likeable leads who have great chemistry and just enough tangible sexual tension to create that air of “Will they or won’t they?” After all, no one ships a couple who are devoid of personality and lack chemistry. Most of this sexual tension is physical—in the way the actors interact with each other—but what can really help establish this is verbal, by way of witty repartee.

Think of some of the classic rom coms, like When Harry Met Sally. Why does it work? Sally is a Type A personality. Prim, proper, particular, and uptight. Harry is more laid back, casual, and candid— unafraid to tell it like it is. He’s also a bit of a troll who enjoys getting a rise out of someone. Throw the two on a road trip together and you have a recipe for romance (or disaster—however you want to look at it). As a viewer, you begin to root for them because we’re told that opposites attract and complement each other. Harry softens Sally’s rough edges, Sally helps Harry realize he needs some maturing.

And you all know the Big Gesture™. A New Year’s eve confession that inspired a thousand sappy rom-com speeches.

What makes When Harry Met Sally successful?

Harry and Sally are different enough from each other that there is enough sexual tension and push and pull to make their interactions interesting.

Each half of the couple has their own personality that feels authentic to their character. They have their own ambitions and goals. They also have traits and quirks that uniquely position them to attract each other.

The relationship does not seem guaranteed—the audience has to have a moment of doubt or uncertainty that makes them will the couple back together.  

Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal have fantastic chemistry.

It seems pretty straightforward. Follow the formula, and you’ll be fine. In fact, it’s hard to screw up a good rom com if you just imagine unconventional ways to put two individually interesting but opposite enough people together then lean back and watch the sparks fly.

So all this to say that nothing could have prepared me for the soul-sucking awfulness of Always Be My Maybe, the Netflix flick starring comedian Ali Wong (know for her Baby Cobra Netflix special) and Fresh Off the Boat’s Randall Park.

The story follows Sasha Tran (Wong), a renowned chef and restauranteur, who rekindles a romance with her childhood best friend Marcus Kim (Park) when her marriage engagement suddenly falls through. Tran is portrayed as ambitious and driven, while Kim is unmotivated and immature, using his widowed father as a crutch to not follow his dreams. In its purest form (this summary), the gist of the story seems fine. Nothing to write home about (certainly not novel), but this is romantic comedy and the bar is more of a footstool so no one’s begrudging sticking to convention. But Always Be My Maybe takes that convention and, in true Asian fashion, approaches it with textbook diligence that just sapped the joy and life out of what should have been a fun, light-hearted romp. So much for subverting Asian stereotypes!

Now I’m a fan of Ali Wong and Randall Park’s, but this movie was so mind-numbing, it made me physically ill. Ali Wong? Hilarious! Randall Park? Extremely likable and has great comedic timing! Together you would think they would be dynamite. Fireworks! An explosive affair of epic proportions! And for those of us who’ve had a hankering for a rom com with Asian leads (and God knows we’ve waited a long fucking time—thank you, Crazy Rich Asians) we know about the demand for one.  

Alas, what a disappointment. A telephone pole and I would have had more chemistry than Ali Wong and Randall Park. As much as it pains, I have to say that Always Be My Maybe just might be one of the worst romantic comedies I have ever watched.

Not only did this movie put two leads together who had zero chemistry—or at least enough sexual tension to help the audience suspend their disbelief that these aren't just actors—but the story unfolds in a fashion that actually makes the audience keenly aware of the formula. I know I said if you just follow the formula you can’t go wrong, but Jesus they didn’t have to make it so obvious! It’s like Fight Club, you know? The first rule of making a good rom com is YOU DO NOT MAKE THE AUDIENCE AWARE THAT THEY ARE WATCHING A ROM COM. I mean, at least try to approach it like it’s actually an interesting story about two people.

Instead, the movie followed story beats that seemed to exist for the sake of moving the story along instead of actually selling us on the relationship. The beats were so obvious that you can actually pinpoint where they begin and end because they were helpfully (and often unnecessarily) bookended by old school hip hop songs. Cue music! Here comes the conflict, the part where Boy and Girl rekindle their romance only to find that the years apart have made them different people. Boy judges Girl for being pretentious and obnoxious. Girl judges boy for being immature and unmotivated. A big fight ensues! Insults are hurled at each other that are so truthful they hurt! But it’s only a sign that they are meant to be with each other because they can trust each other to be this honest!

You know your movie is bad when your story beats are so obvious that they take the viewer out of the movie. You know your rom com is bad when Boy’s Big Gesture™ felt like a very clear When Harry Met Sally rip-off with dialogue that makes you want to get a lobotomy. There’s certainly nothing wrong with being referential or, even better, deliberately parodying romantic comedies. But Always Be My Maybe wasn’t really trying to be either. It was just stuck in this weird gray area of trying to be a romantic comedy and failing.  

Always Be My Maybe’s biggest problem is in its turd of a script. It was so cringeworthy, filled with inauthentic lines and tired Asian jokes (the joke about Asians hating tipping was played out to the point of exasperation). Even their attempts to make fun of woke culture (which is an effort I wholly endorse) felt contrived and flat, which is such a bummer because that would have been a cool differentiator. Even the promising jabs at the pretentiousness of haute cuisine were awkwardly executed. Most of all, it didn't do its lead actors any favors, turning them into cartoonish cardboard cut-outs that were designed to follow the formula of a rom-com without putting in the work to earn the audience’s investment. Performance-wise, Wong did a passable job, but there were times when it felt like she was reciting a line that was clearly more apt for a comedy skit rather than a piece of dialogue that a character in a movie is saying. Park’s attempt at faux awkwardness, on the other hand, was excruciating to watch. Couldn’t he just be a dude in a rap band who happens to live with his dad? That's a decent enough back story. There really wasn’t a need to give him a personality quirk that seemed put on rather than authentic.  

The film’s most promising moment was a Keanu Reeves cameo. And it’s only because Reeves was so game at poking fun of himself and the pretentiousness of celebrity that it worked. But just like the tired Asian jokes, at a certain point the humor was played out to the point where it became unwelcome. I also want to give credit to the film for portraying an Asian American upbringing that wasn’t the Fresh Off the Boat variety. While there isn't anything wrong with that portrayal, it’s also a treat to be able to see a different dimension of Asian culture, one that shows how typical and relatable it is to the average American’s upbringing. Premarital, promiscuous sex! Rap music! Being into pretentious food! Much as I hate to admit it, the whole “Asians—we’re just like you!” approach is kinda needed in film and television because it removes this layer of exoticization that can be restrictive to Asian characters.

While not tokenizing Asian characters is a positive, it still doesn’t make Always Be My Maybe a good movie. While I did watch it all the way to the end (despite my body’s vehement protests), it hurt my soul in ways I didn’t anticipate. How did they ruin this rom com? First, and most importantly, there was a shocking lack of individual character development. You don't get a sense of who these people are individually. Instead, they just seemed to be characters created for the sole purpose of putting them together and contrasting them enough to where they should have some sort of chemistry. But you can’t manufacture that. Each actor has to go through the work of making their characters likable. If I like the characters individually, I like them even better together! See how that 2+2 worked? But without dedicating the right amount of time and space in the story to showing their inner lives and what makes them tick, you’re setting them up for failure.

Second, and on a related note: there were no real stakes to the relationship. because setting up Sasha and Marcus to be together just seemed like a given from the get go. There didn’t seem to be any real jeopardy to their relationship, even once the conflict was introduced. The forced repartee between the characters came off like lines of dialogue instead of natural conversation, not to mention the very apparent lack of chemistry between Ali Wong and Randall Park. So much so that you didn’t really want to see them make out, let alone root for them to end up together. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you ruin a rom com.

If you, a friend, or family member just watched Always Be My Maybe and are experiencing similar symptoms of nausea and misanthropy, may I direct you to a Netflix original rom com that is actually good? Go check out Set It Up, if you haven’t already!

What did you think of Always Be My Maybe? Am I full of shit? Did you like it? What are some of your favorite romantic comedies? Sound off in the comments below!

[murphystartedthefire]

Conageddon: Richard Harmon’s Panel + associated stuff

Disclaimer from the last post: So it’s just my luck that immediately after posting my Richard/Luisa recap, a whole bunch of the Conageddon panels including that one became available online! I definitely encourage people to check them out!

Unfortunately the people who taped them missed Luisa’s solo panel and Richard’s solo panel. So I will still share what I remember and notes from those.

SUNDAY RICHARD PANEL

- I'll admit *I* actually missed the beginning of this because I was in the auto line for Bob with a friend. (”How’s Richard treating you?” were in fact the first words Bob said to me, which made me feel The Betrayal a bit, lol. Also side note, I went so blank on anything to say to Bob that I had to get up and ask a question at his Q&A later just because I thought of something after the fact.)

- Anyway uh... I did finally get over there, and he was wearing this.

- Via twitter learned one of the first questions was whether Murphy sees himself as a bad guy. He answered that Murphy does think he’s a bad guy, but he as Richard doesn’t think Murphy’s a bad guy. ;__;

- Asked if he could only use one word for the rest of the day, what would it be? He went with “cute” because you can use it a lot of different ways, say it sarcastically, etc. It became a running joke in response to things for the rest of the panel, he would just deadpan in an annoyed voice, Cute.

- His next project is a guest role on a show he didn’t name but it’s already on the air and has some of the same writers from “Continuum”. (Can anyone figure this out? “Van Helsing” maybe?) They offered him a multi-episode part as a villain and human trafficker involved in bad things.

- Someone asked a question about Murphy's relationship with alcohol, we've only ever seen him drink a little or when he was getting trashed in the bunker. SPOILER: Murphy being "drunk" a lot is something that we’ll see in season six. Then Richard -- green mustache and all -- actually went into a serious riff about how he drinks socially in real life but tries to avoid doing it for the wrong reasons, out of anger or sadness, and it sounds like that’s where Murphy is and that’s not a healthy coping mechanism for him.

- Someone opened a question saying Murphy is her husband’s favorite character and he proudly calls himself an asshole. Richard was like “your husband has good taste, and he [Murphy] is an asshole, nothing wrong with that.”

- Honestly the real gem of this panel was the long answer to the question of whether Murphy could be more stable if they were in peacetime again. This was the response I summarized on twitter as "talking soberly about mental health and the importance of seeking help while wearing a green mustache." Because it was very moving and I’ll try to remember the gist of it -- he was talking about how he likes to think Murphy could fight his demons because he is a fighter, in reality he probably needs therapy, but his answer as an actor is always that Murphy is more *fun* and interesting to play when he's dark. His demons are part of him, he's not a happy person. He went back to the "vial of poison" metaphor he’s used before, like Venom it feels good and keeps him alive when he lets the poison in.

- ...But also thinking about mental illness consciously as a part of Murphy especially since season 5, there's a responsibility that comes with talking about it. (Actually one of the con staff jumped onto the mic and was talking about how important therapy was to his family and Richard was like “yes, thank you for taking what I said that way.”) He likes Murphy the way he is but he never wants to give off the idea that real people are beyond help. He was very emphatically like: help is out there, life is worth living right and being happy, and Murphy isn't beyond that but he can't get it because it's a TV show and it's more fun for him to be fucked-up.

- An audience member commented about how well Murphy seems to work and have an interesting relationship with every character on the show, from someone like Emori who he has a long relationship with to Abby who he only had a couple of scenes with. Richard appreciated that and said he's always liked that about Murphy, that you can throw him in with anyone and he's a great accessory. “Leaving Emori out” (thanks, question-asker) who is his favorite person to play off of? He answered Bellamy. He repeated what he's said before about thinking if Murphy was going to die, he (Richard) would want Bellamy to kill him. Bringing it full circle from when they both wanted each other dead, now it would be different but Bellamy would still have to be the one to put him down.

- I remembered something else! He talked about McCreary and how he would’ve liked to do more exploring the parallel between him and Murphy, which he acknowledged they didn’t go that far with. He thinks that Murphy saw and respected him in a weird way. They have the same kind of poison running through them, but for Murphy it’s something he really is trying to keep under control.

- He talked about how he always saw Murphy as very smart. Even from the beginning when he was described in the script as an idiot, he didn't want to play him that way. He's not educated but he's a chess player -- however, sometimes he gets impatient and jumps ahead moves. An audience member said they thought Murphy would make a good FBI agent or something in the real world, but Richard said he could just as easily be unemployed because he’d never get past a job interview.

- Audience member compared Murphy to Loki (mythical, not the Marvel one), but Richard said the figure he really based him on in the beginning was Lucifer -- I can’t remember the whole answer, but being like the fallen/cast-out one who was alongside Bellamy and then wanted to overthrow him. And then later Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z. ;)

OTHER RICHARD STUFF

- Like I said in another post, twitter user murphybeiiamy/Noemie had sold me her Richard Harmon VIP badge even though I was on a low budget since no one had offered her the ticket price for it. I am eternally grateful for that. I did witness the Memori Beer Pong thing in person. Other things included were the meet & greet which has its own post, solo photo and selfie... boy am I glad I chose to go for those on the right days, ‘cause I don’t think Emori + Insane St. Patrick’s Day Richard would’ve meshed as well as this: 

- I also got the Jealous Emori sequel to my UD photo op. They were so game for everything! They had taken their “honeymoon” picture shortly before this and left the flowers on for the rest of the session. *g* I should thank Lindsey Morgan again for the completely unnecessary wrapping-her-leg-around-me pose, because it’s the first thing they noticed in the picture and made sure to replicate it with Richard’s leg. XD

The next day I told him that I really appreciated everything he said on the panel about mental health and I feel the same conflict about just wanting Murphy to be okay but thinking then he's a better character *because* he is fucked up and that's why he's identifiable. I gave him the Murphy playlist, his eyes kind of perked up and glanced over at Luisa when I said I'd given her one too. I warned him his had more dark & sad songs on it than hers did (tbh I think his turned out better), and he was like that’s GOOD, he wants all the sad songs. So yeah... he seemed to be legit into it as a gift and I believe and hope he will also listen to it. <3

- Finally, if you made it to the end of this post, please watch this video of Richard Harmon and Chelsey Reist doing Jameson shots and casually donating $1000 between them to CURE Childhood Cancer. I love my chaotic-good son.

[dayna-scully]

ncis/tiva liveblog...the dregs

season 3  |  season 4   |  season 5  |  season 6  |  season 7  |  season 8  |  season 9  |  season 10

11x01

the real whiskey tango foxtrot is the writing on this show

at the moment, you

😖😖😖😖😖😖😖😖😖

want some company?

yes :-)

murder me???????

“this is good”

that fake typing though

you’ll always be an agent in her heart

is mcgee Abby’s Shannon

after what happened to secnav, how can I stay?

oh gut punch

clonk

I mean, someone’s gonna get a souvenir from Tony’s trip to Israel

a living, breathing, tiny human souvenir…

maybe it’s not the brightest idea, but we’re not coworkers anymore, so

Anthony!!!!!!

he was so happy

I’ll travel for good hummus

I didn’t know that “hummus” was, uh, some kind of new…slang

but all of their stuff is still there?

mid century mob hit

where’s ziva?

thank you dick

he reminds me of the terrible sweets clone bones got after sweets died

which was a terrible decision, btw

who would she trust

TONY

SHE WOULD TRUST TONY

oh tony

11x02

don’t worry tony, we will be okay

can you put the hammer down please

perhaps the him is you

baby ziva hadn’t yet been weaponized by the men in her life

gibbs absolutely knows who Captain Kirk is

why should she have the man that she loves

wow that’s really dark

and cruel

he looks good with some hair on his face

Tim does not

I can’t believe they’ve kept that goatee on him for multiple seasons

tony should have stayed in Israel

baby!!!!

“I meant to do that this morning”

HE DIDNT FORGET HE WAS JUST TOO BUSY GETTING BUSY

confession: I don’t think I’ve ever actually watched this episode

I didn’t watch s11 because at that point we (obvs) knew cote wasn’t staying

yeah dinozzo can sure feel somethin

maybe you could try saying what you’re saying

he already found her, dad

you know how hard that was

you did not have to do any of this

except???? He did????

her “old life” man fuck these writers

finally I found you here, of course

FUCK THESE WRITERS

the center of all this pain is me

I’ll kill whoever wrote that

I hate these people!!!!

this is what Eli made of her

bad adr

tony should have stayed

it’s a start

you don’t have to do this alone

ziva was a fantastic investigator, regardless of what she did for Mossad

she loved being an investigator

this doesn’t make sense

just come home

I remember after truth and consequences came out I sat down with a notebook and my iPod and whittled down a tiva playlist

it was a very intense project

I just want you to come home with me

oh tony

I can change with you

he should have just…stayed

that’s a very bad fake black eye

did he clip Tobias’ ass

you shot me in the ass!

I’m the one got shot in the ass for it

they done did it

I want to make him proud

😖😖😖😖😖 her daddy

alone

that’s horseshit

horseshit!

tony you are so…loved

I wanna be done with this

this hurts more than I remember

I am more angry about all this than I remember

then came tali

pick up the phone!!!

hey ziver

13x24

who made these terrible styling choices

why does tony look like an old man

I bet it’s the same person who thinks that goatee McGee has now was a good idea

I can’t stay here

surely she would have told gibbs

right??

he wouldn’t have told tony

maybe she wouldn’t have told him tony was the father

oh tony

ah, dinozzo

oh are you just fucking figuring that out now gibbs??????

ten years later??????

really???

I hate these writers

I need to know what happened

I’ll breathe when Trent kort is dead

are these writers fucking serious

his ziver???????

fuck

stop with the monologue

something about you running off with her father

friends don’t let friends get hit by mortar fire

you’re Mossad you know everything

like, this whole ass house was leveled to nothing but tali’s room just…survived intact

how convenient!!!!! Almost like ziva had planned this!!!!

tali girl

tali is ziva’s daughter

and your daughter, tony

what a clusterfuck

no doubts

that was not her decision to make

it wasn’t

it was, for once, in character

but it was a shitty decision nonetheless

she knew you wouldn’t be pleased/then she never knew me at all

we cannot lose sight of Anthony

daddy tony

tali’s aba

your mom always packed a go bag

because she was always one step ahead

and she would have been ahead of this

you’re a single dad now, tony

were you and ziva an item the whole time

because lbr of all of them, McGee would absolutely be the last one to figure it out

and he wouldn’t even figure it out, Abby would tell him

I loved her, Tim

ima and aba

ziva must have told her

tony must have always had that with him

I think I’ve decided against watching 16x13

I know the gist of what happens, I’ve seen the screenshots

I don’t read Hebrew, so the fantranslations are all I really need anyways

I don’t really want to watch them write gibbs badly again

how did he get his eyeball back

selective morality

she was my family

I’ve never been anybody’s everything before

abby knew

abby 100% knew

aaand I’m done

I don’t even really know how to summarize all of this.  I don’t understand the thought that will-they-won’t-they is somehow more exciting and fulfilling than consummation of slowburn.  Shows keep doing it over and over again, and sometimes they get it right at the last minute (see: josh and Donna, tww) but most of the time they get it wrong.  Like at least with something like Olivia and Elliot (svu) there was a reason that they couldn’t be together - he was married (though I think they could have and should have handled Chris leaving better than him just vanishing).

Bones kind of fumbled through it all - I don’t think that they would have put b/b together if Em hadn’t gotten pregnant.  Maybe eventually, but I think they had and would have made the same mistakes the ncis writers did.

Clearly that could have been handled better, but like b/b being together was so good?? They were happy, there was still drama, but god it wasn’t a poorly written tease (well, actually, let’s not get into the quality of the writing on Bones)

Cote is such a fantastic actor, and as horrible as MW is, he is (was??) a really good match for her (was if only because bull kind of sucks and I’m not sure if it’s shitty writing or him sucking or him not wanting to be there??).  There was so much emotion and intensity in all of their scenes, romantic or not, it’s absolutely astounding.  I really appreciate them for all the effort that they put into tiva, because they were really the heart of it.

How often do you have couples that are written but not acted? Couples with absolutely no on-screen chemistry, and actors who can’t or won’t put the effort in to make it work.  And they had that!  They could have done so much with it.  But the writers failed. Over and over again, they failed to deliver consistent characterization and complex plots beyond the same old.

Tony was so much more than a frat boy.

Ziva was so much more than a weapon and a perpetual victim.

I was trying to find good fanfic while I was watching (I…didn’t find much), but there was one where the author decided that Ziva, who was alive, had only put the message out that tali was Tony’s because she knew it would get his attention, and that tali was just some random guy’s.  And that really pisses me off.  Ziva (the writers) made some really poor choices in regards to Ziva’s impulse control, but that’s too far - Ziva wouldn’t intentionally hurt tony, and that would be the worst thing she could do.

Ugh.  I’m tired.

basically how I feel about the series:

[ipictureitsoftandiache]

LMAO what's the plot with Cats? Like does the play don't make any sense at all or what (RE: your post) 😂

hoo boy i wish i could tell you what the plot is because i also would love to know

i could try to summarize the wikipedia article (basic gist: it’s about a clan of cats and also reincarnation?) but i think i’ll provide a personal story from my days as a Theatre Kid™️, because i think it sums it up pretty well:

every year our drama club decided the two shows we would stage the following school year: one play in the fall, and one musical in the spring. first we would pitch individual shows, and a couple days later we would vote. one year, someone pitched CATS as our spring musical. it was met with enthusiasm from a few people and groans from a lot more. in the days leading up to the deciding vote, i asked (with increasing desperation) everyone i could what the hell CATS was about.

most people told me it was about cats. they said it was about a bunch of people in leotards prancing around on stage pretending to be cats, and that was basically all they did for the entire two-act musical. it was a show for dancers, with little dialogue.

the people who were pro-CATS would listen to these people and scoff. you’re not being fair, they’d say. you just don’t want to do the show because you hate it, etc etc. so i asked the pro-CATS party what the musical was about, why they wanted to do it. “it’s so fun! it’s super famous and well-known! there’s lots of dancing and choreography, so it’ll be a fun challenge!” nobody, literally nobody could give me a solid synopsis.

nobody could explain CATS to me, because nobody understood CATS either.

so yeah, CATS is completely nonsensical. i mean, i guess you could argue all musicals are nonsensical, and that the most prolific ones always push the boundaries, always require audiences to suspend their disbelief as much as possible. audiences are expected to believe that oz is real and the wicked witch wasn’t actually wicked, or that the puppets attached to actors’ shoulders are anthropomorphic subsaharan animals with elaborate monarchies, or that the founding fathers could rap. all musical theatre is to some degree absurd.

but CATS is like......absurd to a degree that even most theatre people aren’t comfortable with. it’s not even theatre of the absurd like waiting for godot or rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead. it’s just theatre that is absurd. and because of that it’s very very polarizing. most people either really fucking hate it, or they love it — there’s little inbetween. and even the people who love it will straight-up tell you it makes no sense! they’ll never argue it’s a good story. they’ll tell you it’s fun and exciting and engaging, and that’s why it’s a good show — they won’t tell you the show itself, stripped down to score and script, is good, because it isn’t.

CATS is less about the story and more about the ~magic of performance itself (i’m trying to be generous lmao). CATS is mainly about a bunch of very fit actors wearing leotards and showing off their sick dance moves with elaborate (and at times concerningly sensual) choreography. which, good for them! it takes a particularly talented and well-trained dancer to perform in this show. it’s also a sung-through musical, which means actors also need to have considerable vocal stamina to make it through the show. it’s not a particularly demanding show in terms of like, acting — which isn’t to dump on the actors! it’s just impossible for them to emote properly through all that fucking face paint.

so in summary: CATS theoretically has a plot, but it’s disjointed and confusing. that doesn’t mean it’s objectively a bad show, because there’s no objective way to quantify a “good” show vs a “bad” show. it’s certainly a spectacle, if anything. i personally hate it, but plenty of people love it too.

[surreality51]

Because I’m a dork who doesn’t know how to post video on Tumblr, have a screencap and a link to the video here: http://www.weibo.com/6532057137/GCdRg54u2

Translation: yhl0802 on soompi ZYL forum

Thoughts on ZYL PhantaCity performance:

Poor baby. The rehearsal that ZYL saw was for another actor/director pair that were working on an earlier episode. He was stopping by Phantacity a few weeks before it was his turn to check out what it would be like. That director (Liu Weiqiang) said that the experience was agony.

ZYL assumed that Phantacity would be similar to what he does when he’s filming on a set, but nooooo that is not the case. That is so not the case.

More under the cut....

Most TV shows and movies have scenes lasting around 1-3 minutes each. A 5-minute continuous scene is considered really long and grueling. His Phantacity performance is 15 MINUTES. That’s 5x longer than your typical scene.

(If 15 minutes still doesn’t sound daunting, have you ever tried to make a 15-minute fan video? Or write a 15-minute song? No? Why not? Because it is frickin’ long!)

Plus, as a TV/film actor, if you mess up, you just start again and do another take. Phantacity is live, so no retakes. You get one shot. If you mess up, too bad. It’s live, and will be broadcast to millions of people.

“Well, theater actors go 90-120 minutes on stage with no retakes, what’s the big deal?” you might think. 

Theater actors rehearse for months to get it right. There are preview shows/dress rehearsals that can last for weeks. My guess is that ZYL probably had like a week, tops, from concept to live filming for Phantacity. I don’t know for sure, but considering that Phantacity is a weekly(?) variety show, and the production crews need time to build the sets and then take down the sets to make room for the next actor/director pair, my guess is that they probably only had time to run through the whole thing a couple of times.

This is not even getting into the technical difficulties, like figuring out camera movement, lighting, blocking, etc. This is before you even get to the acting part. @avenuex123 has an EXCELLENT video here breaking down the route that ZYL had to run in order to pull off all the scene transitions and hit his marks. (It’s in Chinese, but you can probably get the gist. qjys has a brief translation on the Soompi forum) You can also see in the video in this post from @fuck-yeah-weilan how just the slightest mis-timing could result in crew members/cameras/extras/etc. showing up on camera.

If you think about the precision required and all of the in-camera edits (49 cue points!!!!), then you start to realize that the difficulty level of what they pulled off was insane.

Bottom line: it’s no wonder ZYL was nervous. Bless his perfectionist heart. It makes me appreciate the end product even more. <3

Also, papaolong commented that after ZYL took off the clown makeup, he appears without any makeup for the rest of his performance and when he goes on stage afterward. You can tell this is true by the shine on his forehead in the final shot. 

How.

Does.

He. 

Look. 

So. 

Good? without even any makeup?

*cries*

[deancasbigbang]

Title: I Will Always Love You Author: whiskygalore Artist: miggles-scribbles Rating: Explicit Pairings: Dean/Cas (minor Sam/Jessica, past Dean/Gordon) Wordcount: 35000 Warnings/Tags: Alternate universe, actor Dean, bodyguard Cas, mention of past dubcon, Dean’s self-worth issues, potty mouthed boys, a few homophobic slurs, hurt/comfort, Dean likes to snuggle, Cas is happy to oblige. Posting: 10/24/2018

Summary:

With his manager/constant sidekick/P.A./ginormous little brother finally marrying his pregnant fiancée and whisking her away on a well-deserved honeymoon, Dean is headed to Scotland all on his own for a two month location shoot. Sam, never a man not to micromanage, has arranged for a P.A. to keep Dean organised in his absence and, thanks to a little emotional blackmail, a security consultant to watch Dean’s back.

Cas, the bodyguard, may be hot, but he’s also grumpy and thinks, probably rightly, that Dean’s a complete idiot. Plus, the poor guy’s got his hands full with Dean’s jealous cast-mates, asshole reporters, over-enthusiastic fangirls, and crazy internet stalkers, so, really, it’s a good job Dean’s not Whitney Houston because falling for his bodyguard is too cliched even for him. Right?

“Yeah...no, Sammy.”

“Dean, this isn’t up for debate.”

Dean’s response freezes on his tongue as the waiter places their breakfast plates down on the table, first Sam’s and then Dean’s. Figures he’d want to feed Dean’s giant little brother first. No one wants to anger a hungry Sasquatch.

“I’m not sure what makes you think you’re the boss of me,” Dean grumbles, once the waiter has walked away. He picks up his spoon, and scoops up an unappealing glob of oatmeal, scowling at it with the kind of venom he usually reserves for paparazzo.

Sam rolls his eyes and picks up a piece of bacon, deliberately waggling it in Dean’s direction as he speaks. The delicious bacon-y scent wafts across the table distracting Dean from Sam’s first few words. The end of the sentence is enough for him to guess the gist though. “—insurance for the studio, and with the crap on social media, and—“

“Social Media?” Dean snorts. “Fuck, you don’t seriously believe any of those twitter trolls are capable of dragging themselves away from their computers long enough to actually act on their crazy, do you?”

Sam crunches his perfectly crisped rasher of bacon, obnoxiously and unnecessarily loudly, and gives Dean a long hard look before replying, “They usually tweet from their cellphones, Dean, which y’know...are mobile. And—“ he carries on, ignoring Dean’s attempt to interrupt, “some of the messages you’ve received since Gordon outed you are even freakier than normal.”

Dean sighs and jabs his spoon sullenly at his oatmeal, his appetite all but deserting him. Pamela still hasn’t forgiven him for the Gordon Walker clusterfuck. Personally, he’d rather forget about the whole affair. For more than one reason. “Freakier than the account dedicated to my freckles?” he asks, trying to deflect.

“Freakier than the one dedicated to your bowlegs,” Sam shoots back, but any hope that his brother would be steered off subject quickly dissipates with his next words. “I called in a couple of favors, got an FBI agent who works at the BAU to take a look, and she thinks we have cause to worry.”

“Shit, Sammy,” Dean says, dropping his spoon into his bowl, and scrubbing his hand across his scruffy beard. “You didn’t have to do that. This crap is nothing new. I’ve had wacko fans before.”

“Dean, I’m not talking about fans that want to marry you and have your green eyed babies. These are threats. Serious, specific, threats. Peel-your-skin-off-and-carve-your-heart-from-your-chest threats.”

[16-233]

On whether Only “Chinese/Chinese-American” actors should play “Chinese” characters

I see this discussion come up very often in the casting stage for shows, such as the debate of the father role in ABC's Fresh Off the Boat being played by a Korean American Randall Park, and how Jamie Chung wanted to audition for Crazy Rich Asians but was turned down because she wasn’t Chinese. 

So first of all, unless a segment in the show/movie requires the actor to speak Mandarin/Canto to his family, and the actor utterly fucking failed at the task and broke immersion for the viewers who speak Mandarin/Canto, the fact that he "looks not Chinese" would not fucking even matter. 

I’m only speaking for the Chinese “ethnicity/identity” here so don’t take this as me justifying Chinese actors taking Japanese roles if Japanese people have a problem with it. (Even though usually it’s because Japanese ppl looks down on Chinese and think we are unworthy of playing a Japanese person, but let’s not touch that for now)

It is possible to be ethnically “Korean” or a myriad of other things (such as Russian) and be Chinese. 

In the instance of the father in Fresh off the Boat, 朝鲜族 (Korean Ethnicity) is one of the 56 ethnicities officially recognized by the Chinese government, and there's almost 2 million of them in China (mostly in the northeast, but people migrate to Tier1/2 cities all the time).  

They've been living in China since the fucking Qing dynasty (and possibly earlier) and identify as "Chinese". 

“But the family in the show is Taiwanese not Mainland Chinese!!” you say?

Well, guess what, there's been this thing in the 40s called the Chinese Civil War. Like a bunch of people escaped to Taiwan with the KMT because the commies won and pretty much it's the entire fucking reason Taiwan and China are separate entities. People of all ethnicities were in the KMT army dudes. Do you know Qi Yu and her brother Qi Qin? If you are Taiwanese, ask your parents who they are, they probably know. They are both ethnic Manchus. If there are Manchu people in Taiwan (who may or may not have--but most likely have--immigrated there with the KMT because the ancestral land for the Manchu people are way up north... in fact, there’s a border dispute between South Korea and China because the Korean “holy mountain” and the Manchu “holy mountain” is the same thing) then there's no reason why the father in the show couldn't be ethnic Korean. (Even if during the war, most ethnic Koreans sided with the Communists... according to the Communists. lol.)

Plus, it is completely possible for a Taiwanese person of Northern Chinese descent to have Korean blood in them and still be unaware of it and identify as Han or Man.  

由于地缘和中国与朝鲜半岛历史上的紧密关系，朝鲜族长期在中国东北地区或聚居或与其他民族杂居。早期到来的朝鲜人多汉化或者旗化，归化为汉族或满族。中国现代朝鲜族大多是19世纪后迁入中国的朝鲜族人的后裔。

Due to proximity in geography and the close history between China and the Korean Peninsula, Korean people has been living in the Chinese Northeast in self-segregated and integrated communities for a long time. The earliest arrivals had mostly assimilated with the Han or Manchu, and identify as ethnic Han or Manchu. The contemporary "Ethnic Koreans" are often descendants of the immigrants that came after the 19th century.  

(x) 

This is not a case of "all Asians are interchangeable", that's equivalent to, like, casting a Han Chinese person to play an Indian person (or a Malaysian or Filipino, but that gets messy because there are actually people of Han Chinese descent living in those countries) or casting a Korean person to play a Thai character (also can get messy because there are a good number of pale Thai people... but you get the gist). A korean person playing a Chinese character is no different from a British person being cast to play a German, or a Swede being cast to play French--or some other generic "white" nationality.

It's different than casting an Indian actor to play Han/Han-resembling Chinese... which would be like casting a fucking ginger to play someone from the Mediterranean.

Let's not pretend Koreans aren't already playing people of Han Chinese descent in CHINESE dramas. There's 蔡琳, who actually changed her name from 朴蔡琳 (Park Chae-rim) so that her name would sound more "Chinese" to get her career to take off in China. And I really dunno why she chose to do that because Park Hae-jin did plenty well (he was in a couple of Chinese dramas in 2011, before he did My Love From The Star) without changing his name. Then there's Choo Ja-hyun and many more lesser-known Koreans working in the Chinese entertainment industry. 

On the reverse, there are also tons of ethnic Han Chinese actors working in Korea, like Song Xi and Han Geng. 

So the precedent has already been set and it wasn't set by white people.

Chinese people don't all look like what the Han ethnic look like. China is a civilization-state made up of 56, again, 56 different ethnicities. Someone can appear middle-eastern and be Chinese. Someone can appear Persian and be Chinese. Someone can appear white and be Chinese. 

See this person? 

She doesn't look "Chinese" does she? Well she is. She is a Tajik living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and before you say "Xinjing is not part of China"... if she doesn't identify as Chinese, then why the fuck is she working in the Chinese police department (anti-terrorism division)? It's perfectly normal for someone to be Tajik or Uyghur and self-identify as Chinese, just like its normal for someone to be ethnic Han and believe in Uyghur/Tibetan Independence. (Though the Xinjiang situation is WAY messier because there are many more ethnic minorities in that region, not just Uyghurs, and the Uyghurs are laying claims to certain lands inhabited by the Kazakhs and Tajiks, plus some Uyghur identify as Chinese (for example, the capital Ürümqi is divided between two sides, the south side is inhabited mostly of Uyghur with separatist sentiments while the North is inhabited by people who believe in unity with China.))

The tajik people look like this:

More photos from an English source here, and their histories here. 

If you are Han Chinese, they probably look nothing like you, but they are not LESS Chinese than you. Their ancestors have been living in the land that's been under the rule of Tang, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and People's Republic of China.  

In fact, the Tajiks are actually famous for being extremely patriotic since the Tang dynasty. They were autonomous but was akin to a vassal state and kept their sworn oath to the Emperor of "China" during many foreign invasions. 

Speaking of Russians... It's also possible to be ethnic Russian and be Chinese. Guess what, "Russian" is one of the 56 ethnic groups! They live in northern China and mostly Northeastern China, however, there are groups of them in the Xinjiang region.  

(look at dat Haier brothers sticker on their cabinet XD dat is so 90s Chinese...)

The ethnic Russians first came to China in the 18th century, and more of them came in the 19th century due to turmoil in their homeland. Some of them married with Han or Mongol and became more mixed, while some of them still looks... Russian.

The Tartars are also an ethnic group living in Western China. 

So if a show was about a girl from the far north or northwestern China and they hired a Russian girl, if she could speak fluent Chinese (with Dongbei accent =w= ), it’s not AS problematic as, say... Emma Stone playing a white-passing hapa in Hawaii. 

What about South-east Asians playing “Chinese”?

These are the Wa people of southern China. Who looks like this:

(more on google image)

A southeast Asian actor could probably play a Wa Chinese (who would be from southern China), because there are Wa people in Thailand and Vietnam and Myanmar/Burma.  

For certain ethnic groups, sometimes they identify with their ethnicity first. So say a Wa person moves to America, he or she might identify with other Southeast Asians of the same descent and simply say she's "wa" instead of "Chinese", while some will say they are Chinese. I've seen Hakka Chinese from Fujian identify as Hakka first when asked, instead of Chinese, even though the Hakka people are often regarded as the "purest/oldest" Han-Chinese lineage in China (because northerners mixed with the Xianbei people before Tang and Mongol/Manchu people after Song and Ming). 

Using "Chinese" as a racial signifier to mean "Han and Han-passing ethnic groups" when you are Han Chinese is as messed up as a white person saying his "race" is "American". "Chinese" indicates where you come from and it's an indication of culture sphere/assumption of lineage (again, it is the ASSUMPTION of lineage. It's like picking out a dude in a crowd and using "he" pronouns for him because cis people account for like over 90% of the population). It is NOT the end-all be-all of one's outward appearance and ethnicity.

The actual Chinese word for "people of Chinese descent" is 华裔. It comes from the world 中华, which is derived from 华夏. "华" started as Han-exclusive, and it was meant to contrast against all other groups of people who were given derogatory names (such as 蛮夷, 鞑子, etc) because they were considered barbaric and uncivilized. (i.e 服章之美谓之华,有礼节之大故称夏)

This word hasn't been Han-exclusive since Han people started assimilating other ethnic groups (we were doing white people shit before American white people did white people shit) during their expansion or when Han people are conquered. (For example, a group of Xianbei people conquered the Han people but their leader commanded his people to learn the Han language and culture and pretty much assimilated his people with the Han, the same group of people went on to become the Sui and Tang dynasties.) 

“华人”一词最初指汉族，但随着华夏文明扩展到全国各地，“华人”的概念渐由当初单指华夏族，扩展到受中华文明影响的周边少数民族身上。并成为了全体中华民族之人的代称，其下包括了“中国人”以及海外“华侨”。

"Hua ren" at first meant the Han ethnic, but as Chinese (Huaxia) culture spreads, the definition of "Huaren" became inclusive to the minority ethnic groups that were influenced by/assimilated into the culture, it became an identifier for all who identify as Zhong Hua Min Zu (Chinese National or of Chinese National Origins). 

Like literally the meaning of “Chinese” in the Chinese sense is super blurry and made even blurrier in English because there just isn’t the vocabulary for it. In the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋), the definition of being “Chinese” is literally: ”夷狄用諸夏禮則諸夏之“ (If a barbarian uses the etiquette of the Chinese nation, he is Chinese) So like, according to this definition, if a white person who follows Chinese customs in life can self-identify as Chinese. I know some people must have an aneurysm with this but like, I didn’t make the rules.  

Words like "Chinese American" "Chinese Singaporean" and "Chinese Indonesian" indicate where one's ancestors came from. One can be Miao (note here for Hmong readers) and "Chinese Singaporean", one can be Buyi and "Chinese Indonesian".

If you use "Chinese" to signify something specifically Han, and especially in a context regarding one's appearance, even if you don't mean to be racist (because remember, the original Han-exclusive definition of "hua" automatically assumes superiority over other ethnic groups, and the whole reason Hmong people outside of China would like to be referred to as Hmong instead of "Miao" has to do with this exact issue) and exclusionary, it can be racist and exclusionary. Either you use "Chinese" to mean all people who identify as Chinese and are recognized by the Chinese government as Chinese, or you say "Han Chinese" or "Hakka Chinese" or "Hmong/Miao Chinese" instead of using simply "Chinese" when you mean han + han-passing. 

It's exactly like saying "Asian" when you just mean "just East Asian, not the brown people", like... just don't. 

[fathercharlesoffdensen]

The head meds kicked in, but I had some time yet before work to knock this out, sry not sry.

Thor: Ragnarok's particular brand of humor does not, in fact, belittle or go out of its way to disrespect the apparently sacred ground of the stodgier parts of the MCU, but rather underscores their emotional importance by showcasing the characters dealing with them years down the road in a notably healthy way, at least compared to how they did so previously in canon. This is my thesis statement.

On principle, I cannot make everyone in Thor fandom see that Loki yearns for his relationship with Thor and even the rest of his family to be harmonious, and that, at least in movie canon (your mileage may vary, comics King Loki, you crazy leotarded bastard), or convince Marvel that it's actually a boon for Tom Hiddleston to infuse Loki's facial expressions with sincere emotional resonance when it comes to reacting to the idea that, in spite of their differences and Odin's terrible fucking parenting, he still loves his adopted brood, as opposed to characterizing him as a vaguely sympathetic Magneto-Joker hybrid and discarding him once he's no longer important to the plot. But uh, both of these things are a Thing.

I also can't expect that there aren't pockets of honkey-heavy (I include myself in this demographic; 'Crocs, mac 'n' cheese, glamping,' see? I am one of you) MCU fanon that aren't racist or least culturally insensitive and/or flat-out stupid, and that that also influences the small hard-on some people have for hating Ragnarok. I can say that if your main argument is bristling that Taika Waititi just doesn't ~~understand~~ Loki the same way Whedon and company do because Spike 2.0 doesn't translate well into the monolithic Maori New Zealandian he's-not-White-and-I-am-uncomfortable-about-that-guys dialect, you probably have some soul-searching to do. If you can’t find it, a gently used one from eBay will probably work just as well.

So anyway, Ragnarok, lemme walk you through it. There are a number of occasions where the film references its predecessors in humorous ways, and it is common for the aforementioned sliver of Thor fandom to be crotchety about it because I guess comedy does not, in fact, equal tragedy plus time. (Hot take: It does.) I posit in spite of all the whining that each reference to Thor 1 and/or 2 and/or the Avengers flicks in Ragnarok serves a specific purpose that, super weirdsies, probably doesn't involve Taika Waititi putting a 'kick me' sign on Tom Hiddleston's back and then turning on a camera. Also, I personally liked 'em, because things are too fucking serious sometimes and it's nice to laugh. But! Here they are, in all of their glory:

1. Loki's summer stock theatre: Loki has gone out of his way to cast appropriate actors whose portrayals of his family and friend(s) are a direct insight into how Loki himself views them all. Sif is overly feminine and useless, because Loki's a bit of a sexist as a defense mechanism for his own masculinity and 'feminine' interests/mannerisms being scorned for like 1,500 years, and is probably also still miffed that that pesky spelling Sif's hair to stay dark after he snuck into her bedroom and cut it off in comics canon MORE THAN ONCE thing did not, in fact, make Thor stop hanging out with her because it made Loki the prettiest maiden by default. Volstagg is Fat. Hogun is pretty accurate, because even Loki knows better than to fuck with Hogun too much. Liam Hemsworth parodying his brother's take on Thor is the most meta fucking thing I've ever seen, with the possible exception that Matt Damon might have his cameo as Loki because he also played Loki in Kevin Smith's Dogma way back when (though I can't substantiate this alas).

Perhaps most telling, Odin makes sweeping overtures in Loki's play about his being the savior of Asgard, the son he wishes he'd appreciated before he made his noble sacrifice, etc. This is a kind and noble portrayal of his adopted father, one which Loki has had time to come around to because he has had time to get to know Odin and the Asgardian citizens in a way he previously couldn't, post-Dark World, and it has matured and humbled him. Even so, his longing facial expressions when Odin matter-of-factly says he loves him and is proud of his magical abilities and reminds him of Frigga are an incredible epilogue to The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard, because finally, art has imitated life in a way that has showcased both Loki's and Odin's maturity. What Loki's play doesn't do is make light of Loki dying/'dying.' The humorous portrayal of everyone is proof that Loki himself has used both humor and theatre as a coping mechanism. This isn't someone who was gleeful to usurp Odin so he could have a run at 'conquering' Asgard. Bereft of prophetic insights from Heimdall or fate or what have you that Thor has at his disposal, and needing to not make too many waves, lest Thanos figures out where he's hiding, Loki spent most of his time as a hands-off 'ruler of the Realms, with the possible exception of small improvements on-planet, like putting railings on the fucking Rainbow Bridge because someone could fall off that thing, Heimdall.

Even Thor's accusation that he mostly sat around "in your bathrobe, eating grapes" is probably 50 percent not fully appreciating Loki's approach to Kingship and the other half goading him because he knew he was going to find Loki pretending to be their dad the second Surtur gloated that Odin wasn't on Asgard anymore. He wasn't really interested in ruling all along, in spite of being brainwashed/tortured into attempting it by Thanos; he said as much as far back as in Thor 2011 ("I never wanted the throne; I only wanted to be your equal"). Again, Loki was never portrayed in the movie 'verse as being a dyed-in-the-wool villain, and by Ragnarok, he's a young man/demigod just trying to figure out his place in everything; which arguably, Thor is doing as well, albeit in the form of taking a gap year or two from college to pal around with his friends on an extended road trip. TL;DR: Loki inadvertently spends a couple of years cooling off and growing up, and the result is a significantly healthier being who can laugh at himself because he's had the opportunity to finally sit down and put things into perspective. This brings me to my next point; this is a transition sentence.

2. Someone fell off that thing, Heimdall: If you aren't already mad giggling when you realize Loki has been in the room with Thor on Sakaar for several minutes and even in the scene, albeit blurry, without either of them noticing, I entreat you to appreciate that a bit. Okay.

Once again, Loki telling the story of his suicide attempt at the end of Thor 2011 as less a tragic, spur of the moment action brought about by his grief and inability to see the rift between himself and his family mending any time soon, and more of a pre-planned risk he took good-naturedly the way a self-referred adrenaline junkie might talk about going cliff diving or some such showcases another common defense mechanism of his: Adaptation. Loki is something of a chameleon even before taking his actual shape-shifting abilities into account. He's also an opportunist: If jumping aboard a new ship mid-battle because the odds of survival appear much greater, he has few moral qualms about doing so, and/or an intense desire to Just Survive that overshadows everything else. (Most of the time, anyway.) In a kinder understanding of his talented, lying silvertongue than Thor and Sif and the Warriors 3 seem to have, as well, Loki has a knack for selling his actions by way of pretending they were what he planned to do all along. This is the pathos behind his retelling of his near-suicide to a group of admiring onlookers. Loki has learned from his time as Odin what it is to take up the mantle of, as Hela sneers, "goblets and garden parties," and it inadvertently primes him to get along really well on Sakaar. Now that he, too, is away at college for the first time, Loki is unburdened by all the embarrassing shit everyone on Asgard knows about, and he uses it to craft an idealized version of himself for the sake of having a good story to tell at a party. This doesn't mean Taika Waititi is making light of Loki's near-death experiences: He absolutely expected to die in the 2011 film, and, I strongly argue, in 2012, this was also the case. After being pumped full of so much of Thanos' magic and power over the years probably was the only thing that kept him from dying from his wounds after taking a giant fucking sword through the chest, Loki woke up, looked around, surprised, and then made the situation work for him.

(I started rambling about how Odin's reluctance to not immediately come home once he broke free of Loki's spell [because he and Frigga had missed a lot of Odin Sex Nights aka Wednesdays and/or Heimdall warned him or something that destiny needed to take its course and that course was just letting Loki deal with all the board room meetings about how much Asgard spends monthly on booze while he ate pudding and lorded over the nursing home TV on Earth and that seemed way easier than having to listen to Loki whine about how much he hates prison all over again] and/or how obvious Loki's body movements are even in his Odin form meant that probably at least 75% of Asgard knew he wasn't fucking Odin the second they saw him also ties into the theme of everyone in the family kind of learning to get over themselves is apparent in even more subtle ways, but uh, this was the main gist of it. Sorry/you're welcome.)

3. "Mblergh, it's me!" I know The Snake Story wasn't movie canon before Ragnarok (though "that time I turned you into a frog" has been portrayed in other versions of Thor and Loki's relationship and it's fucking great in every one of them), but it, too, is evidential of the Brodinsons' mutual ability to allow time to help them reframe painful memories of the past with additional insight and a sense of humor; because again, it's fucking funny. Sorry you hate brown directors and having the replica of Loki's Avengers sceptre your mom bought you at Hot Topic in 2012 crammed up your ass so much that you can't see the forest for the trees, though.

Concluding paragraph: Thor: Ragnarok is up there for me with X-Men: First Class and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith as being superhero movies with colons in the name and the backing of a ridiculously attractive bromance that have taken over large swaths of my overall fandom experience over the years and I am extremely fond of it on the basis of that alone, but also it's the most in-character and positive portrayal of Loki that we could have gotten from a movie 'verse whose big-wigs are otherwise largely apathetic to him, and people should probably be sending Taika Waititi like fruit baskets or something for it rather than angry missives on Twitter because we don't deserve him, and yet, there is he is anyways. Final thought: I have to believe he would appreciate Tom Hiddleston's emo vampire from Only Lovers Left Alive being brought into his own What We Do in the Shadows canon and Adam hating every God damned second of it and that they would talk about it over another bowl of pasta before talking about their plans for Thor 4, aka why don't we just do a mocumentary of the behind the scenes of Loki's theatrical productions (lots of Norse myths brought to life in increasingly inappropriate ways on stage) and idk you and Hemsworth can kiss or something at the end and Jeff Goldblum can be there doing whatever the fuck he wants, and then they high five.

Work Cited: I reblogged a post earlier today of a 99% legitimately solid argument that Loki didn't fake his demise at the end of either of the first two Thor movies, and a piece of it nonetheless got stuck in my craw. OP is probably good enough people, whereas I am merely a crabby fandom bitch who would look nicer if I wasn't so fat and would smile more. Bow following standing ovation slash a handful of death threats on social media. I gotta get ready for work now. L8r world, smell my ass!

[hilarieburtonmorgan]

Hilarie Burton on Living in an Apocalypse Within an Apocalypse for The Walking Dead

Hilarie Burton and I spoke over Zoom in the midst of a pandemic about her upcoming appearance on season ten of The Walking Dead, a show about a post-apocalyptic pandemic, where she plays the dead wife of her real-life husband (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Negan) and the namesake of the infamous barbed-wired baseball bat, Lucille. The actress, who got her start on MTV’s Total Request Live (TRL) in 2000, has also starred in One Tree Hill, White Collar, Grey’s Anatomy, and the Lethal Weapon series. Speaking from her temporary abode in North Carolina, during an extended COVID-necessitated break from filming The Walking Dead, she was clear and candid. Below, she discusses filming alongside her husband, producing a documentary about the Wilmington 1898 massacre, farming, and living in an apocalypse within an apocalypse.

———

HILARIE BURTON: [Sitting in what looks like a classroom] I’m in my son’s classroom at a toddler table.

BRIAN ALESSANDRO: It’s amazing how everyone’s homes have been converted into schools!

BURTON: Yeah, well, we pulled our son from school so early because my husband was doing a movie in Massachusetts and we were traveling back in February [of 2020], and we were like “This shit is nuts! Why isn’t everybody pulling their kids?” We saw everybody at the airport, at JFK, just like falling apart, and we were like, “I don’t know. This seems like something we should keep you home for.”

ALESSANDRO: Smart move! You’re about to appear on The Walking Dead as Lucille, Negan’s dead wife in presumably flashbacks? How did this happen?

BURTON: The comic books set up the basic gist of Lucille, and Negan has certainly talked about her a lot throughout his arc in the series. Jeffrey [Dean Morgan, Burton’s husband] had always said in jest—maybe it wasn’t in jest, who knows—but he would say out loud, “I want my wife to play Lucille,” and nepotism is certainly a strong force within our industry. And then COVID hit and it was like, “I’m not going to kiss some stranger that I haven’t been quarantined with.” But it was good to work with each other. We had never had scenes together. We had been on the same show—we did Grey’s Anatomy at different times. We did a show called Extant together.

ALESSANDRO: Was it at all weird playing a fictional couple in such a macabre story and setting?

BURTON: You don’t even understand the layers of what we were dealing with. There’s been so much loss this year, let me start with that. And so, doing a story about loss in this current climate was really difficult because we know people who have died this year. We’ve suffered a lot of losses this year and having to ground that in a performance and not just be like a big, huge mess on set was hard. On top of all of that, to keep us safe for the filming, they had us quarantined living in the neighborhood that The Walking Dead shoots in. Alexandria is a little subdivision of houses with a big, huge wall, and it’s apocalyptic. There’s trash everywhere, and the water tower and all the sets that you see on television. We lived in Rick Grimes’s house. There were bullet holes in my child’s closet door.

ALESSANDRO. Wow.

BURTON: And big, huge pieces of dry wall missing from stunts that had gone awry. So, we were living in a real apocalypse in the real world living in a rented house in a fake apocalypse and filming the beginning of a pandemic that has been on TV for ten years. There were so many layers of weirdness.

ALESSANDRO: It’s sort of meta! And surreal.

BURTON: It was so meta! And on top of all of that, Halloween happened, so there was trick-or-treating going on. And we were there for the election with Georgia turning blue and all of the upheaval and violence that came with that.

ALESSANDRO: What a moment.

BURTON: To be surrounded by those walls on set every day, and to know what was going on in the real world, was every bit as important and dramatic as what we were making TV about. But our son learned to ride a bike!

ALESSANDRO: On set?

BURTON: We live on a farm in Upstate New York, and so there’s gravel roads, which is not conducive to bike riding. And so he had this entire neighborhood [the Alexandria set] all to himself and would just take off after virtual school. He learned to ride this cool kid grown up bicycle while dodging debris from the last Whisperers War.

ALESSANDRO: What a cool story for him when he grows up to tell people. “I learned how to ride a bike in the middle of The Walking Dead apocalypse while dealing with this real apocalypse.”

BURTON: [Laughs] It was strange! We took a lot of pictures. Seeing my children play on this rusty playground equipment that is a set piece, but that’s what they played on every day after the crew left, was … strange.

ALESSANDRO: I can’t imagine! What has it been like to be at the center of one of the biggest casting decisions in the fan boy and girl universe?

BURTON: I’ve been really nervous about it. There have been conversations about whether or not Negan is a villain and if you had followed Negan’s journey from the beginning the way you followed Rick Grimes, perhaps people would have been more sympathetic to the way he handled things when he was introduced. And so, my role as Lucille is to validate a lot of Negan’s life choices. I think, and I’m probably a little biased, but I dig the Negan of it all. I get him. I’m attracted to him. He’s a terrible dude, but we all turn into terrible people when met with dangerous circumstances. That weighed on me heavily. I think playing a character who is ill during a time when so much of our country has been faced with illness and loss really weighed on me heavily. When you’re dealing with losing your most cherished person, there’s going to be a big percentage of the fan base that has dealt with that in the last year. It’s recent history.

ALESSANDRO: Very fresh wounds.

BURTON: I didn’t want to cheapen anything for them. So, it’s messy. It’s a messy story.

ALESSANDRO: Compelling, too, though. When do your episodes air? In how many episodes does Lucille appear?

BURTON: Just one episode. They do these bottle episodes that are wonderful. Normally when you’re filming a TV show, particularly a big TV show, if you work a 12-hour day, it’s like, “Oh my god, we’re gonna get home! This is great! It’s the shortest day ever!” Normally, it’s like 15-16-hour days and that’s normal, but given the restrictions of COVID they were only allowed to shoot ten-hour days. And so, we did these bottle episodes where the scenes are longer. It’s like doing a play. Jeffrey and I would learn all our words for that day and perform everything like a play in order to get it done quickly and efficiently, and it really change the pace of the work. It was like we were putting on a play for 30 crew members every day. It didn’t feel like we were making a television show.

ALESSANDRO: It’s remarkable that anyone is getting anything done right now, let alone these kinds of large-scale productions.

BURTON: I was so nervous, but I never felt safer, because the daily testing they did gave me such peace of mind. I go to the food line now and I’m so worried that I’m bringing something home, but I knew in Georgia whether or not I had something because the production made it such a priority to take care of everyone from the top down.

ALESSANDRO: When does your episode air?

BURTON: I believe it’s April 4th. That’s the tentative date right now. It’s the last of the six bottle episodes.

ALESSANDRO: Can you say yet if Lucille’s coming back?

BURTON: Dude, who fucking knows?! [Both laugh] You know! It’s The Walking Dead! I was just so flattered that they invited me to begin with. I know Angela [Kang, The Walking Dead showrunner] as my husband’s boss, a cool person to hang out with. She’d come to the farm before the pandemic hit. She was the last guest we had at the farm. And so, her and Scott Gimple [the chief content officer of The Walking Dead] believing in me to be able to handle that really meant a lot.

ALESSANDRO: Let’s shift gears for a bit. You’ve recently co-produced a documentary about the Wilmington massacre called Wilmington on Fire 2. What brought you to this project?

BURTON: I reached out to Chris [Everett, producer and director of Wilmington on Fire 2] after I had seen [Wilmington on Fire] and a number of actor friends from the Wilmington [North Carolina] area told me that I had to watch this. So, I watched it, and it was really eye-opening. I had lived in the historic district of Wilmington. I had lived two houses down from the lawyer who represented all the white supremacists who overtook the government in 1898. I’d been inside his home. I had no idea I was treading in this place where someone truly evil lived. Someone who had justified their actions, and changed the course of Wilmington’s history. It really shook me that I didn’t know about it. I felt stupid. And so, I reached out to Chris and asked him to come on my Instagram and give a talk about it.

ALESSANDRO: I watched it! You were both great!

BURTON: Oh, you did!

ALESSANDRO: Yeah!

BURTON: I just think sitting down and talking about stuff is a really healthy way to educate people in a way that isn’t preachy. Chris is a very good storyteller. He knows what he wants to say with his work. And so, he told me he was doing the sequel, and I said, “Well, here, let me throw some money at you, and then also let me help you drum up the rest of your funding.” I didn’t want to impose in the storytelling part of it because I really believe in how he is telling these stories, but I’ll cheerlead all day long. That’s the job of some producers. Be the hype-man!

What’s also important about Wilmington on Fire is that it specifically addresses reparations, which is not something that white communities talk about. It is very taboo. The sentiment is, “We solved those problems! Generations have gone by. I didn’t do this. Why do I have to pay for it?” And what I think is so important about the Wilmington on Fire story is that it is recent history. I knew my great-grandmother who was alive when that happened. You know, we’re not so far removed that we can’t trace the families who were directly affected by it, and it’s proven that reparations do help. And I think this chapter two lays out a very compelling argument for why we should take responsibility for what happened in 1898. I got a lot of heat on social media since last summer when I really started speaking up about this stuff. People accuse you of being a coastal elite. I literally just put out an entire book about how I left Los Angeles and moved to a rural farming community [The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons from Down on Mischief Farm]. My county couldn’t be more Republican. And I grew up in Virginia, I grew up on gun ranges, my father was in the military. I grew up surrounded by Republicans. And there is a major difference between the Republican party I remember as a child and what has manifested as a result of the Tea Party movement. White women—we’re 55 percent of that vote for Trump, and so it’s the job of white women who understand the community to speak up against it.

ALESSANDRO: How have the trolls responded to your rebuttal?

BURTON: [Laughs] Yeah, you know, they’re not into it. I get a lot of, “We thought you were a nice girl.” Which baffles me! I’ve never played a nice girl. I don’t think I’ve ever been nice in any of my interviews. I’m always kind of a surly lady. I don’t know where that mythology came from. I’m not a nice girl. I say exactly what I think, and a lot of the trolls have a problem with it. And that’s okay. I think it’s important to have a line in the sand when it comes to things you feel passionately about. That is something that is a dealbreaker for me.

ALESSANDRO: It also says a lot about you to have the right enemies.

BURTON: Who was it that said, “Show me a man with no enemies and I’ll show you a man with no conviction”?

ALESSANDRO: It might have been Hemingway or Roosevelt. A writer or a politician like a hundred years ago. [Ed. note: it was Paul Newman: “A man with no enemies is a man with no conviction.”]

BURTON: It was one of those grumpy old guys, but yeah, we’ll co-opt it. It’s rough because you want to maintain an open line of communication with the people you feel can hear what you’re saying and know when to draw the line when someone is so indoctrinated that they’ve fallen in with hate. Or conspiracy. And that has become very difficult to navigate.

ALESSANDRO: With regard to your social media, which is activism-heavy, is it that when you have such a platform and audience it’s hard not to say something?

BURTON: I am in a position where if I never work again, my husband works a lot. It’s a position of privilege. And to not use that privilege seems really irresponsible. We all get different tools, and mine, I guess, has been a big mouth. Not a “nice girl,” remember?

[Both laugh]

ALESSANDRO: “Hilarie Burton is NOT a nice girl!”

BURTON: Who the fuck told people I was?! I am on the board for Astor Family Services in Rhinebeck, New York, which is a mental health facility for children who have been dealt a really bad hand. These are kids who are dealing with trauma. You would be amazed how little these professionals are paid to take care of these at-risk kids, and that bothered me.

ALESSANDRO. I hear you. And I have to say thank you for that. My background is in clinical psychology and I taught at an at-risk school in Queens for ten years, so I know firsthand the perils and the hardships of it, and it’s very powerful what you’ve done to help facilitate what they do.

BURTON: Right on. Thank you!

ALESSANDRO: I’ve seen and read interviews with you over the course of the last 15-20 years, and you’ve always struck me as very grounded, unfazed by success and celebrity. To what do you attribute your perspective?

BURTON: That’s really nice of you to say because I don’t take that lightly. That’s a slippery slope in this business. I have certainly fallen prey to it in my life. I think working at MTV as a teenager was probably the best education I could have gotten in our business because I saw the biggest stars in the world come in with their managers and agents and publicists and entourage and then a year later, they would come back with nobody and there would be no kids out in Times Square, and no one would give a shit anymore. It’s all so fleeting and it’s so fake and I’ve watched so many people trade in the most intimate moments of their life for magazine covers, and so I never wanted to cheapen the things I really loved with that. I’ve tried to remain really transparent about the bad stuff, too. I wrote the book and I keep getting feedback—“Oh, you talk about your miscarriages! Oh, you talk about bickering with your husband! Oh, you talk a lot about the messy stuff!” I think it’s so important to keep the bar really low. You run the risk of disappointing yourself when you sell the façade. Look, I’m gonna fuck up a lot, but if I’m upfront about it, then fine!

[overcaffeinated-creative]

And what, pray tell is hutt sluts? (Yes I'm a creep who reads your tags)

The fact you read my tags is fantastic? Most of my funnier comments end up in the tags. So skipping them is missing a solid chunk of the Caff Experience.

Okay, this is going under a cut because I’m almost certain no one wants to accidentally see this. Because it’s just rambling about the single stupidest concept I have ever came up with as shitty worldbuilding ever. It’s impressive just how bad this is. 

Hutt Slutts was this terrible, terrible thing I came up with on whim. I wanted a consistent, stupid background thing I could have shift between my verses. The holonet is for porn and since this is in a galaxy far, far away that means it’s even stranger porn. And thus the idea to have a dumb porno series be my crowning achievement background even was born.

The entire gist of the like 28 video long series is that it’s Outer Rim/Hutt Space made garbage. Like, it starts out not only amateur as fuck but the quality is just bad. Imagine sometimes out of focus, poorly lit hand-cam work where the other actors beyond the starring Hutt (who stars in all of them) are barely paid extras. Sometimes you hear the heavy panting of the person working the camera who is clearly into this. It was like someone opened the door to their bedroom and decided to let the world in. And then never stopped.

Over the years the quality improves to include better lighting, steadier camera work, There’s the original crew who keeps showing up along with continued strange couplings. Maybe even some vague attempt at a plot after the first seven or so. A big thing is that any small time (or not so small if they’re broke enough) criminal has probably made a background pass through. It’s easy money if you’re desperate and an ready to let go of your dignity. 

I imagine it as something that’s known in-universe for just how horrible it is, so it’s memeable. The most popular ones include: “Is that a hairless Wookiee?”, “Look at that little Aleena try/Try like an Aleena”, and “Didn’t know a Trandoshan could bend like that.” Others use it as dares/rite-of-passages among their friends. Since, you know it’s eye meltingly bad with all of the usual trappings of medicore porn (such as the title). Even law enforcement can find some use out of it too. Because if someone’s down to appearing in the pornographic, Space Sharknado of the Outer Rim they’re desperate. Or, they have an alibi or it places them in a certain location. They also make good birth control (or serve as an awakening) because who wants to bump uglies after seeing some of the really out there takes.

Is the Star aware of how the rest of the galaxy views these holos? Yes and they don’t really care. They make them because they’re fun and make money. So, expect lots of new takes.