#they have that weird 90s flare to them

[leslie057]

this really is what i feel like when i wear a blazer to work and my hair is even slightly curly

[emilybeemartin]

Ok ok ok ok listen. Because I have anxiety I feel it's my duty to say that this show won't be for everyone. I came to it over quarantine because my husband suggested we read Bernard Cornwell's series together, and I agreed because I liked Hornblower and knew this was the army equivalent and, let's face it, I wanted to see scruffy mid-thirties Sean Bean in uniform.

THE PREMISE:

Richard Sharpe is a lowborn rank-and-file soldier in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars who is raised to an officer after saving Sir Arthur Wellesley's life (this all happens differently in the books, but the basic event is the same). Throughout the series, he rises in the ranks thanks to his bravery and heroism/recklessness, but he's always caught between two worlds--trying to be a leader of common men while never being accepted by the rest of the highborn officers.

Let's start with the bad:

CONS:

Look, this is a 90s drama glorifying the British army. So like, there are gonna be issues. Women are mostly romantic side pieces to be wooed and rescued, and there are plenty of subplots, verbiage, and stereotypes that didn't age well. Production values are low for the first few and so you've got battle scenes with like fifteen guys and a horse, which honestly I find endearing. But no episode is more cringey than Sharpe's Gold. Due to legal issues, the script had to be rewritten with none of the original material, and it turned into this bizarro semi-supernatural horror involving Aztec gold (in Spain, yes). It's completely different from all the other episodes, and even Sean Bean didn't like it (he called it a "mish mash," which is true). It's such a weird piece of work that we almost stopped watching the show, but we continued, and we were relieved to find that the rest of the series is markedly better. History Hack podcast does a great dive into why this episode was so whack.

PROS:

I MEAN COME ON

Sean really understood this character--absolute chaos on the battlefield and shy and awkward pretty much everywhere else. He's amazing in battle scenes and he's EPIC at acting wounded. But the scenes I replay over and over are when he's socially out of his depth and gets flustered and sputtery and so Sheffield the captions can't handle it.

Supporting cast:

You'll find a lot of your classic British TV favorites making appearances throughout this series, and the camaraderie among the riflemen is always fun. Obviously this is a dude fest, as stated above, but some of the women are also written and acted really, really well--- Assumpta Serna as Teresa is that winning combination of a love interest/action heroine who doesn't devolve into a damsel in distress, and even passes the Bechdel test on a few occasions. And Diana Perez as Ramona is so badass and enjoyable.

Locations: Aside from a few interior sets, these films are mostly shot outside on location, with practical effects and stunts. There's some gorgeous scenery of the Crimean peninsula standing in for Spain and Portugal, and it's just really fun watching these guys run around rocky escarpments and fields with flares and stage explosives going off around them.

Music: I saw someone tag the opening theme as "electric guitar jumpscare" and they're not wrong. It's wonderfully anachronistic and totally 90s and you'll never get used to it. But far better are the soldiers' songs John Tams threads throughout, as well as his and Muldowney's thematic scores, and you will always, always finish an episode with him singing "Over the Hills and Far Away" stuck in your head.

Filming Lore: There was a LOT that happened during filming. Everything from Paul McGann having to drop out as the lead to misadventures in filming in Crimea just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. History Hack podcast has an awesome series of "filming of" episodes with input from cast, crew, and historians, and Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) has a book called "From Crimea With Love" that details the batshit filming adventures. I haven't read it but he references it every six minutes throughout the podcasts.

So: you've been warned, you've been primed. Start with Sharpe's Rifles; it's on Youtube. Watch it and Eagle, maybe jump to Battle or Siege if you're not sure, and then make up your mind.

If this all sounds enjoyable to you, but you wish there were more tall ships, more Paul McGann, more heroic brooding, and even MORE true love cosplaying as masculine camaraderie, you're in luck! Because you should also watch Hornblower!

And then draw fan art of it all! Please,,, I am so lon el y

[cellarspider]

17/30 Inappropriate relations between hugger and face

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

We return to the movie that is a menace to itself and society at large, Prometheus. 

Content warning for gore, death, orifice invasion, and, unsurprisingly,

Time to kill the sacrificial side characters! Well, at least, kill the ones that have names and distinct personalities, so that you are expected to feel somewhat bad for them. And I do. They didn’t do anything bad enough to deserve this movie.

I mean, they’re going to die because the movie turns them into morons to make this scene work, but hey. They’re still doing better than the guy who managed to insult his life partner’s father, faith, and infertility in the course of two minutes.

This part of the movie, in fact, leans fully into 80s-90s slasher tropes. The people who’re having sex are all going to have various bad things happen to them throughout the movie, with their severity and dignity depending on whether they display traits considered virtuous. But Fifield the geologist has committed the cardinal sin of hotboxing his suit’s air supply while they wait out the night in the creepy alien structure, so he shall be among the first to die. 

To make this work, they have decided to spend the night in the room right next to the decapitated alien body they refused to get near before. They do not seem to mind it now, nor do they find it worrying that the room on the other side of it is full of the black oil from the X-Files.

This is one of the other infamous scenes that everybody remembers about this movie. Millburn is not doing anything that a morally punitive slasher movie would declare worthy of death, but he is going to behave like a moron.

Remember I said ages ago that there was a cut scene where he apparently showed real reverence for the existence of non-humanoid, unintelligent alien life? That was meant to provide context for why he’d be so excited to see the world’s most genital-faced snake.

We, the audience, know that this is probably what’s become of some alien worms last seen being exposed to the Ominous Black Goo. Why didn’t it fully melt them like the Engineer at the start? Not explained! We, the audience weird enough to remember Prometheus twelve years after it came out, should also know that when a snake-like creature rears up, flares open a hood, and makes hissing noises, you should not try to get close to that critter. That is an angry critter, and it is going to do angry things to you.

Millburn is presented as the kind of herp-lover who finds a snakey critter cute, so he should know this too. He does not. That is impressively bad. The one impressively good thing about this scene is that the creature is largely a practical effect, save for in moments where it needs to move in ways a puppet can’t. At the same time, it’s unfortunately hard to tell that it’s real, due to its texture. This helps hide the transitions to CG, but it also leaves you less convinced that it’s there. Sometimes a more obvious puppet can still feel more threatening, because they are indisputably there.

Still, this scene is, despite the stupid context, effective at most of what it wants to do: creating a sudden, brutal spike of violence, with one small creature managing to act as an unstoppable force. Millburn’s arm is broken, Fifield is sprayed with acid blood as he tries to help and falls face-first into the black ooze, leaving Milburn to be killed by the creature as it breaks into his suit and crawls down his throat. It hits two of the usual beats of an Alien movie: acid blood, and overtones of sexual violation.

It made me feel squeamish, although that might have something to do with the fact that it has a weird parallel to a sci-fi comedy movie that had some unpleasant marketing back when I was a wee Spider: Evolution. Apparently, back in 2001, it was considered comedic to watch a giant mosquito crawl under the skin of a man’s thigh and imply that it bit him in the balls. Wee Spider did not agree with this assessment, and so now that’s burnt into my psyche.

The crew of the Prometheus is none the wiser, because nobody kept a watch on the two of them. The last interaction they had was Janek saying ‘hey, we detected movement in there with you, probably just a glitch tho, nbd’ before wandering off to have sex with Vickers.

I want to remind everyone that this is the movie that wants to deal with themes including but not limited to:

The creation and purpose of humanity

The ethical implications of creating human-level artificial intelligence

How religion intersects with science and crises of faith

Are we truly capable of grappling with any of the above

Genocide

This movie is an absolute mess. It is beautifully shot, and a competent shock-horror film when it feels like it, but that accounts for a fraction of its runtime, and basically none of the dialog.

It also fails at building tension for scenes like these, because it undercuts Alfred Hitchcock's principle of cinematic tension:

[Video description: An excerpt from a lecture by Alfred Hitchcock:

"Four people are sitting around a table, talking about baseball, whatever you like. Five minutes of it, very dull. Suddenly, a bomb goes off. Blows the people to smithereens. What do the audience have? Ten seconds of shock. Now take the same scene, and tell the audience there's a bomb under that table, and will go off in five minutes. Well the whole emotion of the audience is totally different, because you've given them that information. That in five minutes time, that bomb will go off. Now the conversation about baseball becomes very vital. Because they're saying to you, "Don't be ridiculous, stop talking about baseball, there's a bomb under the table!" You've got the audience working. Now the only difference is--and I've been guilty of, in the picture Sabotage, of making this error, but I've never made it since--The bomb must never go off. Because if you do, you've worked that audience into a state, and then they'll get angry because you haven't provided them with any relief. That's almost a must. So a foot touches the bomb, somebody looks down, says "My god, there's a bomb." Out of the window, then it goes off, just in time."

]

Prometheus tells you, over and over again, that the characters are in danger. Why are they in danger? Because they deliberately put themselves there. It's like they're a bunch of ordinance disposal experts sitting around Hitchcock's table, one of them nudges the bomb with their foot, and they look down and say "Huh! That's neat. Hey, take a poke at this, guys!"

The last bit of Hitchcock's principle is moot in this type of horror film, because there are only some characters that are positioned as being worthy of real worry on the part of the audience, which Prometheus also undermines--but not entirely. We still have a ways to go before they take his advice on that, though.

Next time: 

Many posts ago, I responded to Holloway’s behavior with an invocation of Clue:

The tables shall soon turn!

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

Citations for alt-text rambles

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thats-a-penis 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooms 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/something-terrible-has-happened-here-the-crazy-story-of-how

[decora-kai]

Hey, quick question for those with mobility aids, more specifically those with forearm crutches and/or canes.

I don't personally have any mobility aids, other than this cane that my dad got like in the 90s and it's basically a prop ex: it has no rubber tip, I can't hold the handle properly due to the weird shape and i can only use it inside the house to get around

I've been contemplating getting forearm crutches for a while (or possibly a cane but I feel crutches would work better) and recently my pain + fatigue has gotten worse.

About to go on holiday for the summer in 2 weeks and I'll be In Canada for a month, my main problem is that most of my time will be spent walking around and exploring which I absolutely love to do but it causes bad flare ups a lot of the time. Yes, I would just buy crutches without hesitation, but I'm currently living with my parents who make most of my financial decisions for me and although I have sort of, vaguely brought up getting a mobility aid, I'm kinda scared to properly ask as I'm not yet diagnosed (I am in the process though) + I'm a little worried about being looked at weird/being called a faker for using crutches since I 'dont have a broken leg'

Basically, I'm just wondering what advice y'all have about asking your parents to get crutches and possibly about travelling with crutches (specifically flying with them)

Any help would be great tyy 😭🙏

edit: I don't really have the funds to buy crutches over the price of £40 but I also don't want to buy amazon crutches unless I absolutely have to for obvious reasons

[chibishortdeath]

I did a little bit of background practice yesterday. I usually forget that I could be drawing scenery and stuff so I’m kinda rough at it. It took like three tries to get the results of that first picture (second picture was one of those tries, and I’m not even showing the other one it was really bad 💀💀💀)

Also just throwing in some other doodles cause yeah :3. Simon. Some of these are from the same page and some of these are ones I think I forgot to post a bit ago so if there’s repeats then eh whatever lol. Explanations under a cut :)

This is pretty much just a study of a photo of a graveyard I ran into on Pinterest. Liminal spaces are very nice for finding background references because you can be sure no one is gonna be in them and they have the weird vibe that The Guy™️ should be in. But holy HELL trees are HARD. Like obviously I know what a tree looks like but the second I have to draw branches trees suddenly do not make sense anymore 💀

Another liminal space, this one was a path with the sky completely blacked out. I tried putting Simon into it but he kinda ended up a little muddled and too small augh. I’m also not very great at combining people and backgrounds so uh yeah. This one was also a much faster doodle just trying to warm up for the first one. But eh it’s cool idk. I need to put him in more liminal spaces or like try to draw the Simon’s Quest areas in 3D eventually.

Small practice comic! There’s no words, Simon just kinda walks a bit and passes out. I was gonna have more things happen but I didn’t have the room for it and decided to just leave it as a little practical piece. He’s probably gonna get up in a little bit and freak out about how much time he wasted.

Just a Simon head :3. His hair is fun to draw! I usually end up simplifying things as like a little uh polygonal… I think that’s the word… When drawing skulls, I usually go for octagons instead of circles because that’s much easier, but that ends up bleeding into how I draw hair making it kinda spikey and pointy in some spots on the top. I feel like I draw pretty inconsistently, but he’s very pretty and fun to draw regardless of how he ends up :3

This is some weird ass fan art of two things that aren’t related at all lmao. Sometimes you gotta crossover things that don’t make sense for the fun of it. This is Simon drawn based on a scene from the Fear Garden music video! Fear Garden is a banger, shout out to Chaa fr, it’s a vocaloid song about a girl who has a weird obsession with hands (Kira joke lol) and kills people to plant their hands in her secret garden where she treats them like flowers. Yeah, again it makes no sense, but the pose with the two mirrored characters was really cool and idk the vibes were there—

Simon sitting in between two graves, both say “BELMONT” in big letters, but one is for Christopher and Cyncia and the other is for Soleil and whoever his significant other was, we don’t have a name so it’s cut off. This has me thinking about the time in between all these characters hmm. Doing the math, Soliel would’ve been in his 90s when Simon was born, so there’s actually a good chance he wasn’t Simon’s grandfather, rather his great grandfather :O. Which means that there’s two generations we know nothing about between these two. And also that Simon would’ve never met either Soleil or Christopher or Cyncia :(. Then that has me thinking about fan comic stuff and how I’m gonna depict Simon hmmmmmmm. I imagine Simon spent a lot of time in the family graveyard tbh.

Simon is totally me when I dramatically collapse on a large marble monument of some sort in the graveyard— There’s also a couple attempts at drawing his paldrons at different angles but aaaa I can’t visualize these things properly. They’re just like kinda flared half ovals, why are they so hard to draw at any angle but like head on and top view 💀💀💀??? I’m trying to get out of the habit of drawing them bent in angles that don’t make sense but argggggg it’s hard lol.

Yeah, recent doodles tho yippie d(^^ )!

[schismusic]

Æon Flux and the end of all things

I don't remember the first time I heard of Æon Flux but I sure as hell remember the first time I watched it, and it wasn't too long ago which would technically not warrant the level of obsession I have for that shit, but here we are anyway.

I was knocked the fuck out on painkillers, two of my wisdom teeth freshly removed, not even remotely worried about the exam that I had coming up in like two days from then. So I was barely moving away from my swivel chair and sleeping on a whole ass armored pillow to prevent from tossing and turning and shit felt so surreal to me. It was like the eating chair from the last Cronenberg movie. So I delved into Æon Flux essentially blind and bingewatched the shit out of it. Twice. Ended up downloading the whole thing from some sketchy ass 1080p remastered torrent, rewatched it again, and spread it around personally in a more cauterized Google Drive folder (so if you guys got a nasty ass virtual STD from it, my bad I guess), not even a month after watching the series. Shit was fucked, in short, and every rewatch just fueled this obsession even further.

(image taken from Episode 1, Season 1)

One thing about me: when I obsess over stuff I want to draw something at the very least inspired by it. Happens to me a lot with Autechre, who are actually one of maybe three bands I would not hesitate to call my favourite based on an absolutely objective principle which is absolutely not up for discussion and which might be the object of a future post at this point. But the point is fucking Æon Flux is essentially impossible to replicate because Peter Chung's character designs are so recognizable that you start seeing them in literally every other movie that came out in the late '90s/early 2000s - and for reference, Æon Flux was brought to an end in 1995. Consequently, all attempts at drawing Æon Flux-inspired stuff end up either feeling very derivative or looking like fucking trash. Artistry is a weird thing because sometimes it inspires other people, other times it just inspires man-slaughtering rage.

Somewhat many of my friends are or have at one point tried to be accomplished visual artists. Some have made it to professional/teaching level, some others have an art school diploma or degree - and I'll be using this space to shout out @coto-letta aka V., who has recently rejoined Tumblr after years of absence. We met on here, when her handle was much different, and I mistook her for an ex of mine (whom, surprisingly, we are still on relatively good - if quiet - terms with) so I slid into her DMs as you do, and she was like "yeah actually I have no clue who the fuck you are I just think your blog is neat and dropped a follow" which was quite a fundamental moment in understanding that while my life was written like a dodgy soap-opera, that didn't mean I was the centre of the entire world. Anyway, the reason I'm shouting her out is because sometimes something deeper and older than you remember has a way of finding you again when you least expect it and that's what happened when in January 2023 (after V. had left Tumblr for at that point about two years and we had exchanged Instagram accounts) I somehow ended up on her Insta and found out she had been tagged in a picture taken somewhere that looked suspiciously like my university's conference hall and I could not fucking believe she was in my city. I slid into her DMs again, as you do, and found out that no, that wasn't my uni's aula magna, but yes, she was in fact relocating in my city for her master's. So we met up after maybe seven years of on-and-off Internet friendship. It's a neat story, sure, but how the fuck do we tie it into Æon Flux?

(image taken from Episode 3, Season 2: Leisure)

Not trying to be overly dramatic here, but Æon Flux to me is just about a condensation of everything that "art" can mean. Not just visual flare or style, not just deep meaning or interesting ways of putting across one or more questions and never a definitive answer to any of them (more often than not, it's sets of possible answers - usually two, neither of which ends up covering the whole array of possibilities, both of which actually leave a lot to be desired in a number of different ways), not just this insane fucking music that toys with everything you expect from animation courtesy of Drew Neumann who may just rank as one of the best soundtrack artists ever in virtue of this single work. It's the whole package. You would think it'd work taken in pieces, and it does, no objection to that: but it works even better as a whole package. If the moral questioning (and the philosophical musings of season 3, which is unjustly underrated because "it's too normal" by hipster wannabe critic dilettantes who like to think that they could do better than that. Everybody else on the other hand is generally able to stop pull their head out their own ass and recognize, at the very least, the excellent craftsmanship and talent that went into the ten long episodes) wasn't accompanied by the weird fetishistic sex it'd be somewhat less impactful, almost like a cauterized Tenshi no tamago made into a series for mainstream late-night TV audiences. The twist was that MTV's executives, at the time, "didn't understand [the double entendres], they didn't even notice them. So, we were okay", in producer Japhet Asher's own words in the short documentary Investigation: The History of Æon Flux. The network was, in fact, trying to break into the mainstream - they simply couldn't keep their creatives at bay. No wonder they turned to Jersey Shore as they went along.

(image taken from Episode 5, Season 3: The Demiurge)

Even just the main characters' purported edginess, clearly something "of its time", is never played entirely straight. Both leads are way too complex, and very clearly presented as such, to be just summed up by "Æon Flux is an anarchist/Trevor Goodchild is a dictator". Both of which are true, by the way, they're just one part of a full picture. Even within the context of its necessary linearity - this is still an animated short and as such moves only in one direction, even though a number of episodes (specifically Mirror and Chronophasia) deliberately fuck with the viewer's perception of times on varying degrees of diegesis and extradiegesis - the series could be perceived as, indeed, a sandbox: consequently, the viewer could set sail and explore it. This is further encouraged by the series's active weirdness to whoever would want to try and make sense of the world's story. There is no history, there is just the story at hand: an eternal present which you can't understand ("un eterno presente che capire non sai": Ferretti knew his shit, regardless of how it went after CCCP) and which Æon and Trevor are not interested in even trying to contextualize. Not a surprise then that they'd be into each other: their closeness in body and heart doesn't exist at the mind's level, and the whole thing falls apart miserably every time it looks like they could be finally let their weapons down. But as Æon completely understands, and as Trevor seems to actively try to ignore, the fight is already the whole point: star-cross'd as they may be, the entire act of playfully hunting each other for sport both in the bedroom and on the battlefield is what Trevor Goodchild and Æon Flux thrive on. Trevor wants stability but an Æon who doesn't fight back is simply not Æon; Æon does not want the stability, but she definitely likes Trevor to an extent and finds more in common with him that she would probably be willing to admit (I would like to thank Tumblr user @brw on thons very good analysis of the episode A Last Time for Everything, which heavily inspired this section of the post!). In short: if Trevor seems to embody Pier Paolo Pasolini's idea that "there is nothing more anarchistic than power" ("non c'è nulla di più anarchico del potere") then Æon flips the statement on its head: "there is nothing more powerful than anarchism". That is, of course, until we once again confront my signature ad-hoc elephant in the room that this statement just summoned.

(Image taken from Episode 1, Season 1)

No spoilers intended, but if you so much as google the name of the series you will easily find out that Æon Flux dies a whole lot throughout the series*. Season 1 and all the shorts from season 2 end with her dying ungrateful deaths and a couple of the long episodes leave much to be desired in the way of positive closure, with Ether Drift Theory representing a peak in bleakness for season 3. Most of the shorts where Æon dies imply that either absolutely nothing changes in the world around when she's lost or that Trevor Goodchild literally just succeeds in all of his goals (see Season 1's finale), and one could make a case that even if she did carry her missions through there would be absolutely nothing to show for it: somebody goes up the chain of power, everything is restored, there is one more tyrant to murder. Not to be that one guy who quotes Nietzsche about everything, but the eternal recurrence of the same is the first thing that comes to mind when watching Æon Flux, especially exemplified and even literalized by the episode War, possibly the best of the short ones: it's the same fucking story four times over a five-minute run time and nothing ever gets better for anyone. The body count in the episode is unquantifiably large - every one of the fallen a potential new Æon Flux or Trevor Goodchild. But this, in a way, implies that Æon keeps being reborn, and one could argue that the act of capturing a fly with her venus-fly-trap eye could simply be her coming back to life, as it were; stopping the most evident sign of decay, turning her eyes outward yet again, to face the eternal return of the same again and again and again…

(Image taken from Episode 8, Season 3: Ether Drift Theory)

You can find Æon Flux for free on the Internet Archive.

*as I was discussing the final draft of this post with my friend @oldshittydog we had a pretty interesting discussion which I thought should be added here for an even clearer, fuller picture:

[olderthannetfic]

Lately, I’ve been struggling to navigate a social situation, and y’all give good advice.

Broad strokes:

I love to hike. It’s one of my favorite things to do with other people. I have a physical disability that sometimes interferes, but the friends I hike with are good about accommodating me. If I have a flare on a day we planned to hike, we shorten the excursion, take longer breaks, change the activity, or reschedule. We do the same for two other friends whose physical disabilities are similar to mine in terms of energy levels and the activity types they tend to limit.

In our friend circle, there is another friend, A, who we don’t usually invite to hike with us. A’s partner, B, has a physical disability that prevents them from being able to hike in 100% of cases, though short walks closer to home are not entirely out of the question on a good day. In the past, we’ve gone on many such walks, and we always plan around B’s access needs when the larger friend group hangs out. I have a special chair in my living space for them to use when our tabletop group meets there, for example. 90% of the time, we only hang out with A in circumstances where B is also present.

Recently, friend C and I were discussing a planned hike in front of A, and A mentioned that it sounded fun. I said that she was welcome to come if she wanted, and she said she’d think about it and left. C, who is very close with B, told me that they thought it was a jerk move for me to invite A on an outing B can’t participate in.

I guess my questions are:

—Was it a jerk move?

—Regardless of the answer, how can I invite A to things more tactfully in the future? I like her a lot, and I want to see more of her if I can.

My partner and I have different access needs, so we often attend friend outings without each other. I tend to assume that it’s okay to invite one partner and not the other as long as it isn’t an exclusionary pattern. So how do I make sure it isn’t that? I love B. I don’t want to make them feel shafted.

--

I don't think it was a jerk move.

I think whatever feelings partners have about different access needs can easily lead to resentment, but that's something a couple works out if they're going to stay together. I think it's on A to be aware of B's feelings and B to speak up if A is making them feel too left out. I don't think this is on you as an outside party even if you're friends with both A and B.

Frankly, I think C is weird for treating couples like an indivisible unit in all cases, and if B feels left out by A attending, they might also feel left out by their friends enjoying activities they cannot do. We don't know how B feels without asking B. It's quite likely they'd feel bad for being the reason A is not invited to things.

B feeling included is less likely to be about whether other people go on hikes ever and more likely to be about how much quality time you spend with them how regularly. If hikes started taking over from your tabletop group time, sure, they'd probably feel excluded. But it doesn't seem like that's the situation at all.

[mantra4ia]

I didn't think it was possible for an adaptation to break my fandom heart, however

I just finished season 3 of the Witcher on Netflix

and I cannot yet put into words how disheartened I feel about it except to say 1) bigger in scale doesn't always mean better in quality and 2) I feel like 90% of the commentary in "the making of season 3" is hype.

In my opinion, a majority of the dialogue in this season is painful no matter how hard the actors try to deliver them sincerely and the people who are trying to upsell how faithful it is to the books are clearly omitting much context of the books. I do not feel like reliving the dialogue to site a litany of grievance, but "you'd be dead already" was beaten to death, as was "never lost, always found." The scripting pen was a lot more clever in the days of death and destiny circa season 1. Not just clever, but cutting, sassy even in the midst of purposeful crudeness, artful, and complex. It didn't need to spell things out for you and could let you stumble into unraveling meaning whereas this season clocked you over the head. And it wasn't just the actual lines on the page, but the timing of their delivery — for example the monologues in combat — that makes a bad situation go from rough to rags. Cahir ("my life is yours" speech) and Vilgefortz ("the hardest part was holding back") have some of the worst offending instances. That, and when they threw in a "he's having a heart attack" medical drama one liner in the midst of battle on the Isle of Thanedd, I wanted to 🤦 smack a skull.

The set dressing, when it's not overwhelming —the outlandishness of Redania, back to back with the bombastic excesses of mages on the Isle hardly gives you a moment to discern the differences, it seems homogeneously over the top — makes be sad (footnote: random bowls of apples in hallways of an academy where people can conjure magical meals at will is just sort of silly in a very 90s movie, castle interior stereotype way). I don't think that one set or scenic shot caught my eye in a memorable way, and considering we saw Shaerrawedd this season that's a shame. Yarpen's tiny house is one of my few exceptions of well designed spaces. We also could have used more contrast in design by seeing life/ stylistic choices within the empire — given that the story from here on goes into the war trenches —and so it is disappointing that the few shots we get of Nilfgaard center around an underwhelming Emyhr as opposed to culture, mentality, and actual sense of the opposition and the scale of them.

Also, there were a few props that made me want to shut off my television in terms of quality on camera. Example: the first time we see Milva draw her bow. That poor, ridiculous bow that is neither a good example from text or a nod to any archers.

The fights do not all have their own distinct style as the commentary suggests, and the ones that do have distinguishable flare are filled with artful camera work for the sake of itself; as opposed to adding to the fight it was often distracting. There were also excessive cuts at various camera angles that were superfluous, as evidenced in the walk up leading to Geralt vs Vilgefortz. Two fight sequences were a joy to watch: the Rats escape and one of the opening sequences where Geralt confronts the bounty hunters and we see him walk away through the eyes of the man that he just beheaded as the skull hits the ground. It was an interesting stylistic choice with memorable impact. Nothing that hits like Blaviken combat, but a highlight.

The monster design (the flesh monster and others) makes me miserable, the rendering of which take me out of the fights built around them. Gone are the days of the Stryga and the Bruxa.

Not concluding the the first or the second act of season 3 with the siege of Aretuza and the destruction of Tor Lara was a mistake of timing. Following the battle, the subsequent desert scenes (and Brokilon to some extent) dragged on. Even weird, trippy cameos couldn't save them. Freya/Ciri has some decent beats of progressive desperation descending into madness leading up to finding "little horse" and confronting the demons of her psyche, but the cutting and the placement of the desert sequence does it no favors.

Speaking further on Aretuza, the battle of mages and scoia'tal missed a lot of moments. If we were going to spend precious screen time dividing the familial core four (Yen/Jaskier/Geralt/Ciri) so that Yen can go back for Tissaia— knowing that very soon in the plot it will be divided again when Ciri is portalled and someone is captured by Vilgefortz — then the battle better be worth it. It wasn't entirely. The conflict opened with a very "for the stage" kind of choreography with the assembly of mages. The conflict ramped up with dimeritium arrows (kinda predictable) and elven guts, and then ended on a strange note with Alzur's Thunder, an interesting nod to game play with 50/50 execution on screen. Given that this season likes narrative voiceovers, there was a lot they could have done with Alzur's Thunder in terms of sound, flashbacks, interior cuts of Tor Lara, narration, or even spell work of Yennefer being able to enter Tissaia's mind, to nicely harken back to the themes of control and deepest fears, when Tissaia's spell casting and loss of control parallels Yennefer's early years (lightning in a bottle), and each character comes full circle in pulling chaos back from the edge. But those themes are overshadowed by flash and bang. The opportunity for a contrasting small / personal moment with Yennefer and Tissaia amidst the larger battle is lost.

I'm sorry, but when LSH says this season is very character driven, I don't know what final cut she's watching. It feels like we're racing through plot points A-Z while nearly none of the character relationships get time to breath and impart their emotional beats. Spoiler alert: I should feel devastated when Vilgefortz beats Geralt, literally breaks him, but I don't. I should feel bad when Tissaia dies, I don't. They're trying to rush feelings between Triss and Istredd, Fringilla and Francesa, that I really can't be bothered about because there are so many characters given side quests that no one really gets their due. Least among them in the supporting cast Phillipa, which has animosity with Tissaia that doesn't land, a relationship with Dijkstra that doesn't land, a sidepiece that doesn't land, and is (apart from some interesting wardrobe, hair and makeup choices) reduced to a presence that provides forewarning about Lydia and Vilgefortz. And least among the main cast Geralt, who spends a whole lot of screen time in passive action exuding quiet contempt for other characters. Which is a shame, because if this truly is the last time we see Henry as Geralt, they should have given this man free reign to burn the barn down.

One shining note: I truly appreciate that we bookend this season with narration from Yennefer and, to a lesser extent, Geralt. It is a nice, if slightly less eloquent, homage to the corresponding letters in the novels (pieced together from multiple books). I would have loved far more for each episode to make some use of narration, as a kind of through-thread for this season, in order to get equal turns from Ciri and Jaskier. Ciri has some great internal dialogue of things that she wishes she could say to Yennefer but doesn't before their family splits apart (unspoken moments of respect, adoration, and love that get quickly summarized by ice skating montages). Ans Jaskier is quite often the "unreliable" narrator in sections of the novels, which flashes backwards and forwards from his slightly mythologized autobiography as a world famous bard. Both of them really needed their turn in this season to be an overarching voice.

This season hurts. I'm glad if you are a Witcher / Sapkowski fan and you enjoyed yourself in season 3. But it really let me down, the creative direction and didn't seem to come together into a cohesive tone (it couldn't strike the balance between humor and gravitas), vision, or unfolding of the story.

I don't know if I can bring myself to rewatch this season a second time with fresh eyes and hope for the best. But I will miss Henry Cavill, and have much respect for cast and crew.

[limeade-l3sbian]

i’m a crypto and just have a normal blog but omg it’s so hard. in the light of me being recently engaged i made a post abt how hard it was to grow up gay and like literally 90% of the replies on it are “gay trans(masc)(femme)” ppl going like “soo relatable” “real” “omg same” “queer kids deserve all the love” etc and i’m upset abt it and i feel bad for being upset abt it but i am. it feels like when i told my sister i was upset that my mom doesn’t even know i have a fiancé and will never know when i get married and just won’t ever be a part of my life like this bc she’s so homophobic.. and my sister was like “i totally get that” bc my mom didn’t approve of her marrying at 19 (but still loves her and lets her husband be around). this is weird but i’m just so tired of seeing straight ppl on that post acting like it’s abt them and i wanted to vent lol. love your blog btw

Firstly, congrats! And thank you! <3 <3

I can see why it might make you feel uncomfortable. The comments and your sister's comment. It all has a very inauthentic air of understanding that the person attempting to relate to you might not even realize is shallow and inauthentic. So while the intention is likely pure, there is definitely that tone deafness that flares something up in you (in me too).

Hard one to call. I know you said you were just looking to vent but I still wish I had something you could at least use to settle that feeling. The best thing I can say without joining that group of tone deafness is just to let yourself feel what you're feeling. I think emotions can be more confusing in the context of us not fully embracing them.

[iheartchv]

I posted 1,185 times in 2022

109 posts created (9%)

1,076 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@thelaundrybitch

@turtle-babe83

@leosgirl82

@angelicdavinci

@turtlesmakemehappy

I tagged 501 of my posts in 2022

#tmnt - 129 posts

#teenage mutant ninja turtles - 90 posts

#reblog - 79 posts

#lemon - 76 posts

#tmnt bayverse - 74 posts

#smut - 72 posts

#tmnt 2016 - 71 posts

#tmnt 2014 - 69 posts

#ask - 50 posts

#ref - 50 posts

Longest Tag: 84 characters

#because lets be honest there'd be no way i could actually choose one of them to date

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

See the full post

115 notes - Posted October 8, 2022

#4

🍬 No Strings Attached 🍬 pt. 1?

For @turtle-babe83 s Trick or Kink event. I wanted to do something... special...😈 Hopefully this will give y'all some delicious thoughts of my bayverse AU Dark Turtles (I also tried to keep them short b/c i dont remember the limit for words/pics in posts) I might write a part 2 to give this story an ending, if I find time 🤭

18+ only... reader is female ( female parts mentioned )

October isnt just a month of Halloween or all things spooky... its also the mating season for turtles... of ANY kind ...😈🐢💙❤💜🧡

A/N: this can be taken as whether you already do/dont know about the mating season, but Don researched and told his brothers about it after going a year through it already. They also aren't wearing their gear/nothing heavy and hard to maneuver. Their lair is below the abandoned warehouse by the docks ( New York Bay ), built by Don.

One random day in October, you decided to make some eats for the clone boys. Not only because it was nice and you were friends with them for a few years, but because you wanted to spend some alone time with your crush ( Lee/Raph/Don/Mike). You two have a 'no strings attached' agreement going on, and that was fine with him. You were fine with it, too, since you didn't have sights on anyone but it was hard to not feel guilty for using him like that... You've had sex a time or two, and while it was nice you wanted something more

Mike x Reader

"Mike?"

It was strange to not be greeted by the giant yellow turtle. He would usually say 'hey' with glee and pick you up, twirling around with you in his arms like a ragdoll. Not today, though. Where was everyone?

You silently wandered the dark turtle hideout, listening and looking for any sign of the clones. You thought you heard something above you. You went up the steel stairs that led to the top floor of the abandoned warehouse. What you saw made your heart skip a beat (and almost dropping the food).

Mike was sprawled out on the ground, making noises like he was in pain. His eyes were closed. And his hand pumped his schlongness. The size make your eyes bug out. Heat flushed your cheeks and all the way to your ears. Seeing him do this sent lightning straight to your core. Yeah, it was true you had a crush on him and you both weren't officially dating yet, but it felt awkward and weird; heavy touching and kissing was all that was between you and him.

Suddenly his eyes opened, his usual bright blue eyes was an amber color, dimmed and glossy... and dilated. His nostrils were flared and he was breathing heavily. He sat up, ingnoring his ginormous hard on.

"Y/N! W-what are you...?"

"I'm sorry I disturbed you. I'll just-" you quickly stuttered as you sat the bag down and turned around to head back downstairs. You were then wrapped around your waist by his long tongue, pulling you toward him. "Mike, let me go!"

His three clawed hand grabbed your hip, holding you there. "No can do, babes. You're not getting away... Besides, I know you liked it." He smiled a toothy grin. "I can smell you... and you smell so delicious... I've always wondered what you taste like."

He licked his lips. You shivered and squeezed your thighs to try to ease the ache. He took your mouth with his, kissing you like usual. His growls vibrated through your body, making you moan into him.

In a flash you had your bottoms torn off, your legs spread, and Mike's long tongue slithered inside you. Your aching walls clenched around it as he slid in and out, brushing against all your sensitive spots. The tip of his tongue brushed your cervix because he was so deep. His mouth encircled your mound, groaning as your essence trickled down his tongue.

"Mmmmm~ Mmmmike~~" You wanted to tell him to stop for a minute but it felt too good. Moans and whimpers were all that you could let out. Your body wriggled and moved, wanting to buck your hips and grind into Mike's mouth. You could tell that your climax was going to be mindblowing.

"Mike!~~~"

"Yeah, scream for me, y/n. You look so cute when you scream my name. Keep going, baby."

Sure enough your body exploded, your throat letting out the loudest and high pitched cry you ever made. The orgasm was so glorious you swore you had died and went to heaven. You breathed in shaky breaths trying to calm yourself.

"God, babes, you taste so sweet... and creamy..." His voice lowered into a purr as he lavished in your scent. He couldn't deny the throbbing tightness of his cock anymore, he had to be in you now. "I hope you're ready for round 2 ... or 3, because I'm not gonna stop until all your insides are painted white."

Let's just say that you weren't going to feel like walking for a week....

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Don x Reader

"I got food." Silence. "Don? Anyone?"

Anyone not running for food was weird. But what was weirder was recieving a message from Don saying that you shouldn't come over for at least 1 week. You sat down food for the other 3 while you carried some for Don. There were times when he didn't come out of lab that someone had to drag him out to just eat. This might as well be one of those times.

You opened the steel door that led down to a basement. Softly you tread the steps, listening for any signs of life. You then heard a faint groan. Did he hurt himself?

"Don! Are you-"

You couldn't finish your sentence. Your mouth hung open at the sight of the tall purple turtles body frame leaning against a wall while his hand pumped his boner. The moans that echoed bounced back to you vibrated your body and sent tingles to your core. Heat crept up to your cheek and ears, and you could've swore that he heard your heart pounding in your chest.

See the full post

141 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

#3

Hello! How're you doing? 🥰 I've got an idea: Their S/O can draw very well, and the boys didn't know about that. How would the boys react if they find their S/O's notebook and see her/his art, including a drawing of them?

Thank you 💜

Im okay ^^ hope everythings been alright for you as well, and hope this is alright♡♡♡

Leo:

He sees your notebook sitting on the couch

But he doesnt remember seeing you come in or leave

He figured you left it accidently

Hes wondered what made you smile whenever he seen your pencil move across the paper

Plenty of times when he was in the dojo training/improving a technique, he saw you sitting with the book in your lap

He knew he shouldnt without your permission (whether youd let him or not), but he wanted to see what artwork his angel has done

Opening the cover he finds sketches of people, Japanese inspired designs, and stops when he sees himself

The way you payed attention to the details of his muscles, scars, the design, dips and curves of his shell was impressive

It looked like he was looking at a black and white picture of himself

A smile spread on his face and warmth spread through his body

"Youre so talented, my love"

See the full post

168 notes - Posted February 24, 2022

#2

I just noticed that your requests are marked as open, so I thought I would send one in 🥰

Could I please ask for a one-shot with Bay Raph and female reader? Could be fluff or even a little NSFW if it’s appropriate. Something along the lines of the best friends to lovers trope. However you want to do it, I know it’ll be wonderful! ♥️😘

Sure, lets see if I can make this sweet and spicy 😏😁 hope this is alright

STRAWBERRY KISSES:

BAY RAPH x F!READER

See the full post

181 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

How would the guys react to there son or daughter getting into the weapons they are not supposed to touch because they want to be just like daddy ?

Awww~~♡♡♡ well lets see...

LEO:💙

He was going to scold them, but how could he stay mad at them when they just pull at his heart like that?

Hes reminded of how Splinter was like with him and his brothers; they got in trouble for a short time but then soon started training

He smiled at them and then held them in his arms

"Youre not ready, not just yet."

"When, daddy?"

"Very soon, my little one."

Hed kiss their forehead and hug them

RAPH:❤

His heart clenched

Hed try not to cry, but turns away to hide his misty eyes

"Daddy? Are you okay?"

They didnt like it when their daddy acted like that

hed quickly wipe his eyes

"Yeah, I'm fine buddy/sweetheart"

He promises to help them train to better handle the weapons, giving them hugs to hide his watery eyes

Hes never been so proud of them

DONNIE:💜

His child wants to be like him?

His heart melted

He felt overjoyed and conflicted

He didnt want to scold them

Hed hug them and tell them he doesnt want them to get hurt

He will secretly invent their very own weapon to practice with under his supervision of course

"Practice makes perfect"

"Thanks, daddy, you're the best"

"You're welcome, my little star"

MIKEY:🧡

See the full post

249 notes - Posted April 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[aspd-culture]

How can you tell the difference between adhd + autism and aspd?

Plus, I also have NPD so that makes it even harder to know if it’s just a combination of the three vs also being ASPD…cause I feel like I show a bunch of signs/traits for it but I’m like, what if that’s just the three that appear as aspd? I’ve been researching a lot but that still keeps me from fully investing myself in it.

I used to steal a BUNCH in elementary to middle school, I had a lot of emotional outbursts and aggression starting in kindergarten to elementary, which I don’t think could have been autism (as in meltdowns) because it was usually in relation to someone doing something to me/making me angry and just generally not having a good childhood.

Even when I was a teenager and kid I used to lie a bunch, it was a huge problem with me and my dad got pissed off a lot because I just lied constantly to either get out of doing things or because I did something I wasn’t supposed to, plus I also lied as a teenager to people online and basically used people, one situation with lying was particularly bad that I’ve never told literally anyone about because it was a huge lie that lasted for months but…yeah.💀

And the thing that makes me think particularly that this could be aspd that influenced this…is that I don’t really feel bad for any of it? It’s just things that happened. I mean my npd sorta makes me proud of it in a weird way, which I know is not exactly…acceptable, but that’s just npd making me think doing bad shit is cool, because I don’t really care about ‘right or wrong’ in relation to myself.

Anyways, I would appreciate your opinion as you have aspd and it helps me a lot to contextualize the shit I experience.

I'll be real, the reason I can tell the difference between some of my disorders enough to know which symptom is flaring from what is mostly by... vibe I guess? It feels different. It's hard to explain, but ASPD flares feel much, much different than autism symptoms, though I can rarely if ever tell the difference between ADHD and ASPD except the hyperactivity bit.

The DSM-V actually has a whole section dedicated to how ASPD and NPD present when comorbid (as well as some other disorders that can be comorbid, I believe), so that would probably explain it infinitely better than I could being that I don't have NPD afaik.

The aggression symptom you described sounds to me like it is more likely to be associated with ADHD via impulsivity or autism via sense of justice just as easily as it could be ASPD aggression in my opinion being that there was a defined reason for it. ASPD aggression is often disproportionate and/or misaimed. I, for an anecdotal example, did not ever act out towards probably 90% of my aggressors and abusers. Instead I took that frustration and aggression and bottled it up until it accidentally came out at people close to me who I liked. As a child, I was known to yell and scream at adults randomly for literally no reason and go around the room saying the single most hurtful thing I could think of to each and every adult there, and found myself horrified at the idea of doing something as uncomfortable/outright gross feeling as apologizing even though I knew I didn't mean to say/do those things. The only time my abusers received that treatment before I was a teenager was if they happened to be in the room of adults I was screaming at.

So whilst I am definitely not saying pwASPD don't lash out at the people doing something wrong to them, I will say that behavior is equally likely to be ASPD, ADHD, or autism.

The lying and stealing you described both are textbook ASPD, especially if you didn't feel bad for it or possibly even were proud of yourself for it. Believe it or not, it's pretty common to feel that pride in these actions even without NPD. ASPD has an ego/arrogance associated trait as well.

One of the less discussed symptoms of ASPD is its relationship with self-esteem. In ASPD, self-worth is extremely unstable and often based on whatever the most recent accomplishment is. Lying, manipulating, stealing, etc are often very much included in this, and pwASPD will often feel proud of ourselves for the action of lying, stealing, etc and separate it from whatever happens as a consequence to it unless we get caught. Then the opposite tends to be true and our self-esteem may take a huge hit and make us feel entirely worthless for not getting away with it. This is why pwASPD are often accused of being sorry we got caught vs sorry we did it; our self hatred is misread as remorse and they only see it if our brains perceive the situation as us having had "failed".

It sounds very possible to me that you may have ASPD or possibly just a mix of NPD and ADHD or autism, both of which can combine with NPD to reproduce ASPD symptoms. It's somewhat about the mindset and how you view the world. One major thing not mentioned here is your view on relationships and how safe people feel to you, which can help differentiate autistic social awkwardness vs ASPD social avoidance. Just some food for thought! I think reading through the extended info on ASPD presentations in the DSM-V may help bring some light to this for you!

Sorry it took so long to get to this ask.

[tj-crochets]

Hey y’all! I have some slightly weird health questions if you have a sec, because I know have weird health issues but idk which parts of them are weird, if that makes sense? These are all related to allergies, asthma, and tachycardia, and are below a read more

1. if your heart rate is high when standing (today for me it was 140s) do you ever have it drop *immediately* when you sit down? (today it dropped to the 90s the instant I sat) 2. Vice versa, do you ever have your heart rate jump by 30-50 beats per minute when you stand up?  3. Idk if this is an allergy question or an asthma question, but all my asthma triggers except for one are smell related. With coconut, though, I can smell it no problem, but if I try to eat something with coconut in it the moment it is in my mouth I start wheezing. It does not affect my blood oxygen levels* and does not cause visible swelling, but it is to date the only food that causes me to wheeze but does not trigger asthma at all as a smell (peppermints also make me wheeze but they can do that from across the room) 4. If you have issues with low blood pressure, do you find that stretching or yoga absolutely tank your blood pressure?  *I have weird asthma that has never noticeably lowered my blood oxygen levels or affected my lung capacity. One doctor theorized I might actually have “multiple chemical sensitivities resulting in bronchospasms” (and like four or five more words), but apparently the treatment is the same and the differential test is to deliberately induce an asthma attack and I can’t use rescue inhalers because they make my tachycardia flare up very badly so he opted not to do that test. Possible alternate explanations I have gotten from other doctors include “maybe something about your lung capacity as a singer?” and “maybe something about the way pulse oximeters measure things and your circulation issues, idk”. I’m pretty sure I have fairly mild-to-moderate asthma, it just plays very badly with my tachycardia. 

[crayonverse]

Spinner Dynamics:

i got a online spinning wheel and put characters in it. these are what i got

Douglas & Logan: Hmmm ive already thought about them and i do like the made-up dynamic. Logan is weirdly formal towards douglas becuase hes Leo’s family and wants to make a good impression. douglas is like “okay hi kid. i dont remember your name but leo thinks youre cool so”

Taylor & Sebastian: i heart s-1 s-3 dynamic very much so. i love them both A Lot! Seb n Taylor however have a very diff dynamic to me. seb who is evil and fucked up and taylor who has given up evilness and wants to be a good person,,,, the effects of victor krane have mentally ruined this teens

Douglas & Experion/Laura: have not thought about this and probably wont. i cannot fathom a world where they talk or even know of each others existence. expa would call douglas ugly and kick him in the shins while douglas cries

Hapax & Solar Flare II: actually.... they would probably have tea together. solar-flare insults his grandson and hapax goes “i understand he likes sweater vests”. i think sometimes its hard to remember that hapax is in his 90s. that is an elderly man.

Oliver & Reese: Hm. they have met but i cant remember a time where oliver said a word to her. thinking of a dynamic for them is hard since i think reese has like 10 minutes of screen time and half of that time was her faking a personality. idk

Marcus & Janelle: also unsure... i dont think she’d like even talking to marcus. maybe back in s1-2? when marcus is pretending to be Normal, if they had to talk to other people who knew Leo. I think at that point, they’d maybe bond over their clubs? Janelle also seems like she’d be a theater fan, maybe not a mega nerd but she goes to plays every so often.

Roman & Sebastian: EVIL..... oooohh. two evil bastards. i think theyd start out as seb trying to kill roman and roman goes “hey man what the fuck”. seb would help the shapeshifters and give reese advice on how to seduce chase.

Marcus & Jordan: marcus would attempt to play gargoyles & goblets and get confused with all the random rules. they destroy a table and jordan applauds them for the involvement into their character.

Daniel & Experion/Laura: expa does not like daniel. she thinks he looks weird. daniel still attempts to be friends and it fails every time.

lmk if you guys want more of these... i like doing this its a bit fun

[theseventhoffrostfall]

Since I'm not yet over my flare-up of Battletech Obsession Fever, I'll take the chance to remark that military science fiction wargames suffer from a particular paradox. Conventional wargame design holds that you need a whole lot of units, with good variety and reasonable distinctiveness, so the players have plenty of options (and models to buy) and can still nitpick their favorites when unit roles start overlapping. Conventional military wisdom, conversely, says that you find a solid good-enough multirole platform, begrudgingly produce variants as necessary, and produce 3.5 metric fucktons of them. Nobody uses 850 subtypes of light, heavy, and medium tanks anymore, there are just main battle tanks with IFV's converging to fill a lot of the old roles. There are an impressive number of helicopter types in service, about 90-something percent of which are one of three models. The hundred billion types of infantry weaponry--old-school line weapons, niche specialist gear, and experimental oddballs--all converged into, more or less, rifles, general purpose machine guns, occasionally light machine guns/squad automatic weapons, like two types of crew-serves (which, as I discussed way back, themselves converge since the US military and the Soviet military took two more or less opposite mission profiles and both reached the conclusion of "grenade machine gun") anti-armor launchers that increasingly all meld into "big green disposable fiberglass tube" and spatterings of specialist weaponry that you have a solid chance of going multiple tours without seeing but games have to put in for the sake of variety like shotguns and sniper rifles and shit.

So looking at Battletech you're both impressed by the fact that there's hundreds of different mech types, each with like a half-dozen variants, and then, despite knowing full well they need to sell sourcebooks, you can't help but find that really weird

[crowtoed]

Weird question I meant to ask a while ago but only just remembered now cause I'm itchy; did you notice you only have sun hypersensitivity issues further south?

I didn't have a problem until I moved south. I've been in my hometown all week in the sun and was fine but as soon as I get back to Georgia it's There again.

I noticed once I started working outdoors- I would get the odd flare-up at my job at the Renaissance Festival in Michigan (height of summer). Then I stopped getting them when I switched characters and wore gloves... not that I knew that was why. I didn't get them again until I moved to Florida. But yeah, OD-ing on the UV. Sucks, friend. I highly recommend Coolibar sun gloves and sleeves. They're equivalent to an SPF 55 and breathe fairly well. Plus the fingerless gloves will make you feel like a 90s X-Men character. Now I just have sun poisoning when I forget to wear my protective clothes + hat or work a double.

[blazehedgehog]

Thoughts on the first Michael Bay Transformers movie? Allways get confused how on the internet everybody hates it while the original cartoon was also just a cheap toy commercial. I get when people complain about a bad adaption of a good work, but transformers is just cool robot action - and thats what we got - cool robot action with cgi thats looks betterr than alot of stuff that comes out today.

I think I've said it before but I think I was too young for a lot of Transformers stuff. It started airing a year after I was born and by the time I was starting to enter its target demographic, the show ended.

I was more about Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, Jurassic Park, and Sonic the Hedgehog. Transformers was something my brother had more of a connection with than I did.

The toys were also mega expensive. Truth be told, there was a brief window where I was enamored with some of the Transformers toys. But they were often more than twice the price of, say, a $4 Ninja Turtle action figure. I remember Hasbro or whoever doing some G2 reruns in the mid-to-late 90's and I saved up a whole month's allowance to buy a tiny little Bumblebee for like $9. It was nuts.

So there was a lot going against my ability to care about Transformers as a kid.

With that in mind...

The first Transformers movie is... okay. It's not great. It's got that signature Michael Bay look all over it: high contrast, high color saturation, excessive orange and teal color grading, everybody's always sweaty, it's always night time or sunset, lens flares all the time all over the place, the camera is always too close to everyone at all times, and there's this uncomfortable obsession with "hotties." We gotta have at least one lingering close-up shot of a woman's body framed by the summer heat. For a decade or more every movie this dude made looked like this.

But I don't remember that first movie being unwatchable. It was fine. True enough, the action is a bit incoherent, because it's all whirling chrome and the camera's too close to see what's going on except for a flash of sparks.

I don't like the way the robots look. The original Transformers, at least for me, were already hard enough to draw. For someone who has trouble drawing three dimensional shapes, all these rigid robots that are big rectangles full of hard-edges, it's not easy. But Bay's Transformers are next level impossible. There are thousands of shapes -- maybe even millions. I get wanting them to look like advanced alien technology, but it's sort of a mess.

Later Transformers movies definitely got worse, as they leaned more in to the toyetic qualities of the characters. They kind of wanted to have their cake and eat it too by making something that gestured at still being a kids property while you had weird adult humor and mega violence (it's okay, that decapitated robot wasn't human, and that's not blood, it's cyberton goo).

It's not hard to see things from the perspective of the OG Transformers fans, either. Like, Optimus's lips are a dumb compromise. A lot of it smacks of "what if we took this kids property and made it EPIC and BADASS." I may not have connected much with Transformers media, but that's still more than a little silly in a way that feels degrading for all involved.

"It was always bad, so it's allowed to be bad in a different way" isn't really landing for me as an excuse, either.

But that first movie's still not awful, I guess. It did not necessarily offend me (though later movies did). I just have no desire to rewatch it. Or any of the Transformers movies.

Except... y'know what? That standalone Bumblebee movie was very alright. And it seemed a little more respectful to the source material! Wouldn't mind seeing that one again.