talleyuh

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rosabella being the daughter of belle & the beast and then falling in love with daring while in beast form... we will never be free of sigmund freud

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someone needs to make a Wonder Woman anything where her love interest is a Stevie or Steph Trevor and she's like a badass military chick just like Diana.

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Zombies > Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires > Zombies 2 > Zombies 3

and no, i will not be elaborating

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the whole ethel cain situation is so annoying to me for a million reasons but the MOST annoying of those reasons is the apology and the reaction. hayden is very intentional with her words— we see that in the statement and we see it with her art.

what was the purpose of mentioning the transphobic hate campaign in your apology? what was the purpose of mentioning how hard it was for you in your apology? what was the purpose of mentioning your pain when it was about the pain that you inflicted on others with your own actions? what was the purpose of treating everyone engaging with this conversation as if we’re all transphobic bad actors trying to ruin her career?

it’s obviously to shift the blame, deflect from the topic at hand, and make everyone who read it feel guilty for talking about it. it’s not our responsibility as the general public to make what we have to say palatable for you. i’m sure there are far too many people who took it too far, but acting as if that was everyone is disingenuous. the whole statement should’ve been edited— we don’t need to hear about your dry humor, we don’t need you to tell us about everyone conspiring to take you down, how normal of a topic inc3st was for you at the time of your weird shirt, how the criticism of you fetishizing the murder of amber haggerman is ridiculous even though all of preacher’s daughter is an epic of the tragic life and death of ethel cain— essentially romanticizing kidnapping, murder, and cannibalism (but not glamorizing, i actually quite like the album), or how you think the critics are waiting for you to take your own life.

hayden is a victim of many things— but being ‘canceled’ for her own choices is not one of them. saying the racism is the only valid criticism of her is unfair to everyone who has been affected by her operations. if you were uncomfortable by someone who has never experienced inc3stual abuse, then you can say that. but i do agree the animal abuse and cp allegations were unfounded, but also were the least prevalent in the larger conversation.

she may have changed, but victimizing yourself when you could acknowledge the criticism and accept the parts people read too much into and apologize for what you tangibly did does not show a genuine care for growth.

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i don’t get addison rae.

i don’t engage with her that much so this isn’t about her personality, but more so what she does publicly.

she’s not a powerhouse vocalist, she’s not a crazy talented songwriter, she’s not a wildly good dancer.

she’s not making sad girl bedroom music, she’s not making dance music, she’s not making bubblegum pop, she’s not making alternative music with dark themes.

she doesn’t have a distinct hair style, fashion sense, color palette, or a schtick that makes her recognizable.

she’s kind of doing all of those things and none of them are the same time. it’s incohesive, it’s a little boring, and i don’t know why everyone is pushing the narrative she’s the next great pop girlie.

comparing her to the likes of britney spears only invites more criticism addison rae’s way. maybe she’s a secret third thing, but everything about her is so all over the place and not in a classic weird girl way

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yk what, I understand why even though Claire literally was such a source of stress and anxiety for carmy, he still called her peace and his center

even while my ex was torturing me emotionally while I was on birth control, I was so convinced I was gonna marry him and that the few moments he was kind to me made up for all his other bullshit

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rip eah

everyone on my fyp is mourning eah's final month on Netflix. there are still several places where you can watch the series for free, but not in a concise and ad-free way. what i'm afraid of is what's happening with the franchise. there was a point 2 years ago (apparently) where the monster high movies returned to Netflix and then were subsequently removed. I'm assuming this was ahead of the release and promotion of nickelodeon's monster high, moving all of the monster high properties over to paramount+. it seems that nickelodeon and Mattel have a positive working relationship, because the first few episodes of eah originally aired on nick.

I'm nervous that mattel and nickelodeon secretly have an ever after high live action reboot in the works, and that's why they chose to end their licensing agreement with Netflix. I feel there is a lot of groundwork for integrating ever after high into nickelodeon's mh 3, since they're literally headed to the underworld, but show of hands— who wants that?

Nick's MH franchise is unimaginative, dull, full of once beloved now flat characters, mostly incoherent plots, forgettable songs, and the worst crime of all: bad fashion. Maybe kids prefer the animated series bc it actually seems pretty cute, but idk the reception on that.

With all of that in mind, I don't know any ever after high fan who would love to see the nuanced themes of good and evil be explored by producers who don't understand what the people want from a reboot. I don't want to see all of these dynamic characters get completely changed in favor of making the more dystopian aspects of their worlds less dark for kids. I was a kid who watched EAH and it still holds up for that reason.

Plus, with Descendants 4 out and the continuation of Red's story on the horizon, there could not be a WORSE time to revive EAH. I mean, Descendants very much outshone EAH the first time around. The premises were similar, but Descendants reached more kids from being on Disney Channel. I also saw a lot of criticism for the Monster High Gen 3 dolls but less for The Rise of Red dolls (which I quite liked), so I think this is just another way to completely shoot themselves in the foot. but we shall see

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we give lin manuel miranda a lot of shit for the incessant usage of hip hop in modern musicals but we should really be attacking andrew lloyd webber for even introducing pop music into musical theater.

because now every musical wants a soundtrack that you can listen to outside of the movie and now none of our modern tv movie musical girlies are classically trained.

cough cough kylie cantrall and the entire cast of monster high (2022)

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are there any chef’s kiss truthers alive or did we all die when sydney thought she was about to in her panic attack in the season 3 finale? asking for a friend

we were so much happier in 2023

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let them say shit on grey’s anatomy. they want to so bad 😕

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i officially coined the term riverdaling way back when and yellowjackets is starting to apply.

to define: riverdaling (verb) is the trajectory of a tv series beginning to lose its audience with strange writing choices, mischaracterizing protagonists, and/or becoming too high on its own success that it has no logical conclusion in sight. jumping the shark, so to say. riverdaling can often result in a show’s rewatchability being lost. in the case of mystery or thriller shows, the writers often create mysteries they’re uninterested in answering.

shows that have been riverdaling:

riverdale (duh): season 1 was imperfect, but generally well liked for an archie comics meets scooby doo take for your edgy younger cousin. until season 2, it went slowly off the rails, expanding its own universe so much that season 7 destroys the show’s original canon.

cobra kai: the series became way too cartoonish and overpopulated post season two, losing its emotional core along the way.

on my block: what was supposed to be a grounded take on kids grappling with growing up and gang violence became too unrealistic and turned flawed but realistic characters into supervillains.

stranger things: each season loses the lightning in a bottle magic from season one more and more. the ideas are a mess and the duffer brothers are obsessed with making every season bigger than the last than making every season make sense.

euphoria: just like riverdale, euphoria spends far too much time on plot lines that make the show so much less interesting and sidelining the best cast members in the series (lili reinhart & zendaya)

YOU: again, first season was solid, each season after that begins to lose the show’s original identity, ostracizing original fans. because everyone knows that a plot twist that outsmarts the audience is better than a logical one that a few people have guessed.

pretty little liars: i would say this is the original riverdale. down to episodes that can really drag out 43 minutes and inappropriate romances.

now how does yellowjackets fit? i am so glad you asked.

the first season had energy, it had atmosphere, it had mystery, and it had stakes.

season two had those things… for the most part. Nat’s entire arc of drinking Lottie’s Kool-Aid was worse than what they’re doing to Shauna. A selfish, but ultimately almost sympathetic character to an actual villain.

Form my personal understanding, each of the yellowjackets is very flawed from their time in the woods but sympathetic enough so they feel human. Part of the appeal was how the series felt like two different shows with the 1996-1998 years in the wilderness and the 2021 setting where all the girls are grown up.

After a while… the characters feel a little incongruent in a way. which makes sense, as two different actors are portraying them. it’s also odd watching the adult cast get killed off while they’re still alive as teens in the wilderness to be developed. i feel like you either love or hate that choice. part of what hooked me was how everyone was so vague about what happened in the wilderness and slowly learning that kind of kills the pacing of the series, since we know for the most part who makes it out. i feel like the creators had an idea for what they wanted to do, but they have to keep creating more things to happen in the wilderness until the show ends or gets canceled.

the more time we spend with the characters, the more they begin to sour. they start doing things that are so evil and they don’t get addressed in the present and it’s so uncomfortable.

speaking of which, i feel like season 4 will be necessary to get the story back on track or it will be the final nail for yellowjackets. i like how the show teeters between the girls’ imaginations and a supernatural element and i hope they keep it vague.

season 3 has personally been a rough watch and i can only hope the finale saves it just a little.

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lord, please watch over anne hathaway during the production of verity. kjersti flaa already tried to jump on the hate train, but do not subject my girl to another hate campaign like the one she had in the 2010s. may anne continue to have a neutral to good working relationship with michael sholwalter. amen.

ps, keep all of colleen hover-isms out of the film thank you!

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so I'm watching Yellowjackets (finally) and I'm on s2e4 and I don't think I've ever had such mixed opinions on a cast of characters in my life.

for some reason, I love Shauna. Maybe I love Melanie Lynskey's portrayal of her but she's bitchy and selfish and I get her. she's a questionable wife, not a good mother, consistently makes reckless decisions and somehow is a good 'straight man' next to nat and misty.

as a subsection of Shauna, Jeff weirdly works for me. He's not my favorite, but I don't despise him. Callie as a character makes sense but it's hard to watch an actress in her late twenties (at the time of filming) playing an angsty teen. #mycultureisNOTyourcostume. also it almost doesn't really work if Callie is supposed to be 17/18 and hanging out with this older cop because it's weird and no one's talking about it. I do appreciate how much she cares about protecting their fucked up unit.

Jackie started losing me about halfway through season 1. I understood her but she quickly fell into the background. I sympathized with her anger but I also know while everyone on the team was pissed at her for not helping. she didn't need to lose her ear tho

misty just keeps growing on me. she does not seem very empathetic or self aware, but i feel for her being outcasted by the team for twenty-five straight years. I also am having a lot of fun with her arc with Elijah Wood. Not in love with his character just yet, but I don't mind his presence.

I like Crystal... I think. But I think her biggest crime is being a theater kid, then she's like a saint compared to the rest of the cast.

taissa is another one of my favorites. She's too fierce for her own good which constantly ostracizes people, but I feel for her a lot of the time. She clearly shows that she's afraid of herself and fears getting close to people and I'm scared of what that means for her and van in the 90s.

Van is such a breath of fresh air in the doom and gloom. She's not overly cynical like the rest of the girls, but she's not fake positive to the point it's annoying. Also I'm obsessed with her 70s aesthetic as an adult and she has like the best casting from teen to adult I've seen so far.

Simone feels very one note and almost exclusively just tells Taissa what she's doing wrong, but I understand her perspective because what she's had to go through is unimaginable.

Lottie is starting to grow on me this season. I don't know if the show is going explicitly supernatural or not, but with clairvoyance or without, Lottie is clearly being tortured by what's in her mind. It's super compelling to watch her desperately cling onto her delusions because they're literally all she has.

I go back and forth on Nat, but I can never quite dislike her. I like her in the 90s timeline a little bit more, but primarily because she's more snarky and active than cynical and passive.

I absolutely despised Travis at first, but he became less of an asshole. I don't quite like him but I don't mind his scenes anymore.

I'm so neutral on Ben. I feel like there were so many other ways to avoid Misty's romantic feelings for him than lying to her like that, but to each their own.

Mari is probably my least favorite. She's such a contrarian, but not to the point that it's funny.

I really liked Laura Lee. Misguided as her intentions were, she was genuinely so sweet.

I like Akilah, but there's not much to say about her.

I think that's everyone with anything to say about

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i finally watched late night with the devil and i open letterboxd and all i see is people complaining about how they used generative ai and i don’t understand the vitriol ive seen.

let me be clear, the way we currently implement generative ai is genuinely harmful. the amount of water being used for ai is absolutely obscene, how people are using the likeness of real people to chat with ai bots or creating adult content without their consent, and using it in place of actual creative minds.

people are mainly complaining about how the logo for night owls is ai and the cut away scenes were generated by artificial intelligence, which i didn’t notice on my watch. looking back, it is more obvious, but it’s definitely not the tacky, glossy affect we see on ai images commonly. it would’ve been great if real artists were hired to make these images but this is an independent film. i understand why they made this choice but ultimately it is cutting corners, which isn’t right.

late night with the devil was released in 2023, post the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike and in that strike one of the biggest issues was ai being used to replace writers and even used to replicate the likeness of actors so they aren’t compensated for residuals. because late night with the devil didn’t do either of these things, i hesitate to treat the team behind it like they were the worst thing to happen to art. ai is still the wild west but there’s no point in trying to stop it from happening if it’s already happening. most people on letterboxd sound like the pretentious from yesteryear who treated television in the home as if it was going to destroy the art of visual entertainment. it didn’t. we just adapted.

tldr: i understand why the filmmakers made this choice and i personally disagree with it. it’s disingenuous to act like they are just as bad as the major studios who cross lines rather than toeing them.

edit: plus seeing all the review bombing bc of this is almost ironic because people refuse to see the actual merit in the writing, directing, costumes, sets, and acting. plus the images were a starting point for PAID artists to edit them and stylize them more so shut up if you think this movie specifically is stealing jobs from artists

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did my annual rewatch of dash & lily and it makes me sad it didn’t get a second season but i lowkey wouldn’t have trusted netflix to follow the source material and continue their story without any unnecessary made up drama (looking at you, YOU seasons 2, 3, & 4)

but i would’ve liked to see dash & lily spend another christmas together and getting to share their respective traditions with one another. for example, if dash’s parents were both out of town again, we could see lily invite dash over and buy him matching pajamas with her family. we could see dash force lily to watch a depressing french film about murder and she would find it romantic. we could see them go to priya’s christmas eve party before quickly ditching it and doing something they both like.

i just think midori francis and austin abrams are criminally underrated and their chemistry was just too cute

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I think we all moved on too quickly from how fucked up the Manuscript is

I mean “if the sex was half as good as the conversation is soon they’d be pushing strollers???”

And “how he said “ since she was so wise beyond her years everything had been above board. She wasn't sure.”

Who says shit like that

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soo i finished the perfect marriage by jeneva rose yesterday and i have to say i really enjoyed it. i’ve been on a bit of a thriller kick lately and this book was right up my alley. spoilers ahead

that is to say, it wasn’t exactly perfect. the ending was an interesting twist but it almost doesn’t work in my opinion with the sequel on the way.

sarah is a very interesting character but we don’t see how fleshed out she is until the end. we don’t know that she’s capable of doing whatever it takes until the very end of the story and i would’ve loved to see some suspicion of her intentions woven in more from adam. i thought adam was better written than sarah because he was very much lacking self awareness and it worked for his character. he sucked and he knew it.

i’m just wondering how sarah’s gonna be written in the next book. is she cold and calculating or desperate to keep her perfect life together? i personally hope she switches between the two