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discountdyke · 3 years

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I know nothing about TMA but I’m a gossip pls release the rant if you’d like 👀

firstly id like to say this ask is a christmas gift in itself, i LOVE an excuse to rant about tma. this is gonna be long tho so lets head under the cut

tma is a podcast produced by rusty quill which really means that it started with a few white guys, and as such, the voice cast is almost completely white and its one of those media with “aracial” characters. however, they’re clearly written as white bc, well, there wasnt any effort to do otherwise. so this is the beginning of many problems.

the biggest instance of racism is with a family of avatars of the flesh - a horror power involving flesh/meat. the family is chinese, and sells ppl human meat in their chinese restaurant. this is extremely and overtly racist, and back then they didnt have any sensitivity readers or common sense i guess, so they just. did that. one of the episodes involving them had a “horror” element in which one of the characters speaks in english. this is supposed to be scary bc “how could a chinese person know english??” in order to avoid addressing this, in a later episode the characters only refer to them vaguely without names. this issue was unaddressed for YEARS before an apology was given, only for them to do what? more racist shit.

two of the main characters in tma are cops and as such are a heavy-handed metaphor for police brutality. one of them, daisy, commits violent atrocities bc she is an avatar of another power called “the hunt”. she basically just kills whoever the police tell her to. her cop partner, basira, excuses her actions bc “they were criminals”. its clear that these characters are supposed to be bad but then things get weird - theres an entire arc about whether its morally correct to kill daisy. bc she has a little redemption arc. unfortunately, if ur a cop, u dont deserve a redemption arc. so theres this big thing about “well shes a better person now” etc coming from all of the characters, not just her partner. it really waters down the message imo.

so, what do you do when you write a horror podcast with themes about capitalism and police brutality? you write an episode about a white person going to prison and experiencing police brutality. i cant even begin to express how inappropriate that is - especially since its a lazy attempt at horror. their excuse was “well, 2020 is unprecedented”. uh, cops have been committing police brutality since their invention. the blm movement started in 2013 - no excuse for saying ‘we wrote the eps in advance and theyre just hitting close to home”.

and, tbh, it could have been written well but it just wasnt? and then there was a high profile police brutality case in the us so they delayed release until the next week - bc police brutality only happens once in a while, right? imo it wasnt the episode itself that was the most offensive, it was the idea that black ppl are only murdered by cops every once in a while and its just a topical issue, not something that happens every day.

i started off with the racism bc i think thats tma’s biggest problem, but the thing about it is this: tma is well written. or it was, up until season 5. but when season 5 started airing it was bad. it was really bad. it throws away the entire formula that it used for the first 4 seasons, has a couple that constantly argue and try to undermine each other, the main character has suddenly flipped into full murder mode so that each week they just kill off another character. it became extremely bland, the horror which was generally surreal - random doors appearing, uncanny valley creatures, skies that never ended - into everyday horror. it was a huge tonal shift and now instead of hearing about an endless neighborhood with no people, it became “capitalism sucks. the government sucks. the police suck.” over and over again which, while true, does not a good horror podcast make.

the point of this is: when you look at how bad season 5 is, you realize how bad the rest of it is as well. it doesnt hold up under its own writing. little details that could be ignored, or even huge problems like the continual racism suddenly became glaring issues. not to mention character arcs which had developed slowly suddenly took huge turns in s5 out of nowhere.

the worst example (which i stopped listening so ive only heard this second hand) is a character who was a spooky woman who had a weird door that made u crazy, turns out to be politcally conservative the whole time. and she was about how, like, you think you know ppl, and then theyre conservative. or something. just, really bad political analysis.

id also like to point out that in the prison episode in s5 which is a culmination of the “police are evil and bad” theme ends with the characters talking about how this one guy deserves to be in prison. liberalism at its finest here.

there are a lot of narrative issues in tma but it really boils down to this: we excused a shitload of racism bc there was good writing. and now theres no good writing. also jonny sims singlehandedly created the most annoying gay characters to ever exist.

i dont think that jonny is a bad guy but he is woefully inequipped to deal with the big real world problems and themes he built on. its sad, tbh, bc its something that COULD have been really amazing.

he tweeted once that the s5 finale would be a “chocolate torte of tragedy” where i assume hes going to kill off either one or both of the gay characters, but the real chocolate torte was the way he ruined his own podcast.

tldr; tma’s writing built up to something it couldnt actually do. and that made the whole thing collapse. also its really, really racist.

#tma /#clouiis #talking tag #sorry if this ends up in the tags this is truly a dont like dont read moment #and dont come at me with bad takes i will just delete them #sorry this is probably way more than u wanted but there is a lot i didnt mention #like how he posthumously made grimaldi the clown transgender?? and a VILLAIN????#so add transmisogyny to the list

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thespacequail · 6 years

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Darling in the Franxx (ep. 15)

HOLY FREAKING...well, that certainly was a LOT that happened in only 24 minutes. A lot of plot threads, a really good fight scene, a lot of new questions, but most importantly that thing where the OP plays during the climax, amazing. There’s a lot going on here, I’ll probably miss some, but I’ll try. *warning* This is a very long post.

>”Don’t worry Hiro, we’ll be fine.” All I’m thinking at this point is cut to black, Always Sunny in Philadelphia theme playing, “The gang fucking dies.” It was a pretty good scene though, it showed me at least how much more I care about the cast now than I did back in episode 6, which if from “not at all” to “if you kill any main characters I will cry”.

>Huh, so the Nines have the guys and girls in swapped positions, that’s interesting, the guys also have holographic horns that look like 02′s, veeeerrry interesting... But like, are they bad guys? Are they neutral? What’s their angle here? Every time they show up, they just raise more questions.

>Yup, all those dudes at the end of last episode got sucked dry by 02 (*lenny face*), Dr. Franxx you are still one sick puppy, but it’s hard to tell what your end goal is here, you may act like you care about 02′s well-being, but I don’t buy it, you have some ulterior motive and I WILL FIND IT. Eventually. When it’s served up for all to see on a silver platter. BUT THEN I WILL KNOW FOR SURE WHAT YOU ARE ON ABOUT!

>So Papa and his marry group of fucks are still being cryptic as all hell, what wish do they want that needs control of the Gran Crevasse? The heck is a Hringhorni? By pests do you mean Klaxxosaurs, humans, children, all of the above? I don’t get it. But the cut away to Streliza when Dr. Franxx says he wants a front row seat, now thats good editing.

>Now this is a good fight scene! Bright colors, understandable positions of every combatant, not breaking the 180* rule, even the CG wasn’t bad. Where was this quality of animation earlier? Doesn’t matter, we got to see everyone be badass and that’s good for me.

>And now for your requisite Plot ex Machina, an even bigger Klaxxosaur that no one has even heard of. *sigh* I mean, you already burned out the Guttenberg class, and power creep is a thing, this was inevitable...fine...I’m fine...it’s fine...fight a fucking mountain, at least it looks cool. That panning side shot of the internals of the Plantation, now that was really cool looking, I paused the video to look closer at it, highly detailed for a shot only a second long, I respect that. Then Papa tells the red shirts to kamikaze the thing, which is messed up, but it confirms the whole fanaticism thing people have for him, cause despite knowing they’re being told to die outright, they do it anyway, and of course it does effectively nothing at all, good fucking job, you killed a bunch of kids for no evident reason, but you don’t care do you? I’m talking to a brick wall here, let’s just move the fight to a new backdrop yeah?

>Whoa, those are some gnarly horns 02, you feeling ok? Who am I kidding, we all know the answer is “utterly distraught but refusing to show it”, this is actually a really cool design evolution for her, I dig it, but more on that later.

>Slight tangent, how close is the Garden to the briefing room? How long did it take Hiro to calmly get there while a freaking war was taking place? And the bit with the mirror...like, I get it, it’s symbolic, but it fell kinda flat for me, was that really the only kick in the pants you could think to get Hiro down there? And not to mention after taking his sweet time he goes out and finds a training drone to get to 02. THE LAYOUT OF THE PLANTATION MAKE NO SENSE UNLESS THE FIGHT WAS GOING ON FOR HOURS ON END! AND WHO LET HIRO CASUALLY USE THE ELEVATOR IN THIS TIME OF CRISIS!? *ahem* Right, back to the battle.

>Hey look, it’s that old lady from the Zorome episode! She contributes nothing to this scene! Ok, that’s not entirely true, her being there reminds us what Zorome is fighting for, and how his resolve to fight for the adults is probably more than just orders to him. The framing is also really cool, gives some nice perspective on the size of the robots, and the lady watching as Zorome’s robot (I dont know the specific name, and yeah it’s Miku’s too, but this shot is about Zorome) is pretty poignant, provides some payoff for that episode.

>My man Goro! Finally fed up with all the bullshit and taking control. Letting Hiro and Ichigo work this out together was the best way to go about this, and he did it so well, and the bit with Zorome/Miku telling him to stop trying to act all cool was so appropriate for them, lightening the mood before things got heavy.

>And boy does shit get heavy. The mind melding thing was cool, and would you look at that, Ichigo is not a bad character, she just had to be shown what her actions meant, seeing that was a hard pill to swallow, but needed. I really like how 02′s thought captions mirror Hiro’s, but are distorted, capital letters and numbers thrown in at random, it works for her in the state she’s in. Now the fight between them was cool, but let’s be honest, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DESIGN A ROBOT TO HAVE HAIR UNDER THE HELMET? DID YOU EXPECT IT TO BREAK? WHY DOES IT MOVE LIKE ACTUAL HAIR? EACH LOCK SHOULD BE THE SIZE OF A FREAKING SEDAN! *ahem* It’s just dumb, but whatever, helps distinguish her silhouette against all the Nines who’s robots look kinda similar.

>Before we get to the flashback of sad, it’s time for plot revelations! Yay! Turns out the Klaxxo-cores are humans in some way! Well that was...kinda unexpected, reminds me of the Anti-Spirals from Gurren Laggan a little bit. I do like how the kids are trying to deny it, they don’t want to believe it’s possible, but here it is, right in front of your eyes. And you know what else is in front of your eyes? Papa blowing up Plantations to break the dome, cause he doesn’t give a fuck about any of you, that’s a fun pill to swallow and will definitely effect some character’s perceptions going forward. “Release them from the cages of their bodies.”? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? THIS SCENE IS CREEPY AS ALL HELL MAN!

>FLASHBACK TIME! I AM EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE! But I was right about the blood thing! Yes, it was obvious, but still right! GOD BABY 02 YOU ARE MAKING ME SAD! *unintelligible sounds of despair* It’s just a really good scene ok? Then her horns shattering? Beautiful. This is EXACTLY what I want from these characters, their interaction was so raw and good and the kiss, AUGH!

>OH SHIT THEY’RE PLAYING THE OPENING! OH SHIT TRUE FORM UNLOCKED! WOOOOOOO! I am fully aboard the hype train here. Ichigo’s single tear was good, I think she’s come to terms with the fact Hiro wants to be with 02, that they are in love and she has to let him go, it hurts, but it’s for the best. Still not a huge fan of the bird metaphor, but I will take it here cause we got character growth out of it, and I like that.

>A giant...hand? And the Nines knew about it because of course they do. That is one hell of a cliffhanger, I think we are reaching that point, the point in every Trigger show where the plot does a 180* and things get W E I R D, and I am so ready for that.

Ok, that went on way longer than expected, but they packed a whole heck of a lot in this episode, so I had a lot I wanted to talk about. I think this show has definitely “gotten good” and I am super excited to see them start answering some questions as to what in the hell is going on here.

#darling in the franxx #anime #anime review #spring anime 2018 #long post

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rizahmad · 7 years

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I have a sUPER important question for you! What are ur top 10 favest superhero movies at this moment in ur life?

ARGH ALWAYS ASKING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS LMAO

assume this means live action & marvel/dc (omitting #1 superhero film sky high) so in no particular order, top 10 that i love, sometimes nonsensically:

superman (1978): i mean. it’s just SO good. i. love. clark. kent.

superman ii (1980): LOIS AND CLARK POSING AS A MARRIED COUPLE!!!!! that already should make it #1 on everyone’s list, frankly

x-men: days of future past: aka waterworks the film?? SO MUCH EMOTIONAL CAPITAL CASHED IN, and time travel too? I LOVE TIME TRAVEL STORYLINES. BESTILL MY BEATING HEART.

the dark knight: the bruce is so subpar and also too much manpain, but everything else is just too well done and it’s always a great rewatch. the nolan soundtracks are so bomb. LEDGER JOKER. HARVEY. HARVEY!!!!!!!!

x-men 2: it’s so fkin good, oh my god. somehow putting logan, bobby, rogue, and pyro together worked so well. perfect use of a perfect mystique, alan cummings nightcrawler, & lady deathstrike!!! it’s such a good movie

amazing spider-man 1 & 2: lumped together as one because i still need to give them a rewatch and definitively decide. but they need to be on here because andrew garfield is still, live action wise, the best spidey, best peter, most true to form. he is still the BEST don’t @ me

captain america: the winter soldier: more emotional capital cashed in! tbh, it’s crazy overhyped on this site, definitely not as intellectual as people make it out to be LMAO, but it has a ton of heart and lots of sad binky bons, so i do still love it

batman returns: PFEIFFER CATWOMAN AAAAAAA. FAAAAAVE. such good batcat and also christopher walken and burton’s weirdo aesthetic.

batman v superman: i mean... who is surprised by this. no one. affleck bruce and eisenberg lex are imo the best takes on those two characters put to film w/ pretty much no competition. too many heavy handed jesus metaphors and too much mercy graves dying but it is what it is and i still love it lmao

man of steel: i love clark kent so jot that down

honorable mentions: logan, iron man 1, GOTG 2, raimi’s spider-man 2

#THIS WAS HARD DANGIT!!!#i enjoyed ww but i wouldn't put it in my top ten #also i remember loving thor esp bc loki/sif LOL #ask #asks #loisfreakinglane

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