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twig-tea · 3 months

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Love Senior: Final Thoughts

I've been putting off making a post about this because I don't like trashing things that are small efforts and especially not GL because we don't get enough of it to begin with. But I was enjoying Love Senior through episode 7. The leads were lovely, they had chemistry, their characters were both interesting, and one of them had casual sex with someone else before they got together and it was fine! They even talked about it! And they were thirsty! I love it when women get to have sexual desire in shows.

After episodes 8-9, the narrative took a serious turn and I broke and wrote a content warning post because of how gross the turn in the plot was. With one episode left, I watched to see whether it would undo any of the damage it had done, but instead it doubled down on awfulness.

The last episode is truly a smorgasbord of some of my least favourite tropes all rolled up into one miserable finale, and makes the show truly unwatchable even though it delivers a "happy ending". It didn't make sense, it wasn't good characterization, it served nothing but unnecessary angst, and it meant we didn't even get satisfying reconciliation or dealing with the issues laid out in 8-9. After this ending, I was extremely unconvinced these two would last, or that they should.

I know this isn't the worst there is in the world of QL. I've watched a lot of stuff. I used to just stay quiet if I didn't like something, but honestly, I want folks looking for info about this show to know what to expect, and I also want folks creating content to know that audiences expect better these days. I don't want people to think GL flops because nobody wants to watch it. We're so desperate for good, or even half-decent content (the viewing numbers for GAP should have made that obvious)! But things need to hold together at least somewhat, and this very much did not.

Most of the cast in this show is in a girl group together, so you can support them, continue past the cut if you want details on what makes this finale suck (I've kept it vague but obviously there will be spoilers), and I hope this is taken as it's intended--to help inform the watching decisions of us who love GL and want more of it, and to give information to those making it.

[I'm just going to note also that this show was by StarHunter Entertainment which is not known for its queer rep or good treatment of its people, so I don't feel like I owe this production company any loyalty].

Details about the last episode under the cut.

In episode 10, the following happens:

we get told the SA that I warned about in my 8-9 post was just staged for the purposes of blackmail/breaking up the leads

[the show doesn't acknowledge that the characters were still left in a position that they could have still been sexually assaulted, and that they were put in that position by someone they trusted]

Someone gets hit by a car

One of the leads falls into a coma, and on waking, gets amnesia

Her friends and family conspire to lie to her, not just erasing her girlfriend from their picture of her life, but saying that one of her other friends who has a crush on her is her boyfriend. They all go along with this lie for months

On finding out that her girlfriend had been told that she's actually dating some other guy, her girlfriend decides to noble idiocy and disappear from her life

More time passes, and they see one another at the amnesia girl's graduation, and hug for a happy ending.

THE END.

No conversation. No reconciliation beyond acknowledgment that they still have feelings. No mention of their breakup before the coma. Nothing that convinces me this couple will actually last at all, or reason (in the form of character growth, or narrative purpose) for why they've gone through this. Nothing about the main character being lied to by all of her friends and family for months. This ending says 'everything is fine as long as the two people you want to be in a relationship are in a relationship at the end of the story', and that doesn't fly with me.

#love senior #love senior the series #thai gl #sapphic media #typed so that i can stop thinking it

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volcanicflowers · 17 days

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live blogging the fallout show under here. episode 1. im a hater by nature btw but its not all negative dw

is this guy like the vault tec ceo or spokesperson or something? NO WAY HE IS NAMED MR HOWARD...... todd howard's self insert the vault tec ceo.

i think todd saw the "did you know vault boy is actually holding up his thumb to check the size of the mushroom cloud" thing on reddit and was like "oh shit... thats a good idea. we should use that"

no way they have time for this conversation AND GETTING ON THE FUCKING HORSE???? GIRL THE HORSE?? NOT THE CAR??? GIRL??????????? RIDING THE HORSE DOWN THE STREET?? HELLO? actually i understand. save the horse. bringing my horse into the vault.

HOORAY no vault incest 🥳🥳🥳

GIRL WHY DID THEY HAVE TO MENTION THAT SHE'S BEEN "DOING COUSIN STUFF" FOR 10 YEARS AFTER ESTABLISHING THAT THEY DON'T DO INCEST IN THE VAULTS????? i hate it here.

i will say the room in the vault that looks like an outdoor farm goes hard i am a very big fan of that

DEAD WIFE BACKSTORY COUNTER: 1!! LETS GO PEOPLE!!!!!

NOT MORE OF THE COUSIN INCEST.. I FUCKING HATE IT HERE.

her dad is either going to super die or be evil

husband guy isnt even going to call her platinum in the sack? or pussy cat? what about her charlies? literally unwatchable.

my husband is taking a very big gulp of water, i think hes a serial killer?

"you're from the surface" girl how else do you think he got there from the other vault

i feel like this is a lot of effort for these raiders to go through to take over a vault but i guess they were there for the party

she'll be fine just start spamming stimpaks

okay her dad survived the raider attack which means hes definitely going to turn out to be evil later

i like maximus he seems fun i hope he leaves the brotherhood and i hope hes kinda a loser

oh so new vegas exploded but not the prydwen which i blew up personally?

aw maximus not anger issues cmon

"we've never opened the vault door" how were you getting people from the other vaults for this arranged marriage thing???? if it actually is secret tunnels why werent they just sharing the vaults from the get-go why was the cousin incest necessary

loving lucy's cringefail brother btw i hope he shows up more

YESSSS CRINGEFAIL BROTHER COMING ALONG!!

NOOO hes staying behind :( why tease me like this

cmon maximus couldve been a fun loser why we doing this. throw him off the prydwen I Guess

ghoul moment. i have to go to bed now

#rosey watches fallout

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orionsangel86 · 9 months

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Good Omens Season 2 - Overall Review

You know every now and then its nice to step outside of the echo chamber and get a fresh perspective on things. I've been looking at some negative reviews for GOS2 this evening after some critical comments came across my dash which was a surprise at first because my dash has otherwise been filled with GOS2 love and adoration (if perhaps also some odd theories floating around).

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it made me really consider mine, so I decided to write it down. I know I still have episode reviews for eps 2-6 to write up, which I will get to, but I needed to get this off my chest first. This is generally just a reaction post outlining all the things I liked and didn't like about GOS2. Under a cut because looooong.

I hadn't read the Good Omens book before I watched Season 1. I watched that show completely blind and my main reason for watching at the time was because

a) I'm always going to be a little bit in love with David Tennant and so watch absolutely everything he is in always no matter how horrible (Des was a particularly hard watch)

b) I had heard that GO was partially some of the original inspiration for Supernatural and I'll be a Supernatural slut til the end of time.

c) I love all things fantasy and it genuinely looked like a great show.

Whilst I loved the first season, the thing I loved about it, was Aziraphale and Crowley. I also very much enjoyed the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Angels and Demons, and Anathama and Madam Tracey as characters.

I hated the kids. They were bloody awful and on every rewatch I have done in the past few years I have had to skip over their scenes. I find them completely unwatchable. I found Newt to be boring and Shadwell a pain in the ass. I don't find that particular brand of misogyny funny so his scenes are also just painful for me. I loathed the fact that he ended up with Madam Tracey in the end, AND that she changed who she was completely for him. What the FUCK was that all about?

Anyway, now that that is off my chest, the point I am making is that the only thing I really enjoyed about Good Omens was Crowley and Aziraphales love story plus a few of the awesome female characters they had helping them. I also enjoyed the quirky narration by God which I think had a distinctly Douglas Adam's feel to it (which I believe was the vibe Terry and Neil were going for at the time).

I have always been of the opinion that it was GOs faithfullness to the book which let it down. I read the book after watching the show and whilst it was a good book, it dragged on in parts, spent too long focusing on the kids, and Aziraphale and Crowley weren't quite as lovable in book format as they were brought to life by DT and MS. To me, the book was a 6/10, the show a 7/10. I was a fan of AziraCrow and their love story. I did not, and have not ever, believed they were "canon" in season 1 (though i was loathed to admit this due to the rabidity of the fandoms insistence that they were - which was spurred on by Gaiman much to his own detriment).

So when GOS2 came around I had no expectations that it would kick off with AziraCrow being all lovey dovey and shacked up - having confessed their love and living together as life partners - as I genuinely believe some GO fans expected to be the case - after all these are the fans that insisted it was canon in season 1! Surely that means they'll be together in season 2 right?

Well obviously that wasn't the case. First mistake for Neil Gaiman - maybe don't spend 4 years trying to convince your fanbase that these characters are already together and in love if you are going to write a whole second season revolving around the fact that they still aren't together.

I was also really worried when GOS2 was announced that they'd bring back the bloody kids, and Shadwell, and the other season 1 characters. I was very much relieved when I heard that wasn't the case. As much as I enjoyed Madam Tracey, she was ruined at the end of S1, and as much as I liked Anathama, I was very aware that her story was over the moment she burned the new prophecy book.

So going into Season 2, I was expecting and hoping for a few things:

The romantic development of AziraCrow from friends to lovers

More time with the angels and demons

A fun lesbian side story

Technically, I got all three things.

I am aware that GOS2 has its flaws. It's pacings a bit dodgy, and I do find some of the dialogue a bit jarring particularly in the Maggie and Nina scenes. The entire season has this slightly saccharine quality to it where I feel like if I watch it too many times too quickly I'll get sick from the sweetness. There needed to be a little bit more gruesomeness and angst to counteract all that sugar - Zombie Nazi's notwithstanding.

The Maggie and Nina mirrors to Aziraphale and Crowley were more heavy handed than in a season 8 MOTW episode of Supernatural. I've made that joke before, but it still stands. I wish that Neil had been a bit more subtle with it. As much as I like Maggie and Nina, they could have used a bit more development and a bit of distance from Zira and Crowley. I did find the scene where they sit down with Crowley at the end to basically tell him to get his shit together and tell Zira how he feels like something out of a fangirls dream. Does anyone remember that really OTT gay Hallmark style Christmas movie that came out last year? Single All The Way? Gods, when I first watched that movie I thought it was sweet, but it was so obviously taken from fanfiction that I couldn't take it seriously (I say this as someone who adores fanfiction and has huge respect for fanfiction writers - but we all start somewhere, and its usually as a teenager writing really sappy YAOI and that's what I feel inspired Single All The Way - side note: Trixie and Katya's review of Single All The Way is one of the funniest things I've ever watched, nothing like watching two drag queens absolutely destroy queer media that was absolutely NOT written with gay men in mind)). Anyway, I mention SATW because there is a scene towards the end of the movie where two teenage girls sit the protagonist down and tell him that he's an idiot who is clearly in love with his best friend and he should go confess his love before its too late.

Look I'm sure we've all had that fantasy. I know I did when it came to Destiel for years. Nothing better than picturing myself standing in the bunker shaking Dean Winchester by the shoulders yelling at him to go kiss Castiel because goddammit that angel needs to know he's loved!

It's a great fantasy. But I DO NOT want to EVER see it played out for real in ANY media. When I realised that this was exactly what was happening in GOS2 I curled up into a ball and screamed into my hands, and not in a good way. That was... bad. Someone slap Neil on the wrist for that terrible decision. There were a dozen better ways they could have explained the AziraCrow miscommunication issue.

Having said all this, everything else about GOS2 I adored. There is criticism about the minisodes. Sure, they are totally expansions on the popularity of Season 1's episode 3 opener, and are rather self indulgent and not really connected to the main Gabriel mystery, but they are each of them an absolute blast. They dig deeper into AziraCrow's relationship and help to understand a bit more of their dynamic and the underlying issues that they have been facing for their entire friendship.

I totally understand where people may criticise the Gabriel/Beelzebub romance coming out of left field as well. It was totally unexpected and yeah, sure, Gabriel was basically the villain of season 1, so I can understand the irritation and him getting to have a happy ever after love story when he has never even apologised to Zira. But I gotta be honest, I don't really care. I thought it was hilarious and a fun twist as well as well as a much more subtle narrative mirror to AziraCrow than Maggie and Nina were. You can accuse Neil of taking that idea from fans if you want, its totally possible that he came across some ineffable beurocracy fanart and thought huh, that could be fun. But I don't care if he did, or if it did come to him completely separately to the fans. I never shipped them, but I find it hilarious in the same way I find the Dean/Crowley ship in SPN hilarious. That went canon too, much to the horror of the entire SPN fandom. NO ONE ASKED FOR DROWLEY and yet they inflicted it on us anyway... I'll never quite get over that fact.

As for Aziraphale's characterisations. I disagree with everyone who says he was out of character. I love that he's still struggling with the idea of not being part of heaven. I love that he is still dealing with the millennia of abuse and brainwashing and manipulation. I love that he still hasn't quite grasped the tyranny and institutional corruption at Heaven's heart. I found the end of season 1 to be very satisfying in a lot of ways (other than the lack of handholding in the Ritz) but when I really think about it, Season 1 really doesn't resolve Zira's issues with Heaven. He get's discorporated, decides he doesn't want to fight, goes back to Earth and then he's dealing with the apocalypse and he never actually has any communication with Heaven again after that, because it's Crowley who goes to Heaven in his place and witnesses just how cruel they are (at least Hell gave Crowley a trial).

Nothing happens at the end of season 1 that could be enough to break him away from 6000 years of cult-like indoctrination. He still puts it down to a few bad angels. He never actually talks to God, and whilst the Metatron disappoints him, its very easy to believe that Zira would change his mind after receiving a few kind words, and the promise of restoring Crowley to full angelhood.

Crowley was perfect throughout the entire season. 10/10. No notes. Absolutely utter perfection. Outstanding performance from DT, I laughed, I cried, I wept, I desperately want to hug Crowley and let him cry on my shoulder for an entire night.

Other things I adored about the season include the entirety of episode 5 The Ball. My fave episode. It was so silly and adorable and funny. The entire "Seamstress" conversation had me rolling with laughter. Shout out to Donna Preston (Our girl Despair) who absolutely stole every scene she was in. Miranda Richardson shines as Shax (an excellent choice to recast her as a new character after the butchering of Madam Tracey's character at the end of S1). I think Muriel was a bit underutilised but still loved their wide eyed innocence and naivity.

The biggest thing I think was missing was Francis McDormand's narration as God. They brought her back for episode 2 for a very minor role, I don't understand why Neil couldn't have just had God narrate it again, with more Douglas Adams crossed with Monty Python style sequences of explanation (the angels dancing on the head of a pin is one of my absolute favourite moments in all of season 1). I presume that God's narration in S1 was to ensure the books more abstract explanations got faithfully adapted, but I wish Neil could have at least tried to recreate that for S2.

Finally, the AziraCrow romance was almost exactly what I hoped for. All the way through the season they built on it and built on it, whilst also shedding light on the fundamental issues at their core. They are still so opposite even though they want nothing more than to be together. It's heartbreaking, it's shippy AF, its all romance tropes and fanservice sure - but I don't consider fanservice to be a dirty word. The kiss is heartbreaking. You can feel the desperation oozing off of Crowley in that moment. The heartbreaking cliffhanger is exactly what's needed at the end of act 2 of a 3 act structure. If we had been given the episodes week by week, i fully believe by week 6 we would have been more prepared for it, because after rewatching a few times now, its built in rather seemlessly imo. It was always gonna end that way.

When I consider everything, I can honestly say hand on heart that I preferred this season to the first. Though that's only because season 1 doesn't have enough AziraCrow in it and I'm ultimately here for them. This season was made for the AziraCrow fans, so it makes sense that I'd prefer it, whereas I suppose for book lovers and people who prefer the story of book 1 to the relationship between Az and Crow then yeah, for sure I can see why perhaps you wouldn't be too happy with this season. Perhaps Season 3 will be a better blend for all GO fans.

It was a joy. Fanservice? Yes. A bit like fanfiction? Also yes. Are either of these things bad? Not at all. It was extremely queer, fun, silly, romantic, and heartbreaking. The lack of overarching domineering plot was a good thing tbh. Some of my favourite shows focus more on character development than plot, look at WWDITS, which has never had a proper plot in a single episode of its 5 season run. Yet it is hugely successful and critically acclaimed. Half the time in Supernatural the plot was the absolute worst thing about it. You ignored the plot as much as possible and instead focused on the subtext because that's where all the fun was! So yeah, the lack of overarching plot doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I will leave it there. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, though I do wish that anyone who is particularly critical of GOS2 would please tag it as such, because now I've done my dive into the critique of it, I'd like to avoid and blacklist all such critique going forward. I want to remain in my little GOS2 happy bubble for a while longer - before I inevitably revert back into deep meta analysis of the much darker, and sometimes depressing story of The Sandman.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens season 2 review #GOS2 #good omens season 2 spoilers #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #neil gaiman #good omens meta #good omens meta review

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detectivechen · 1 year

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so what can they do?

nobody likes a person who points out problems without suggesting solutions, so i’m back with what’s gotta give on the rookie.

imo their current problems aren’t rooted so much in ‘you can’t please everyone’, but rather ‘the writers are doing the absolute most to please everyone who ever existed in ~40 min.’

what’s the difference? the former puts the blame on the audience for ‘not getting it,’ while the latter asks the writers to take accountability for the directionless quality of their work. their method of ppl pleasing rn is highly unsustainable, so they need to course correct expeditiously or risk crashing and burning spectacularly.

here are some suggestions.

decline at least one of the regulars' checks.

help everyone on feds file for unemployment.

brush up on the neuroscience of reward.

put some respect on the psychology behind miller's law.

be warned: it's a lengthy below the cut! 😈

decline at least one of the regulars' checks.

alexi oprah-ed a lil too hard when handing out the series regular contracts this szn. s5 has a whopping number of NINE regulars/main characters: bailan (nolan and bailey), chenford (tim and lucy), wopez (angela and wesley), nyla, aaron, & grey. to be clear, that’s 9 whole actors who must be featured in at least one scene per ep, even if their characters don’t fit into the featured plots.

the number isn’t the problem, as s1/s2 had 8: the rookies (jackson, lucy, nolan), the TOs (tim, angela, talia/nyla), grey, & captain andersen. the problem is the writers’ propensity to give each couple their own storyline in nearly every episode. it’s unnecessary, and we’ll come back to this later.

solution? at least one of the series regulars needs to go. my vote is for bailey. she stretches the rookie universe too wide by pulling focus away from the mid-wilshire crew with her jane-of-all-trades shtick.

imo nathan and jenna’s lack of chemistry + their characters’ mr. and mrs. perfect 'brand' is the ultimate recipe for becoming the ‘pee break’ couple. so killing bailey off and having nolan process that resulting grief would give his too perfect character the depth that he so desperately needs to be likable rn. after all, bailey is supposed to his loml, right?

help everyone on feds file for unemployment.

tldr the last point? it's cool. basically, in order for og rookie to go back to its roots, the universe has to get smaller. solution? stop tryna make feds happen! let this upcoming episode be the last time the walmart version comes onto the brand name’s.

the ‘crossovers’ are most def the rookie’s way of minimizing their losses from their investment on feds. it’s doing so poorly that it needs to be propped up by the shock and awe that chenford generates. when feds eventually gets cancelled, most of s5 will be unwatchable bc of the crossover cliffhangers. idk maybe don’t force-feed us new characters that we don’t feel emotionally connected to? or at least buy us some dinner first, gosh. 🤷🏻‍♀️

brush up on the neuroscience of reward.

if the writers are feeling butthurt that their audience has been disappointed weekly since chenford kissed in 5x12, then they need a crash course on the neuroscience of reward STAT.

chenford was interesting bc the reward of seeing them give in to the pull was always unpredictable. so every time they kiss, it’s not like a reward, it is a reward. we get an intense dopamine high that keeps us up and posting all night, work and other commitments in the morning be damned.

the human brain is naturally wired to do everything it can to recreate that positive feeling, so we come back weekly to patronize the show in anticipation that something similar might happen again. so ofc, when it doesn’t happen again after one week, we’re understanding; it just happened last time. but when it doesn’t happen for the 4th week in a row? chaos. we go feral in search of that dopamine hit that may never come again.

solution? keep the narratives tight. if you’re not gonna give the audience a big moment like that, then supplement it with smaller, but equally unexpected moments. (to be clear, they shouldn’t be dropping big moments on the reg bc neuroadaptation becomes a prob. the unpredictability is what keeps the audience coming back. capiche?)

so if you’re gonna drop crumbs? make it mean something. take angela and tim’s interaction in 5x02 before angela transformed into a morose mom. ‘so remind me what you were doing again, in lucy’s apartment, when chris was bleeding out?’

this could’ve been called back in 5x13 when tim asked angela what’s poppin at nolan’s house during the heat wave. in one line, she could’ve said ‘oh, so dropping her off is what the kids call it nowadays, huh?’ or something to confirm to both chenford and the audience that everyone’s clocked the change in their relationship.

put some respect on miller's law.

miller’s law is the theory that the working memory can only hold 7±2 ideas at once. when the ideas are as complex as storylines, that magic number maxes out at 5. the recap sequence in 5x16 alone had us recall SIX. imagine how tired and confused i was when they also threw in celina’s dead sister trauma on top of an ebola + sarin gas drone firefight.

i understand that there is prob great external pressure from ABC for og to capitalize on its success by creating an empire, especially with grey’s on its last legs. so they’ve been trying to go bigger and better by throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

sure, every couple can have their own storyline…but not all at once in the same damn ep! sure, you can call back fan-favorite scenes…but not if the rising action takes too long, leaving no room for jesus a satisfying denouement! sure, you can give your marquee couple most of the run time…but not if their moments are the equivalent of an HS prom-posal! (leave no room for jesus here instead, i beg!)

the writing in the first three seasons of the show was more character-driven and intentional. talia kept giving lucy pointed looks until she broke up with nolan. nolan spent s2 building his house, only to tear it apart to exonerate himself. jackson spent half of s3 riding with a racist to make sure that he exposed that man’s sorry ass in front of his peers.

s4 seemed to be another attempt to expand the rookie universe by having the mid-wilshire crew follow-up on random lil cases that would be resolved in the same ep, but s5 is overdoing this formula. there are more conflicts that need to be resolved in multiple eps besides the tired elijah/abril/la fiera storyline.

so what does my wishlist look like for the couples? i guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out 😉

#the rookie #chenford #course corrections #the rookie s5 #mine.post

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asharaks · 3 months

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our histories of hunting

astarion/the dark urge 1.2k words

we all kill what we love most.

Her hands are heavy. Her head is heavy. Her eyelids, her muscles, the leaden cage of her ribs: all of it weighed down, dead meat clinging to bone, and still her stomach churns.

Hungry, she wakes. Hungry, she watches. The rest are sleeping, no watch on tonight: not here, with the shadows banished and the Harpers everywhere. She is alone, awake, unwatched.

And then: not alone. Not unwatched.

It tilts its head, birdlike, and Falyn finds herself doing the same, mirroring the movement. Unsure if she's awake, unwilling to take the risk, she shifts forwards, onto her knees, and faces that needlepoint smile.

Astarion sleeps.

No, doesn't sleep: trances, hands curled loose at his sides, eyelids translucent blue over his eyes.

So afraid.

She should see his pulse flutter under his skin.

She should see his chest rise and fall.

She, who he ought to fear most, reaches out. His skin is cold beneath her fingertips, marble sanded smooth, seaglass-bright and shattered as easily—

—she pulls her hand away, and tries not to see the way it shakes, and she says—

—to herself, to her butler-demon-devil-at-her-shoulder, to her (partner— friend— lover—) Astarion (hers hers hers), his sleeping-trancing-nothere body—

I haven't told him, and those fishhook teeth lodge in her cheek and tug as it laughs, tips its head first one way then the other, and it (he) says, “why not”

(whisper it as you twist the knife)

no-one has to know

(confession the final words between you)

bury it with his body where only you can find it

make him a pretty corpse

so pretty so cold a dead thing walking

—and for a moment, sweetbrightbloody, she can taste his skin beneath her tongue, his blood (her blood) at the back of her throat, reclaimed, hers once more, all of him hers, redwhiteboneblood all deep inside where he belongs and her hand is a claw is a knife is a snare at his throat and his eyes are the colour of sunrise as he wakes—

—as he wakes—

—he wakes to a hand on his throat, soft breath and the allure of a warm body, warm blood, the scent of earth and metal in the air. Her fingers flex against the tendons in his neck as he swallows, eyes flickering open to face her, expression shaded as she leans over him.

“Well,” he says, like speaking to a wall, like speaking to a wolf, “Hello,” and she doesn't reply beyond teeth peeled back teeth gleaming in the emberlight teeth eyes predatorflat as she leans over him and he says,

get back

says

stop it

says

“Looking for a cuddle?”

and her fingers curl into claws on his throat, not the first time (he'd hoped the last time) but the first time like this like her and his hand closes over her wrist and all he can see is teeth—

—and he drives his fingers into the soft meat of her elbow and spins away, feels his blood (her blood) wet and hot on his collarbone. On his feet, he takes three steps back catlight fingers flex and grins against the horror, opens his mouth and Falyn

his Falyn

lunges, bare hands bare teeth, nails scything through the air where his throat should be (isn't) and he gets the sense of claws, of fangs, of hunger, the echo of it sitting pretty in the hollow of his own throat.

Firelight burns in her eyes. He slides back a step, foot brushing against—

—the ruin of her bedroll, covers thrown back. Surprisingly sweet, the way she likes to sleep near him, close even without—

—but there's nothing sweet in her eyes now. Nothing in her eyes at all, and his stomach heaves, vertiginous at the absence he sees there, no light but the fire's reflection. His own absent reflection.

She moves, sways, serpentine, and he dodges, dances, just-barely (just just just) evades the attack, ducks to the left hits the ground shoulder-first and rolls—

—over the flat width of her pillow, her nails snagging in the cloth of his shirt—

—and he bounces to his feet with her knife in his hand, the awful comfort of it heavy in his palm. She doesn't relent, doesn't stop at the threat of the blade, her weight bearing him to the ground and he—

—drives the knife into her ribs drinks her heart empty, empty as her eyes as her—

—falls, blade down and to the side—

—and to the side she rolls at the blow to her temple, head snapped back eyes rolling upwards, her body going limp as he rolls her off, rolls on top of her. He straddles her thighs, weight pressing down as her eyes unfocused, a moment's respite from the

(blood blood blood)

fury, and her hands are heavy, limbs heavy, arms heavy, fingers clenching into fists as she fights to make her eyes focus, to raise her head. The weight shifts, a cold hand closing over her wrist, ropes rough on her skin, copper hot in her mouth. She can't make sense of it beyond the animal terror, animal fury, beyond the numbness that radiates down her spine as her vision drifts.

Deep down, past the fury, past the bloodlust, she's almost proud. She hadn't thought he'd fight dirty — not like that. Not with her.

Her mistake. She opens her mouth to laugh, and a snarl echoes, nausea rising in the pit of her gut, sickstarved and angry. She rolls onto her side, world spinning, earth shattered, and something—

—ropes at her wrists, at her ankles, his weight across her hips—

—holds her still, holds her back, pins her down. A slaughtered buck hanging from a spit. Firelight gleams in her future.

She snarls.

Astarion — perfect, pretty, doe-eyed, wearing her blood like it's a right — tilts his head.

“This thing won't have you,” he says, voice soft over the roaringrushingpounding in her head, preyscent, bloodlust, his eyes steady even as she snarls, twists beneath him. “It won't win.”

The ropes grate over her wrists, bones grinding teeth clenching, and she hisses in reply, tongue too heavy teeth too sharp to form words, blood over her lips as she twists, his hands out of reach of her (teeth and fangs and boundback claws) mouth but she bites at him anyway, desperate, lashing out, not fighting for survival but for the kill, and Astarion—

—Astarion clicks his tongue and shakes his head, pulls his hands back a little further because he's seen her move, seen where incaution can land a body, and her teeth clash shut on empty air.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he says, voice light, “we ask before we bite,” and it's not all performance, almost a relief to see her like this— bleeding, broken, beneath him.

Almost.

Her eyes latch onto his: canine gold, unblinking. Blood mats beneath her head, oozing from her skull where he'd hit her, clotting ruby in her hair. She doesn't seem to notice, insensate with fury, but when she's better—

—when she's back.

He's distracted by the thought, hasn't noticed his own hands, resting gently on the warmth of her stomach. Muscles flex beneath his fingers, the snarl mapped out under his palms before he hears it, her hips bucking, and he presses himself down against her, more weight more warmth, leans on his palms to pin her down and says to those empty eyes, that hungry stare:

“Easy now, darling,” petname slipping free even as she shows him her teeth (and maybe that's why, this thing between them all teeth and blood). “You've got this. And I've got you.”

#it's falyn hours #my beautiful girl with her beautiful numbers (<-23 ac and counting)#the dark urge #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #writing #falyn #astarion/dark urge #can never decide if i like posting the whole thing on tumblr or just linking to ao3.......hrng

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churchofthecomet · 3 months

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pov you're 13 or 14 years old, and you just tore through the sherlock holmes stories, when you watch the pilot of this cool modernized adaptation with benedict cumberbatch and martin freeman in it. congratulations, you've found your first Modern Media Obsession. you voraciously consume fanfiction of this television show in between watching episodes, which you pay for with weirdly sketchy mechanisms because you don't really have your own money yet + you don't know that piracy exists.

this is the Greatest TV Show Ever for the first two seasons, you are fucking high on it. you're 14 and you don't know any better. start of the third season... hmm, this power dynamic seems a little fucked up, time to retreat into fanfiction and feel conflicted about canon -- haha, too late! you have already internalized awful messages from this piece of media, which remain embedded in your brain! you watch as your favorite show devolves and unravels before your very eyes, the desperate fix-its and "what if the show was good" fanworks, and very gradually come to the conclusion that it was actually mid to bad the whole time. but you cannot unwatch the show. it has Changed you.

also inexplicably you started watching the show in late 2017 but had a strong no-spoilers mindset which meant that you didn't notice the dumpster fire of a fandom until it was too late??

anyway this happened to my buddy eric one time, who is definitely not me

#anti bbc sherlock

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gaylittleguys · 7 months

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stranger things Opinions don’t read this

ugh. whatever. I loved s1 it was fun and had a lot of things I like!! I liked that a lot of it was unexplained and a mystery and was altogether a nice complete story. S2 was good too! I liked the character progression and it was interesting and engaging, and also felt cohesive in its themes about us cold war control and the government being responsible for these horrible things. (barring maybe that one weird episode where eleven just fucks off and does something in the city for one episode then comes back and it doesn’t matter). S3 is. ugh. it’s so bad. I like Robin and Hopper’s moustache and outfit and that’s it. It was so silly and stupid and feels utterly disconnected from the tone of the previous two series. Even the characters are nothing like their previous selves. S4 was so unbelievably painful to watch. I could not believe that people were enjoying it I thought for sure everyone was watching a different show other than the one I was seeing bc it was so fucking bad. Everyone was cardboard cutouts. I didn’t care. The story was so. Nothing. Everything they added was awful. Stop explaining things. It’s worse if you tell me what’s going on and the explanation is stupid. Absolutely unwatchable. It started off as a really good show that I liked for its themes and mystery and the characters but they just as and ones anything that was actually interesting or thematic for. Idk. Cartoon evil Russians. And it became increasingly obvious that the creators don’t actually Have anything interesting to say or a good story to tell bc everything that Isn’t just borrowed from other better things is bad and convoluted and uninteresting. The more they explain the more I don’t care and the more it shows the core of this universe and story is hollow. (ooo thematic)

#whatever.#residual annoyance from dragging myself through this show #for nothing #I know people who enjoyed it! I’m glad somebody can get something out of it even if I can’t anymore #it’s just really disappointing to me.#I’m not invested in this show and don’t really care about it but the wasted potential and idk. laziness in its writing bothers me #.doc #also. a certain ship from this show irrationally bothers me bc no matter how many tags I block or how much I filter things it always showsup

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thegeminisage · 6 months

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ok tng update time. yesterday i did "haven" and just now i finished "the big goodbye."

haven: not like GOOD but definitely watchable! i think this was one largely saved from going in my garbage heap pile because nurse chapel played deanna's mom. like, if it hadn't been nurse chapel she would have been the MOST irritating annoying character but instead i was just like awww its majel barrett look at her being all quirky good for her. being ever so slightly faceblind it took me a minute to recognize her, since i just recognized her by her voice. it was also this episode or maybe the next one that i realized she was doing the computer - she uses such a different tone in tng and i hadn't been expecting to hear her voice, but the computer was starting to sound awfully familiar so i looked it up and wow sure enough. GOOD for her.

also, deanna having a truly horrible, wretched, AWFUL mother also endeared me to her more than words can say. i was JUST thinking that even though people say data is the knockoff spock it's not true - data is the inverse of spock, and DEANNA is the knockoff. like this was very much like oh she's half alien half human, it's time for her weird little alien marriage like amok time, it's time to meet her alien family like in journey of babel, etc etc, this episode could have been an email and she could have been a vulcan, etc etc etc. then she stormed out of the room and knocked that little gong thing over and i think i fell in love with her on the spot. im not sure if i wanna marry her or be her but i am now a deanna enjoyer.

my main gripes with the episode were 1. they never really explained how her intended husband and that blonde chick met...am i really supposed to believe lwaxana's bs about the current of life connecting them? and then also him saying goodbye to his parents was like...anyway bye mom and dad! not remotely believable. i didn't really care about him but it was wack.

and 2. deanna and will had an argument but then never got to reconcile at the end...this is the first time i was actually interested in their romance and then they barely got to speak two words to each other. i know tng episodes are 5min shorter than tos episodes, but this is like the 4th time i've thought they needed a bit more time at the end for that debrief scene they always had in tos...can they truly not pace this better. come on

the big goodbye: unwatchable in EVERY way. this episode was so fucking bad. dr crusher trying to make herself look Hot Like Women Do and getting mad when picard invited People Who Were Not Her to the holodeck. the data being from south america joke that is only a little better than kirk calling spock chinese in the city on the edge of forever. the fake stakes. picard walking around with lipstick on his mouth. treating data like a third wheel which should be punishable by law. the 1940s setting which is TIRED when you're not in the depths of whatever i was doing in 2014. COME ON

i will say though that i did love picard trying to learn the little insect language where the letters change their sound depending on what symbols are beside them. me trying to learn japanese on duolingo fr. also i did laugh one time when dr crusher swallowed the gum. her actress really sold that one. great job.

also, what was UP with the characters in the holodeck having their own existential crisis about not being real??? that plus any potential malfunction making the holodeck capable of killing people leads me to believe it should not be on this ship. like if i thought the fake holodeck characters were sentient enough to wonder if they were sentient and doomed to cease existing once i took my eyes off of them i would firstly never enter the holodeck again but secondly call a priest to disassemble it

anyway, tonight we are doing "datalore." can't wait for more data lore and also to meet his evil twin or whatever that's about

#personal #star trek blogging #tng lb

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anhed-nia · 2 years

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BLOGTOBER 10/19/2022: THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962)

"PLEASE…LET ME DIE!"

I have a slightly fraught relationship with Mystery Science Theater 3000. For the most part, my feelings are highly positive: Especially in the Joel Hodgson era, the show oozes love, finds pleasure in maligned and forgotten movies, and only veers into negativity when the film is really insulting. In some cases (many, possibly even most!), MST3K renders the unwatchable watchable, opening the viewers' eyes to a whole world of production that they might otherwise consider unthinkable. Occasionally, though, I worry about some of the programming choices. I don't think that the beguiling oddity PHASE IV really deserves to be riffed upon; ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE may be ridiculous, but it knows that and enjoys itself accordingly without anyone's help; and when we get into the territory of a gorgeous work of art like DANGER: DIABOLIK!, it's really like…what the hell are you guys thinking?!

Anyway. Just in case you're worried that I'm about to try to hot take-ify the infamous BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, that's not what's going on here. This is a perfectly absurd, surprisingly gory and sleazy movie with about one page worth of original content couched in enough padding to protect it from a nuclear holocaust. It's the perfect movie for MST3K, and it's a good thing that so many people have seen it that way. Still, I think it has a little more to offer than just being mindbogglingly dumb and incompetent. A little.

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, which crawled so FRANKENHOOKER could run, concerns the exploits of cold-hearted surgeon Bill Cortner (Jason Evers), who is frustrated by the cowardice of colleagues who won't let him randomly experiment on the patients who enter his operating theater. He gets a golden opportunity to dick around in God's domain when his shitty driving decapitates his fiancée Jan (Virginia Leith); he hauls her noggin off to his country estate, where he is fully prepared to preserve her consciousness until a suitable replacement body can be had. While Bill cruises strip clubs and bikini contests for transplant material, Jan discovers that his reanimation techniques have given her psychic powers, and she forms a deadly bond with a Thing (Eddie Carmel) locked in a nearby closet. The two monstrosities plot their bloody revenge amid an avalanche of exciting monologues from Jan about her horrific existence.

In spite of its astounding cheapness and its shred of a plot, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE has a certain amount of chutzpah that makes it endearing, perhaps even uplifting in some perverse way. You think for sure that when Jan wakes up in the pan, it's going to break her heart, but she immediately downshifts to righteous wrath. Virginia Leith reportedly hated this movie, but you wouldn't know it from the gumption she gives her bombastic tirades about how nothing could be more horrifying, and thus more powerful, than herself. Meanwhile, Bill encounters a string of hardboiled adult entertainers who are so streetwise, and so fiercely protective of themselves, that it's actually kind of affecting to watch this seemingly well-heeled doctor slip around their defenses with his veneer of normality in order to do something awful to them.

Adele Lamont in the much shorter, less gory, less nude cut of the movie. Always check your running times!

Of particular interest is poor Doris (Adele Lamont), implied to be a lesbian with the most beautiful body anyone has ever seen, but with a hideously scarred face courtesy of a man who she once "trusted—all the way!" It's painful to watch Bill maneuver relentlessly to gain Doris' hard-won trust, especially since they used to know one another; back in school, Bill defended the disfigured Doris from male mockery after her "accident", and now he's leveraging his heroic track record to fuck up her life even worse. Bill has a Patrick Bateman-like habit of speaking so frankly as to appear to be kidding, escaping all suspicion. He plies Doris with the promise of an experimental makeover, not-joking, "I'm gonna make your face beautiful again. Cut it off and give your body away." Finding this threat impossible to take seriously, Doris relaxes, and heads off to her potentially tragic fate. In this sequence, the padding and repetition almost work to the film's benefit; Doris tries so hard, over and over, to get rid of Bill, that you really wind up feeling like it's not her fault that he eventually bends her to his will. Especially if you've ever been worn down by an ill-intentioned man like this, you gotta feel for Doris.

"A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y." Diane Arbus, 1970

The other cast member you might feel for is the "mass of flesh" made of "broken limbs and amputated arms" that Bill keeps in the closet, played by sideshow performer Eddie Carmel. The "Jewish Giant", made most famous by Diane Arbus, is caked in makeup to make him look optimally freakish, even though "freak" was once an official job title for the actor. Carmel is an interesting guy who also held titles such as mutual funds salesman, standup comedian, and rock singer in the band Frankenstein and the Brain Surgeons. He's worth looking up, even if his presence in this exploitation movie is limited to the finale.

The last thing I'll say about THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE is that it is occasionally stylish, much to my surprise. In between the endless monologues and meandering-around, there are shots that look like cinematographer Stephen Hajnal actually enjoyed setting them up—and there is occasional evidence of some form of humor, like the Grecian-style bust that foregrounds Bill's entrance to the country lab with Jan's severed head under his arm. Just because I noticed this, today I am going to find out if Jennifer Lynch's art house shocker BOXING HELENA would make a good double-bill with THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. I actually feel slightly worse about that movie, since Lynch made it when she was very young, laboring under her own immaturity and her father's towering reputation, which is apt to magnify her youthful mistakes. Somehow that feels just as grim to me as what happens to poor Doris.

Forgive my shitty picture of my TV, I have limited means here!

PS Jennifer Lynch's SURVEILLANCE is one of my absolute favorite recent genre films, in case it sounds like I'm dismissing her outright! It has my highest recommendation.

#blogtober #blogtober 2022 #the brain that wouldn't die #1962 #virginia leith #jason evers #adele lamont #eddie carmel #diane arbus #joseph green #rex carlton #stephen hajnal #anthony la penna #leslie daniel #horror #sci-fi #science fiction #body horror

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wolfstrong · 1 year

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Buffy season 1 reflection!!!!!!!!!

My feelings on Buffy so far are very complicated because I find it crazy entertaining but there are so many things in the show that I just KNOW are terrible. I really enjoy the character dynamics its probably my favorite thing about the show. I find it endlessly funny that Giles has to hang out with a group of teenagers, and (when xander isn't making it weird) the main group is super cute and funny together. Also really like the setting, highschool shenanigans are always fun and idk it just seems like it would have been very cool to be a teen in the 90s. Also I like monster of the week stuff with a more overarching plot, you can kind of just enjoy things as they come and have the security that it's pretty much always gonna be resolved by the end of the episode. FOR WHAT I DONT LIKE. well "Buffy Speak" is annoying. like I'm getting more used to it and even able to find it charming at some points but BOY when i started the show it was almost making it unwatchable. i can see myself liking it by the end of the series but for now lets just be a little annoyed with it. Other thing that really gets me is the buffy/xander/willow love... line? idk i think i could stand it if xander didn't pine over buffy and wasn't weird to girls because he's very weird to girls. Somehow buffy manages to be like girlboss feminism win while also being the most sexist show every created. and maybe that was just like the era but yeah i don't enjoy watching male characters I'm supposed to like perv out over women.

Character Thoughts

Buffy- shes so awesome like honestly!! i like that she lives this very bad ass life and like we the viewer know how cool she is because we see her do all these bad ass things, but to the rest of the school shes just kinda like this weirdo kid who hangs out in the library. it kind of makes her an honorary fail girl in my opinion. And just her whole attitude of wanting to be a normal teenage girl so when it comes time to slay monsters shes like "ugh. guess its monster slaying time! whatever!" and acts bad ass as hell but doesn't really care. also its just awesome that she is physically super strong. like she will just randomly be punching through walls and doing sick backflips. ugh i love it

Giles- I. LOVE. GILES. im a Giles fangirl all the way like what else is there even to say about it. When he comes on screen I'm just like instantly smiling. funniest character ever invented. And again i just love that he has to hang out with teenagers all the time and sometimes they just like bully him for being old and lame and into books and he's constantly getting beat up and thrown around. yeah i don't even have much to say he's just awesome

Willow - Literally the blueprints for dorky nerdy girls everywhere like what else is there to say. we all know she is literally BEYOND iconic. Shes so cute and smart and charming and like honestly its like. how many girl in media really DO get to just be dorky like its pretty rare i feel like that's why its like. she was the blueprint man.

Xander - ... yes my complicated feelings yes yes. he's soooooo annoying and fail but... you know i like when guys are fail guys.. BUT HES ALMOST TOO FAIL. of course like i already said i hate the way he acts to women and when buffy rejected him and he acted super pissy and like "ugh whatever you only don't like me because you like that chad Angel ugh nice guys always finish last" I literally wanted him dead. so beyond cringe with that kind of behavior. BUT when he's like being sweet and goofy then I'm like.. aw hi funny guy from the 90s lol! and i do think his relationship with willow CAN be super cute cuz idk i just like the whole childhood friends vibe and i like that they have a relationship outside of their time with buffy and its nice to get little glimpses of them together just being buddies. I think the whole situation would be 100% better if xander was pining for willow instead of Buffy and willow was the oblivious one. I am not against their relationship at all i just hate to see willow be the one pinning for him cuz its like girl. you can literally do better okay. you are awesome. whatever. sorry for being a halfway Xander apologist

Cordelia- literal girlboss. every time shes on the screen its a treat. I just love the vibe where she is like?? friends with the main characters kind of? but also just bullies the shit out of them and is so mean in every interaction. see the thing is if they were't friends at all she just wouldn't talk to them or they wouldn't talk to her. but they always end up talking so there is obviously some kind of relationship there. but its just like one where she calls them losers and they are like "alright. well see you next week cordelia" If you are a hater and think shes mean get out of my face shes literally awesome and funny. also in the final when she drove her car thought the school doors... SO . GIRLBOSS. i am very excited to see where her character goes cuz i got the feeling at some point shes gonna turn into some kinda supernatural monster. i just feel it.

Angel - eh lowkey who cares. I am never one to be interested in the mysterious brooding guys its just not my thing. He reminds me of Edward from twilight both in face and attitude and because he's a vampire of course lol

Episodes

Honestly they were all kind of of equal quality. Nothing was so horrible I couldn't stand it they were all just good. One that kind of stood out as a favorite was "I robot, you jane", it was nice to have something more willow focused and it was very funny to see what people thought of the internet back then. Willow kind of online dating a guy was enough to make everyone freak the fuck out. And i really really love the way the demon robot looked. the idea of a demon existing on the web was just a cool idea in general. idk just a cool way of combining the supernatural with tech stuff

idk just look at this guy and tell me this isn't awesome

.... okay then... see yall in season 2!!!

#btvs

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blazehedgehog · 1 year

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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.

#questions #Anonymous #transformers #michael bay #bumblebee

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mejomonster · 2 years

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Anon I will respond soon. In the meantime, I looked up The Lotus Casebook and 1. I’m delighted to say it was a drama I’ve been waiting for already, its got cheng yi and joseph zeng as leads so yay dmbj bros in a show together!

2. i’m shocked by the number of “wow i hope its not bl/censored bl/bromance, i’m so sick of those” comments on mydramalist on it’s page. First of all because like, what has gay stuff ever done to them (especially in cdrama’s case where bromance still means there can be a straight romance, and even if you absolutely hated queer stories at best any gay romance would be censored and therefore not as ‘bothering’ to you).

Secondly because it reeks of people being pro-what-china’s-been-getting-rid of and i’m not particularly happy to see anyone celebrating “getting rid of” the kinds of works made by authors i support. i didn’t expect or need The Lotus Casebook to be bl or bromance-y at all, but with all those comments now I hope it IS at least to the extent of stuff like Checkmate or MRIAD because i’m annoyed to see people celebrating seeing less open-to-optional-queer-reading stuff. Not even gay stuff, just not totally anti gay stuff... not loving people hoping for full on “destroy any gay possible interpretation” kind of things -.- (In contrast to say Secret of the Three Kingdoms which is made and intended to be straight romances, is PHENOMENAL in its straight romance writing, and still is queer positive in that it mentions men can like men in a lighthearted way in the script as one off stuff, or Eternal Love which likewise left open the implication people could be bi or gay even as its main relationships are all straight - and in my opinion, as a queer person, its fucking nice to see Any shows that attempt to be open minded in such a way when they didn’t have to be).

3. Not about The Lotus Casebook, but related to potential censored bl coming out of china: despite the crackdown last year post Word of Honor, I know Joseph Zeng was in the middle of shooting a bl book to drama adaptation in late 2021 - I can’t find the drama on mydramalist now, but it was there in 2021. So there were bls in production/shooting in china post ban, i am assuming the companies are operating under the belief they’ll be able to air eventually and make money. Meanwhile my boy Chen Xingxu (from Goodbye My Princess) finished shooting spring 2022 of an adaptation of a bl priest novel (Guardians of the Lands). Since it was shooting THIS year, and likely getting finished up now (or already finished and just waiting to be allowed to air - like 2ha and Sha Po Lang right now), again I’m assuming despite everything... companies assume they’ll still eventually get to air their shows and make money. So again I guess to hammer myself home: really annoyed to see anti-bl comments on mydramalist, when so much stuff is NOT queer its easy as fuck to simply avoid it. Meanwhile, the most that can even occur in a cdrama is a possibly close friendship, so people getting “worried a cdrama will be bl and therefore ‘unwatchable’” is so fucking stupid to me.

4. An actual genuine concern? Will the female characters be written well. But I’ve seen tons of straight romances for which female characters are written awful, and tons of bl where female characters are written well. So the only way for good writing is... good writing. And that’s ultimately going to depend on the individual show’s writers, not on if something’s bl or not.

#rant #the lotus casebook #cheng yi #anon i'll respond im just mulling over things #im frankly. shocked and annoyed by how anti bl that comments section was #the show IS NOT EVEN remotely related to bl! they didn't need to insult the genre to begin with #seeing that makes me hope a ton of stuff IS actually bl and gl by surprise. like MRIAD was or Lingjian Mountain #because ppl who dont like seeing queerness exist? fuck you guys. i exist and frankly i dont wanna see U if you dont want to tolerate that #people like me exist and its normal

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