#have some music that would be really great for a montage

[optimistic-violinist]

Hot Take: Magnifico learning magic and learning how to protect the wishes would've been a better plot for Wish.

Think of it. We start with a town on fire and see Magnifico running away. Maybe he gets caught by the villain. "Any last wishes?" Maybe we see his parents or siblings tackle the villain and tell him to run only for him to watch them be killed (off screen of course).

We get a shot of our villain. I'm thinking a very Shan Yu-like from Mulan. Just, evil. Pillager. Bad Guy.

Magnifico escapes. Since he's gonna be voiced by Chris Pine still (of course), we get the ROTG voice over. "I never saw them again. I never saw my home again. And I vowed that that would never happen again. But that was a long time ago." Cue musical sting, pan up to the night sky and wishing star, title.

Fast forward, Magnifico is now a teenager. Has an adopted mother, living in a cottage in the woods or something near town. He's trying to study magic in his free time, his mother is worried about him getting in over his head. He wants to apply for the magic school in the town. Cue song a la "When Will My Life Begin."

He takes the magic exam and isn't bad, but isn't good enough. Maybe they're snobs, maybe it's really that he failed fair and square.

Note: Amaya also lives in this town. They're friends.

Breakdown that night. Cue "So I Make This Wish," almost verbatim and summons... STAR!

Humanoid Boy Star from the concept art, specifically.

They get talking. Magnifico is obviously starstruck (ba dum tish).

M: "you're, you're---"

S: stupendous, extraordinary, splendiferous?

M: magnificent

Cue discussion about why he's out there wishing, the magic exam, why he wants to learn magic, and Star offers to teach him.

Not sure what happens here. Probably mini-quest to get magic books or items. Upbeat montage song. At the end, hint that the bad guy is coming to destroy this town now.

Somewhere in here, we befriend Amaya more and Magnifico starts to fall in love with her. Cue cute romantic song, something about wishing for each other. Star in the background a la Eponine from Les Mis. NOW we can either go romance or friendship route: either way, there is pining about how he is a cosmic entity, ageless, can't stay forever, and Magnifico is going to grow up and do great things without him.

Oh no!! Bad guys are suddenly a lot closer! We've got to prep and do something! Potentially an ensemble/town song. Culminates in Star asking Magnifico what his wish really is. We see his wish is founding Rosas with Amaya at his side. Star reassures him that that's exactly what he's going to do and teaches him how to take and protect wishes. We got a duet a la "For Good" between them. Star tells him that he's going to be magnificent.

Big battle against the bad guys! Magnifico with his really cool sorcery powers! He takes the Bad Guy's wish to harm people and makes him forget it. Magnifico also gets a cool "Defying Gravity" song here with some line about promising to protect people's wishes and if he should ever fail or use that power for evil, may he be cursed or something. Foreshadowing, y'know?

We get one last goodbye as Star goes to leave. Do they kiss? Maybe. Do they have A SUPER TIGHT TENDER HUG FULL OF LOVR AND CARE. ABSOLUTELY. I LIVE FOR THAT. Probably a reprise of one of the songs here.

Fast forward once more to Magnifico as a young adult with Amaya, sailing on a ship as they discover the island that will become Rosas.

Fin.

#Ill probably draw something for this eventually #but enjoy my train of thought #The music would be so good!!! #Wish #Disney wish #Wish Disney #King Magnifico #Brittany rambles

[homunculus-argument]

You know how some movies just have to have that scene where the Super Cool Dark Troubled Brooding Hero Man is in utter despair about some devastating news or other turn of events, comes home to his big fancy silent house and stands there for a moment in silence before roaring in despair and rage, grabbing the nearest piece of furniture and smashing it to the floor, throwing shit at walls and smashing things and pretty much tearing through everything in sight out of sheer aimless frustration?

With either really tragic and dramatic music on the background or no background music at all, to show us viewers just how Raw And Real this tragic breakdown is, how this Cool Brooding Protagonist who has been so reserved and composed this whole time has finally reached a breaking point, lost his cool, and how destroying his own property in futile, impotent rage still ultimately brings him no comfort or ease? And it's all super tragic and shit.

I think it would be great if one of those movies followed this up with a later scene of the protagonist going "ok, I'm done being dramatic now", and doing a cute little upbeat Ghibli film style clean-up montage of putting everything back together (some of the repairs and replacements being obviously improvised on the spot) before heading out to go on whatever destructive action hero revenge rampage he's going to do next.

[ponett]

I have now finally seen the Mario movie. It was Pretty Good. Here are my wordy thoughts on it. (I am going to spoil the entire movie. Duh.)

In many ways, the Mario movie does what I wish the first Sonic movie had done. They just took the characters and the premise and the world from the games, and made it a straightforward animated adventure movie. It's bright and colorful and remixes things JUST enough to include fun elements from multiple games, and it doesn't make Mario get adopted by James Marsden or whatever. It even has the music!

That's all you really need, right? Right...?

I'll get this out of the way up front. Chris Pratt was fine. He's fine

If anything, it really feels like they did the movie a disservice by letting us hear so little of the Mario voice in the previews. It took one scene for Pratt to disappear into the role for me. It was totally fine. If anything, I found Charlie Day's normal voice coming out of Luigi WAY more distracting, even if I did like him in the role.

Everyone else was pretty good, for the most part. Jack Black was obviously very good as Bowser, but I'm biased. Seth Rogen does the Seth Rogen laughs as Donkey Kong, but I thought DK was fun, too. (I liked his little rivalry with Mario where he was just constantly giving him shit.) The only casting choice I truly hated was Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong. I hated every line that came out of his mouth. He sounds atrocious. Just the worst. I swear to fucking god if they do a DKC movie and we have to hear him for 90 minutes

I did think Peach was lacking, but that was on the script, not Anya Taylor-Joy's performance. It's cool to see Peach fight, but it's one of those all too common instances where the writers put so much effort into making the main girl kick ass and be an effortlessly confident girlboss that they forgot to give her an actual personality. Not that I'd point to Super Princess Peach and its mood swing superpowers as positive representation or anything, but there's a happy middle ground, surely. Shrek was 22 years ago, just having the princess do flying kung fu kicks isn't enough.

Okay. With the voices out of the way, let's talk about the big picture:

It's way better than the words "Illumination Mario movie" implied, and I mostly enjoyed my time with it. The spirit of Mario is there 100%. But I'd also describe it as "ruthlessly efficient."

This was perhaps the main complaint critics had, and they were absolutely right. People have responded to these totally average reviews with "Well, what did you expect? Shakespeare?! It's MARIO!!" Like, yes, I would prefer it if the movie I paid to see had writing that was good instead of bad. What a shocker. My issue isn't that it's not "high-brow" enough. The problem is that it feels mercenary. It feels like an editor went through and deleted almost every line of dialogue that isn't some form of exposition, at the expense of the pacing. Any scene that's not a montage or some sort of action is kept as short as they could make it, with barely any room for embellishment, character interaction, or anything other than the bare minimum word count to hit all the typical Save the Cat Hollywood screenwriting 101 story beats to the letter. There aren't even as many jokes as you might think (and the ones that are there are extremely hit or miss, including a lot of the slapstick with Mario himself).

Mario and Peach's little arc together in the front half of the film is probably the worst example of this pacing. Even having read reviews that complained about how fast Peach goes from meeting Mario (by her admission the first other human she's ever met) to deciding to train him as the new savior of the Mushroom Kingdom, I was SHOCKED at how fast it was. They don't even lampshade it.

Peach takes Mario straight into the big training sequence where he learns how to use mushrooms and jump over platforming obstacles. Peach is apparently already a hypercompetent platforming pro and a great fighter, so there's no clear reason why she's taking the time to train this random guy to be half as good as her when the world is in danger. Then they set off on their adventure, Toad joins them, and we get a VERY brief travel montage. It's about thirty seconds total - just long enough to give Peach a line about how she wants to protect this beautiful world of hers to try and give her some stakes. We get the genre-mandated nighttime campfire heart to heart, which is exactly long enough to have Mario say he misses Luigi and to have Peach give the two sentence summary of her origin story and not a second longer. Then they reach the Kongs, and their big journey is complete. (They barely interact for the rest of the movie.) So much of the movie is like this - always ready to get on to the next scene as soon as a new one starts.

I'm not criticizing the script because I expect The Super Mario Bros. Movie to be a prestige drama - although there are certainly halfhearted attempts at a dramatic arc. The stuff with Mario's family was a fun enough idea, but again, ruthless efficiency. We get one quick scene with them at the start to give Mario some pathos, because I guess Save the Cat said he's gotta have some pathos. And then Mario gets his dad's approval amidst the action of the final battle in Brooklyn to resolve his arc, just so the movie can end as quickly as possible once Bowser is defeated. (Despite now having the approval of their family and their community back in Brooklyn, Mario and Luigi move to the Mushroom Kingdom off-screen without a single word dedicated to this decision, because that's where they live in the games.)

Look. I am not comparing it to The Godfather. Don't give me that shit. I am not asking for an extra half hour to explore Mario and Luigi's childhood trauma. I am not asking for the complex inner workings of the Mushroom Kingdom monarchy. I know this is gonna be a basic Hero's Journey adventure for kids. It just feels like it's turning down so many opportunities to have a little fun with the characters, to let them interact and play off of each other, to let there be some adventure on this adventure. This is the first time we've gotten to see these characters interact with fully voiced dialogue in a very, very long time! "Yeah, it's not High Art, but it's FUN!" Stories are fun! Character interactions are fun! The script could be having so much more fun!! It is adamantly against making the Story parts of this story-driven movie any more Fun than they functionally need to be!!!

Mario, Peach, and Toad's journey to find the Kongs is shorter than the training montage that precedes it. After the opening, Bowser mostly just sits in his castle and waits for the third act to start. Luigi's there, too, but he only gets one scene with Bowser and then the movie mostly forgets he exists until the climax. He doesn't even get to try and sneak out of Bowser's castle and get up to hijinx. He's just there to be a motivation for Mario, so he sits in a cage for half the movie. It's the bare outline of a script with action scenes added in.

Aside from the fact that it's Jack Black singing as Bowser, I feel like this overly-efficient script might be part of the reason why the "Peaches" scene stands out so much. It's a moment that didn't strictly need to be there to keep the plot moving or to provide an action setpiece. It's not even a reference to another Mario thing. It's just a fun and memorable little character moment that's there for its own sake. That's what the movie needed more of. To stop and smell the roses more often. To play in the space.

To be clear, this isn't a unique problem with this movie. Critics have been noting for years that second acts are disappearing from big Hollywood movies in favor of the Act I plot setup and the Act III action, even though Act II is supposed to be where you get to explore your actual premise. And lots of animated movies give me this exact same vibe of being too "screenwriterly," or feeling like they had an executive breathing down their necks and demanding changes based on focus testing. But these common issues are why I come away mostly feeling like the movie is on the better end of "average," rather than totally blowing my mind. You have seen this movie many times before, just not with Mario in it.

And, of course, there's the music. The score by Brian Tyler based on various classic Mario and Donkey Kong tunes (frustratingly all attributed to Koji Kondo) is absolutely beautiful, but it's unfortunately frequently overshadowed by the licensed music. Everyone already complained about things like the use of Take On Me in place of a lovingly arranged DKC medley, but it feels illustrative of the tug of war the movie is caught in the middle of, between wanting to be a lavishly faithful Mario movie and wanting to be a generic tentpole animated adventure movie. Every single licensed song used is the most obvious, overused song they could have picked for the scene. It reeks of cynical executive meddling and it took me out of the movie every time.

But there really was a lot of care and love put into this movie - more than probably any other video game movie ever made, not that that's a high bar. I don't want to underplay that too much amidst all my complaints spurred by the absolutely insane response to the reviews.

Aside from the countless background references that people will be picking apart for years, touches like the Captain Toad tune playing in the background of Toad's introduction or the Mario Kart 8 menu music playing in the kart garage really help bring it to another level of authenticity. I also enjoyed seeing some more obscure Mario enemies that felt like they were picked more for being fun to animate than for being nostalgic and marketable. No matter how many times I sarcastically pointed to the screen and deadpanned "reference. reference." I am not immune to noticing these things and smiling. I am not immune to the DK Rap. These alone don't make the movie good, but it's nice to have a video game movie that feels like it was made by people who like video games.

Most importantly, the animation is great throughout. It's leaps and bounds ahead of other Illumination work, and it's the best the Mario cast has ever looked. They even made Donkey Kong handsome, somehow. They're all so squishy and expressive, and they move so fluidly - especially in the action scenes. I particularly liked the more kinetic ones like the aerial Banzai Bill chase and the Mario Kart sequence. Truly, the Mad Max-inspired car battle on Rainbow Road where Mario literally does the speedrun shortcut is this movie firing on all cylinders.

Other, more hand-to-hand fights nail the Popeye-esque vibe Mario should be going for. He's an underdog who gets the shit kicked out of him by bigger, stronger opponents until he gets his signature powerup and turns the tables on them. My favorite animation of all probably came from the use of Cat Mario to turn the tide in the DK fight. They had so much fun making Mario move like a cat. Again, it feels like a choice made because it'd be fun to animate rather than just a nostalgia move.

It's that animation and that attention to detail that carry the film, really. They elevate it from mediocrity into being a fun watch for a fan like me, albeit one I couldn't help but pick apart with Anthony as we watched it at home. I'm glad I saw it, but there's a lot of room to improve with the inevitable sequel. I hope they do. I can't deny that I had fun with the movie, but I hope next time that fun is partially because of the script instead of in spite of it.

Stray thoughts:

Overall, I would say I enjoyed the movie a lot more than Sonic 1, but probably not as much as Sonic 2. Not that these movies need to be pitted against each other.

I hated the Luma. I hated how hilarious they clearly thought the Luma was. They have the fucking Luma break the fourth wall to end the movie and start the credits. This is going to be a deep cut for fans of bad animated films, but the whole time I was just thinking of the little fish from Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss who's just the director's kid saying random nonsense. You know I'm right

I rolled my eyes at the "our princess is in another castle" joke and several other jokes that would have been dated in a gamer webcomic 20 years ago but I guess they had to be there

How much of Brooklyn did Bowser's giant floating castle take out? We know 9/11 happened in this universe because the Freedom Tower is there, hasn't New York been through enough

I can't believe there's a Diskun easter egg

The dog is the most Illumination character design in the movie. It felt like it wandered on set from The Secret Life of Pets

Mario being a gamer and playing Kid Icarus of all things just made me remember this tweet:

Yes Anthony did get mad at me for being thirsty for Bowser

[unlikelyjapan]

s2e3 rewatch notes

One more before the weekend...

"When I was a kid anything that would give me some type of excitement, or amusement or enjoyment would get fucked ... Sometimes they'd try too hard, or they'd make promises they weren't able to keep" - everything in Carmy's AA statement can be related to cooking, the restaurant, drawing, Claire - pretty much the sum of Carmy's parts now.

Second Carmy/Syd kitchen scene:

Carmy is always the first to ask about anyone's parents (but only to Syd) - just like he inquires about Syd's Dad, his first concern is to ask about Marcus' mom while they debate sending him to Copenhagen. Family and people, in general, are always at the forefront of his mind, while progression is always at the forefront of Syd's (even if she does genuinely cares and checks in, it's secondary)

Carmy's "I want to make a suggestion" to go out was so loaded - it was obviously a premeditated move that he wanted to do the food tour with Syd. "I think WE need to go out, and we need to try some stuff"

After he tells her he'll see her in an hour, Goodbye Girl by Squeeze starts playing, and the track ends as Tina realizes that Ebra isn't ever going to be by her side in class *dies twice*

Richie dropping off his daughter: I have a precocious 6-year-old daughter as well and.....they tried to squeeze way too many lines into Eva to advance Richie's storyline when it should have come via Tiff or something - I hate being a negative nelly, but this part is so botched/lifetime drama-y.

(His obvious tenderness is sweet though)

10:44am call with Claire: this is only 2ish hours after his AA talk - I guess the subject matter was resonating with him?

Her forcing the convo on how ingratiated she is with his family makes me throw up my hands and say "no wonder the guy had a fucking panic attack later!". I was just highlighting how in AA how his family tries too hard sometimes - this is a prime example with her "I know all the fuckin' Faks" jousting.

And my god, she knew he was about to tell her that he was busy today, and she claps back "can you not make this weird?" - it literally harkens back to his family's bullying and expectations that Carmy will pacify them. (I know she can't know all this, but damn)

This part of the conversation gets its own bullet point:

"You know, he [Fak] told me that you guys are really close and that he's your best friend" - I didn't realize the first go around how bold the attempt at enmeshment was. With Fishes as context, the toxicity levels in this conversation are off the rails.

Also, her demented smile when she says "really?" when he says "no...no, Fak's not my best friend" - aggghhhh!

"No, no. He is. He's probably my best friend"

What the hell is this? "That's interesting, to sit with, for you" with the continued weird little smile -this isn't flirting, this is her relishing in the fact that she can manipulate him.

Why didn't I clue into how caustically fucked this scene was the first time? I think I was so distracted by the whispy dialogue and cadence of the conversation that I actually blacked out of the dialogue. Thank goodness for subtitles, because this script is mildly psychotic to read.

I know Storer said that one of the themes of this season is "winning is losing" - Claire is definitely playing to win at all costs. Is s2e10 showing that she lost? Or am I sitting through this dialogue again next season? I NEED TO KNOW.

Anyways, Secret Teadrops by Martin Rev (google the lyrics) plays as sydney enters Kasama - God, the music suggests she was thrilled to be spending a day out of the usual context with Carmy, and her checking her phone constantly is killing me.

Twenty Five Miles by Edwin Starr starts playing at the start of the food montage, just as Sydney gets the text from Carmy that she'll be doing it alone.

"I've been walking for three days and two lonely nights, and you know that I'm mighty mad"

After the owner of Avec tells her that she needs a great partner above all else, the lyrics blare again with "although my feet are tired, I can't lose my stride" - she can't abandon faith in Carmy just yet.

After the Pelican meats scene where the butcher (I forget his name, sorry!) tells Syd that he and his wife lost their restaurant in Bucktown after a business partner cut and ran, the song again blares with "I'm SO tired, but I just can't lose my stride"

Syd starts to adjust her language to "I'm not exactly solo" in the next restaurant scene- ugh - painful.

Enter conversations about profit sharing. Naiya assumes that she and Carmy are INVOLVED involved, and when she finds out they're just "gentleman's agreement" partners, she basically tells her to watch her back. Syd registers the statement, but looks so dejected, like she knows she's on a fool's errand now.

The lyrics flare one last time simply with "I've got to walk on"

Cue Carmy's phone going to voicemail as she has the jitters on the loading dock. She looks so sad, but also resigned to her fate at this point.

Sydney calls Marcus right after trying to call Carmy looking for any kind of sign or reinforcement. We're at the triangle again, with Marcus interpreting it one way, and Syd....really not reading anything into it at all.

I feel like Fak making fun of Marcus for "looking forward' with that big, dumb smile on his face means he knows Marcus' affection for Sydney.... and I'm starting to realize all the plots I don't like are the result of Fak's intuition and/or meddling.

Syd awkwardly trying to poach BOH workers is adorably baller and shows how aggressive she is just now realizing she needs to become- and she's so terrible at it, and I love her.

Future Perfect by Duretti Column (what an awesome deep cut) playing - I love that this part of the montage is Syd diving deep into herself and her more analytically-bent creative process and fuck everyone else. It's just her carrying the creative load of the restaurant right now, but she's truly free.

Lyrics repeat "You tell me stories, you speak in pictures"

She's being absolutely present ("Don't live in the future") and letting the food and the city that birthed it speak to her honestly and it's just so beautiful. The old family pictures surface in her memory alongside the plates she's crafting - her own contribution to the chaos menu, her past and present combined, her future (The Bear) undetermined.

Back to The Bear with "Make You Happy" by Tommy McGee playing in the background - I feel like enough ink has been spilled on this scene, but honestly read the lyrics here - ack.

One small observation after Carmy says "I'll let you know" - in the background, Marcus looks completely defeated, Fak's suppressing a laugh or something, and we get Richie's "ooooooohhhhhhh!"while Carm gives him dagger eyes. Y'all....these are not great men.

Syd rightfully realizes she needs to get the fuck away from everyone in that instant if she's going to do anything productive with the inspiration she's culled from her day of exploration and calls in the favor from the kitchen. I love that it almost immediately cuts to her there with her emotional support spoon 🥺

The ravioli failure - i.e. the fantasy vision of the food she had on the plate during her journey day not matching the reality of what she can craft on her own = the fantasy vision of the restaurant/life she could craft with Carmy not matching the reality of what she can is forced to craft on her own.

Oof, taking a break for a few days now....

#the bear fx #the bear season 2 #the bear spoilers #the bear #carmy x sydney #carmen berzatto

[anulithots]

Nobara realizes that Itadori isn't really a hoodie guy.

And she cannot stand for that.

*intro music starts playing*

~JJK fashion show episode~

Nobara drags him and Megumi along for a shopping trip to find Itadori's sense of style.

(Technically Megumi and Itadori always join along with Nobara's shopping trips. Itadori goes along for fun of it + knick knacks + food and ends up having to carry all of Nobara's bags.

Megumi silently goes along, looks at a few things, shies away from attention as much as possible, before strolling through the pet store and buying nothing. Itadori often takes a break and joins Megumi for a little while before the trio meets up again.)

This time she had to drag along Itadori, and she told Megumi he had to help.

Insert an entire fashion montage. (If you know more about fashion than I do please let me know ideas)

Itadori eventually has to deal with his indeciveness, making a decision for himself....

... or he pretends to like whatever Nobara recommends after a lot of 'I don't see what's wrong with hoodies!' (depending on the trajectory I guess... if this is cannon compliant it would be this option.)

Nobara huffs. "Gojo picked your uniform, that's what's wrong! We're not letting that idiot chose your style." She pauses. "Chose something for yourself for once."

Itadori, not wanting to confront this, not minding others making decisions for him, never wanting to acknowledge his own decisions... or lack of them, randomly picks a hawaiian shirt.

Nobara scoffs. "That?!"

Itadori sighs. "I thought you said I could chose?"

"That...is actual garbage. Itadori, I will not be associated with actual garbage. Have some self-respect."

(Sukuna laughs, somewhere in the recesses.)

__________________

Megumi narrowly avoids getting a fashion show himself after buying a shoes to appease Nobara ('I'm using Gojo's credit card so we're all getting something! Even you Fushiguro!")

Itadori hides from Nobara with him. "She isn't satisfied with anything because 'I'm just going along with what she's saying'"

Fushiguro nods, looking at rabbit treats. "You did this to yourself."

Itadori wants to change the subject, almost asks Fushiguro why he comes to pet stores without buying anything....

Nobara bursts through the doors, and the store seems to darken with her entrance. Itadori yelps and tries to hide behind Fushiguro. Fusiguro is also trying to hide. A lot of hiding. None of it sucessful.

(Itadori isn't used to being on the receiving end of this. Usually him and Nobara tease Fusiguro together. He kind of hates this switch of dynamics.... He's supposed to help people. Not be helped.)

Nobara drags Itadori (and Fushiguro has to follow along because now people are staring.) back to the stores... where they bump into none other than:

"So my credit card didn't get stolen. Great news!"

(Gojo knew since the beginning and just came along now because he's having a rough - *cough* lonely and thinking about Suguru *cough* - day)

and from here......

I'd imagine that there would be another 'episode' where Gojo offers to help Nobara find the Bakery Saori liked (because he's the 'self-certified expert on sweets and sweet places').

Meanwhile Itadori and Fushiguro get to have some ~quality bonding time~ (I really really like Itadori and Fusiguro's morality dilemmas, so probably something about that... and maybe they get a bunny or smth. Just saying.)

Let me know if that's something you'd like to see and/or if you'd like me to write this in actual prose.

_________

hi! @mylee-sketches, @justrustandstardust, @bygeto. I'd like to know your thoughts/ideas for this rough sketch if possible, thanks <3 /not forced.

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu sorcerer #jujutsu gojo #jjk #yuji itadori #jjk itadori #jujutsu itadori #yuji #megumi #nobara #itadori yuuji #jjk yuji #itadori #megumi fushiguro #jjk fushiguro #fushiguro #jjk megumi #jujutsu megumi #jujutsu kaisen megumi #jujustu kaisen #gojo satoru #nobara kugisaki #jujutsu nobara #jjk nobara #jjk trio #tokyo trio #jujutsu kaisen nobara

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Perfection

This is another Lila episode, so get ready for dumb writing and lies only an infant would find convincing.

Let's get into the twelfth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Perfection

We start off with a sort of funny scene of Ladybug and Cat Noir doing heroic things while casually discussing the new relationships they're both in, unaware that they're talking about each other. It's less the irony that I like, but just the visuals showing how they're so experienced as superheroes at this point, they can casually chat while saving people.

Of course, even though the last scene confirmed that Marinette and Adrien are officially dating after four and a half seasons, the main conflict for the civilian plotline is that Marinette somehow isn't able to simply tell Adrien that she loves him. So basically, even though they're now in a relationship, the show is still going to rely on Marinette stuttering around Adrien like an idiot. Oh, thank God! I thought the writers were actually going to have Marinette and Adrien talk with each other like humans beings for a second there.

We then get a montage of Marinette struggling to get closer to Adrien, stumbling around and breaking stuff as if she was a character in an infomercial, culminating in a scene where Marinette attempts to confess to a picture of a cow, only to say “I love moo” instead. Get used to her saying this, because it's going to be a running gag.

During the aforementioned montage, we get a decent moment where Lila helps Chloe realize she needs to be more discreet when it comes to screwing with Marinette instead of her usual blunt attitude, which does a good job showing the one thing that sets Chloe and Lila apart: Their approaches to dealing with Marinette. It's not much, but it's something.

Meanwhile, the writers remembered Adrien is a musician, as he wrote a song for Marinette. A bunch of their friends come over to the Liberty, including Kagami.

Adrien: It's great to see you here, Kagami. You get to hear the song I wrote for Marinette.

Kagami: You made your feelings clear and you're dealing with them. That's good. I'm very proud of you.

Man, even the characters are glad the Love Square is finally going somewhere.

After another scene where Marinette once again tries to confess to the picture of a cow (the writers are really running with this gag, aren't they?), Adrien starts to perform the song he wrote for Marinette. Fun Fact: Adrien was originally going to sing a cover of that one song from Miami Connection, but Luka helped convince him that it would be better if he used his own song instead.

As for the song itself? Well, the music itself is nice, but the lyrics? They're decent, showing how Adrien doesn't want anything complex from his relationship with Marinette, but I'm just going to say it: I don't like the way Bryce Papenbrook sings. Like, I don't know how to describe it. It's not awful, but I just don't like the way he delivers the lyrics. He just sounds so monotone when he sings, which makes it hard to take this grand romantic gesture seriously.

Marinette once again struggles to tell Adrien she loves him, so we get even more of Marinette blaming other things for her hesitance, but not before we get more jokes about the cow picture.

Marinette: I'm just grabbing the cow to tell Adrien that I love him because I have the "I love" but not the “moo”. I know it's ridiculous. I'm ridiculous.

You know, at least C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa, a show full of cow puns, actually did more with the jokes instead of just saying the words “cow” and “moo”.

Kagami tries to talk to Marinette, only for her to essentially be ignored. After Marinette transforms into Ladybug as an excuse to get out of there, Kagami then decides to call Lila about Marinette failing some kind of “friendship test”.

Kagami: You were right, Lila. I checked every box on your friendship test. Marinette doesn't consider me her best friend. I'm not even sure she ever considered me a friend.

Lila: Oh, no, Kagami... I'm so sorry she didn't see all the effort you've been making to get closer to her. Someone as amazing as you deserves a more considerate friend and... I'd be honored to be that friend.

I know I used this clip last time, but this is essentially the same problem I had there. Lila only had a single line in this episode before this scene, and it was her talking to Chloe, and I don't think Lila and Kagami have even shared a scene together before this episode, much less exchange numbers. Yeah, Kagami had been checking off things on a sheet of paper earlier in the episode, but we never got any explanation as to where and when Lila even gave her the friendship test. While we know that Lila's test was obviously fake, it seems out of character for Kagami to be this gullible, given that she was able to easily see through Adrien's lies last season (Lies).

Kagami then decides to just give up on having friends entirely, deleting all of her contacts except her mother's. I'm not sure if it was an animation error, or if the writers forgot, but for some reason, Adrien wasn't listed in there. We then cut to Lila, cutting Marinette's face out of some random pictures she got.

The scene's clearly supposed to be menacing, but I'd be more invested if I actually knew why Lila was so obsessed with Marinette outside of Marinette telling her to stop being a liar.

Kagami goes somewhere so she can be alone where she cries, where Monarch senses this and akumatizes her into Ryukomori through her ring.

Ryukomori's design is simple, but I think the concept behind it and use of Miraculous power makes it work. Monarch gives her the power to make it hard for her to see or hear anyone (insert your own Helen Keller joke here), and thanks to the Dragon Miraculous's Wind/Lightning/Water Dragon, Ryukomori is now a giant cloud person who can shoot lightning. Yeah, you have to wonder why Monarch gave her powers that would make it harder to see people, much less get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous, but this is the kind of stuff I wanted to see from the Miraculous powers used this season: Past heroes getting akumatized and having perverted versions of the powers they're familiar with.

Adrien sees this and transforms into Cat Noir, meeting up with Ladybug and showing her the friendship test he found earlier. Ladybug and Cat Noir try to talk with Ryukomori, but in her current state, it's hard to talk to her, so they'll need to find a different way to communicate. Ladybug and Cat Noir try arranging some cars into a kanji sign.

Hey, this is a French show! I'm supposed to be seeing french words I don't understand, not Japanese words I don't understand.

Ryukomori ignores the kanji, so now, the two have to come up with another plan while Monarch goads her into trying to kill them so she can finally be alone, whipping up a storm in anger.

Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, a box of ironing beads, and gets an idea. Cat Noir goes to Socqueline's art shop (because I guess the animators really want to get their money's worth out of this character model and set) for supplies while Ladybug assembles a bunch of her friends and shows her a picture she made using the beads, wanting to make a bigger one for Ryukomori to see by holding up these panels to reveal it.

As simplistic as it is, it's a pretty cute visual, and it does the trick, causing Ryukomori to reject the Akuma. While I guess the Akuma was already de-evilized by Kagami, Ladybug hands her a Magical Charm as the students cheer for her.

Marinette apologizes to Kagami about how insensitive she was, but Kagami explains that she feels pressured to be perfect around others, which is meant to parallel Marinette's anxiety around Adrien. The two make up, and Marinette calls Kagami her best friend alongside Alya. Of course, Marinette somehow never asked about the friendship test, because that would actually clear everything up, and then we wouldn't have Kagami and Lila becoming friends again. Marinette and Alya talk about what exactly is keeping her from getting closer to Adrien, something that they'll figure out together. And so the episode ends with Tomoe storming into Gabriel's office that she endangered her daughter's life by akumatizing her... ignoring the last four times she's been akumatized (Riposte, Heroes' Day, Oni-Chan, Lies). In fact, if she's working with Gabriel, shouldn't she know Kagami was also Ryuko, and—okay, forget it, episode's over.

This episode was very hit or miss. The scenes with Ryukomori were well done. I like the way they called back to earlier episodes and how emotional the memories made Ryukomori, and the overall message of friendship was handled pretty well. But while I really like the way Ryukomori was handled, the road there was a pretty bumpy one. The subplot with Marinette wasn't funny, Adrien's song was really forgettable, and the writers just expect us to assume Kagami would fall for Lila's lies when earlier episodes have shown how perceptive she is. I get that the episode's probably setting up Kagami learning the truth in a later episode, it seems very out of character for her.

Overall, this episode just had a great Akuma fight, and a mediocre first half. Nothing too special, but it's still better than “Illusion” or “Determination”.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... KAGAMI

While Marinette came close thanks for her inability to say three basic words, Kagami ended up taking the award home. Not only did she fall for Lila's lies without even questioning her, she assumed that Marinette didn't care for her in the slightest, and after that, decided she had no other friends, not even Adrien, and after everything that happened, she still chose to believe Lila even though her test ended up being false when earlier episodes showed her being able to see through lies.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #monarch #monarch miraculous #kagami tsurugi #ryukomori #alya cesaire #luka couffaine #socqueline wang #tomoe tsurugi #lila rossi #Youtube

[bingoboingobongo]

task force 141 + favorite christmas movies

Characters: Simon “Ghost” Riley, John “Soap” MacTavish, Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, John Price, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo “Rudy” Parra

Warnings: none

A/N: sorta did this already with ghost but now it’s time for the entire team

john "soap" mactavish:

what can i say soap is a home alone kinda guy

he fell in love with them as a kid and he just never fell out of love

it's that sorta violent but still comedic and overly dramatized kind of humor that soap likes

plus he's a sucker for montages and you know home alone has a bunch of them

he's a fan of the whole series too

but the first one is definitely his favorite, just because it's classic

definitely gets freaked out by the bird lady in the second one (i think it's the second one)

and yes he's always wanted a home alone situation whenever he was a kid

he would literally pray for a duo of goofy robbers to try and break in whenever his parents weren't home

of course it never worked

but you know

a man can dream

he also knows all the home alone lore

and he freaked out when he found out macaulay culkin was married to brenda song

kyle "gaz" garrick:

so this goes hand in hand with my christmas songs headcanon

but gaz's favorite christmas movie is the grinch (2018)

bc 1. it has a fire soundtrack

2. it's got great animation

and 3. beneficiary cumberbun as the grinch was unprecedentedly good

he also doesn't like the live action grinch

he watched it when he was younger and it really scared him

like im talking it really scared him

he saw it in a hotel while his family was visiting new york for christmas

and then he refused to sleep on the wall side of the bed because he was scared the grinch was gonna come from under the bed in that sorta shadowy area between the bed and the wall and steal him

and yes he still sleeps on the lamp side whenever he stays at hotels now

even though he's a grown man

so yeah the grinch (2018) was a very welcome change to that

i mean the animation is so bright and cheery

what's not to love

plus he really likes how fluffy the grinch looks

and yes he watched it in theatres with his family so there's a lot of good memories associated with that as well

simon "ghost" riley:

so kinda similar to gaz

but ghost's favorite christmas movie is actually how the grinch stole christmas (1966)

for those of y'all who aren't up to date on the grinch movie release timeline that's the cartoon one

gaz doesn't like that one because that smile the grinch does in the beginning (you know what i mean, it's the one where his cheeks literally like migrate to his ears) freaked him out

but ghost actually enjoys that scene

he says it scratches an itch

he also likes the 1966 grinch because it brings him back to simpler times

he first watched it in school right before winter break

and then he went home and made his mom watch it with him over and over and over again

and so now whenever he has the chance he'll watch during the holiday season

it does make him a little sad though

you know since his mom's dead

anyways

john price:

price's favorite movie is charlie brown's christmas

he's actually a pretty big fan of the peanuts

is that what they're called? idk

so it's only a no brainer that the charlie brown christmas special brings him a special kind of joy

before he used to watch it on cable on christmas day

and then he got apple tv+ so now he watches it to get in the mood

guys this isn't an ad for apple i swear

he likes to cozy up with a blanket, some nice socks (he's a sock guy what can i say), a cup of tea or hot cocoa, and some biscuits

sometimes he falls asleep before the end tho

but it's not like he's never seen it before so it's fine

yet despite his love for the peanuts he does not have a charlie brown christmas tree

no his tree is always freshly cut down and usually pretty hefty

rodolfo "rudy" parra:

alright so this one also goes with my christmas music headcanons

but rudy's favorite christmas movie is the frozen franchise

and yes it's a holiday movie

he will fight you on that

in his mind snow + fire soundtrack = christmas movie

so yes goncharov would technically be a christmas movie by rudy's criteria

and yes he will fight you if you bring that up

he also really hates claymation

like really really hates it

it's too uncanny valley for him

like for it to be enjoyable it better be super duper obvious that the characters are clay

but even then it still catches him off guard

he also really likes christmas specials for like a bunch of shows

so after he's done with his frozen marathon he'll turn on his favorite shows and just watch the christmas episodes

and yes he does that for every holiday that has specials

alejandro vargas:

okay so potentially controversial opinion

but alejandro really enjoys hallmark movies

like it doesn't matter which one it is as long as it's a christmas hallmark movie he's down to watch it

he doesn't even know why like he's aware of how cheesy they are

but they've really mastered that feel good formula

even if each movie is riddled with plot holes

but even then that's also part of the fun too

like he enjoys inviting rudy or even the others over so they can poke fun at all the logistical impossibilities of the movie

and really that's what he likes when he watches the movies

the good memories he makes

ig it's true guys

the real lesson was the friends we made on the way

or whatever the saying is idk

he also likes the cheesy romance of it all

and also he doesn't tell anyone that he secretly enjoys the hallmark movies

with everyone else he pretends that it sucks

but he eats it up every time

and yes he always checks to see if the kiss happens at the same time

and so far it has almost every single time

#bingoboingobongo.com #bingoboingobongo's christmas extravaganza #ghost x reader #soap x reader #gaz x reader #john price x reader #alejandro vargas x reader #rodolfo parra x reader #ghost headcanons #soap headcanon #gaz headcanon #john price headcanons #alejandro vargas headcanons #rodolfo parra headcanons #ghost cod #soap cod #gaz cod #john price cod #alejandro vargas cod #rodolfo parra cod #call of duty #cod #modern warfare 2 #mw2

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

also, not quite related to Great Hate but is related to some stuff said therein; I don't think any of the Skarloey/Arlesdale/Culdee Fell books are bad (honestly i rate them all very highly) buuuuuut if there was ever another attempt to adapt the books for television or television-adjacent-media, I would probably just opt to cut the non-North Western Railway stories out entirely. (the railways wouldn't be straight up Not Canon, there just wouldn't be episodes based on the stories about them.) They're a bit of a narrative cul-de-sac in terms of the overarching story of The Books, and while they are all excellent I feel like the opportunity cost of adapting those instead of expanding on the existing North Western stuff would be too high... Insult to injury is that by doing this, you don't really impact the North Western stories at all besides a little bit of Oliver the Western Engine's content and that can be adapted around (as has been done before...)

Ooh. You make a compelling point about how you could have a very good adaptation by cutting out the smaller-railway stuff.

At minimum, if one did not want to take their literary axe that far, the writers should very much take the opportunity to come up with a better way to manage the narrative of the multiple railways. I agree it's a big weakness that the RWS flips back and forth after introducing other railways — it doesn't always feel like all these books are in the same series and the going back and forth can be jarring. It's understandable, since Awdry was constrained by writing them in the order than he created them. But with distance there is a chance to reconceive things in a better way.

TVS Series 4, I think, made a vast improvement by grouping all the narrow-gauge stuff together — showing the Duke rescue before Peter Sam's and Sir Handel's S.R. breaking-in is awkward, of course, but having a whole half-season devoted to the narrow-gauge railways helps the narrative flow immensely. Sadly I think for the rest of the TVS they fall into the same choppy waters Awdry did. Obviously plenty of people do like the narrow-gauge episodes despite all, but they are definitely not set to best advantage when a handful of them feel kinda randomly sprinkled within the other stories. The improvement TVS continues to make however is finding ways for "the big engines" and "the little engines" to interact, as in creating more and more locations with mixed gauges.

Anyway your idea of a fresh television adaptation of the RWS is so enticing. My ideal series would be 30-minute adult-TV-esque episode dramas (hey, we're dreaming). You could have a significant number of episodes that take a birds'-eye view of Sodor rail and, instead of being organized around One Character Gets Put in a Situation, are organized by some new development (a new service, coal shortage, dieselisation, key person retires, labour strike, etc.), then you can have an A and a B plot on two different railways and see the fallout.

(Usually the North Western would be one of the two railways in focus, just coz a lion's share of industrial activity and travel on the island is going through them. But can you imagine how cool and special an episode it would be to have a Depression-era episode where we see the Skarloey and Mid Sodor Railways trying to pluckily adapt and eke out their survival? And we could see the Skarloey, who seemed to be in the more precarious position at the beginning, still squeaking through at the end with one engine, one engineer, etc., and downer ending! at the very end we see the Mid Sodor is ruined. Cue silent montage of putting up "Closed" signs and boarding up windows and selling off Falcon and Stuart over sad music.)

It would, indeed, necessitate coming up with original plots, especially for the smaller railways (even if, again, the North Western probably will get a big share of screen time), but the fandom has shown that there's plenty to be done there. However, the goal is to cover all the classic RWS stories — just putting them into a larger context and thinking about the island's arc over the course of a season. Fleshing out the dramatic bits of lore.

The openers for most of the episodes would be, like, a little slice-of-life showing miners or dockers or farmers or housewives going about their life for a minute or two until the Pressing Need is shown and a hint of what the railways are gonna do about it appears; a bunch of men in top hats and tails shaking hands over some new venture; new track is being laid; or some piece of news reaches Sodor and then! opening theme song and then we cut to our engines <3

#so sorry jamie's ask just sent me on a 20 minute daydream and i was typing all the while #if this makes no sense kindly just ignore it... i'm having a great time watching my new favorite imaginary television show #chatter #the railway series

[theriverbeyond]

if you don’t mind, could you please elaborate on your ideas for a tlt stage musical? i too am musical theatre scum and this idea totally took me by surprise- your ideas for it are so fun and creative 😭 i am dying to know more about how you would arrange gideon as a musical (songs, motifs, just general tidbits of any kind) for entirely selfish reasons- it feeds the little worm in the back of my mind that wants to imagine everything as a musical.

thank you!! i did theater lighting for like, 6 years (and regular theater tech for a few more years before that) so i am just envisioning it... it could be so cool especially if they lean into the more rock musical visual style. there was this one specific local community theater production of next to normal I saw once in a theater that could seat maybe 100 people, that just went balls to the ball with ridiculous atmospheric lighting and just.. visceral acting/singing etc and I have been thinking about it ever since. hugely influential on my personal tastes. the broadway next 2 normal wishes it could capture even one shred of the intimate intensity and i have been chasing that specific high ever since.

for a gtn stage musical i have a few scattered ideas, in no particular order:

a "getting ready for canaan house"/gideon's rapier training montage & group song -- specifically, this would feature all the house heirs and specifically the real dulcinea. she would, of course, be played by a different actress for the whole rest of the play, but the audience wouldn't know because after that scene her face is never clearly shown. OR, in the first "getting ready" montage, you only see her back. regardless, the show would pull the ol' switcheroo. also this would be a fun scene where we get a glimpse of all the cav/necro pairs. there would be colored lighting corresponding to house colors

i think act 1 ending with the pool scene would be cool thematically (a shift in the gideon and harrow relationship) and leave the opportunity for an act 1 closing ballad (whose tune is then of course repeated when gideon dies). i don't think there is quite enough post-pool scene material for the acts to then be totally balanced, but, luckily this musical exists in the brain only and therefore i can do whatever i want forever <3 also the big battle scenes could be enough to fill the meat of the 2nd act

I think all the duels should be songs or at least done to music. Specifically i think the marta v. cam duel should be cam & marta dueling in the middle while palamades and judith stand to the side each lit with toplight in their corresponding colors (blue-gray and red). they would sing dueling verses of an "i am" song that reveal their own relationships with their cavalier and personal motives etc. maybe naberius gets his own pompous little verse

The fight against the lab 2 construct should be a song monologue thing and after harrow and gideon win, the tune changes to some kind of little victory thing etc but when they stumble across abigail & mangus' bodies the music just. stops.

I think it would be cool if the musical really leaned into the horror of things that are unseen. Like, gideon (and the audience by proxy) being frozen on stage while palamades confronts camilla. the explosion is either silhouetted on the scrim or done entirely offstage.

Ianthe only ever gets directly lit after she has become a lyctor. She still doesn't really get a song-- she tries to monologue it, but the music doesnt get going for her.

The avulsion trial would be a song sung by Dulcinea, that sounds sweet on first pass and is absolutely sinister when looking back. i am not a songwriter which means I can simply imagine it being awesome

the final gideon and harrow scene would be like. yelling and shouting. great big puppets used as the construct. gideon falls on a rail and then everything goes totally black. silence, or maybe crying. harrow screams gideon’s name. then lights up on gideon standing behind harrow, holding the sword together, under a narrow beam light. they fight cytherea together and say the wedding vows and everyone in the audience bursts into tears. gideon slowly exists the stage and by the end of the fight harrow is standing alone

gideon and harrow should have complimentary instrumental themes. after gideon sacrifices herself, the themes combine into one theme. this could be cool if this theoretical musical had a theoretical htn sequel, bc the same instrumental theme could come back *minus* the gideon part

there should be visually symbolic rails or other sorts of death flags for gideon the entire show.

camilla does a backflip

fog machine

"dulcie's theme" will be a sweet & soft instrumental track that plays when she's on stage that goes to a minor key and becomes dramatic and sinister when cytherea's identity is revealed

lighting would play a big role in symbolizing soul siphoning. I am personally envisioning this musical as having like highly saturated and emotional lighting (bc that is the kinda stuff that was fun for me when i did it lmao)or w/e SO that when soul siphoning happens everything can gray out and desaturate. it would look so cool. also, there should be a "the river" or something theme instrumental that plays whenever siphoning occurs, especially at the end when silas siphons colum vs ianthe.

the gideon v. coronabeth scene (right before everything goes to shit) would be a reprise of the song that happens when gideon duels naberius, and also, it would NOT be included on the official soundtrack

also for a theoretical sequel htn musical, the mattias nonius v. wake battle would start out with just ortus and then harrow takes over and then abigail adds to it, overlapping, and then mattias and wake have like an dueling chorus like the argument in le mis.

when gideon comes back, the harrow actress and gideon actress are both on stage at the same time. the harrow actress does all the body things that gideon-in-harrow does, wheras the gideon body is the one talking/singing. the music in the river bubble is all minor key or otherwise symbolized as wrong. mercymorn gets her own song of course. in the AU river scenes, gideon is there but we never see her face. the gideon actress could play The Body (with a costume change of course), so there is ambiguity on what is going on and who the body is just as in the books. idk i havent thought as much about post-gtn musical ideas but i think it would be very weird and experimental

would absolutely love to hear other people's ideas on this also!!

#ask #anon #tlt musical #i need a tag for that now lkdsjfls #long post #also i havent rlly paid attention to the musical scene since exiting it in 2018 but. it will always b in my heart #tlt thoughts

[crumblecakezz]

i think we can all agree that SHOCK!’s music video is 100% related to buddy daddies.

please pay attention to the lyrics that i note during each section 👀

it’s lengthy but i think it would be worth reading. the music video offers a lot of similarities to buddy daddies and more that hasn’t been yet been similar to any part of the show we can see, which opens up many possible theories.

—reblogs appreciated (o><o)

it begins with a lone reaper (rei) meeting an angel (kazuki) by chance from a crane game.

(lyr: “hey, i want to love you, is this true? > i showed you my heart.”)

there is an entire montage dedicated to just showing them interacting, with the reaper in blue and the angel in pink. at the end of it, they hold hands, but now the reaper is also pink.

(lyr: “hey i want to love you, is this true? > im being tossed around again”)

next shot — they chillin, holding hands or whateva, and then badoom a gigantic ufo (the organization) looms over them, and starts to chase them around. hand-in-hand, the two are running away.

(lyr: “i locked it up so it wouldn’t hurt > it won’t change, and i know, but…”)

the ufo knocks down and captures the angel in its huge hands, and the reaper’s eyes water as it reaches out to save the angel, but the angel then disappears. in very brief shots, the reaper sheds a tear and then sprouts wings.

(lyr: “i know that i don’t want to lose anything anymore > gives me a good laugh”)

in a series of beautiful✨ shots, the reaper is trying to escape the ufo with determination and it’s newfound wings.

(lyr: “let’s love and be loved > let me see if this is love”)

there is a shot of the angel, pink, and the reaper, blue again and far away. there is another shot of the reaper letting a tear fall.

(lyr: “from now on, swing me around as you please”)

the reaper, although with wings, is falling through the sky with great speed. its eyes tear up. in the next shot, it reaches out towards the camera as it falls back into the grasp of the ufo.

(lyr: “swing me around as you please, forever”)

the lights on the sign on the crane machine powers off. a small reaper and angel plush are won by and picked up by a girl wearing pink (miri) from a crane machine (the same one).

(no lyr)

———

so many things in this video make so much sense after i really gave it some thought. here is what we know for sure as of episode 8:

rei was a lone killing machine before meeting kazuki (wandering reaper).

kazuki was trapped by his guilt until he taught rei to live, which in turn helped himself (angel trapped in crane machine).

kazuki and rei met by chance (crane machine).

he changed rei for the better, even if he doesn’t realize it (turning the same color as kazuki).

they are dependent and reliant on each other, for work and personal reasons. they lent each other a helping hand (holding hands).

but we saw that when something personal interferes with the professional commitment people have to the organization, the organization will make sure it doesn’t stay that way (huge ufo with big eyes and hands chasing the two).

as for the rest of the music video? shit gets sad…

the angel is torn away from the reaper and trapped in the ufo’s grasp. it then disappears to become a plushie again.

the reaper sprouts wings and does all it can to escape the ufo, but it meets the same fate as the angel. being separated from the angel makes the reaper blue again.

the two, in a helpless and immobile plushie state, are picked up, by chance, and by a little girl this time. however, this might put the girl in danger of meeting the ufo as well.

———

i think i don’t need to explain my theories for that part. it can speak for itself…

but it’s got me seriously worried about the direction of this show. since we know that the beginning can be well-explained by rei and kazuki’s first encounter and a little past that, there is a chance that the rest of it reflects the rest of the series as well.

or who knows, maybe the music video is only extremely resemblant of the show it ops for by coincidence!! 😭 maybe buddy daddies has a happy wholesome ending…!!!

thanks for readin (o^^)9

#buddy daddies #rei suwa #suwa rei #kazuki kurusu #kurusu kazuki #unasaka miri #miri unasaka #yoasobi #yoasobi ayase #ayase yoasobi #shock ayase #ayase shock #shock yoasobi #yoasobi shock #kazurei

[macgyvertape]

Fallout show impressions (spoilers ep 1&2)

Much like Righteous Gemstones, Walter Goggins steals the scenes he's in

The opening bit is really good in setting the tone where you're just waiting for the bomb drop, and I look forward to seeing gifs that break down the good editing and use of reflections

Same thing with the vault wedding waiting for the other shoe to drop, since no one ever leaves a Vault happily. Where the show shows tattoos and scars that Vaulties wouldn't have but Raiders would, so there's a horror to watching Lucy sleep with a guy who isn't who he says he is even before the knife comes out

The show takes place 14 years after Fallout New Vegas, I'm surprised there's still a Brotherhood of Steel presence like this but I guess it makes sense if this isn't a world where the Pridwen was blown up and Maxson was killed (my default FO4 state)

The razor blade boot scene was brutal god the Brotherhood of Steel is so fucking toxic (very accurate!) where I'm genuinely not sure if Maximus did it

Ep 2 the opening musical montages worked. Fun on point lyrics "some folks can lose the blues in their heart" as we see something blue on screen and we see the Enclave Scientist target get a quite literal "Pet the Dog" trope moment. The fadeout of "don't fence me in" where Lucy takes in the horror of family dead at the dinner table with the "Vault Tec Econo-Savings Poison".

The comedic moment of "It's a Man" as the music contrast as Maximus has fun with the power armor that also shows how much of a threat it makes someone.

me: why does the scientist guy seem so familiar, oh it's Harold Finch!

Great to see greenery, like obviously stuff would have regrown but the non 76 games don't show it

Guess the armor can go for longer than 10 hours one one charge? Like Maximus did not think armor support through like he thinks the Brotherhood won't still kill him even if he brings back the target

Very fun to think about what perks the characters spec'd as, like The Ghoul definitely picked Grim Reaper's Sprint, and Lucy seems to have Weird Wasteland

had to look away from the leg device, even the sound effects were awful. Of course it's replacement limbs made for the army and they are shit

LMAO the powersuit can't go up wood stairs just like 40k

lmao the scientist would rather take cyanide and die than explain any mysteries

Overall the show pulls off swinging between camp and being dead serious especially going through sex, violence, and horror moments. As a show it's well done, but it's wait and see if they make any dumb lore writing choices

#fallout prime #fallout #fallout show #fallout spoilers

[kickedshins]

readalong riverdale playlist guide

songs have been added in no particular order. sometimes songs tie to broader visions of a musical episode, but some are just “they should have shoehorned this in somewhere in that classic riverdale way”. all songs are musical theater songs. yes i know they did superboy and the invisible girl but they did it wrong (sorry cami, you were great). this is an eternally updating playlist and guide. enjoy!

Corner of the Sky, from Pippin: Archie!!! This literally could happen anywhere at any point in time. What is this song if not Pippin going left Pippin going right. Put this wherever your heart desires. I want to come up with a Pippin musical episode plot because it’s so good. Jughead singing "Simple Joys" over a montage of Archie not dealing with his problems… I’m getting carried away.

Kind of Woman, from Pippin: Veronica would sing this in an entirely unselfaware way. I’m thinking early season two. Isn’t it a beautiful vision?

Superboy and the Invisible Girl, from Next to Normal: THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A COOPERS SONG. I’m mentally rewriting the n2n episode with this being a Coopers song.

Could I Leave You?, from Follies: A timeskip Veronica and Hermione duet at their respective shitty husbands. It ends with Hermione resignedly going back to the minutiae of marriage and with Ronnie shooting Chad in the face. Don’t worry about how this messes with plot this isn’t about that.

Your Fault, from Into the Woods: Read this post and envision a beautiful ITW episode.

I’ve Never Been in Love Before, from Guys and Dolls: Okay honestly? Archie and Josie duet. Cuter than "Fight For Me", imo.

Mother Knows Best, from Tangled: Alice, duh. Season one or season seven.

Do You Hear the People Sing?, from Les Mis: Season six union stuff baybee! Hand in hand with "Bread and Roses". It also would be really funny to have KJ and Vanessa, who in my opinion suffer the most from iPhone Voice in the cast, to do such a grand musical-y song. It would not be very good but boy would it be entertaining.

Therapy, from Tick, Tick… Boom!: BUGHEAD DYSFUNCTION DUET YES PLEASE. Let’s say season four. "Exquisite Corpse" vibe, but suppress it all. Maybe the problem’s simply codependency!

Get This Right, from Frozen II: Okay hear me out this is one of the most stupidly romantic songs I have ever heard. An Archie song, obviously. Timeskip Varchie. Maybe he’s actually about to propose, maybe not, doesn’t matter. All that matters is how much I genuinely think KJ could have slayed this song.

Being Alive, from Company: Obviously go read Jughead’s Weird Fantasy right now if you haven’t already. But even in Riverdale canon I would want Jughead to sing this in timeskip. If we’re getting specific it feels very Tabby tucking him in after he gets too drunk at the key party. Sorry for nixing the gay subtext by putting it next to a Jabitha moment jail for a million years for me I know. It could also be after Archie calls him when he’s in NYC. There you go, gay people.

Something’s Coming, from West Side Story: Season one or seven Archie. Just feels very wholesome. I think it would be cute. Could be performed on stage if season one.

How Did We Come to This?, from The Wild Party (Lippa): A Veronica La Bonne Nuit performance that somehow becomes a group number (she’s the only one singing on stage though). Season three. No "Queenie Was A Blonde" tag. I could make an AMV to this song. I should not do that I already have three in the works. But I could.

Run Away with Me, from The Mad Ones: This is purely self-indulgent because I like on-the-road Jarchie and I have a soft spot for this mediocre musical for personal reasons. 

Suddenly Seymour, from Little Shop of Horrors: Choni! Choni forever and ever amen. Season seven, I think, when Cheryl finally accepts that she’s a lesbian and is facing homophobia from her family/society/etc. Cheryl is Audrey which is funny because “mama was poor” lol no she wasn’t. They should go all the way and get the rights to change the lyrics to Suddenly Toni. Neither Madelaine nor Vanessa has the right voice for this song even a little bit. I do not care. 

Partner in Crime, from Tuck Everlasting: Betty and Archie. In my wildest fantasies this is like a season four flashback to them as kids and we have kid Barchie sing this song but other than that I think this could be a number when they’re hooking up in timeskip. Even though I don’t approve of Barchie hooking up in timeskip because I hate straight people I do think they would slay this. KJ specifically I think would sound great on this, it’s not really a Lili song but oh well. Another version that would be incredibly funny but not as good would be having timeskip Veronica and Reggie sing it about, like, actual crime.

Totally Fucked, from Spring Awakening: Kevin-centric group number in the style of "In" or "Beautiful". Could be anywhere from seasons two to four. Maybe we include the “did you write this?” thing with Betty and Jughead as Melchior. They did some expose for some paper. You know how it is. I wish the Riverdale characters were allowed to say fuck so bad.

Moving Too Fast, from The Last Five Years: Timeskip Jughead. It almost fits but doesn’t in a way that’s oh-so-Riverdale.

The I Love You Song, from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: Sad. Shared between Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl, but Veronica-centric (could be an unhinged La Bonne Nuit performance from her with cutaways to the other two, actually). Whenever the most amount of parents in this group are in jail. There’s at least one meaningful shot of Jughead reacting.

I’m Breaking Down, from Falsettos: Okay this one is sort of cheating because I don’t necessarily want to fit it into the actual canon of Riverdale I just think if Archie had come out in high school Veronica would have pulled a "The Ladies Who Lunch" and done this at La Bonne Nuit. I think Cami would body that.

What Is This Feeling?, from Wicked: Hear me out. Bret/Jughead duet.

For Good, from Wicked: Betty and Veronica, season seven. Or quad number in late s4/early s5 before the timeskip. I think Lili would sound gorgeous on this, especially the bridge.

Two-Player Game, from Be More Chill: Look Joe Iconis wrote music that was used in Archie: The Musical let me have this okay. Season one Jarchie. Jughead as Michael obviously even though he’s nothing like Michael and Archie is nothing like Jeremy. I just want to make Cole Sprouse say “favowite”.

Mother’s Gonna Make Things Fine, from A New Brain: I have a whole beautiful vision for an A New Brain musical episode that takes place in season four. It’s too long to get into right now but just know it’s there and it’s gorgeous and I’m going to fully flesh it out soon. Once again this is obviously an Alice song, except instead of well-meaning Jewish mom it’s overbearing evil (albeit MILFy) WASP. She’s fretting over Betty because Betty’s fretting about college or Jughead or something who cares. I just need Mädchen to do this.

Change, from A New Brain: This would happen about three quarters of the way through the episode. In classic Riverdale fashion they’d get a little insensitive with it and this would be a Ronnie La Bonne Nuit performance. Change the government kill the mayor! Say that! Even if the mayor is your parent! Especially if the mayor is your parent!

Brain Dead, from A New Brain: This is my favorite part of my A New Brain musical episode. It’s once again a Bughead repression duet. Just imagine the lavender marriage dream sequence anger tango they would do. I also think Cole Sprouse wouldn’t sound too horrible on this song. High praise. No lyric changes Jughead is saying “as the MD lifts me in his cruisy chiseled arms”. I’m getting angry about the fact that I will never get to see this on my screen I’m going to do some breathing exercises to calm down.

Take Me or Leave Me, from RENT: We’re gonna split this up among couples in classic Riverdale fashion. Timeskip, our Maureens are Kevin and Veronica, and our Joannes are Fangs and Archie. The Joannes don’t really work so maybe we’ll pull another classic Riverdale and cut their verses. Unfortunately the best line of the song (“Women, what is it about them? Can’t live with them or without them!”) has to be cut. I wish Choni could also sing this but alas it can’t work in this. Mostly this is an excuse to give Casey Cott more stuff to sing and I think it would be hilarious if he sung this.

Tango: Maureen, from RENT: Honestly, Riverdale both could and would do a really messy RENT episode. I should ruminate further on that. Anyway. I don’t actually know where or how this could work but I want it to be a weirdly sexually charged Vughead duet. But that makes Betty or Archie Maureen, and they are not Maureen… I don’t know. This one’s just in here because I like imagining Cole Sprouse dancing, and because I think Jughead is Jewish and it would be really funny to hear him say “Riverdale Jewish Community Center”. Let’s go with timeskip. She cheated! She cheated! Betty cheated! Fucking cheated! Oh, shit, could this be a Jarchie song in timeskip when Betty and Archie are hooking up? I think it could! Wow. Good work gang.

Razzle Dazzle, from Chicago: I’m also creating a beautiful Chicago musical episode that I don’t have time to detail right now but trust me it’s awesome. It’s in season four, Hermosa is relevant to it. Anyway this is another Kevin-centric group number where everyone is lying to different people about different things. Crucially, Cole Sprouse says the line “they’ll never know you’re just a bagel”.

I Can’t Do It Alone, from Chicago: Veronica’s asking someone to help her scheme!

Mister Cellophane, from Chicago: GAY KEVIN. NEED I SAY MORE.

My Own Best Friend, from Chicago: Beronica duet. Lives would be changed. They’re sort of fighting at this point in the episode so there would be an underlying current of potential hatefucking. But that’s sort of always the case with this song tbh. Also this isn’t on this playlist but imagine Reggie singing "Roxie". So bad. So good.

American Idiot, by Green Day/from American Idiot: Songs from jukebox musicals count too, right? Archie-led group number obviously. Let’s go with season six, but it could be season one or five, too. Maybe he is the faggot America. Jughead says the line “now everybody do the propaganda”. There’s a coordinated dance thing a la "Random Number Generation".

A Cockeyed Optimist, from South Pacific: Archie, duh. Season one, six, or seven. Probably sung directly to a Lodge.

Watch What Happens, from Newsies: Betty, season four. She's doing a piece on the community center that Archie and Mad Dog co-run. I think Lili would slay this honestly. I debated adding the reprise largely so that I could have Cole sing the snake line and to have an iconic "the poor guy's head is spinning" thing side note how can I make Davey and Jack about Jughead and Archie someone needs to shoot me. Anyway we'd cut the stuff about Katherine being into Jack in this song obviously because Betty is unhappily hetero with Jughead. Hashtag women in journalism.

Matchmaker, from Fiddler on the Roof: 50sdale girls. Really strong fun gay visuals exist in my brain for this one.

Anything You Can Do, from Annie Get Your Gun: Vughead. Neither can I!

Let Me Entertain You, from Gypsy: Ronnie duh. Season three-ish La Bonne Nuit Era. Or Polly Amorous.

I Cain't Say No, from Oklahoma!: 50sdale Betty sexual awakening era. I can SEE a beautiful beautiful dream sequence vision where she dances around flirting with Archie and Jughead and Reggie and Veronica can't you.

Tribulation, from Schmigadoon!: Yes this is a TV show not a staged live musical who cares. I don't like Music Man I'm not putting "Ya Got Trouble" on here. Alice gets a patter I don't think Mädchen would be particularly good at it but it would be extremely fun. Season seven most likely, but let's be real it could come at any point in the show.

Naughty Baby, from Crazy for You: You think I'm about to say Veronica or perhaps Cheryl don't you. WRONG Dark Betty. Oh it would be so cringe so painful so bad so terrible. It must happen. I don't know when in the show it happens it could literally be any time in s1-6.

With One Look, from Sunset Boulevard: Ronnie... I'm thinking s5 Riverbucks era.

that's all i have for now but there's more to come :]

#riverdale #kickedshins originals

[itsthenovelteafactor]

OMITB S3 Thoughts:

Overall, really enjoyed season 3. I do consider it a bit of a step down from seasons 1 and 2, but there is a lot to enjoy and appreciate and I am looking forward to season 4!

Things I liked:

The. Musical. Numbers. 

They were so good and weird and surprisingly emotional

Honestly all the Broadway stuff made my inner theater kid happy

The main three are delightful as always!

I was so happy Uma and Howard got character spotlights! 

The parallels between the play and the mystery *chefs kiss*

Loretta. Meryl Steep was incredible as always and I loved her in this role. Definitely my favorite of the new characters this season I hope we see more of her! 

Mabel learning ASL!

Charles and his emotional support fish

Costuming as always is great. I want Mabel’s sweater collection.

Mabel’s notecard script in the last episode was GOLD 

Spitzprobe might be one of my favorite episodes of the show as a whole 

Things I didn’t like as much:

I did feel like some of the characters built up in the first two seasons got put on the back burner for the new cast

Biggest ones were Will and Lucy. Like, Will especially because his father had a heart attack and he wasn’t mentioned?? Oliver fully wrote the musical at the end he’d definitely be coming with VIP seats, right? 

Trio was so great together but only really came together the last few episodes. :/ 

WHY DID SELENA GOMEZ NOT SING?? 

Also. Like. I am a huge Theo fan and seeing him back was delightful and James Caverly is always a standout but I feel like we jumped over some pretty important stages in his redemption arc that I would’ve loved to see. Like, we went straight from “maybe you’re not such a bad guy” to sleepover buddy. I will admit I was looking forward to a drawn out healing/forgiveness process that kind of got skipped over.

Especially since both the play and Ben’s death involved someone getting pushed from the top of a building and the Zoe parallels were right there and never got acknowledged. 

Also rip Oliver that his past two producers have gotten arrested and had sons that killed someone by pushing them off the top floor of the same building maybe he IS cursed. 

Literally why did Mabel not get to sing. Like, I know Mabel the character is probably not a huge singer but it’s Selena Gomez. Y’all could’ve done something.

Miss the Arconiacs! 

I realize this section is way longer than the first one but it’s just because I have more thoughts not because I dislikes more things.

WHERE WERE WINNIE AND MRS. GAMBOLINI??

Wishlist for season 3:

More Will! He’s the last functional character let him get in on the shenanigans please.

More Lucy! I love the energy she brings to the show it’s so good.

Mabel does not need another love interest. Have not cared since Oscar left. (Did people not like Oscar? He’s such a sweetheart I miss him I hope his yoga studio is doing well) 

More of the trio being buddies in general

Theo getting some interactions with Charles and Oliver maybe? Half-brother reveal? 

More hanging out with the Arconia residents 

Would like some explanation for why Theo is not in jail. I’m not upset about it but like…he should totally be in jail? 

More Detective Williams

Honestly with the established characters I’d love to mix up and get some new dynamics like Will and Charles? Uma and Mabel? Oliver and Lucy? Williams and Howard?

There to be an homage to a study in scarlet with different interpretations of what Sazz wrote

You know what Mabel should sing. I’m still holding out hope.

The next time they do a montage of different people reacting to the podcast cut to Theo reading a transcription. I just think if a podcast accuses you of murder the very least they can do is make it accessible to you.  

#omitb spoilers #omitb season 3 #only murders in the building #only murders in a he building spoilers #just some disorganized thoughts! #i really love this show! #I have some criticisms but overall really liked this season #would love to chat about it!!

[wowbright]

I'm about halfway through La La Land. Really wanted to like it. I mean, it's a musical. I like musicals. But I didn't know much about it other than that.

Review/liveblog below the cut.

Started suspecting in the opening number that I might not like it, since the opening hinted that it would be an ode to the LA film scene. (Ooh, LA film people talking about how great LA film is--I'm not an actor, I'm not a filmmaker, hopefully this movie will have something more interesting to hook me in.)

Oh, good! It's also going to be about jazz!

Huh. Neither Emma Stone nor Ryan Gosling are very good singers. They are okay at dancing. Now, I hear that these days it's important that anybody in a musical be an actor first and the other things second. But if music and dancing are part of the storytelling, it's important that they be as strong as the acting IMO.

Okay. Now we're back to jazz. He's going to explain to her why jazz is so awesome. He takes her to a club.. Except ... Hmmm. This is uncomfortable. Why are we seeing jazz exclusively through the eyes of this white dude? We see black musicians, but they are just in the background. He plays at a club. Again, black people are furnishings. John Legend gets a line. Then he gets some more lines.

Around now this review of the first half of the movie turns into a live blog of the second half of the movie.

Yay John Legend sings. Alas it's on a stage and not part of the storytelling, but background to the storytelling. Idk I can't really watch this scene too closely because of the strobing lights.

(Aside: Where has she been getting the money to pay for the dresses, the high heels, and now the one woman show? There's a limit to how much you can put on a credit card, isn't there?)

The dialogue in this movie often feels stilted. Is this a stylistic choice?

Now they're arguing. He doesn't like the music he's been playing with John Legend, which is interesting, because it seems like he was enjoying it and she was the one who wasn't enjoying it. Is any of this real or they just like super enmeshed and codependent?

Eh I've completely divested myself emotionally from this movie. I'm going to start fast forwarding to see what happens. It's not like there's musical numbers anyway.

Photo shoot. More strobing lights.

Why do we see him perform, but we don't see her perform?

Oh look they're fighting again. Do I give a fuck? No.

I don't get it. Is it supposed to be a fun musical or A Star is Born?

We have gone half an hour without a genuine musical number.

Emma Stone is singing. This is a musical again! Too bad this song, like the others, is just so-so. (Idk maybe it was Kristin Chenoweth they would sound amazing?) I feel like this song is supposed to be the big emotional payoff for a strong storyline, but unfortunately the storyline hasn't been that strong. (I mean to be fair I have fast forwarded through like the last 20 minutes but that was because the story was already meandering and sucking.)

They break up. Unfortunately, I never bought their love story beyond the initial crush, so I don't care. (I'm not saying I don't believe that these people *could* love each other deeply. I'm saying that the story skipped over the part after the first kiss where they got to truly know each other and fall in love, so I'm not convinced of it.)

What the fuck? in the alternative "what if their lives have been perfect" montage, Ryan Gosling just waves off Keith like he's some kind of subordinate? Like, arguably one of the most talented musicians we have seen in this whole movie? Gross.

Then in the part that is an explicit visual ode to the golden age of movie musicals, when they are on that colorful soundstage resembling a cartoonish LA, I actually lose track of where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are mixed in with all the other dancers. That should not be possible if the correct cinematographic choices were made.

Also I think it should be illegal to market movies as romances when the characters don't end up together in the end.

So yeah I guess this movie got all the accolades because the people who give the accolades and awards see themselves in this story.

But seriously what the fuck now that I've seen this movie I feel like I've been lied to for the past six years.

#la la land #live blog #wow watches movies #racism #liveblog #spoiler alert I didn't like this movie so if you don't want to see someone not liking this movie don't read this post #white supremacy #in the sense of elevating white people's opinions of the relative worth of various forms of African-American artistic expression

[t-n-c]

A Comprehensive List of my Thoughts on Elemental (STILL WITH SPOILERS!)

So here's the rundown I promised of my feelings toward Elemental

SPOILERS BELOW PROCEED WITH CAUTION!

The Good

The music--I found it memorable and unique; the main theme had soft vocalizations that felt almost ethereal, like it was an ancient hymn. I also found the song that played during the montage of Ember and Wade's dates catchy and fun. It was pretty great soundtrack imho.

The design of the world--I really loved how they creators took into account how all these different elements would move and interact in the city. It made the setting feel, for lack of a better term, more "real" to me. It also set up some of Ember's conflict as a Fire element living in a city that wasn't made with her people in mind.

The designs of (most of*) the characters--for the most part, the characters looked unique and, even better, they looked like average people (for lack of a better term) to me; call me a sap or whatever, but I've always preferred characters that have all the "flaws" of average folks than the ones that look like some iteration of "perfect," they just feel more relatable to me I guess. I also found it fun to see how design features such as "hair" were incorporated in the characters and how those same features varied between the elements. If there's one thing I can consistantly praise Pixar for it's for not being afraid to play around with design.

The animation---I loved how the characters moved and interacted in the world. The felt like living things and I appreciated that.

Wade and Ember are adults implied to be in their mid-to-late 20s--This is probably just a me thing, but I find it nice when I see shows where the protagonists aren't adolescents or barely-18 young adults going through some sort of coming-of-age scenario; there's nothing wrong with those kinds of stories of course, I just find them a bit boring and over-done myself. That and whenever I see films like that it always feels like they're insinuating that people over XYZ age can't be protagonists, so I tend to avoid them these days. On a related note, here are some other reasons why I like that Ember and Wade are adults: a) They both still live with their parents but neither of them is shamed or mocked for it--I've seen waaaay too many "comedies" that pick fun at the "25-year-old-living-in-their-mom's-basement" so I found it nice to not have to sit through that kind of "joke" again, b) Neither of them have got their lives "figured out" yet--Wade's gone through multiple jobs, and Ember's just begun to understand what she actually wants for her life--as someone who's gone through multiple jobs, earned 2 bachelor's degrees and is in the process of getting a master’s, and is still trying to make sense of their life, I found their struggles extremely relatable; it's nice to see adult protagonists be allowed to struggle with figuring out who they are and what they want to be, c) They're allowed to have fun and goof off--in a lot of films I've seen, the adult characters are always depicted as being so serious and "boring" it's nice to see adult characters actually have fun and enjoy life.

Ember' relationship with her parents, specifically her father--I found the interactions they had very sweet and moving; it made Ember's conflict between choosing to take over her father's shop or pursue her romance with Wade all the more relatable, imo.

How Ember and Wade's romance developed--it wasn't a love-at-first-sight kind of thing; they actually had to spend time interacting and getting to know each other before they fell in love--and most importantly, they showed us on the actual screen how/when they started to fall for each other. They went on dates, opened up to each other, fought with each other, etc--all the things that normal relationships have; while sure, there's still an aspect of "forbidden romance" to their relationship, it's more subtle and in the background than the trailers implied it would be. It also doesn't end with marriage and kids--they leave together for Ember’s internship and it’s implied that they’ve moved in together but that’s all; idk I thought it was nice that they could just be a couple.

The Bad

1. The blink-and-miss representation LGBTQ+ representation--I've gotten reeeeeeaaaally tired of how LGBTQ+ characters are treated in films; to clarify, there's a scene where Wade introduces Ember to his family and he introduces her to his youngest sibling, Lake (who is described as being nonbinary in supplemental materials) and her/them girlfriend, Ghibli. Lake's identity as nonbinary is a bit ambiguous in the film (Wade does refer to them as his youngest sibling, but that's all we get--without the tie-in material it's to mistake them for being WLW). Further, between them Lake and Ghibli have at most 2-3 lines in the entire movie--like I appreciate that us LGBTQ+ are being recognized and put in films, but I'm tired of all our rep always being the side characters that hold no weight in the story; I think they can start making shows with LGBTQ+ leads now, thank you.

2. Wade's fake death--I'm not a fan of having characters (and the audience) go through huge, life-changing events only to have the events "fixed" and everything be all hunky-dory again--imo, it's a cheap trick to manipulate the audiences' emotions at best, and at worst, it's a disrespectful act that not-to subtly implies that the audience "can't handle" seeing the characters go through heavy stuff. I'm a firm believer that if you're going to have your characters go through something as serious as having one die on screen you need to commit to it--you need to take it seriously, pulling a 180 and undoing all that development is cliche to the point of annoyance. Now, I'm not saying I wanted Wade to die, I'm not even saying that I think he should have stayed dead--what I'm saying is that I don't think there should have ever been a "death" scene in the film at all--there are plenty of other ways they could have had Ember realize her feelings for Wade/be honest with her father.

Mixed Feelings Section

1. Ember and Wade's designs*--it's not that they're terrible or anything, but they are a bit generic imo. In comparison to their family members and the background characters, they both have that "typical protagonist" look that I find a bit cliche

2. Wade's family being 'good' rich people who don't mind that Wade's in love with Ember vs Ember's father who spends most of the film being aggressively anti-water--I'm kind on the fence with this tbh; on the one hand, if both sides had been against Ember and Wade's relationship, I feel it would have put too much emphasis on the romance and taken away Ember's story as the child of immigrants, and it's not like Wade's family weren't bigoted at all--they threw plenty of micro-aggressions at Ember when she first met them; that being said I do have to side-eye how they made the ones more accepting of fire people Wade's rich, probably-descendents-of-the-founders-of-Element-City family and made the one most aggressively against water people Ember's immigrant-built-his-family-a-home-and-business-from-scratch father. Idk, it feels iffy to me.

3. Most of the Wade and Ember's interactions takes place within a week--As much as I felt that their romance was pretty well-paced, I can't deny that they still fell for each other very quickly--I get that the main plot point had set it up that they only had a week to fix the broken water-spill doors, but I don't know why it had to be a week; why couldn't it have been a couple of weeks or a month? It would have made a lot more sense both for the romance and the main plot, but I digress, I still found their relationship adorable.

4. The experiences of immigrants is homogenized--The culture of the fire people draws on a lot of different types of immigrants, the Irish, different Asiatic groups, maybe some Middle Eastern groups, etc--and while I appreciate that the story was about immigrants and experiences they share in common I also felt a bit iffy about taking all these different cultures and merging them together. I feel it would have been better they made the fire people's culture more of a unique entity than a combination of cultures.

Like I said before, I highly recommend this movie; it's cute and tugs at your heart-strings.

#Elemental #Pixar Elemental #Wade Ripple #Ember Lumen #TNC analyzes animated movies #Elemental 2023 spoilers #Elemental spoilers #I don't know if there'll be a sequel or anything #but I think there's enough there that a potential sequel could work #if nothing else I can see these characters having a successful cartoon series or some shorts #I realize these aren't the first adult characters that Pixar has had as protagonists #Mr. Incredible #Mrs. Incredible/elastigirl #Mr. Fredrickson #Joe Gardner #etc #but it's still rare enough that I appreciate it when I see it

[myarmadaisgrowing]

Queen songs I'd put in Good Omens 2 if I was in charge (aka Queen songs that would be a great edit on YouTube)

Not including the very well-known and well-loved 'Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy' since I think everyone hopes to see that one—to my knowledge I don't think anyone has discussed the possibility of these ones.

The Great Pretender

A very Aziraphale song. I'd pair it with a scene where Aziraphale misses Crowley after rejecting him again - maybe post-1940's? Queen wasn't around then obviously but it would fit 🤷‍♀️ I just hope there isn't a breakup post-Apocolypse, I feel like we're passed that stage now. Maybe would have fitted better at some point in Season 1.

Too Much Love Will Kill You

Muriel or Gabriel (if he ever gets his memories back), possibly Aziraphale at a stretch. I'm picturing it with a lot of Heaven-or-Earth angst, struggling with a major change in worldview etc etc, maybe a stereotypical walk through busy streets in the rain.

Seven Seas of Rhye

EXCELLENT entrance music, maybe for Crowley or a big bad who wants to take over the world etc etc—Michael or Beelzebub, perhaps. I wouldn't go further than about a minute in, but the lyrics fit too well for me to leave it out.

Play The Game

Some kind of sweet moment between the Ineffable Husbands. I could see a scene where Muriel/Gabriel/Maggie/Nina are watching them and realise how much they mean to each other and in the case of Maggie or Nina, it maybe gives them the courage to stop holding back and stops playing hard-to-get. This would be a very very cute choice.

The Invisible Man

A big change from the previous one, but I could definitely picture Crowley getting up to mischief to this one and going unnoticed by everyone around him. I don't know if people are allowed to edit songs for TV, but if it's allowed I'd probably take out Freddie saying everyone's names since it wouldn't really make sense in a TV program. Maybe some clever cutting could fix that—cutting back and forth from Aziraphale doing something remarkably different with a classical music background would be hilarious.

The Show Must Go On

Definitely a 'moment where everyone gives up hope' kind of song, maybe over a montage, before someone figures something out or finds something that will fix their problems and give hope again.

I Want To Break Free

Definitely a much more popular song than most of the ones on this list, so it's very possible that this one has been discussed before, but I personally haven't seen it if it has. I think this one and 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' could be used interchangably to an extent.

Driven By You (technically just Brian May, but I say it counts)

An end credits/epilogue song if I've ever heard one. I'm still holding out hope that we'll see the South Downs cottage, so this would be a nice song to have with a moving-in scene or a settled-in-and-content scene. It would be lovely at any stage where the Ineffable Husbands are secure in their love for each other and just spending time being happy together and comfortable with 'their side'.

#good omens 2 #queen #ineffable husbands #muriel good omens #gabriel #good omens