#the original was much higher quality it just sucks here

[malewifestation]

broadway train yard 🌧️🚨

01/09/2024

uncompressed below

#gif #pixel gif #gif compression #aesthetic gif #train #train aesthetic #boston #mbta #massachusetts #trains #boston transit #transit #american transit #boston massachusetts #mine #red line mbta #red line #boston trains #massachusetts transit #passenger train #train yard #american rail #railfanning #railfan #rail #railroad #the original was much higher quality it just sucks here #boston MA #Massachusetts bay #rail photography

[luckthebard]

So this is a very niche rant that is probably only something I've noticed or been annoyed by, but:

The longer Critical Role has gone on and the more changes they've made/content they've created, there's been an increase in weird people who are desperate and determined to prove that changes or content they don't like are "an objective failure" - but often lie or deliberately misunderstand viewership statistics to do so.

There are a few big "facts" I see repeated by people to argue that CR has "gone in the wrong direction" that are just plain wrong, and I think what annoys me most is seeing so many people engage with those "facts" without bothering to double-check them or push back against the certainty with which people state them. An example of one I keep seeing now is "twitch streaming numbers are down" and it's like, yeah, sure, in comparison to when they didn't simultaneously air on YouTube. If you add up the YT and Twitch numbers these days it's about the same as mid-late C2, but people love to act like YT streaming doesn't exist to make a point that "people don't like C3". And I tbh don't care if people like or dislike C3 but why this determination to falsely quantify and validate a personal preference?

The earliest I saw this was an intense agreement on reddit that Exandria Unlimited was a "failure" for CR, "unlike Undeadwood," because viewership numbers were lower. And it was tbh baffling to not see pushback against that narrative, because it's just objectively untrue. Original EXU's VOD streaming numbers are higher than every single episode of Undeadwood, and it premiered literally years later. It also has a lower "drop-off" in viewership (comparison of how many views episode 1 vs the finale has) than Undeadwood, despite frequent claims to the contrary. And don't mistake me here, I really enjoyed Undeadwood, but it actually was a viewership misstep for CR to the degree that they didn't try anything like it again for a while after and significantly changed how they approached marketing and airing miniseries. (A big one being: don't air a long miniseries simultaneously with the main series, it's too much content for most people to invest in during a week.)

(Sidebar, but another great miniseries CR did that didn't get a lot of viewership love is the Elder Scrolls Online trilogy, so I'm going to plug it here. It has some weirdly low viewership numbers on episodes 2 and 3 and I promise you they're both well worth it.)

The other one I keep seeing is "4 Sided Dive has lower numbers than Talks" which is also just not true. Most 4 Sided Dive VODs have nearly twice as many views as Talks VODs (and I'm using the ones that aired directly on the CR channel as a metric here, not the ones re-uploaded from G&S which lost numbers in the change-over). And I'll tbh chalk that up to the fact 4SD airs much less frequently - people are more likely to think it's necessary to watch whereas with Talks if you weren't interested in the guests you might skip a week. I'm not making any claims about the quality of either show, but the use of false viewership statistics to support "one of these sucks" is so rampant and so weird.

All this to say that yesterday I saw a weird viewer-hungry YouTube clickbait video titled "Midst a FAILURE for Critical Role!!" with a truly absurd confidence on what the VOD streaming numbers for the Midst YouTube videos mean for the series mere days after the premier and snapped.

tl;dr, people just make shit up and say whatever on the internet all the time and we hopefully all understand and expect that BUT (and here's the more annoying thing) 9 times out of 10 people just engage with that WITHOUT LOOKING INTO IT THEMSELVES

#rant #critical role #long post #cr discourse #I guess? #as always I am begging people to fact check and question stuff that's just stated as fact by randos online

[doesnotloveyou]

Don Johnson Filmography - Free Links!

Instead of you spending countless joyful hours trawling the web for grainy old '70s flicks, I did it for you! Here's a list of FREE places to watch DJ's stuff.

This list will be in reverse chronological order as they appear on IMDb. Some are just placeholders until (if) better links can be found, and some are bootlegs from other countries. I'm excluding music videos since those aren't hard to find.

And if you want to skip boring/annoying plot but don't want to miss him, I've made a key:

MC (main character) - much of the story involves his character and he is onscreen often

SC (side character) - only part of the story involves his character, so he's onscreen far less often than other characters

C (cameo) - he's got one or two scenes and they're small, in which case I'll mark his appearances in 0:00:00 format

I'm leaving most content warnings to viewer discretion, but some I don't feel comfortable ignoring. Also, some of the YouTube vids may get taken down at any moment :( If you like something, back it up! I'm using KMPlayer to download my faves, but I've heard you can also use VLC.

>> Links below cut! <<

First, check out my list from Tubi which has the most high quality versions of his work and TV appearances. If it's on Tubi, it won't be on this post!

Home Movie: The Princess Bride - (C, 0:41:30) the entire film is hilarious, especially if you've seen the original; made by a bunch of celebs during quarantine.

Knives Out - (SC) ok, there's no link, but i'm begging you to go buy this movie on DVD it's like $5-$10 tops in stores these days.

Moondance Alexander - (SC, 0:18:20)

Just Legal - (MC, eight episodes)

Word of Honor - (MC) this vid has "helium" audio and other insufferable flaws.

Goodbye Lover - (SC, login req)

In Pursuit of Honor - (MC) WARNING: animal death/abuse

G.I. Joe: The Movie - (SC, voice only, 0:30:35...) spare yourself, skip this movie that he probably did for his kid.

Tales of the Unexpected - (SC; one episode)

Matt Houston - (SC; one episode)

Melanie - (SC)

Soggy Bottom, U.S.A. - (SC; German dub) clips of his character.

Elvis and the Beauty Queen - (MC; Portuguese subtitles)

Revenge of the Stepford Wives - (SC, 0:12:40, 0:25:15...) he has multiple scenes including one at the end, but these movies stress me out.

Beulah Land - (SC) only in part 1, but his character is replaced by a young Jonathan Frakes in part 2. WARNING: non-graphic rape

From Here to Eternity - (C, one episode, 0:07:10, 0:36:00)

The Rebels (MC, two-parts)

Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill - (SC, 0:13:39...)

First, You Cry - (SC, first scene, 0:24:20, 0:44:20, 0:57:07, 1:15:38, 1:32:16)

Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold - (C, 0:19:48, 0:32:19, 0:44:03...) can't stomach this film to find the rest of his scenes, he's a very minor character.

The American Girls - he's not in this! the main male character is played by the lovely Charles Haid from Hillstreet Blues, but it isn't listed on Haid's IMDb. Also, the character he plays does not go by the name DJ is listed under for that episode, so maybe DJ's in a different one? Regardless, I only found two episodes and DJ is in neither.

Ski Lift to Death - (SC) he shows up in the second video...don't make me watch this.

What Really Happened to the Class of '65? - TV spot w/ the only footage of him that I can find.

Cover Girls - (SC, 0:27:21, 0:40:40, 01:01:15...)

The City - (MC) costarring Mark Hamil

Barnaby Jones - (SC, one episode) I watched this and now it's missing...it sucked anyway. DJ plays an amateur arms dealer with a sickly son, a wife in jail, and a hideous mustache. He loses.

The Streets of San Francisco - (SC, one episode)

Law of the Land - (MC)

Return to Macon County - (MC) login to YT req but there is also a Spanish dub that doesn't req login. costarring Nick Nolte

A Boy and His Dog - (MC) this version has the nude scenes edited out, sign in to YT for the full cut; much higher quality than Tubi. WARNING: rape, etc.

The Rookies - (SC, one episode) costarring Nick Nolte

Kung Fu - making an executive decision here uhhh skip this one

The Harrad Experiment - (MC; two-parter w/ odd in-video ads that you can easily fast forward) WARNING: they all get naked

The Bold Ones: The New Doctors - (MC, one episode)

Lollipops, Roses and Talangka - (SC; some scenes in Tagalog) can't find the 1975 sequel or much information on English sites, but one Filipino fanblog implies the film may no longer exist.

Zachariah (MC)

Endlessly impressed by how much has been preserved and curated over the years. Even if a ton of it was junk, it's nice to save people's hard work and memories :)

........................................................................................................................

#don johnson #miami vice #70s movies #70s tv shows #nick nolte #mark hamil #jonathan frakes #fan resource #dnly rants #there's a character limit on posts??? since when?? #*has never hit the limit before apparently*

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I did a TWDG character tier list because it’s been a while

Back in July 2019, I posted a tier list ranking TWDG characters from all four seasons with explanations for why I placed each character where I did. It’s now 2023, and I’ve mostly stepped away from TWDG and the fandom. I pop in occasionally to answer asks or give updates about the Clementine comics. Sometimes I get the itch to do an analysis post. Or something like this.

Distancing myself and then revisiting the series has changed a lot of my opinions of these characters and my ranking is quite different, so I thought it’d be interesting to discuss.

Just a note about how I’m ranking this: This ranking is solely based on my feelings about the characters. Last time I ranked some characters higher than I wanted to because I acknowledged their good writing and popularity. I’m not doing that this time. Well-written/popular or not, if I don’t like them, they’re ranking low. If I like them, then that’s the only reason I need to rank them high. That’s probably going to cause disagreements and that’s fine. Agree to disagree, y’know?

Each character is limited to a 3-4 sentence explanation. I can’t write a heavy analysis for every character, otherwise we’ll be here forever.

Also, I didn’t include characters from the Michonne mini-series since they weren’t included in my original and the mini-series is separate from the main series. All you really need to know is Michonne and Pete would’ve made A-tier.  

Starting from F-tier and working our way up to S-tier:

F-tier

Troy Surprise, Troy’s my least favorite character in the entire series. He’s an asshole and I find nothing compelling about him other than his death scene. He’s insignificant, I hate him, and he can suck an egg.

Vernon Vernon has some sympathetic qualities to his character but as far as characters in S1 go, I can’t say he’s all that great. Sure, he patched Omid up but that doesn’t mean he gets to fuck us over in the end. Screw him, y’know?

The Stranger I feel like I like the idea around The Stranger more than the Stranger himself. I get it, he’s supposed to be just some dude and it’s a neat reveal that he’s the guy we stole food from, but I liked him better when he was just a voice over a walkie. He’s just kinda here to guilt you over your choices no matter what you did and use it as an excuse for kidnapping Clementine, but I need a little bit more from my antagonists.

Joan Joan has one of the coolest villain moments in TWDG when she asks you who you want to save, then orders who you picked to be executed, and honestly? I respect that. It just sucks that Joan as a character is boring as sin. I can’t forgive boring antagonists, she sucks.

Larry Not going to lie—Larry is the biggest asshole and I kinda live for it. I still absolutely hate him, but I can respect him as a character for being such a piece of shit. He has some depth to him when you bother to try out different choices, and his death is so ingrained in my brain, but he’s in F-tier for a reason. I hate him, but he’s a damn good antagonist within the group.

Abel I think Abel is a great antagonist and he’s well-written, but I also think he’s garbage and I hate him. They really captured how crusty, creepy, and cruel he can be while also giving him a moment of vulnerability when he realizes he’s dying.

D-tier

Kenny Yes, I’m ranking Kenny this low. He’s one of my least favorite characters in all of TWDG, but at least he’s an interesting character study despite just being such a piece of shit. I’m sorry, I know he’s a fan favorite and he’s a broken man with a sad backstory, I understand that he’s a complex and well-written character. But I can’t stand him; he’s manipulative, violent, possessive, you can’t disagree with him without him throwing a tantrum, and I just don’t like him.

Andy, Danny, Brenda I’m clumping these three together because I might as well, my opinion of them individually doesn’t differ much. These guys are cannibals who lead people to their farm to butcher, eat, and trade the meat with bandits. They fed Mark’s leg meat to the group like…. It’s so fucked. They’re great antagonists, the best in S1 for sure, but fuck these guys.

Walter I’m kinda meh on Walter. He’s where he is on this tier list not because I hate him or anything, he’s mostly just here to guilt Nick and then be executed by Carver, and eh.

Arvo I don’t like Arvo. I don’t think that’s an unpopular opinion. I feel bad about everything he went through and Kenny was absolutely in the wrong for abusing him the way he did, but I can’t say Arvo himself is compelling. I think that’s a common theme with me—boring is usually worse than bad, and Arvo isn’t all that interesting. Then he shoots Clementine and we never hear from him again sooo…. Cool.

Omar Oh no, poor Omar ranking so low. But again, for me boring is worse than bad, and Omar is boring. I’m sorry, I know that’s wild coming from me given my past with TFS but it’s true. Omar is a character who exists, he cooks, he gets shot, he survives, and that’s about it.

Mark The only cool thing about Mark is how he died. But as an actual character? Meh.

Sarita Sarita is barely her own character. She exists to serve Kenny’s character development, and I hate that for her. She’s nice, and unfortunately that’s it.

Willy Willy is okay. He definitely has the most depth in this tier, save Kenny. But he’s still a minor character who I can’t justify putting any higher when I don’t love him.

Mari Oh, poor Mari. She’s sweet, but her death is more impactful than her actual character.

C-tier

Carver Carver’s a pretty good antagonist. I like him well enough. He’s a piece of shit, he’s intimidating, and he’s dangerous. Not the best, not the worst antagonist.

Carlos Carlos is hilarious, which I don’t think was the intention behind his character but if not, then they shouldn’t have made him so funny. I’m not saying funny as in “haha,” I’m saying it in a “you are an incompetent man, why are you doing this” way.

Duck I feel kinda bad for putting Duck so low, but he has the same problems as Sarita and Mari, though he does have a bit more personality going for him. His character serves Kenny’s character development, and his death is more impactful than he actually is.

Bonnie Bonnie’s fine. I liked her more in 400 Days. In S2, she’s just kinda meh.

Rebecca I like Rebecca well enough. Her going from being a complete asshole to wanting to be friends with Clementine between episodes kind of gives me whiplash but I can’t help but sympathize with her. She’s a pregnant woman in the zombie apocalypse who lost her husband because Carver’s a piece of shit and then she dies shortly after giving birth... it’s sad.  

Shel and Becca I like Shel and Becca a lot more than I did before. Their situation in 400 Days is rough, and I feel a lot for Shel wanting to give Becca a good life despite the state of the world. Becca’s also just a kid who tries to act tough and like she has a thick skin but c’mon, she’s still just a kid. 

Mike Mike was super chill until he betrayed us at the end. I would’ve ranked him higher but frankly, I’m still a bit bitter about him wanting to run off with Bonnie and Arvo, completely fine with taking all the food and resources so that Clementine and baby AJ starve. We were bros, Mike, then you had to go a do that. 

Brody Once again: Her death is more memorable than her character. But, in this case, I will say Brody stands out given the fact that she’s lying to everyone about the twins and dealing with the guilt gnawing at her in ep1. I find her interesting within the context of “who is telling the truth? what really happened?” because unfortunately, both she and Marlon end up dead so we’ll never know the full story from either perspective. 

Mitch Oh, my boy, there was a time where you ranked waaaay higher, but I can’t do it. Mitch is a good character and serves his purpose, and his death is still pretty bullshit. I still like him, just not nearly as much as I used to. 

Eleanor I’m still pissy about Eleanor snitching on us to Joan which results in either Ava or Tripp being executed, and then having the balls to yell at us about it. But prior to that, Eleanor’s a character with great medical knowledge and skills who wanted to help people. She just ends up being a victim to ANF’s less than stellar writing. 

Kate I still have a lot of issues with Kate, like I still hate the romance between her and Javi and how bitter she becomes after being rejected, but I don’t hate her. She’s a flawed character but I understand her perspective on things when it comes to David and Richmond. She’s also resourceful and charming at times, I like her well enough. 

Violet Yeeeeeah, remember how I said this is 100% my biased opinion on all of these characters? Violet is a mid C-tier character for me, she’s just okay. I don’t hate Violet, I don’t love her. She has some really endearing moments just as she has infuriating ones. I talked a bunch about her in my revisiting TFS post, if you want a full explanation on my feelings about her, then you can read that. 

Chuck I like Chuck, he’s chill. I appreciate the reality check he gave Lee about Clementine and their plan, and I’m sad that he died. Not much else to say. 

Vince I really like Vince. I talked a lot more about his character in my 400 Days post, so to summarize, he’s another interesting protagonist in that dlc and I liked his story a lot. 

Molly Might be an unpopular opinion to put Molly this low, but even though I like her, I can’t justify putting her higher. Molly’s story is heartbreaking though, and incredibly traumatic when you sit with it... like, she traded sex for medicine so her sister wouldn’t be thrown out, and given that we don’t meet her sister and dipshit doctor said he couldn’t keep helping her out... yeah. Molly brings a lot of charm and humor while she’s around but she’s also just so sad, y’know?

Jesus Jesus is cool. I don’t really have much else to say about him other than that. 

Christa I feel like a lot of these C-tier characters can be summed up with, “I like them, they’re cool... yeah.” because that’s how I feel about Christa. She shines more as a character when paired with Omid, and like with Rebecca, I really feel for her as a pregnant woman in the apocalypse who then lost both Omid and their baby and had to remain strong to care for Clementine... even though her resentment and bitterness are clearly present. 

Conrad My boy Conrad... I still really like him, though my love has definitely toned down. I enjoy his story and still stand by keeping him alive to the end, even though he makes it difficult sometimes. He’s hurting and that makes him stupid, and if you keep him alive long enough, he genuinely apologizes then tries to be better and I respect that. 

Ben Ben didn’t quite make it to B-tier, but know that he was close. Ben is such a screw up and he does so much damage, but I can’t bring myself to hate him. Most of us don’t wanna admit that if the apocalypse actually happened, we wouldn’t be a Lee or a Clementine, we’d be a Ben. 

B-tier

Aasim Aasim is definitely one of my favorite side characters in TFS and I’m always going to be bitter that he wasn’t used to his full potential. He’s the perfect middle ground between Louis and Violet, I love that he keeps a journal to record everything that happens, and that he’s the only one willing to push back at Marlon. Aasim’s great. 

Ruby I adore Ruby, she’s great. She’s small and fiery yet she’s the group nurse and takes pride in patching people up. Again, one of my favorite side characters in TFS. 

Alvin I have a lot of feelings about Alvin. Most are sad. This man loves his wife and their baby. I love the exchange between him and Clementine where she tells him he’s nice, she can tell, and Alvin’s just like, “I ain’t nice!” and Clementine goes, “...Yes, you are.” with a smile, it’s great. He didn’t deserve his fate, I’m still hurt by it. 

Nick Speaking of not deserving their fate: Nick. I like Nick a lot and will never be over his off screen death and how no one really cared. 

Eddie and Wyatt Lumping these two together since I couldn’t decide who I liked more. The two are amazing, their story in 400 Days is so damn enjoyable, and the chemistry between them is off the charts. Both interesting characters with great personalities. 

Katjaa I’ll never not be sad about Katjaa. Woman deserved the world and yet that’s what she got. She’s so interesting given her career as a vet which made her the group doctor, the fact that she married Kenny, and how she straight up tells you that she has her limits and she would’ve left Lilly behind if it was her choice. 

Doug Doug’s pretty great, but there just wasn’t enough time devoted to him in S1, especially if you don’t save him in ep1. When you do save him, though, he’s one of the more enjoyable characters to be around and I appreciate the efforts he makes to help the group despite his talents lying else where. 

Luke Luke is great for two episodes, then his character slowly went down the shitter. He had the makings to be great, to be an A-tier character, no questions asked... but honestly, putting him in B due to my personal feelings is being generous. When you’re only great for 2/5 episodes, then maybe you’re not an overall great character, hmm? But I’m biased and I like him. 

Minerva Okay look, I love Minerva as a tragic antagonist. I take back every mean thing I’ve ever said about her. 

Tripp Man, I love Tripp. He’s my bro, y’know?  

Gabe Gabe is a brat and I love him. I understand the criticism, but I also understand a lot of that criticism is rooted in “any child character who isn’t exactly like Clementine is deemed annoying.” He's one of the better parts of ANF in my opinion. 

Tenn I’ve done a lot of thinking about Tenn since I wrote my retrospective on TFS and like... Tenn is a great character. He’s interesting to have within the story of TFS, and I know, it’s so easy to just hate him because he keeps making the same mistakes. It’s when you look at the full picture that you understand why he keeps doing it and it’s just... sad. He always dies in my playthroughs, it’s heartbreaking. 

Sarah Sarah should get a shirt that says “I was wasted potential in S2 and all I got was this lousy shirt.” Because yeah, the set up for Sarah is executed so damn well, then the game fumbled, and then she was killed off. My girl deserved better than that. 

Carley I adore Carley. That’s my girl, I love her. Just.... I love her. Not much else to say. 

Ava Ava is so fucking cool, why is it that ANF killed her off in the most comical way possible when she survives execution? How could you do that to one of the most badass characters in TWDG? She fucking knocked TRIPP on his ass. I love her so much. 

Marlon Marlon is the perfect antagonist for ep1 of TFS. I have an entire character analysis about him, and again, I covered his character again in my retrospective of the game. 

Lilly Yeah, yeah, laugh it up-- I love Lilly, she’s an asshole and she’s great in both S1 and TFS. She’s a woman under so much damn pressure in S1 due to looking after her abusive father as he’s all the family she has left, she’s leading the group which Kenny continually gives her hell for, and she just wants to survive. Then she comes back in TFS as a great antagonist and we see just how far she’s fallen due to everything that’s happened to her. I talked more in-depth about her in my TFS retrospective post so if you want more details, you can go there. 

David Okay listen, this is my tier list and I say David is on the verge of being A tier for being such an interesting bitch. David is such a bitch, a real bastard, I could punch him in his damn nose, but damn it, he’s fascinating and I won’t apologize for being invested in the Garcia brother dynamic. I hate him but also I think he’s great. 

A-tier

Pete I feel like Pete being this high is just purely my bias showing. He has no business being this high and above so many other characters, but I don’t care. I love this man. He’s only in two episodes [assuming you ran to him instead of Nick] and he’s still one of my favorite characters in S2. 

Russell Russell is my favorite protagonist in 400 Days and I will be forever salty that he wasn’t more important in S2. 

James I could talk and talk about James until I’m blue in the face. I adore James, he’s such a compelling and often misunderstood character. 

Omid I mean, c’mon.... who here doesn’t think Omid is an A-tier character? He’s just so charismatic and charming, it’s hard to dislike him even a little. All these years later, and I’m still hurt that he died the way he did. 

Jane Yeah that’s right, Jane ranks this high. Jane is a fucking great character and I’m tired of pretending she’s not. I want to give you an in-depth analysis that elaborates on that, but unfortunately, I’ve limited myself on this post. That’s what asks are for, I suppose. 

Javier Javier Garcia is the best thing about ANF. Listen, ANF is the worst installment in the series, I feel like I can confidently say that, but Javi makes it all worth it. That, and his dynamics with Gabe and David, and Clementine, too. I love this man. 

AJ I debated on if I should put AJ here or S-tier, but ultimately, S-tier is for my absolutely favorites. While I love AJ and his development over TFS, he just barely misses the mark. But I think his spot here is well-deserved, love that little goofball. 

S-tier

Rosie Rosie is best girl. That’s it. She’s best girl. 

Lee It’s been how many years and I’m still not over Lee. He deserved the world. I love him so much. 

Clementine What’s there to even say about Clementine throughout all four seasons? She’s S-tier. She’s incredibly well written throughout the series, her growth is amazing, and her ending in TFS is definitely deserved. I love her so much. 

Louis Coming as a shock to literally no one, Louis is my favorite character in all of TWDG and he deserves the top spot in the top tier. What can I possibly say? I have written countless posts about how much I love him. He’s my favorite and I fucking love him. 

And for a fun comparison, my 2019 tier list:

#twdg #twdg character tier list #i'm not tagging every character #too many characters #it was interesting to look back at my old list #because like... i added more tiers and had the four clementines two kennys and two lillys #i didn't do that this time #also the previous tier list i can definitely tell some characters were ranked the way they were to appease others #and like... piss on that sksksks i don't care anymore #if someone gets butt hurt over a random tier ranking then that's their problem #they can make their own tier list and 'fix the wrongs' if it makes them feel better #like i'm fine with character *discussion* about things like this #but if you just wanna yell at me for putting kenny in d-tier then i've lost interest

[nono-bunny]

I CANNOT BELIEVE THEY ENDED THE LATEST LESSON OF NB ON SUCH A CLIFFHANGER MY GOD WHAT A TEASE FUCKKK

Like fr everyone has been theorizing over Barb and Solomon for FOREVER, they can't just DO that, how dare they go "ah, it happened not long before you came here, let me tell you all about it" and then fade to black oh my god that's so cruel and funny fidnskxjs can't wait for the next lesson

Also... I am, once again, not a fan of Asmo in his focus stories. Like I GET it, these are supposed to be the brothers at their worst but like... Fr he barely feels different than normal here, he's just. So unlikable to me whenever he's not being a tsukkomi or a kind supporting role, both of which aren't his base state, like. I really don't enjoy how disingenuous his "love" for the MC feels. It's presented as if it's the first time he's loved someone other than himself or his brothers, but at the same time we KNOW he's constantly hooking up with other people with whom he has varying degrees of emotional closeness (the whole reason he originally made a pact with Solomon is because he was heartbroken!!), and he's simultaneously very cavalier about hurting and discarding his lovers while at the same time wanting to have as many admirers and potential paramours as possible and. Yah nothing we have with him feels special tbh. The way that Mammon losing control was all about wanting us all to himself and then when it's Asmo's turn he immediately gets greedy and immoral whilst being genuinely cruel to MC feels very on brand for him tbh, and it's only been enjoyable for seeing how everyone else actually DOES genuinely love us- everyone other than Asmo. Just... A very bad start to Asmo's arc and idk if it's even possible to redeem it tbh- it's completely on brand for him but ig I just hoped the reboot would maybe consider focusing on his actual good qualities

Like. Satan barely gets mad, and he's much more known for being a bookworm cat lover, even though his rampages are actually kinda fun and endearing (based on my personal opinion as well as what I've seen other people INCLUDING Sumi say), but Asmo is kinda just... Only about being horny, and lot of it is towards people other than the MC- which I REALLY don't find fun- and he's just incessantly selfish and self serving in a way not even the fucking avatar of PRIDE is, and it's. Really unappealing and off putting. Add to that how I actually like his design the least out of literally all of the characters, and he's just someone I really can't stand a lot of the time (because I don't even find him to be as beautiful as he's meant to be!!!!), but he's SO much fun whenever he strays from that too and it sucks!!! Like fr the Asmo episodes of the anime are genuinely great because they fully acknowledge how his vanity is bad and not fun for everyone around him but they utilize it for comedy at his expense (which is kinda the only case where I enjoy seeing him in love with himself) and then during the other episodes he's at his true best!! Both of the Detective Satan episodes are peak loving Asmo hours for me (I adore tsukkomi Asmo) and seeing him fully commit to his brothers' antics in the bottleship episode is great fun!! He has some truly great moments in the anime so like! The writers KNOW how to utilize his character to make him likeable, but they lean so hard on his narcissistic qualities which for me just make him an unfun character to be around most of the time,,, wish I could like him more often tbh, he's fun but just. Truly my least favorite just because he's so hit or miss, with a much higher miss ratio

#obey me #obey me one master to rule them all #obey me nightbringer #obey me nb #obey me nightbringer lesson 24 #asmo rant in the expanded post #I dont hate him but I also don't like him the way I wish I would #asmo stans if you see this this is an invitation to reply/reblog with asmo love letters because I wanna love him more

[6ilent-9ufferer]

Part 2 of my trolls 3 rant

⚠️ warning ⚠️ there will be spoilers

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

K, here's something I forgot to mention last time: Tiny Diamond. Why is his voice so low? Being that tiny, it should be much higher.

On that note, why and how can he think and speak like a grown man? Are all baby trolls able to think and talk like an adult? How are trolls even born? Do they just come out of the ground like a goron? How fast or slow are their metabolism and how long do they live?

Come to think of it, I don't think I have seen any other baby trolls around in any of the movies I have seen (I've never seen the second, so I don't know if there have been any in it). They should have answered at least SOME of these questions.

Also, what is a literal 1 month BABY troll doing driving? Why are they letting him? To boost his baby ego? With how John Dory likes to be in control, you'd think he would be the one driving. It IS his bus after all, or did I miss something? Why is Tiny diamond in this movie at all? Nothing would have changed if he was scrapped.

Now moving on to the "villains".

I really liked the concept of a psycho sister roping her pussy brother into whatever she wants, but...there wasn't enough development with either of them, mostly because they didn't get the screen time they deserved to really earn the title of "villain" or "antagonist".

I genuinely laughed at the jokes when the twins were shown. I just wish we had got more of their backstory other than that scene where we learn that they lived in the suburbs and that their parents were dentists.

"Were". Why the past tense? Are they dead metaphorically or literally, or even dead at all? Were their parenting good, bad, or mediocre? I wanted to know why and how Velvet became the way she is every time I saw her. In the one flashback, it seems like she was always a brat, and really had issues. What were her motivations to being the 'bad guy' other than talent and the fame it brought? It really feels like there should have been something more to it than what was shown.

I wanted to hear Veneers singing voice, but he never willingly absorbed Floyd's essence. I mean. He cares enough to not use him himself. That's a redeeming quality. I guess.

Veneer quickly became my favorite trolls character because he had good humor (that sass 🤣) and the potential of being a well developed character, but that potential was wasted by DreamWorks.

I wonder if he was pushed around and bullied by his sister into doing anything she wanted even as small children. I also wonder who he was before she changed him into someone he's not: someone like her. He doesn't want to use Floyd, or kill him, and even suggested they practice. To which Velvet scoffed in disgust.

It would have been interesting if Floyd's words about Velvet actually reached him and actually let him go. Maybe even try to escape with him; as Veneer said, I feel like Velvet would be vindictive enough to literally kill him if his usefulness expired. Literally unhinged.

What if Veneer HAD some talent that he dared not express due to his fear of his sister and her throwing a fit or even attacking him for it? Like, he could actually be good at singing but pretends to suck at it as much as she genuinely does.

Who does their fit? Like, I didn't see a personal designer for their performances anywhere. Veneer could have a talent for fashion design.

Or he could be good at writing songs like the music and or lyrics. That would be awesome and would open the door for original music in the movie.

Where's the villain song that establishes Velvet's role as a villain?

How did they trollnap Floyd anyway?

Couldn't have been Velvet. She would have gotten someone else to do her dirty work for her, so...who did Velvet force to do it? It could really be either Veneer, or Crimp depending on when they met her, if it was before or after the trollnapping.

And Crimp. Every time I saw her, all I could think was "who is this Cousin It looking-ass".

How did she meet them, and is she an assistant? The twins being musical 'talents', you'd think they'd have a manager of some sort.

Maybe even a financer for the concerts and performances? With how they treat her, I'm surprised she hasn't left yet. Sure, she's pathetic and gullible AND naive. But she could have left anytime.

Instead of the opening scene being the origins of the 'Brozone breakup', it would have been better to open with how Floyd was taken. That would have hooked me a bit. And establish who the baddie is right off the bat.

'Show don't tell', as they say.

Dude, what if we got a Veneer solo song reflecting on his past, present, and future? or a duet with Floyd bonding over having controlling siblings? These would have set good character development, I think. And maybe even encourage him to come clean earlier than in cannon. Instead of only coming clean because they were caught and sent to prison (how old are they?). At least he accepted it with a smile. I'll give him that.

Also, why was Crimp the ONLY one to go scot-free? Last time I checked, she wasn't guilt-free. She still helped them, made the shoulder-pads, and didn't help Floyd in any way. Of course, she was a victim of verbal abuse, and really naive. But naivete should not be rewarded. The least sentence she could have for being coerced to be involved in the crimes she listed is community service. I think that's fair.

I might have forgotten some things but this was a long tangent and I'm bad at remembering things. That's all I guess. All this is just my personal opinion, no hate if you actually like this movie.

EDIT: I forgot something. It was Tiny Diamond saying "fuck". Even though it was censored, why did they feel the need to make him say that? Was a 1 month baby swearing supposed to be funny? It wasn't. It didn't fit the tone of the movie either, being a kids movie at that. That's all I forgot.

EDIT 2: I lied. I forgot one more thing.

I've been wondering how long it took the twins to become famous. It couldn't have been overnight. Right??

Imagine in the beginning, after the trollnapping scene they participate in a Mount Rageus thing -a festival, talent show, whatever.

She absorbs Floyd's essence and uses his talent, and wins -if its like America's got talent or something. Or if it's just a yearly festivity, they participate and get recognized by a scout agent. We would then see them grow in popularity and fame exponentially over time.

And after every performance, and every concert...a little bit more of it goes to Velvet's head. Veneer gets more and more concerned about it over time, then disturbed by it, and eventually afraid of her.

Let this be the last thing I forgot. Please brain.

#trolls 3 #rant post #rants

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

The Best New Jazz in America, Volume 3 1992 Jazz / Smooth Jazz

Yikes; this thing's title makes a pretty bold claim and, ultimately, does not live up to its own hype. I definitely dig me some jazz, but this early 90s release here seems to be caught up in the inexplicable 80s-to-early-90s fervor of smooth jazz, which is basically like if you gave jazz a lobotomy. More often than not, it just tends to be some of the blandest and most generic-sounding music on the face of this earth, and I really don't understand how there were actual radio stations with sizeable enough listenerships that enabled them to sustain themselves on this format for so long. Like, are there people out there who actually delight in being put on hold by a company so that they can vibe to the music?!

Furthermore, and I've spieled about this before, but there is just such a hollow sound in a lot of music from this era in general, but especially the easy listening, jazz, and adult-oriented stuff. And what I find most perplexing about it is that it's not like it was a point of origination that we, over time, technologically found a way to progress from, because there are gobs of records from the 70s that are of such a warmer and higher sonic quality than this stuff. It's just, like, the soul was entirely sucked out of the studio for so many different releases from this broad time period, and you can just feel all that stuffiness on so many different recordings. Did certain studios decide to skimp on recording consoles because they thought a typically older crowd with degraded eardrums would be less likely to notice the overall shoddy quality? Seems a bit farfetched and conspiratorial, but I've yet to find a reasonable explanation as to why there was so much of this music out there that just had a way of sounding so bad and empty.

Anyway, while a majority of this record seems to consist of all that snoozy smooth jazz, it's not actually *entirely* made up of it. Some of these songs do, in fact, have a much livelier quality to them, including this compilation's closer, "Donna Lieb," by The Matt Catingub Big Band, which is, by far, my favorite song on here. Unlike most of this record, there are no cheap and janky keyboards on this track. Instead, this group seems to go for a retro, swingin' kind of sound, and over three decades later, it still definitely has the juice. Lots of different instruments working in tandem and cycling through brief leads to deliver eight straight minutes of engaging, flag-waving jazz, all buttressed by a nice, walking double bassline too. And not only is it a good jazz tune, but it actually *sounds* good too!

Highlights:

The Matt Catingub Big Band - "Donna Lieb"

#jazz #smooth jazz #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music

[musicallisto]

a brief guide to French elite universities (Grandes Ecoles); alternative title: Finally Telling You Where The Fuck I Have Been For The Past Two Years And Why I Complain About Orals Every Other Day

Sometime in the 18th century, the French state decided it wasn’t enough for its technical and military officers to just be rich and noble: they ought to be competent too. They created the original Grandes Ecoles, universities which were meant to provide a high quality higher education for the finest French youth, especially engineers and military personnel. Overtime, these schools evolved into three main categories: engineering, for people who are good at math; humanities, for people who are good at literature; and business, for people who either suck at both, or are just noncommittal (there’s also architecture & others but these are the main ones) what sets these universities apart is their extremely competitive entry exam, which is decomposed in written exams (april-may) and oral exams (july), SUPPOSEDLY (“”) to ensure the purest form of meritocracy.

fast forward to 2020, the world is in the throes of Covid, everyone is losing their mind and I just go, “wouldn’t it be fun if I became an aeronautical engineer? no, like, wouldn’t it be FUN?” ….. and so I did. except designing things that go zoom in the sky certainly is fun, but the road to get there is anything but. the most esteemed way to do it is through one of the Grandes Ecoles; but much like you don’t send a soldier to the frontline before he’s held a rifle, you do not send a high school graduate to the entry exam if you value their safety at all. that is where preparatory schools (prépas) come in.

(i’m sure @softeninglooks will not blame me for a little bit of henri IV-library drooling, as an illustration)

a preparatory school is as much a two-year extension of high school as it is a pact with the devil. “hey, I’m eighteen years old and I think Planes are neat. is there a way I could get a degree in Planes?” “say no more, I got you, fam. all it will cost you is any and all social outings you may have planned for the next two years, any hobby that might bring you joy, any hope for a decent sleep schedule, and like, one mental breakdown a week, probably.” congratulations! you’re enrolled in a prépa! the entry exam is so difficult and competitive, there really is no other way but to Grind™, and Grind hard. imagine the Olympics 100m men’s final. in this scenario, classes and tests are Usain Bolt, you are me (a Below Average sprinter), and there’s also a horde of alligators on your tail. to sacrifice thirty minutes to catch up on sleep you lost on an assignment is to accept the two weeks you will have to spend studying to make up for lost time. every Saturday morning you take mock written tests, where your grade is Unimportant – only your ranking is, because the one thing you must remember is it does not matter to be good, all that matters it to be better than the guy next to you. every other day, you take mock oral tests, during which the professor gives you a problem and you must solve it in front of them: truly one of the most legendary aspects of prépa. (examples of real problems I & others have been asked to solve, live in front of the guy grading you, with no prior knowledge of it whatsoever: “here’s a force. discuss the influence of this random parameter on the trajectory of mercury.” “a balloon is punctured. how long until it deflates completely?” “an ice hockey player misses his shot. when confronted about it by his coach, he says it is because of the Coriolis acceleration. is it possible?” and my personal favorite, “[the guy clears the board] calculate the entropy variation due to my gesture.”) anyway, I cannot emphasize how draining it is, mentally and physically, and how absolutely fucking fed-up and berserk one gets in the terrible, terrible winter months… but also how, paradoxically, it’s the most valuable two years of my life. it’s an Experience, to be sure. do I regret doing it? not in the slightest. would I do it again? … bro this is the cause of all my existential crises lately.

ANYWAY, after being a martyr to mathematics and working 70h/week for two years straight, you eventually reach the written exams period! you get examined over the course of four weeks total, each week a different concours – and each concours represents a group of universities, of different standings. for engineering, the groups mostly go as follows:

“Polytechnique (nicknamed “X”)

“Centrale” & “Mines” (you’ll find people who’ll tell you this one or the other is harder; I don’t believe them. they’re different, but both a pain.)

“CCP” (absolutely nothing to do with soviet Russia I guarantee)

“e3a”

and then probably others I don’t know the names of??

X is the absolute crème de la crème of French engineering and I am equal parts admiring and terrified of them. they see the world in 5 dimensions or something. they’re sometimes a little weird and also Very Pedantic, but truly the only cool thing about them is they get a fucking Sword im literally so jealous!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and they’re smart. they probably know how long it takes for that balloon to deflate.

(for some reason they get to march in front of the president on national day as if they were actual soldiers in napoleonic times and not the biggest nerds I’ve ever met asdjfnsjbf look at them. they look so stupid. i am not jealous of their cool ass swords)

during the summer, the students who succeed in the written exams take a further set of exams, oral this time (remember the trajectory of mercury? yeah), for the concours they are still defending – their grades at these oral exams determine their national ranking and the university they eventually get admitted into.

so yes, I am going through this whole charade, and that is why I have disappeared for a while now, and not written anything in literal years, plural. we probably are in agreement that this is way too complicated and that I should already have had my degree in Planes, because oh my god that is literally all I ever wanted, not to find out how many people an ice skating ring can hold in the audience before it melts?? but unfortunately I must carry on with the orals I got. even if the school I really really wanted (the school that is the Authority™ on planes) is in the Mines concours… which I did not pass the written exams for. I may repeat the second year (that is commonplace, though less so in engineering than in hums) and attempt the exam one last time… but I don’t know if I can take an extra year of all of this. so that is where I’m at right now. unsure, and hungry, and in need of a FUCKING BREAK!!!!!!

#i have thousands of stories on this because this system exists as a microcosm in the french education system #it honestly exists outside of time i think #france #french culture #french shit really #clara en prépa

[little-miss-ghostess]

My reviews/rankings of all of Ninja Sex Party's albums after I binged their discography in January

I've been a fan of NSP since 2017, but between 2020 and 2021 I had kinda fallen off of keeping up with them. Back at the start of this year I decided to fix that, and within the span of a few days I listened to all of their albums from NSFW through to The Very, Very, Very, Very Classy Acoustic Album. And during this journey I'd give a review of each album to my Discord friend server as I went.

It was honestly really fun doing this! I like binging things so just sitting down for like an hour or so listening to an album from start to finish was great -- and I know that sounds like the most zoomer-ass thing imaginable, saying "YOOOOO LISTENING TO AN ALBUM IN ONE GO ROCKS!" but I hadn't done that much myself for most of my life honestly!

So now that I'm using Tumblr again I wanna post my reviews from that binge here, partially cause I think it's fun and partially cause I had originally started dumping these Discord ramblings to a site called Listnd but that place seems to have straight up died 🙃

NSFW (2011) — reviewed on 1/3/22

They actually started off decently well. Obviously the tracks here are not as funny or well produced as later ones would be, but there's little about it I don't at least enjoy.

There aren't many tracks here I'd revisit regularly honestly, but even some of the weaker tracks like Manticore and You Can Do Us! sound good and are pretty catchy. I also keep thinking that No Reason Boner isn't that great but every time I revisit it I realize it's actually good.

Favorite Song: Objects of Desire Least Favorite Song: Accept My Shaft Favorite Skit: Introduction

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Strawberries and Cream (2013) — reviewed on 1/4/22

When I woke up, my brain was ping-ponging between BNA and NSP so here we are.

It's a major step up from NSFW. The sound is better, the lyrics are better, and overall the tracks are much more enjoyable. I can't think of a song on here that I flat out don't like unlike the first album.

Some of these songs like Unicorn Wizard and FYI I Wanna F Your A are some of my favorites from NSP as a whole, even if they aren't as super well-produced or full as later albums would be. I could comfortably listen to most of these songs more regularly.

Although it does lose points from me due to the fact that the album only has the first part of Sacred Chalice, which was a 4 part song (part 1 literally ends with "part 2 coming soon"). It's not even one of my favorite songs from the album but only having the first part on there is a buzzkill, especially since there's no full official release of the other 3 parts outside of the music videos which have noticeably lower quality audio. We're going on 9 years since S&C's release so I don't think we're ever gonna get those other 3 released officially, so fan-made compilations will have to suffice.

Favorite Song: Unicorn Wizard Least Favorite Song: Next To You (not a bad song, but I would only listen to it every once in a while), The Sacred Chalice, Pt. 1 (due to the fact that it's only one part of the full song) Favorite Skit: Shredded Metal

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Attitude City (2015) — reviewed on 1/5/22

I didn't intend on this being a daily thing, but as it turns out this was a great goal to set while getting back into Terraria.

Anyway, this is the final album in what I consider "Classic NSP." Back when they didn't have a backing band, their music videos used deliberate stylistic suck to amplify the comedy, and it's the album that I think truly put them on the map for a lot of people.

So... is it weird to say that I found it a bit underwhelming?

None of it is bad, and I'd say that the best songs (Peppermint Creams, Dragon Slayer, and of course 6969) are higher highs than a lot of the best parts of NSFW and Strawberries and Cream, but honestly the majority of the tracks were just alright.

I guess what I'm saying is I could revisit this album occasionally and enjoy it, but I'd probably just stick to the 3 songs I like the most and ignore the rest.

Favorite Song: 6969 Least Favorite Song: Cookies! (it's still funny, though) Favorite Skit: Buttsex Goldilocks

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Under the Covers (2016) — reviewed on 1/5/22

Firstly, brilliant name.

Secondly, while few doubted that Danny and Brian were talented, I think this was the album that made a lot of people (myself included) go "Oh wait they're not just funny sex band, they're fully rounded musicians." Yeah they didn't write any of the songs here, but the musical performances and especially Danny's vocal performance just rock.

There isn't a track here that isn't at the very least pretty good, helped in large part due to them now having Tupperware Remix Party as a backing band so now things feel really full.

My only issue with it isn't even really with the quality of anything, it's just that a lot of these songs don't fully appeal to my personal tastes. Maybe it's cause I'm not nostalgic for them, but again that's not a major issue, it just bumps it down a few points for me personally.

Basically it's tied with Strawberries and Cream for me which is hard to really show on a tierlist.

Favorite Song: The Last Unicorn Least Favorite Song: Subdivisions Favorite Skit: N/A

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Under the Covers Volume II (2017) — reviewed on 1/6/22

Going with two cover albums in a row was an interesting decision that I'm not sure I fully agree with, but hey it's a great album so who cares?

This one is a big improvement from Volume I for me personally cause there's a lot more music here I actively vibe with. The only track here I honestly don't care for is I Wish, but I could easily and happily listen to any of the other tracks leisurely.

Yeah that's pretty much all I gotta say on the quality, it's a great album and I am listening to Your Wildest Dreams as I type this. Only other comment I got is that it's fuckin' surreal that this album is coming on 5 years old cause I explicitly remember watching the music video to Pour Some Sugar On Me when it released during school, specifically during a computer lab trip where I had to hide the screen.

It feels kind of weird giving this the highest ranking so far since it's music they didn't write, but oh well.

Favorite Song: Your Wildest Dreams Least Favorite Song: I Wish Favorite Skit: N/A

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Cool Patrol (2018) — reviewed on 1/6/22

This is one of two NSP albums I own physically, and it's the signed version as well!

Which is sweet cause this is definitely the pinnacle of their discography so far. Literally nothing about this album is underwhelming, letalone bad.

The skits are fun, and EVERY song is a jam. Even GFY which is way more of a skit than a song you're meant to listen to a lot slaps pretty hard. My only real gripes* (*read: nitpicks) are I don't know why the last line of Heart Boner is "Screw you for judging me", and I think the "Madre los mios!" at the end of Eating Food in the Shower is a little out of place (but hey the rest of the song being significantly better mixed than the music video version makes up for that).

Plus, it has arguably the best song NSP has written, Danny Don't You Know, and that gives it a lot of points.

Favorite Song: Three-way tie between Orgy For One, First Date, and Danny Don't You Know Least Favorite Song: GFY (only cause it's more of a skit song than the rest of the album, it's still pretty good) Favorite Skit: Romance Novel

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Under the Covers Volume III (2019) — reviewed on 1/7/22

This is the second and latest NSP album I own physically, also signed.

And it's pretty solid, though I don't think it's as good as Volume II. Again, I'm just not big on some of the song choices. Nothing here is outright bad at all, but some of these tracks don't appeal to my personal tastes. Not much more I can say here that I didn't say for the past two volumes

Favorite Song: Safety Dance Least Favorite Song: Photograph Favorite Skit: N/A

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The Prophecy (2020) — reviewed on 1/7/22

This was my first time listening all the way through this album, as around this time was when I had kinda fallen off the NSP wagon.

And that's a shame cause it is a very strong album.

I don't think it quite reaches the same bar as Cool Patrol as a whole package, but it definitely has some jams here that are on-par. Welcome to My Parents' House and I Don't Know What We're Talking About are still great, The Mystic Crystal is a great musical epic/comedy that may not be as easily re-listenable as 6969 but is still equally awesome, and The Decision Part 2 is a sequel I never knew I needed and it slaps hard.

Even Thunder & Lightning, while still not one of my favorites by any means, is a lot better than I remember it being when it first dropped.

The album is brought down slightly for me by the mixing in a few tracks (notably The Decision Part 2 and Do Math with U) being not the greatest as the vocals can be drowned out by the instrumentals, and Wondering Tonight's mere existence. It's not terrible, it's just....completely disposable. It feels like a throwaway track created to fill out the album a little. It got a couple chuckles out of me, but overall it did nothing for me.

So yeah I can't say it's S tier because Cool Patrol hit homeruns throughout the whole album, whereas this one had a few more issues pop up for me and had one straight up miss, but even so it's still a damn good album.

Favorite Song: Welcome to My Parents' House Least Favorite Song: Wondering Tonight Favorite Skit: The Wishing Bear

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Level Up (2021) — reviewed on 1/8/22

Well well well, if it isn't the Star Wars Special Editions of music.

The idea for this album is great: The first three NSP albums didn't have TWRP as a backing back, so they take a handful of songs from them and re-record them to be more up to their modern standards of quality.

Should've been a slam dunk.

Instead it was a complete miss followed by a faceplant into the court flooring.

I will say this immediately: Just speaking purely off production, this is not a bad album. The songs do sound fuller in a lot of ways. But in terms of quality, especially comparing it to their previous works, this ain't it chief,

The problem is they changed so much for seemingly no reason, and I'm not asking for the songs to be the exact same but with TWRP in the back, but these changes are so asinine and completely remove a lot of the fun from the tracks.

For one, Danny's inflection on a lot of the lines are just so much more lifeless and dull. For example...

"6969" - Attitude City (2015) -- Timestamp 5:52

"6969" -- Level Up (2021) -- Timestamp 5:57

The scene is supposed to be high-energy and intense because NSP is running away from an army trying to kill them, but in the Level Up version Danny just sounds mildly annoyed.

And this permeates throughout pretty much the entire album, especially cause they cut out a lot of the skit dialogue in the songs so Unicorn Wizard just sounds so much more hollow despite having more to it. But they don't cut out all of them??? Unicorn Wizard, Attitude City, and NSP Theme Song have their skits cut, but Party of Three and 6969 don't. I guess cause they're more built into the foundation of the songs, but I guarantee you you could cut out a lot of the 6969 dialogue and have it be on the same level as Unicorn Wizard, which is to say it'd technically work but it would sound way more hollow, so it's weird where they drew the lines.

The worst example though I have to say comes from Road Trip. At the end, Danny dies mid-lyric because he exits his spaceship without a spacesuit:

"Road Trip" - Attitude City (2015) -- Timestamp 2:58

But, in Level Up, they just cut that out entirely so Danny just finishes the song normally:

"Road Trip" - Level Up (2021) -- Timestamp 2:51

Why? That completely kills the joke.

Even the introduction doesn't escape this, cause every original NSP album opens with a comedy piece where Danny introduces you to the album. Here? It's literally just a minute of music with no dialogue, and it's not even that interesting of music.

On top of that Danny's voice drips with autotune a lot in these tracks which really kills a lot of the enjoyment. Unicorn Wizard here genuinely just sucks, straight up. No skits, duller delivery, too much autotune, the instrumentals are mixed to be louder than Danny's voice so mixed with the autotune it just makes it a headache, ugh.

(NOTE: Upon reflection in the months since, I'm not entirely sure that "dripping with autotone" was the best way of describing it. There was something to Danny's vocals that sounded more artificially tweaked than any other album so that felt like the best description to me at the time, but now I'm not so sure cause I don't actually know if autotune was used.)

Dinosaur Laser Fight sounds pretty, but I don't like the ballad direction they took for it cause it's a completely different style than the original and I don't think they lean into it hard enough for it to be a funny juxtaposition. On top of that, it's the ONLY song on the album that is completely different from it's original version, which would be fine if the whole thing was a reimagining of their songs (and if you want to use the term VERY broadly, it is). But it isn't. It's only songs from the pre-TWRP era and every song that isn't Dinosaur Laser Fight tries to stick fairly close to the originals (which just makes the changes more glaring), plus with the name "Level Up" it implies they're the original songs but better.

But they're not.

Oh yeah also they actually added a skit to I Just Want To (Dance)????? Despite cutting out a bunch of others????????????

There's only 1 song here that is genuinely better (or at least on par with the original), and that's NSP Theme Song. Yeah, it does cut out the skit at the end and Danny's comedic interjections, but it actually does sound good, doesn't have worse delivery, isn't drowning in autotune, and the skit at the end was always one of NSP's weaker ones anyway so it's not as missed (though it does make the song end a little more awkwardly).

I have no idea if this was a rush job to put out an album in 2021, but it certainly feels like it. Like, they wanted a different album out last year but it wasn't gonna happen, so they just took this idea and threw it together. It's not lazy, it has effort put into it, but man it clearly did not have enough time put into it to make it great. I appreciate this album and TVVVVCAA for getting me back into NSP but man this was just a dud otherwise.

Favorite Song: NSP Theme Song (only song here I'd actually revisit) Least Favorite Song: I Just Want To (Dance) (weak song not made any better), Unicorn Wizard (for butchering one of my favorites) Favorite Skit: N/A

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The Very, Very, Very, Very Classy Acoustic Album (2021) — reviewed on 1/8/22

The last stop on my NSP journey until their next album inevitably drops, and it's quite a turnaround from Level Up.

I've grown a love for acoustic albums. Partially because my dad has played acoustic guitar for all my life so it's a very comforting sound, but also because just hearing basically the bare elements of songs that were meant to be high energy is just really awesome. So, this was a treat.

Danny's voice shines here stronger than anywhere before, as there's no mixing to try and drown out his voice, no autotune, barely any harmonizing, it's just him and he has a really good singing voice.

This does lose a few points for me cause it's definitely still pretty scripted (the point of acoustic albums is meant to be pretty raw), which isn't terrible but I would've liked it to be a lot more off the cuff and for Brian to actually talk a bit since he still goes silent in this album. At the very least, the framing device of it being a tour no one showed up to is funny.

(NOTE: I later found out that this actually was a live show that they did that they released as an EP, which better explains the scripted nature. I still personally would've preferred a more genuine, off-the-cuff approach, but I recognize that they were putting on a skit for a stage production.)

Dinosaur Laser Fight is better here than Level Up although I'm still not big on it, but somehow I actually liked Wondering Tonight here. Something about it being lofi really helps it out.

My only other comment is that they have a couple songs from Under the Covers here (Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Rocketman) and they have this kinda odd joke where Danny says David Bowie wrote them. It comes out of nowhere and has no real pay-off, and since those are the only cover songs it can be jarring to stumble into.

Beyond that, great album. I don't think I'd revisit it a ton, but even so it's really good, has a very nice sound, and is overall just cool to hear NSP like this.

Oh yeah and Unicorn Wizard here is good that’s a big plus.

(And some skits are still omitted but it’s a lot more reasonable since even with its scripted nature it’s still predominantly done in one take)

Favorite Song: Danny Don't You Know Least Favorite Song: Dinosaur Laser Fight Favorite Skit: Introduction

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

And throughout this journey I had kept track of the albums on a tierlist because I enjoy tierlists, although after my NSP binge I switched from an S/A/B/C/D/F ranking system to Amazing!!/Pretty good!/Solid/Average/Below Average/Ugh... because they better reflected my thoughts:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

WOWIE WOW WOW THIS IS A LONGER POST THAN I EXPECTED. If you made it all the way through my fucking college thesis of a post you win a cookie 🍪

I had other album reviews I did in this style over the course of the year that I want to post here, but now I'm not so sure about that since this ended up being so long 😅 But also it's my blog so I can do what I want right? Whatever, time will tell. I'm probably gonna look into a site called Musicboard for this kinda stuff since it looks like exactly the same site Listnd was but with actually care put into upkeep.

Anyway, moral of the story is that NSP is pretty cool. Thank you and goodnight.

#nsp #ninja sex party #brian wecht #dan avidan #danny sexbang #ninja brian #ghost ranks stuff cause she's bored #music #Youtube #good lord this was long I'm sorry

[cryingoflot49]

Book Review

Honey From a Weed: Fasting and Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades and Apulia by Patience Gray

When it comes to food, Europeans have great traditions. In America, on the other hand, we make ourselves an easy target of ridicule. For example, think of drive-through windows at restaurants. Not only is fast food crappy tasting and terrible for your health, but eating a meal in your car is just downright gross. No class, no style, no elegance, no taste. People turn their vehicles into motorized garbage cans this way. I realize not every meal can be gourmet, but with a minimal amount of effort you can be a little less trashy. And its nice that we have a much broader range of ethnic options than we used to, but so many of these restaurants Americanize their food to the point where they no longer resemble the authentic dishes you get in their nations of origin. I’ve had Thai curries that were so sweet they tasted like desserts and larb without fish sauce. Ask for something spicy and they dump a ton of salt in it. Burritos, nachos, and fajitas aren’t eaten in Mexico. Hummous and falafels aren’t Greek, having their origins in Palestine. Greek people eat massive amounts of seafood but you never see fish on a Greek menu in America. The vomit they serve at The Olive Garden bears little resemblance to real Italian food. Don’t get me going on how fake our Chinese food is. Our fruits and vegetables taste like plastic, unlike the produce in other countries. Obviously not all food in America sucks, but more than half of it does. At least we have better food than British people do. What hell is marmite? Industrial sludge on bread?Axle grease in a jar? It tastes like cigarette ashes with shoe polish.

Mediterranean people, on the other hand, know all about food. So when I heard about Patience Gray’s Honey From a Weed, I knew I had to read it. The author spent time living in rural Mediterranean countries during the 1960s and 1970s with her husband, an artists she calls The Sculptor rather than using his real name. She witnessed the farming lifestyle of people in Catalonia, Tuscany, the Greek island of Naxos, and Apulia, the part of Italy shaped like the heel of the boot, a place where the local language is a mixture of Italian and Greek. As she wrote down her collection of recipes, she decided to put them into context with passages about how the cooking materials were collected or harvested, and detailed all this with short passages about the culture of the people she encountered. What results is a cookbook you can read as part ethnography, part memoir, part travelogue, and part philosophical discourse examining what it means to live a good life.

The recipes cover a wide range of ingredients with chapters on farmed vegetables, wild herbs, mushrooms, seafood, and game. If you’ve ever wondered how to cook a fox, a horse, or a sea urchin you need look no further. If you want to cook everyday items like chicken, mussels, or zucchini you can find that here too. A lot of the recipes are redundant, being variations of food fried in olive oil with garlic and diverse seasonings, occasionally with anchovies or tomatoes thrown in. But here is the catch: the types of tomatoes, or other vegetables used, depends on the season since different kinds of produce naturally ripen at different times of the year depending on the season and climate. These people did not have supermarkets that have the same industrially-grown, genetically altered produce all year long the way we do in the 21st century. European farmers lived so close to nature that the seasons dictated what kind of game you had, what fruits you could pick, or what kind of wine you could drink. It may have been a harder life, but the food was of much higher quality. In the 1970s, Patience Gray realized these cultures were vanishing so she wrote all her observations down for posterity.

The author, rightly so, must have thought that not many people would be interested in a cookbook full of recipes that most people probably wouldn’t use or even couldn’t use considering that some of these food items no longer exist. Some of the cooking utensils are rare or obsolete. In my favorite chapter of all, she gives a detailed analysis of how cooking over open flames with different varieties of wood complement the flavors of all kinds of dishes. With this in mind, you begin to see why these traditions couldn’t survive. Most of us don’t have the time or the resources to find twenty different kinds of wood to cook twenty different meals.

But to get back to the main point, she made this book readable by adding in passages about the different places she lived in. There are descriptions of villages, architecture, farms, kitchens, and landscapes. She makes mention of some of the rural people and their customs along with musings on their religious and political beliefs. With a healthy contempt for the fascism of Mussolini, she points out that these rural people were mostly anarchists or communists. In our day you can criticize these ideologies all you want, but with hindsight you have to realize that when industrial capitalism is the dominant economic system and your community is famished and living at the edge of death, all those “isms” looked like desirable alternatives.

Finally, Gray iterates her own philosophy, simply put, that lacking something is what makes it pleasurable when you get it. Tomatoes taste like ecstasy when they are harvested because the farmers can’t have them for three-quarters of the year. It’s like saying Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if you have it every day. This might be a cause of such widespred psychological dissatisfaction in our times. At least that’s what The Unabomber Ted Kaczynski said. In our age of abundance and mass conformity this might not be so clear, yet we may still know it by unconscious instinct. It is why a rare book might sell for $500 while a mass-produced Harry Potter novel will get a book dealer little more than fifty cents. The problem is that Patience Gray states her philosophical position but never explores it in depth.

In fact, she doesn’t explore many ideas at all in depth. Her writing just isn’t that good. It’s interesting that she created a cookbook you can read, but the things to be read are not always clear or even interesting. The recipes get redundant and a bit of a chore to read and some of the rest of it is just weak in its execution. I am in love with the idea of this book, but not the final product.

Patience Gray’s Honey From a Weed is not one of the most memorable books I have come across, but I don’t regret reading it. Having traveled and studied a lot, I can’t say I’m lacking in alternate perspectives on the world and the current state of our society, but I did enjoy imagining myself being in the Mediterranean places she described. It also gave me renewed inspiration for cooking; I learned the best way to cook radicchio and was reminded that I haven’t had any scungilli in a really long time. Once was enough though and I probably won’t be re-reading it this the future.

#book reviews #patience gray #cookbooks #travel literature #europe #mediterranean

[jonathanslms]

Here's what I missed on ! Tumblr !

It's pretty weird to return to this site after so long. (I'm not exactly a "Twitter refugee" as they seem to be called lmao, more like someone who, because of the whole Twitter stuff, realised that there are still people on Tumblr? And apparently the site stopped their weird filtering/post banning system bc they now allow porn again? Anyway,) I don't remember when I was last active on Tumblr because I deleted my old blog some years ago, but if I had to guess I was probably active from around 2013 to 2015/16 at the latest? And boy, there's so much new stuff...

Firstly, the quality and functionality of themes seems much higher? Maybe that's just because I'm older now, but there are just so many original and innovative themes and pages that, like, are so interactive?? And such a broad variety as well!!!

Adding on to that: Javascript is sort of forbidden?? The work-around is pretty fast and easy (just ask support for permission basically), but still, that sucks lol.

Then there's the whole "you can have an account but no actual blog"-thing?? Idk if I really like that. A lot of people seem to use the site like that, so it's apparently at least somewhat popular. But as a Tumblr-conservative (as in conservative about Tumblr, not a conservative on Tumblr) I must say that having a blog and customizing it was sort of the whole Unique Selling Point of the site, so... interesting choice. (As long as that's still possible I'm still happy either way, I think)

The whole Dashboard experience in general is just so different now. For one, there are ads? I'm not a fan of ads (shocking opinion, I know) and I'm sure had they done it right Tumblr could have become like Ao3 and not even needed them. Still, I don't mind them too much (haha certainly not bc I use adblock :) idk what that is, sounds very morally wrong to me) and I read somewhere that the premium version is only 40€/year, which isn't a lot a lot, but still unfortunate.

I can't even tell which features are new and which aren't most of the time (except for the replying to posts? and THE CHAT?? now that there is one I can't help but wonder why there wasn't one from the start?). I think there's a lot of stuff Tumblr implemented that used to only be possible through xkit before.

Speaking of which: xkit! There's a new version - xkit rewritten - and it's incredible. I didn't even think about re-installing xkit until I stumbled upon a post that mentioned it. Now that I am aware of its existence again, god have I missed it. Being properly on Tumblr without it just isn't the same, man...

Pretty sure the search and follow tags/trending/etcetc stuff is completely revamped as well, but I don't think I used that very often back then anyway. Once I followed a big chunk of blogs I just found new ones through snowballing.

The last thing I can think of that noticably threw me off was the slang? Like wtf is a blorbo? (I actually think I get that one now) What are those other scrinkly, scrumblo, beedy weeby words? Why do I feel several generations older all of a sudden? I can feel the immediate and visceral impulse of disgruntled rejection welling up inside me everytime I see people use any new slang word (or meme, looking at you old scorsese movie that doesn't exist) whose invention I wasn't there for. (please if you've been (back) here for a while, feel free to educate me on the new tumblr etiquette, memes and slang words, I'm curious, I wanna know)

Though that being said, the overall vibes have not changed much. It is still a site that embraces its nerdy lameness and unnecessarily deep deep-dives into ANYTHING. And after the last few months to years of seeing people attacking anyone and anything, and feeling angry/depressed every time I spent some time on my social media site of choice, I think this is a very nice change of pace.

#a bit of a rambly list on my thoughts of the changes on here over the years #god i remember when i first made an account here #my english was terrible #i did not have the first clue on how to change my theme or what that was even called #AND i was a full on larry shipper directioner (my first url was sth along the lines of “larrystylinsonmonstaaa” #i say along the lines... #i think that was it exactly #making myself a tumblr account in 2022 just so i can go on an internet powered nostalgia trip #this time i'm going to fully (and self-aware..ly?) embrace the cringe though #off into the void you go

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

In celebration of the Animaniacs reboot's second season coming out soon...

I'm going to list a few things I think the reboot does better than the original show so far (not including technical things like animation quality or sound quality, that's not a fair comparison). Here we go:

1. There's a "Here's the show's namey" variant every episode now rather than re-used lines (like "Pinky and the Brain-y"). I totally get why the original show re-used lines (although by season 3 they do so way less), but it's just really cool the a new and unique one every episode now.

2. Yakko's role as big brother seems more apparent now. He was always the leader in the original show sure, and he clearly did care for his siblings, but there wasn't really a sense of authority there. The Warners, either alone or together, always did their own thing. The fact that they weren't all (physically) the same age didn't really matter in most episodes, and often only apparent due to their (kind of inconsistent in the original-I SAID I WOULDN'T TALK ABOUT THE ANIMATION) height differences. Now, in addition to him being the leader, there's multiple episodes where Dot/Wakko will ask Yakko for permission to do stuff, like keeping the bunnies as pets or to watch TV.

It's a cute touch, a nice little reminder that "Oh yeah they're not triplets".

3. The PG rating has allowed for edgier jokes/language. Characters can say "Hell" now, Pinky almost said "bull-(you know what)" and Wakko almost said "motherf-(you know what)", then there's these:

It's dark but I think it's funny darn it 🤣.

4. Less mediocre segments. I've said it before, I'll say it again, the Warners, Pinky and the Brain and Slappy carried the original show. I also enjoyed Rita and Runt and Minerva Mink segments, but they were cut from the show after season 1, so that sucks. Every other segment on the show I consider kinda okay/mediocre/bad 🤷‍♀️. A lot of characters would've worked better as recurring characters within segments where they're not the stars. Honestly their absence is a positive in my book, while watching the original show I often found myself thinking "Man I wish this show only had the Warners, Pinky and the Brain and Slappy segments in it". I know Slappy isn't in the reboot but that's not a deal breaker for me (the other two segments are a lot more popular so I understand prioritising them). If no Slappy also means no Katie Kaboom, I'm good.

5. More heartfelt moments - outside of the Rita and Runt segments (as in there's a higher ratio of them, not trying to compare how heartfelt they are). In the original, pretty much the only segments that had heartfelt moments consistently was Rita and Runt (Rita's song about humans, "Smitten with Kitttens", "Puttin' on the Blitz", etc). This is fine, it's a comedy show; but it would have been nice if some of the characters that got a lot more screen time than those two (the Warners, Pinky and the Brain, etc) had some too, especially since there are no Rita and Runt segments past season 1 anyway.

I know before the reboot there were quite a quite few heartfelt moments related to Animaniacs-the climax of the Pinky and the Brain Christmas special, Dot's fake out death (spoilers for a movie from over two decades ago-yes it's that old get over it) in Wakko's Wish...basically all of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock". But most of those aren't actually in the original show, only one of them is. Wakko's Wish is a non-canon (I swear "Animaniacs" and "canon" are two words that don't mix but you get my point) movie and Pinky and the Brain series is a spin-off. If we're talking exclusively about the original series that ran from 1993 to 1998, then only "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" counts really.

Maaaaaybe that one moment in Taming of the Screwy when Scratchy tells the Warners to leave...but it was really quick and not taken that seriously (it kinda just felt like build up for a punchline) so I think that one's a stretch (although it was a little sad).

Meanwhile the reboot already has caught up to it (in only 13 episodes as well) with two moments; Brain's backstory in "Roadent Trip" and Yakko's panic attack in "Fear and Laughter in Burbank". They're both taken seriously, last over a minute and say something pretty interesting about the characters involved. It's just nice to see characters other than Rita and Runt be allowed to have emotional moments (again, within the actual show). It's on-par with the original in this regard despite having 86 less episodes. And there's probably more heartfelt moments to come!

6. The Warner's fangs:

They make them look a little more feral! 😁 Very fitting, I wish they had them originally now. I also appreciate that they (usually) don't have gaps in their teeth anymore. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE their TMS designs, but I honestly prefer the Warners with no gaps in their teeth.

7. The PatB segments. Just in general, overall I like them more than in the original show (I'm comparing them to the ones in the original Animaniacs, I'm not talking about the PatB segments in the spin off series, Pinky an the Brain). Not only are they more creative, with ideas like Future Brain and Julia, they also do the running gag thing less. What I mean is, in the original show their segments sometimes would have a running gag they do over and over within a segment, to the point where it becomes obvious that gag is how/related to how the plan is gonna fail. Some examples of segments that do this are "Bubba Bo Bob Brain", "Spellbound" and "Brain Meets Brawn". Now of course we know they're gonna fail, but trying to guess how they fail or the surprise how how they fail is one of the fun parts of their segments. Their segments are already quite formulaic, so why add to that? The reboot so far pretty much only did this once in "Close Encounters of the Worst Kind", so that's good.

8. More variety in terms of musical genres. Most of the songs in the old show are of the old-school Broadway type of music. There's a lot of orchestral music, a bit of jazz. Many songs just add lyrics to pre-existing music. Which is good, 'cause those songs are good. But I appreciate the reboot adding some other genres in there, like pop and hip hop. They're NOT what you'd expect an Animaniacs song to sound like, but they're still amazing! (like The Cutening song or Yakko's rap).

9. The Warners' morality. This one's really important. Ideally, the Warners should act like karmic tricksters. Yeah they can be annoying to anybody, but are generally harmless and actually pretty friendly if left alone/aren't being mistreated. Once someone actually provokes them though, they won't hesitate to humiliate, harm and drive insane their "special friend". This is explained well in "The Sound of Warners" (credit goes to clownmoontoon for the video):

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qnxp2bDmlE1r1jfup.mp4

Sometimes the Warners don't even need to be the ones being provoked for them to go after someone for being a jerk, like in "Morning Malaise", where they call out a radio show host for being rude to their guests, or in "Dot's Entertainment", where they call out a parody of Andrew Lloyd Webber for placing blame onto his actors.

But then in seasons 4 and 5 of the original show they start bothering people and legitimately harming people who literally weren't being rude to them at all. Some examples of this are "Anchors Awarners", "Acquaintances", and "Back in Style":

I guess I can understand in "Back in Style", they were mad about being sold off to other studios against their will, but they took it out on actors who probably had no say in the matter.

Thankfully, in the reboot they seem back to normal, once again only intentionally humiliating and/or harming people who actually provoked them, be it hunters ("Good Warner Hunting",) cocky athletes, ("Gold Meddlers"), rude conductors ("Here Comes Treble"), etc.

...and I think that's all I got. There are other things too but they're smaller points not really worth mentioning. I do like both series the same but wanted to praise the reboot specifically given that I have done multiple posts analysing the original show.

Season 2, here we come!

#animaniacs #animaniacs reboot #animaniacs 2020 #animaniacs season 2 #yakko warner #wakko warner #dot warner #yakko wakko and dot #the warner brothers #the warner sister #the warner siblings #pinky and the brain #patb #rita and runt #roadent trip #fear and laughter in burbank #the sound of warners #acquaintances #back in style #good warner hunting #here comes treble

[ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa]

Wicked Ones

(A Max Phillips x Reader Smutty One-Shot)

Summary: So, a couple months ago I was sent THIS POST like 900 times by all of you screaming at me because I tagged it as “Max Phillips” so...here it is. This is straight up PWP--Max is the big shot boss that we know and love and you are his long time girlfriend. You both call out in favor of staying home and spending some quality time together--but he has an important meeting that he just can’t miss...no matter what he is doing when he gets the call.  

Pairing: Max Phillips x Reader Word Count: 3k Warnings/Ratings: NC-17/18+ - smut, pwp, choking, dirty talk, rough, teasing, established relationship, vampireness, slight exhibition kink, hand-over-mouth, having sex while on the phone with your job--MAX. BEHAVE. (spoiler...he doesn’t)

[MASTERLIST]

You weren't sure how this had started. This insane competition between the two of you that seemed to be escalating with each round. It was attributed to the fact that you were both stubborn, cunning, and meticulous in your efforts to please one another. But it had to stop sometime. Right?

If you had to think about it, it probably was your fault. It probably all started on that day you brought him lunch to his office. But it wasn't food that you had in mind. You locked his door, twisted the blinds closed and dropped your black pea-coat revealing the white lingerie that he had gotten you on your anniversary. He seemed to understand then--you were lunch.

He was a walking cliché in the sense that white was his favorite color on you when it came to lacy underthings. He liked the way balconette bras made your breasts into pillows perfect for sleeping, or biting. He liked the way you always wore your panties on top of your garters, meaning he could take them off first and keep the latter on to frame the swell of your perfect ass. And he liked the way the white made you look like something about to be sacrificed, and he was the willing volcano. His second favorite color on you was red...typical.

That day he had spread you out on his desk and eaten your pussy like a man starved. No paperwork was safe from the way you swept your arms above your head when he sucked your clit. Unless they were deaf, you were certain everyone in the office had heard you whine his name as he pounded into you hard enough to make the wooden desk creek with protest. But then again, no one dared say anything because he was the boss. Making you, his girlfriend, untouchable.

This morning you had both called out in favor of staying in bed tangled up with one another. And this was the day you realized you were destined to lose this war.

"Max…" you said breathlessly as you put a hand on the headboard above you to push yourself against him as he pounded into you relentlessly.

"What is it, sweetheart? You like waking up to my big dick? Beats the hell out of going to work--" he grit his teeth and gripped your hips, yanking you down the bed and slamming himself inside of you to the hilt.

"Yesss," you whined, closing your eyes and palming at your own breasts.

It was moments like these that Max made you feel incredibly desirable. His desperate, needy nature in the sack was the exact opposite from his calm and collected management style in the office. You did that. You broke that composure down to its purest form and it was a rush of power so exquisite you coveted it as a prized possession.

“Come here,” he growled as he leaned down and picked you up enough to roll you with him to where you were straddling his lap and he was sitting up against the pile of pillows on your now disheveled bed. His large hand came down on your ass cheek and he grinned. “Fuck yourself on daddy’s dick.”

“Max!” you laughed as you put your hands on his chest. “You did not just call yourself daddy--fuck..” You bit your lip as you started to bounce on his lap, the new position making the movement more intense. The head of him hit the end of you easier and it was a pleasant sharpness deep within your lower abdomen.

“Too much?” he chuckled, and the sound went right to your core.

“You’re always too much.”

“And you love it,” he smirked.

"Nah, I only do this for the extra vacation d-AYS!" You yelp when he pinches your nipple in retaliation for your jest before grinning as you fall into a fit of giggles.

"You're bad, you know that?"

"Says the vampire." Before you can continue to ridicule him, he leans up and kisses you hard, stealing any bite that was left to your words.

His lips were almost as bruising as his fingers that were digging into the soft flesh of where your hips met your ass. You felt the solid press of his fangs inside his mouth and you hungrily asked for more. He opened and gave it to you, letting your tongue trace along his own, and up to his teeth. It had taken a long time to perfect the art of kissing him. You had lost count of the number of times you had nicked your tongue or lip when your mouths and bodies were intertwined. But, Max was a patient man, and it helped that practicing was extremely enjoyable.

He pulled back abruptly and shoved two of his fingers in your mouth, barely giving you time to draw a breath. "Suck--good girl." He grinned and he felt your cunt clench around him as he praised you. His fingers pulled from your lips with a soft pop and he shoved them between your bodies to play with your clit as you continued to ride him.

"S-shit," you breathed, the action bringing you closer to the edge. "Is this my payback for earlier this week?"

"What? That little stunt you pulled in my office?" He shook his head after you gave a nod. "No, your payback for that was me eating that perfect pussy on my desk--now everyone knows how good I make you feel."

Although you knew you should--you didn't care. This was part of that power trip that Max seemed to give you when the two of you fucked. And, well, if anyone did dare to say anything...he would eat them. You were certain he had made it his mission to fuck you all over that corporate building before they sent him to his next assignment at another branch.

"Did Evan hear?" You teased, knowing full well about his past with the previous acting sales manager.

"Why do you think I moved his desk closer to my door?" He snarled and flipped you back over, pinning you to the mattress and jack-hammering his hips against you hard enough to make you cry out.

"Fuck!" You yelled as you dug your nails into his back and held on for dear life. The both of you knew that if you said 'stop', he would, but like hell you wanted him to slow down when your orgasm was so close.

"You good?" He panted as he looked down at your scrunched up face and you nodded.

"Right there. Right-there-right-there-right--" your jumbled pleas fell from your lips in a truly embarrassing manner but you were beyond caring. You were just so close.

His cellphone started to ring on the nightstand to your left and he slowed his hips and the both of you looked at it. The flat black device buzzed so violently that you thought it might fall off the edge. Max continued to piston his hips against the backs of your thighs in such a way that you thought he was going to let it go to voicemail. You should have known better.

"Don't move," he said in a tone that it made you clench around his dick. He groaned as he put his left hand on your lower abdomen as if to hold you down, and leaned over the edge of the bed to grab his bluetooth with his right. "Max Phillips," he said, formally as he slipped the device over the shell of his ear and adjusted his knees back between your thighs. "Yes. Sure, that's fine."

You let out a small huff as you looked up at the ceiling and then back to your boyfriend kneeling between your legs. Surely he wasn't going to just sit there, buried in your cunt while he took a fucking call? The thought made you want to cross your arms at him in annoyance. The both of you had called out for a reason, to avoid your jobs. But despite his skills in delegation, Max was a workaholic--even if he refused to admit it.

"Yeah, I do apologize. I woke up and just felt terrible--"

You raised an eyebrow at him as a small grin slowly overtook his well-kissed lips.

"Is this a good time?" He looked down at you and you started to shake your head, eyes widening as if you could suddenly read his mind. "Actually...it's a perfect time. Fire away."

He thrust forward again, sheathing himself inside you to the hilt and grinning when it made your back bow off of the bed. "Max!" You gasped his name and he put three of his fingers in your mouth, gripping your chin and pushing you back down on the pillows, causing a small gag to come from your throat.

"No, that's just the TV." He chuckled and you swear you felt the sound against your clit. "Yes, I'm sure. I'll turn it down...make sure it's quiet."

You opened your mouth to protest not only the situation but his oh so loving metaphor of speaking about you as an inanimate object. Instead, he leaned forward, clapping his large hand over the bottom half of your face. You yelped against his palm and it just came out incredibly muffled. He put more pressure on your body as he held himself up with one arm and let the full weight of his pelvis and belly press against you as he resumed his thrusts.

"Yeah, I originally told them I wanted thirty percent--"

Your eyes were wide as you looked at him, desperately trying to convey with a look how hard it was to be quiet when he insisted on continuing to rail you. You gripped the sheets on either side of your hips and he shoved your leg up higher with his knees and the tip of his cock stroked that beautiful spot deep within you.

"Mhmm," you moaned against his hand, the sheer patheticness of your own voice shamefully making your libido spike. He had you. This was his show. The bedroom was currently his boardroom and as always he was running it.

"No, that's bullshit," Max shook his head, not even sounding like he was exerting himself in the slightest. "They're trying to low ball you, Ted. We talked about this, remember?"

He removed his hand from your mouth and grabbed a handful of one of your breasts. You arched into his hand, biting your lip as he tweaked your nipple. Obviously only half listening to what was being said on the other side of the device, he gave you a wink and your heart did that mildly annoying flop that it had been doing quite a lot lately. He gave your nipple a small tug and when you squealed, he slapped your tit roughly, stealing the sound from your throat with pure surprise.

"Oh...oh fuck, Max," you breathed quietly, but apparently, not quiet enough because he stopped thrusting.

"Just a minute--yeah, just one second, Ted." He clicked the mute button on his earpiece and looked down at you sternly. "Now, if you can't be quiet, I'll make you be quiet." He gave a deep grind of his hips, pressing his cock slowly back into you and you pressed your lips together in a firm line to stay silent. Max smirked, "There’s a good girl."

Oh, you were going to get him back for this.

Max clicked the button again and said, “Alright, champ. I’m back.” He leaned down and kissed you hard, the press of fangs against your closed mouth, a silent promise that made your clit throb. "Yeah, put him on."

Max pistoned his hips against you as they obviously tried to conference call in a third party. The squeak you gave when he hiked your left leg over his right shoulder was apparently justified because he didn't chastise you for it. "Bryce! Talk to me, baby, what's going on? Ted tells me you're thinking about backing out of our arrangement."

He turned his head and nipped the inside of your calf, smirking as you bucked your hips up against his pelvis. You gripped the pillow and shut your eyes tightly trying to think about all of the ways you could one up him--and yet all you could think about was how this new angle had the tip of him brushing against your cervix. It hurt, but in the best way, a short, blunt, feeling followed by the pleasurable drag of his length back through your heat.

He pinched the fleshy part of your skin where your ass met your thigh and mouthed for you to 'open your eyes'. When you complied, he continued.

"Here's the thing, Bryce. A deal this big might be scary at first--but you're never going to reap the rewards if you don't take the risk!" He leaned forward on his knees, pressing your leg back towards your chest and sinking deeper into your cunt. "When you have an opportunity like this in front of you, you have to grab it. Sink your teeth into it, and don't let go until. You. Are. Balls. Deep."

He accentuated each word of his disgusting metaphor with a hard thrust and you reached for him, desperately wanting to hold him close, bury your hands in his hair, anything. Instead he held himself up by locking his left arm rigidly on the bed and grabbing your throat with his right. Your breath caught, and the moan you were about to release was nothing more than a silent vibration against his fingers.

“You heard me--” Max grunted as he slammed his hips against you. “So, just tell me--” He gave a hard thrust and a deep sound of exertion. “What I want to hear--” thrust. “And we can both walk away--” thrust. “Richer men.”

He was close, you knew it, surely he wasn’t audacious enough to finish while he was still on the phone. Who were you kidding? It was Max--of course he would.

You reached up and tried to shove his face to get his attention, put your fingers in his mouth like he had done to you earlier. He obliged and turned his head to suck your pointer and middle between his lips with a loud ‘pop’, laving them with spit. You took the opportunity to then shove them between your legs and play your clit in time with his sloppy thrusts.

“Perfect!” Max said suddenly, and loudly enough to startle you, causing you to buck up against him. “That’s what I like to hear! Ted will send over the paperwork and I’ll get it on Monday--fuck, shit--no, Bryce not you--” he bit his lip and squeezed your throat. The added pressure was just what you needed to peak over the edge of your orgasm. Your eyes rolled back and you hand stilled between your legs as you clenched down around his cock and it was apparently enough to bring him with you.

“Max!” You said, strained against his grip around your neck as you leaned up into his body, and held on tightly to his sides.

“Yeah--yeahthatsoundsgreat--Bryce, shut up. Ask Ted--bye---fuuuuuck!”

Max all but flung the Bluetooth across the room as he collapsed almost his full weight on top of you. He buried his face in the crook of your shoulder and groaned as he came deep inside of you, hot and hard like his breath against your already flushed skin. You clung to him, drawing full breaths now that his hands were occupied with digging into your back.

“I can’t--” you panted against his hair as you turned your head to kiss his temple. “Believe you just fucking did that.”

“What?” he chuckled against your collarbone as he held you tightly and grunted as his cock gave a last twitch inside of you. “You think those big wigs never have a Skype meeting without their secretary under their desks sucking their dicks?”

“That’s different--gross. We’re not debating this.”

“You have to admit, it was at least kinda hot--” he grinned against your skin as he kissed from your pulse point down your clavicle, to the tops of your breasts. You rolled your eyes, putting your hand in his hair as he continued to nibble on all of your weak spots.

“Don’t think you can use your mouth to get out of trouble. I mean it Max--” you words stopped as he took one of your nipples in his mouth and bit down gently.

“Uh huh, yes, of course, sugar tits--ow!” He laughed as you gripped his hair and pulled at the nickname you hated. He settled his face between your breasts and you kept your tight grip on his hair.

“I swear to god, if you try to motorboat me right now, I will kick you out of this bed.”

“You’re no fun.” He pouted as he kissed down your stomach and you slowly loosened your grip on his hair. His hands slid down your body, over the swell of your hips, pausing only briefly to cup your ass as he walked his knees down the bed.

“And where are you going?” You watched him, raising an eyebrow as he rolled his eyes back up to you with a smirk.

“Using my mouth to get me out of trouble--lay back,” he breathed gently against the insides of your thighs and ran his tongue along the front of his teeth. You knew he wouldn’t out right ask, but if he made you come again, you’d gladly let him feed from your thigh.

“You sure you don’t have another phone call to make?”

“It’s going to be awhile before you quit holding this over my head, isn’t it?” he chuckled.

“Oh, you bet your ass, it is. Get to work, Mister.” You put your hand back in his hair and pushed his head down against your cunt. The moment his mouth opened to envelop your clit, you leaned back against the pillows with a heavy, contented sigh and closed your eyes. “Hmm, that’s the ticket...champ.”

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#max phillips x you #max phillips x reader #max phillips #bloodsucking bastards #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro character fic #pwp

[deeenvious]

Okay, so I don't really know how to use Tumblr still but I have very complex thoughts about food colors and I have organize them into a tier list immediately. Literally don't know where else to put this. (NOT COUNTING DESSERTS!!!!) (spoilers for real life)

Okay so S tier:

Red food!!!!! All red food is good. Tomatoes are huge. Red meat is the best meat probably. Does red meat count as red when it's cooked??? It's kinda more born. Don't care it's staying. Red peppers can be good. Apples are a good fruit. Just overall high quality every time really give it up for red.

A tier!!! 1!

Green food!! Almost S tier but then I thought about it and I don't like pears or green beans that much, which are two strikes against it. Green foods are like basically just vegetables. Pickles are good, salad is good. I'm pretty sure everyone likes a good handful of vegetables out of stockholm syndrome. A lot of food is green so overall I think it does a pretty good job. Also it's a popular garnish color I guess.

White food!!!!,!! White rice is a huge boon. Access to dairy like yogurt and white cheeses really bolster up its roster. However I had to put it under green simply because white bread kinda sucks. Really dropped the ball on that one. At least you have chicken.

Brown food!,.! It just has better bread than white. Also potatoes. A very hearty food color.

B tier:

Orange food - Mostly autumn squash and stuff like that. Sweet potato is alright. Pumpkin is big. Very seasonal color. I can dig it.

B- tier:

Yellow food - Originally I was going to put this above orange but while doing my very serious research I've discovered that yellow just seems to be a different color for other foods. Exclusive foods are lemons, corn, bananas, and that's mostly it. Non exclusive stuff is watermelon, peppers, beets, kiwis, figs. Those are all solid foods but those are also foods that are in colors in higher tiers do better. Yellow disappoints me.

C tier:

Blue foods...??? It's just blueberries. That's it. Look up "blue foods" into Google and you will find blue berries and regular food that's dyed blue. What the hell. Blueberries are dope though so I can't deny the technical 100 percent track record.

D tier:

Purple foods................. Wow. A let down. Grapes and plums?? This is just blue foods all over again but you only get a 50 percent grade. That's failing. Get out of here.

F tier:

Black foods just don't exist and when they do its because you burned it and it sucks now. Sorry!

#food #deejay #an original post wow #gaming

[maxwell-grant]

OK, I know this will probably be painful, and I may be a bad mutual for asking but...would you be willing to identify what, in your opinion are the bottom five worst Shadow adaptations, and give a detailed breakdown of why they were so lousy?

Oh christ, okay. I don't think you're gonna get as much of a detailed breakdown for these compared to some of the others, because I take more issue with adaptations that do have good qualities but also big or deep problems to talk about.

For example, I can't include Garth Ennis's Shadow in this list because the comic has a lot of strong points to it, despite a deeply, deeply detestable take on The Shadow's character, where as the rest of the Dynamite run doesn't reach neither the lows or highs of his run. Likewise, Andy Helfer's run has a couple or a couple dozen moments every issue that make me want to tear something to shreds in frustration, but it's also at many points a really good comic with great art and some occasionally very inspired writing. Really, I'd just be repeating myself talking about what I hate in those.

But, fine, let's list some of the others.

I think I'm just gonna have to get the elephant in the room out of the way here, and address that I won't be including Si Spurrier's 2017 Dynamite mini in this list, and I think at least some of you might be angry it's not Number 1 by default. I'm doing this because I intend to one day really revisit it, think about it and it's reception and what it was trying to do, and talk about it on it's own, now that it's been 5 years and everyone has moved on and we can maybe talk about it without kneejerk hatred driving everyone nuts (your mileage may vary on how warranted it was).

I'm also not going to be talking about James Patterson's new novel, because I haven't read it. It seems to be considered a forgettable potboiler by mainstream critics and a resounding failure by everyone who likes the character whether they've read the book or not, and frankly I don't have it in me to learn what the fuzz was about anytime soon, I got my hands way too full as is.

And I won't be including the Batman x Shadow crossovers here, because again, they do have a lot of virtues that put them far ahead of some of the really worst Shadow media, and I've talked enough about how badly I think they mangled The Shadow, which is really the big problem I have with them (well, that and Tim Sale blatantly copying a Michael Kaluta cover, that was really shitty). I don't really hate them anymore, I just get tired and frustrated thinking about parts of them, I said my piece as is. Really, my frustration over this comic is what inspired me to start writing about The Shadow here, so I guess in a way I do owe it at least that much.

5: Archie Comics's Shadow

I think some of you might be wondering why this isn't ranked higher, but to be honest, I don't actually harbor any hatred towards this. I mean, I have to include it, but I find it kinda silly that some people even today actually care about the existence of this comic enough to hate it.

For fans back then? Oh yeah, obviously, but this dropped to such instantaneous backlash that it never really got to live past 6 issues. Really, everything wrong about it can be understood immediately from the covers, and I've actually read the comic in it's entirety to see if there was anything worth taking. I found only a couple of things of note but, no, this really is just a painfully mediocre superhero comic that happens to have a couple of Shadow names in it. If anything, it gets too much credit.

The actual contents of what it is are never going to justify it's reputation, but the existence of it and the disproportionate response to it is the funniest and most enduring legacy it could ever ask for. This whole comic is The Shadow's version of Spongebob's embarassing Christmas photo.

4: David Liss's The Shadow Now

This is another "The Shadow as an immortal in modern times" comic and I think you may have noticed the pattern with those by now. I may revisit this eventually and I do have some moments from it saved for reference, but overall: It sucks, and it doesn't even suck in a way that lets me talk much about it, it's a diet version of Chaykin's Shadow. If Archie's Shadow is a generic mediocre superhero comic wearing The Shadow's name, this is a generic crime story playing beats from movie. The Shadow is an asshole and not even a grandiose or sinister one, he just feels like a sleazy douche in a costume. The art is a 50/50 coin toss between appropriately moody and "Google images with a filter on them", I don't remember anything about the plot other than Khan had a bomb again and he had a daughter, and there were new versions of the agents and the Harry stand-in turned evil and Lamont shacked up with Margo's descendant which, uh, no. I don't really hate this but I really have nothing nice to say about this comic other than Colton Worley's art is nice sometimes. I can't really muster anything else to say here.

3: Invisible Avenger

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZ...

...uuh, wha-

Yeah, I remember nothing about this one other than it's painfully boring and nothing about it, nothing at all, works in the slightest and I drift off to sleep even now trying to give this a rewatch. To be honest pretty much every other Shadow serial not starred by Victor Jory sucks and I don't really have anything to say about them, this one is just the worst of the lot. I dearly wish there was a good Shadow tv series but, if it was going to be like this pilot? Good riddance.

2: Harlan Ellison's The New York Review of Bird

This isn't really a Shadow story as much as it's a Harlan Ellison story that happens to feature The Shadow, but man am I glad that Ellison's "Dragon Shadows" was canned, because holy shit what a goddamn nightmare Harlan Ellison writing The Shadow for real could have been, going purely by the one time he ever touched the character. New York Review of Bird is a purely farcical parody story that wears real, real thin even before "Uncle Kent" shows up, and we get to see in it what is by far the most detestable and irredeemable take on The Shadow ever put on print, and not even in a critique or deconstructive way or anything that could be remotely worth discussing.

I don't hold any particular affection for Harlan Ellison and his writing (despite liking some of it) and I've come to notice the major red flag that is finding someone who looks up to Harlan Ellison in any capacity as a person, and this story in particular really feels like Ellison aggressively trying to channel his jackass tendencies through every line, just him being nasty because he built a personal brand on being nasty. The only reason this isn't Number One is because it's a very short story that saw zero influence or reputation, and thus it only exists as a brief mention in The Shadow wiki, and a brief mention is all it really calls for.

1: Howard Chaykin's Blood & Judgment

I'm guessing most of you already knew this one was in the top spot before I started writing.

I would actually rather not write a big piece on Blood & Judgment, because I think (or at least I hope) it's influence on The Shadow has waned a lot over the years and I would prefer to draw it the least amount of attention possible, but if I HAVE to talk about this, I guess I'd rather just vomit this out of my circuits now instead of giving it it's own post.

I would prefer to use a less unpleasant image on my blog, but if I'm going to talk about this comic, there's no image to better convey it than this drawing of macho asshole Cranston holding a sexualized mannequin at gunpoint. By leaps and bounds, Blood & Judgment is the most misogynistic Shadow story I've ever read. It's ironic that Chaykin justified the rampant misogyny he gave The Shadow with the idea that this is just a man from the 30s would act like, when he admits in the same breath that he never even touched the stories, and he wrote a story more sexist and demeaning to it's female characters than anything, literally anything, written in the Shadow pulps. It's almost impressive even.

I'll paste some segments from Randy Raynaldo's review

In Flagg, he intended to present his own point of view on American society while keeping his work tongue in cheek and acessible. But this vision dimmed, and Flagg had become a vehicle by which Chaykin could play out fetishes and portray gratuitous and stylish violence.

In The Shadow, stripped of the political and social veneer which was supposed to make Flagg unique, Chaykin's sensibilities and excesses become disturbingly apparent. For all of his liberal posturing, Chaykin's work demonstrates zero difference from the same kind of mentality exploited and made popular by similarly violent popular culture icons like Dirty Harry and Death Wish.

More than half a dozen individuals are indiscriminately and violently murdered in the first issue. Although the victims are characters who played major roles in the myth of The Shadow, we feel little sympathy for them, even for those of us who knew these characters at the outset. Who dies is unimportant, it's how they die that is the fascination.

Chaykin uses sexual decadence as a means by which to establish villains, and undercuts this device by making the protagonists as promiscuous as the villains. For all of Chaykin's seemingly liberal leanings, he demonstrates very little sensitivity in his portrayal of women.

Because everything works on rules of three, this comic also follows the pattern with other works mentioned here, as this isn't Howard Chaykin writing The Shadow: it's The Shadow reimagined as a Howard Chaykin character. He looks and acts exactly like Reuben Flagg and the typical macho protagonist of Chaykin's other works, he's a cynical sleaze with an entirely new origin who half-assedly dons a garb to machine gun people, and I already wrote a separate piece on why the machineguns are kind of emblematic of everything wrong with this take.

I understand that Chaykin has, or used to have, a big following of sorts, and I've tried to wrap my head around this for years, but I genuinely still don't get why Shadow fans stomach this comic unless they happen to be Chaykin fans first and foremost, I really don't. Everything, fucking everything Shadow fans hate about modern depictions of the character can be traced right back to this. The parts that stuck and changed the character for the worse, like him being defined as an immortal, bloodthirsty warmonger who got all his skills and powers from a magic city in Tibet, or Lamont Cranston being a coward who fears and hates the Shadow, or his agents being expendable slaves, stuff that has been ingrained into the mythos through this and the Alec Baldwin movie and other comics, to the point that people now think of it as the norm, that it's the baseline of what The Shadow is, and I hate it, I genuinely fucking hate it,

I hate it so much that it's a big part of the reason why I created this blog and why I want so badly to get to write The Shadow, because I plainly couldn't stand not having ways to tell people that this is all wrong, that this is actively shooting down the character's odds for success, and that they are missing out on something really great, because the well has been tainted with garbage that won't go away and everytime I read the words Shambala in a Shadow comic, even an otherwise good or great one, I get just a wee bit cross.

The only semi-redeeming aspects I can think of for this comic is one or two cool moments, like when The Shadow hijacks a concert using his Devil's Whisper or when he tames dogs with a stare. Just breadcrumbs of "not garbage" amidst an ocean of anything but. I hate that talking about why I hate this comic in-length can almost feel like I'm still enticing people to check it out of curiosity, but if you wanna do that, fine, just know this: The worst part of Blood & Judgment, even if you don't care at all about what it did to The Shadow, is that it's boring.

It is a deeply boring comic. If you like Howard Chaykin to begin with, you'll probably like this okay (although even Chaykin fans told me that this is his weakest work and that even he seems to agree). If you don't, I plain don't see what you could get out of this.

The comic itself is just nothing. It's the comic book equivalent of a pre-schooler trying to get a reaction by swearing. It has nothing whatsoever other than half-assed attempts at shock value. The plot isn't there, the ideas are stale, the dialogue is needlessly oblique and comprised entirely of unfinished sentences, interrupted conversations and one-liners without build-up. The characters are all unlikable and uninteresting stooges with no personality, or joyless cartoons. There's no heart or emotion or logic, and it isn't even funny enough to succeed as just an outrageous exercise in 80s excess. There's nothing in here.

I get "why" it was popular enough at the time, a rising star creator penning a modern revival of an old character based on controversy that pissed off the old fans, it's an old story that still gets repeated today. But manufactured controversy is not a replacement for storytelling and it rarely ever exists to benefit the people who actually want to enjoy the stories, it only benefits those for the crude benefit of those who want to sell you something out of the controversy.

I guess they got their money's worth back then.

------------------------------------------------

Phew, okay, I did it, I finally vomited out a piece on Blood & Judgment and some others, allright, let's put this piece of negativity behind us now.

#replies tag #the shadow #pulp heroes #shadow comics #shadow films #dc comics

[atlasira]

I worked at Fusebox, I was one of the writers fired. I want you to know we have had the season written out and FINISHED. Then they dropped the bomb on us. It sucks. I hate seeing fans so upset. It’s also upsetting seeing fans complain about the diversity and inclusion of the game and blame the writers. We pushed for a lot and didn’t get back shit, or got back really choppy content, and if we didn’t go through with the content, we would be threatened with our job. I’m so tired. It’s also upsetting seeing fans on Reddit saying they’ll write the game like we haven’t done it.

okay i’m awake and coherent enough for this ask. i got this super late last night and was so tired i had to put off. but i’m up now! so:

this might sound insensitive, but before we move any further i’m gonna need proof you were actually an employee at Fusebox. you can DM it to me if you don’t want it to be public, but i’m sorry, tumblr is known for THOUSANDS of instances where people have made up the most outrageous stories, especially on anon (and sometimes just dead on a public post!! it’s so weird here) for reasons i can’t comprehend. so just to verify that what you’re actually saying is true, then yeah sorry but i’m gonna need a little proof that you were a former employee. nothing too private, that’s not what i’m asking for, but just smthg that says you were an actual legit worker there. otherwise i’m gonna have to take your ask with a grain of salt, sorry.

especially bc another user apparently got the first half of your message sent to them in an almost copy paste manner with the all-caps and everything, but just didn’t get the rest of your message (which was no doubt specifically sent to me bc of my critique on the mlm representation which is again kinda weird cause if you did read my post, then you’d’ve also saw that i directly call for new management at FB, not necessarily new writers.) regardless, copy pasting an ask and sending it to other people isn’t really a good look.

if you are an actual former employee, then i’m really sorry that happened to yall. getting laid off out of the blue is messed up and is definitely a form of execs arrogantly showing off their power. a lot of the glassdoor reviews speak to the higher ups not knowing nor caring what it takes to make a good game, and them firing the staff that has already created smthg successful and globally well-loved definitely shows this. not to mention that the CEOs response to it was so shallow ugh. it def gives off the feeling that all they care about is money and dont care about the lives of their employees, the happiness of their players/customers, and especially not the quality of their game.

i do think it’s a little weird to get mad at the fans tho? especially the ones on reddit that say they wanna write s4 (which personally i’m super excited to see what they come up with if they do) can you explain why that upsets you exactly? sorry i just don’t really understand.

i feel like fans doing things like that is actually a good thing and just shows that they love the original content so much, that they want this world, these characters, this storyline so bad, that they will come together as a whole to reject heartless copycats (matchmaker) and are willing, eager even!, to put in the no doubt huge amount of effort to resurrect the kind of stuff the original writers have made, even if they have to do it with their own two hands. i think that’s beautiful and really speaks to the love fans have for the game. people saying “i want this content to survive so bad i will use toothpicks and duck tape to make it happen” is amazing.

fans, especially dedicated ones such as that, aren’t harming you in any way and any anger or hurt or etc. you feel should 100% be directed towards the higher ups. and critique especially shouldn’t be shut down bc if no one calls for better diversity, for better content, or etc. then the ones responsible for giving fans garbage won’t get any pushback and will never change. why should they if nobody says anything?

if you’re an actual former employee at FB, then i really am sorry about all yall have gone through at that company and definitely sympathize. i don’t really agree with getting mad at fans, but i’m still hugely sorry for what happened to you. however, if you’re not an actual former employee at FB and are just some dude spouting bs for the heck of it, then get the fuck out my inbox and never come back.

#love island the game #litg #long text post // #asks #anon #if you’re an actual ex employee: you have my sympathies and i wish you well on whatever comes next <3 #if you’re not an actual ex employee: take a step back. i am not the one.