#and of course it’s not a perfect formula; i read a decent debut this year by a writer trying to be very active on socials and idk how much

[no-where-new-hero]

omg I need your thoughts on the terminally o line author culture bc ngl it makes my eye TWITCH, there are authors I deliberately avoid even tho I've heard their stuff is good bc they're like that 🙈

HHHHH oh good lord, okay, from how I see it, there are two angles on this, both aggravating and sad: the official decree one and the spontaneous ecosystem one.

The officious one is that the nature of publishing nowadays demands an author have an online presence. You need Twitter/X. You need to let every potential reader know your book is coming out. You need engagement through reviews and pre-orders incentives (if you buy now you’ll get a special keychain!!) and word of mouth assurances from your peers that yes your book is as cool as you say it is. You need a newsletter with links (more buying! more voting on lists that are simply popularity contests!) and promises you’re still working on the next thing, don’t forget about me in the morass of everyone else doing the same thing. You need an Instagram and TikTok now to post pretty pictures and videos because one or two authors made it big off this kind of promotion and now everyone thinks it’s the ticket to the bestseller list (sadly, it seems to be working). You need an OnlyFans (a joke but I do recall a twt spat that was a joke/not joke about how rupi kaur will always be more beautiful than her critics and people who took issue with the conflation of beauty with talent). At the end of all this, you’re basically an influencer, a content creator creating content for the content you should be focusing on creating, the finished novel. And the novel itself seems to be disappearing behind the masks used to promote it (fanfic-style tropes, moodboards, playlists, memes) until I now no longer trust the book that I’ll pick up to have any resemblance to the enticements that brought me here. I’ve seen an author or two complain about the stress all this self-promotion generates, but it’s become such an entrenched part of the industry, I think people just accept it. And thus spend too much time online hoping that if they tweet just a little more, produce just one more reel, maybe that’ll be the difference between a sale and no sale.

The other side of this, distinct but obviously connected, is the ecosystem created by this panic of being perpetually visible coupled with the fact that so many of the new authors came of age during the rise of internet fandom culture. That opinionated community mindset that blurs the line between anonymity and friendship is the lens they bring to their own work. I mean, it makes sense I suppose—if you love yelling about characters and words, why wouldn’t you do that once you start to produce your own? This really came home to me hearing about that reviewbombgate “scandal” and how people involved were in reylo circles and that was used to provide receipts. You’re interacting with your readers and peers about your intimate work but they are also all strangers. They will not always give you the benefit of the doubt, and now—as opposed to the past when maybe the worst that could happen was a handful of bad reviews in newspapers—you will either be tagged in hate reviews, sub-tweeted, explicitly called out, demanded to atone for your sins. It’s no longer the morality of consumption but the morality of production. Of course, the easy answer is just log-off, touch some grass. But that can work only when you and everyone else are separated by anonymous accounts or when you have no platform to maintain. As an author trying to make your livelihood from this, suddenly it’s do or die. We’re in a strange moment of authorship bringing the Internet’s echo-chamber and claustrophobic into the real world (this is a lie: publishing now is no longer the real world. But it looks like it) and thus you can kind of no longer escape things.

Will the average reader who isn’t aware of all these machinations care about reviewbombgate? Would a reader browsing at Target think about the controversies around Lightlark? Very likely not. But the impression I’m getting more and more is that the average reader isn’t the one buying all the books. Or shall we say—a bestseller’s status relies on bookstore stock. Bookstore stock is only huge when they know a book will be a good investment. They’ll only know a book is a good investment if it and its author has street cred based on booktokkers, bookstagram, bloggers and reviewers (have you noticed how many books out these last maybe 1-3 years have these kinds of accounts thanked in the acknowledgments? Yeah), and THESE are also chronically online people who will Know. And decide the cast of fate.

Honestly, @batrachised, I see why you avoid these kinds of writers, though I wonder how long it’ll be before the disease becomes epidemic.

#i’m very doom and gloom about this if you couldn’t tell from my tone lmao #and of course it’s not a perfect formula; i read a decent debut this year by a writer trying to be very active on socials and idk how much #of a splash her book made because literary sff is a dying genre even with an ecological bent compared to the glut of romantasy #also this feels very timely because the goodreads choice awards were just announced and i am seething at seeing d*vine r*vals #get another accolade to its name #blake’s last braincell #blake talks shit #writing life

[nicomoviewatchinpsychopath]

Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Review

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG: VIDEO GAME BASED MOVIE IS FORMULAIC BUT OFFERS PLENTY OF FAST-PACED FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY AS WELL AS LONGTIME FANS! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

The world’s fastest hedgehog hits the big screen in Sonic the Hedgehog

PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND SEGA

The blue blur (or Blue Devil as the movie calls him) makes his big screen debut in Sonic the Hedgehog, based on the beloved Sega video game franchise of the same name. Believe it or not out of all the video game franchises, my favorite is and always will be Sonic the Hedgehog and have been a proud supporter of the hedgehog since childhood.             

Granted, it wasn’t until after Sega became a third-party developer for consoles like PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo when I became a fan of the blue hedgehog, but ever since I got my hands on the Nintendo GameCube port of Sonic Adventure 2 as a kid, my Sonic fandom was pretty much instant. I’ve played many of the video games both old and new, watched all the cartoons, read the comic books published by Archie Comics at the time, and I owned several action figures, plushies, and other Sonic merchandise throughout my childhood…in fact I still have most of those even to this day.             

I’ve been clamoring for a Sonic the Hedgehog theatrical movie for years despite video game film adaptations usually being critical and/or box-office poison. But given the popularity of Sonic especially during the 90s when he was rivaling Nintendo’s Mario franchise who already had a theatrical film released in 1993, I’d assume one would have been made back then or at the very least in the early-late 2000s when Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, and Sonic Heroes as well as the hit Saturday morning anime series, Sonic X were released, I was so eager for a Sonic movie that a couple of friends and I got together and made movies of our own when we were kids (They sucked BTW!).             

After years of waiting and Sonic making a few big screen appearances prior in Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph movies and Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, the beloved hedgehog finally gets a movie of his own which leads us to today. The film is directed by newcomer Jeff Fowler in his directorial debut, produced by Neal H. Moritz (Fast & Furious franchise, XXX, 21/22 Jump Street), and executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and is a live-action/animated hybrid (Yep, just like Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs), which had me very worried when it was announced back in 2014 and was even more worried and disgusted when the first trailer came out last year which had an absolutely atrocious design for Sonic, fortunately they fixed it.

So, how does Sonic’s first movie hold up? Honestly, while I can’t call it the Sonic movie I wanted as a child, I had a fun time with it. It isn’t a perfect representation of its source material and the plot is pretty generic, but the charm of the film’s leads, humor, and subtle references to the games that inspired it are enough for me to overlook that flaw.             

The film follows Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz-Parks and Recreation, The Other Guys, The Walk), blue anthropomorphic talking hedgehog from another dimension with extraordinary speed who travels to Earth to escape from those who want to capture him and harness his power. However, when he accidentally causes a power outage while hiding out in the town of Green Hills (Get it?), Sonic is targeted by the government and the tyrannical mad scientist, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey-Ace Ventura 1 and 2, The Mask, The Truman Show) who plots to use Sonic’s power for world domination.             

This forces Sonic to team up with Green Hills sheriff, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden-X-Men franchise, Enchanted, Westworld) who agrees to help Sonic on his adventure to find his missing bag of magical rings that have the power to get him home. Of course, while getting into all sorts of trouble along the way.             The film also stars Tika Sumpter (Ride Along 1 and 2, Get On Up, Southside with You) as Tom’s wife Maddie, Adam Pally (Happy Endings, The Mindy Project, Iron Man 3) as Wade Whipple, and Neal McDonough (Star Trek: First Contact, Band of Brothers, Justified) as Major Bennington.             

Overall, Sonic the Hedgehog probably isn’t the movie longtime fans wanted, but it still manages to be an entertaining and fun adaptation in its own right. It’s easily one of the best films based on a video game alongside Pokémon: Detective Pikachu and The Angry Birds Movie 2 and shows that we’ve come a long way since the dark days of Uwe Boll’s directing career.

As mentioned before, the plot is nothing special and rehashed from other kids’ movies however what sets this apart from things like The Smurfs or Masters of the Universe is that Sonic and Tom do have a strong chemistry together. It’s amusing to see them interact with each other on their road trip, cracking jokes, getting into trouble, and over the course of the film they learn more about one another thus making you care more for them over ANY Smurf or Chipmunk. 

While there are a few jokes that don’t quite stick the landing, the humor for the most part not only made me laugh but there were moments in this movie where I laughed hard. Whether the film was poking fun at the entire Sonicfranchise, a particular running sequence that’s obviously a reference to the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men movies, or Sonic breaking the fourth wall similar to Deadpool, I was laughing while also admiring how clever some of these jokes are, and let’s not forget Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, but we’ll get to him momentarily.

The redesigned Sonic is a lot better than what we could have gotten, he doesn’t have those ugly small eyes, questionable muscular arms and legs, or the terrifying human teeth anymore. Now, his appearance is more faithful to the source material recreating the hedgehog’s cartoony nature but is different enough to stand out from the rest of the character’s previous designs and be its own unique creation, this is a really good design for Sonic and had the filmmakers went with their original version, this movie would have crashed and burned even harder than Sonic ’06.

Besides Sonic being more appealing to look at now, he’s also just as entertaining to listen to, Ben Schwartz while he’s far from being a replacement for Roger Craig Smith, Ryan Drummond, Jason Griffith, or even Jaleel White, does a solid job providing Sonic’s voice and captures the cocky, arrogant, but good-natured attitude Sonic is known for having. He actually almost sounds like Ryan Drummond’s Sonic voice without sounding like a cheap impersonation.             Moving on to Sonic’s new friend that doesn’t have two tails, James Marsden as Tom, his performance is decent even though he doesn’t quite make as big an impression as Ben Schwartz’ Sonic and especially Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik. With that said, he gets some funny lines once in a while and as mentioned before has good chemistry with Sonic, so yeah, believe it or not James Marsden was partnered up with another CG animated character and this time came out with his dignity unlike his performance in Hop.             

Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik owns every scene that he’s in, he’s no Mike Pollock and is a radically different Robotnik than from the games, but Carrey’s energetic and wildly animated personality shines through and gives a million percent whenever the crazy evil genius is on-screen. He’s certainly a lot better than Dennis Hopper as Koopa from the Super Mario Bros. movie.

Hopefully, this movie will be a hit during its theatrical run because I’d love to see a sequel especially if it introduced other Sonic characters like Tails, Knuckles, or even Shadow. Don’t make this like the recent Power Rangers movie, I need my big screen version of those characters!

Whether a fan, newcomer, or just looking for something fun to take the kids to, Sonic the Hedgehog should make everyone happy. It’s not perfect but it has enough action, wit, and charm to make it worth checking out. You’ll be “Up, Over, and Gone” before you know it.

For more movie reviews please visit: https://moviewatchinpsychopath.blogspot.com

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog movie #sonic #jeff fowler #ben schwartz #james marsden #jim carrey #sega #paramount #paramount pictures #neal h. moritz #tim miller #original film

[idolizerp]

[ LOADING INFORMATION ON OLYMPUS’ LEAD RAP, SUB VOCAL JUNE…. ]

DETAILS

CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 18 SKILL POINTS: 10 VOCAL | 07 DANCE | 10 RAP | 13 PERFORMANCE

INTERVIEW

Somewhere between scribbles of organic formulas and sloppy syllables of chemistry notes the words ‘’chain reaction’’ were written in midst of yellow highlighter. Had Junhai opened his notes, the road he’d gone through would have made much more sense. The simplicity of lacking in a skill crucial for his environment – the Korean language – had Midas media giving the boy on the edge of debut orders in the delicate form of advice. If you don’t know how to say it, don’t talk at all. Such simple words helped him make a conscious decision of sinking his teeth into his tongue, no matter how much it wanted to cut loose. It formed a whole delusion around the young man right from the start of his career. Unapologetically held eye-contact with ones hovering at the tip of his nose, foot gently swinging on top of the other, shoulders back and a tilted smile pulling up the corners of stained lips mixed well with overall soft features into a mirage of a foreign prince or at the very least – a well-mannered diplomat. Staying relatively quiet until pushed to talk did him justice, short and sweet answers to questions received the perfect amount of minimum to keep Olympians happy.

“You seem soft,” was an implication Junhai often received in fansigns in various shapes and forms. For a moment the answer was replaced with the idol leaning forward, nimble fingers catching the lukewarm digits of a fan and placing their palm right on top of his neatly styled hair. “Am I?” An unnecessary plead of confirmation and a simultaneous offer of freedom for the fan. Bait witch was always taken whether it was a loving pet or a slightly uncomfortable attempt to collect DNA samples for possible cloning in the future, a collection of similar occurrences easily found and compiled in fan videos along with titles of ‘ June poking fans’ cheeks’ and ‘ June making fans blush for five minutes straight’.

There was no spite for Junhai to act the way he had in front of the masses of fans of Olympus. No hidden agenda, other than compensation for a lack of words he desperately wanted to say but was forbidden to. That’s how idols act, right? Well, no, as interviewers questioned his intentions for the sake of variety, to which the young man could only respond that he loved Olympians very much – the only politically correct response in the idol chaos.

Lack of words spoken could have been his greatest strength, hadn’t it been his greatest weakness, leaving him defenseless. ‘If it’s not scripted, you don’t say it’ was an imposed motto, his overall considerate and diplomatic nature chained up and drowned for at least eight years in front of the masses. The inappropriate level of fanservice he caught up to too late to take back gathered loyal fans along with stable saesangs, because of whom June was swept into situations he later couldn’t explain himself for due to the image that had been created – the too accessible prince who can be shared by all. It’s not like he would ever refuse it, only we are in his heart, he loves us too much, they claimed who he was right to June’s face, the ten year contract a heavy weight, making him nod his head and taste blood in his mouth. The man became property in the socialist society of the ones that claimed to be their fans as he kept on smiling warmly at his friends behind closed doors “I’m fine, really. Let’s talk about you.“

BIOGRAPHY

i. Junhai’s father wholeheartedly believed that the reason his son was average is due to the blood that ran in their offspring’s veins. One couldn’t expect someone related to middle ground to become spectacular – June didn‘t have the genes for that, having born into a family of two middle children with boring lives they chose to carry in Guangzhou, China.

Whether it was a placebo effect or not, Junhai was simply average at everything he’d ever chosen to do. He tried soccer, but he only became a professional bench boy. Wood warmer, they called him, as he wasn’t fast enough or sharp enough to join other players on the field. Fencing was thrilling. At least for those who managed to skillfully hit targets and gather points. Not Junhai, unfortunately. He came across drawing, yet no matter how many pencils he used up, there was always someone around him who shaded better and drew better proportions by the rule of the thumb. He was never a top student either, ‘Li Junhai’ always resting somewhere in the middle of a long list after class evaluations. Popularity didn’t mold with him, too, eyes often shifting to his athletic friends or the publicly notorious outcasts he exchanged small talk with. Attention was never on him, it slipped past the boy and lurked around the manifestation of a bare minimum of a personality. It was was almost beyond belief how Junhai had passed the Midas Media audition with a score above average, believing that maybe he had finally found something he wasn’t just ’alright’ at.

ii. “At this point you’re either good, or they will make you good, kid,” was something he heard once he stepped onto the foreign land. Yet, the first year in Korea was a blur of syllables and noises the thirteen year old desperately tried to make sense of as his tongue twisted and turned in failed attempts to communicate with those around him. It was a proper inconvenience to his roommate, who ended up nursing a preteen with the intellectual capacity of a toddler. Or so it seemed, as any reminder of a practice or invitation to a meal was greeted with a pair of knitted eyebrows and Cantonese mutters, while hours dedicated to sleep were disturbed by the foreigner trying to read his Hangul schedule into a translator.

Time was powerful – lesson learned after a proper amount of time and double the amount of effort. Words directed at him didn’t sound like white noise. Hangul wasn’t just scribbles. Messages came through without any interruption. It evolved into Junhai repeating the sentences directed at him in an attempt to form variations in his head which were later verbalized as he tried to communicate like a functioning human should. It was hilarious, the way he spoke without knowing proper words or diction, the base of his sentences formed only by an overall structural understanding. Scissors became sharp cut sticks and toothpicks were sharp mini wood sticks. The sweet combination of mispronunciation along with a relatively limited vocabulary won over some snickers around the company. Had he known the good-nature of the laugh he drew, maybe his stomach would have stopped sinking whenever people expected words coming out of his mouth.

iii. Understanding the language unlocked a new level of comfort and security. The small room he lived in didn’t seem so alien, the streets weren’t that bewildering and the features his eyes stuck upon weren’t uninviting anymore. The mundane life of a trainee caught up to the teenager quicker than one would expect. Yet, no complains or hints of exhaustion were ever heard from the boy. On the contrary, Junhai reached out for ‘above average’ right when making sense of his own schedule and duties allowed him to put his all into training. But overtime could not save a boy of an unclear focus.

“What am I?”

No one ever told Junhai what they were planning for him, training hours marked no certain direction either. You hit that note? Good. You learned that choreography? Good. Your tongue didn’t twist while rapping? Good. Yet, in comparison to others around him, he lacked a spotlight skill and no one had any intention of giving him one. Therefore, his training felt loose and messy. While he did give his whole to train the modest amount of talent he had naturally, lack of a clear path distributed his energy in a way that didn’t allow Junhai to reach the level of skill he wanted. “You’re good. Not great, not special or spectacular. Just good.”

An alright vocalist, an alright rapper, a decent dancer. That was it, he was just.. Good. Not a step over, not a step below.

iv. For someone labeled as average, Junhai wasn’t sure why it was that he belonged in the lineup for Olympus. Charms that he might have had were useless due to how exchangeable he felt, many stronger contenders left lining up behind his back. It only came to him later, that he was just as much interchangeable and that’s why he was wanted. To be the middle ground that fills in the gaps - lines that were too unimportant to belong to main members of the group. A member can sing it better? June, do an ad-lib. Another member can rap better? June, take the background vocal. From multiple well-tailored lines in the subunit he debuted in his position switched to a few bars and maybe some lines if the producer felt generous. Never more, just enough to fill in spaces.

Junhai felt like he was a background member, not important enough to take much lead, not unimportant enough to be kept in the shadows. His members were talent and he was.. There. The feeling of low importance molded the barely existing relationship with the Olympus members. He never held it against them either. It’s my problem, he told himself, I can’t offer much. Therefore, decisions in which the members took part in slipped past his ears and if not the few fans he gathered offering himself to them due by stares and dimpled smiles, maybe no one would really notice if he had been dropped.

v. He really didn’t like being quiet, barely shutting up behind closed doors. His friends could only laugh about it, of course you have a lot to say after bottling your voice up. Yet, the ten year contract hung heavy on his neck like a chain. A bobble-head, well controlled by Midas media. One that got used to the slow attempted homicide of his own character. He wasn’t even that mad anymore, relying on charms and foreign mysteries to keep himself afloat in midst of the talented group. So much that people following Junhai start to seem mundane. There weren’t any ways to object the generous public figure he himself created. They followed him on stage, they followed him abroad, snuck into bathrooms and left presents at his doorstep. And when a number of Olympus fans kept themselves in tact, there was no getting away from the ones that didn’t. After all, he was public property even at the point when forceful pull of an open-hearted fan managed to dislocate his shoulder.

Olympus’ Junhai minor injury practicing; Olympus wrap up ‘Tell me’ promotions as five.

Minor. Did all minor injuries take more than a few months to heal? Midas knows best.

vi. Sometimes his modestly sized friend group worried about the lack of a fitting reaction for being mistreated. June never got mad, never cried or showed signs of distress about it. A dimple appeared on his cheek whenever questioned, as he beamed brightly at his company. “It’s my job, I’m used to it. No big deal.”

Junhai never lied to his friends. Unless the topic was his career.

vii. Guangzhou missed him, or so his mother told him whenever he Skype-called his family whom he hadn’t visited in years. How were his friends doing? That one’s married, that one became a surgeon, the other one has three children already. What he’d done in eight years? Really didn’t feel like much. He became an average member of a boy group in Korea with some lines and screen time. Somewhat liked, somewhat disliked. Needed, but not to the point of survival.

“I don’t think I will continue,” he admits time and time again into the glossy faces of his parents on the screen. “When the contract ends, I mean. We have over two years, the members will likely be planning their military service. And I’m not good enough to be a soloist.” It’s nice to talk in Cantonese again, he notes to himself. “I don’t think I belong here.”

As his mother kept howling into the microphone, he could hear his father murmur the same truth he’s been telling right from the start - mediocre people can’t escape their genetics.

#id.bio #id.olympus #id.midas #id.zhang yixing