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#review but kind of not really

poirott · 8 months

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A Haunting in Venice (2023), dir. Kenneth Branagh

Poirot had been wondering, while eating his dinner, what it was that was driving Mrs. Oliver to visit him, and why she was so doubtful about what she was doing. Was she bringing him some difficult problem, or was she acquanting him with a crime? As Poirot knew well, it could be anything with Mrs. Oliver. The most commonplace things or the most extraordinary things. They were, as you might say, all alike to her. She was worried, he thought. Ah well, Hercule Poirot thought to himself, he could deal with Mrs. Oliver. He always had been able to deal with Mrs. Oliver. On occasion she maddened him. At the same time he was really very much attached to her. They had shared many experiences and experiments together. - Agatha Christie, Elephants Can Remember

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mostofthingsmostofthetime · 12 days

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My thoughts on The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie

I don’t know if I liked it as much as the original films (maybe Mockingjay 1 & 2 as they are pretty emotionally draining), but I still enjoyed it.

I think where it fell a little flat for me is 1. The beginning was a bit slow (tbh I only really started getting interested when Lucy Gray stuck that snake down that girl’s dress & even then I enjoyed the story more when the setting changed from the Capitol to the district) 2. I knew Snow would survive 3. I’d already been spoiled online for a lot of stuff that happens & 4. while I know the director did his best to make Snow as “likeable” as he could for as long as possible, even before he started getting “a little too comfortable” with killing & snitching I didn’t find him as sympathetic as Katniss or Peeta (but that is probably again down to the fact that I know what he goes onto do & there’s no real way around that), this made engaging with him difficult for me.

The world is fascinating. Getting to see all the new locations we never had access to before as well as old locations now in a totally different light (for example district 12 which, while still clearly suffering, seemed like such a bustling industrial town compared to how it is in Katniss’s time). It might have a much more retro aesthetic but there's also just a more vibrant, natural, wild & lawless atmosphere to this movie compared to the others in the franchise. The whole scope of the film just felt more cinematic then I remember the others being yet also weirdly intimate. Maybe because it was one contained story & we knew the main character’s fate from the start. I also loved the title cards signifying the start of each section of the story like from the books & wished they'd done something similar for the other films. It just added a certain flair to the whole thing. Almost gave it the vibe of a tragic play.

The costuming was great. The bright red of the academy uniforms. Flickerman’s snazzy suits. Snow’s dapper black & white outfit. Both peace keeper uniforms (despite one of them giving very ‘1930’s Germany’ vibes) looked great. Grandma might have been a bigot, but at least she was well dressed. Everything Dr Gaul wore (except the top that looked like a used tampon, lol) was exquisite. The main ladies of fashion, Tigris & Lucy Gray slayed. Our Future Capitol stylist looked like some regal yet exotic bird & Miss Survivor was giving Bohemian, country girl realness the entire time she was on screen. Even the extras were serving (like that random couple Snow walked past on his way to the reaping ceremony).

The music was amazing. Every song that played was fantastic (shout out to Olivia for her end credit contribution). The lyrics & instrumentation were beautiful & my god does Rachel Zegler have pipes! Anyone who says the singing scenes are cringy is just stupid like I’m sorry you can’t appreciate art. Also, the words ‘ballad’ & ‘songbirds’ are literally in the title. Plus, Lucy Gray is from the poorest district, so what exactly do those people want her to do in her free time? She can’t exactly hop on an X-box for a few hours. Not too mention that (as the offspring of someone who’s musically inclined) I can tell you, it’s completely realistic for a musician to use their craft to help them deal with trauma & Lucy Gray clearly had more than her fair share of that.

The Grandma'am helped to paint a sadly very realistic background for Snow. As who among us hasn’t met at least one delusional old person who thinks that their/their group’s suffering (regardless of the severity of it or the reason behind their former/newer status in society) means that no one else are deserving of even the tiniest shred of humanity & there are some people who are unlucky enough to not only be related to these people but be raised by them.

Hunter schafer as Tigris is clearly the superior Snow when it comes to things like empathy & overall mental stability but I do kind of wish they’d been more for her to do. Credit where credit is due though her & Tom did actually look like they could be related & I did buy their familial bond (which makes her appearance in Mockingjay so much sadder in hindsight).

Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom was a bit of a mix for me just due to his purpose as a character & the limit of film as a form of media. Like sure the audience know that Snow’s going to become an irredeemable monster in the end but without a window into his mind it really does just seem like the Dean is just out to get him & even when we find out why it seems kind of unfair. Like sure his dad sucked but haven’t the Games shown that blaming children for violence caused by others is unjust (& like ok he hates Coriolanus & probably the grandma but Tigris hadn’t done anything to deserve living in poverty, as she can’t control who she’s related to)? Plus, it felt like he could have at least tried taking Snow under his wing at some point to try to hinder Dr Gual’s influence. Saying all of that, though, Peter Dinklage is great at playing an addict with depression & the idea that some drunken rambling could lead to such long-lasting suffering is terrifying. Also its pretty realistic that living with that kind of guilt & in such a cruel environment for that long would make most people jaded & bitter, even if they did have good intentions.

Omg we finally get a Mayor family on screen & they’re assholes! Madge would be so disappointed 😭. It was interesting to see how harsh & overall “boot licky” the mayor & his family seemed compared to decades later, which makes sense as the war wasn’t that long ago for them so the dad probably felt more incentive to align himself with the Capitol as well as not feeling very connected to the district people as 12’s decline probably didn’t fully set in until they really started running low on coal & Snow became president (oh I just know he wanted to blow that district off the map 😆). I also wouldn’t put it past Billy to come up with some sob story of how he really does love Mayfair but wicked Lucy Gray is somehow preventing them from being together. Still no excuse to try to send her to her death twice in one week, though. Definitely not a girl’s girl.

Ok, so a liar. Cheat. Drunk & someone who hits women. Is there anything good about Billy Taupe? Also, trying to get your ex back, while your current girlfriend is literally standing right next to you? Dude, have some god damn back bone! You made a choice, now stick to it. Also, fumbling Lucy Gray, for a girl like that? What’s it like having no brains or taste? Well, too bad, coz you’re stuck with her forever now, lol.

Viola Davies, the actress that you are. What else is there to say? Dr Gaul is almost comic book levels of insane. Like she is how the Right see women in STEM, on crack! I don’t know what she did to get into character, but whatever it was, it worked.

Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius Flickerman is a very interesting addition to the story despite playing such a small & seemingly insignificant role. He is strange in how unthreatening he is while also extremely blasé about the abhorrent violence he witnesses that it’s as funny as it is disturbing. Making him come across as more human yet harsher than his son, who at least pretends to care about the tributes (in a very Capitol way, obviously but still). There’s also a polish & confidence to Tucci’s performance that I think Schwartzman did a great job of avoiding copying (despite knowing what audiences were probably expecting) because not only are their characters in entirely different stages of their careers but the whole ethos of the Hunger Games is different in Snow’s youth than it is in Katniss’s. Caesar is a well established presenter & during his time, the games have always been a success (minus the year with the tundra) that the entire Capitol is invested in & seemingly in support of. On the other hand Lucretius had the unique task of not only coming into a job like this with zero experience (I mean imagine going from announcing the weather to presenting the fucking hunger games) but also there were no vibes to try to emulate let alone guidelines to follow because he truly was the first person to do this. On top of that, the "event" his presenting has been panned for years as both boring & unethical. Schwartzman brought a slightly awkward, experimental, yet try hard vibe (like a comedian who's desperate to get a laugh) that I think worked wonderfully for the character.

Tom Blyth's performance was great & he was visually perfect for a young Snow (the power of a good wig! Who knew lol). Even having the cool, analytical stare of Donald Sutherland, down pat. While his appearance was very Eminem during his peacekeeping days, his realisation in the cabin and subsequent breakdown in the woods were crazy. There was so much tension between him & Rachel in that scene that for a second, it literally felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. I could almost hear the record scratch for both of them, & all that building paranoia finally coming to a sudden crescendo in the way that it did? Pure cinema!

Josh Rivera, as Sejanus, was honestly a mix for me. Obviously, I agree with his morals, but his way of going about it did seem a little dumb. However I do think it’s pretty realistic that a teenager, especially a rich one, would be rather naive. Also I’ve heard that he’s smarter in the book & I think at times my frustration with him is more just down to the fact that I’m seeing him from Snow’s point of view. Meaning scenes that would be portrayed as noble in any other film instead come across as almost painfully inconvenient because the focus is always on how they affect Snow rather than the actual victims of the situation. Lastly, sorry, Snowjanus shippers, I just don’t see it (especially on Snow’s end), but whatever floats your boat.

Rachel Zegler played Lucy Gray with the perfect mix of natural charm & emotional vulnerability with clear pride in her culture & a refusal to let the world around her change who she is. Yet there was also an air of mystery & a subtle resilience to her that makes her potentially surviving out in the woods for years without being detected actually believable (though I don’t buy the theory that she went on to become president Coin). Definitely the highlight of the movie for me.

PS. I'd love to know what you think of my review in the comments/tags & am open to criticism (as long as it's respectful) just remember that I'm only talking about the movie so please don't reference anything spersific to the book.

#some other things i wanted to mention but didn’t seem significant to put in the review (+ it was getting rather long) are:#Clemensia you were so pretty & did not desserve to die #like who hasn't cheated on their homework a little #may my hair look as good as your's if i ever get bit by a snake #dill & wovey rest in peace my darlings #Lysistrata it wasn't your fault #Arachane you got what you deserved tbh #reaper you have my respect forever king #lumina really said kill um with kindness #no but sersiously i love you girl & your 1950's farm girl aesthetic #marcus you did not desserve that & sejanus is sorry & in my heart you guys meet up & become boyfriends in the afterlife #treech you didn't leave much of an impression but at least your hat was cool #bobbin my little germin looking boy #at least you gave Snow a good scare before your demise #coral looks gay like that's a lesbian right there #thg #the hunger games #the hunger games the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the ballad of songbirds and snakes review #thg tbosas #thg tbosbas #tbosas #tbosbas #tbosas review #tbosbas review #thg tbosas review #thg tbosbas review #the hunger games the ballad of songbirds and snakes review #southern gothic is my new fravriote genre #review

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evansbby · 3 months

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yall I read this book when I was like 12-13 and it was a “sweet valley high senior year” book and yesterday I found it again and reread the whole thing in 3 hours and honestly??? THIS BOOK IS WILD LIKE IT SAYS FOR AGES 12+ BUT IT IS SOOOOOO WILD OMFG!!!

I kinda wanna do a review on it 😭😭😭 like I think I understand why I write fanfics the way I do… it’s bc I was reading these types of books when I was young lmfaooo

I would love to do a review on it here if anyone would be interested in reading? Like it would be a fun, full of pictures type review post where I summarise this wild af book YOU GUYS PLS WOULD U BE INTERESTED

#THIS SHIT WAS WILD WODJSKXKS #I MEAN FOR A KIDS BOOK LIKE WTF #THERE WAS SOOOO MUCH GOING ON #it was also….. well written??#I also used to read Mary Kate and Ashley books when I was young #like two of a kind and so little time and sweet 16 #but they are soooo tame compared to SWEET VALLEY HIGH SENIOR YEAR #like the boys are so toxic and the girls are bitches and OH MY GOD????#I wanna do a lil review on it would yall read????#please tell me you’d read it I’d love to do it! it would be with pics and really fun and interactive lil review post #sweet valley high

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rabbiteclair · 8 months

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PROGRAMMER OFFICE ETIQUETTE

✓ Acceptable: "This service is too large, and needs to be broken into smaller, more specialized services."

⚠ Potentially Acceptable: "I want to chop this service into pieces with a machete."

🛇 Not Acceptable, Apparently: "I want to chop this service into pieces with a machete and dispose of the chunks in half a dozen dumpsters so it's harder for the cops to investigate."

#as part of fixing this I learned that Spring will allow you to inject a reference to a class into that same class #this is of course a cyclical dependency also #a cycle of one entity #which exists in our code for some fucking reason #it's really relieving when I find that this kind of thing predates me #and thus I didn't sleepwalk through a code review and miss it

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commsroom · 1 year

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another consideration about hera's autonomy is how, the way she exists, she is always at risk of being surveilled and being used as an unwilling surveillance tool. her thoughts are never fully private - the others are at risk of that from pryce, but there are additional steps required to gain access to their minds. anyone with above a certain level of competency with AI could gain access to hera's thoughts. maxwell does this all the time, with or without hera's permission: reading directly from her thought stream, going into her head and looking through her memories, etc. and those are the things that are comparatively benign and under more justifiable circumstances.

it's implied that hera can focus more of her attention in certain areas if she chooses to, but she also doesn't really have a say in being everywhere, all the time - she can't turn it off without someone externally disconnecting parts of her sensory system. she cannot give the others privacy, and that's a violation on both parts. basically every antagonist in the show, in varying ways, takes advantage of hera for information via her constant, involuntary surveillance of the people she cares about - to the point they have no choice but to exclude her from some of their plans. even lovelace kind of did this, at one point, and it ends up being something they have in common: lovelace is used as an unwilling surveillance tool for the dear listeners, and that's used to dehumanize her and make her seem dangerous.

#wolf 359 #w359 #hera wolf 359 #kind of a side note to some other stuff i want to talk about #like... i don't know!! feels pretty bad!! maxwell really never respects hera's privacy. even in little ways #the fact she gives permission sometimes doesn't mean much when like. if she doesn't she's going to do it anyway.#i still think a lot about how directly the language and 'solutions'#offered by maxwell in memoria. directly parallel hera's performance review in the live show. deeply insidious #and also just the fact that hera is. canonically. punished for her own private thoughts.

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swaps55 · 4 months

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2023 Year End Fic Wrap Up

Tagged by @cr-noble-writes. Thank you!

Words written (published or not, WIPs totally count too!):

Published: 65,113 Unpublished: 41,773 Total: 106,886

It feels like I wrote a lot less this year than previous years, but I think it’s less about word count and more that my two big projects, Fugue and Mezzo, sucked up my entire mental bandwidth and I just didn’t have capacity to kick out one shots like I have in the past. I have a bunch of ideas for fun one shots, but not enough time or energy to realize them.

Also, this number is by no means accurate. My Mezzo Leftovers document is sitting at 11.3k, and Fugue finished up with a scrapheap of 28.3k. Gosh, it's hard to believe Fugue was actually 2023. It feels like years ago. Just writing it aged me 10 years. XD

Smut scenes written (if applicable): None. Did I daydream frequently and in great detail about how Sam and Kaidan reconcile in ME3? Yes. Could I write it in my sleep at this point? Also yes. Did I write a word of it? No.

New things I tried: 2nd person POV, Mordin POV, and EDI POV were all new and very scary things I tried, and think were largely successful (jury is still out on EDI and Mordin because only my beta has seen it, but I’m pleased with them).

Fic I spent the most time on: Probably Mezzo, because I wrote more of it than Fugue in 2023.

Fic I spent the least time on: Probably Capriccio, because it was short and mostly wrote itself.

Favourite thing I wrote: Well…I wrote so little outside of the long fics, because they have sucked up all my time and spoons. Fugue is something I am so proud of, but Mezzo has been so fun.

Favourite thing I read: A Sip of Serenity was a Spec Recs Kaidan & Liara treat fic for me by @screwyouflightlieutenant and I love it with an unholy love. Also, Madrigal and Volta by @dandenbo are PHENOMENAL stories you should drop everything and read.

Writing goals for next year: Finishing Mezzo sounds ambitious, but I guess I can be ambitious in January. XD

Tagging...I don't know! Who hasn't done this? If you haven't, please do it and tag me, because I wanna see. @stormikins? @otemporanerys?

#mememe #2023 year in review #meme replies #how writing is written #i've been feeling Some Kind of Way about writing lately #not frustration or apathy towards WRITING #i am still loving the hell out of that part #but this general malaise and mental exhaustion that takes away my spoons to write is becoming something i really resent #if i could take a 2-3 month sabbatical and just...rest and write and recover from...[gestures broadly] this #i think i'd be a whole new person #but alas #capitalism and all #i think i need to just be more firm with myself that writing good stories take time #i don't do me or anyone else any favors by fretting about speed and schedule #if mezzo takes forever #people will either stick around to read it or they won't #it's more important i write the story i will be proud of #anyway i've had a lot on my mind lately #Deep Thoughts With Swaps #or something #it's just weird feeling creatively pumped up and also utterly demotivated at the same time #the spirit is willing but the Swaps is very very tired

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charmwasjess · 4 days

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Still reading The Living Force. I'm actually much farther in now than when I took this pic over the weekend, before I got kicked out of the winery for throwing the book across the room--

No, no, I kid. In fact, there's lots to like about this book. Much of it is warm, funny, and full of Jedi details and lovingly crafted little scenes given to more obscure Council characters. Depa and Mace continue to shine.

I'm still... very much struggling with some aspects, some inconsistencies and contradictions that I can't tell are there on purpose to make a point in the narrative, or just unsuccessful writing. But I'll try to post an actual write up shortly when I'm officially finished.

#hey Protobranch crisis mention for you Dooku: Jedi Lost fans #one of the contradictions I was talking about actually lol #I really am trying to divorce myself from my inherent need to defend a thesis about how Sifo-Dyas did nothing wrong HE WAS A SAINT #you can see how successful I was when I write up my review #spoiler alert not very #but I'm also trying to keep in mind that a lot of my favorite Star Wars books I kind of hated at first #like actually I think my first reaction to DJL was “what the fuck did I just read” and the Yoda comic I did actually throw #not Dark Rendezvous though Dark Rendezvous you've never done anything wrong #star wars books

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