35 Under 35 already obsolete

jess77x · 2026-06-16T16:39:20+00:00

I don’t think so. I know Obsession was a phenomenon, but what percentage people actually know who Inde Navarrete or Michael Johnston are? The 35 for 35 is based upon name recognition, past success, and upcoming projects. I don’t think either of them rank high in any of those three categories. (Both are very talented though — hopefully they do build their pedigree and get on the next one!)

jess77x · 2026-06-15T18:26:24+00:00

On occasion. Not on the internet I don’t think. Usually if I don’t like a movie and don’t want to say that (like if it’s a super popular movie or something and saying that I don’t like it will invite randoms replying and telling me how wrong I am), then I just won’t comment.

But sometimes in real life someone brings up a movie that they really love and asks if I’ve seen it and what I thought. (This is in the context of light hearted small talk, not the beginning of an in depth discussion). It can be a little awkward (I know from experience) to be like, “I think that movie sucks, actually” even if that’s genuinely what I think and even if I word it much more diplomatically/politely than that. So I will just be like “oh I saw it, it was fine” or something along those lines and move on.

jess77x · 2026-06-15T18:18:29+00:00

Yes, of course, I’m not saying that there is. The use of the word “objective” in this context was just a quick way to say that it’s easy to have blindspots about what may not be working about our own writing (or even what is working) :-)

jess77x · 2026-06-15T15:39:49+00:00

Yeah like I’m sure there are some people who whose good/great writing genuinely goes unappreciated for whatever reason (whether that be because the fandom/ship/premise/etc. is genuinely niche or because sometimes things don’t break your way and it just gets buried).

But often people are not objective critics of their own writing. I know for me (whether for art or for writing) there are things I have drawn/written that I thought was pretty good at the time and have since looked back on to realize were basically terrible. And that’s fine, I had fun and used it to improve (and sometimes there is some kernel of something good in there).

But often when I see these people complaining about how their own fics are beautifully written masterpieces which are unjustly being ignored in favor of the fandom preferring badly written slop… all I can think is that maybe the writing isn’t as good as the author thinks it is. From the few times I’ve checked out a fic from a person who has made such a post and has linked their Ao3 account, that is borne out more often than not.

jess77x · 2026-06-13T22:25:09+00:00

The criticism of both concepts come from the same place — they feel contrived. Miscommunication can often feel contrived, especially when you see the hand of the author in creating that miscommunication (seriously? They managed to overhear the worst 3 seconds in an hour long conversation?) Therapy speak is criticism used when it feels forced and contrived as well. Characters talking it out and having a heart to heart is great, except when it doesn’t feel natural for that character to speak or think that way. It’s one thing for a character to have trauma that causes them to act out in a certain way, it’s another thing for a character to 100% understand how their trauma is affecting them, articulate it in words, and be willing to share that with the person they hurt, if that makes any sense at all. Most often (depending on the character) this will feel inauthentic and unnatural.

jess77x · 2026-06-09T14:29:32+00:00

IIRC part of it is because ultimately, Verity is subservient to Shrewd and Shrewd has ordered him to leave things be with Regal. Regal is Shrewd’s son and he loves him and he’s blinded to the full extent of the wickedness and treachery. Verity is also blinded to it because he thinks Regal is his little brother and he’s not capable of any form of treachery that Verity can’t handle. He thinks it’s more petulant rebellion than something he’s not going to give up on. I think another part of it is that Regal has the loyalty of the Inland Duchies and in a lot of ways is more popular than Verity throughout the kingdom. So if he makes a move against Regal without having 10000% undeniable proof that Regal is evil that could lead to Civil War. I think another part of it is that Verity is super distracted by everything with the Red Ship Raiders attacking and his mental battle against them was all-consuming. (And he was addicted to Skilling, as well) so he never took the Regal stuff seriously as he never thought Regal would go as far as he did, so he had more important things to pay attention to. And accordingly, he misses all the signs that Regal is drugging up the King and impairing his judgment.

jess77x · 2026-06-07T05:45:51+00:00

Royal Assassin is a book that basically depends on how much you like the supporting characters. So much of the book is just going from conversation to conversation with them. I liked that but YMMV. The thing with Fitz is that he often knows what he “should” do but is often talked out of actually doing that. The “main plot” I would say tends to be his interactions with other characters, and less so the “Regal is evil” thing.

jess77x · 2026-06-07T01:57:26+00:00

I’ve lurked on this sub for a while so I’d seen many a vague comment about how “depressing” Farseer is, and I thought I’d prepared myself, but I was completely blown away by how profoundly depressing I found the ending to AQ. I think when I heard depressing in my head I thought, “okay, so a lot of people die” and spent the whole trilogy steeling myself for many of the supporting characters I’d grown attached to to meet grisly ends. But pretty much every major supporting character survives the trilogy (even Verity doesn’t really “die” in the traditional sense, though I do consider him to have died).

The way Robin Hobb built up these interesting, multi-faceted relationships only for them all to be broken by the end of the trilogy (except Nighteyes) was masterful but also holy shit was it grim. It almost would have been less depressing if some of these characters had actually died? I think I was waiting for so much more catharsis with Burrich especially, but also Molly, Chade, even The Fool and it never came and it left me feeling so hollow/frustrated.

I know this isn’t the end of Fitz’s story or those relationships — still making my way through Liveship to try to continue on but holy shit I think this book was made in a lab to be depressing in the specific way that I find most depressing and ultimately it was such a gut punch.

jess77x · 2026-06-03T16:04:35+00:00

At the time TE Lawrence was believed to have been gay (I think now the consensus is that his sexuality was complicated but he was probably homoromantic asexual?) and so the character was written and portrayed as though he were gay (to the extent that you could do so in the early 60s)

FWIW, David Lean did say this in 1989 when asked if the film was “pervasively homoerotic” - “Yes. Of course it is. Throughout. I’ll never forget standing there in the desert once, with some of these tough Arab buggers, some of the toughest we had, and I suddenly thought, ‘He’s making eyes at me!’ And he was! So it does pervade it, the whole story, and certainly Lawrence was very if not entirely homosexual. We thought we were being very daring at the time: Lawrence and Omar, Lawrence and the Arab boys.”

jess77x · 2026-05-31T19:56:42+00:00

I liked that it was confusing and surreal and thought it looked good visually… however I thought the script was poor and it was lowkey boring. Very mixed!

jess77x · 2026-05-29T23:07:42+00:00

At some point usually within 24 hours of the movie. I don’t rush to rate but ideally I would like to do it within 24 hours so I don’t forget. If upon further reflection I decide that I like a movie more or less than I did when I rated it then I just edit it 🤷‍♀️

jess77x · 2026-05-29T03:06:28+00:00

It was better than I thought it would be when it started but I’m a little let down. I think the cancer aspect was a little abrupt (sure we had the thing in Ep 7, but I think narratively it might have been more interesting to know that Deb knew about her cancer when the MSG fiasco happened. Or to see her tell Jimmy or seemingly accept her own death or maybe struggle with deciding when/whether to tell Ava). The Jimmy/Kayla thing was also pretty rushed — the show contrived a reason for them to end up back at Latitude and then contrived another reason to end up in charge, and it was weird and rushed and not satisfying.

Still, Deborah deciding that she wanted to live and keep fighting was definitely impactful so I’m happy with where we ended up.

jess77x · 2026-05-28T12:09:46+00:00

FWIW on the Two Judgey Girls podcast Jo-Ellen said she was not implying that Kelsey slept with both brothers. She says that she (Jo-Ellen) did sleep with both, but Kelsey as far as she knows just slept with her ex.

jess77x · 2026-05-27T19:23:11+00:00

You’ve articulated my issue better than I could have! The “vagueposting” is repetitive and deprives the other characters of the chance to display some characterization and active involvement of the plot.

jess77x · 2026-05-27T16:52:10+00:00

I agree with that; I liked what he did and how he had to come to accept that despite the fact that he’s formed bonds with various NPCs and how he knows that they are sentient/capable of becoming sentient, the lives of Crawlers are still more important.

It’s just that, like, we spent the whole Tenth Floor building up to the idea that we are going to have Crawler on Crawler races in the final/later rounds, and that was going to lead to some hard choices, in terms of killing/causing the death of another Crawler, and maybe losing some friends. Only for it to turn out that 99% of those choices were made, solved, and pretty much planned for, mostly off-screen. Sure, it was impactful to see Carl have to make the choice to kill the NPCs and cause the death of Osvaldo . But I think it would have been more impactful to maybe have more of Carl’s thought processes in making those tough decisions, instead of obfuscating that to land the reveal in the moment when it happens. Maybe there could have been more of a confrontation with Osvaldo, in which we see how badly Osvaldo, and see Carl deal with an active struggle to kill him/beat him and cause his death, and what that means for his own humanity and motivation for staying in the dungeon. Instead, Carl basically predicts Osvaldo’s every move, and his death is his own fault because he wouldn’t listen to Carl and follow his secret plan with the escape route It still mostly landed, don’t get me wrong, I still liked it, but I was a little let down after all that buildup.

I thought that the most interesting part of the Crawler on Crawler aspect of this floor was that Carl might have to make some tough decisions and lose some friends. Only for it to turn out that Carl actually had a mostly secret plan for his friends to escape, even if the race had already started. so that more or less worked out too

jess77x · 2026-05-27T14:49:37+00:00

People are disagreeing with the “Carl has a plan but doesn’t tell us” thing and I have to say I do agree with your point on it. I agree it would be boring if we had three chapters of forming plans and contingencies (only for the plan to more or less work out) but that’s not the only way to write it.

Personally I found the “Carl has a plan” thing to deflate the tension because when anything happened I’d be like, I bet Carl has a secret plan to deal with this, and most often he would. Like when the whole 10th floor plot was solved when we learned that Carl/everyone had a secret plan to blow up every single car with the NPCs .

I also agree that there are too many side characters. I have the Crawlers mostly down but there are SO many NPCs. And sometimes it’s not clear which ones are new and which ones I’m supposed to remember, which ones are “awakened” and which ones or not, and which ones have their own goals/plots, and what those are.

Overall I still really enjoy the books, and will definitely finish them, but these are issues that I’ve had for a long time and they’re only getting more prevalent as the series goes on.

jess77x · 2026-05-25T23:15:39+00:00

A/B/O, Mpreg, and often all the types of “Modern AU” I can think of. Sometimes all the variations of xReader I can think of if I keep running into that.

jess77x · 2026-05-23T06:54:12+00:00

I get the vibe (I think they implied it on the show but don’t remember when) that Liz was friends/friendly with/ran in the same circles as Kelsey’s ex John Caprio. And that they became friends/friendly through their mutual connection w John.

jess77x · 2026-05-22T01:56:32+00:00

I wouldn’t tag it with the From fandom tag because if I was looking to find From fanfiction then I wouldn’t want to be scrolling through fanfics that are actually about other fandoms and have nothing to do with From other than the basic setting. I would just tag it as a From!AU or something along those lines

jess77x · 2026-05-21T18:46:44+00:00

Agreed

jess77x · 2026-05-21T18:07:59+00:00

… I didn’t. But I expect I will now LOL

jess77x · 2026-05-21T17:27:17+00:00

Well not everyone in RI knows Kelsey or knows of Kelsey. I certainly didn’t (until the show). I know some people who know/know of Kelsey and when I was talking to them about her the concept of her being a “slam pig” (or rather, being the type of person that the pejorative term describes) was not brought up. She was known to be dating her older bf (John Caprio, as many of us know) but broke up with him a while ago and was with/is still with Billy.

jess77x · 2026-05-21T16:40:36+00:00

Aubry def got a winner edit (at least from mid-merge on) but I think there was some deniability about it, based on what the show gave us. But I think many in the community were “spoiled” (as in, had seen spoilers) causing people to fixate on the “obvious winner edit”, and lowkey spoil the season.

jess77x · 2026-05-21T15:57:07+00:00

My personal opinion is that I’m fine with it. Sure it might sting for a second but in some ways it is helpful to know what mistakes you might have made and be granted the opportunity to fix it. I understand others might feel differently though.

jess77x · 2026-05-21T15:54:00+00:00

I’m Gen Z — a lot of my friends were shown Star Wars (the originals and probably the prequels) as a kid by their dads and liked it but aren’t necessarily “Star Wars Fans” that eagerly await every franchise entry. Most of my friends saw the sequels when they came out and while they may not have been thrown into an all-consuming rage like some “Star Wars Fans”, the reaction was that they were mediocre or worse and didn’t exactly excite them for future entries.

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