aradia22

It makes Charles come across worse. It validates the need for a clean break when he's clearly pining after Liza and always challenging her feelings. Maybe she is lying to herself about what she really wants. But that's a decision she needs to make for herself. Otherwise, it feels like you're manipulating her. Co-sign to everything @Sulk said. Also, even though they keep mentioning Gemma, I'm side-eyeing his apparent great dad status. Forcing Caitlyn to give up a career opportunity to stay in New York but then being so reluctant to compromise his artistry with the Forever21 knockoff... I don't know. At least for me, I don't think he's coming across as well as the writers think he is. Do you know how many 30-somethings would love a decently paid job in publishing? If the whole point is getting a millennial POV to back up Liza and Diana, it would not be that difficult. I guess it's good that they're working to hang on to their one non-white cast member. But Zane is terribly written. They went in too hard on making him an antagonist and now he's only a marginally better love interest than Thad or Chad or whatever his name was.

I hate siding with Zane. But Kelsey was childish to leave Millennial/Empirical/whatever it's called now. Her professional opportunities hadn't really dried up. The way it was presented in the show, it was more about pride and not wanting to have to bow to someone else's dictates again. Newsflash, that would still happen. It happened with Quinn. You have to be at a very high level to truly be top dog and not have to answer to anyone. Also, it feels ridiculous that all these people are striking out in the world of... publishing. Why not, right? Everyone is always saying how print media is a booming business. Books are in high demand and highly valued by consumers. Everyone is highly paid and they don't need to rely on exploiting interns and entry-level position workers. OH, WAIT, NOT THAT AT ALL. Kelsey rattling off nonsense about audiobooks and podcasts is meaningless. Kelsey herself is not a brand. If you don't have a fanbase, you're not suddenly going to launch a small empire. You're going to be hugely overshadowed by Audible and those other huge companies. It would make more sense for her to try to apply to work at one of those big companies and work her way up. This JOMO idiot makes me miss Being Erica. Anyone remember the self-help guru "The Secret" guy on that show? The best part of the episode was Diana's wedding. I wish we had seen more of it. I don't know if it's worth resubscribing to hulu to watch the final season. This was a really rough season. And that's in terms of Younger.

Yeah, no. Dude's a psycho. He's blatantly misogynistic, especially towards Emily. He uses physical violence and intimidation against women and children. He profits from sex work but he has no respect for the sex workers. He is not a bad boy who just needs a cuddle. He's an abusive asshole. Don't forget him choking Charlotte in episode 1.

Is it just me or did it look like all Charlotte's house needed was some cleaning and maybe new coats of paint? I can't be sympathetic to Bottomly if she's going to be so stupid as to think Lydia is a good person. She saw her screaming at Isabella. To be fair to Armitage, they don't have any proof that Isaac set the fire. The gowns! The ones for Isabella and the high society ladies are my favorites but I love the color clashing for the prostitute costumes as well. Lol. It took me a while to figure out that Cherry's "skins" were condoms. They looked so rectangular in the earlier scenes. Ew, that Charlotte had to tup Isaac again as a distraction. I loved seeing so many of the different women working together. I love a heist! I don't think it would be that easy to escape Bedlam. We're going to continue on in this delusion that Sophia is in love with a man who spoke to her once? And that he won't be abusive down the line? Okay... It's a shame Emily Lacey hooked up with Hal. She's great this season but I can't root for her as long as she's got the deadweight of Isaac on her side. I don't really care about Will's young boxer Lively being into Harriet. I don't know if they can make Harriet a compelling character to me at this point.

I guess it's just me but I don't see it at all. Maybe I just can't find the actor attractive. Though I think it's probably that almost every man on this show is terrible. I think it's pretty much just Will. I mean, yes, she's an idiot. But she's also got a bit of a death wish. It's a bad business decision but Lucy has been a reckless live fast, die young type since she actually got into the business and realized she hates it. There was a lot of smoke but I had assumed they got there pretty soon after he set the fire. It was confusing that Charlotte said that bit at the end about letting it burn. Maybe they'd have to redo one of the rooms but I can't imagine the fire spread that much. Aside from smoke inhalation, Nancy had no problem getting out of the house. They weren't dodging flames. While the Bedlam scenes were difficult to watch, I still never want Lydia back out in the world.

It has been so difficult to start season 3. I am just not in the mood to watch bad things happen to women. I still love the costumes. Lucy's new personality is... a thing. UGH. I already hate the new male pimps. Why don't they have any security at Charlotte's besides Nancy? Ew, go away, gross footman. Get away from Sophia. Must there be a blond idiot falling for a terrible man every season now? Bet Harper/Elizabeth Harvey is an actually exciting new character. Everything about the new Catherine character is too modern. Her hair, her face, her acting... Maybe it'll get better when she has a ridiculous hairdo and a period costume. UGH, I forgot about Harriet. There are too many characters. Someone needs to kill the Marquess of Blayne (Liv Tyler's evil brother) and there need to be fewer bawdy houses. So far I like Emily this season. How is that little shit Isaac able to wreak so much havoc?

That was insane at the time. I only saw Baker and the Beauty when it was on the front page of hulu for a while. I knew it was a TV show but it had a Hallmark movie vibe so I skipped past it.

I finally watched Obvious Child on Netflix. It was sweet and different. I'm glad I saw it. It's more humorous drama than outright comedy but it's still a generally pleasant watch. I don't think Jenny Slate is the greatest actress. Surprisingly, I think she handled the drama better than the comedy. I appreciated the way it handled I think Jake Lacy did a great job. This is not the kind of rom-com that is about two people. This is a movie about Donna's character with a romantic subplot. And a lot of actors are not good at playing that kind of supporting part. They try to steal focus. Lacy did not. Even when the camera is a close up on Max, he is usually listening to Donna or laughing at her jokes or reacting to what she is saying. I appreciate a movie that can come in around 90 minutes though I still think it meandered a bit. I did not need the David Cross bit at all. I do think Max had Perfect Boyfriend Syndrome, even allowing that he was written to be a very sweet guy from a small town in Vermont. He still kept pursuing her in a non-stalkerish way that felt unrealistic. But I don't watch rom-coms for realism. The very end was very weird.

He wrote back. It took him 16 days but he wrote back.

Everyone is going "Glee curse." If there's any ominous connection, it's that. brb, going to buy bubble wrap for Amber Riley...

I have a phone call date Saturday with the one guy I've managed to maintain a connection with since March 17th. It feels more friendly than romantic but I suppose we should confirm that we're not catfishing each other after months of writing back and forth.

Why do white people love blackface so much? Assuming you've never heard of minstrel shows and don't understand all the other ways it is offensive... still, why? White people are not the only ones who practice cultural appropriation and specifically the dressing up aspect of turning another ethnicity/race into a costume or performance. But like... they do it more than everyone else. Like, a lot more. Also, call me when Tracey Ullman finally gets over herself and actually apologizes. Some of the worst offenders of "race changing makeup" continue to be silent.

I stopped engaging with HP when the last movie of the main franchise was released so my memory is not good. But around the time Cho got dropped as a love interest in the books, I started to realize something was up. The sidelining of the other minor POC characters became more noticeable. It happens with almost every series where you suddenly realize there's a fuck ton of characters and yet curiously no one with a notable role is a BIPOC character. Not the students who actually do something, not the teachers, not the antagonists, not the bureaucrats/politicians, etc. HUH. WEIRD. THAT'S SO WEIRD. Yeah, that's a tricky one for me, too. I certainly don't think they were trying to make Josh bad from the beginning. It started out as being more about Rebecca's obsession being bad. But then they needed to do some character assassination once Josh did start wanting her to torpedo the relationship. I do think they redeemed Josh's character by the end and I think it's notable that of the 3 fantasy lives, the one with Josh is the most wholesome. I think it's more of a problem of not thinking of casting Greg or Nathaniel with a non-white actor. I get why they did. Santino has theater cred and they liked the other guy in his audition. But if any show understands optics or the far reaching implications of their creative decisions, it's CEG. So yeah, disappointing.

I wrote first messages to 11 guys this morning. No response. I can see they're online. Yeah, I remember why I don't like doing this. Like, at least unmatch me, bro. Then I can stop waiting and move on.

I wasn't too mad at this show. It could have been shorter. There was definitely filler and dragging things out (see: Godfather episode and JP3/Angelo's escape). But it was saved by good performances from strong actors and lots of pretty scenery and visuals. I thought it was better than the Ryan Murphy stuff and Big Little Lies and Fosse/Verdon. But didn't reach the heights of prestige drama in the visuals or the writing. Especially the writing. It pulled its punches too much and was rather sentimental softening the rough edges of the real life characters and giving us most likely fake characters among the kidnappers to get our sympathy. I hope to see more of most of the actors in the future. I might even look up some foreign films for more of Primo and Angelo. I did like Brendan Fraser and I hope he gets more high-profile mainstream roles. Though I ultimately did not like Chace as a character. Yes, he could handle himself in situations in a fun way. But mostly he threw money around and managed to not get killed. As far as being a fixer, he offered Gail a lot of sympathy and Bible quotes and his advice was not great. Speaking of Gail, the writing of that character was... not great. In some ways it was more complex than the typical supermom role that actresses start getting after age 40. But in a lot of ways, it wasn't. Also, VERY victim-blame-y. The show knew that JP2 was a shit but I don't think it made him quite enough of a shit when Gail was off playing detective in Italy and still getting blamed by the script for not choosing better men and not being able to convince the men in her life to act. What kind of BS is that? Blame the people who are not acting. Not the woman with no actual power or resources. Harris Dickinson had some very silly stuff to play as JP3 but he sold it. Fully committed. It's an amazing showcase for a young actor when they usually get stuck in teen soaps or coming of age stories or romances. It'll be interesting to see where his career goes. I liked Bullimore/Khan but that character was one of those obvious sentimental additions. Also, how did he know he wasn't going to poison the dog? Way too much animal mistreatment in this show. It felt a little too neat for so many people to abandon JP1 at the end so they could do the Midas thing. I don't know if the women left in real life but it's nice to think they would have. Also, weird that they put in the bit about starvation (which, yes, I knew) and not anything about Midas' daughter.