My "TL;DR" reaction to this chapter: "Lol ok."

While I was never won over by Yamato as a character and, unlike my sheer joy when Jimbei returned, felt completely apathetic about him joining--other than hoping he would drop the Oden schtick--this still feels like a silly ending for him that makes me wonder what the point was of his whole character. To double down on the Oden cosplay to the point of trying to replicate his life and experience 1-for-1? Gag. But then again, there are a lot of things in this arc that felt like they didn't really pay off or have much purpose in the end (most of Act 2, anyone?), so I guess Yamato's just one more to add to the pile.

Also gotta say: what is with this weird thing of trying to push Law as "totally definitely Luffy's rival now for real!"? Like, Luffy has had way more of a "rival" dynamic with Kid all this time, so the whole attempt at "Luffy and Law and Kid are three-way-rivals and equals like they originally were at Sabaody" is just not really believable after Luffy and Law have been allies for nearly 400 chapters (almost 40% of the entire story by now) and acted more like vitriolic friends when it was just the two of them around without Kid. And hell, it's not even just Law; I always kinda liked that One Piece averted the whole "stock Shonen rival" thing by having the closest thing to a rival for Luffy be his main enemy Blackbeard, so trying to force this whole rivalry thing now with even Kid, let alone Law, this late in the story just feels hard to take seriously. Meh, sure, whatever.

So, with this end chapter, I guess one thing I can say is: at least this arc was consistent! As in, this was a pretty "blegh" ending to a messy, pretty "blegh" arc.

@spitles:

Hi. My name is Johann, I'm 32, I live in France.

Welcome to Arlong Park! I love FMA too. Hope you enjoy your time here!

Tonight will be the last total lunar eclipse until 2025! It'll be visible from North America, Oceania, most of Asia, and parts of South America; if you'll be awake and the skies are clear, you should check it out! Here's some more info, and where you can find times that the eclipse will be visible in your area: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2022-november-8

Welcome back, everybody. Cinder, thank you, a million times over, for all your hard work.

And Pictures Part 2, taken mostly again with a cell phone (except for one with an actual camera), of this week's total solar eclipse from Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas, Texas.

If anyone has their own eclipse pictures to share (from these eclipses or any others), definitely share! Would love to see.

It was a great six months for solar eclipses in North America! Pictures Part 1, from last year's annular eclipse, seen from Albuquerque, New Mexico. (Taken with a cell phone camera through solar eclipse glasses.)

Sweden's application to join NATO is officially approved after Hungary's parliament votes in favor: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/26/europe/sweden-nato-accession-hungary-intl/index.html

Ah yes, thanks for the reminder that we need a new thread. 2024 version here: https://forums.arlongpark.net/topic/44913/rip-those-we-lost-in-2024

Paying our respects to this year's losses. Previous year's thread here.

January:

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Went to go see The Blackening over the weekend. I'm not usually a horror movie person, but this was more like a horror comedy and was a lot of fun! The characters were pretty engaging, there were tons of laugh-out-loud moments as well as genuine suspense, and definitely a good amount of lampshading and parodying horror movie tropes. If anyone's looking for something to see at the cinema, would recommend!

Eh, while I see andre's point about audience reviews on RT--I'm now remembering the negative review bombing that Captain Marvel got--I also don't really take critic reviews very seriously either, because yeah, I feel like they judge on pretty different metrics than general audiences that go to a movie with "I'm not expecting/hoping for perfect or to micro-analyze everything, I just want an enjoyable experience at the theater." Like zeltrax said, checking other sources can be good too; I like to look at IMDb, personally.

And any of this is assuming that people care about reviews at all. I think there's also plenty to be said for ignoring/not caring about those and just going in blind to form your own opinion uninfluenced by outside sources. I honestly wish I did that more myself.

I'm most likely going to see it Thursday night with a friend. I'm not super concerned about the "meh" reviews; I feel like audiences often end up liking such movies better than critics do, and my opinion tends to be closer to audience scores. Even recently, that was the case with both Quantumania and Fury of the Gods.

At the very least, it does look like we're going to have to book our seats early. My main theater has a ton of showings available, and pretty much all the evening ones for tomorrow are packed. Thursday seems better so far, but won't want to wait too long or we won't get good seats.

My pain is greater than yours! Except actually it's not, because this new theme is much easier on the eyes-ttebane!

(Also, I've become Hokage? Hell yes!)

Well, second superhero movie in a row released lately where critics were pretty lukewarm, but audiences liked it fine for the most part, if not as much as previous installments.

And that's where I'm at, too. I rewatched the first movie once again before going to see Fury of the Gods, and like most people, I didn't think the sequel was as good as the original (though I did see a few reviews that thought it was better?), but still liked it and enjoyed myself.

I hope we do get a third one, yes. The fact that Gunn and Safran have named Levi's Shazam as one of the actors they plan to keep around along with Gadot's WW and Momoa's Aquaman does seem to indicate that they plan to continue using the character; on the other hand, since there's no Shazam sequel on the books for the first "chapter" of the new continuity, by the time they do make one (if it even happens at all), they'd probably re-cast all the actors who play the kids, since the originals, well, won't be kids anymore.