A word of advice. Generally speaking, never pay someone for a service upfront in full before they provide it. It’s one thing to wait for a Big Mac after paying, but it’s quite another to agree to a very vague deposit from a cold-caller.

This rule rings true even if the hustlers in question are just starting middle school, a rule that TikTok‘s @fairyniceofyou seems to have forgotten. And indeed, a learning experience was quick to follow her lapse in judgement. The twist is that she learned that her new neighborhood was full of some alright kids.

The three-and-a-half minute storytime above lays out all the background details. Mandie was vibing in her new house one morning, having just moved to the neighborhood about a week ago, when she heard someone at the front door. She goes to greet her visitor, dreading the prospect of talking to an adult this early, and is delighted to see a group of young kids instead.

The kids ask if they can fix up Mandie’s lawn for a fee of $30, but as Mandie only had $18.50 in cash, they eagerly struck a deal. Mandie then hands the money to the kids, who report that they’ll be back as soon as they grab their gear from one of their parents’ houses. They leave, and that’s when it dawns on Mandie that she may have just been scammed.

Luckily, that wasn’t the case. The kids turned out to be true to their word, and were in fact raising money to rebuild their neighborhood’s outdoor hangout area. Mandie, of course, immediately tracked down 12 more dollars in cash when the kids turned out to be the real deal.

The cherry on top? They did a fantastic job on her lawn.

Mandie is now a loyal customer of the Lawn Goonies, whose landscaping competence is only matched by how pleasant their personnel is, and all for the very low cost of $30 a job. To say that’s a deal and a half is an understatement. According to Workwave.com, the average monthly cost of lawn care is $100, with the rough range being from $65 to $150. The lowest extreme of these costs is $40, while the highest extreme is $900.

In other words, Mandie lucked out here, and if the Lawn Goonies keep up the good work that she allowed them to start, maybe they’ll be able to charge $900 a job one day. Follow your dreams, kids.

Up next on the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s sparse 2024 calendar is Agatha All Along, the Kathryn Hahn-led dark fantasy miniseries that boasts the distinction of having the most annoyingly gimmicky marketing backbone yet. Yes, Feige, we get it, it was never Coven of Chaos, it was never House of Harkness, but it was Agatha All Along, just like the song from WandaVision that the internet fell in love with. I bet you’re pleased as punch with that one.

Speaking of WandaVision, Agatha All Along marks the return of Jac Schaeffer to the showrunner’s chair (Schaeffer spearheaded WandaVision, which is still quite easily one of the franchise’s most incredible shows), and the idiosyncratic nature of Agatha All Along‘s trailers suggest that we could be in for quite a victory here.

Of course, as we saw with Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s no victory in Marvel’s eyes unless you satisfy the cameo/setup quotient in the eyes of fans, and considering so many were convinced that Mephisto would appear in WandaVision, could the very suitable setting of Agatha All Along finally be his MCU debut?

Will Mephisto appear in Agatha All Along?

There’s been no official confirmation of Mephisto for Agatha All Along, even if that’s hardly proof of his absence. And for those of you wondering if that hellish demon at the end of the trailer is Mephisto, that entrance is entirely unbecoming of a villain of Mephisto’s pedigree, and there’s no way we’d be able to take him seriously with those hand-wings.

Moreover, Mephisto is reportedly due to appear in Ironheart, with the character strongly alleged to be the true identity of Sacha Baron Cohen’s character. Cohen’s involvement itself is something Marvel has been playing coy on, but it appears we can count on his appearance at this point.

While that doesn’t necessarily mean we can count on him being Mephisto, it does seem more likely that Ironheart will be his entry point into the franchise. And while Agatha All Along would make more sense for him as a debut, the tonal differences between Ironheart and Agatha All Along would make that transition to Ironheart a bit jarring. But then, that’s assuming that he’s even in Ironheart.

The final answer, then, is that no one well and truly knows if Mephisto will be in Agatha All Along, Ironheart, or even anything before Avengers: Secret Wars, and frankly, we shouldn’t be worrying ourselves about that. Kicking back and hoping that Agatha All Along turns out to be as good a show as it seems is a much better use of one’s time.

Agatha All Along premieres its first two episodes on Disney Plus on Sept. 18. The series will run for nine episodes.

Every man — and, indeed, every human — has their own, unique sexual peak. But if we absolutely had to define the universal average age of that peak, then it would be right around the age where they’re definitely attracted to their partner, but they’d be lying if they said their partner’s mom — or anyone’s mom, really —wasn’t piquing their interest, too.

The thing is, when you’ve appeared on the Netflix reality show Too Hot to Handle, chances are you’ve internalized the notion that your sexual peak is going to go strong for the next handful of decades. You’re therefore inclined — nay, have a social responsibility — to rizz up everyone in sight, including your friend’s mom.

But Charlie Jeer seems to have missed this particular memo, as the recent Too Hot to Handle alum thought it would be a wise move to bring fellow contestant Chris Aalli — who Charlie befriended on the latest season, which just wrapped earlier this month — over to his house. Sure enough, Chris nestled himself firmly into Charlie’s mother’s heart in a matter of seconds, whipping out all manner of gentle-yet-involved dance moves for the occasion. If Chris hadn’t already moved on from Sabrina, he certainly has now.

Charlie jokes at the end of the TikTok that he should never bring Chris to his house ever again, but the mirthful chuckle he gives indicates that he’s just as amused by this development as his mom seems to be.

Chris and Charlie both hail from England — Chris from Manchester, Charlie from Kent — and were two of the four British contestants on season six of Too Hot to Handle. They both also finished as runner-ups on the season, narrowly missing out on the $125,000 cash pool prize. But, per People, Charlie still emerged as a winner alongside partner Katherine LaPrell, as the pair have continued their relationship following the show’s conclusion. As Charlie puts it:

I really wanted to make sure that whilst I was in there, I didn’t rush anything or make anything happen too quickly. And I think that is one reason why we have been so solid together. Because I didn’t want to ask her to be my girlfriend on the show or tell her I loved her on the show, even though I kind of knew it and felt it. I wanted to give us a chance on the outside.

But Chris, for his part, seems all too happy to rush things with Charlie’s mom, and Charlie’s mom appears to have equal or greater keenness for that ordeal. So watch out, Too Hot to Handle season seven; Chris and Mumsy Jeer seem like prime guest material from our standpoint.

D23 has come and gone yet again, and the Mouse House proved to be as busy as ever as it showed off its plans for television, theme parks, and—the longtime bread and butter of the media giant—movies.

From Star Wars, to beloved franchises, to totally new films, to whatever the hell Dwayne Johnson is up to, here are all the film-centric announcements and reveals that reared their heads at D23 2024.

Toy Story 5, Incredibles 3, Zootopia 2, Moana 2, and Frozen 3

The sequel fare took up most of D23’s film spotlight, but with announcements like Toy Story 5 and The Incredibles 3 among those ranks, even the most ruthless proponent of originality can’t be disappointed.

Incredibles 3 was the biggest reveal, as this is the first we’re hearing about the film’s existence. Toy Story 5, meanwhile, named its director in Andrew Stanton, who gifted us Wall-E and Finding Nemo in the past. Other details on this unprecedented fifth entry in this unprecedentedly successful animated franchise include 50 rogue Buzz Lightyears and electronic toys as plot elements, and a Summer 2026 release date.

Elsewhere, Moana 2 (releasing Nov. 27 later this year), Zootopia 2 (releasing Nov. 26, 2025), and Frozen 3 (releasing 2027) had trailers, clips, and concept art to show off, respectively.

Lilo & Stitch, Snow White, and Mufasa: The Lion King

Disney’s not finished with their live-action remake venture by a long shot. Beyond getting our first look at live-action Stitch from the incoming Lilo & Stitch live-action remake (due in Summer 2025), we were also given trailers for the Rachel Zegler-led Snow White (March 21, 2025), and Mufasa: The Lion King (Dec. 20 later this year), the latter of which will be a completely new story set before the events of The Lion King.

Monster Jam

The award for the most out-of-left-field film announcement at D23 went to Dwayne Johnson, who revealed that he’s working together with Disney on a live-action Monster Jam movie. According to the movie star/khaki enthusiast, this “immersive” film will be told “from the POV of these incredible monster trucks. Eccentric and crazy drivers.”

It’s not immediately clear if this will be a narrative feature or a documentary, so we’ll just have to wait and see what Johnson’s cooking here.

Avatar: Fire and Ash

The third entry in James Cameron’s box office-busting Avatar series had its title revealed as Avatar: Fire and Ash. We already knew that we would be introduced to an antagonistic, fire-based Na’vi clan, but no other details beyond some concept art were released at the event.

Avatar: Fire and Ash hits theaters on Dec. 19, 2025.

Hoppers and Elio

Disney isn’t just about remakes and sequels and brands; thanks to Pixar, the Mouse House had some updates on the original film front, including the first-ever reveal of Hoppers. Starring Jon Hamm, Bobby Moynihan, and Piper Curda, Hoppers follows Mabel, a young girl who can transfer her mind into a robotic beaver; an ability she uses to see what animal life is like. She later unites with a plethora of woodland creatures, including a high-ranking beaver named King George, to help protect their home from a real estate developer. Hoppers hits theaters in spring 2026.

Elio, meanwhile, got a D23-exclusive trailer as it prepares to hit theaters next summer on June 13, 2025. The sci-fi flick was originally supposed to release on March 1 earlier this year, but a change in leadership on multiple Pixar projects coupled with the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike saw it get delayed.

The Mandalorian & Grogu

The Filoni era of Star Wars is set to hit the big screen for the first time on May 22, 2026 with The Mandalorian & Grogu. Footage at the event showed off Grogu in his own suit of Mandalorian Beskar armor, which will surely do wonders for Disney’s merchandizing profits.

Freakier Friday

Somehow, Hoppers wasn’t the biggest bodyswap-adjacent film announcement of the event. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, stars of 2003’s Freaky Friday, revealed the sequel’s title as Freakier Friday alongside some set photos featuring the duo. Freakier Friday releases in 2025.

Tron: Ares

And, of course, the announcement that no one was queuing up for but still managed to be one of the most epic of the evening; Tron: Ares not only got some event-exclusive footage featuring the eponymous new antagonist, but it was also revealed that the film’s soundtrack would be composed by none other than Nine Inch Nails. Now, Tron may not exactly be known as a “strength to strength” franchise, but going from Daft Punk to Nine Inch Nails is a statement and a half.

Tron: Ares hits theaters on Oct. 10, 2025.

The Olympics are a prime arena for upsets, surprises, and sensational beginnings for the athletic legends of tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean that the games don’t play host to some familiar aspects, too.

One such familiarity is the ever-pronounced presence of the United States women’s gymnastics team, spearheaded by the one and only Simone Biles, who at just 27 is the most awarded gymnast of all time (altogether, she has 43 medals, 32 of which are gold).

Between Biles and her teammate Jordan Chiles, the United States women’s gymnastics team made up two-thirds of the women’s floor event medal podium at the 2024 Paris Olympics, topped by Brazil’s gold medalist, Rebeca Andrade. The photo of that trio is already iconic, but we wouldn’t have gotten it had Chiles’ coaches not stepped in at the last minute.

Jordan Chiles’ floor score update, explained

Chiles struck bronze for the women’s floor finals, but it was initially set to go to Ana Bărbosu of the Romanian team. Bărbosu scored 13.700 on her routine, while Chiles scored 13.666, but per an inquiry from Chiles’ coach, the latter’s score was updated to 13.766, which shot Chiles up to third place and booted Bărbosu from the running.

Now, that probably makes gymnastics scoring sound arbitrary, but it’s a bit more concrete than one might think. Floor scores in gymnastics are made up of two components; a “difficulty score” (known as D-score) and an “execution score” (E-score).

An E-score starts at 10.0 points and receives deductions for every mistake the gymnast makes during their routine. This can include balancing struggles, falling, or improper posture. A D-score, meanwhile, pinpoints the eight most difficult gymnastics skills performed during the routine and grades them based on where the skills fall on a scale of A to J (A’s are worth 0.1, J’s are worth 1.0).

In Chiles’ case, one of the moves she displayed during her routine — a tour jeté full, which is a type of split leap — was, in the eyes of her coaches, improperly credited in the D-score. Chiles initially finished her floor routine with a D-score of 5.8. After the inquiry, the score was elevated to 5.9 — in other words, it was decided that the tour jeté full was graded one degree lower than what it should have been — which changed her overall score from 13.666 to 13.7666. Chiles’ E-score for the routine was 7.866, and she received no additional point penalty; additional penalties can come in the form of stepping out of bounds or going over your allotted time.

Bărbosu, meanwhile, finished with a higher E-score at 8.000, but a 5.8 E-score and an additional 0.1 point penalty saw her finish with a 13.700 score, giving Chiles the bronze.

Why was the bronze medal then stripped from Jordan Chiles?

The third-place finish was Chiles’ first individual Olympic medal win of her career, but it was later relinquished back to Bărbosu on Aug. 11 when the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee won an appeal regarding the inquiry that took place during the event, ultimately reverting Chiles’ score back to 13.666.

The appeal argued that the United States’ inquiry during the event came after the one-minute deadline for appeals, and the investigation conducted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport concluded that the inquiry came four seconds too late, thereby validating the Romanian claim and rearranging the women’s floor standings back to what they were prior to the United States inquiry. In other words, Chiles ultimately finished in fifth place with a score of 13.666, and Bărbosu got her bronze medal with 13.700.

Perhaps, then, “arbitrary” isn’t the worst word in the world to describe gymnastics scoring.

The 2024 Summer Olympics ended in Paris on August 11, capping off the latest edition of the world’s biggest summer sporting event with some help from Tom Cruise, Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Of the 206 participating NOCs (National Olympic Committees), 92 of them received one of 1044 medals. Sixty-four of those medaling NOCs won at least one gold medal, with Botswana, Guatemala, Saint Lucia and the Dominica earning their first-ever Olympic golds. In the case of the latter two, this was also the first time the country has medaled at the Olympics; an honor they share with Albania and Cape Verde.

The United States boasted the largest medal haul, with 126 medals shared between its 592 athletes (314 women and 278 men). Of those medals, 40 were gold, 44 were silver, and 42 were bronze. Swimmer Torri Huske was the team’s most lucrative athlete, contributing three golds and two silvers to this count, with Katie Ledecky following close behind with two gold medals, one silver, and one bronze.

China came in second in medal count, with 91 total medals (40 golds, 27 silvers, and 24 bronzes), and scored the most overall medals from an individual athlete (swimmer Zhang Yufei, who brought home one silver and five bronze), while Japan brought home the third-most gold medals at 20. Australia and France, meanwhile, scored higher medal counts overall than Japan (53 and 64 compared to Japan’s 45), but finished with fewer golds.

France was also represented by swimmer Léon Marchand, who won the most gold medals of the games with four. Furthermore, France had the lone podium sweep of the 2024 Summer Olympics, with Joris Daudet, Sylvain André, and Romain Mahieu respectively netting the country a gold, silver, and bronze medal in the men’s BMX race event.

Great Britain had the third-highest overall medal count at 65, while Italy, Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand, and Brazil all won between 40 and 20 medals.

Other notable medaling countries include Algeria, who had the women’s welterweight boxing champion Imane Khelif among their ranks, and whose gold medal came off the back of some rather heinous misinformation getting spread about her biological sex. Paris 2024 also marked the first instance of the Refugee Olympic Team making the podium, with Cindy Ngamba of Cameroon taking home a bronze for women’s middleweight boxing.

Romania’s medal count, meanwhile, was changed from eight to nine on the last day of the Olympics, after the bronze medal for the women’s gymnastics floor event was relinquished back to Ana Bărbosu after previously being awarded to American Jordan Chiles, who clinched the medal on account of an inquiry from her coaches during the event.

The final medal count for the top 10 competing NOCs are as follows. Note that NOCs are ranked primarily by gold medal count, and secondarily by total medal count.

1. United States: 126 (40 gold, 44 silver, 42 bronze)
2. China: 91 (40 gold, 27 silver, 24 bronze)
3. Japan: 45 (20 gold, 12 silver, 13 bronze)
4. Australia: 53 (18 gold, 19 silver, 16 bronze)
5. France: 64 (16 gold, 26 silver, 22 bronze)
6. Netherlands: 34 (15 gold, 7 silver, 12 bronze)
7. Great Britain: 65 (14 gold, 22 silver, 29 bronze)
8. South Korea: 32 (13 gold, 9 silver, 10 bronze)
9. Italy: 40 (12 gold, 13 silver, 15 bronze)
10. Germany: 33 (12 gold, 13 silver, 8 bronze)

A full list of medaling countries can be found on the official 2024 Summer Olympics website.

There was a time when good, hard-working, Max-subscribed Americans knew a good blockbuster when they saw one, and honored that with their designated tube time.

In fact, those days weren’t very long ago at all. Not even a week ago, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire stood quite triumphantly atop Max’s worldwide film rankings, at once proving that, even if they’re wrapped up in a cartoony monster-brawl package, nutritious creative stylings were still common in the average Max subscriber’s diet.

Unfortunately, that seems to be a thing of the past now, because if you dare to peek at the summit of Max’s worldwide film rankings now, you’ll be greeted by the thoroughly rank mug of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire; the single biggest culprit of soulless fan service that we’ve seen all year.

Per FlixPatrol, at the time of writing on Aug. 12, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has fallen down to fourth place in the time since Frozen Empire‘s acclimation, with Illumination’s Migration shoring up second place and Canadian fantasy thriller The King Tide coming in at number three.

Any of those three would be preferable to Frozen Empire, which has emerged as yet another powerful villain of the streaming world alongside fellow Sony sins Madame Web and Tarot; the former of which has established a multi-incident saga across Netflix and Max, and the latter of which has recently found itself doing battle against Sandy Cheeks, Mario, and the Minions in one of the streaming front’s most cursed showdowns yet.

In any case, here’s hoping that Godzilla and King Kong can scrounge up enough mojo to dislodge this bastardization of the good Ghostbusters name, but if that’s not in the cards, then we’ll just as eagerly take a victory from a bunch of ducks or a Christ-like little girl who washed up on the shores of Newfoundland.

Some folks follow the age-old adage of: “You’re not just marrying me; you’re marrying my family.” This, of course, is not meant to be taken literally, as marriage already has a reputation for being a logistical, economical, and legal headache, and any additional formalities would upgrade that headache into a full-on nightmare.

And that’s assuming everyone in the family would even agree to betroth themselves to their son’s or daughter’s soon-to-be-spouse. To that point, TikTok‘s @morganjade1991 must be thanking the heavens that her fiancé doesn’t need to marry her grandmother too, because granny isn’t budging on this particular thumbs-down.

In this hilariously adorable 36-second video, Morgan shows her grandmother her newly-ring’d hand before granny establishes the type of relationship she has with her granddaughter: “Get that darn thing outta my face,” she says teasingly before noticing the engagement ring on Morgan’s finger.

Entranced by the ring, granny enquires if it means what she thinks it means. Sure enough, she learns that Morgan is engaged to her partner Travis, and responds by nonchalantly waving the information off. “Nah, we ain’t gonna have Travis,” she says, which obviously single-handedly cancels the wedding on the spot, no questions asked.

Granny’s just being a jokester here, of course; she’s quick to point out how beautiful of a ring Travis chose for Morgan, and then asks if a wedding date has been set before the video ends. So, unless she’s seeking out that information as part of her long saboteur game, granny seems to be all in on Travis, actually.

That said, if granny was something of a psych enthusiast back in the day, then she may be disapproving precisely for the sake of Morgan and Travis’ marriage. A 1972 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that feelings of romantic love between a couple are intensified by parental interference or disapproval. This phenomenon was dubbed “the Romeo and Juliet effect.”

Now, does this mean that granny is going to supply Morgan with a coma-inducing potion that she can use to avoid her arranged marriage to a man named Paris, only to fail at notifying Travis of the details of her master plan, resulting in the tragic destruction of both parties that finally puts an end to the centuries-long conflict between their families? We doubt it, but something also tells us that granny’s capacity for mischief would accommodate such a scenario quite nicely.

Alright folks, let’s get this one over with.

It is, with microscopic-to-the-point-of-effectively-non-existent exception, an unhealthy practice to pass a final judgment on a film before you’ve actually seen it yourself. Indeed, you can scour the social media anecdotes, rage-tubers, Rotten Tomatoes scores, and trailers, but you never truly have a definitive line on a film until you’ve taken it in firsthand.

And yet, in the many months leading up to Borderlands, there was never any question that this film was going to be a complete and utter washout. Everywhere you looked, a piece of strained dialogue or impossibly wooden stylization promised a piece of shoddy IP filmmaking of the lowest pedigree.

That promise was kept, of course, with Borderlands going down as the latest and one of the most severe misfires by Eli Roth, who we know possesses a filmmaking talent that’s as capable as it is irregular; a talent that had its most recent time in the sun courtesy of Thanksgiving.

And it’s precisely because Roth is a proven talent who happens to have a list of woeful stinkers to his name, that the tragedy of Borderlands becomes apparent to those looking a bit deeper. Was this a complete and utter act of artistic dissonance from everyone involved, or was this film genuinely aiming for something more erudite than a popcorn movie? Either way, it falls flat on its face, but the case it makes for being even a shadow of the latter renders it — somehow, someway — not completely toothless.

The film stars Cate Blanchett as Lilith, an intergalactic outlaw who’s called back to her home planet of Pandora — a filthy, take-no-prisoners wasteland — when adventure quite aggressively calls her name against her will. Along the way, she teams up with rogue soldier Roland (Kevin Hart), bloodthirsty teenager Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), Tina’s protector Krieg (Florian Munteanu), irritating robot Claptrap (Jack Black), and eccentric researcher Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) as they make a beeline for the treasure hidden in Pandora’s vault, all while dodging the clutches of corporate boss Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), who wants the treasure for himself.

Know this above all; if you plan on watching or reading about this film with the intention of approaching it straight on, you will only waste your time. Similarly, it is not possible for a film critic, such as myself, to explain why Borderlands is a complete and utter failure as a straight viewing experience; not without wasting your time.

And I don’t want to waste your time, so here’s all you need to know about Borderlands as a straight viewing experience; it is insultingly inept at every creative hurdle. The plotting, characterization, direction, ideas, and set pieces of this movie — as a straight viewing experience — are all beneath the bottom of the barrel, and the actors cannot and do not do anything to try and salvage it.

With all that established, why do I keep saying “straight viewing experience?”

Well, it’s because Borderlands works best as a commentary on why video game adaptations had — and, on some rapidly diminishing level, continue to have — such a rancid reputation. The first half hour, in fact, actually does a relatively fantastic job of playing with this identity.

When we’re first introduced to Blanchett’s Lilith, she’s a no-nonsense bounty hunter just looking to do her job. She a crack shot who moves about the battlefield intelligently, and she has absolutely no time for sentiment, exposition, or Claptrap’s quirky dialogue; all she wants is to complete her objective. In other words, Lilith is a gamer.

And this right here reflects the core issue that has plagued video game film adaptations for so long. Games are built on mechanics, gameplay systems, and tensions that — reductively speaking — require unique give-and-take interactions to keep that game-specific organism flowing. This organism requires no emotional engagement, and in fact, thrives without it.

Because of this, games do not and cannot tell stories the way that movies and television shows do, because the mindset that comes with absorbing a good film’s theme and plot is much different from that which engages with the gameplay of a good game, and these two mindsets have a tendency to clash.

And Borderlands plays itself exactly as a gameplay-centric gamer might regard one of the Borderlands games. This player (Lilith) knows that they’re not going to extrapolate any truly thoughtful meaning or emotion from this narrative/adventure because video game narratives are rooted in plot beats and genre set dressing that chiefly manifest as problems that the player must solve through tension-based gameplay (which is different than simply interacting with the game with a controller or keyboard). It’s no wonder, then, that Lilith hurries blankly through almost every interaction as she attempts to get to the next challenge; she’s bored, she wants to play, she wants to win.

The cherry on top? The bulk of Lilith’s early intimate moments are with Tina, a member of the Eridian race who we’re told is a crucial part of the vault’s puzzle. Another way of saying that is that the only person Lilith cares about at first, is the MacGuffin. Indeed, Tina pertains to the objective, and it is stupendously easy to read that as the only reason that Lilith (who, again, is our gamer on a quest) is capable of caring about her. Without question, the meta seeds that are planted here are packed with potential.

Unfortunately, that potential is squandered pretty resolutely. It cuts away from Lilith too often to maintain that meta-identity, and by the time we’re introduced to Tannis, Lilith gets too emotionally involved as a character for this particular, idiosyncratic edge to keep its shape. Nevertheless, a metafiction reading remains without a shadow of a doubt the best way to engage with Borderlands, unless your goal is to fall asleep, groan, hate movies for the rest of your life, or some combination of the three.

The best-case scenario for Borderlands would be a version of it that fully leans into these stylings, but also subtextually centers the journey around learning to love both games and films in all their inharmoniousness. Right now, so many of us wish for video games to be regarded as art forms in the same way that film is, and yet so many of us have forgotten how to engage with games in a way that actually honors the medium’s foundations. The strength of a game’s artistic potential lies not in the emotion of a story (which gameplay, if it’s any good, will be at odds with), but in the depth and originality of its play (and the best games understand “play” as far more than just an endorphin farm).

Of course, we’re in 2024 now, meaning we have the likes of The Last of Us, Fallout, and Arcane to prove that video game properties are actually capable of playing host to great stories, but the triumph of these shows has nothing to do with their origins as games; they’re simply great shows. Borderlands, by contrast, had the opportunity to celebrate both games and film by cheekily pointing out how discordant the two mediums are when they each honor their strengths properly, and how deserving each medium is of limitless love and respect.

Instead, Borderlands came to us as the latest candidate for a Razzies sweep, and let’s just say it’s no dark horse.

After a nice, long, self-actualizing workout, sometimes you just have a hankering to decompress in the sauna with the love of your life. It is, by and large, the most relaxed and uneventful part of any gym-goer’s day, and tends to be a place where you can just sweat with your guard down.

This is not a statement that will be jiving with TikTok‘s @moonbuoy any time soon, and even if it did, heeding it clearly doesn’t take priority over grooving off this newfound sauna trauma.

From the details in the above video, Benji and his boyfriend were vibing together in a sauna when, inexplicably, it exploded. The incident left them with severe burns all up and down their bodies, and they’ve since taken to blasting Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go!” and pairing it with a mirthful dance in order to cope.

If you’re having trouble picturing a sauna explosion, you’re not alone; we have no idea what the logistics of that would even look like. Did the steam just unleash itself upon the boys power-wash style, or was the incident more akin to a microwave mishap? Either way, Benji offers up a more graphic glimpse of the results in a separate video.

Believe it or not, exploding saunas aren’t entirely unheard of, but the real dangers are the effects that careless sauna use can have on your body and cardiovascular system. According to Harvard Health Publishing, saunas affect the body by skyrocketing body heat up to 185° F, increasing pulse by 30 percent, and doubling the amount of blood that your heart pumps. This can be dangerous for people that have high blood pressure or are at risk for heart disease, and experts advise, among other things, to limit your sauna visits to up to 20 minutes a day, after which you should take your time returning to your regular body heat, complete with drinking lots of water.

What Harvard apparently didn’t have the foresight to advise us on, however, is that you should always have a flak jacket handy whenever you decide to indulge in a smattering of dry heat. That way, if your session suddenly decides to do its best Trinity test impression, you won’t have to deal with the pain, trauma, and hospital bills that Benji and his boyfriend are doing a fantastic job of hiding.

You will, however, have to reconcile this missed opportunity to ironically jam out to Chappell Roan in response to such an event, so pick your battles.

Ah, the Olympic Games, where the finest athletes from all over the world come together after years and years of training to compete for the ultimate athletic awards, bragging rights, legacies, and personal bests. Truly, the Olympics are the greatest coalescence of Earth’s champions.

But then there are the athletes who don’t quite make the Olympic cut. For those who are the best of the best, not making the Olympics is some of the best motivation around to just keep going until you do.

The people you are about to see are not the best of the best, and they’re embracing it.

If you’ve been making your TikTok rounds as of late, you may have noticed a fair share of videos cropping up with the caption “sorry to announce that I was not selected for the 2024 Paris Olympics,” or some variation of it.

These videos are comprised of some absolutely gut-busting athletic bloopers, which range from uncleared hurdles, to faulty pole vaulting, to clench-worthy balance beam mishaps, and everything in between. These are often accompanied by a bass-boosted remix of the United States national anthem, which only punctuates the humor of it all.

The joke, of course, is that these videos are being played off as faux-tryout snapshots for the Olympic team, which would obviously reject athletes who are prone to such spectacular blunders as these.

Except, they wouldn’t, because United States national team superstar Suni Lee cheekily chimed into the trend with a mishap of her own, proving that even the Olympians are human at the end of the day, even if they’re capable of transforming that failure into bronze, silver, and gold glory.

Enjoy these videos to their fullest, folks, because this is probably the closest we’re ever going to get to average Joes and Janes competing in the Olympics purely for reference.

The 2024 Paris Olympics began on July 26 and will run until Aug. 11.

The Umbrella Academy used to be one of Netflix‘s greatest shows. Not only is the streamer’s high-profile comic book adaptation one of the few speculative fiction shows that didn’t get a premature axing after two seasons, but it also never dipped terribly hard into fan service (a fate that even Stranger Things, for all its merits, couldn’t avoid).

Unfortunately, now that the fourth and final season has made its bow, The Umbrella Academy has proven that maybe it should have ended earlier. Indeed, the swansong for this once-beloved series has manifested in an awkward, jarring mess that has seemingly convinced itself that an excess of quirkiness and shock is an acceptable stand-in for storytelling.

As such, the internet is ablaze with disappointment, with X serving up some stone-cold comparisons to the infamous Game of Thrones bookend while Reddit tries to process the trauma from this clumsy nosedive.

Based on Gerard Way’s comic book series of the same name, The Umbrella Academy premiered its first season back in 2019, garnering oodles of viewership numbers and eventually becoming the most-watched series of that year. Back then and throughout its second and arguably third seasons, the show established itself as the home of some of the finest superhero storytelling around, balancing levity, emotional weight, colorful genre stylings, and a lived-in urban aesthetic to fantastic effect.

But that was then, and this is now, and by all appearances, there are no alternate timelines to save The Umbrella Academy from this particular fate.

All four seasons of The Umbrella Academy are available to stream on Netflix.