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Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

By Golu
This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
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Prey (Documentary) (Canada)

By Golu
This documentary film following one survivor and his lawyer as they pursue justice through a public trial focusing on one perpetrator in particular, Father William Hodgson "Hod" Marshall, a retired priest and teacher, who several years ago pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 16 boys and one girl at schools in Toronto, Sudbury and Windsor. What distinguished the case was that the defendant was seeking punitive damages, for the first time in Canada, from a Church institution. The crux of the matter was that Marshall’s crimes had been reported a half-dozen times over the years, yet he was allowed to continue working, and abusing students.

Most of the documentary focuses on the lawyer and the one survivor Rod MacLeod going through deliberations and how they want to have the church pay for what they did. They are both aware of plenty other situations where the church did out of court settlements but Rod wanted none of it. The doc takes us through the journey of the lawyer preparing the case and the case actually happening. We are, of course, not taken inside the courtroom. For Rod, the trial isn’t about getting revenge on his deceased abuser or even about the money. It’s about public accountability, something that the Catholic Church has strenuously sought to avoid through protection of abusers, delusions of faith, and a well oiled PR machine. They bring in some of the other victims of Father and paint a clear picture of what really perspired. In a historic win, the court order the church to pay 2.5M dollars.

Most vivid here is an archival testimony of the perpetrator, the late Hodgson Marshall, on the witness stand in 2012, calmly acknowledging his long history of abusing boys, with the bizarre explanation that such things weren’t taken so seriously back then. It was also chocking to see the fathe, who was the media representative of the church, who describes his friend, Hodson Marshall, as a good man suffering from pedophilia, a rationalization that manages to compound bad science with bad faith. Sadly, there are priests today who are still doing this. There are priests being investigated now.  There are enablers covering this up. The Catholic Church has been taken to task for their crimes and cover-ups before, but Prey might be the first film to illustrate exactly how one goes about prosecuting such a wealthy and powerful entity and the bravery needed to bring such well protected abusers to justice. (6.5/10)
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