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bedtimestoriesforbrokengirls · 2 months

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The Daily Dad — Feb 28, 2024

Things you might want to know:

Denis Villeneuve Says TV Corrupted Movies, Defends 'Dune 2' Runtime 💭 Thank you, Denis, for casually explaining why your work leaves me cold. Take the naked Ana De Armas out of Blade Runner 2049 and I would have fallen asleep, and his contempt for dialogue is what makes his Dune an unwatchable exercise in tedium. (Speaking of Dune, David Lynch is a master of crafting unsettling images that haunt the viewer, but his dialogue lingers in my mind decades after hearing it. Cinema without words is missing the point.)

Apple Music Debuts Heavy Rotation, A New Daily Made For You Playlist ❝ This morning I woke up to a pleasant surprise. Apple had quietly added a new Made For You playlist to the Music app called Heavy Rotation that’s updated daily. As you’d expect from a playlist called Heavy Rotation, mine is comprised of 25 songs, most of which I believe I listened to yesterday and probably

Humorously morose comedian Richard Lewis, who recently starred on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' dies at 76 💭 I can’t say I was a fan… his stand-up never interested me, and most of his acting left me cold, but I do have two fond memories. First, his role in Robin Hood: Men In Tights, and his supporting role in the Sherilyn Fenn/Jonathan Penner/Lynn Redgrave sitcom, Rude Awakening. RIP, Richard.

Why your next Switch controller should be one you already own ❝ 8BitDo’s USB Adapter 2 makes a strong case for using what you’ve got, whether it’s a PlayStation or Xbox gamepad

The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet sue OpenAI and Microsoft ❝ OpenAI allegedly removed information like author and ownership from training data taken from The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet.

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers 💭 This would be sadder if the pre-GPT internet hadn’t already gutted and eaten journalism.

Jam Master Jay: two men convicted of murder in 2002 death of Run-DMC star ❝ An anonymous Brooklyn federal jury delivered the verdict on Tuesday in the trial of Karl Jordan Jr and Ronald Washington

After a decade of stops and starts, Apple kills its electric car project ❝ Report claims Apple leadership worried profit margins simply wouldn't be there.

The sexy subversions of A Court of Thorns and Roses 💭 Seems to me this was an obvious direction for romance novels after Game of Thrones.

Tumblr and Wordpress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools ❝ Internal documents obtained by 404 Media show that Tumblr staff compiled users' data as part of a deal with Midjourney and OpenAI.

If a “helen” is an amount of beauty, then “1 millihelen is t... ❝ If a “helen” is an amount of beauty, then “1 millihelen is the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship

R.I.P. Chris Gauthier, Once Upon A Time actor 💭 I watched the first four or five seasons of OUAT —and all of OUAT In Wonderland, which I considered the superior show— but I can’t say Smee made a big impression on me. Sad, though.

A single year on Pluto is longer than the whole history of the US ❝ Time is relative.

Mascuzynity: How a nicotine pouch explains the new ethos of young conservative men 💭 Guys, we don’t need 1,000 words on a nicotine patch to explain this shit. It’s arrested development, pure and simple.

Hollywood Fights AI With Script Writing Team Gauntlet ❝ Hollywood writers are fighting AI with a new script analysis team called Gauntlet

Alan Ritchson might have been Thor if he acted better in his audition 💭 A Ritchson Odinson would have been significantly less funny, but might have had his own sort of gravitas.

Stardew Valley’s anticipated 1.6 update coming in March ❝ A new festival, late-game content, and lots of dialogue

Netflix confirms it’s cutting off Apple billing for legacy subscribers 💭 I don’t give two shits about Netflix’s bottom line, but I wish Apple would ease up on the transaction cut they take, just so people like Netflix will keep their payment processing within the ecosystem. It is dramatically easier to cancel/renew subscriptions that are processed by Apple, and I cringe every time I have to jump out to a browser to manage something.

Yahoo Lays Off the Leaders of Engadget 💭 Wow… Vice and Engadget, both shot in the head the same week. It’s getting ugly out there.

Dev who created Zip file support in Windows is part of the shadowy cabal of people who have actually paid for WinRAR ❝ There should be a globally-recognised medal for anyone who's bought WinRAR.

Kenny Rogers Explained How He Got Caught up in a Phone Sex Scandal 💭 I somehow missed this story back when it was new in the ‘90s… Kenny Rogers had a private phone sex line for girls he wanted to fuck but didn’t have time to actually woo. Wow.

There’s a New Theory About Where Dark Matter Is Hiding ❝ An idea derived from string theory suggests that dark matter is hidden in an as-yet-unseen extra dimension. Scientists are racing to test the theory to see if it holds up.

Game of Thrones movie trilogy was blocked by HBO, say showrunners 💭 Someday there will be a blistering tell-all that addresses all sides of those disastrous last couple seasons of what had been —up ‘til then— one of the best shows on TV. I really need to appreciate shows like Breaking Bad more, for how well they stuck the landing within the nightmare world of corporate television.

David Lynch’s presence has been haunting video games for decades ❝ The influence of Twin Peaks creator David Lynch can be seen in a huge range of games, including Alan Wake 2, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and Control.

Beef Season 2 Could Feature Double the Feuds With Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway - Report - IGN 💭 I’m willing to give this a chance to find its footing as an anthology series, but I can’t say I’m dying to see a totally different show with the same name… True Detective and American Horror Story have already taught me to expect diminishing returns.

Google’s hidden AI diversity prompts lead to outcry over historically inaccurate images ❝ Inserting depictions of diversity into AI images creates revisionist history, critics say.

#news

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pfenniged · 29 days

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+ Quick tip- other recommendations:

I'm looking to buy the game "Lake," which sounds super-relaxing and like a game made for people with burnouts for Nintendo Switch:

"Lake is a 2021 graphic adventure game developed by Gamious and published by Whitethorn Games. Set in 1986, the story follows Meredith Weiss, a software developer who spends two weeks in her hometown of Providence Oaks, Oregon, where she temporarily assumes the role of the town's mail carrier. The player interacts with residents while delivering mail to them. The game presents dialogue options which influence the events of the story and its ending. The four-year development began in 2017 after director Dylan Nagel pitched the concept to Gamious. The setting was chosen for its aesthetics, while the time period was selected as it offered a nostalgic and relatable feeling. The world and characters were inspired by several American sitcoms and actors, and research was conducted into narrative-focused adventure games. The development team performed extensive research of Oregon for the game's setting."

Also I've been working in therapy on opening myself up to relationships, and my therapist recommended two great books: One is for childhood abuse victims, which I won't get into here unless someone requests it (to keep things light), and the other is called, "If the Buddha Dated."

It's not religious (Although it notes parallels about spiritual connections- but not in sort of an insufferable, eye-rolling sort of way). One thing I appreciated was it's basically like having a handbook for dating and setting up how to know what you want to prioritize in a relationship, and what you want to look for in another person. It also gives you steps at each stage of a relationship about staying conscious to what you want, how to express that to a partner, etc., in a relationship, once you do get involved with someone. It's a very helpful guide for clarifying how to approach love with others as well as internally, and I'd highly recommend it. I'm only one third of the way through going back through all the journal prompts, and they're all extremely helpful for getting to know yourself. <3

#tw: childhood abuse #personal

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jasonstephensonposts · 10 months

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After four years of being absent from the platform, I have made my GRAND RETURN to Tumblr! But first, an introduction for those who need it, both complete newcomers and previous followers of my content here who haven’t been up to date on my changes in tastes.

Greetings from Jason Stephenson, AKA Jason the Cartoon Fan! As you can tell by that username I’ve used for my other social media accounts, my special interest is animation (mostly of the American kind). However, I also enjoy sitcoms and family-oriented live-action fare from the 1990s and 2000s, The Muppets (any kind), and old school video games (especially those from Nintendo and Sega, the former of whom I’m an undying devote to).

I have autism, which makes it hard to develop lasting bonds with people who aren’t part of my family. However, through the power of YouTube and Twitter, plus my dad’s Special Olympics teams, I’ve been able to form great relationships with people around my age who share my obsessions.

I used to be a frequent presence on Tumblr, but originally abandoned the site once the YouTube channel my account there was attached to, “Jason’s Cartoon Favorites”, sadly got terminated.

However, with the recent news of Twitter’s uncertain future (thanks a lot, Elon!), I decided to reboot my account here, in case any of my new social media mutuals that I became friends with on the other social media outlet during my very long hiatus from Tumblr ever decide to leave the bird site. Expect this Tumblr page to essentially be my own personal blog, featuring my opinions on whatever pieces of media I feel like talking about, plus news announcements regarding the industry behind my favorite types of entertainment. I’m also an avid, vocal physical media supporter, so be on the look for posts about my collection as well!

Like I said before, my previous YouTube channel was sadly taken down, but I do have a new channel there where I post in-depth analysis videos on DVDs and Blu-rays that I buy, featuring both media I enjoy and media I want to check out for the first time. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/c/JasontheCartoonFan

And while you’re at it, follow me on Twitter,…assuming it doesn’t blow up anytime soon: https://twitter.com/JasonSt77097165

I also operate a five-hour weekly Discord stream that I hope to turn into a full-blown television network one of these days: JRS TV, featuring an awesome crew of top toons chosen by my social media followers. If you wish to join the chat so you can view the broadcasts, here is my username and user number: Jason the Cartoon Fan (#6744).

Below is a collage of just the top 10 of my current favorites when it comes to animated shows!

#hello world #i’m back #cartoons

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time-is-restored · 1 year

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do u guys think it maybe says smth that im currently getting more narrative + emotional fulfilment from dostoevsky that Hates You as compared to the fucking football sitcom.

anyway patho au thoughts below <3 <- (it actually turned into a manifesto abt my thoughts abt Original flavour pathologic. will add au thoughts in a reblog otherwise this is gonna be unconscionably long LMAO)

the thing about the Macro Metaphor™ (oh yeah baby this is gonna be a POST) in pathologic is like. at least w how i experienced it pathologic had to be a video game because it had to give its players the closest thing to free will that is possible in a world that has been crafted from the ground up to give you An Experience™.

and the fact that what little free will we APPEAR to have is largely an illusion cast by various dialogue trees stating that we are doing something unexpected is . very much the point! to get anything out of pathologic you have to 100% buy into the fiction as presented to you. bc the game is incredibly meta, that includes buying into the idea that what u are playing IS at its core a video game made by ppl w a very specific and esoteric mission statement, who are doing their level best to funnel u towards the themes + questions that they find most important within this narrative.

. okay ive gotta talk about The Loop actually strap the fuck in (note: a lot of what follows is copied + pasted from me explaining my feelings abt pathologic to someone who Has Not Played pathologic, so sorry if im being over explanatory at points!)

so in clara's route there's a specific bit of dialogue u can get w the developers where they say clara is 'the only one out of the three [protagonists] that could accomplish a True miracle. who could break the loop.'

the 'loop' in question is. kind of hard to pin down. but its basically referring to the inherent contradiction at the heart of pathologic existing as a game: the developers wanted to explore how it is impossible for a miracle to exist in anything other than a temporary moment of spontaneity. if you try to cage it, it is no longer a miracle, it is a process which has consequences (in the game, this consequence is - at least according to some povs - the plague):

SO they give the player a closed system of a world, in which free will is By Definition impossible (you can't do anything the developers haven't explicitly programmed in), and essentially ask you to perform a miracle. on one hand, they admit to hoping that you can do it. on the other, they acknowledge it's impossible, without some Other miracle interceding.

thats why, in this same conversation w the developers, they talk abt the other healers' endings like they are simultaneously predestined, and like they can be changed after all! like here:

^ put a pin in that 'except for a lapse of judgement, but we're not concerned with that' comment!

SO. this is what's so interesting about CLARA being (apparently!) able to break the loop

bc the only thing that concretely sets clara apart from the others (they all have a bunch of superficial differences, but im pretty sure its not bc she's a girl, or a child, for example) is that she has no backstory.

she wakes up with no memory of her life, no real understanding of herself outside of what she is being accused of being (a thief, and a plague bearer). she is able to lie (state something about herself that has nothing in the game supporting it) without lying (state something about herself that has nothing in the game contradicting it).

due to pathologic's own rules (in this case, im literally just referring to it being a video game that was coded by a team and then released on steam), there is no way for a character to truly do something unexpected. clara acknowledges this specifically and gets rlly morbid abt it here:

however! because pathologic is inherently a conversation between the developers and the players, and the developers can't actually control OR react to the completely internal experience the player has while playing the game, there is a level of free will here that can't actually be eroded!

the game can TRY to account for as many different dialogue options, quests, endings, general opinions abt the world + its characters, but bc the total amount of code has to stop somewhere before infinity, it can't get it 100% right. there are emotions + opinions abt pathologic that u are going to experience as a player that pathologic itself cannot or has not accounted for!

clara's miracle is that she's (in universe) as unrestrained by the programmers as the player is (out of universe). she can't be caged any more than u can! YOU can't be caged bc u literally don't exist in the world that the developers have 100% control over, even while they spend several hundred hours of gameplay trying to convince u that u do. and CLARA can't be caged bc there's literally nothing to tie her down! she has no degree of verisimilitude that she has to stick to, no bounds on what is reasonable vs unreasonable for her to do. we ultimately don't know enough about her for her to ever be 'out of character'.

pathologic is inherently a role playing game, but when clara (or, technically, you AS clara) rejects the role she is given, you break from one of the most restrictive shackles the game has had weighing u down in the past two playthroughs. daniils often a prick to ppl he shouldn't be, burakh can't be neutral about His Fucking Town Dying, etc. if u took those things away from the characters just to give the player more freedom AS a player, the game would be compromising with you - something that pathologic explicitly refuses to do (14% of ppl who play the game ever beating n1, etc).

but clara can say fucking ANYTHING!! like. i cannot emphasise enough that you, as the player, as clara, lie about the fact that you have an identical twin, and then summon this twin into existence. its literally the first thing you do in the whole game!

because that's the rule!!! the player cannot be allowed to say something about the world that isn't true, without the explicit and recognisable intent of telling a falsehood! but NOTHING that clara says can be demonstrated to be false, bc there's nothing to check against!!! the executors EVEN imply that the version of clara you meet throughout the game (the one u call the 'evil twin'), IS actually clara, and those conversations are the PLAYER talking to the 'original' clara. which means that by PLAYING the game, you are in equal parts replacing + rewriting clara!

again, this isn't even CLOSE to the degree ur able to transform the other protagonists - the opinions they do/don't have abt their own fate + endings are explicitly laid out to u in black and white. daniil can think the polyhedron is beautiful, OR he can be afraid of it, etc. while you can CHOOSE to change ur mind between each conversation, there is no 'both' or 'neither' option at any point. you have to pick from what ur given.

like . this is the dialogue u get after asking abt what the haruspex's route was 'about'. the line before this says 'Executor: Diverging branches. He was the only one who could attain true freedom. He wasn't facing the kind of dilemma that the ever-deceived Bachelor found so dismal.'

its like. this is simultaneously the most obtuse thing these fuckers say in the whole game but also!!! there were feelings involved!!!!!!!!!

the 'loop' is that there is no freedom, and yet there is love. the game is not real but you get attached to the player characters as if it is. you see things through their eyes, and start to agree that these pre-determined, tragic resolutions to an explicitly harsh binary choice are correct, for the characters enacting them (HENCE THE 'except for a lapse of judgement' comment! pull that pin back out! yes, anyone who plays the bachelor's route is able to CHOOSE to guide him towards another ending. but how many of those players are able to genuinely sit with the bachelor's ideals + fears, and convince themselves that that is an action he himself would take! not you, but dankovsky! the developer's aren't concerned with any given instance of the player abusing their authority over the healers' lives. they're INTERESTED in taking that authority and choosing not to abuse it. to commit to the world as written. to make the impossible choice).

clara's route is like yes obviously there is a journey programmed in here there is an ending just like there is for every other character, and clara (the npc, when you don't play as her) argues for it just as strongly as you do when ur playing her + taking her over. but what's JUST as inevitable is that someone will push past that, will play through her route, will separate her out from the developer's (admitted!) confusion + rush + muddled intentions, and make a true miracle happen! its a loop! but its a miraculous one! the miracle is that you played the game at all!!

look at this! look at clara staring her fate as written in the eye, and saying 'fuck off, im busy!'

the miracle is the fact that the developers, while making a game about how you cannot cage a miracle/force one to persist, gave the player enough freedom to prove them wrong. the miracle is the fact that clara rejects her fate-as-written, to be the plague bearer, to destroy the game and everyone involved in it, and instead DEMANDS to be a miracle-worker who can and will save the town and all the lives within it. the miracle is that you save everyone that it is possible to save. the miracle is that you want to save them at all. the miracle is that the player finishes all three routes of pathologic. the miracle is that anyone who experiences this game, first-hand or second-hand, whether they finished it or not, now has a totally unique experience w and interpretation of that game. freedom clawed from the jaws of a closed system.....

the miracle! is art!!!!! is the inherent flimsiness of communication, both symbolic and written and visual and auditory and!!!!!!!! the miracle is that you're playing a game made two decades again written in RUSSIAN while the game developers pull out literally every trick in the book to make you have a TERRIBLE time and want to give up and you DON'T!!!! you refuse to give up on what they're telling you! you refuse to not let this experience matter, in however small a way!!!!!!!!!

the miracle is that the game devolpers could not build a tomb foreboding enough to keep the players from diving in head first, crashing face first into spice traps and vats of acid and plague bearing rats and fucking homing-missile knives and. idk. mummies or some shit what the hell do you find in a cursed tomb

the miracle is that the game means something to you even when the game is actively trying to force u to give up + let go of any sense of agency and control. 'your actions are meaningless, you are helping no one, this bloodshed is inevitable and in many concrete ways you are making it worse' -> 'OH BOY DAY FIVE <3'

the miracle is also that clara convinces like seven fucking people to die for her but. y'know. this might as well happen.jpg

its like. this is simultanoeusly the most obtuse thing these fuckers say in the whole game but also!!! there were feelings involved!!!!!!!!!

the 'loop' is that there is no freedom, and yet there is love. the game is not real but you get attached to the player characters as if it is. you see things through their eyes, and start to agree that these pre-determined, tragic resolutions to an explicitly harsh binary choice are correct, for the characters enacting them (HENCE THE 'except for a lapse of judgement' comment! yes, anyone who plays the bachelor's route is able to CHOOSE to guide him towards another ending. but how many of those players are able to genuinely sit with the bachelor's ideals + fears, and convince themselves that that is an action he himself would take! the developer's aren't concerned with any given instance of the player abusing their authority over the healers' lives. they're INTERESTED in taking that authority and choosing not to abuse it. to commit to the world as written. to make the impossible choice).

clara's route is like yes obviously there is a journey programmed in here there is an ending just like there is for every other character, and clara (the npc, when you don't play as her) argues for it just as strongly as you do when ur playing her + taking her over. but what's JUST as inevitable is that someone will push past that, will play through her route, will separate her out from what the developers wanted from her, and make a true miracle happen! its a loop! but its a miraculous one! the miracle is that you played the game at all!!

#pathologic au #this is VERY long under the cut open at ur own risk #the bulk of this was written in an absolute frenzy to vee my dear friend vee. they tried so hard to understand what the fuck i was going on #abt <3 anyway hi. i think lyth activated some sort of sleeper agent code phrase in my mind w this au i haven't been able to be normal abt #this game OR noonethinkslikethisuareabrokenperson trio in w e e k s

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tusharchikane · 2 years

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first blog

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What I Love This Week

Every few months I get overcome with the desire to organize everything we own. I rearrange all of our furniture. I move art from room to room until I can say, “oh this makes more sense.” I paint a room, a cabinet…I spray paint whatever I can. Within the last month, I’ve redone our downstairs bathroom, painted my office, and painted my brick fireplace white (photo above). Thankfully, all of these little projects I embark on end up improving our home, but the real upside of doing them isn’t so much about the upgrades as it is the joy of doing them (cheesy but true). You know when people describe being in zen-like “flow states” when they’re doing something they love? That’s exactly how I feel when I’m deep cleaning or organizing or painting. I think back on all the times I rearranged and organized my best friend’s bedroom when we were teenagers. Maybe I missed my calling, or maybe (more likely) I’d hate the projects if they were a job instead of a hobby. Where do you fall on the spectrum of hate it/neutral about it/love it when it comes to cleaning, organizing, and updating?

The Best Time of Year to Buy Everything If you’re like me, when you go to make a large purchase — an appliance, a piece of furniture, etc. — you faintly remember reading a list somewhere about the best times of year to buy each category of item: cars, electronics, appliances, clothes, and on an on. Here is that list! Bookmark it.

How to Watch the Best Episodes of a TV Series You know all those TV shows you have on your list to someday watch? Well there’s a site that can help. On ShowSkimmer you can search for a series and it will list the best episodes, in chronological order (there could be 5 episodes, there could be 50). According to Lifehacker, “It’s a great way to watch a series while skipping all the forgettable episodes — which is especially good for long-running sitcoms with light plots and a lot of time to fill.”

Cartoonito // Adventure & Animals Compilation

We've been toiling away for the better part of a year on a broadcast package for Cartoon Network's newly launched pre-school block: Cartoonito. We developed a cast of characters with the team at Cartoon Network, and took them on adventures of all kinds via many dozens of little spots, and all of the little broadcast bits and pieces that surround the wonderful preschool programming. Full credits at GiantAnt.ca

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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

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"Humanity, look how far you’ve fallen,” a voice drawled out of the darkness of San Diego’s Comic-Con. In the summer of 2013 actor Tom Hiddleston took the stage in full Loki costume to promote what was supposed to be his last turn as everybody’s favorite Marvel villain in Thor: The Dark World. The already boisterous crowd went absolutely bananas chanting “Loki! Loki! Loki!” as Hiddleston, channeling iconic pro-wrestling heels like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, fed off the mixture of screams and boos, pointed menacingly at the crowd and hurled elaborate insults. Go ahead and google “mewling quim” if you’re feeling brave.

It was a star-making moment for an already popular character—one that racked up millions of views online and ensured Hiddleston’s future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU. It’s the reason, according to longtime Marvel producer Nate Moore, that Hiddleston’s character escaped death once again in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame to land his very own show, Loki, debuting June 9 on Disney+. “If you’ve ever been to a Comic-Con where Tom Hiddleston makes an appearance,” Moore says, ”you see what magic that is.

”The same year Hiddleston turned in the WWE-worthy performance in San Diego, lifelong pro-wrestling enthusiast and Loki head writer Michael Waldron began an MFA program in screenwriting just a couple hundred miles up the California coast, at Pepperdine University. Waldron rode his love for Hulk Hogan and the drama of the wrestling world all the way out from Atlanta to the shores of Malibu. His ride, from there, took him straight to the top. This is how one man’s lifelong love affair with wrestling became critical to the development of Marvel Phase Four.

Less than a decade later, with an Emmy-winning stint on Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s fiercely beloved animated series Rick and Morty in his rearview, Waldron has become the chosen favorite of Marvel president Kevin Feige, who was so impressed with the now 34-year-old’s work as head writer on Loki, that he tapped him to take over writing duties on the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel. Impressed with Strange, Feige then handpicked Waldron to work on his top-secret Star Wars project. With Loki set to make a big splash next week, Waldron shared his unusual inspirations for both Loki and Strange, his rapid climb to the top of the Hollywood heap and how, really, he just wants to be the next Nora Ephron.

While still a student at Pepperdine, Waldron landed an assistant gig with one of his comedy heroes: Dan Harmon. Stationed outside the Rick and Morty writers room, Waldron was desperate to catch Harmon’s eye and decided launching a softball league would be the key. “What I knew about him before was that he was a guy that would love a bunch of attention, like everybody,” Harmon says. “When he started coaching the softball team, it became obvious that he deserved attention.”

“We were terrible. We were the worst team in Burbank rec league history,” Waldron recalls. “But it was a great opportunity for me to trick everybody into reading my writing.” Waldron leaned on his “Southern roots” to channel Friday Night Lights’ coach Taylor every week.

“We lost every single game and he’d take us out to the parking lot and give us this pep talk,” Harmon says. “What was the point of pep talking this terrible team? He kept on, which was a job that you couldn’t accomplish by being ironic or cynical.” One day, fortune smiled on both Waldron and the team when, in the frenzied excitement after their first-ever softball win, Harmon offered Waldron a writers assistant job on the fifth season of his NBC sitcom Community. “I look at all the amazing moments I’ve had in my career, and I’ve been so lucky, I don’t think I’ll ever have anything more exciting than that one,” Waldron says.

“He wanted to be a writer and I was like, ‘Too bad. You’re very handsome and charming. Get on the phone and talk to these producers for me,’” Harmon recalls of his early treatment of Waldron. “So there he is on Community as a writers P.A. and as a ‘facilities manager’ simultaneously—which is code for fixing things that go wrong in the bathroom.”

Waldron, not content to work in Harmon’s bathroom forever, began pitching a show he wrote while still in school about his first love: wrestling. Starz gave Waldron a crack at it, and in the summer of 2017, despite never having written a script that made it to air, Waldron ran his first writers room. “What I loved about wrestling, even as a kid, was there were stakes,” Waldron says. “If Hulk Hogan turned bad one week, that had big ramifications for the rest of my life, as far as I was concerned.”

The wrestling show Heels was born and just as quickly fell apart. “We couldn’t cast it,” Waldron says. “So much for my meteoric rise. My career’s over. I’m like 29 and really, really languishing. I licked my wounds after Heels went on the shelf and said, ‘All right, let me prove to myself that I can still write.’”

With his eye on impressing the likes of Marvel and Lucasfilm, Waldron took two weeks to whip together the first draft of a time-traveling/sci-fi/romance feature worthy of both Nora Ephron and the Rick and Morty writers room, titled Worst Guy of All Time. Waldron’s team was disinclined to share a copy of the script (possibly because it’s in development or its DNA will be found in some other project he’s working on) but you can read write-ups of it here and here. The story about the worst guy in the world, the girl who was sent through time to kill him, and how they fell, disastrously, in love landed Waldron on the 2018 Black List alongside Emerald Fennell’s Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman. It also caught the eye of Kevin Feige.

Meanwhile, Dan Harmon had finally seen the light. In 2018, Harmon and his Ricky and Morty team decided to staff “blind” with writers submitting anonymous cold opens for the fourth season of his irreverent, animated journey through time and space featuring a young boy (Morty) and his drunk, Doc Brown–esque grandfather (Rick). “It was such a Sword in the Stone thing,” Harmon says. Someone informed Harmon that the two submissions he identified as “clearly the best” were “both by the same writer and that writer was the guy cleaning your toilets and all other manner of dirty work and trying to develop a Starz show on his off hours.”

Harmon was so impressed that he not only hired Waldron to write for season four, he offered him a showrunner position for season five. “We’re like, ‘Okay. He’s a little green, but he’s moving so quickly and he learns so fast and he’s such a hard worker. We’re crazy for doing it. Let’s take a chance on this kid,’” Harmon says. “He’s like, ‘Guys, I’m so flattered by this. I have a meeting at Marvel this afternoon. I think I might be running a show for them.’ That’s the story of how we loved, semi-supported, semi-discouraged, and definitely lost Michael Waldron.”

Dan Harmon is no stranger to losing talent to Kevin Feige. Longtime MCU directors Joe and Anthony Russo were plucked from Community. And in 2020 Marvel hired another Rick and Morty writer, Jeff Loveness, to write Ant-Man 3. It’s no mystery why. When sitting down for a lengthy interview with Vanity Fair in 2017, Feige was as eager to talk about the Rick and Morty season-three finale as anything else.

“Well, you can’t fight Kevin Feige in the street,” Harmon says. “He’ll just say, ‘Oh, I love that you’re fighting me, this is so wonderful,’ and everyone will start booing you for being a bully. I am honored and validated by the idea that if people leave me, they leave me for Marvel. That’s an amazing legacy.”

When Michael Waldron left for Marvel in 2019, he went with his Rick and Morty experience, his love of wrestling, a time-travel romance screenplay, and very little actual comic book knowledge. This last part may have appealed to Feige the most. The head of Marvel Studios himself didn’t grow up reading comics and has said that someone with an outsider’s approach to a comic book story can be more valuable than a writer stuck in the weeds of back issues. “I grew up a pro-wrestling guy, probably more of a Star Wars guy,” Waldron says, “but my love of Marvel came from the movies.”

When Waldron met with Marvel for Loki, the executive team had already decided to set the show in the world of the TVA (or Time Variance Authority), a sci-fi bureaucratic agency that cleans up any anomalies in Marvel’s increasingly complex and branching timelines and realities.

“That was the sandbox that we had to play in,” Waldron says. “I came up with the emotional engine of the whole thing. The fans of Loki watched him experience a character arc through Infinity War and, in a lot of ways, maybe even arc out. How do we break new ground with this character? What better movies and TV shows did I intend to rip off in each episode?”

Marvel itself solved the “arc out” problem by plucking Loki from earlier in his timeline at the end of 2012’s Avengers. Hiddleston’s character enters the show a time criminal captured by the TVA who may, in the end, prove its most valuable asset. Loki, the series, presents a less evolved, more mischievous god of mischief and Waldron considers Hiddleston’s versatility the show’s ultimate weapon. The ceiling for Loki felt “so high” that Waldron was free to draw on a broad range of films and TV shows to construct Loki’s latest journey through the MCU.

The time-and-space-hopping adventure spirit of Rick and Morty is an obvious inspiration. “At first I was carrying in the Rick and Morty sensibility and I had to recalibrate,” he says. “I'm not writing a 22-minute cartoon. I was watching Quentin Tarantino movies — Inglourious Basterds. Movies that luxuriate in long scenes of dialogue and tension building.” Waldron also rattles off some other surprising inspirations: Blade Runner, Before Sunrise, and Catch Me If You Can.

But just because he’s pulling from cinema doesn’t mean Waldron thinks of Loki as a six-hour movie. “I’d say it’s something totally new! It’s MCU. It was important that every episode stood alone. The Leftovers or Watchmen, which I admired so much—every one of those episodes felt like a distinct short story. That’s the sign of a great episode of TV. ‘Oh, it’s that episode of Loki.’” (If you’re wondering how delightfully weird Loki might get, Waldron mentions the lion sex cult boat episode of The Leftovers, “It’s A Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World,” as a personal favorite.)

Close watchers of Loki trailers have already singled out what they think is a Mad Men reference in an homage to unsolved mystery man D.B. Cooper. Waldron says the connections to Mad Men, his favorite show of all time, run deeper. “Mad Men is about characters becoming aware of who they are,” he says. “Don Draper gained an awareness of how he was broken and why.”

Here, Waldron says, is where time travel stories really come in handy: “You can literally hold up a mirror to your characters. Perhaps they can encounter other versions of themselves at different points in their lives. In the case of Back to the Future’s Marty McFly, he can encounter versions of his parents and then he understands himself better.”

Fans of the Loki comics know things can get even wilder than Lorraine and George McFly. On the page Loki has shown up as a little kid, and as a seductive figure known as Lady Loki—could these be versions of himself that Loki meets on his journey? Could meeting yourself be literalized in this way? “It certainly could,” Waldron says. “What being is more chaotic than Loki? What do you have to learn from any version of yourself?” If this is the case, Marvel is keeping that aspect of the show a secret but fans have noticed that a few Loki actors, including the decidedly Hiddleston-esque Richard E. Grant, have yet to be assigned roles. Could Grant be playing an elder Loki?

It’s the juvenile iteration of Loki that caught Waldron’s attention. The Kid Loki comic Journey Into Mystery #622-636 by Kieron Gillen was inspirational “not necessarily because our show is about a child version of Loki, but because it excavates his humanity in a more vulnerable space in a way that you only can with a child. A child version of Loki is still burdened by the sins of his past self which is very much what our version of Loki is running up against in the TVA. Can a tiger change its stripes?”

As for Lady Loki, remember the toxic romance Blacklist screenplay that first got Michael Waldron in the door at Marvel. Loki’s cinematic journey has been so tied up in his relationship with his brother, Thor, that he’s never had an on-screen love interest. Waldron, who still aspires to be Nora Ephron, says there certainly are some love stories running through his season.

One love story to keep an eye out for is brewing between Hiddleston’s god of mischief and Owen Wilson’s TVA bureaucrat Mr. Mobius. The two spark and spar, building on the duo’s chemistry from Midnight in Paris. “Mobius and Loki, that's one of the love stories you might see in Loki for sure,” he says. “Although if you print that, knowing our fans, they’re going to take it the wrong way.” When I clarified that their love story might be more akin to the platonic one between Tom Hanks’ FBI Agent Carl Hanratty and Leonardo DiCaprio’s con man Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me If You Can, Waldron says: “Exactly. Right.”

As fruitful as the time travel genre can be when it comes to juicy emotional development, Waldron knows it can also be a logistical nightmare if not plotted carefully. “I can show you what was all over our writers room,” he says, quickly sketching out a branching timeline. “We had to create an insane institutional knowledge of how time travel would work within the TVA so the audience never has to think about it again. It was a lot of drawings of squiggly timelines.”

Marvel already made its case for how time travel works in Avengers: Endgame but that, Waldron points out, “is the way the Avengers understand it.” With a TV show it’s a little different. “I was always very acutely aware of the fact that there's a week between each of our episodes and these fans are going to do exactly what I would do, which is pick this apart. We wanted to create a time travel logic that was so air-tight it could sustain over six hours. There's some time-travel sci-fi concepts here that I'm eager for my Rick and Morty colleagues to see.”

Part of the fun on a Marvel project like this, Waldron says, is creating a disaster and just saying, “‘Yeah, we'll leave that for the next writer.’ But then you do that on Loki and you find yourself writing Doctor Strange and you have to clean up your own mess.”

Like WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier before it, Loki has two main creatives working alongside the team of Marvel producers and executives. In the world of Marvel on Disney+, a head writer like Waldron will get the ball rolling and then a director, in this case Kate Herron (Sex Education), will join in shaping the project going forward.

“Kate's a great creator,” Waldron says. “Suddenly we had the benefit of fresh eyes on this whole thing as we hurtled into production. It's been run more like a feature in that it’s ultimately more director-driven. I'm not the showrunner in the sense that I'm not the one with the budget hanging over my head.”

Waldron wasn’t even on set while Loki was shooting because in February of last year, just before he was to leave for Atlanta, Kevin Feige called and let Waldron know “they were going in a different direction on Doctor Strange.” Original Strange director Scott Derrickson left the project over “creative differences” and Feige, likely eager to hit the target production date of May, made an offer to Waldron.

“I knew I wanted to stay in the family,” Waldron says. “I felt like Loki was in a great place and I was eager for what the next challenge would be.” Director Sam Raimi, a longtime hero of Waldron’s and someone Feige knows from his early days as a producer on the Raimi’s Spider-Man films, was brought on board a week later to direct.

Time was tight. “How do we just make a movie in two months?” Waldron recalls thinking. “But COVID quickly descended upon us. We're not shooting now until November. So I got to spend my 2020 on Zooms with Sam Raimi. Not too bad.” While acknowledging the foundation Derrickson laid for him, Waldron says he and Raimi started “from scratch.”

Waldron began juggling his Strange duties while still keeping one “hand on the wheel of Loki.” (Oh and somewhere in there he also scooped up an Emmy for Rick and Morty over Zoom.) He put his trust in Herron and fellow Rick and Morty alum, writer Eric Martin, to handle the day-to-day of Loki while Martin and Waldron would collaborate on any re-writes needed to make the series come together.

Waldron found a real-life touchstone for Loki in Apple mogul Steve Jobs. They’re both adopted, he points out, and they love control. For Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Stephen Strange, Waldron says: “I gravitated towards [travel documentarian and chef] Anthony Bourdain. Strange is an elitist as a neurosurgeon and a sorcerer. Anthony Bourdain was a man of the people, but there was that intense intellect. You always felt like he could eviscerate anybody with his words at any time. But yet Anthony Bourdain never really punched down. That was the first ingredient in the stew for Doctor Strange.”

Waldron also connects Bourdain’s world-traveling to Strange’s own reality-hopping adventure: “Anthony Bourdain had been everywhere, seen everything. What surprises you at this point? I think for all of the heroes in the MCU, in a post-Endgame world, how do you rally yourself to fight the stand-alone movie villains after you fought Thanos?”

Strange’s fighting spirit led Waldron to his next inspiration. “He's Indiana Jones in a cloak to me,” he says. “He's a hero who can take a punch. That's what made those Harrison Ford heroes so great. Those guys get their asses kicked. Look at Stephen Strange in the first movie. He's really getting beat up but he's very capable and everything. I can tell you that it's a ride...very Sam Raimi. The film is incredibly visually thrilling. John Mathieson our DP, who shot Gladiator and Logan — I think the look of it is going to be unlike anything you've seen in the MCU before.”

“He just wanted to write a really great Indiana Jones-esque blockbuster,” Waldron’s close friend, fellow Rick and Morty alum and Ant-Man 3 writer Jeff Loveness says. “He nailed it. It’s a kind of a throwback.” Waldron, he adds, may have an even more personal connection to Strange: “His wife is a [physician’s assistant]. He really got to the heart of the character, how doctors do have to be cocky. He got the Hawkeye Pierce energy of Strange.”

Waldron says whatever plans he had for Strange weren’t greatly impacted by the fact that the character was meant to show up (and then didn’t) in WandaVision. But Waldron’s close friendship with WandaVision head writer Jac Schaeffer, forged in the halls of Marvel as he was working on Loki, loomed large over the production. “I admired her so much,” he says. Schaeffer, who recently signed an overall deal with Marvel Studios, created a show around Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff which will lead directly into Waldron’s first feature film. “When I got brought on to Doctor Strange — especially because Wanda is part of that story — I just wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna let my friend down,” he says. “I can't shit the bed because she did such a great job. So we had a lot of conversations. Getting to continue Wanda's story was amazing.”

Waldron found himself in frequent communication with Schaeffer and Loveness, creating a kind of friend-based network of writers you don’t often see across several MCU projects. “He was still in the middle of his highly strenuous shoot and running another show, and working on another secret movie and he came onto our Zoom and collaborated on some story stuff,” Loveness recalls, “It's like swimming in the ocean over there. There's always going to be 10 movies that yours ties into. They're going to change Doctor Strange so that it will affect Ant-Man and that'll affect season eight of The Mandalorian.”

Waldron notes that one of his Loki writers, Bisha Ali, went on to create Ms. Marvel and that the whole interconnected enterprise hangs together better if they can think of it as a family: ”Jeff’s dealing with the Quantum Realm and I was dealing with time travel and the multi-verse. Our conversations are probably illegal to have, digitally. We have to meet on a bridge somewhere.”

“Iwas like eight weeks into writing Loki and I finally moved on,” Waldron recalls. “I'd spent a year driving past the old Heels writers room and feeling like a failure. Now I'd risen like a phoenix from the ashes and then, of course, the jilted lover calls and says, ‘Hey, what are you up to?’”

In 2019, Starz came calling to see if Waldron would be interested in reviving his old wrestling show Heels. Arrow star Stephen Amell, having wrapped up his superhero duties on the CW, was available. Waldron, of course, was a bit busy.

“I had to surrender control over the thing that I had been the most maniacally obsessive over,” Waldron says of giving the reins to actor turned showrunner Mike O’Malley. “Mike, to his great credit, was just so generous and patient with me as I did that. There's still so much of it that's mine.” Waldron spent some of his 2021 working on post-production for the show which will debut this August.

By then, Waldron may be even busier tackling another cinematic galaxy. He can’t say much about getting the call to work on Feige’s Star Wars, but he can say: “You’ve heard all my references here. Star Wars! Indiana Jones! [Kathleen Kennedy], she’s made so many of my favorite movies. So to get to collaborate with both of those entities is a dream come true.” Waldron's Lucasfilm gig came with a lucrative overall deal at Disney.

Setting sail on a steady ship like Marvel is one thing, but diving into a fractured fandom like Star Wars is a much bigger challenge. Then again, Waldron survived the Rick and Morty Szechuan Sauce Wars of 2017, so anything is possible. “I think he can be the guy to really kickstart the cinematic grandeur of those movies,” Loveness says. “That's probably laying it on a little thick, but I really think he's the guy to do it.”

“Star Wars is definitely sticky because if you make a certain brand of nerd happy, you're actually middle fingering an adjacent breed of nerd,” Harmon says. “If you take it too seriously, you're doing it wrong. If you don't take it seriously enough, you're definitely doing it wrong. It needs that total joy of the greatest franchise ever, along with a kind of swagger. I do think that Waldron would make a good match for that, but I don't know if he would make a good match for the machine that's carrying that stuff.”

Then again, this is Feige’s Star Wars and it’s not at all difficult to see why these two have forged a successful partnership. Feige and Waldron are both nice guys from the East Coast with wives in the medical field who like action blockbusters from the 80s, have a connection to Nora Ephron, and weren’t brought up on comic books. But the parallels run even deeper. Feige and Waldron see story in a similar way: constantly pushing beloved comic book characters through the lens of favorite blockbusters like Back to the Future. More crucially, both seem to have mastered the art of being political and ambitious without ever seeming disingenuous.

“I remember when he said [he was going to] Marvel and I was like, ‘Oh, god. That's perfect. He's going to be such a team player,” Harmon says. “Orson Welles is not going to work well at Marvel. The Russo brothers, they were collaborators always, first and foremost. That also didn't surprise me. There's a tremendous mandate at Marvel about ‘all for one’ and respecting the franchise. Their leader, Kevin Feige, leads by example. If your ego is simultaneously powerful but flexible enough to fit through that pipe, you are rewarded and you have a home there forever. It's the most obvious place in the world for Waldron. He is an Avenger.”

Growing up in Atlanta and watching his hero Hulk Hogan captivate a crowd, Michael Waldron may not have even known what an Avenger was. But possibly the two worlds aren’t all that different. “In the Heels pilot, somebody compares wrestlers to superheroes because there's the aspirational quality of putting ourselves in their shoes,” Waldron says. “But superheroes aren't just gods, even the ones that are gods. They're human. They're broken just like us. So whether it's a towering, hulking wrestler in the middle of the ring or a pompous demi-god shooting green balls of energy out of his hands, there's a vulnerability in there. I think that's just a really thrilling thing to get to explore.”

More from Michael Waldron and a Loki preview on this week's Still Watching podcast.

#Michael Waldron #Loki #Tom Hiddleston #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #benedict cumberbatch

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radramblog · 3 years

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Halo Through its Guns: Halo CE

I think this is a bit of an experiment, but one I intend to see all the way through. I’ve been thinking a lot about this series recently, not to mention playing a lot of it, so I’ve wanted to find a way to properly discuss it. Perhaps even analyse it.

If there’s one thing people gravitate towards talking about in a first person shooter game, especially a series so long-running as Halo, it’s going to be the guns. They’re taking up a significant portion of the screen a lot of the time, and a lot of development time is going to be spent making sure they all look and sound good and are satisfying to use. As a result, I think the weapons in Halo are a good lens through which to view each entry in the series.

So, I’m going to be using one gun per game as a means to discuss each one. At this point, I’ve lined most of my picks up already (and hoping to have actually played 5 by the time I get to it), so I’m confident most of them are going to provide an interesting discussion.

Therefore, this is: Halo: Combat Evolved, through its iconic gun. No, it’s not the Magnum, it’s the Plasma Pistol.

It’s kind of hard to talk about Halo: CE without talking about all of gaming of the era, because it was kind of a huge shift in the landscape as far as FPS games went. Unfortunately, I’m too young to have actually lived through all this, but the game is kind of to 2000s shooters as Doom was to 90s shooters, and kind of as Seinfeld is to sitcoms. That is, it defined them so utterly that all the future iterations of this kind of gameplay make Combat Evolved feel a little antiquated. I suppose being a 20-year-old game doesn’t help at this point.

Something Halo: CE owes to those 90s games is the concept of the weapon sandbox. It’s the multiplayer style that I believe pretty much just Halo (and Battle Royale games, kind of) has kept going with, where you start with a couple of default, standard equipment choices and have to scrounge together the rest on the map. The majority of engagements are still going to take place using those default pieces of equipment, but either map knowledge or luck can help give you more options and turn the tide in your favour, letting you pull a more powerful weapon out of your pocket as needed.

Part of Halo’s innovation on this design is, ironically, the limitation. Specifically, only carrying two guns at a time means you can’t just run around and grab everything you see- every gun is different, and choosing to pick one up means losing the benefits of one of your others. In Team games, it pays to have different people grab different weapons, such that you’re more versatile depending on game type or what direction and distance your enemies approach from.

The important thing that Halo: CE got right, and that many future entries would struggle with, is that every single weapon in it has a unique niche. There’s only one Sniper Rifle for extreme range, only one Shotgun for unparalleled close-range lethality. The Assault Rifle is a solid medium/close range bullet hose that’s effective against both shields and unshielded players, and the Magnum is, while maybe a little too good, perfect for picking off damaged enemies at medium to long range. And also, close range, because it’s a bit much.

But of course, this is all from the perspective of Multiplayer, and Halo: CE obviously has a Campaign as well. And with the Campaign comes weapons you need to design for your enemies to wield, which brings us to the Plasma Pistol. The most common weapon in the hands of the Covenant’s Grunts and Jackals (and later Drones and Skirmishers), and one of (I believe) only 5 guns to appear in every entry in the series. (The others being the Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher, and Needler. I guess you could count the FRG but it’s only kind of in CE, and also the grenades).

A deliberate part of the design for Halo: CE’s Campaign and Multiplayer was an emphasis on player movement. This is kind of interesting, because the Chief actually moves pretty slowly compared to previous Shoot Men, but part of the idea was that every Covenant weapon would shoot visible, slower moving projectiles such that the player would potentially be able to predict and dodge them, allowing for a higher skill cap at higher difficulties. This also helps add a consistent flavour to Covenant weaponry, as bright glowing colours are both easy to distinguish and substantially different enough from the gunmetal of the UNSC equipment to feel alien. There will never be a point where you confuse a Grunt holding a Plasma Pistol from one holding a Needler, or an Elite with an Energy Sword from one with a Plasma Rifle.

The Plasma Pistol is the bread and butter of Halo’s enemy engagement design. Most of the time in enemies’ hands it’s effectively a peashooter, bright and distracting, but not dealing too much damage, just enough to be annoying, and to supplement more dangerous weapons carried by other enemies. It does, however, have the Overcharge mode, which ensures that every one of these little Grunts and Jackals remains a threat, with the ability to entirely strip your shields (or deal significant damage to your health bar) if they wise up and go for it. An Overcharging Plasma Pistol is extremely obvious, though, with a big green glow and an iconic noise making the enemy most threatening you easy to find. It means the enemy fights are never quite the same, and adds a sense of urgency to them as well, especially on early difficulties.

The overcharge is also the core of how the Plasma Pistol functions in Multiplayer as well, as well as taking full advantage of other innovations in Halo’s game design. In Multiplayer, the Plasma Pistol is easily best known for its inclusion in the “noob combo”- that is, Overcharge the shields, kill them with the Magnum. This is a highlight of the specialisation in weapons in Halo: CE- the Plasma Pistol is great against the first half of their health, in the form of the Shields, but it’s practically useless against the actual, well, Health. Because of this, the Plasma Pistol is not a default weapon in Multiplayer like it is in Campaign, it’s niche necessitates a role as a pickup weapon. You’re never going to want it if you already have, say, a Shotgun or Sniper Rifle, since those are such similarly specific weapons that your backup being a Plasma Pistol is not a good idea.

But of course, guns are not your only combat option in Halo. One of the most innovative points of design in this game is the constant access to three attack options at a time. In previous FPS games, the options for Grenades and Melee were usually in the form of separate weapon slots, whereas in Halo you have access to all three at the same time on different buttons. This gives the whole game a more fluid feel, and there’s a reason it’s pretty much now the default for games of this style- it looks cool, it’s less awkward, and it feels slick as hell. The Plasma Pistol gets to lean into this versatility nicely as well, as Melee damage or either Grenade type at close enough range will kill next to an overcharge. You’re never left with no way of hitting people’s health after you dunk their shields, especially since the Pistol works best at close range.

In summation. Halo: Combat Evolved was genre-defining as a first-person shooter, capturing what would become the default for gaming to come for a while. The Plasma Pistol is an excellent example of this, leaning into all the innovations of the overall game’s design and producing an iconic piece of video game firepower. It’s slick, it’s effective, and it looks and sounds extremely cool.

The rest of the series would never quite capture the exact same balance as Halo: CE, but as the games changed and technology improved, so too did the guns. Join me next time, when everything gets a bit more Two.

#ramble #halo #halo combat evolved #plasma pistol #video games

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casually-slips-into-coma · 3 years

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An Essay (sort of) Explaining the Many Grievances I Have With Debbie Gallagher

Once again, Debbie is the fucking worst.

I’ve been wanting to write out my feelings towards her character for a fucking minute now just so that I have a full concise list. Now, I can talk about how Debbie has a constant need for attention, or how her character has become someone unrecognizable in the past few seasons, or how she’s a terrible mother, but what I really want to focus on is the center of my issues with her: her sexuality. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about to be a homophobic rant or anything. I just think her queer development has been written terribly and that should be addressed.

Too often I see people praising queer characters or relationships based solely on the fact that they are queer, and as a member of the community, I get it. I am also starved for representation. This, however, does not mean I’m going to settle for annoying, poorly written characters.

Why Make Debbie Queer?

The first thing I want to address is why suddenly develop a WLW storyline for her. Given that Debbie started as a little girl on the show, this gives the writers a lot of opportunity to give a character like that interesting storylines because she does not yet have a solid personality. It gives writers the liberty to take her story anywhere they want to without the constraints of established character because she, as a person, is still developing into adulthood. The show runners unfortunately dropped the ball with this.

From season 4 and onwards was when Debbie began showing interest in dating, sex, and romance having just turned the corner to puberty. From then up until season 9, she has shown exclusive interest in men. It isn’t until Alex the welder that Debbie deviates from this path. Alex is portrayed as a stud who confuses Debbie. I am inclined to believe that Debbie was originally attracted to her because she was masculine and therefore close enough to the people Debbie had previous experience with.

This arc was treated very much as Debbie experimenting with her sexuality, something that Alex also ends up realizing after Debbie tells her that having sex with a girl is “not that bad” and “like having sex with yourself” (S9E4). Once this storyline wrapped up (with Debbie shouting “you make me want cock again”) the writers powered through, adamant about Debbie now being a lesbian.

I have two theories as to why they’ve been fighting so hard for her queerness.

1) This was around the time that Cam was leaving Shameless. This obviously didn’t end up happening, but I was under the impression that the writers were freaking out at losing their token gay character and needed to fill that position. When Cam ended up staying, they were stuck with a queer Debbie storyline and decided to just go with it.

2) Shameless was planning on doing a WLW storyline regardless of Cam’s choice to leave and were originally going to give it to Fiona and her lesbian tenant that she had a close relationship and a lot of chemistry with, but Emmy Rossum wanted to move on from Shameless, and so they pivoted and gave the arc to Debbie, a character that was not supposed to be moved in that direction and so her new sexuality seemingly came out of nowhere. Fiona as a bisexual character would have made sense. Debbie still does not.

Shameless’s Awkward Relationship With Bisexuality

One of the biggest issues I have with Debbie is her insistence on being a lesbian. Lesbianism doesn’t come out of nowhere. Bisexuality, however, can. When you grow up being told that you are supposed to feel attraction to men, and you genuinely do feel attraction to men (which Debbie has expressed in past seasons/episodes) it’s easy to ignore your attraction to women and write it off as something that either isn’t a big deal, or something that isn’t there. It’s a lot more confusing than being strictly at one end of the spectrum. It would have been so much more believable if they had simply made Debbie bisexual. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t because the show has a history with bi erasure.

Bisexuality has been treated badly all throughout Shameless, used as a vengeful plot device back in the earlier seasons where Monica was only ever with women when unmedicated. Then in Season 7 when Ian’s boyfriend Caleb cheated on him with a woman (enforcing the stereotype of bisexuals being unfaithful) Ian, possibly acting out of anger or ignorance, said things like “only women are bisexual. When a man says he’s bisexual he’s really just gay”. The only semi positive bisexual representation on the show was Svetlana and Vee when they were in a poly relationship with Kev (though I also think that storyline wasn’t handled as well as it could’ve been).

This fight against the bisexual label in media is not a new one but it is also a harmful stance to take when writing a sexually fluid character. Debbie declaring that she is, in fact, a lesbian after waxing poetic about how Matty had a big dick and Derek had a great body and knew what he was doing is not the way to go.

You could argue that Debbie, like many other queer women, is an unfortunate victim of compulsory heterosexuality, but frankly I don’t think the writers are well versed enough in queer theory for that to be a possibility.

Debbie as The White Feminist

Debbie is the pinnacle of white feminism. It’s an unfortunate thought that has occurred to me a few times throughout the show. She talks a big game as a man hater and someone after the equal treatment of women but she herself participates in a lot of problematic and anti feminist behavior.

For one, she r*ped Matty back in season 5 when he was blacked out and unconscious. This was a point in the story that was glossed over and one where she suffered no repercussions other than Matty no longer wanting to be around her. It was explained in the show that Debbie didn’t realize what she did was wrong until after she was explicitly told so because she was maybe 14 when it happened (not 100% on the age Shameless is very inconsistent about timelines). It was treated as somewhat of a punchline, something that Shameless has unfortunately done more than once when referring to male sexual assault (Mickey’s r*pe, Liam in season 10 ((i think??)) and in this latest season, Carl) but that is a different topic.

There was also the time in which she lied to her boyfriend about being on birth control so she could trap him into a relationship with pregnancy (which also counts as r*pe!!) Good on Derek for getting out of that.

Debbie has also been pro-life in the past. Now I understand this was when Fiona was pressuring her into aborting her pregnancy, and as a pro choicer myself, I believe that Debbie was fully in her right to have bodily autonomy and go through with the pregnancy. This isn’t where the issue lies. It’s when Fiona finds out that she too is pregnant and tells Debbie that she wants an abortion that Debbie accuses her of “killing her baby”. Again, her behavior could be explained by her age given that Debbie was still a young teen during this time.

When her actions as a White Feminist become less excusable is mostly in the latest season. Her relationship with Sandy is one that I’m not really happy with because Debbie doesn’t deserve her.

Recently, it has been revealed that Sandy is actually married to a man and has a son. It’s explained that she was basically married off against her will at the age of 15 to a man twice her age. This implies that the product of the marriage, her son, was most likely conceived through dubious consent (or worse) at the hands of an adult when she was just a kid. Just because Debbie thinks that Sandy’s husband “seems nice” does not give her the right to try and make a victim of grooming feel bad about not wanting to be with her abuser. While I understand that Sandy’s son has no fault in how he came into the world, I’m still gonna side with Sandy when it comes to having to take care of a child she didn’t want and who is most likely a source of trauma for her. It’s not difficult to sympathize with Sandy and see that she’s clearly gone through something fucked up and Debbie, despite claiming to love and support her, AND despite her dumb white feminist arc about wanting equal pay and all that jazz, turns her back on the girls supporting girls aspect of feminism.

This isn’t even mentioning how shitty it was to just leave Franny by herself and assume that one of her siblings would take her to school and pick her up and stuff as if they don’t all have separate lives. She talks a lot about being a good mother but decided to “let off some steam” by fucking off to a gay bar to get loaded on coke and fuck a gay man (which wtf thats not a thing that really happens with casual coke but whatever I guess). Once she realized she fucked up, instead of taking responsibility she decided to paint herself as the victim as well as spew offensive bullshit about how she “probably has AIDS now” because of her sexual encounter with a gay man. No lesbian in their right fucking mind would ever say that because as members of the LGBTQ+ community, you are at least a tiny bit informed as to how devastating and tragic the AIDS crisis was for queer people.

(I also have an issue with how Debbie capitalized on her felony as a sex offender and her sexuality to start her Hot Lesbian Convict business but I think that’s enough said.)

Blame the writers

The show got almost an entirely new cast of writers after season 7 which is why the show feels more like a sitcom with low stakes and no consequences rather than a drama, but if there is a queer writer on the team it’s not very evident. Even the better half of the queer relationship story, Ian and Mickey, I don’t feel has really been done justice since the change in writers. It’s just become painfully obvious that the actress is a straight girl playing a gay character (not to mention I have never seen any chemistry between her and all of her female love interests). I don’t fault Emma Kenney (the actress) for this. I actually really like her as a person and I like the videos she makes about the cast and such, and I think she does her best with the script she’s given. My complaints with Debbie are targeted entirely towards the writers.

This brings me to my final point. I need them to let Debbie be alone. Her whole thing for the second half of the season has been that she clearly has abandonment issues and is afraid of being alone. It’s why she’s so adamant about keeping the house and fighting with Lip about it (I’m actually on Debbie’s side for that one but that’s besides the point). They had her and Sandy break up which leaves Debbie to spiral further into her loneliness. From a writing point of view, it makes sense to take this opportunity to give her an arc in which she can overcome that and feel comfortable with herself so that she can move on as an adult instead of jumping into a new relationship. This is especially true since this is quite literally the last season ever of the show and any character development needs to be wrapped up. Introducing a new character out of nowhere does not give the viewers enough time to actually get invested in the new relationship. It’s also unfair to Debbie’s character because her arc is going to feel incomplete.

Anyway,,,,,,uuuhhhhh,,,,,feel free to add on if u want lmao

#shameless #debbie gallagher #sandy milkovich #lesbian #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #terrible queer rep

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twh-news · 3 years

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How the Man Behind Loki Is Shaping Marvel’s Phase 4 and Beyond

By Joanna Robinson | June 3, 2021

[Please read the whole article on Vanity Fair. It is so long that I can't paste it all on one post]

Humanity, look how far you’ve fallen,” a voice drawled out of the darkness of San Diego’s Comic-Con. In the summer of 2013 actor Tom Hiddleston took the stage in full Loki costume to promote what was supposed to be his last turn as everybody’s favorite Marvel villain in Thor: The Dark World. The already boisterous crowd went absolutely bananas chanting “Loki! Loki! Loki!” as Hiddleston, channeling iconic pro-wrestling heels like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, fed off the mixture of screams and boos, pointed menacingly at the crowd, and hurled elaborate insults. Go ahead and google “mewling quim” if you’re feeling brave.

The same year Hiddleston turned in the WWE-worthy performance in San Diego, lifelong pro-wrestling enthusiast and Loki head writer Michael Waldron began an MFA program in screenwriting just a couple hundred miles up the California coast, at Pepperdine University. Waldron rode his love for Hulk Hogan and the drama of the wrestling world all the way out from Atlanta to the shores of Malibu. His ride, from there, took him straight to the top. This is how one man’s lifelong love affair with wrestling became critical to the development of Marvel Phase Four.

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Less than a decade later, with an Emmy-winning stint on Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s fiercely beloved animated series Rick and Morty in his rearview, Waldron has become the chosen favorite of Marvel president Kevin Feige, who was so impressed with the now 34-year-old’s work as head writer on Loki that he tapped him to take over writing duties on the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel. Impressed with Strange, Feige then handpicked Waldron to work on his top secret Star Wars project. With Loki set to make a big splash next week, Waldron shared his unusual inspirations for both Loki and Strange, his rapid climb to the top of the Hollywood heap, and how, really, he just wants to be the next Nora Ephron.

“We lost every single game, and he’d take us out to the parking lot and give us this pep talk,” Harmon says. “What was the point of pep talking this terrible team? He kept on, which was a job that you couldn’t accomplish by being ironic or cynical.” One day, fortune smiled on both Waldron and the team when, in the frenzied excitement after their first-ever softball win, Harmon offered Waldron a writer’s assistant job on the fifth season of his NBC sitcom Community. “I look at all the amazing moments I’ve had in my career, and I’ve been so lucky, I don’t think I’ll ever have anything more exciting than that one,” Waldron says.

More from Michael Waldron and a Loki preview on this week's Still Watching podcast.

“He wanted to be a writer and I was like, ‘Too bad. You’re very handsome and charming. Get on the phone and talk to these producers for me,’” Harmon recalls of his early treatment of Waldron. “So there he is on Community as a writer’s P.A. and as a ‘facilities manager’ simultaneously—which is code for fixing things that go wrong in the bathroom.”

Meanwhile, Dan Harmon had finally seen the light. In 2018, Harmon and his Ricky and Morty team decided to staff “blind,” with writers submitting anonymous cold opens for the fourth season of his irreverent, animated journey through time and space featuring a young boy (Morty) and his drunk, Doc Brown–esque grandfather (Rick). “It was such a Sword in the Stone thing,” Harmon says. Someone informed Harmon that the two submissions he identified as “clearly the best” were “both by the same writer and that writer was the guy cleaning your toilets and all other manner of dirty work and trying to develop a Starz show on his off hours.”

When Waldron left for Marvel in 2019, he went with his Rick and Morty experience, his love of wrestling, a time-travel romance screenplay, and very little actual comic book knowledge. This last part might have appealed to Feige the most. The head of Marvel Studios himself didn’t grow up reading comics and has said that someone with an outsider’s approach to a comic book story can be more valuable than a writer stuck in the weeds of back issues. “I grew up a pro-wrestling guy, probably more of a Star Wars guy,” Waldron says, “but my love of Marvel came from the movies.”

Waldron cites this Thor: The Dark World moment as a particular favorite.

“That was the sandbox that we had to play in,” Waldron says. “I came up with the emotional engine of the whole thing. The fans of Loki watched him experience a character arc through Infinity War, and in a lot of ways, maybe even arc out. How do we break new ground with this character? What better movies and TV shows did I intend to rip off in each episode?”

Marvel itself solved the “arc out” problem by plucking Loki from earlier in his timeline at the end of 2012’s Avengers. Hiddleston’s character enters the show a time criminal captured by the TVA, and he might, in the end, prove its most valuable asset. Loki, the series, presents a less evolved, more mischievous god of mischief, and Waldron considers Hiddleston’s versatility the show’s ultimate weapon. The ceiling for Loki felt “so high” that Waldron was free to draw on a broad range of films and TV shows to construct Loki’s latest journey through the MCU.

The time-and-space-hopping adventure spirit of Rick and Morty is an obvious inspiration. “At first I was carrying in the Rick and Morty sensibility and I had to recalibrate,” he says. “I’m not writing a 22-minute cartoon. I was watching Quentin Tarantino movies—Inglourious Basterds. Movies that luxuriate in long scenes of dialogue and tension building.” Waldron also rattles off some other surprising inspirations: Blade Runner, Before Sunrise, and Catch Me If You Can.

Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds; Owen Wilson and Tom Hiddleston in Loki. Top, from the Everett Collection; bottom, courtesy of Disney+.

Here, Waldron says, is where time-travel stories really come in handy: “You can literally hold up a mirror to your characters. Perhaps they can encounter other versions of themselves at different points in their lives. In the case of Back to the Future’s Marty McFly, he can encounter versions of his parents and then he understands himself better.”

[Read the full story on Vanity Fair]

#loki #loki series #loki season 1 #tom hiddleston #michael waldron #article #interview #Youtube

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annethepancake · 3 years

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Sherlock rant

I recently rewatched BBC Sherlock for Rupert Graves, and aside from the lack of Lestrade appreciation I have a lot of problems with this series. Here are my thoughts:

1. It was all a blur

My second first impression of the show: I don't remember anything but the characters. And some characters I just blatantly forgot, like Mary. And I loved Mary on my second watch! I really forgot that at one point John actually got married and I don't even remember when I watched the show for the first time. I can still recall most of HIMYM's events and I hated that series.

2. It’s overall not a detective/crime show

Watching Sherlock for the second time, I mostly turned off my brain and just let it play in the background because (1) there's hardly anything for me to solve with the characters, most clues are taken by Sherlock off-screen anyway (especially after season 2), (2) they focus way too much on the quirks of the characters that make it almost like a sitcom that got dragged on for way too long. A crime/detective show shouldn't allow me to turn off my brain.

3. The characters just kinda fall flat

Exploring the depth of human emotions is not a bad approach to a modernized version of anything, I’m not trying to pretend I’m better than someone who gets sentimental over fictional character (if you know my blog at all, you know I am not), but at least write good characters. Sherlock is hardly a multi-faceted person; in fact, he’s kinda like the Wattpad teen fic main character sometimes. He physically fights off some terrorists with a machete to save the damsel in distress? He gets high off his tits but still got everything right all the time? John is just kinda there for most of the cases. Jim is a poorly written antagonist. Irene is a lesbian but gets the hot for our main character, surprise surprise. The only interesting characters to me are the ones who act like normal people: Molly, Greg and Mary. They are the multi-faceted characters, ones who I can actually relate to without feeling inferior to them in any way. Write characters like them, stop trying to be smart about it and stop writing Wattpad fanfictions for Sir Conan Doyle’s original works.

I get that they try to make Sherlock more like a human with emotions, making him quirky and arrogant, then make him quirky and more likable. It’s hardly a convincing character development though. He’s given over-powered deduction skills, so edgy, so high and mighty all the time. When he is finally written as vulnerable, turns out he has plans for that too. I would love to see him get it wrong once and maybe get humbled by that mistake, but getting Mary shot and killed is hardly even his fault, he is only doing his job. And killing off Mary is overall a bad idea anyway.

4. They treated the fandom like shit

I was absolutely disgusted at the start of season 3 when the showrunners just straight up shat on their fans. I wasn't there with the fandom during the wait between season 2 and 3, but I believe it was a pretty long wait (2 years, I could barely wait 2 years for my comfort series, and they have like 10 episodes per season), and they were presented with the first actual mystery of the series: How did Sherlock survive the fall? After years of waiting and having fun theorizing, they were met with a mockumentary about them, starring the most hated character of the protagonist and the fans. Those are the people who actually cared about the show for god's sake. The fact that the showrunners treated fans like crap and there's still an active fandom for the show appalled me.

Now not only The Empty Hearse bugs me, but the entire show does as well.

Allow me to digress.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a great example of audience engagement done right (Sorry for using this example I’m not actually that invested in the other franchises). After the success of the first game, the story provoked so many fans into solving the mysteries of the characters, some of them went really, really far. And that’s because of the actual mysteries that the development team took effort to plant into the plot. There is actual pay-off for painstakingly following the clues; as far as I know, only two (2!) people in the world have come close to solving the mystery of the first game (or they actually did). The game developers value their fans and their intelligence enough to have planted those clues where they did, and it’s a genuine exchange between the fans and the creators. Now even though you haven’t actually played the game, when you hear of the name and you’re only kinda familiar with gaming (like me), you’ll probably know what it is. What started as a mere open-source game by an indie developer became a sensation which left millions of fans begging for more.

Looking back at Sherlock, there are tons of logical flaws for a self-proclaimed crime series, virtually no clues for the audience to solve crimes along with their favorite detective, and when there was actually a mystery (Sherlock jumped off the building), they plainly showed him alive and well minutes later. Do we really need to see things spelled on screen to know what’s going on? Are we supposed to accept that Sherlock Holmes is an all-knowing future-predicting genius now too? Not a great sign of respecting the audience there.

So far, the only thing left that’s interesting about this series is the characters’ dynamic. Which brings me to the next criticism I have for the show.

5. The plague that infested mainstream media

Why is there still an active fandom? Queerbaiting and targeted marketing.

Community marketing is proven to be one of the best marketing methods there is, if not the best, to lengthen the lifespan of a product or service. The way they do that for shows and films and video games is usually by planting seeds of possible lores and history inside the content. Look at Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, they are franchises that ran for multiple years with a ton of history and world building that provokes fans’ imagination.

Sherlock - well, Sherlock has sexually ambiguous men.

Sherlock has a formula for success. It was an adaptation of the most iconic detective novel in the world, funded by one of the biggest TV networks in the UK and possibly the world (don’t quote me on this). Making this series means you can appeal to such a wide group of audience even before airing. Adding in the quirky smart men who live together, you’ve basically guaranteed a prime-time show with millions of loyal fans all over the world.

Fans are not stupid, and queer people don't just find queerness everywhere they go. They know a gay subtext when they see one. Sherlock came back from the literal death for John, pretty gay if you ask me.

This show is very much not just about some guys being dudes solving crimes, they have relationship that’s deeper than friendship, and definitely not platonic. They deliberately wrote a sexually ambiguous Sherlock Holmes from the get-go - literally from the very first episode, then capitalized off of the targeted demographic, never a pay-off for their anticipation. Martin Freeman said in interviews that he could recognize Sherlock fans, them being generally women from 16 - 25. No shit Sherlock, this show targets them and capitalizes off of them, being quirky and gay as hell, of course the fanbase is generally 16 - 25 and female.

Sherlock queerbaited the fandom for years for the sake of marketing and there’s never a pay-off, nor was there any recognition to the community, and to add to all that bigotry, queercoding pretty much all of the villains? Why was a show aired in the 2010′s allowed to do this? Why did Mark Gatiss, an openly gay man, a writer of the show, allow this to happen? Why are millions of fans all over the world allowing all this to go on?!

6. Conclusion

Now I haven’t read the books yet, so I’m not at all qualified to criticize the adaptation quality of the TV series; I’m just talking about the TV series on its own. Despite my criticism, I think the first two seasons did quite okay. There are quite a few nice cases there, I like The Blind Banker and The Hound of Baskerville. They did those well because the focus was on the cases themselves, and the connection between John and Sherlock was only in the background. I, like many other fans, like to figure things out on my own, to read between the lines, and to not have things spelled out for me. With the next seasons bombarded with Sherlock and John bonding it seriously felt like mere fan service for me and even though I wasn’t there when the show was on, I still felt like I was robbed and my interest in the show was abused.

Sherlock is undoubtedly super influential in pop culture even now. It has to have done something right to be in that spot (capitalizing off loyal fans?). I’m not writing this rant to change someone’s mind about the series, by all means, I’m still gonna love the hell out of Gavin Lestrade, and absolutely lose my mind over Mary Watson. So do take my words with a grain of salt, I’m just disappointed that one of the most influential shows there is is just short of my expectations.

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #rant #criticism

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nvgotd · 3 years

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Our favourite non-violent games of E3 Week 2021

Back in 2019, we ran a post listing every non-violent game shown during E3. Given this year’s array of E3 and E3-adjacent events produced 115 upcoming non-violent games (as you may have read somewhere), that just wasn’t practical. Instead, Rebekah and I have each picked out five our our faves. Enjoy!

- James

REBEKAH’S TOP 5

Pekoe

There is perhaps nothing cozier than tea and cats. Pekoe puts the player in the shoes of the newest resident and teahouse owner in a town of sentient cats. The cats want your tea, and you can learn to make it for them, learning about different tea varieties and tea making styles as you go while building relationships with the town’s inhabitants. You can upgrade and customize your teahouse, visit other teahouses for inspiration, and learn about different rituals, customs, and preparation styles for tea. Pekoe is developed by (appropriately) Kitten Cup Studio, and is planned for release in 2022.

Bear and Breakfast

Build and run a bed and breakfast in a tranquil wood...but also, you’re a bear! Startout with a rundown old inn, and build it up into splendor again while attracting and awing tourists who come to stay. Bear and Breakfast is a laidback management sim about growing a cozy woodland business, but with the added bonus of a forest mystery that unravels as your bustling breakfast nook grows. Developed by Gummy Cat, and planned for release later this year.

Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery

Behind the Frame follows an artist living alone, preparing a masterpiece for a gallery submission. It’s a puzzle game focused on both her day to day activities, her interactions with a fellow painter and neighbor (and his cat!), and painting itself. You’ll use a painting and sketch mechanic to solve puzzles that explore memory and emotion, all of which takes place in a hand-animated world that looks like it was pulled straight out of a Ghibli movie. Developed by Akupara Games.

Bird Problems

There are a lot of unique ideas for non-violent games and mechanics out there, but one I had personally never seen before was modeling a game after a sitcom. Bird Problems follows a young bird named Tweeter Gregory who’s clumsy and awkward, but just wants to make friends and enjoy a nice boba tea. We haven’t seen much of this game from Lithic Entertainment just yet, but its trailer at the Wholesome Direct stood out due to its resemblance to the goofy sitcoms of the 90s. But with birds!

A Little to the Left

Many of the non-violent games shown over the recent E3 weeks were narrative-focused, but sometimes all you want is a pleasant little puzzle game. A Little to the Left is less complicated, and in that way seems straightforward and soothing: it’s about reorganizing, tidying up, and setting things right. You’ll spend it arranging objects into patterns that look pleasant, with occasional “help” from a mischievous interrupting cat. Developed by Max Inferno, it’s planned for launch this October.

JAMES’ TOP 5

Forza Horizon 5

If you know what Forza Horizon is, you’re likely already looking forward to this one and/or have pre-ordered it/subscribed to Xbox Game Pass. For those who don’t, here’s a quick crash course (pun absolutely not intended): Developed by UK studio Playground Games, Horizon is the open-world spin-off series from Microsoft’s acclaimed Forza Motorsport franchise. While Motorsport focuses on simulation racing, Horizon offers a slightly more arcade-like experience, letting players loose behind the wheels of some of the world’s most powerful cars. You explore the landscape (Mexico, this time) to find more race locations or other ways to raise your Influence. Doing so unlocks the Top Gear-esque showstopper challenge. New to the mix are Expeditions, which take you on guided tours of the most beautiful places of the map, and Horizon Arcade, which lets you create your own tracks, stunts and races. Forza Horizon 5 is due for release on November 9th.

Sable

This indie sci-fi exploration game has been in the works for several years, but it’s finally approaching release. Set on a desert planet, you play a young woman from a nomadic tribe sent on a ritualistic quest to explore the world - on a hoverbike. Akin to Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder, or more accurately the giant USB dongle Rey drove in The Force Awakens, your task is to discover more about the world as you learn more about yourself. Investigating the wreckage of old ships will help you find the components you need to upgrade your bike, and as you meet other tribes, you can complete side quests to help them and forge new friendships. Developed by Shedworks, Sable will be available from September 23rd.

Phantom Abyss

This game has a bit of an Indiana Jones meets Mirror's Edge kind of vibe. Players race through ancient temples, leaping chasms and dodging booby traps, in the hopes of being the first to reach the relic at the centre. You don't technically compete with other players in real time; instead, you race their ghosts, following their leads and learning from their mistakes. Each temple is randomly generated, but as soon as someone claims the relic, they are declared champion of that particular temple and the course is removed forever, cementing their victory. And yes, you have an Indy-style whip to swing across gaps. It’s developed by Team WIBY and launched in Early Access last week.

Lake

Most video game stories present the player with world-ending stakes, sending them on an urgent quest where the clock is always ticking. Lake is a much more personal and relaxed affair. Set in 1986, you take on the role of Meredith Weiss, a forty-something career woman taking a break ahead of her software company’s big launch. She heads back to the fictional lakeside town of Providence Oaks, Oregon, her childhood home, to rediscover old friends and see what (if anything) has changed. She also takes on her father’s role as a mail carrier, delivering letters and parcels each day while he is on holiday. During the two weeks, she can forge friendships, find love, or even choose to give up her career and make a new home for herself - the choice is up to you. Lake is developed by Gamious and is due for release by the end of the year.

Schim

This 3D puzzle platformer has a simple but wonderfully creative premise: jumping between shadows. You control a schim: the soul of a living creature or object. This particular schim has become separated from the human being it was attached to, and it’s up to you to reunite them. You can hop between shadows as if they were pools of water, and if a shadow is moving (for example, the shadow of someone walking about or a bird flying) that pool will move and take you with it. Working out the best route between shadows is the only way to navigate each level, set across various urban and rural spaces. Timing is the key, because as soon as you leap out of a shadow and land in the light, it’s game over. As you can see, all of this is presented in a beautifully distinct style. Schim is being developed by Ewould van der Werf, although a release window has yet to be decided.

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centaurianthropology · 3 years

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A List of Older Fandoms for Quarantine Viewing

I thought it might be fun to put out a list of older fandoms or smaller fandoms that might be of interest to folks here. As we’re all still stuck with quarantine, perhaps you’re looking for some new/old media? Perhaps this list could help?

This is halfway between a rec list and a charting of my own fandom history. For anyone looking for some new fandoms to check out that are various flavors of interesting and a little older, check ‘em out!

Feel free to add your own!

In no specific order (other than maybe my DVD shelf??)

Patrick O’Brien books/Master and Commander - this was a fairly good-sized fandom back when the movie ‘Master and Commander’ came out. A must-watch for anyone who likes historical fiction, age of sail, and powerful homoeroticism.

David Drake’s Royal Cinnabar Navy series - did you ever want Master and Commander in space, but Stephen Maturin is a librarian named Adele Mundy who is a sharpshooter and utterly terrifying and wonderful and beloved ace representation? Fair warning: this series contains grapic descriptions of violence from an author who’s still working through his Vietnam PTSD. Here be dragons.

Adam Adamant Lives! - an Edwardian adventurer got frozen in a block of ice by his arch-nemesis The Face, thawed out in 1969, and now fights crime with a young woman sidekick and an actor-turned-butler who spouts limericks. It is a completely insane show and joyously dumb. Everyone involved is having a whale of a time. It’s hard to come by, but so worth watching it for the pure silliness.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I can’t believe this has become a fandom some people haven’t heard of, but here we are, far enough out from the massive cultural impact of Buffy that I need to remind folks. 1990s series about a cheerleader-turned-vampire slayer, struggling with both the supernatural and with high school (which is much worse).

Angel - spinoff of Buffy, and in some ways my preferred series? It has so many problems, and the writing of seasons 3 and 4 is quite weak, but the characters are strong, the stories are solid, and Alexis Denisof’s Wesley Wyndam-Pryce remains one of my favorite character arcs in television.

Marble Hornets - here’s another fandom that doesn’t feel like it should be old, but it’s now over a decade since its premiere. One of the early webseries, Marble Hornets is still one of the best. Well done horror with occasionally iffy amateur acting, easily overcome with a surprising touch for cinematography. I’m a sucker for amateur film, especially when it’s well done and ambitious.

Babylon 5 - This was the first fandom I posted about on here, and still one of my great loves. Arcs before arcs on television were a thing. Huge overarching stories playing out over seasons. Great political intrigue on a space station. The grandest, most tragic Shakespearean romance that ever played out between two middle-aged alien diplomats.

Carnivale - HBO prestige show before they had prestige shows. Bought the DVDs on the cover art alone, and they were so worth it: “1934. The Dustbowl. The last great age of magic.” Like most HBO shows, every possible content warning does probably apply to this show, though it’s not nearly as extreme as Game of Thrones, so if you could watch that, you can probably watch Carnivale.

Firefly - space western courtesy of Joss Whedon. Only one series long, but really well done. Probably Whedon’s best work.

Homicide: Life on the Streets - early 1990s police procedural with a twist: it wanted to be a very accurate, realistic portrayal of a homicide unit, based on a documentary novel. The characters all feel real, you’re certain they all smell like cigarettes, coffee, and sweat. Also, can we applaud a show that has a female homicide detective who doesn’t wear makeup, has frizzy red hair, and never wears heels? Kay Howard is such a fantastic character. Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss and John Munch and Gee are all such wonderful, real characters. Another great show for prestige-television-before-it-existed.

The Last Detective - British detective series about a detective who gets small, mournful cases ignored by everyone else and solves them mostly through dogged work rather than brilliance. This show is the most melancholy show I have ever seen, shockingly good in the quietest way possible, and remains one of my favorite detective series ever.

M*A*S*H - have you ever wanted a proper tragicomedy billed as a sitcom? There’s a reason this show is still considered the greatest sitcom ever made. Fair warning: the early seasons really haven’t aged well, and a lot of the comedy doesn’t land. But if you’re willing to stick with it to the later seasons, you’ll find a show that shifts toward one of the greatest tragicomedies ever.

Sapphire and Steel - 1970s/1980s British horror/sci-fi show about two mysterious beings that appear to resolve science fiction reinterpretations of horror concepts. Despite a shoestring budget, the writing is phenomenal, and the acting is perfect, particularly the icy intimacy between the two leads, David McCallum and Joanna Lumley.

Sherlock Holmes - before the modern interpretations, there was the 1980s series starring Jeremy Brett. If you want the single most accurate interpretation of Conan Doyle’s work, with characters who feel and look like they’ve stepped off the page (and the series that singlehandedly rehabilitated the character of Inspector Lestrade), this series is a must-watch. This has been my go-to comfort viewing for years.

Also, if you’re a Sherlock Holmes nut, and you’re desperate for more content, and willing to navigate a Cyrillic DVD menu for subtitles, might I suggest the late 70s Russian Sherlock Holmes series? Vasiliy Livanov’s Holmes is such a different interpretation of the character, and he’s a delight. And Vitaliy Solomin’s Watson is possibly my favorite Watson ever. He’s so done with everything.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - sort of the forgotten middle child of the Star Trek series, but in many ways it’s one of the most ambitious. It was a rival/developed at the same time and somewhat by the same team as Babylon 5, so there are some striking similarities (space station, overarching stories, etc), but while B5 manages the political intrigue better, DS9 does a war better. It’s the darkest of the Star Trek series, investigating the more tarnished edges of the utopia. The characters are more deeply developed and flawed, and I love them all. Andrew Robinson’s portrayal of tailor-with-a-mysterious-past Garak is probably the best character Star Trek ever created in any series.

Hope those of you looking for new things to watch and dig into might find something in this list!

#older fandoms #maybe you're looking for something new to watch or read?#might I offer these?

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studiesof-fandom-primaryblog · 3 years

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The Journal of Fandom Studies

Volume 1, Number 2, 1 October 2013

Augmenting fan/academic dialogue: New directions in fan research by Paul Booth [DePaul University]

Fan studies as a discipline is still in its infancy. But even given this nascence, there have been significant shifts in the ways that it has theorized, studied and investigated fans over the first two and a half decades of research. As scholarship, fan studies has moved away from ethnographic investigations of fans as the main object of study to focus instead on the output of fan discourse as the key mode of examination. At the same time, scholars like Henry Jenkins and Matt Hills, both central to the discipline, have opened dialogue about the nature of the fan/academic, often called the ‘aca-fan’. This article uses the lens of aca-fandom to analyse fan answers to interview questions at a large Midwestern Doctor Who convention. Fans were asked about the role that fan studies has played in their life, how they perceive the study of fans and whether fan studies as an academic discipline has an effect on their fandom. The fans’ answers reflect a critical awareness of fandom but a general ignorance of fan studies. This article argues three points to take away from this. First, fan studies needs to refocus attention back onto fans themselves through ethnographic work. Second, the discipline needs to refocus its output less on esoteric academic titles and more on popular venues. Finally, fans and academics should engage in specific dialogue to open up avenues for new fannish and academic exploration.

A case of identity: Role playing, social media and BBC Sherlock by Ann McClellan [Plymouth State University]

Many fans of Sherlock Holmes are now extending their interest in the famous sleuth into the world of social media. In particular, the BBC’s modern adaptation, Sherlock, seems to have grabbed the public’s attention with multiple character role plays on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. It remains unclear, however, whether to categorize these narratives as fan fiction or role play game. This article explores the genre differences between fan fiction and role play game and identifies specific genre characteristics that place social media fan narratives in the role play game category. While adaptation studies and much of fan fiction center on issues of fidelity to the source text, role play scholarship emphasizes recreating the world of the sourcetext. Role playing both expands the boundaries of the original series in that it provides viewers with more—more stories, more character development, more adventure—but it is also limited by the constraints of the original show’s characterization and overall narrative arc. Online role play characters must speak like their source characters, they must interact with other characters from the show in textually appropriate ways, and they must respond to new situations in ways that are consistent with their televisual counterparts. Looking specifically at BBC Sherlock role plays on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, this article explores the ways in which contemporary audiences are using social media to challenge traditional understandings of genre, world building and fandom in order to approach a greater verisimilitude of play.

‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ of cult TV: Fans, followers, and fringe religions in Strangers with Candy and Veronica Mars by David Scott Diffrient [Colorado State University]

This article explores episodes of the contemporary American television programmes Strangers with Candy (Comedy Central, 1999–2000) and Veronica Mars (UPN/CW, 2004–07) so as to ascertain and discursively frame the complex relationship between cults (or neo-religious organizations) and cult TV. Although different from one another in many respects, these two TV series share an interest in the cliquish formations of high-school life that divide students into warring camps of insiders and outsiders. Moreover, both programmes contain pivotal episodes in which the ritualistic practices of fictional cults are presented ambivalently – as a source of humour yet also as a gateway through which the unconventional female protagonists pass on their way to self-discovery. That journey has extraordinary resonance for fans or ‘followers’ of these programmes. As argued by Jonathan Gray in his recently published work on ‘affect, fantasy, and meaning’, fans and followers are viewers who are ‘most involved in their consumption’. As such, Strangers with Candy and Veronica Mars deserve scrutiny as steadfastly worshipped texts conducive to the kinds of meta-consumptive discourses and practices that might shed light on culturally entrenched attitudes related to neo-religious activities.

Community clip show: Examining the recursive collaboration between producers and viewers of a postmodern sitcom by Rekha Sharma [Kent State University]

In the new media landscape, exclusive communication within a TV show’s creative team or amongst its fans is no longer sufficient to maintain the continuation of the programme. Instead, a community arises through the collaboration of those behind the scenes and those in front of the screens. By utilizing interactive technologies, showrunners and audiences have redefined notions of media consumption and mass media. An illustrative case is NBC’s postmodern sitcom, Community (Harmon, 2009–). The show features metadiscourse on media production, responds to viewers’ feedback and preferred narratives and shares the creation of meaning with the audience. As a result, the show has developed an ardent following because viewers feel their concerns are directly addressed by the show’s creative team. Further, their contributions challenge the conventional belief that fan interpretations are merely secondary discourse to the primary television text, as Community fans’ works have helped shape the televised narrative. One episode, Season 2’s ‘Paradigms of Human Memory’, deals with the creators’ and viewers’ mutual conceptualization of time and reality encapsulated in the series.

‘I’m not a lawyer but …’: Fan disclaimers and claims against copyright law by Jenny Roth and Monica Flegel [Lakehead University]

Fan fiction has become increasingly widespread, and online discussions between fans about fan fiction and copyright reveal the extent to which fans are both governed by and resist copyright law, as they understand it. As complex agents both within and outside of law, writers and supporters of fan fiction reveal the problems of speaking against law from a position that is regulated by law, a position creative re-producers are forced to occupy in an increasingly copyrighted, patented and trademarked world. So long as those whom the law is meant to regulate see themselves as legitimate shapers of that law, even though they inhabit space outside the formal mechanisms of law or the legal world, the law will not be effective. When fans with little or no legal expertise invoke and interpret copyright, they reveal that copyright does not attend to the complex realities of creative production, nor the very active consumption, engagement with, and re-articulation of cultural artefacts and texts in society to effectively police at the grassroots level.

Continuing The West Wing in 140 characters or less: Improvised simulation on Twitter by Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore and Jonathan Hickman [Birmingham City University]

Sharing some of the findings from a study of fans tweeting as characters from US TV drama The West Wing (NBC, 2000–2006), this article uses data from Twitter observation and fan interviews to examine how participants negotiated the structures of Twitter through this activity. In particular, we consider what implications that negotiation has for the resulting fan text; for how participants perform fandom through this medium; and for how they perceive the value of their fan practice. Through this investigation, the article demonstrates some of the ways in which Twitter facilitates and constrains articulations of audience engagement.

Keywords: Doctor Who; aca-fan; academy; convention; fan; interview; BBC Sherlock; Facebook; Sherlock Holmes; fan production; role play; social media; world building; Strangers with Candy; Veronica Mars; cult TV; cults; fandom; religion; active audiences; interactive media; postmodern sitcom; television fandom; textual poaching; virtual community; authorship and authority; copyright law and legal discourse; fan policing; fanfiction; law and society; producer/consumer relations; TV drama; Twitter; audiences; online communities; television.

#journal: jfs #text: academic paper #researcher: paul booth #researcher: ann mcclellan #researcher: david scott diffrient #researcher: rekha sharma #researcher: jenny roth #researcher: monica flegel #researcher: inger-lise kalviknes bore #researcher: jonathan hickman

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tobiasdrake · 4 years

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Magia Record vs. the Individualist Power Fantasy in Media

It’s 4 A.M. in the morning. I’m suddenly awoken by my brain refusing to shut up and let me sleep.

Brain: Hey. Hey. Me: Oh my god, what time is it? Go to bed. Brain: Capitalism is an economic structure emphasizing individual empowerment over collective good. Our media reinforces capitalist philosophy through the power fantasies we make and consume, which frequently emphasize individual empowerment and unique specialness. Me: Yeah, that’s how “main characters” work. Are you done? Brain: What would a collective power fantasy even look like? Me: I dunno. Something team-based like Avatar or Sailor Moon or something. Brain: Yeah, except not really? Even in shows like that, there’s still a clearly designated main character. Even in a cast of special people, this character is the most unique and the most special, and the show inflates their power fantasy beyond the rest of their cast. Me: Then I guess I really don’t know what a collective power fantasy would look like. Maybe you should chew on that. I’m going to bed.

Five minutes later.

Me: Wait a second, Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Magia Record is a collective power fantasy. Brain: !!! Me: Oh, fuck. Now we actually have to talk about this. I guess it’s coffee o’clock.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica became famous for being a brutal deconstruction of the Magical Girl genre. In creating this darker version of a Magical Girl reality, a creative decision was made to create a series where being a Magical Girl is, itself, not really a mark of uniqueness or specialness.

In the show’s reality, anyone can become a Magical Girl. Becoming a Magical Girl is as simple as making a contract with Kyubey. Theoretically, even boys and adult men and women could form contracts; Kyubey just focuses on young girls for his contracts for his own questionably-altruistic reasons. And yes, that is supposed to sound as creepy as it does.

This is a detail that kinda gets lost in the twists and turns of Madoka’s plot. Indeed, even Madoka plays the “clearly defined main character” card; different girls have different potential that Kyubey can draw out, so one Magical Girl is not equal to another for frequently arbitrary reasons. Central protagonist Madoka is a hapless nobody who has near godlike potential for reasons the plot will go on to explain, and Kyubey very much wants to convince her to make a contract.

Madoka, like most power fantasies, is an individual power fantasy. It’s just darker and more gut-wrenching in how it goes about it.

But Magia Record is a gacha game (of all things) that took that particular detail and ran with it. Magia Record took that aside and started asking questions.

If anyone can be a Magical Girl, then does being a Magical Girl actually confer any unique specialness or meaning?

And if being a Magical Girl confers no specialness or meaning, then what even is a main character?

Now, the ensemble cast is not a recent invention. We’ve been creating media for years where there is no main character, but rather a cast of main characters no one of whom is more narratively important than any other. However, these are primarily sitcoms, comedies, and dramas. In power fantasies, the closest we get tends to be series like Fullmetal Alchemist where there are many unique, talented, and special people, but the center protagonists are still the most unique, most talented, and most special nonetheless.

In pursuit of creating a gacha game (one of the more predatory models in capitalist game design, ironically enough), the developers applied the ensemble cast approach to the power fantasy. The main story of the game does have its central protagonist: Iroha Tamaki, who serves as the audience surrogate as she delves into the mysteries of Kamihama City and its explicitly unusual version of the Puella Magi metaphysics.

But there’s a twist in the dynamic. Kamihama is a place where Witches, the main antagonists of the franchise, are much more powerful than in other places for mysterious reasons. This may sound like your standard serial escalation, but what it actually does for the setting is to force Magical Girls to hunt Witches in teams, more akin to what other Magical Girl series do with their casts but without the uniquely special title characters of those casts.

Confronting the Witches of Kamihama isn’t about becoming stronger to face this higher-level type of Witch. It’s about abandoning individuality and embracing collective interest. Iroha is tasked not with getting stronger but instead with finding a place in one such team, of which Kamihama has many.

Further, the developers went the extra mile in reinforcing that everyone is a main character in their own story and a supporting character in someone else’s. That extra mile is to write those stories. Each Magical Girl comes with her own Magical Girl Episode, a plotline centering on that specific character fleshing out who she is and what her journey’s about.

The Limited-Time Events further decentralize the plot from Iroha, instead typically emphasizing different teams or characters floating around Kamihama. Even the villains of Kamihama, the Wings of the Magius, have their own teams and their own stories to tell.

Kamihama City is a place full of magic and superpowers where you can be gifted and you can be powerful. But it is also a place where the only way to succeed as a Magical Girl is to abandon individualism and embrace a collective good.

#puella magi madoka magica #magia record #collectivism #individualism #power fantasy

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