#ALSO ​THIS ISN’T MY MAIN TAKEAWAY FROM THE MOVIE THE ACTUAL THEMES AND EMOTIONS GO FUCKING HARD BUT ALSO I LIKE TO MAKE JOKES

[gnomeniche]

nate d. stevenson fucking loves childhood friend drama and you know what. so do i

#the real reason i watch everything he makes is this btw #am.txt #nimona #ALSO ​THIS ISN’T MY MAIN TAKEAWAY FROM THE MOVIE THE ACTUAL THEMES AND EMOTIONS GO FUCKING HARD BUT ALSO I LIKE TO MAKE JOKES #how did they add Another childhood friend angst dynamic in here though. thank you #mr. nd has a favorite dynamic and it also happens to be Mine As Well #the actual themes are so powerful. an excellent film about deconstructing hegemonic narratives abt the other + loving people as they are #and also about smashing unjust systems. fuck yeah #i was crying in the club so hard #also as someone who has been a big fan of the comic since it was a webcomic it is a REALLY good adaptation #EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH NIMONA

[thankskenpenders]

IDW Sonic: Imposter Syndrome and #50

It’s finally here! IDW Sonic #50! I waited to talk about the Imposter Syndrome miniseries until after #50 dropped, and it turns out #50 has, uh... well, it’s made a big splash. I’m not sure I’ve seen this many people talking about (and/or arguing over) a single issue of Sonic in a long time.

As expected, in this post I’ll be talking about Surge, Kit, and Starline, but #50 has also given us a ton to chew on regarding Sonic and Eggman, Belle, and the overarching themes of the entire IDW series.

Let’s start out with the miniseries!

IMPOSTER SYNDROME

Surge rules

Can I just say that up front? That’s my main takeaway. Surge fucking rules

She was popular from the very second the first images of her dropped because Evan and Mauro came up with an extremely sick design, and the actual story does not disappoint. She borrows liberally from delinquent rival anime tropes (except, you know, she’s a girl, so it’s instantly even better), but that’s such a natural and fun addition to the Sonic cast that she instantly grabs you

And boy, if the writing and the strength of the design weren’t already enough, Thomas Rothlisberger’s art throughout the arc sure does. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Rise of the TMNT, which I can see. But Surge just makes so many good faces, constantly, and everything she does is cool. She’s angry teenage rebellion personified and she’s instantly become one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise, period. (Tangle and Whisper are also up there, so it’s safe to say the IDW comics have an extremely good track record when it comes to comic-original characters.)

Like seriously just look at her faces and tell me she isn’t the best

Kit, AKA “Aw Little Guy!!! Oh He's A Little Bit Fucked Up Actually”

There were always hints that Kit had a sinister side to him - he is a villain, after all - but Surge stole the show at the start of the miniseries. This left Kit mostly as her meager sidekick struggling to please both her and Starline. In this way, he’s a dark reflection of Tails. Where Tails has become more independent over time, becoming more of an equal to Sonic, Kit exists entirely to support Surge. Starline made him this way, because this is how Starline perceives Sonic and Tails’ relationship. Starline doesn’t really understand people despite thinking he does, and this is what ultimately damns all of them

Naturally, this has left Kit kind of fucked up. Over the course of the arc, it becomes clear that he’s probably the scarier of the two. Surge might be stronger, but like Sonic, she wears her emotions and her intentions on her sleeve. But Kit? Kit suppresses his violent urges, until they build to a point where he can’t anymore

(these panels from #50 but still)

Holy shit, Starline???

I touched on Starline’s very meta plan earlier. I would have honestly been happy if Ian and co. had just added these cool new rivals for Sonic and Tails and let them duke it out, because they are, in fact, cool as hell. But the actual plot of the arc is more intriguing than that

Starline has always been a very meta character, with his main trait as a character basically being that he can zoom out and notice patterns in the franchise that other characters either can’t or won’t. He’s the guy who watches a movie and says how he would make smarter decisions than the characters the whole time. Early on, he did this with Eggman. He tried to “fix” Eggman’s methods so that he could finally succeed in beating Sonic and taking over the world, but this didn’t work out, and Eggman kicked him to the curb. He then decided that he would simply go solo and take over the world for Eggman. He finally reveals his true plan for doing so here: create his own “heroes” who can replace Sonic and Tails, the main heroes who always stand in the way of “progress” (Eggman taking over the world). In theory, this will allow Starline to control the hero/villain dynamic from both sides, ending the cycle of Eggman trying to “change the world” and Sonic stopping him

And of course, Starline calls this cycle he intends to break...

“The Sonic Cycle.”

I love you Ian

It quickly becomes apparently, though, that Starline’s plan here is, uh. Extremely fucked up! Wow! Early on it’s revealed that Starline has repeatedly been “rebooting” Surge and Kit. Any time the cracks start to show in their conditioning and they question their life stories, Starline’s orders, or their innate desires to defeat Sonic and Tails, Starline edits their memories. They do start to put two and two together, though, and eventually they learn the truth: they’re just two random kids Starline kidnapped and experimented on. They don’t remember their actual pasts, and Starline didn’t bother to keep track of who they originally were because he doesn’t care. They’ve been modified with cyborg endoskeletons and even have some of the Metal Virus in them, making them nigh-unkillable. Which Starline tested by... well, killing them repeatedly to make sure they always bounced back.

This is... so much darker than I would have ever expected? But in a fantastic way. It makes Starline SO absolutely despicable, and it gives Surge and Kit this pathos that makes you want to root for them, even as they set out to go rogue and burn the whole world down. Surge is very much set up as her own antihero in the buildup to her showdown with Sonic, which is a choice that I think leads to some fascinating character juxtaposition when it finally happens in issue #50.

Really, my only complaint about the miniseries was that the marketing made it seem like Sonic and Tails would be dealing with these two sooner, when in reality this is all the setup. The extremely hype wrestling promos for the climactic Wrestlemania that is Sonic #50. (My other complaint, I suppose, is that IDW is still having multiple artists trade off in a single story, which can be a bit jarring. But that’s a publisher-wide issue.)

But MAN. When we finally do get that big showdown? It does not disappoint.

SONIC #50

As with Imposter Syndrome, I went in expecting Sonic and Tails to fight Surge and Kit. And we absolutely got that with this extra-long issue penciled by Adam Bryce Thomas. Adam’s always been an A-lister on the IDW series, especially when it comes to bombastic shounen manga-inspired battles, but this issue might just be his best Sonic work yet

But like I said at the start, the issue is more than just some cool fights.

Sonic vs. Surge

Surge’s entire life, or at least what little of her life she can remember thanks to Starline, has been building up to this moment. Whoever she was before is gone, replaced with one purpose. She’s been impatiently awaiting the day she's finally allowed to fight Sonic to the death. We’ve followed her through Starline’s inhumane training, the audience being equally antsy after months of buildup. At long last, she confronts him. She delivers an impassioned speech about what she stands for, how she curses the world that discarded her, how she’s going to tear Sonic and anyone else who stands in her way a new one...

And Sonic... doesn’t really give that much of a shit.

They do fight, of course. Boy, do they ever. But Sonic has never met this girl before and has no animosity towards her. He’s also done this too many times and would like to skip to the part where they’re friends, or at least frenemies. And this is just... tragic for Surge. For her, this is the most important day in her life. But for Sonic, it’s Tuesday. For Surge, this is a duel to the death. But Sonic, ever the unflappably positive shounen protagonist, is just having fun fighting someone who keeps him on his toes. He refuses to validate her on her terms.

(There are also a lot of interesting parallels with Tails’ simultaneous fight with Kit, where the kindhearted Tails is trying to be extremely nice and defuse the situation when he realizes that Kit is just some poor, fucked up kid. But instead of going on my own tangent I’ll link this very good TikTok analyzing Sonic’s social skills and the interesting ways his blunt, brash attitude can clash with the fact that he does genuinely care a lot.)

I even feel like Adam’s art is playing up the idea that Sonic’s attitude continues to make him the villain for Surge. His speech about his ideals places him above Surge, with a smug expression on his face and sunbeams shining down over him. Adam’s own (extremely sick) variant cover is framed very similarly, showing us the smug and above-it-all Sonic from Surge’s perspective.

Why does Surge think Sonic is so holier-than-thou? And why does she still care about fighting him if she just wants to defy Starline’s brainwashing? Well, she directly calls out his belief in the power of second chances, blaming Sonic for her very existence. Which ties back into what’s become one of the main recurring themes of the IDW series.

Sonic’s Characterization

As Ian’s explained, Sonic’s characterization in the IDW series has been informed by a number of factors. For one, more compassionate heroes are just landing better with audiences these days, including in shounen manga. Your Dekus, your Tanjiros, etc. But beyond that, Sega explicitly forbids Sonic and friends from proactively seeking out Eggman. Sonic is never looking for a fight. Eggman simply causes trouble, Sonic shows up to stop him, and he returns to being a free-spirited roamer.

Really, Sonic’s attitude in the current comics isn’t much different from how he acts in the games. Ian just decided to draw more attention to this behavior, and turn it into an explicit character trait that impacts the story.

I don’t really know what games people have been playing where Sonic DOESN’T act like this? Sure, there are a few games where a villain dies. There are always going to be counterexamples in a series as inconsistent as this. But look at how many characters Sonic has given second chances, and how lightly Sonic often takes threats to the world. Shadow was trying to blow up the damn planet and Sonic was still just having fun racing him on the ARK. Chaos destroyed a whole major metropolitan city and Sonic is like “hold on, Chaos is just hurt, we need to break this cycle of violence.” He��s ended up working with Eggman plenty of times to stop a greater threat. Even when this doesn’t happen, Eggman tends to just fly away at the end. Sonic never hunts him down. Again, Sega forbids him from doing this. It’s not in his character. The IDW comics just explore why.

At the same time, bad faith criticisms of Sonic’s willingness to give villains second chances tend to ignore the very important second part of this mantra, which this issue has Sonic spell out explicitly. Yes, he believes in giving people personal freedom. But the second they use that freedom to hurt people, Sonic is going to beat their asses again. He doesn’t have qualms about using violence in that way. He is, by no definition of the word, a pacifist. Sonic understands that Surge is traumatized, and tries to give her the chance to back down. She refuses, so he kicks her ass, because she’s a threat. Sonic sort of took mercy on the Zeti, in that he didn’t fucking execute them or whatever... but they also got banished back to the Lost Hex where they can’t hurt anyone. Tails disarmed Metal Sonic before they let him go. Sonic let Eggman go only because he had amnesia and Mr. Tinker was, by all accounts, a literal different person. The second he came back? Sonic gladly went right back to blowing his shit up. He is not out here handwringing about Eggman Empire property damage, he’s destroying his bases and smashing his mechs again.

Sonic also isn’t just any regular guy, and can’t always be judged as such. He’s a larger-than-life hero. He’s the embodiment of freedom, of endless adventure, of the power of friendship, of other idealized... well, ideals. This is the very core of his character. He’s the unshakably positive hero who never blinks in the face of danger, who the other, more realistically fallible characters can lean on. He’s a force of nature. He’s not perfect, and he doesn’t always handle things the right way, and other characters will bring up valid counterpoints to his way of life. Like other shounen heroes like Goku or Luffy, he might be a hero due to his actions, but he’s not concerned about being the world’s savior or its god. He doesn’t want to dictate how people live their lives. He leaves decisions about how to run society to other, smarter people, like the Restoration. He just wants to be free to go on adventures and to help his friends when they’re in need. His theme song spells out his whole deal, clear as day: It doesn’t matter who’s wrong and who’s right. He’s just living by his own feelings, and he won’t give in, won’t compromise. He only has a steadfast heart of gold.

Surge can’t stand this, though. The two just can’t see eye to eye. And so she zaps Sonic when he takes a time out in their fight to help her out of a chasm, getting the last laugh and seemingly falling to her doom. “That’s the real problem with giving people a choice,” Sonic solemnly says. “You can’t stop them from making the wrong ones.”

The Bigger Problem

Beyond any fandom bickering over how Sonic should or shouldn’t be characterized, though, this is part of a larger problem that I’ve seen way too frequently in recent years. Adults are engaging with genre fiction for children, and then getting upset when the child protagonists fail to model what they perceive as proper behavior for adults. Particularly, adults are seeing child protagonists learn to solve conflicts nonviolently, or even merely refusing to kill a villain, and interpreting this media as a political playbook for adults telling them that punching Nazis is bad.

That’s not to say that children’s media is never political, of course, or that you can never judge it through a political lens. (Back in the Archie days the direct political allegories were NOT subtle.) But just because some cartoon villains are obvious stand-ins for fascists doesn’t mean that every cartoon with a world-conquering villain is trying to tell you, an adult, how you should deal with fascists, or murderers, or whatever bad faith comparison critics on YouTube and Twitter want to make this time.

This will hopefully be insultingly obvious to most people reading this, but fiction isn’t always literally about the thing it’s depicting, or the closest real world equivalent. In genre fiction, and especially genre fiction for kids, reality is heightened. A fight for the fate of the city or the world or the universe isn’t necessarily about world-scale threats in real life like fascism, or even about real world violent conflicts in general. It’s often more about the emotions than what’s literally happening on screen. In a musical, when the emotions get too strong for words, they break out into song. In an action cartoon, when the emotions get too strong between conflicting characters, they fight. The fantastical violence is just the medium through which the story is conveyed. They trade blows and express their feelings.

Similarly, when the child hero in a series for children saves the day by hugging the right person, or when a villain is redeemed, or when Naruto espouses the power of friendship and uses Talk no Jutsu for the hundredth time, that isn’t telling you, a 30-year-old, that you can go out right now and save America by giving Mitch McConnell a hug. The morals of these stories aren’t necessarily supposed to apply to world-scale conflicts because children are not responsible for saving the world in real life. Instead, the lessons apply more to conflicts that children do deal with. Disputes with friends, or family members, or teachers. Things like that. It’s telling kids that hey, maybe you’ve been mean to people, maybe you’ve acted wrong, but you can learn from your mistakes and do better. That is what lessons about trying to resolve conflicts peacefully, talking about your feelings, empathizing with others, and giving people second chances are supposed to be about. They (usually) aren’t intended as political playbooks for adults telling you not to punch a Nazi, because the people telling these stories are probably hoping that adults aren’t modeling their political behavior after Cartoon Network and Shonen Jump.

But while I generally enjoy this compassionate take on the Sonic series, there is one part of the issue that felt weaker when it comes to the heroes showing compassion towards the villains.

Belle and Metal

If there’s one character from the games that I think Ian has always struggled with more than others, it’s probably Metal Sonic. Of course, not every writer is going to gel with every character, especially on a licensed series where you’re working with someone else’s cast. (Lord knows if I was to write a Sonic series I would play favorites lmao.) And Ian’s definitely put out some great Metal Sonic stories. But he’s also prone to boiling the character down to a simple killer robot for Sonic and co. to repeatedly defeat without any interiority.

Belle has also been a contentious character throughout this season. I’ll reiterate that I think Belle is great, and the big emotional beats with her have been strong. I would say the mixed response to Belle is primarily a matter of pacing, more than anything else. As Evan explained over on her blog, Belle's backstory was originally just going to be a short one-off. When the 2021 Annual was replaced with the Classic Sonic special, Belle’s story got turned into the main overarching subplot connecting the stories of the third season. I do like a lot of the storytelling this allowed for. The buildup to the reveals in the Test Run arc, and her ensuing tearful breakdown; her questioning of her very nature as a Badnik; her heroic moments in Trial by Fire where she’s finally able to prove herself. It’s good stuff! Character arcs like this are why original characters are added to the comics in the first place. But I can also see how the slow and somewhat repetitive rollout of information and emotional beats is a bit much over a year and a half of comics, and it was a little odd to have her stick around as the only consistent main character for every single arc of the season as soon as we met her. But I still enjoyed her arc this season as a whole.

No, where I start to be more mixed on the direction of Belle as a character is this issue. Previously, Belle had made it her mission to try and save as many Badniks as she could. I understand her motivation, and I do think this has potential to be a fun premise. Badniks are EXTREMELY underutilized in the tie-in fiction, and anyone in this corner of the fandom who’s following artists like Hydro knows how fun it is to have Badnik characters around.

But the problem is, of course... if we start to recognize the Badniks that Sonic destroys casually as people, doesn’t that make it wrong for him to destroy them?

I guess it depends on the context, and how it’s executed in the future. Like, Motobud was fine because that’s not just A Motobug, but one that was specifically reprogrammed by Mr. Tinker to be friendly. But what’s Belle’s endgame here? Where is the line drawn between robots that need to be saved and simple obstacles for Sonic to pop in action sequences?

To me, we start to see the cracks in issue #50 with Belle’s attempts to save Metal Sonic. Metal is certainly no stranger to redemption arcs and characters trying to see the good in him - the OVA basically defined him as a character. But still. It’s admirable for Belle to see a robot who’s hurt and want to help, but the sympathy shown for Metal is laying it on a bit thick for me given Ian’s usual characterization of him as a missile with legs. Sonic already let him go once early in the series, but that was specifically because he thought Eggman was gonna remain Mr. Tinker forever at the time, and he and Tails also made sure not to restore his full fighting abilities. (”We’re compassionate, not stupid.”) But in this very different context, with a very different character, it’s just... eh, it didn’t sell me on this as a wise use of Belle’s compassion. If she wants to help the “abandoned” Eggman bots, Metal is very much not one of those. He just happened to have been hurt by Surge when they found him.

Not the end of the world, but it’s the weak part of what’s otherwise an amazing issue, and I worry that Belle showing complete and total sympathy towards every Eggman robot may get old fast. But, like I said, it will depend entirely on the execution. Maybe she’ll only single out the oddballs like herself and Motobud. It may not even be a huge element of the story moving forward, since I know Evan’s outright said Belle would be taking more of a backseat now that her initial arc is completed. (It also seems like Eggman wants to take advantage of the fact that she interfaced with Metal, so her kindness here may backfire...)

If anything, though, I do like the little awkward family reunion where Belle is telling Eggman that she’s done hoping he’ll go back to being Mr. Tinker and is gonna go live her own life and Metal is just kind of standing there because he won’t attack another Eggman creation.

Anyway! I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned the giant robot fight

Starline’s Final Comeuppance

Sonic’s ideals, as explained in his fight with Surge, are also directly contrasted with Starline as he fights Eggman. Sonic stands for personal freedom, for better or worse, but Starline stands for total control, even more so than Eggman. He tries to manipulate people and the very story he exists in to steer everyone in the totalitarian direction he thinks is best. Anything outside of his narrative doesn’t matter. Even as Eggman is fighting him in a giant mech, he’s still under the impression that his actions are justified, that Eggman will be okay with being a pawn in his scheme so long as they get their happy ending ruling the world.

Instead, he loses a sick-ass mech fight, he’s humiliated worse than ever before, and then he dies!

I actually didn’t read it as a death at first because being crushed by rubble is such an easy “death” to write around, and it’s, you know, a comic book. Nobody stays dead in comic books. (We already know Surge survives this issue, regardless of how it looked.) But Ian did, indeed, intend for this to be Starline’s death. He also admits that that’s not entirely up to him since he’s not the only person making story decisions, so I won’t be surprised if he comes back in a year or two. Regardless, as much as I like the character, this is probably the most fitting death Starline possibly could have had. He thought he could outsmart Eggman, and the very nature of the series he’s in. Some readers, too, have accused Ian of writing Eggman as too much of a bumbling oaf in the IDW comics, especially with Starline always pointing out his mistakes. Even the marketing for this arc seems to have played into this, asking if Eggman would “bumble his way to a victory”

All this for the ultimate slam dunk in this issue where Ian definitively reminds us that, even if he can never beat Sonic... no one else can definitively beat Eggman, either.

Because Eggman fucking rules

I said at the top that Starline is damned because he doesn’t understand people as well as he thinks he does. He creates Surge and Kit as dark and deeply broken reflections of Sonic and Tails because he so fundamentally misunderstands how their dynamic works. He thinks he understands Eggman, too, but he doesn’t. He may consider himself Eggman’s #1 fan, but he’s a toxic fanboy with faulty criticisms. He’s CinemaSins. He focuses on the details and the logic, he nitpicks, and he thinks he could do everything better if given the opportunity. He thinks he understands the nature of the series he’s in, but he fails to see the big pictures, the heart. He doesn’t understand why Sonic is really the hero beyond his strength and bravado. He doesn’t understand why Tails is a hero beyond his ability to support Sonic. And he doesn’t understand why, despite his many mistakes, Eggman will always endure as the true big bad of this world. And this leads to his downfall at the hands of his idol

I could say more about this issue and the ones that lead to it! I have obviously already said way too much. I’m gonna cut it off here!

Even with all the hype to live up to, this was an extremely satisfying issue of Sonic. One of the best in a long, long time. This one’s gonna stick with people. I have my quibbles, but it really has it all. Action, humor, drama, heart, stunning artwork, and a whole lot of character work to think about. Can’t really ask for more, can I?

#tkp post

[a-blog-for-venting-i-guess]

Watches Haunted Mansion 2023 with friends: Yeah that was alright. Product placement was insane though, took away from the serious scenes. Also it was too dark. Like literally could not see much.

Immediately watches the 2003 version with the same friends: omg that was way better, you can actually see what’s happening, the mansion set is amazing, it’s funny, and it was weirdly wholesome. The jumpscares got us good too.

My big takeaway from the experience is that the new movie suffered from fragmentation, being way too dark (likely to hide bad cgi but still), the weird Hollywood thing now where jokes and plot scenes have to be harshly separated instead of allowed to organically happen as the story progresses, and no real emotional investment. It’s hard to care when the main person with an actually tragic backstory interrupts said backstory with a Baskin Robbins ad. It doesn’t come across like the guy is telling the story and that was one of the details, it’s like it was crammed into the script. But that criticism aside, the Eddie Murphy movie was about a dad learning to put family first. What it meant to truly love them. Especially his wife, who he’d especially taken for granted.

There’s a small detail in the script that probably should’ve gotten fleshed out more, where the dad tells his daughter he works so much so he can give her and the family a better life than what he had. And the daughter is like, “wow dad, I didn’t know you had a bad childhood,” and he immediately gets defensive, saying his childhood wasn’t bad. It shows that it’s not that his life was ever hard, he’s just obsessed with prestige. Just like the main villain. Ultimately the dad is able to recognize he can’t give up so easily like he’d done before with working right before the family trip, even if it means losing something he thought he really valued, and without hesitation ruins his BMW to save his family, but the butler can’t get on that level and gets dragged to hell.

It’s not groundbreaking by any stretch but it’s something. Like, there’s an emotional through line there. A character arc.

Compare that to the 2023 version where there’s more this overall theme of, moving on and overcoming grief. And finding strength with others. Again, not groundbreaking but the difference is emotional investment. The movie takes itself more seriously but loses the connection because we only find out what happened to the guy’s wife like well over an hour into it and the bloated cast puts other reveals on the back burner too. Like the priest being a fraud or the fortuneteller’s self worth bit. The priest thing doesn’t get introduced until right before the final confrontation and no one really cares, meanwhile the fortuneteller finds her confidence, OFFSCREEN!

Instead of developing our cast or having them actually interact with the GHOSTS in a HAUNTED MANSION (beyond asking for plot details), we go on a detour to find out who the bad guy is, what his backstory was, and where his hat is. And on this detour we find out he was a horrible no good very bad man so don’t feel bad when he’s dragged down to green hell at the end.

Last note, interesting how both films ended on the saints go marching in and during the day vs at night.

Last last note, Haunted mansion 2023 just didn’t click with me for a variety of reasons. While haunted mansion 2003 isn’t a perfect movie. It’s got issues, I think the mom should’ve figured out the home owner was off way sooner and why didn’t the butler burn the letter, but I like it’s heart.

#haunted mansion #disney haunted mansion #haunted mansion 2023 #haunted mansion 2003 #haunted mansion spoilers

[psychodollyuniverse]

Arrival is a stunning science fiction movie with deep implications for today 

Science fiction is never really about the future; it’s always about us. And Arrival, set in the barely distant future, feels like a movie tailor-made for 2016, dropping into theaters mere days after the most explosive election in most of the American electorate’s memory.

But the story Arrival is based on — the award-winning novella Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang — was published in 1998, almost two decades ago, which indicates its central themes were brewing long before this year. Arrival is much more concerned with deep truths about language, imagination, and human relationships than any one political moment.

Not only that, but Arrival is one of the best movies of the year, a moving, gripping film with startling twists and imagery. It deserves serious treatment as a work of art.

The strains of Max Richter’s "On the Nature of Daylight" play over the opening shots of Arrival, which is the first clue for what’s about to unfold: that particular track is ubiquitous in the movies (I can count at least six or seven films that use it, including Shutter Island and this year’s The Innocents) and is, by my reckoning, the saddest song in the world.

The bittersweet feeling instantly settles over the whole film, like the last hour of twilight. Quickly we learn that Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) has suffered an unthinkable loss, and that functions as a prelude to the story: One day, a series of enormous pod-shaped crafts land all over earth, hovering just above the ground in 12 locations around the world. Nobody knows why. And nothing happens.

As world governments struggle to sort out what this means — and as the people of those countries react by looting, joining cults, even conducting mass suicides — Dr. Banks gets a visit from military intelligence, in the form of Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker), requesting her assistance as an expert linguist in investigating and attempting to communicate with whatever intelligence is behind the landing. She arrives at the site with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), a leading quantum physicist, to start the mission. With help from a cynical Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg), they suit up and enter the craft to see if they can make contact.

It’s best not to say much more about the plot, except that it is pure pleasure to feel it unfold. The most visionary film yet from director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) and scripted by horror screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Lights Out), its pacing is slower than you’d expect from an alien-invasion film, almost sparse. For a movie with so many complicated ideas, it doesn’t waste any more time on exposition than is absolutely necessary. Arrival is serious and smartly crafted, shifting around like a Rubik’s cube in the hand of a savant, nothing quite making sense until all the pieces suddenly come together. I heard gasps in the theater.

The film’s premise hinges on the idea, shared by many linguists and philosophers of language, that we do not all experience the same reality. The pieces of it are the same — we live on the same planet, breathe the same air — but our perceptions of those pieces shift and change based on the words and grammar we use to describe them to ourselves and each other.

For instance, there is substantial evidence that a person doesn’t really see (or perhaps "perceive") a color until their vocabulary contains a word, attached to meaning, that distinguishes it from other colors. All yellows are not alike, but without the need to distinguish between yellows and the linguistic tools to do so, people just see yellow. A color specialist at a paint manufacturer, however, can distinguish between virtually hundreds of colors of white. (Go check out the paint chip aisle at Home Depot if you’re skeptical.)

Or consider the phenomenon of words in other languages that describe universal feelings, but can only be articulated precisely in some culture. We might intuitively "feel" the emotion, but without the word to describe it we’re inclined to lump the emotion in with another under the same heading. Once we develop the linguistic term for it, though, we can describe it and feel it as distinct from other shades of adjacent emotions.

These are simple examples, and I don’t mean to suggest that the world itself is different for people from different cultures. But I do mean to suggest that reality — what we perceive as comprising the facts of existence — takes on a different shape depending on the linguistic tools we use to describe it.

Adopting this framework doesn’t necessarily mean any of us are more correct than others about the nature of reality (though that certainly may be true). Instead, we are doing our best to describe reality as we see it, as we imagine it to be. This is the challenge of translation, and why literal translations that Google can perform don’t go beyond basic sentences. Learning a new language at first is just about collecting a new vocabulary and an alternate grammar — here is the word for chair, here is the word for love, here’s how to make a sentence — but eventually, as any bilingual person can attest, it becomes about imagining and perceiving the world differently.

This is the basic insight of Arrival: That if we were to encounter a culture so radically different from our own that simple matters we take for granted as part of the world as it is were radically shifted, we could not simply gather data, sort out grammar, and make conclusions. We’d have to either absorb a different way of seeing, despite our fear, or risk everything.

To underline the point, Dr. Banks and the entire operation are constantly experiencing breakdowns in communication within the team and with teams in other parts of the world, who aren’t sure whether the information they glean from their own visits to pods should be kept proprietary or shared.

It’s not hard to see where this is going, I imagine — something about how if we want to empathize with each other we need to talk to one another, and that’s the way the human race will survive.

And, sure.

But Arrival also layers in some important secondary notes that add nuance to that easy takeaway. Because it’s not just deciphering the words that someone else is saying that’s important: It’s the whole framework that determines how those words are being pinned to meaning. We can technically speak the same language, but functionally be miles apart.

n the film, one character notes that if we were to communicate in the language of chess — which operates in the framework of battles and wars — rather than, say, the language of English, which is bent toward the expression of emotions and ideas, then what we actually say and do would shift significantly. That is, the prevailing metaphor for how beings interact with each other and the world is different. (Some philosophers speak of this as "language games.")

This matters for the film’s plot, but more broadly — since this is sci-fi, and therefore actually about us — it has implications. Language isn’t just about understanding how to say things to someone and ascribe meaning to what comes back. Language has consequences. Embedded in words and grammar is action, because the metaphors that we use as we try to make sense of the world tell us what to do next. They act like little roadmaps.

You have empathized with someone not when you hear the words they’re saying, but when you begin to ascertain what metaphors make them tick, and where that conflicts or agrees with your own. I found myself thinking a lot about this reading Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers In Their Own Land, which is up for a National Book Award this year and describes the overarching metaphors (Hochschild calls them "deep stories") that discrete groups of Americans — in this case, West Coast urban liberals and Louisiana rural Tea Partiers — use to make sense of the world. She isn’t trying to explain anything away. She’s trying to figure out what causes people to walk in such drastically different directions and hold views that befuddle their fellow citizens.

Part of the challenge of pluralism is that we’re not just walking around with different ideas in our heads, but with entirely different maps for getting from point A to Z, with different roadblocks on them and different recommendations for which road is the best one. Our A's and Z's don’t even match. We don’t even realize that our own maps are missing pieces that others have.

Presumably one of these maps is better than the others, but we haven’t agreed how we would decide. So we just keep smacking into one another going in opposite directions down the same highway.

Arrival takes off from this insight in an undeniably sci-fi direction that is a little brain-bending, improbable in the best way. But it makes a strong case that communication, not battle or combat, is the only way to avoid destroying ourselves. Communication means not just wrapping our heads around terms we use but the actual framework through which we perceive reality.

And that is really hard. I don’t know how to fix it.

In the meantime, though, good movies are somewhere to start. Luckily Arrival is a tremendously well-designed film, with complicated and unpredictable visuals that embody the main point. Nothing flashy or explosive; in some ways, I found myself thinking of 1970s science-fiction films, or the best parts of Danny Boyle’s 2007 Sunshine, which grounded its humanist story in deep quiet.

The movie concludes on a different note from the linguistic one — one much more related to loss and a wistful question about life and risk. This may be Arrival’s biggest weakness; the emotional punch of the ending is lessened a bit because it feels a little rushed.

But even that conclusion loops back to the possibilities of the reshaped human imagination. And this week, especially, you don’t need to talk to an alien to see why that’s something we need.

from: https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/11

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#arrival #denis villeneuve #2016 #the story of your life #ted chiang #amy adams #jeremy renner #max richter #on the nature of daylight #johann johannson

[metalandmagi]

August Media Madness

Well, August may have sucked for me personally, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t keep track of all the media I consumed this month! And spoiler alert, I watched a lot of movies involving adorable talking bears. Although, I have a feeling that as soon as the fall television premieres start, I’ll be watching a lot less movies.

July’s media

Movies!

Dear Evan Hansen

Thank you bootlegs. This isn’t a movie, but I didn’t want to make a separate category for plays when I’ve only seen one this month. Anyway, if you haven’t heard of it, Dear Evan Hansen involves an incredibly anxious teenage boy who is tasked by his therapist to write motivational letters to himself. Unfortunately, Connor Murphy, an angsty boy who goes to Evan’s school sees one of the letters, takes it, and promptly decides to kill himself, with the letter still on his person. Everyone ends up thinking he and Evan were friends and that this letter was a suicide note that Connor wrote to Evan...and a beautiful fake gay relationship friendship was born. Call me basic as hell, but I’ve watched this show twice now, and listened to the soundtrack more times than I can count, and it’s turning into my favorite musical. There are so many important messages in it, and it takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. Every character does good and bad things, and no one is blameless or innocent...except maybe Zoe Murphy. If anything just listen to the soundtrack. 10/10

Night on the Galactic Railroad

Cats...on a mystical train...This seems like the kind of movie they would show you in film school. Very dull plot and characters with the themes being the main takeaway. What even is the plot of this movie? Darker, grittier, furry version of the Polar Express? Incredibly boring slightly more religious version of Over the Garden Wall? I just kept watching it because the main character looks like a cat version of Kagayama Tobio in middle school...cat-gayama. 4/10

Paddington

An adorable bear from South America travels to London and gets into all sorts of trouble with an English family. It’s very charming and sweet, and the aesthetic in this movie is on point, like Wes Anderson directed a children’s movie. This is one of those movies you hear about where everyone loves it, and you think it can’t possibly be that good, but then you watch it and you were wrong! So wrong! 10/10

Paddington 2

Naturally. This time an adorable South American bear goes to prison, and his family tries to clear his name. Again, A+ aesthetic and imagery, but I think I preferred the plot of the first movie a little more because everyone was all together. 9/10

Christopher Robin

Do you like Winnie the Pooh? Do you like jaded adults finding happiness in their lives again? Do you think the movie Hook had a good premise but was extremely long and kinda boring and could have been a better movie with a little tweaking? Well this is the movie for you! Christopher Robin has grown into an overworked adult, and his old friend Winnie the Pooh inadvertently helps him reconnect with his wife and daughter (and also his inner child) just by being the sweet, clumsy, dry humored bear we all know and love. I was so skeptical of this movie at first, and I was absolutely blown away by how funny and meaningful it was. 100/10

The Road to El Dorado

Two lovable Spanish con men named Miguel and Tulio are accidentally swept away on a journey to the fabled city of El Dorado, where everything is made of gold. Once they reach the city, the locals believe they’re gods due to an (un)fortunate series of coincidences, and the con men try to keep up the charade with the help of the best character in the movie, Chel (who I’m pretty sure caused an entire generation of lesbians’ sexual awakening). This is one of my favorite animated movies of all time and one of the reasons I wish Dreamworks would go back to their 2D animation days, where the visuals and music were just as stunning as 3D movies are now. This movie is a classic, and I desperately want a sequel! 10/10

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

When Lara Jean thinks it’s a good idea to write 5 secret love letters to 5 boys that she’s had crushes on over the years, everything is fine until her little sister mails the letters to all the boys (because even a 6th grader knows Lara Jean is lonely and emotionally stunted as fuck). This is a Netflix original movie that was adapted from the book by Jenny Han...which I haven’t read, but now I really want to. Overall, this was super cute, but I wasn’t really crazy about the boys. They weren’t horrible people or anything, and they never pressured Lara Jean or made fun of her for being “innocent”, but they were just kind of bland. I’m much more interested in the other boys we didn’t see in the movie! But the family relationships were so heartfelt, Lara Jean’s fashion sense is AMAZING, and the acting/casting was awesome. 8/10

Summer Wars

I...don’t even know how to describe the plot of this one. A teenage boy named Kenji goes on a country holiday and pretends to date an acquaintance of his in order to impress her enormous family...but it’s really about an AI that becomes sentient and wants to mess up the world through this universal internet program called OZ that’s kind of like a mashup of Facebook and Second Life...but actually no it’s about family sticking together and using a Japanese card game to save the world…but apparently it’s got the same plot as the Digimon movie because they’re both directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Yeah...

Guys, I have a confession to make...this has always been my favorite Mamoru Hosoda movie. Everyone falls all over themselves saying Wolf Children is the best Mamoru Hosoda movie, and that’s great for them but it doesn’t even come in second for me. Summer Wars means a lot more to me personally because I come from a big extended family, and when I first saw this movie, I was blown away by how accurate the family dynamic was. There are so many characters, but everyone has their own personality. Not to mention the music makes the summer atmosphere so on point. And I’m not going to lie...I bawled like a fucking baby the first time I saw this movie. So anyway, I like Summer Wars more than Wolf Children, thanks for coming to my TED talk. 10/10

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Unappreciated researcher Milo Thatch goes on an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis.

Okay, there are two kinds of Disney fans in this world: Treasure Planet fans, and Atlantis fans. And I will support Treasure Planet as the best underrated vaguely steampunk inspired Disney movie until you can pry my 15 year old dvd copy away from my cold dead hands. But Atlantis is pretty good too. I could write essays comparing the two and why both of them should be successful but weren’t. My main problem with it is that the characters are great, but I feel like we don’t see enough of them, and as a kid a lot of the humor went by so fast that I completely missed it. Also the glowing eyes and spirits taking over the Atlantian princess’s body freaked me the fuck out as a child. NEVERTHELESS! This really is a great movie, with extremely well developed lore and well designed characters that chills me to this day. 8/10

Deadpool 2

The merc with a mouth is back, and man there’s so much going on in this movie I won’t even try to explain the plot. I literally had to go back and add this in because I was so into this movie when I was watching it that I forgot to write it down! Even though I really liked this sequel, I think I liked the first one better, just based on how much I laughed. There was so much going on plot wise, but it really seemed to work for this movie. There were also a lot of great new characters (Domino is my favorite character of the franchise now), but since there was so much stuff going on, a lot of jokes and plot lines were sort of hit and miss. Anyway, I’m sure everyone’s seen this one by now but just in case, I highly recommend it. 9/10

Books!

The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel: Here There be Gerblins by Clint McElroy (technically all the McElboys) and Carey Pietsch

Yeah yeah, for anyone who doesn’t know I’m Adventure Zone trash okay. TAZ is a DnD podcast where 3 brothers and their father create one of the most famous campaigns in history involving three idiot adventurers going on a quest to find a missing person and getting sucked into a much larger grand plan to protect the world. This graphic novel is a visualization of the first arc. I don’t even really like Here There be Gerblins all that much, and yet here I am. Oh well, the art was amazing, and of course I already knew the story. But it was kind of hilarious to see the name changes they had to make to some of the characters and places. I was a little disappointed that the ending was so rushed, and we don’t really spend time around the moon base before The Director is in our face changing the Lunar Interlude parts but whatever. 10 dead gerblins/10

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

When a disease that only affects children kills off nearly all the kids on the planet, the survivors are left with supernatural powers and are taken away to concentration camps in order to “protect” the public. I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time, and since the movie just came out I thought it was the perfect time. This is one of those books that some people adore and some people hate. I thought it was just okay. For everything that I didn’t like, there was something to make up for it. Personally, I felt that Bracken focused on the wrong part of the story. Everything takes place years after this disease has come, and I think it would have been more interesting to see everything from the children’s points of view when this disease was first starting. I would focus on each different character as a child and how they wound up in their respective camps. Oh well, there’s way too many pros and cons  that I could delve into, but you like the YA dystopian genre then I say go for it. I didn’t like it enough to read the other two books (not yet anyway). 7/10

TV Shows!

Camp Camp

You know how there are summer camps that specialize in science, or acting, or space, or whatever? Yeah Camp Camp is about a summer camp that throws literally everything you can think of into one summer camp. If you don’t believe me, just listen to the theme song. Seriously though this is one of the best shows I’ve watched all year, but boy howdy this is not one for young children. It’s like Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty had a baby! Anyway, the characters are both surprising and hilarious. David the camp counselor (voiced by Miles Luna) is genuinely likable when you think he’d be the most annoying person on the planet, and the kids are so accurate it’s scary. Also Yuri Lowenthal is in it. And Griffin McElroy has a recurring role where he plays A GHOST! I’ve never been into Rooster Teeth stuff, but they have a winner with this one. 10/10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

After her husband leaves her, Midge Maisel gets super drunk, goes on stage, and gives a hilarious rant about her relationship at a small comedy/talent club and somehow gets sucked into becoming a rising comedian as a woman in the 1950s. It’s good. Great acting pretty funny, but Midge and her agent/manager Susie are the only likable characters. Everyone else just kind of...sucks 8/10

Voltron Season 7 (spoilers)

Okay, I know everyone had mixed feelings about this season, but I did come out liking a lot of it. It had a lot of flaws (I really thought it would be Shiro’s season, and man was I wrong), but this is the sort of thing we can’t really judge until the last episode of the series is finished. I like to think of the positives: the action was amazing as usual, HUNK IS GETTING MORE AND MORE DEVELOPMENT EVERY SEASON, I refuse to believe the team introduced Adam just to have him killed off immediately so he’s still alive in my mind, we get to see everyone’s reunions with their families, the lost in space episode was cool, and say what you want about the game show episode, but I loved it! There were a lot of good things so it was easier for me to look past the...not so great aspects of the season. 7/10

Galavant

A musical comedy mini series involving a renowned medieval hero named Galavant on a quest to rescue his ex girlfriend from her “evil” husband King Richard. But maybe she doesn’t want to be rescued. Well, that’s just the first season. It’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. I remember liking it when it first came out, and it’s still pretty cute...but sometimes I feel like it’s trying too hard. A lot of the music isn’t really...memorable, but the characters are likable so it’s still worth the watch. 8/10

Disenchantment

Speaking of medieval comedies...Princess Bean doesn’t want to get married, mystical elf Elfo doesn’t want to live in an enchanted forest where everyone is happy all the time, and Bean’s personal demon Luci just wants to watch people suffer. Honestly, I wasn’t very into this show at first, but something compelled me to just keep watching, and by the end I was totally into it! This is one of those shows where you think there isn’t going to be a plot, but then the last few episodes come up and smack you in the face! 7.5/10

Round Planet

A documentary parody...mockumentary...satire...That’s really not a great way to describe it. It’s a nature documentary with funny commentary. I like nature shots and animals so I liked it, but there’s a lot of tangents and running jokes and British references that sometimes don’t land. Oh well, if you like unconventional documentaries, just watch it. 8/10

Honorable Mentions

DnDnD: I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this podcast before, but there’s a DnD podcast made by Practical Folks (aka the Drunk Disney youtube channel). It’s pretty good! I want an Adventure Zone crossover now!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Every time I think I’m out, it pulls me back in. I finally got the DLC and spent most of this month playing this freaking game AGAIN!

The Heathers soundtrack: I finally listened to the Heathers musical soundtrack...and I didn’t love it. There are some good songs in it, but overall I’m unimpressed. And I never could really get into the plot, I’ve always thought it was really weird and over dramatic.

Legendary by Stephanie Garber: I’m about halfway through this book, which is the second in the Caraval series. And it’s pretty good! More on that next month.

#media madness #long post #dear evan hansen #night on the galactic railroad #paddington #christopher robin #the road to el dorado #to all the boys i've loved before #summer wars #atlantis #the adventure zone #the darkest minds #camp camp #the marvelous mrs. maisel #voltron #galavant #disenchantment #round planet #dndnd #breath of the wild #heathers #caraval #legendary #deadpool

[clovexei]

An Honest Review of the Emoji Movie

Longer than intended! Tbh I’m just leaving this here as physical evidence of the fact that I watched the whole thing. What was The Emoji Movie? Honestly we just don’t know.

The world-building was cool in concept but underdeveloped. It feels like a knock-off of Inside Out, but I spent most of the movie plagued by the same sort of stressful confusion that accompanies the Cars universe. A sampling:

Where do emojis come from? Are they born? Are they initially created in heterosexual sets of two so that they are able to procreate? If they're not born, why do some of them have children? How does the Princess family work, where there are apparently no male princesses? Is the Poop emoji an only father? What about the emojis who don't apparently have children/a heterosexual counterpart? Are those emojis going to grow old and die? What happens then? Do emojis die natural deaths? Do emojis age?

Why do the face emojis have to express the same emotion all the time and not just when they're on screen? It's like they're actors, but they have to be in their roles forever. Why? Why not just take pictures of the emojis and put those in the cubicles? Why do emojis have to physically stand in the cubes and wait to be picked, if they're only going to be face-scanned anyway? If there are multiple emojis, do they all take turns in the cubicles? Do they have to eat or sleep? If they do, then why? Aren't they made of code? Do they have to be in the cubicles whenever the phone is on? What if that's all day, every day?

Most of the questions I have about this movie carry over from world-building into the plot. Most of the events driving the plot feel like thinly-veiled plot holes. For example, the reason Alex is going to wipe his phone is to keep it from acting up – but it's acting up because Gene and company are moving from app to app. Buy why do the emojis hopping from app to app activate each app? If they're bopping around behind the scenes, why does that activate the user interface?

Another: A big scene happens in a Just Dance app, but Just Dance isn't an app? It's a motion-based dancing game, and you can get accessory-style apps for it, but the game itself is only on consoles/systems with a sophisticated motion-following camera. So it's not something that Gene an Jailbreak would be able to activate as a game on a phone.

(As an aside, I am human proof that you can suck at dancing and still pass levels in Just Dance so cut Jailbreak some slack, she was doing fine.)

Hi-5 is presented with a character goal (be a part of the Elite Favorite Emoji Club), but he doesn't actually do anything to achieve this goal. He wants to be a part of the club, joins Gene on his adventure, learns nothing, and gets to have his goal as a result, despite having no character growth and no indication that he's done anything to actually earn his goal. It's given to him as a way to wrap up the movie in a neat little bow.

As much as I didn't like that Jailbreak rejecting Gene's romantic advances was what finally turned Gene into the “Meh” emoji of his dreams, I do appreciate that him getting his Good Feelings back wasn't dependent on her reciprocating his feelings. That's a very good post-rejection message, and as much as this movie was weird and bad-romantic (“I've known you for twenty minutes but I LOVE YOU so let's  BE TOGETHER FOREVER like in the FAIRY TALES”), at least it dodged that particular bullet.

The characters in general were likeable but ultimately uninteresting. It's the same standard fare that I think is the easy trap to fall into: bland but relatable main guy, tomboy girl, and comedic side character.

Jailbreak was my favorite, but even so, I'm not sure what to think about what her arc was. The intended direction felt like “girl feels oppressed by rigid gender roles and leaves home, forms agreement with fellow outcast to further both her goals and his goals, realizes that she can be different and returns home to create her own rules about how she represents herself.” And this largely feels like what does happen in the movie, but I'm not sure how I feel about the execution of it?

She makes some interesting comments about feminism that seem like Character Flavor, and have elements that fit into the story overall, but her backstory and thought process isn't explored beyond “I had to do princess stuff and I HATE princess stuff so I left.” It falls into a style that I think is in vogue right now: to present girls as being Princesses and Not-Princesses. (This is especially popular in movies that are deliberately lampshading Disney's princess movies, but Brave did this, too.) And while I like that, at the end, Jailbreak realized (apparently) that she didn't need to not be girly in order to be happy and express herself, I don't know if that message carried over really well in general. We last see her in her original princess design as she runs the tech board for the emoji cubicles, so I guess she's comfortable with herself? And she's not picking Princess or Not-Princess but occupying a gray area in the middle? So that's good? But everyone else is still in one box or the other? So that's maybe not good? But with Gene paving the way to “be different,” there's a place for her and for others to be more socially flexible? But it felt like a sudden and easy resolution to something that was something that was so ingrained in their society that Gene was going to be executed for diverging from it.

Anyway. That was a tangent. TL;DR: Jailbreak is very queer and I like her but if feminism was going to be a part of her character arc, then I want it to be done with a lot more focus and nuance than there was? Yeah.

I liked Gene in the beginning of the film, when he was set up to be this energetic force for ENTHUSIASM, but Hi-5 muscled him out of that. Hi-5 is excitable, energetic, causes more trouble than good, and honestly, why do they even need Hi-5 as a character? He has the role that should have been absorbed by Gene. Within the first five minutes of Gene's introduction, we know that Gene is goofy, cheerful, and doesn't fit in. Hi-5 coming in as the goofy and cheerful side character demonstrably pushes aside those traits in Gene so that Gene can, nearly every time, play the straight man to Hi-5's hi-jinks.

If Hi-5 wasn't in the movie, then Gene would be both comic relief and the protagonist, which suits the energetic, playful way in which he was introduced. He would also have a much more interesting dynamic with Jailbreak: Jailbreak is jaded and bitter; Gene is (or should have been allowed to be) peppy and enthusiastic. With that push-pull dynamic, the interactions between the two would have been much more exaggerated and engaging, and it would have been believable that Gene encourages Jailbreak to be less standoffish and isolated.

Recommendation: Instead of relying on one-time gags and overdone food-related jokes, drop Hi-5 as a character and let the interactions between Gene and Jailbreak carry the comedic weight of the film.

Also, what is the target audience for this movie? Kids? Kids younger than 12? High schoolers? What do you gain by portraying students who have smart phones as mindless phone-obsessed zombies? Aren't you alienating your target audience? You're making fun of the people you're making this movie for?

There's a lot of that: of the creators being out of touch with their target audience. The gag of the text-based emoticons being old and out-of-date struck me as odd, when people are still using emoticons like that all the time. And, on top of that, we've developed new ones.

I also can't tell if Jailbreak's asides about feminism and female stereotypes are supposed to reflect her Cool, Modern persona or if they're meant to be funny? I think they're supposed to be the former, but they come across as the latter, especially since she gets so angry about the “Birds come when princesses whistle” stereotype... and then that stereotype turns out to be true and also plot relevant.

It did have some good jokes overall. The constant mismatch between Gene's parents having no visual expressions or tonal inflections paired with lines like, “I'm on the edge of my seat,” was right up my alley of humor. I also liked the Devil emoji's poop joke followed by the Poop emoji's tired sigh and “Aim higher, Steven,” but overall there were rather too many toilet jokes. “Aim higher” is kind of a good overall takeaway: this movie had jokes, but most of them felt like the same basic fare that one can usually find in kid's movies. It felt a lot like the humor in The Smurfs: The Hidden Village in that they cracked a lot of jokes, but most of them were overused or borderline mean, and so I didn't spend much time laughing, despite the fact that I was watching a comedy.

As for overall theme/message, I am biased on this front because, with little effort, this movie is a really odd, definitely unintentional allegory for, like, gay conversion therapy? And why it's not good? And why it's okay to be queer? This movie is about a cheerful, enthusiastic young man who disrupts serious social norms in his home community, who sets out to find a way to artificially alter his genetic make-up and encounters a young woman who likewise does not fit in and has rejected the social role/gender role she was expected to embrace, and the two of them realize together that what makes them different isn't bad and their differences should be embraced both by themselves and the wider community. Gay.

That metaphor is PROBABLY DEFINITELY very unintentional, but the romance between Gene and Jailbreak feels ham-fisted even without the queer undertones.

So, for a takeaway message, we have “It's okay to be unique,” which is the same message 50% of the rest of the kids' movies have these days, so cool, I guess. It's good to have that message reinforced, but there are also, as a result, more cohesive movies with the same message but better plotting and more interesting characters.

Overall Verdict:

Not great, could have been worse. I left The Bee Movie brimming with a confused and impotent rage, but this movie left me with vague good feelings and no deep impressions. I couldn't remember anyone's name either during the viewing or after. The animation was stretchy and bright and expressive, which I really liked. And the soundtrack was bright and bouncy. But the message was muddled, and I think the world-building/plot could have been (and should have been) a lot stronger than it was.

#do I tag the movie in this? #I just like writing about B movies

[yourgoodfriendraichel]

4, 10, 50, 27, 17 for the oc ask thing 😙

You got it! Let’s party, people! (Also, I put the asks in numerical order for convenience) Also, it’s a bit long, just fair warning.

Ask me about my OCs!

4.) A character you rarely talk about?

- I’m pretty quiet about my OCs in general, so an argument could be made for literally any of my characters. I mean, I avoid speaking of some of my earlier OCs, including a gender-fluid, car-loving robot, and a reasonably over-powered pokemon OC (though at least she had weaknesses, even if I wasn’t inclined to use them). I don’t know how often I talk about my Magical Matriarchy? They’re based on games I used to play with My Little Ponies (G3) as a kid, and it’s just this huge family set-up. There’s also a not-super-fleshed out idea about magical kids who find out they’re magic when their animal familiar appears to them. 

10.) Introduce an OC with a complicated design?

- I’m gonna’ be honest, I don’t think about characters’ designs too terribly much. But the Magical Matriarchy all have multicolored hair, so that’s a little over the top, and as far as drawing or thinking out the designs in one of my newer stories, which takes place in a medieval/fantasy style setting, there are way more (and less familiar) pieces than I usually think about. So, as an example of each:

- Raina, the queen of (unnamed magical land), has hair that is literally the colors of the rainbow, and probably wears blue, potentially complex dresses to events.

- and Lona, star of my newest story, in her casual wear probably has on at least undergarments, some kind of shirt, a vest-type thing over that, a belt, like, three pants layers probably, boots, and a cape just FULL of pockets.

- OK, honestly, I think the take-away here is that I don’t have any especially complicated designs.

17.) Any OC OTPs?

- The longest piece I’ve ever finished was about a robot/android girl and her human gf, and they were super cute together and fit each other perfectly. Lona and Leigh, my newest main characters, are also pretty great together, but I think I’m going to write the story without them explicitly getting together, and then I also have this fake power ranger team, and Tanya and Jade, my red and yellow rangers, are old friends and real cute together. They’re going to get together at the end of the (super hypothetical) first season. Neither one is straight (duh), but they’ve known each other for longer than they’ve known that, so neither one of them necessarily wants to put that friendship in jeopardy and/or they don’t want to assume the other would like them just ‘cause they like girls, but then, you know, life threatening scenarios are faced, and that’ll really bring some emotions forward.

27.) Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song?

- (You know me well, Flannel. This is a good question) Generally speaking a lot, if not most, of my characters are connected to a song, but I’m not sure how many were actually inspired by one. The only one I can think of for sure is Vivi. Vivi is from a story about six teenage girls who are chosen as champions for the greek goddesses (and are given powers/cool stuff to match) and the whole idea stemmed from a song, which led specifically to Vivi. 

- “Who is in your heart now” by Studio Killers gave me this idea of Aphrodite, goddess of love, singing the song in a nightclub, probably setting people up with magic and what-not, but given the design for Studio Killers’ lead singer, this particular mental image of Aphrodite was based off of that. From there, Vivi got the qualities of curvy Aphrodite as the goddess’s champion as the idea of the champions developed, and Aphrodite kept the singer persona. 

50.) Give me the good ol' OC talk here. Talk about anything you want

- So many options, so little time! Anything carries so much possibility! Here’s what I’ll do! I’ll tell you about the songs that go with different OCs! (This is gonna’ be great. But also long, so for everyone’s sake it’s under the cut.)

- OK, just for a little order, I’m not going to talk about every OC ever, but I will talk about my favorites with the strongest connections to particular songs, and why.

- For the robot/human gfs I mentioned earlier (the robot’s name is Hope and the human’s name is Dakota) there were a couple of songs that were super intwined with their story for me: Porter Robinson’s Sad Machine, and Riptide by Vance Joy. Dakota takes Hope under her wing when Hope’s mother/creator is arrested, and some major themes in Sad Machine work really well with that (basically the whole song being about a (maybe) robot girl + “she depends on you” thing is at the heart of both the song and the story, I feel), and in a similar vein Riptide overlays on Dakota’s perspective of the whole story, losing the sort of authority figure that Hope’s mother was to Dakota as well as the possibility of losing Hope, whom she quickly becomes very close to, ties in with the whole “running down to the riptide/left hand man” kind of ideas and the “wanna’ know if you’re gonna’ stay” (and the thematic similarities of “singing that song” with the multiple songs tied into the story, and “there’s this movie that I think you’d like” with Dakota showing Hope a bunch of movies for the first time.) (if any of this has piqued your interest, I posted the first couple chapters here. It’s not my best work, but it’s something.)

- And my newest awesome duo, Lona and Leigh, also have a couple songs that work really well, including King and Lionheart by Of Monsters and Men, and, oddly enough for a fantasy story, that 80s hit Everybody Wants to Rule the World, originally by Tears for Fears (but the first link is to the cover I’ve been using to keep the ol’ inspiration up. Sorry not sorry.) King and Lionheart works well because it works (to some extent) from both characters’ perspectives. Lona is actual royalty, so Leigh feels a need to protect/be there for her, but also Lona is a fighter, and Leigh really kind of isn’t, so she also feels the need to protect him, and yadda yadda yadda. Then both songs have similar lines that apply to the two of them: “there’s a room where the light won’t find you/holding hand while the walls come tumbling down/when they do I’ll be right behind you” in Everybody Wants to Rule the World, and “when the world comes to an end/I’ll be here to hold your hand” in King and Lionheart, that go with how much destruction each of their personal worlds have taken either before or during the story, and honestly my favorite thing about these two is that they’re there for each other, and that’s what I’m getting at. Also dealing with past horrors/trauma works well with King and Lionheart’s “howling ghosts, they reappear/and mountains that are stacked with fear.” The entire theme of Everybody Wants to Rule the World also works with the entire damn story, since it’s a royalty exiled type thing, so the villain takes over Lona’s kingdom, Lona’s gotta’ get it back, so on and so forth. Good songs. I like them very much.

- Some other honorable mentions include: Ke$ha’s Die Young for Vivi and Juno (Hera’s champion). Vivi is Juno’s first big, gay crush. It’s great. And Children of the Stars by The Orion Experience for my entire (fake) power ranger team. Their theme is constellations and pride flags and they’re all great. (I actually have a post about them here) 

- I think the takeaway here is that though I think I’m attaching songs to characters, they get more thoroughly stuck to a character or two (and also themes and plot points, but that’s a whole other thing and like 10 more songs.)

But that’s more than enough for today, and to anyone that read all this, thank you so much! Hope it was of literally any interest to you, and that you have a lovely day. 

Ask me about my OCs!

#OCs #my OCs #OC #Writing #Raichel Writes #ask #flannelandsarcasm

[hagiographically]

advice on what i can do to stop feeling empty?

hi, so you asked me this a while ago and i never got around to answering - not sure if you’ll see this, but as chronic emptiness is something i struggle with often, i wanted to answer it in the hope that it’ll help you, it’ll help me, and it could hopefully help anyone else struggling with the same feeling.

here is what i’ve learned, from years of battling depression/emptiness/lethargy/fatigue/general feelings of unworthiness. it’s pretty clinical and methodical, but i really like that, actually - it makes it feel more concrete.

first, write about how you feel. write as much as you can. rant if you have to. why do you feel like this? what does it feel like physically? are you worried about anything? what about it makes you upset? if you write enough, odds are you’ll eventually boil yourself down to a couple core truths/worries - the main takeaway. this is really helpful in finding any specific triggers or circumstances that are affecting your mood.

for example, i went through a depressive phase my sophomore year of high school, and though i had triggers like my weight, family, and friends, the biggest reason for my emptiness was because i felt stuck in my hometown and in a rut with my life.

maybe you don’t like writing as much as i do, but i highly recommend getting all your ideas down because it gives you something to look over when you’re done. talking things out is great but i constantly find myself forgetting the conversation once it’s over. write!

next, identify circumstances. now that you’ve gotten all the cluttered thoughts out in your writing, make a list of things that might be reinforcing these feelings - like i said, for me it was weight, family, and friends. other things you could say might be unsatisfying relationships, lack of fulfillment in hobbies, self-esteem, etc. 

be as specific or as broad as you want. maybe both. unsatisfying relationships –> maybe you want a romantic interest.

think about which of these items are under your power to change, and which aren’t.

here is the fun part: next, make a separate list of things that DON’T make you feel empty. this is an open list and you are going to keep adding to it. it’s a “things that make me happy” list, but even more than that, it’s a “things that make me feel something” list, and a “things i want for myself” list. for example, i seek out books that make me cry because i want to be emotionally touched. it’s cathartic, and i love forgetting about myself when i get wrapped up in an emotional story. 

i did an activity similar to this in residential treatment. the items can be as big or as small as you want. again, i recommend both. “my family” and “singing along to green day with my dad in the car” are both viable options and i wrote them both down.

if it makes you feel anything, write it. favorite foods, happy memories, things you like, things that make you feel more “you.” it will be hard at first to think of things but once you get on a roll it’ll become very easy. in residential they called the list our “backpack” and writing something down was akin to keeping it, and it was so wonderful to think that simply by enjoying the summertime that i owned it, in a sense. that it was mine.

you may see common themes in the things that you like, similar to how your first writing entry had a theme.

remember that what you want for yourself is different than what you SHOULD want for yourself. if you want to be healthier, but you hate the gym, don’t put “lift weights.” (although if you don’t think you’d like something, but haven’t given it a chance, definitely put it!)

and finally, use these items - things that make you feel - and apply it to your list of identified circumstances. what about your circumstances can you change? what can you take from this “backpack” and use? 

for example, at 16 i was depressed about being in a rut, but i was always academically motivated, and achieving my goals made me feel happy and productive. therefore, i channeled my energy into college preparation, with the goal of getting as far away from my high school as possible, and i didn’t feel empty again (really, not at all) for over a year.

these specific items will also help you set tangible goals. the worst thing you can do for yourself is feel bad, and lie in bed thinking about feeling bad. i know this. i’m guilty of it more than i like to admit. setting a goal will make you feel like you have something to strive for. it takes you out of yourself, and creates the idea of a future you can work towards - one with promise and potential.

i recommend medium- to long-term goals instead of quick fixes. going out to a movie or a restaurant isn’t going to cure your emptiness. but taking a class, getting a job, organizing your home space, career/college prep, revamping your wardrobe…. these things take more energy to go into, thus you’ll reap a larger reward when coming out of it. also, they’ll serve as a distraction, and give you something tangible at the end of it (a skill, an interest, academic success, etc.).

treat it like an experiment. you’re the subject, and you’re trying to find something that will help you by trial-and-error. everything you do can teach you something. if you do something good for you, great! do it more in the future. if you don’t like something, figure out what you don’t like about it, and use that knowledge when deciding later things. write things down and track your feelings (there are some great mental health apps that can help you with this).

not all the root causes of depression or emptiness can be fixed. try to set realistic goals for yourself, and stick to what you have the power to do. you can at least alleviate some symptoms and improve certain things. and that’s better than nothing.

keep journaling, and start a gratitude journal to log happy things! i am a bitter, negative, cynical person, and i disagree with a looooot of positivity culture because it’s overly fake and overly american (We Must Always Be Happy rhetoric) but gratitude journals, time and time again, have been proven to help.

if things in list 1 are hurting you, reduce them if you can. for example, i stopped being friends with a lot of my friends from high school because they contributed to how depressed i was feeling. if you’re too reliant on social media, set goals to do it less. track how you feel as a result.

try to be as social as you can with your goals. it will help keep you sane and distract you more from your thoughts.

get professional help if you think you need it. even if you don’t think you need it. it can’t hurt, and it might be nice to have a second opinion as well as someone who can help you strategize (and maybe put you on medication if it seems necessary). but know that you are the best tool you have to help yourself.

#libby the armchair therapist #mental health #mental illness #depression #emptiness #reference #ffr #advice

[nowhere-hunch]

I watched ‘Hamilton’ on Disney+

I’m not really a fandom person, but I would say I hang out online in a lot of “fandom-adjacent” spaces. Maybe a better word would be “lurker”. So although I was separated from it by many degrees, I’m aware of some of the insane stuff that came out of the Hamilton fandom during its heyday. Which makes me a teensy bit nervous about posting this on Tumblr - “the room where it happened” you could say (yes, I’m very funny, I know). But I’m hoping I have my blog settings right to make it hard for people to find and I won’t use any tags, so I should be fine, right? To be clear, I like Hamilton and this whole thing is positive toward it. It did get pretty long though.

First of all, I’m a little surprised that there’s a Hamilton fandom at all. Theatrical shows aren’t really the most accessible medium, especially for the demographics that we associate with fandom. The stage shows that I see with fandoms usually have other media associated with them as well, either that was based on them or that they were based on. For example, Les Mis has the book and multiple movies. That said, I’m not necessarily surprised that inaccessibility itself didn’t prevent the formation of a fandom. These days there’s plenty of ways to pirate things, plus you could argue that the cast CD of the musical that was released counts as an alternative media — since most of the dialogue is in fact part of a song.

But, being an inaccessible medium for so long has had an effect on the stories that are created for it. The demographics of people who are watching Broadway shows are probably different than those of people watching primetime TV. The historic events and people in Hamilton aren’t given much if any explanation or backstory. Several times a character is introduced that the audience is supposed to be excited about just because we already know the name: Alexander Hamilton or George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or whatever. For those specific examples, it kind of makes sense. Just by living in the U.S. you tend to get an idea of who those people are (they’re the people on the money). But people like John Laurens are given the same treatment (or lack thereof) in terms of backstory. I think I learned a little about John Laurens at some point in AP U.S. History but then I passed that test and literally never thought or heard about him for nine years until I watched Hamilton.

Hamilton is not a play that is meant to teach the story of Alexander Hamilton; it’s a play that is meant to use the story of Alexander Hamilton in order to teach something else. The historical people and events that are mentioned briefly are meant to provide context for what’s going on with the main characters. “OK I know that the Boston Tea Party happened in the lead up to the Revolution so if they’re talking about that now, I know where we are.” It seemed weird to me that it became so popular when it assumed a good deal of knowledge on the part of the viewer, but I think there are (at least) three factors that makes that not too much of an issue.

One, as I said earlier I did learn about John Laurens and other kind of minute details about the Revolutionary War in high school. If “fandom” is stereotypically mostly made up of students in middle school/high school/college, it might be the case that this background knowledge is actually more accessible to them than to the average Broadway patron, who would have been out of school for even longer than me. If this musical had been about some other figure that isn’t included in an integral part of the American public school curriculum, it probably wouldn’t have seen as much success. I believe that Linn Manuel Miranda had a goal of expanding and making more diverse the audience for these shows, so this choice of subject material makes sense.

Two, Hamilton is simply a solid musical. I’m saying this as someone who doesn’t see a lot of musicals and really isn’t and never was into theater that much, but that’s the point — to the untrained eye of someone fandom-adjacent, it’s a very enjoyable piece of media. The songs are catchy, the jokes are funny, the emotional parts are moving, there’s at least a couple of performers who sound really good to me, not that I have any idea how to tell. If you think about it for more than three seconds it’s hard not to get blown away considering how much skill it must have taken to write that entire story in rhyming verse! That’s the kind of thing Shakespeare did, or even Homer — both of whom produced works that had a big impact on their era’s version of “pop culture”. I wonder if this points to something in the human brain that makes us want to engage more with stories told in this way?

Three, I think fandom (in general) had been primed for stories like this by a series that had one of the largest fandoms during the time just before Hamilton came out: Hetalia. Hetalia is a comedy manga and anime series where each country in the world is personified by an immortal (kind of) human character. It deals a lot with history and real-world people and events— if you were a fan, your “canon” material was not only the manga and anime but also real-world facts about countries’ geography, culture, and history. Since the characters for “England” and “America” (the U.S.) were some of the most popular, the Revolutionary War specifically was the subject of a lot of fan works.

Unlike Hamilton though, Hetalia is presented in a format that was made for fandom and its story reflects that as well. It has a huge cast of characters, many of which are barely developed at all in “canon” but still have a reason for viewers to connect with them (“I’m from that country!”), opportunities for creating OCs, etc. that encourage fan activity. Through Hetalia, many people were introduced to the idea of using knowledge of history for fandom purposes, which was obviously a big part of the Hamilton fandom. What’s unfortunate is that, while there wasn’t much more to get from Hetalia beyond its fandom — in fact you could strongly argue that there was more “artistic merit” in a lot of fandom content than the series itself—for me the Hamilton fandom and all of its weirdness overshadowed anything that was said about the interesting things Hamilton had to say to its “traditional” audience.

I think one property of a good piece of media is that it has different messages and takeaways that are relevant to different people consuming it. Hamilton is like this. The central theme of the story is the idea of “legacy”, but there are several lenses it provides to investigate with. For example, it has many messages about race and national origin that may resonate most strongly with different people, including:

People of color are absent from the legacy of the founding of the country they live in. It’s weird to watch actors who are people of color talk about defending slavery, but it’s no more weird than having groups of all white people do the same (which is how it actually was).

Various founding fathers have a legacy of being people who valued freedom, but they owned slaves and/or supported the institution of slavery.

Alexander Hamilton’s legacy as an immigrant is celebrated, while immigrants today are regularly treated in horrifyingly inhumane ways.

I’m positive there are people who can write entire books about how the show addresses any one of these. For me though, the theme that resonated the most was the idea of legacy through a historical female perspective, as portrayed through the relationship between Alexander and Eliza Hamilton. The gist of it is this: Alexander Hamilton married Eliza Schuyler and frankly did not treat her well. His most obvious offense is cheating on her multiple times with a woman who “seduced” him (“Lord, show me how to say no to this” — dude you literally just did: “…no…”), but even this is actually a symptom of his fatal flaw: he cares about his legacy more than her. It is brought up multiple times that he chooses his work over his family responsibilities (there’s a whole song about it), and at the time he starts his “affair”, Eliza is actually away on a family trip that he decided to skip in order to keep working even more.

His obsession with legacy causes even more hurt for Eliza because it is inherited by their oldest son, Philip. Philip challenges someone to a duel who was criticizing his father. Based on how she talked to Alexander, saying she would rather have him alive and unknown than dead with a legacy, we can assume she would be against this. But Philip goes to his father for advice, and rather than discourage him, Alexander gives him advice on how to act that will make him look the best to people remembering it (shoot into the air, it’s a bad look to kill someone and if they have any honor they will do so as well). Philip is killed in this duel. Alexander cries at his bedside while Eliza next to him wails — the cheating has already been revealed at this point, and she and Alexander haven’t “made up”. Aaron Burr, who is a foil to Alexander Hamilton in many ways in the story, illustrates the differences in their priorities in a more subtle way. Before the final duel, in which Alexander himself is killed, Burr states as he works himself up that he must win because, “I won’t leave my daughter an orphan.”

Throughout, the viewer kind of overlooks Eliza. We know she is a woman living in the 1700s and so her agency is limited. She can’t divorce Alexander or really do anything to hold him accountable for the pain he has caused her. Her defining characteristics are things like “kind”, “gentle”, and “patient” — as described by her sister who sets her up with Hamilton in the first place. After the “Reynolds Pamphlet” is released (in which Hamilton publicly confesses to his affair), she sings a song about being sad, we’re told that there’s no record of how the real Eliza reacted to the information, and after a while she and Alexander make up. To us it seems like she just kind of takes what happens to her without resistance — it doesn’t really matter if that’s what she *wanted* to do because it’s what she *had* to do. We see a lot of female characters like this in media, especially media created or set in the past, and while there is now some backlash against them, there’s not much to complain about when it’s “historically accurate”.

But that all changes at the end. The climax of the play is the duel in which Hamilton is shot and killed. After that is the “big finale” song, but since Alexander Hamilton is dead, who sings it? Eliza. We are told that Hamilton dies with Eliza and her sister Angelica by his bedside, but we don’t see this. We see Eliza come back alone and sing about what she does for the remaining 50 years of her life. We learn that she is the one who gathered his writings, interviewed people who knew him, and did other research to share his life story. In effect, she wrote the story that the musical was based on. After seeing again and again that Hamilton cares about his legacy more than Eliza, it is revealed that Eliza is his legacy. Now we realize that when characters sing “You can’t control… who tells your story,” they don’t mean that in some philosophical or metaphorical way. The individual responsible for passing on your legacy after you die could literally be anyone, even the people you see as hindering it.

I cried during the final song. Actually these specific lines:

Eliza: I interview every soldier who fought by your side Soldiers in background: She tells our story … Eliza: I raise funds in D.C. for the Washington Monument Washington: She tells my story

Now, Washington in particular probably didn’t need her help to tell his story (I mean, he’s on money), but the way the lines are sung gives a sense of the kindness or love that is expressed when another person knows or tells your story. How many people have lived and died who are now totally forgotten about? Eliza did the work to save people from that fate. Alexander Hamilton I don’t think would be described as a “kind” person, even in this musical, but there is kindness in his legacy thanks to Eliza.

And, the final song contains the final plot point, the final part of the epilogue: after Alexander’s death, Eliza founds an orphanage.

I help to raise hundreds of children I get to see them growing up

Want to talk about legacy? Go to the memorial service for a teacher who worked for decades. Go to a birthday party for a 90-year-old who has 10 kids, 50 grandkids, and 150 great grandkids. They might not have their stories written down in books, but they get to enjoy legacy during their lifetimes. In the end, it turns out that in a way, Eliza is a foil to Alexander. While he makes himself and others miserable working to build a legacy that he won’t live to see, Eliza lives her life in service of people who she loves and who depend on her though she is not remembered now. Which of them made more of a difference? Which of them would you rather be?

This is kind of a radical message: that these two types of “legacy” are both valuable in some ways. For a long, long time in history, the kind of legacy that Alexander wanted was generally not available to women, people of color, etc. The “people in power” highly valued this type of legacy, so they reserved it for themselves. As the years went on, people fought for equality, and one of the issues was, although not necessarily stated explicitly, “We want to have valued legacies too!” It seems the response was a kind of reluctant “OK, I guess we’ll open up some opportunities for you to make contributions that will be recorded in history like ours.” For many women and other groups, this was actually great. Many people had wanted those opportunities for a long time, and it’s good that they are available to those who want them. So, it’s hard to say in absolute terms that this wasn’t a good thing. But at that point, we started to see a lot of media with “strong female characters” who are tough and sarcastic and ultra-skilled at combat or whatever that all add up to, “You will be admired and your legacy valued if you forget about girly stuff and just do what men have been doing all along.”

But encouraging everyone to value legacy in this way has created a culture where a lot of things send the message “Be more like Alexander Hamilton” while very few if any say “Be more like Eliza Hamilton.” It’s pretty radical to suggest that maybe the way that Eliza and people like her have been building legacies for all this time was actually good and beneficial and shouldn’t be completely abandoned for Alexander’s way that has always been presented as the most valid.

I think the reason that this resonates with me so loudly is that I am a middle class white woman and grew up as a “gifted” student, and in our modern “enlightened” world, I feel the pressure that historically has been on white men to create some tangible legacy that will live on after I die. But in media, in stories that are fundamental to my culture, in my own family tree before pretty recently, I don’t see women doing this. I have modern society saying to me “You need to make a legacy for yourself.” while the culture that has built up over centuries consistently sends the message “women don’t get legacies”. What Hamilton is saying is “They do have legacies, just not the kind society has taught you to value.”

And actually, I would argue, it goes further, showing how women have found power and agency by refusing to leave a legacy in the traditional sense. The only time in the musical where Eliza talks about her own legacy is in the song “Burn” that she sings after finding out Alexander cheated on her. It includes these lines:

I’m erasing myself from the narrative Let future historians wonder how Eliza Reacted when you broke her heart … The world has no right to my heart The world has no place in our bed They don’t get to know what I said I’m… burning the letters that might have redeemed you

The first time I watched it, I assumed that “erasing myself from the narrative” was a metaphor for her burning the letters. But after watching the ending and knowing that Eliza was actually the one who did the work of passing on “the narrative”, it’s clear that she meant it literally. She knows how much Alexander values his legacy as much as we the audience do, so she’s hitting him where it hurts. Normally, when perspectives are missing from historical narratives we are told it’s because of carelessness (either nobody asked or someone lost it) or external censorship. In Hamilton, we are told Eliza’s part of this story is missing because that’s the way she wanted it. In her time and place, she doesn’t have the opportunity to speak out against her husband or otherwise get justice, but she has still found a powerful way to “get back” at him. Her side of the story is missing because of her agency, not her lack of it.

Initially, Eliza telling Alexander’s story is interpreted as an act of love, very romantic. But thinking back to “Burn”, you have to remember that in the 50 years Eliza lived doing that work after he died, she never “redeemed” him for the bad things he did to her. In that light, you can almost see spite running subtly through the love. “I will do everything in my power to make sure people don’t forget you because I love you (and I want them to know what a jerk you were to me).” I don’t think Eliza hated Alexander. In the play it is clear that she does love him, but she does have reasons of her own for recording his legacy besides blind devotion or adoration. For this, in a way, Eliza herself is in a way redeemed by Washington and the soldiers in the final song, even though her motives aren’t completely “pure”, these men are benefitted by (and in the song appreciative of) her work.

As I said, there are a lot of themes in Hamilton that could be talked about at length, but this one is the most interesting to me, or at least the one that I’ve found myself thinking about the most since I watched the show. I want to talk about one more thing and bring us back to where this discussion started: the Hamilton fandom.

The most notorious example of “craziness in the Hamilton fandom” was the whole “hivliving”… thing. There’s a great video about it on YouTube that really does press that “gossip” button in my social primate brain just right. I highly recommend giving it a watch. 

That may be… if not the culmination then the climax the of the insanity in the Hamilton fandom. If you didn’t watch the video, here is a very very brief synopsis:

Within the Hamilton fandom, there are two groups of people who support opposing “ships”: fans of Hamilton/Laurens and fans of Hamilton/Washington.

Members of the Hamilton/Laurens faction make a habit of harassing Hamilton/Washington fans using “social justice” rhetoric (i.e. “Your ship is problematic”). It seems agreed upon by those outside that most if not all of their accusations are baseless, but it persists.

One vocal member of the Hamilton/Laurens fans, claiming to be an HIV+, bisexual, bigender, muslim victim of sex trafficking living in India, also runs a blog called “hivliving” about, well, living with HIV. Since blogs like this are rare, the blog becomes a popular and well-loved resource.

Someone named Ursula discovers that the person running the “hivliving” blog is not in fact an HIV+, bisexual, bigender, muslim victim of sex trafficking living in India, but a white 18-year-old college student living in the U.S. When confronted and pressed, they come clean to their followers.

In the aftermath, someone realizes that Ursula is associated with people in the Hamilton/Washington faction of the Hamilton fandom, and so word starts spreading that Ursula investigated and confronted hivliving due to revenge over “shipping wars”.

More rumors come up and eventually, the story transforms so that the commonly known version is: “Hivliving was pretending to be an HIV+/etc. person and was exposed by someone who wanted revenge for them criticizing their cannibal-mermaid-AU fanfiction.” All the “normal” people have a fun time laughing about how insane people can be online.

Because of this negative attention, Ursula is forced to abandon fandom.

Seriously though, watch the video if you have time.

If there were a lesson to the hivliving story, it would be about legacy. It would be a cautionary tale about how a legacy built on good intentions and serious work can be turned completely around through no fault of your own. I don’t have much to add to that, besides noting that it is a weird coincidence that it happened in a fandom for a show that itself put so much focus on legacy. Hamilton fans, in telling the story of hivliving and Ursula, shaped it to serve their own ends (vilifying fans of a rival ship), much like Eliza shaped Alexander’s story in telling it for her own reasons. But the last thing I’ll note is this: the fans largely shaped the story by adding things, Eliza shaped the story by leaving things out.

#media

[brianobrienny]

What Marketers Can Learn From “Avatar: The Last Airbender”

If you’ve been spending some extra time binging shows on Netflix these last few months, you are not alone.

In fact the #2 most popular show in July 2020 is an animated series called “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” In fact, I’ve watched and re-watched this show with each of my 4 kids. And now that it is getting some recognition for great storytelling, I thought it could offer some lessons for marketers as well.

So whether you’ve seen it or not (it’s pretty good!) I’ll use the storytelling framework from the show to offer lessons for marketers on content marketing and brand storytelling.

Quick Takeaways:

Content marketers can learn a lot from the best storytelling examples.

Great content marketing is really nothing more than a story that makes your customer the hero.

Understanding storytelling structures can help us connect more deeply with our audiences.

Content Marketing Is Just a Conversation

The best definition of marketing is “a conversation between your company and your potential customers.” At least that’s what it’s supposed to be. And this is even more true in this age of tremendous disruption.

The goal of Content Marketing is to start that conversation with someone new. And to draw your target audience into a deeper relationship with you and your brand.

Why do we even call “Content Marketing” something different from “marketing?” Because unfortunately, many brands are still on a chaotic path of blatant self-promotion and advertising. They aren’t energizing their audiences or providing them value. They don’t make the customer the hero of the stories they tell. It’s all product marketing.

That’s why Marketers must learn many vital lessons from some of the best shows. By using these conventions, we can begin to connect with customers and grow our business.

In this post, I’ll share why the animated Avatar series is compelling storytelling and how it can help you execute meaningful content for your audience. Then we’ll look at some other storytelling templates.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the basic storyline, here’s a quick summary.

Is Avatar One of the Greatest Shows Ever?

Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz actually claims that Avatar Is One of the Greatest Shows Ever. She notes the plot and story go far beyond a typical cartoon.

The story has political metaphors and highlights racial complexity. It’s great for kids but not just for kids. It takes on significant themes. It raises questions that the world is grappling with right now. It draws parallels to 1939 and 1984 and is impactful 15 years after its debut.

That’s what great stories do. They push boundaries. They have a point of view. They wrestle with big ideas. All of which is relevant to content marketing as well!

This approach sets you up to become known as a thought leader and a brand storyteller in your industry. You have experts in your organization and within your customers. Tell their stories with authenticity and purpose. When you do this, content marketing can help you reach your goals of higher traffic and revenue.

Avatar Has Staying Power

Many people think this animated show from a few years ago is one of the greatest animated series ever! Right now, Avatar is in the top 10 on Netflix according to Forbes, DigitalTrends and others..

This show is not only NOT new. It’s from Feb, 2005. That’s the same month YouTube launched! Twitter was still a year away. Instagram and Snapchat didn’t exist.

However, the story seems to be timeless. The writing and animation are top-notch (even for 2005). There are over 60 episodes. So not only is the quality there, the quantity is much higher than a standard TV series season.

The show is a great choice for families in quarantine. It attracts the attention of a wide audience. Even I will admit to enjoying each of the 4 times I’ve watched the entire series with my kids.

So just like great content marketing, the show includes writing and visuals that are of high quality. And like the Avatar’s 60 episodes, Content marketing is also a long game. We sees the best results when our quality content is consistent and frequent.

This Vice article explains why Avatar has staying power — its “emotional authenticity.” With this concept, children have exposure to heavy subjects, but they also build a foundation for understanding them.

A major reason for the staying power of this story, and any memorable and lasting story is our ability to feel empathy for the main characters. We expect stories to have some aspect of empathy. Avatar does this incredibly well. Children alone in a crazy world. Villains. Tyranny. Inequities. All these things are on full display. Again, these are complex issues.

The empathetic storytelling moves the narrative along in a way that engages the audience. I’ve talked about the value of empathy in content marketing. I even wrote a book called “Mean People Suck,” that focuses on empathy, or the lack thereof, in businesses.

This is another key lesson to take from the series. Empathy matters, no matter what the story is.

Avatar Is Awesome Because of the Diverse Worlds It Portrays

The New York Times even covered the shows popularity and also how relevant it is to some of today’s hot social issues.

The author points to Avatar’s success in a world where sameness is absent. Diversity is a huge part of the charm. The story focuses on four different nations, each rulers of an element. There is the earth, fire, water, and air kingdoms.

The only one who can bring balance between them is the Avatar. But he is just a boy and he must master all four elements to bring peace to the world in a very short period of time.

The New York Times sees this diversity and drama as a strength:  “there’s a whole wide world of narratives and traditions that resonate because of, not despite the alternative view they represent.”

How does this impact content marketing and brand storytelling? It should be a reminder and a tenet that stories aren’t about talking about yourself to people just like you.

Having a unique perspective can be very valuable to buyers, simply because it’s authentic and different from what everyone else is peddling.

What Content Marketers Can Learn About Storytelling from Avatar

In B2B Marketing we often see case studies touting “why I bought this product” and product marketing that makes you wonder “who approved that piece of content?”

One of the main reasons so much marketing content fails is the lack of realistic relationships. In fiction, readers turn off when the portrayal seems to be stereotypical. That’s true in content marketing, too. You write stories that speak to real relationships, challenges and struggles. I like to advise my clients to allow us to “marinate in the pain” of real people.

Another thing Avatar teaches us is that the villain isn’t always who we think it is. In the story, a character named Zuko is the villain for most of the series. But later we learn his destiny is to help the Avatar defeat Zuko’s own evil father, the Fire King.

The fact is antagonists are complex. Remember Darth Vader? He saved my good friend Luke Skywalker. The antagonist of your story might be fear of change, or a specific problem your customers have told you about. The important thing is that the antagonist has layers. It shouldn’t just be an opposition.

Additionally, your audiences want to see the characters of your story change and grow. They do this with experiences, and they are not always linear.

You can use that same concept in content marketing. If the hero is your audience, paint a picture of their journey. Taking your time to reach the climax helps it to resonate. Most movies don’t reach their conclusion until the last 5 minutes of a 2-hour production. Avatar took 60 episodes to get there.

The conclusion of your story isn’t when your audience selects your product or solution. The end of the story is when they achieve their goals!

I love to look at great stories like Avatar and also from my favorite show Game of Thrones to uncover storytelling lessons for marketers.

The Pixar Storytelling Formula

Pixar is considered to be one of the greatest movie studios of all time. They really don’t have a single flop based on box office revenue. And their approach has some parallels to Avatar – The Last Airbender.

What’s their secret? They use a specific formula with the same structure.

“Once upon a time ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.”

Avatar – The Last Airbender uses this convention very well. Even just in the opening sequence:

Once upon a time, there were four nations.

Every day, regular people and benders co-existed.

One day, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Because of that, the Avatar had to go on a journey to figure out how to learn about all four elements.

Because of that, he had to go through lots of challenges, turmoil and learning.

Until finally, he is able to defeat the Fire Lord and bring balance to the world

That’s a simplification of the story, but you can see that it follows the pattern. It’s a winning one that engages audiences.

Is it possible to use this for content storytelling?

Applying the Pixar Formula to Content Marketing and Storytelling

Let’s put the formula to the test to see how you can use it. Along with the method, you should have these points as a complement:

Understand the context of the world your customer live in

Know their everyday struggles and challenges

Be clear about the villain. Every great story has a complex villain.

Understand the journey your buyers must go through to achieve their goals

Guide them on how to get there

Celebrate their success in achieving their goals

How can you change from where you are to this?

Using Storytelling Principles — An Example

To take you through the path, we’ll use an example of why a company should rethink their digital marketing budget during a disruptive and chaotic time.

Once upon a time, marketers bought ads and hired creative agencies to create campaigns

Every day, they spent money and created eg0o-centric ads and product content that executives and sales people loves

One day, the world shut down because of COVID-19.

Because of that, Marketers had to rethink how to drive growth in a world without events and where ads seemed like pandering

Because of that, they looked at the needs of their customers and found they were just looking for help

Because of that, they decided to help their customers with the expertise they already had

Until finally, they started showing real business results in the form of traffic, leads and sales they had never seen

Hopefully you can see that with this approach to brand storytelling, you can see how to focus on what’s essential in the journey of your customers. It can also help you eliminate the self-serving stuff that doesn’t work.

Other Storytelling Templates — Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”

As an English Literature major in college, I was fascinated to learn about “The Hero’s Journey” and the power of myth.

Joseph Campbell studied great stories from different cultures from all over the world. People who had no contact with each other thousands of years ago. And yet he found a common formula to every great story.

Campbell formalized that structure with three acts and 12 steps. Central to this is a journey to solve a problem, have deep characters, involved plots, villains, redemptions, and closure. Star Wars was written by George Lucas based off this very template.

Here’s a breakdown of each act and step and how it ties to the earlier content storytelling example.

Act 1: The Departure

The purpose of this act is for the hero to leave the ordinary world.

Step 1: Ordinary World

We meet the hero in the ordinary world. This step sets up what is “normal” for the protagonist. It introduces the hero in their environment. They have yet to begin a journey.

Content marketing example: A technology executive is in the status quo of digital transformation before the disruption occurs.

Step 2: Call to Adventure

Your hero must now leave their comfort zone. A problem arises. The hero must take action to reach their goals.

Content marketing example: The technology executive is now aware that outside forces are making it difficult to find success. The goal becomes to reimagine digital transformation in the context of novel threats and risks.

Step 3: Refusal of the Call

Your hero hears the call. So, they just go off to face down the issues. This story theme is probably familiar to you. (Luke Skywalker initially refuses Obi-Wan, if you’ll recall). The hero sees the perils to moving forward.

Content marketing example: The technology executive is fearful of change. It’s unknown, and they may want to sit on the status quo.

Step 4: Meeting the Mentor

The hero decides to go on a journey. But they don’t want to go on their own. They need support in the form of a mentor. The wise advisor enters the picture to prepare the hero.

Content marketing example: The technology executive is a decision-maker, but that doesn’t mean they don’t value sage advice. To weave in this element, you may address the accomplishments of others who have taken a similar track.

Step 5: Crossing the First Threshold

The hero now enters a new world. The commitment to the journey is sure. In this section, the adventure truly begins. There is no turning back at this point. This step may also include character development.

Content marketing example: The technology executive is now in new territory. They aren’t doing what’s safe. They are ready to create a new path to accomplish objectives.

Act 2: The Initiation

Step 6: Tests, Allies, and Enemies

The story gets interesting here. The hero is in a new world with tests, allies, and enemies. Your protagonist is getting their bearings in the new world. Heroes face things they never have before, and they need help. The cast expands with allies, but foes are here as well.

Content marketing example: The technology executive now has new tests because their world is changing. They must look at the challenges with fresh eyes. The allies here may be their peers or your company. Defining the enemy in this example would be about the risks and difficulties because of COVID-19. Enemies don’t have to be physical people.

Step 7: Approach to the Inmost Cave

In this phase, it’s not an actual cave but some dangerous occurrence. In fiction, this may be when the hero finds himself in the villain’s lair. The cave is where the quest of the goal lives. The hero has not made it to the cave; this is the prep.

Content marketing example: Approaching the cave in our example would be the hero looking at the architecture of their digital roadmap. Fears of change and disruption are present in this “cave.”

Step 8: Ordeal

The hero is now facing their biggest challenges. Campbell referred to it as the “belly of the whale.” It’s the point in the story where the hero confronts their fears. It’s not necessarily the climax of the story. It does create a scenario where the protagonist becomes a hero.

Content marketing example: The technology executive must confront the idea that their original plans are in ruin. The fear of being without a plan or having to pivot is real and scary. In this story, the hero must actually take on their outdated philosophies.

Step 9: Reward

The hero is now seeing the light at the end of the journey. This moment is an action the hero takes to save the day. The reward is keeping evil at bay or gaining the confidence to overcome internal struggles.

Content marketing example: The technology executive must take the step to enact change in their organization. With a new outlook and possibilities that your brand can provide, the hero seizes their reward. The reward is transforming a strategy into success.

Act 3: The Return

Step 10: The Road Back

You might think the story is over. Now, you’re in Act Three, and the hero must return to their ordinary world. The hero is not out of danger. Now, there are consequences for the pursuit of the goal. You kill the dragon, but there’s more to endure. The hero must rise to the occasion and find solutions to the remaining obstacles.

Content marketing example: The technology executive has a new concept of how to reframe digital transformation. But they still have to sell this idea to other stakeholders. This is the part where you provide them reasons to make the business case.

Step 11: Resurrection

It’s the last test. The enemy has one last stand. The hero must be resilient. Has the hero learned from their journey? If they survive the final battle, triumph is within reach.

Content marketing example: The technology executive’s culmination is taking them back through the challenges and solutions available. The finale is in making that decision to find the ideal partner to support a new approach. Your solution should be the resurrection.

Step 12: The Return

The hero comes home victorious. The hero has been through a significant transformation. They return with the solution or prize. It may not even be a literal win. It could be an internal win that makes the journey worth it.

Content marketing example: The technology executive is in the decision process, and the prize is your solution. They can now take this to their team and solve the problems that were present at the beginning of the quest.

Does your content have to include all 12 steps? No, sometimes they aren’t applicable. However, this template gives you one more tool to connect marketing with content storytelling.

How Can Your Brand Become a Storyteller?

Sometimes, you need help to tell stories that are consistent, impactful, and empathetic. That’s why I love to cover popular shows and movies I love to help you see how it all applies to the great work we do. But if you need more help, we are here…

Now tell me: have you watched any part of this show? Did you love it?

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today — and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post What Marketers Can Learn From “Avatar: The Last Airbender” appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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#Internet Marketing #Social Media Marketing #Email Marketing #Business

[drink-n-watch]

  Genre: Existential horror, supernatural, artsy

Length:

Studio: ufotable

  Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your head around just being you. What does that even mean, anyway? What exactly are you supposed to do with existing? Nothing really, that’s the rub. It’s the same old questions philosophers and emo teens have been asking since the dawn of time and we’re no closer to an answer. Or rather, the answer is different for each person and seeking it out can be a painful and violent venture. Yet this is exactly what each player in this tragedy must do, in their own way, their paths crossing and diverging again as they each must find their own truth within themselves. The only thing we can be sure about is that there will be blood.  

I’ve already watched 4 of these movies. I’ve shared my thoughts along the way. There were highs and lows but one thing I can definitely say is that for better or worse, the Garden of Sinners franchise has a very distinctive voice. And in this 5th chapter, it was screaming!

it’s a figure of speech, no one screams in this movie

I watched this movie last night and it’s still dancing around my head. Vividly! Throughout the movies, I’ve been praising production and tracking the use of non-textual (verbal) storytelling. It’s what first attracted me to the franchise, and I was sad to see this aspect pared down as the movies progressed. I can tell you, it’s back in full force and then some!

The overall quality of the art, acting and animation is fairly similar to what we saw in the last two movies, but the directing has taken quite the ambitious turn! There are tons of flair in framing and angles. Action is shot with wavering focus, almost simulating motion sickness. Of course, all of it is carefully intertwined with the story and really an integral part of the narrative. I can’t praise that framing enough, which becomes almost a central feature of the second arc (Mikiya’s) but I’ll talk about it more when I get to the story. Like I said, the way the plot is presented is as important as what’s happening in it.

And that’s just one aspect. The use of symbolic colour is liberally applied both in direct touches and in overall ambient tint throughout the movie. Perspective is constantly tweaked (forced, fisheye, panoramic) which gives eerie qualities to scenes or creates uneasy claustrophobia, which then affects how you take in the dialogue and events to ensure both a literal and emotional read of the story.

there’s no way you can really appreciate it without watching the movie

  Finally editing tricks are incorporated throughout. Frequent jump cuts, repeated scenes sometimes identical sometimes shown from different angles or points of view and odd cold cuts before what would be considered the natural endpoint of a scene both focus your attention on specific elements without the need of exposition and creates interesting reveals. We even get tiny slivers of flashbacks that clearly fit into the narrative of previous movies to give you new reveals and flesh out the general lore and world-building of the franchise.

In case I’ve not made it abundantly clear, the technical presentation of the move was a spellbinding act of artistry. So far, the best example in the series and really one of the best I’ve seen in anime in general.

I was saying something nice…and it’s “Irina”

But with a two-hour movie, you need more than just craftsmanship to hold your attention. The Garden of Sinners established its core thesis right from the start. These movies deal with existential angst in a brutal and deliberate way. They attack it from every angle. The meaning and responsibility of life. The vague notion of personal identity. The dissonance of existing in a reality entirely defined by our personal understanding and experiences while colliding with everyone else’s realities.

These are heady themes and to be honest, the franchise can be hit or miss in its attempts at expression, but it is always deliberate and single-minded which I appreciate. Whether you agree or not with the messaging or even the purpose of exploring such grandstanding philosophical questions at all, you can’t deny that the Garden of Sinners has something to say. That’s worth something in my book.

This specific movie is presented in three general arcs. In the first, we follow a young man named Enjo who meets Shiki by accident, and the mysteries he brings with him. Enjo is trying to escape a tragic past with nowhere to go but as the story progresses and dead people seem to be coming back to life, it gets difficult to pinpoint what’s real and what isn’t.

does Enjo remind you of someone?

  Together, Shiki and Enjo are trying to figure out exactly what happened in this condominium complex when Enjo thought he had lost his family. It’s a very sad story with some downright unpleasant events but it’s framed as a mystery and occasional almost like a procedural. I’ve come to realize that I can enjoy very sad events in a different way when they come with a puzzle. My mind fixates on collecting clues and solving the mystery instead of being sad for the people within it. I think this is why we can watch crime shows without crying or calling them horror.

 The second arc gives us intertwining blocks of events from Mikiya’s point of view (I learned that this was Kokuto’s name and I love it). We realize that characters we thought were absent were actually also actively taking part in the story and the two arcs eventually collide.

This is where that framing I was talking about earlier becomes so important. Shiki is part of this arc, but we never see her. She’s always just off camera. We hear her or see the effect she has on objects but that’s all. A disembodied presence, like a ghost moving through a story that’s not really hers.

who threw that book?

  The final arc brings everything together for the conclusion. I have to admit, simply seeing Shiki again had a powerful visceral impact on me that I did not expect. I like her as a character but I’m more emotionally attached to Mikiya and my beloved Touko (let’s face it, we all know she’s my type). Moreover, Shiki was front and center in the first arc. As such, I hadn’t realized how much I had missed her until she was there. This is smart direction and editing on the next level.

We find out more about Touko’s past here which I enjoyed if only for seeing Touko as a super-hot teenager and Mikiya is a very good leading man for this type of story. The only flaw I can find is with the antagonist(s). Unfortunately, it’s a big one.

The Garden of Sinners Chapter 5, Paradox Paradigm (maybe I’ll talk about this title someday), introduces Souren Araya as a powerful main antagonist and Cornelius Alba as a secondary villain. They take up quite a bit of room in the story and Araya is pivotal to the plot. You could say he is pretty much the entire driving force behind this movie. And they are both painfully dull.

arrrgh, stop monologuing…it hurts…

Honestly, they feel like they belong to a different narrative. Basic, uninteresting and not even that scary. They are unworthy of the rest of the cast. Where Enjo brought a vulnerability which created interesting conflict and interplay with both Shiki and Mikiya, Araya and Alba are just there. They advance the plot in the least engaging way possible. And their little magical diatribes are muddled and bog everything down rather than add to the story.

I thought Fujino in Chapter 3 was fairly unrealized, but she is brilliant compared to these two. It has led me to believe that the Garden of Sinners is really much better when Shiki is her own worst enemy as they have not been able to create a villain that can stand on equal footing with her.

The second arc also basically explains the events of the first (with a rather unsatisfying the wizard did it sort of solution) which effectively puts an end to the mystery. This means those unpleasant events suddenly hit you with the full brunt of just how sad the story is. That’s not a flaw in any way. It just makes it a more emotionally taxing experience and I had to turn the TV off and take a little break after.

I’m Getting Some Ice Cream!!!

The ending is fine, it’s constrained by the failing of the second arc so I wouldn’t call it amazing, but it definitely has its moments and brings some nice emotional closure. The last scene before the credits (there’s a cute after credits scenes), has soft snow starting to fall, which ties it in with the meteorological theming of the franchise.

This was a long review. You should see my notes; they are all over the place. So, what’s the takeaway. Up until the confrontation with Araya and Alba, I thought the movie was brilliant. I was gearing up to rate it close to perfect and add it to my favourites. These two guys knocked the rating down a full point. The plot is only truly captivating in the first arc but the technical artistry shines throughout and the other characters make the second and third arc worth it, even if it does start to drag a bit at the hour and a half mark.

Despite its failings, this is still a very good movie and I do recommend you watch it. I’m just a little bitter at how close it got to be an amazing movie!

almost there…

Favourite character:  Touko – is this not clear yet?

What this anime taught me: mechanical pencils are called “rocket pencils” in Japan. That information makes me inexplicably happy.

Technically, alcohol is a solution

Suggested drink: A Time Warp

Every time someone refuses to stay dead – take a sip

Every time we see Tomoe’s mom – take a sip

Every time we see a key – take a sip

Every time we see a clock – take a sip

every time we see a key AND a clock – gasp

Every time anyone stabs anything – take a sip

Every time we see a doorknob/handle  – get some water

Every time you spot a repeated scene – take a deep breath

Every time there’s a picture or painting – take a sip

Every time we see a puppet – take a sip

everything’s better with more Touko

Being such a visually stunning movie, I couldn’t resist taking an unreasonable amount of screencaps which you can see here. Be warned, although I have chosen fairly innocent ones for the post, some on my Pinterest board are both graphic and potentially spoilery.

The Garden of Sinners Chapter 5 – Paradox Paradigm or The Saddest Groundhog Day Genre: Existential horror, supernatural, artsy Length: Studio: ufotable Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your head around just being you.

#action #anime #Garden of Sinners #Horror #Mystery #supernatural #Time