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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 7 months

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All Funk, No Punk - Still Hobart Brown

Gold chains instead of silver spikes. Gator shoes in place of thrifted boots. And an afro bigger than Hobie's -

Spider-Funk is Hobart Brown - Earth 831

Hobie Brown maybe Artie's chiller, rougher, and louder self - but somehow, they get on like a cop car on fire (or whatever the saying is).

And Artie Brown maybe Hobie's cockier, flirtier, and flashier self - but they just tell people they're twins.

Or at the very least - they call each other 'brotha' and 'bruv' all the time.

When people ask about the accent thing - you know, Artie being American, they say 'Ever seen The Parent Trap?'

[A LONG ASS post - Below is Artie's Origins, Fighting Style, Relationship to Hobie, and how he got recruited - All About the Brown Bros! Artie & Hobie, FunkPunk!]

It's Hobie 2 - Electric Bugaloo!

And just when Miguel thought he could only stomach one of them.

Though he calls himself the older brother, being born over a decade earlier, Artie is Hobie's less mature, more materialistic, but just as kind variant.

He's a pacifist instead of an anarchist - Full of Soul instead of bursting with Rock.

And he still hates cops.

Origins:

When Artie was drafted for the Vietnam War in 1969 - the first thing he did was burn his draft card. Then he joined the Black Liberation Army.

He wasn't the only one - Artie was part of the almost half a million draftees to do so.

And then President Osborn was elected.

To fill the gap in enlistment, Osborn came up with a solution.

V.E.N.O.M - A highly toxic, unfeelingly aggressive, and wildly bloodthirsty symbiote. A solution to the protests and draft dodgers.

Engineered by Oscorp - if you didn't induct yourself as a soldier, the V.E.N.O.M would make you one. And suddenly his friends were disappearing one by one.

A subtle but sudden-onset disease, the V.E.N.O.M variant was nearly undetectable, very persuasive, and incredibly effective.

More primal than animalistic, the symbiote's function didn't raise one's bloodlust, - instead it lowered, and at worse cancelled, your empathy. The symbiote subtly normalized dehumanization - attacking neurons in the cerebral cortex to destroy one's capability of empathy, compassion, and at times - recognizing faces. Able to follow commands without a second thought - the perfect soldier. Convincing the host of necessary order and their own biological superiority, over the course of 72 hours the host would lose their ability to recognize the people around them as anything other than sub-human. In 138, V.E.N.O.M turns you into an animal. In 831, V.E.N.O.M turns everyone around you into an animal.

It could make anyone into an unfeeling, unrelenting soldier - no guns needed.

The best of them got sent overseas to the War - and the rest, he turned on the people, hunting down all those who dared to dodge their call.

While on tour in DC, Artie was bitten by a radioactive spider, as he attempted to burn draft papers at a government facility.

He burned the papers. Plus he got some sick powers out of it. Plus Plus he gets to beat up The National Guard on a weekly basis. Ain't that a score.

And Hobie may hate the name Spider-Punk (or so he says), but Artie loves being Spider-Funk.

He calls them Funk & Punk. Hobie calls them that too, but like in a cool ironic way.

Artie & Hobie:

Personality:

Hobie knows that Artie is going through his 'Pavitr Phase', so he cuts him some slack. Artie's only been Funk for a year and some change.

He's got more Ws than Ls, so he's always one to be a bit cocky and reckless - though never at anyone's expense.

He's more talkative than Hobie - and WAY more flirty than Hobie, ready to wink at anyone willing to stare.

Like Hobie, Artie has his own groupies. And the pair on campus do get stares (and whispers. and giggles); Two 6'5 dudes with enough hair to cause an eclipse, walking around in loud ass boots, they're sure to draw attention.

Something Artie loves.

Artie considers himself a Ladies' Man. And a Man's Man. And what gender you have to offer really. (He's still a 'Hobie' - he doesn't discriminate)

He's got a waterbed in his boathouse, shag carpets, and wine at the ready. He loves sweet-talking people, and showering them in compliments. Whereas Hobie's love language is Physical Touch, Artie's is Words of Affirmation.

But all Hobie has to do is open his mouth and Be British and suddenly Artie's date is swooning and he's like 'Brotha, I'mma need you to shut the hell up for a second right quick.'

If you hang out with them, get ready for Hobie hanging off your shoulder, while Artie is in your ear complimenting your outfit.

Fighting:

Artie's fighting style is a lot more fluid than Hobie's with a lot of martial arts involved - similar to blaxploitation movies of the era.

Hobie thinks he looks bloody ridiculous meanwhile Artie is like 'if dem damn jeans weren't so tight maybe you could get like me and have some flair in your fight, my man.'

He also has an INCREDIBLY MEAN backhand.

Ideology:

The two of them are fairly close, hanging out with each other a lot. Though the two of them are fairly different. Artie is far more pacifist than Hobie, but that doesn't mean he's above violence.

He's just not one to talk about it, or threaten it. He's more of the 'let people talk - don't start none, won't be none'. Camp - and he'll almost never throw the first punch. Though he absolutely considers intimidation, selling hard drugs, and fucking with the general population 'starting some'.

Their ideology may clash heads everyone once in a while, but they hardly ever fight. At all. Instead, they have frequently heated, in-depth debates.

Artie may not be as radical or educated on things as Hobie, plus Hobie has ten years of extra history to pull from, but the two of them do it often, and it keeps them spry.

The only problem is, they get so into it, it SO HARD to understand what they're saying. Accents, slang, cutting each other off, roping other people into the conversation to back them up. It's WILD.

Artie is a lot more materialistic than Hobie. Not as critical of capitalism, Artie likes to game it rather than complain about it.

Unlike Hobie, Artie LOVES the finer things in life, and spoiling those around him. He likes gold over silver, and wears more rings than spikes.

He's a bit full of himself, and he carries a rag in his pocket to whip blood off his nice white boots. Something Hobie wouldn't be caught DEAD doing.

And Hobie clowns him for it everytime. Artie doesn't care. 'True playas never play sloppy.'

But how can he afford all of this? Well,

He's not as uhh,..honest as Hobie. But he has a heart of gold (get it?). And he never lies just to lie - if he's doing it, it's probably for work, or to Miguel, because he does not respect Miguel.

Artie be stealing. He's a master at sleight of hand. If it's a big corporation, it's free game. He never steals money - but to put it concisely: He's a smooth mfer.

He likes gold - he thinks it looks nice. But he knows for a fact that the worth of it is completely manufactured my human and capitalism, and that it's literally just a pretty metal.

He knows that paying hundreds for a chain or gold is exploitative, especially when it's stolen to begin with. So to him, it's justifiable, gimmie.

He also does it mostly for fun, a magic trick - in the same way Hobie makes stuff 'disappear' while talking to Miles, and doing hand tricks.

Artie does that, but more often, and more skillfully.

He doesn't do it all the time, but the first time he did it in front of Hobie - snatching Hobie's homemade watch of his wrist - Hobie was genuinely surprised.

Mostly he does it to make things disappear from your hand, parts he finds lying around, and playing pranks on people like Miguel. Generally, just being a lil shit.

He's a sweet-talker and a big steppa.

Unlike Hobie, Artie knows better than you force his way in. Artie slides in. He can talk them in to anywhere.

He'll pretend to be someone else, pretend to know someone else, steal passes and key cards to get in, and try to attack from the shadows when he can.

In battle, Spider-Punk is the louder, chattier, more immature one. And Spider-Funk is the chiller, sarcastic one.

Like twins, the two of them have their own in-jokes, and they hang at each other's places all the goddamn time. Though they live in different universes and decades, Artie & Hobie are kinda a package deal.

They may not always be together - they both got their own shit to do and they're not actually brothers - but if you hang with one, it's only a matter of time before you meet the other.

"Why is your brother American?" "Divorce." - "Adoption." ........ "Adoption." - "Divorce." "One of you or the both of you are lying."

Diane & Artie & Annie -

[This section is about my main OC Disco-Spider Diane, and her variant Annie P. Disco-Spider is Hobie's....something and they are happily....a something]

Every Hobart needs his Diane, and Artie is no different.

Artie & Diane:

And like usual, it all starts at the beginning.

Diane was the one to recruit Artie - because of course she was. And Lyla had told her two things: He was a guitarist, and his name was Artie. That's all she needed to know.

Lyla wanted it to be a surprise.

She snuck back stage to his show, brushed off the nearly palpable feeling of deja vu in the air, broke into his dressing room, and then tried to flirt him into joining the Society. Easy peasy.

Diane is a very oblivious woman. They spoke for nearly 10 minutes - and Artie decided to hear her out. He sat down on the couch in his dressing room, pulled back his hair and-

Diane goes -

"Hobie??? Is that you?! Oh my goodddd, you look so cute! Your hair!! Hobarrrrt - Why you ain't say nothing, had me standing here doing all this."

Speech completely forgotten. Mind you, she still hasn't explained anything. Diane is destined to freak out every Hobart she meets.

Artie is starting to think he should stop flirting with weird ass groupies that break into his dressing room.

Diane takes out her watch, the watch he doesn't know she has. She pulls up Lyla, the AI he doesn't know she has. And Diane asks her -

"Lyla! Does Artie stand for-" "It does!" "Oh my god!!! That makes this SO much easier! You're soo sweet, awww!!" "You know I saw the mission and thought of you-" "Am I on drugs right now?"

Needless to say - Diane's recruitment was successful.

Diane and Artie actually get on well, really well. Like weirdly well.

Artie and Diane are both extroverted, flirty, and a bit full of themselves. They're expressive, and more into their hair than they're willing to admit. They're perfect for each other - and people notice.

And Diane finds it a TAD BIT WEIRD

I mean, the differences between her and Hobie is what Diane loves about them - they're like sugar and spice, PB and J.

Sometimes Artie and Diane may accidentally finish each other's sentences - and Diane will be like 'Hey don't do that :)'. Other times, Artie will playfully be like 'Why are you standing so close to me, mama?' Just to piss her off.

Of course, Diane thinks he's 'cute'. But not Hobie Cute. And unfortunately, he 'speaks American'.

Besides, Hobie is the only Hobart for her.

Artie is definitely into Diane, but more in the 'she's a catch I would go for' kinda way. He did hit on her a couple times early on in their situation - but once she made it clear that she was 'seeing Hobie', he took the hint.

There's no jealously there - Hobarts are incapable of it. In fact, he's kinda proud the only other guy who could pull the hot girl is ..another him.

Now, Artie is a lot more like a big brother, kinda like the ones Diane grew up with in the Panther's house.

He's protective of her, in a 'Be mean to her and I'll deliver an ass whoppin on a plate' way. He thinks she's cute in the way a platonic sense, and finds her groupie mode to be as amusing as it is adorable.

It's ironic though that his ACTUAL girlfriend is - well, Diane's Opposite.

Artie & Annie:

[This section is shorter, and will be longer in Annie's post]

Diane Pastors is Annie P. is Mod-Spider.

Artie's girlfriend, Annie is the farthest thing from Diane while somehow still being just as big of a diva.

An avid feminism campaigner and modern woman, she would never be caught DEAD hanging off of Artie like that. And she can't stomach Diane all that much.

Hobie, Annie HATES. And not in a coy way. She thinks he's obnoxious - she calls him a poseur. She thinks he's a scrub.

Her & Artie are in a committed relationship - officially boyfriend and girlfriend. And instead of Annie, Artie is the one who wears her name on a chain.

Just like Diane and Hobie, Annie and Artie have a musical duo - called ModFunk.

We're almost done I PROMISE.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Random Details:

Artie's design is an inverted version of Hobie's, but it's also inspired heavily by Jimi Hendrix, mainly this photo on the left.

Right is an example of Artie's Style. His universe has a paint-marker aesthetic, a lot more colorful and soft than Hobie's, with dripping paint and splatters, but it tones down a lot - like Gwen's.

Artie plays Soul, Jazz, and Funk.

He has a band with his version of Daredevil, Felicia Hardy, and Captain Anarchy.

Artie has killed cops - and soldiers before. But he doesn't see it as a big deal. He hates cops, but he doesn't focus on it. He doesn't discriminate. Ass Whoopin's for everybody.

He DOES pull his hair back, his face isn't covered all the time. Maybe 80% of the time.

He can get around with Spidey Sense, so he doesn't care much - he loves his fro and is always picking it out.

He Pavitr are like best friends. Pavi and The Brown Twins get LOUD AS HELL when all together.

Gwen thinks he's an absolute goofball - So Artie tries his best to make her laugh. She seems like she needs it.

When not on stage and in battle, he prefers to play an acoustic guitar, which Hobie doesn't like playing. His acoustic is also blue.

Him and Hobie can play on each other's guitars, but it sounds very trippy, and VERY VERY weird, abnormally so.

If their heads are covered, or hair done like each other's, they can seamlessly pass as each other.

Hobie SUCKS at an American accent - but somehow, he can mimic Artie's perfectly.

It's the same for Artie - sucks at British, but can speak like Hobie.

He loves chocolate candy bars, Hobie likes fruity candy.

They do write songs together and go to each others shows, though they don't ever really perform together.

They wrestle A LOT

Artie is a genius as well, and they work on mechanics together, Artie is great at math specifically.

He and Hobie do each others hair care and help oil each other's scalps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So uh.....that's Artie :) The guy

If you made it this far THANK YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ENTERTAINING ME - Artie platonically gives you a red rose.

ALSO TELL ME Why I tried to draw him like Jimi Hendrix But he looking like the Jackson 5 IM SO SORRY YALL

Here's OG Hobie as a thank you! Just imagine two Hobarts standing on either side of you both tall and with big hair and touchy and talkative as fuck Diane is living the DREAM let your OCs be happy

Bye.

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marley-manson · 2 months

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read a few of these unfilmed scripts the other day, and holy shit I'm glad they stayed unfilmed lol.

The Contract is about Klinger getting his section 8 and regretting it, featuring Hawkeye and BJ grumbling about Klinger winning their signatures in a poker game despite having freely offered them before, and another instance of Klinger declaring he has no friends or family back home and his only family is at the 4077. Absolutely dismal.

(And it's funny, like for some reason people love to jump on the idea of Hawkeye having no friends back home because... idk he once talked to 2 childhood friends who didn't care that much about his nightmares? And that means Hawkeye can't have other friends I guess? But "canonically" Klinger is apparently the one who has one(1) ex-friend and that's his only designated friend before he got drafted, no one else back home for him, nothing to go back to. Bizarrely bad writing.)

Toast to Mildred is about Potter being in love with Margaret and Margaret being down but Potter deciding not to cheat on his wife with her and simply love her from afar? I thiiiiink? It's a little unclear to me but god the vibes are so bad lol.

And Peace is Hell is as bad as you'd think from the title, it's about Potter and Margaret bonding over not wanting the war to end during a temporary ceasefire, and that being framed as touching and sweet rather than villainous the way it was when Frank and Margaret did it. It did have 2 isolated highlights in Potter organizing a softball match in which Hawkeye doesn't participate or show any interest in as far as I could tell, and Margaret actually wielding her authority as a major over Hawkeye while being a dick to the nurses, which I wish we saw more in the show.

I think these were all spec scripts since they're written by people who haven't written any other Mash episodes, and Toast to Mildred especially reads like some dude's fanfic lol. But yeah. The show itself could get pretty bad at times wrt the framing of the 4077 friendships, but it was never quite this dire at least. Reading these felt like dodging bullets.

#marley on mash #wonder if the conclusion to draw here is that ppl watching mash wanted even more military positivity lol

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hopepunk-priest · 1 year

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Okay since everyone's doing it, I'm gonna do it too

My version takes place in the 70's, the gang is college-aged, dodging the draft by solving mysteries with a background of the rise of grindhouse horror films, second wave feminism, student strikes, "the silent majority," environmentalism, Watergate, Queer liberation, and groovy rock music. As a more adult take, the monsters of the week and overarching villains will reflect, criticize, and celebrate the cultural movements of being in your early 20's during the 70's. That means villains ranging from nerds in star wars costumes to paranoid political scandals to actual real aliens. Stakes range from being inconvenienced to being in mortal peril.

Fred Jones: Mom friend with first aid training (that he learned from med students during a campus protest), the moral compass of the show in that he reminds the gang that laws exist and they are very much on the run, fucking HATES Nixon dude like HATES Nixon. Heart's always in the right place, even if things don't always work out. Knowledgeable in traps and whatever level of engineering is needed to solve the episode, also acts as the primary face. Also just loves mysteries.

Norville "Shaggy" Roberts: former track star, dropped out of culinary school, collects cool belt buckles a la original series, straight man in the horror movie "maybe we don't go in the haunted house" way, brave considering zombies and witch's ghosts are straight up real and he will still never leave his friends to face danger alone. Anxiety disorder he treats with weed, super knowledgable in pop culture which also gives him a variety of random trivia needed to fill gaps when needed. I think he really likes Lord of the Rings and Pink Floyd. Good at riddles.

Daphne Blake: inferiority complex because of her many successful siblings, wants to be a journalist like Gloria Steinem. Has taken a few self defense classes, but overall acts as the second face for the group. Still into make-up and fashion, and can use her skills (and a little high school theatre experience) to make believable disguises. She can pick up when someone's lying and can pick locks.

Velma Dinkley: Jewish. Loves mysteries and paranormal fiction, believes in conspiracy theories and urban legends. Her intelligence specializes in puzzles, historical, and chemical knowledge. She can be reckless, but only because she becomes very single-minded when she's onto something. Snarky, lesbian, and headstrong.

Scooby: Mischievous, food motivated, and gentle. Protective of the group, Scooby is just a big, goofy great dane who doesn't understand he isn't a lapdog anymore. He can talk, no one inside the group questions it, and only a select few outside the group even notice (part of the mystery). Intergalactic being but doesn't know it, he's much more dog than other iterations.

Scrappy: Just appears one episode, everyone acts like he's always been there. Revealed at the end that he's actually a trickster deity, comes in and causes chaos every now and then mostly just to fuck with Scooby.

The Hex Girls: a psychedelic witch-rock group with a heavy emphasis on environmental protection and new age metaphors, actual witches, a sound somewhere between Cream, Hendrix, and Stevie Nicks. Genuinely just friends with the gang.

Scooby is Shaggy's emotional support dog.

Daphne and Fred are together, healthy, and often end up hyping each other up to the point where other members have to step in and go "you're getting carried away, can we focus."

Daphne and Velma met at a feminist rally, and often have nuanced discussions about different feminist theories. Honestly, most likely to commit very real crimes to get to the bottom of a mystery.

Fred and Velma met in elementary school at a Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew book club (or whatever the 50's equivalent of this was) where they were the only two members. Their friendship is like an anti-macho brotherhood, paralleling the overly masculine friendships of the era.

Daphne met Shaggy in High School and she immediately adopted him the way extroverts adopt introverts. She is very dedicated to helping him build confidence, and Shaggy helps her with her inferiority complex and keeps her true to herself.

Fred and Shaggy are very physically affectionate, share a brain cell, most likely to get into shenanigans if left alone together. Second most likely to get into shenanigans if left alone together are Fred and Daphne.

Shaggy and Velma have a shared interest in music and films, and love talking conspiracy theories.

Shaggy and Scooby are inseparable. Real boy and his dog vibes.

They all smoke weed on screen, are constantly broke, they all are capable of being equally intelligent and dumb as rocks, they're all snarky in their own way, and they all say things like jinkies and Ruh Roh to like... Murders and cryptid kidnapings and issues of national security.

#scooby doo #adult scooby doo

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katatonicimpression · 2 years

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If we're doing complaints about changes to Sam's background in the MCU, I'm still salty that they gave him a military background.

Like, it's 1969, Sam is a counterculture pacifist dude. The comics code is in place and they can't be too explicit but Sam is ABSOLUTELY against the Vietnam war. He is 100% someone who would dodge the fucking draft because it was the right thing to do.

Like, I get that American culture around the military has changed a lot since then, but how you can look at Sam Wilson and not see that this is the exact opposite of his vibe idek

#and yes i know it's because of Ultimates #but tbh using Ultimates as a source for Sam is clearly a bonkers decision anyway

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koolkat9 · 2 years

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Some of my favorite thoughts I've had about the Howl's Moving Castle Au:

- Ludwig coming to visit Gilbert after his adventure and Gilbert getting excited about Ludwig's hair because now they're matching

- Ludwig being cornered by the guards in the beginning and Arthur comes with his magic and saves him. Ludwig is embarrassed because this dude is a twig and inches shorter than Ludwig, but also Ludwig being the disaster gay he is, he is also 😳

As @froggi-mushroom put it (I sure hope you don’t mind me putting this in):

- Arthur being an over dramatic bitch

- I don't know if this was ever confirmed in the movie, but I'm pretty sure the book says the rumors about Howl stealing and eating hearts was made up by Howl himself (or maybe I'm remembering wrong). Either way, Arthur making up rumors about himself so people will leave him the fuck alone.

- Arthur dodging the draft because fuck war seems very like him

- Just thought of this: Taking from the book, Dylan would be Howl’s sister because I like Dylan and Arthur’s relationship, plus Howl’s Welsh so I have to put Wales in here somewhere

- Again, going back to the books. Ludwig and Arthur get married and have a kid and that makes me so warm and fuzzy

- Ludwig thinking he accidentally killed Francis and Arthur... Some good angst

- Arthur slowly turning himself into a monster with his magic because he doesn’t know when to quit

- Arthur throwing a tantrum and turning dissolving into slime and Ludwig just throwing him over his shoulder and getting him cleaned up

- Arthur having that flower field and bringing Ludwig to it makes me so soft

- Feli following Ludwig and Ludwig being annoyed at first, but coming to accept it. Also one-sided Ger//Ita is good stuff.

- Arthur in Howl’s clothes *chefs kiss*

- Not really based in the actual film/book, but Francis being like: “Don’t let his proper, charming facade fool you, he’s a bastard.”

- Ludwig “bullying” Francis into working with him to make breakfast

Also this dialogue:

Arthur (way too pleased with himself): Francis? You’re being so obedient.

Francis: Not on purpose! He bullied me!

Arthur (still way too pleased with himself and holding back a snicker): Not just anybody can do that.

#hetalia #hws #howl's moving castle #howl's moving castle au #gereng #engger #geruk #hws england #hws germany #hws france #hetalia aus #aus #hws prussia #hws wales #hws italy

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alirhi · 3 years

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okay. let's do this shit.

Guess what, bitches? Mama bear's back and angry all over again. Remember when I said I might dive into a ragepost about how Bucky's treated after completing the one about Loki? This is it. This is the post. Welcome to fucking Thunderdome.

I will actually try to keep it civil. No promises, but I'll try. and I will not be accepting "constructive criticism" about my rage. Just so we're clear.

Got it? Good. Let's dive in.

In case you don't want to read the whole thing (I know I get wordy) here's what this whole post will boil down to: BUCKY NEVER HAD A FUCKING CHOICE. NEVER. NOT ONCE IN HIS ENTIRE ADULT LIFE.

Now, quick reminder: I don't read comics. I know nothing about Bucky's comic canon, except what Sebastian liked to bring up as often as possible during TWS/CW promotions: at some point, Bucky boned Nat. XD Since Bucky only exists as a Marvel property, I won't be bitching about other source material being disrespected like I did with Loki. This is all MCU, my dudes. And honestly? That's enough, because though we don't see nearly enough of Bucky for my liking, we do manage to get a rich, deep backstory to him in the material we're given, partly thanks to better writing in the early days of the MCU, and partly thanks to Sebastian Stan's phenomenal acting. Unlike the writers of the Loki series, Seb knows how to show, not tell. And gods, what stories those eyes show...

Let's start with the army. In an old post illustrating what an absolute BAMF Bucky Barnes truly is, I mistakenly said he enlisted, and a kind soul educated me on the incredible attention to detail Marvel used to pay - in this case, Bucky's ID number. 32557038. As this kind, eagle-eyed soul pointed out to me, the first two digits of that number - 32 - signify that Bucky was drafted, specifically from the NY, NJ, DE area (that last part is rather obvious, as Bucky and Steve are from Brooklyn lol). Bucky didn't choose to go to war. He was drafted. He was forced to fight, or go to prison.

Bucky was born in 1917, which means - again, as someone pointed out to me a while back - he came of age during the Great Depression. As a child, he would likely have seen his parents living comfortably and able to shower each other and him and his sister with gifts and fun memories, and then POOF. Stock market crashes when he's only 12-years-old, and life becomes brutal and painful. He manages to have some fun with his best friend Steve, and spends his teens/early 20s chasing girls and keeping his stupid, stubborn, tiny friend from getting beaten to death.

Steve constantly has something to prove. He's absolutely got what my mom always called "little man's disease", and Bucky's just doing his best not to roll his eyes too much at this asthmatic chihuahua constantly trying to beat up Tibetan mastiffs. While Steve keeps lying on his enlistment forms (an actual crime) trying again and again to get into the army and prove what a badass he is (definitely not), Bucky's had enough trauma and upheaval in his life and he just wants his stupid friend to calm tf down and live. Enjoy the fact that he doesn't have to go to war and get his limbs blown off.

And then he gets fucking drafted. This sweet, resigned realist who knows exactly how dangerous the war really is, is forced to put on a uniform and go fight strangers alongside other strangers thousands of miles from everything he knows. And on his last night of freedom, when he just wants to hang out with his friend, see some cool gadgets, and dance with a pretty girl, his stupid angry chihuahua friend feels the need to lie and try to enlist again.

Okay. Gotta get back on track. Ragepost about mistreatment of Bucky, not how much Steve annoys me. Sorry. Anyway...

Bucky's drafted, accepts his shitty lot with a brave smile, and is shipped off to Europe, where he is captured by HYDRA and presumed by the Allies to be KIA. Instead, he's strapped down, tortured, and given the HYDRA version of the super serum against his will. Steve rescues him, and Bucky knows he can't leave his idiot friend to his own devices to get his head blown off, so he dives right back into the fray. And then he falls off a cliff, loses most of his left arm, and is declared dead...again. This one's pretty damn valid, though lol. Without the serum no one knew he'd been shot up with, there is no way he would have survived that fall.

Here is where Bucky's story gets truly heartbreaking: His autonomy, his ability to consent is stripped from him through electroshock torture/brainwashing. The trigger words are conditioned into him during this process, and boom. Ten words in Russian, and Bucky Barnes is gone. Even the confused, hurting shadow of him is gone, leaving only a perfectly obedient killing machine, with Bucky's pretty face. He's strong as all hell, though, so they can't keep him fully under their control for long, not without more torture, when the disorientation of being fucking frozen wears off on longer missions.

I cannot stress this point enough, guys: Bucky. Had. No. Choice. Not like the draft, where his choices (go and get shot at, refuse and go to jail, or dodge and run to Canada) just suck. No, he literally didn't have a choice. He had his ability to choose stripped from him. If that's too complex a concept to really sink in, try this: His brain was fucking raped. Repeatedly. For decades. Nothing the Winter Soldier ever did was Bucky's fault. Nothing. Ever. Not remotely, no matter how you fucking slice it. Bucky is not an assassin. I almost said "not a killer", but he was a soldier, and a sharpshooter. He definitely killed when he was himself, but that was in a war, not a series of assassinations.

So far, imo, so good. This is just a rundown of Bucky's pre-show backstory. I don't love what he had to suffer, but I do love how it was treated in the movies. People were afraid of him, but when they knew the whole situation, Steve, Nat, and Sam rallied behind him. Natasha had plenty of reason to want the Winter Soldier dead; he'd tried to kill her multiple times and almost succeeded. Sam had no reason to help Bucky at all; he didn't know him, didn't trust him, and again, TWS had tried to kill him. But he stood by Steve, and when Bucky showed the clear difference between himself and TWS, Sam stood by him, too, and fought alongside him.

And it's very realistic, imo, that Tony didn't give a single fuck that Bucky had no choice. He watched this man murder both of his parents on tape. If TWS had killed my dad and I saw proof of it, I'd try to kill Bucky, too. Grief wins out over logic. Most emotions usually do. And that's a very important point we're going to come back to in a few minutes.

Bucky was really only in like ten minutes at most of IW and Endgame, and for multiple reasons I hate those movies, so I'm just gonna skip them, kay? Kay. On to the main event!

Here's where I get pissed off. Even if I didn't have an unhealthy attachment to this character, or the depth of appreciation for his tragic backstory that I do, the lack of continuity between the movies and the show alone would still piss me off. It always does. Don't even get me started on Joss "Continuity? What continuity?" Whedon and his (iconic, but flawed) shows. Ahem. Back on track...

Let me just get one little thing out of the way real quick: I fucking LOVE The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I love it. This show amazed me when I first watched it, and I still love it after many more viewings lol. I have only ever watched it all the way through without skipping over as much John Walker shit as possible the one time lol but I love how Sam and Bucky interact, and I fucking adore how Sam's arc was treated. I just wish they'd show the same care and attention to Bucky.

Because what they did to Bucky in this show is a fucking travesty. There was a tiny ray of hope in the pilot, when he called out Dr. Bitchface for being a terrible shrink. I thought that would be the start of him realizing he needed to find someone else and ignore the damaging shit that woman was telling him. But...nope. No such luck.

The show really had a strong start, I'll give it that. We see Bucky having nightmares of his time as TWS and struggling to hide how his traumatic memories are affecting him as he tries to live in the world again. He befriends the father of one of HYDRA's victims, which can't be good for Bucky (and we're shown it's definitely not when he sees the shrine in Yori's home to his late son) but it's sweet, how he's trying to connect and reach out to someone who's hurting and lonely.

They drop the ball a little with the whole... Bucky can hack a fucking car, but can't figure out Tinder thing. Had they just run with the fandom interpretation of the tiger photos line, that it shows that Bucky is bi and left it at that, I'd have been okay with it (and no, that is not because I ship Sam/Bucky. it's because Bucky is and always has been a certified nerd who loves technology and has consistently shown very little issue learning to use new gadgets). The outdated flip phone he handed his terrible court-mandated shrink was a burner; I liked that theory when I read it, especially since it's the only time we see him even holding a phone that old lol. This all could have fit the "Bucky is a sassy bisexual nerd" narrative and it'd be okay. Instead, the director was like "NOOOOOO that line was just to show how old he is and how he can't figure out all this newfangled technology!" Woman, you had him remotely driving someone else's vehicle with a tablet. That is NOT a man who can't figure out a damn smart phone!

But that's just a minor annoyance. What fills me with absolute rage is how everyone - not just the shitty therapist who lashes out at and purposely triggers her traumatized patients, but EVERYONE - Sam, Zemo, people who should fucking know better ALL treat him like he's a psychopath and a ticking time bomb. Like he chose to take the serum and he chose to kill for HYDRA, and he's just seen the error of his ways. *barf*

Bucky in the movies is established to be a victim, through and through. His guilt over what he was forced to do is natural, and that he sees himself as a monster makes sense... but that doesn't mean it's correct. The one and only thing I ever liked about Steve Rogers is at least he got it. He pointed out that none of it was Bucky's fault, he tried to show him that he was worth saving. That's the other reason I refuse to talk about Endgame. This post will get a WHOLE LOT LONGER and a lot fucking angrier if I open that door.

Zemo supposedly knows everything about HYDRA and super soldiers... So why does he treat Bucky like he's a corrupt serial killer? (this, for the record, is why I don't like Zemo) Why does he never point out that Bucky was given the serum against his will, or that his actions, when he had control of them, proved that he was never corrupted? Bucky never wanted to become superhuman. Bucky didn't even want to fucking fight!

Sam, despite constantly resisting the label, is shown very clearly to be Bucky's friend. By episode 3, he cares. He worries about how Bucky is getting lumped in with the other super soldiers in Zemo's speech... But he never really defends him. He says "what about Bucky?" but he doesn't point out that Bucky's a good man, he's fought so hard to help people, he does everything he can to avoid killing... And that fucking speech in episode 5. I was with him on "you gotta stop looking to other people to tell you who you are." I was like "YEAH! Tell him, Sam! Bucky, you're WORTH SAVING, boo! Your value does not hinge on someone else's opinion of you!" And then... Sam dropped the ball.

He not only continued the disturbing pattern of victim-blaming in this show, and in Marvel/Disney properties in general, but he gave really dangerously bad advice! No one in their right mind, mental health professional or no, would EVER tell a traumatized former assassin (whether he was responsible for his actions or not) to go confront his victims' families out of the blue with no warning and no one to mediate and keep things from going to shit. Yori already knew his son had been murdered because he was in the "wrong place, wrong time." How is it being "of service" to tell him you're the one who killed him?! Remember how I said Tony's reaction to learning the full truth about his parents' deaths was valid and would be an important point later? Hi! Welcome to later. THAT is the natural reaction to facing the man who murdered your loved one(s). And even if Yori didn't get angry and lash out, HOW IS IT "HELPING" HIM OR BRINGING HIM "CLOSURE" TO KNOW THAT HIS FRIEND KILLED HIS FUCKING SON?!?!?! This man befriended him, bonded with him, watched him grieve... And now he's learning this is the man who caused all his pain and heartache to begin with? That is so toxic and psycho I just... I can't even... UGH.

And then there's the equally toxic and damaging "deeply traumatized person just needed a stern talking to and a hug to be ALL BETTER AGAIN" ending. I loved seeing Bucky happy and socializing, but it was too soon, and it was unearned. And it sends a fucking awful message to people actually struggling with PTSD, and to their loved ones who don't know how to help them. Heaping more blame on them and then hugging it out is NOT helpful!

This show could have been damn near perfect with just two changes. That's all. Just two. 1) Someone, anyone, bringing up the reasons why Bucky was never a villain in his presence. Someone being in his corner and reminding him, like Steve did, that it wasn't his fault and he's not going to "snap". 2) More time devoted to Bucky's healing. Actual fucking healing, not the shit they tried to pass off as a magic fix-all. He can have his happy barbecue moment, just don't frame it as "everything's great now!" Healing isn't linear, and there will be both good days and bad. Some of the most fragile people in the world have the brightest smiles.

If we get a season 2, which this amazing show absolutely deserves, and they address this stuff, all will be forgiven in my book. Expanding on his story and his journey toward healing will help to reframe that "happily ever after" garbage as something more realistic. But as it stands now... Fuck Marvel.

#fan rant #ragepost #long post #bucky barnes #mcu #captain america #the first avenger #the winter soldier #civil war #tfatws #mcu spoilers #stop victim blaming #victim not villain #never a fucking villain #bucky deserved better #fuck marvel #fuck disney

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panatmansam · 4 years

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Your Typical Trump True Believer

I talked with a guy yesterday here. A Trumpist. He literally called COVID-19 a CONSPIRACY against his boy. He was not a mouth breathing idiot. I don’t think he was a Russian agent working for Putin. Anything he didn’t want to believe about Trump was FAKE NEWS,

He likes the “grab’em by the: p****y” and porn star stuff. He likes the projection of STRENGTH. Trump, the pudgy draft dodger, the personal coward, is seen as a tough guy by these fellas.

To a certain kind of blue collar, diner inhabiting, ball cap, flannel shirt and work boot wearing dude he’s a kind of cool cat. Riding in limos with supermodels. So what if his daddy made the money. So what if he dodged service in the war.

There are lots of these Lesters and Billy Bobs out there. They watch Fox, hate the Clintons don’t much like the Jews, the blacks or the gays. They think that the Soviet Union still exists and that “commies” are a thing.

These dudes will vote for Trump no matter what. Every strong man has these guys supporting him. Beer hall toughs. Usually, if history serves, they aren’t so tough when push comes to shove. These people aren’t evil. Just easy to manipulate by evil.

#text #link #articles #trump #joe biden #democrat party #trump 2020 #real donald trump #republican party #guns #deepstate #guncontrol #weapons

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Lucifer Season 6 Episode 8 Review: Save the Devil, Save the World

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This Lucifer review contains spoilers.

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 8

“This is the worst idea the doctor has ever had.”

It’s the rare episode of Lucifer that moves outside its comfort zone of dead bodies, shady suspects, and puzzling evidence, but “Save the Devil, Save the World” does just that as it hones in on a much bigger problem. The end of the world appears nigh, and no one knows why.

While the introspective offering ventures into clip-show territory, the past scenes never feel obtrusive, nor do they stand in the way of fresh, new material. It’s fascinating to learn how others see you, and that’s certainly a big part of “Save the Devil, Save the World.” But it’s how we see ourselves that becomes the focal point of Team Lucifer’s reaction to Doctor Linda’s book about their leader. Of course, the greatest revelation is Lucifer’s confession that “I don’t want to be God,” since it opens several narrative doors along the way. Who will take over for Dear Old Dad now that Lucifer has taken his name out of the running, and does this mean that the celestial war was fought for nothing?

It’s not clear whether Linda deliberately brings her manuscript into the open, but it does appear she needs some validation, not only for the work she’s done with Lucifer but the others as well. That it’s only a first draft is made abundantly clear on several occasions, and it’s not surprising that everyone’s eager to dive into the material for a myriad of reasons.

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 7 Review: My Best Fiend’s Wedding

By Dave Vitagliano

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 6 Review: A Lot Dirtier Than That

By Dave Vitagliano

For the most part, I’m not sure we really need all the forays into the past to tell this story, however, where Ella is concerned, these flashbacks paint a compelling tale of the power of faith. “Was it fun for you guys watching me walk around without a clue?” Yes, she’s hurt that the others didn’t feel they could trust her with the truth, nevertheless, Lucifer makes certain she knows she’s never been alone through all her trials. It’s her faith in the absence of proof that warrants admiration even though she still faces serious spiritual doubts. And then there’s the exchange she has with Carol in front of Lux when we know she’s bursting to tell him everything she’s learned. “It’s not my secret to share,” and his reaction reinforces everything we’ve learned about Chloe’s LAPD replacement. He’s a good guy.

In many respects this is Dr. Linda Martin’s story, and it opens with an inexplicable scene in which we see the aftermath of her sexual encounter with an unnamed dude. Though he’s made significant progress in his five years on the couch, Lucifer seems oblivious to what’s going on. More to the point, did something happen between Linda and Amenadiel? Regardless, once her manuscript becomes the focal point of the team’s search for answers, the questions become muddled. Linda wonders what her Hell loop would look like as she dodges accusations and criticisms of her character assessments. There’s no reason to think she hasn’t resolved her guilt related issues with Adriana, so her preoccupation with Hell seems unfounded.

At one time or another, all members of Team Lucifer find their way to Linda’s couch, and while she offers suggestions, answers must come from within. Lucifer, however, takes her decision to withhold the book’s ending as a sign she feels he’ll fail in his quest to become God, and while there doesn’t seem to be any truth to that assessment, it does provide a catalyst for Lucifer’s nuclear family to work through their abandonment issues.

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 5 Review: The Murder of Lucifer Morningstar

By Dave Vitagliano

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 4 Review: Pin the Tail on the Daddy

By Dave Vitagliano

You have to give credit to Rory because as forsaken as she feels, she’s still willing to give her father another chance. And this time it appears Lucifer may have finally broken through her guarded exterior. In an episode of call backs, allowing Rory to take a shot at her dad, ironically solidifies the family bond. Though she’s not part of the original group, Rory now sees her father in an entirely different light, and while we still don’t learn the circumstances behind Lucifer’s absence during her life, she now knows that he loves her unequivocally.

Even though we don’t see Eve in this chapter of the story, Mazikeen’s personal and emotional growth continues to shine, and her encounter with Dan stands as one of the episode highlights. Dan still struggles with his current state and remains unable to determine the guilt that prevents him from entering Heaven. “I’m going to torture your ass right into Heaven,” Maze tells him, but even she strikes out in the attempt to learn the source of his subconscious remorse.

It’s easy and understandable that we get caught up in the various characters’ angst driven reactions to passages in Linda’s manuscript, but Ella seems to be the only one truly focused on the coming apocalypse. With one of the snappier lines in the episode, Lucifer notes that Dad “probably thinks the apocalypse is a teachable moment,” but we also have to question how seriously he’s taking the situation. Still, it’s Ella’s insistence that ecological and environmental changes seem to presage the end of the world scenario that she describes and make for a nice piece of relatively unobtrusive social commentary.

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As we head into the final few episodes of Lucifer, an apocalyptic scenario looms overhead, leading viewers to finally get serious regarding the series’ conclusion. Nod to Heroes aside, someone needs to take charge, save the world, and ascend to God’s throne. A classic setup episode, “Save the Devil, Save the World” arranges the pieces on the board, and now that Amenadiel has returned with an answer, it won’t be long until the end of the series.

The post Lucifer Season 6 Episode 8 Review: Save the Devil, Save the World appeared first on Den of Geek.

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thanksjro · 4 years

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More Than Meets the Eye #1- Meeting All Our New Friends

Okay, let’s see what happens when you give one man way too much power over a franchise, and he doesn’t use it for evil.

Before we get into the story, let’s take a look at the cover art! MTMTE, as well as its sister series, Robots in Disguise, started off IDW Phase Two, a brand new run of main comics to replace the by-then completed The Transformers (2009). To celebrate this momentous occasion, each comic’s first issue got FOUR separate covers, which could be combined to create a large, overarching image. MTMTE’s looked like this when all the covers were put together.

The cover art here is by Alex Milne, who is on as the main artist for the series, but he’s not on issue #1- no, for our foray into this comic run, we see the return of Nick Roche.

The last time Roche and Roberts worked together was on Last Stand of the Wreckers, and other than MTMTE #6 and the Revolution one-shot, they won’t be teaming up again within the IDW run.

On a potentially-related-but-more-of-just-a-humorous note, it seems that Roberts is a huge stickler with his scripts, going into what sounds like an honestly horrific amount of detail for each individual panel. The average comic script is either between 20-23 or 28-30 pages long, not counting title and credit pages. Roberts has been cited as sending in comic scripts that approached 50 pages.

Which, if you know anything about the scriptwriting process, is a little�� yeah. It’s a very good thing Roberts seems to be able to take criticism.

ANYWAY.

IT’S TIME.

The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye- Liars, A to D Part 1: How to Say Goodbye and Mean It- holy fucking shit that’s a long title- starts off with the Story So Far, a comic book classic to catch readers up on what’s happened prior to the issue. The very nature of a Story So Far will become plot-relevant much later down the line, but as is, it’s just reminding us what happened during Phase One, in as basic a point as it can.

And then the credits are right underneath.

I can’t even imagine how friggin’ good seeing this printed must have felt.

So, what’s going on in the premiere of the sad, gay, space comic?

Not my phrasing, by the way, but the Wiki’s.

So, the war’s over. What does that mean? Well, a lot of things, honestly, but the first thing we’re given in terms of what changes to expect with everyone’s favorite space robots is in relation to their wardrobes. Yeah, without a war to fight, what’s the point in having relatively identical blocky armor that protects all your insides? It’s time to get skimpy.

Rodimus has switched out his toned calves and discernible ankles for the Uggs that are now positively iconic to his character. Drift’s mass has almost completely gravitated to his thighs, making him the curviest thing this side of the Milky Way. Ultra Magnus didn’t get the memo about not needing to be in uniform anymore, I guess, but somehow I doubt he owns anything casual.

Rodimus, Drift, and Magnus are holding a rally to invite Autobots to come on their party-barge to find the Knights of Cybertron, in an effort to heal the planet, because Rodimus took one look at post-war Cybertron and said “no thanks.” Honestly, I think most would, if these properly colored characters are any indication.

Just the Autobots, by the way. We aren’t ready to be friends with the ‘Cons just yet. Swindle did some major damage on that front.

Prowl and Wheeljack are off to the side discussing this turn of events, and while Wheeljack seems to think that a lot of folks will be boarding the ship and getting the hell out of dodge, Prowl’s expecting nothing to come of it.

So, that was yesterday. What’s going on today?

Inside Kimia, there’s a dead guy. He wasn’t dead when he was brought in, but he is now. Who is he, anyway?

Oh, he’s one of the NAIL protesters, and he died because he was protesting by way of transforming on the steps of Autobot HQ, until his transformation cog burn out. Yep, that can kill you. Ratchet’s the one who performed the autopsy, as per Metalhawk’s request- he only wanted the best of the best on this.

Too bad the best of the best is starting to slump. After a brief scare with Rigor Morphis- the stiffening of the corpse into the body’s preferred mode- Ratchet explains to Bumblebee that his hands have started seizing up, and that’s why he’ll be leaving on the Lost Light with Rodimus. He just can’t do the work anymore.

This news is not well received by Bumblebee, who’s just about had it with everyone up and leaving him all by himself with the mess that is Cybertron.

Phase Two will not be kind to Bumblebee.

Bumblebee accuses Ratchet of having been insnared in Rodimus’ siren song of reclaiming the Golden Age, but c’mon, this is Ratchet! He’s too cynical to fall for that. He’s more interested in finding the Autobots who’ve been lost over the millennia to the war. Ratchet’s already well aware of the true purposes of this little galactic road trip, almost like he’s read the plot outline.

It’s about helping people, and adventure, and being unapologetically gay and sad in equal measures.

Up in the sky, Cyclonus is displeased. He spent six million years in the Dead Universe, under the control of a madman, waiting for the moment he could return to his beloved homeworld, and what does he get? A ball of half-baked primordial cookie-dough, and it’s not even chocolate-chip like he was expecting; it’s fucking oatmeal raisin.

Mmm, that is some tasty panel-breaking right there.

Of course, the I/D chip might not have worked anyway, seeing as Cyclonus got a little bit of a boost when Vector Sigma ejected everyone during the Matrix incident. It’s doing some weird stuff to his body, on top of whatever nonsense existing inside the Dead Universe does to a person.

Cyclonus is about to head over to the Lost Light- apparently he and Rodimus made a little deal off-panel- when he detects a familiar life sign and decides to see what that’s all about.

Over in Prowl’s office, things are tense. He and Chromedome can’t even look at each other, as Chromedome reveals that both he and Rewind are jumping on the Lost Light. Prowl doesn’t like this, not one bit. He needs Chromedome, needs his skills, his expertise. He tries to appeal to Rewind, knowing who wears the pants in this relationship.

Or, well, he tries.

Prowl, they’ve been married for over 250,000 years.

In all seriousness, this is slightly before the first tentative steps Roberts took towards making the franchise as gay as he possibly could, at least when going by the story’s chronology. The thing about professional comic script writing is that plotting/planning goes for a ways beyond the current script one’s working on, so that everyone knows where everyone else is. Considering the somewhat congruent nature between MTMTE and RiD, planning ahead was especially important.

Chromedome and Rewind were originally (like, first draft originally) meant to be best friends. This was to fill a void in the department of close relationships Roberts felt within the Transformers franchise. Then Roberts saw how handsy he’d been writing them during plotting and realized he’d made something a little different happen. Which still sort of went with what he was going for, just in a slightly different fashion. Chromedome and Rewind are a rare case of a writer NOT leaning into the “they’re just bros, bro” mentality and just letting the characters be together as romantic partners.

Also keep in mind that it would be another three fucking years before the United States would legalize same-sex marriage, which is where the IDW offices are located. You gotta ease that sort of change in, that way nobody realizes what you’re doing until it’s already been done, then you can go hog-wild. We won’t be hitting critical mass on the homonormative civilization that is IDW1 Cybertron for a solid year or so.

So this bit of dialogue is just the start of the setup, and the “best friend” line is either a leftover from earlier versions of the script, or Prowl really just is that big of an asshole.

Rewind is, of course, recording everything taking place on his handy-dandy little head-mounted camera, because history is his business, and he’s not going to stop recording for the likes of Prowl.

Rewind doesn’t like Prowl very much.

It would seem that the feeling is mutual.

Chromedome suddenly remembers that trying to reason with Prowl is like talking to a brick wall, and the two of them leave. Prowl responds to this slight by yelling in the hallway and then flipping a table.

I sure hope y’all like running gags.

Of course, Prowl wouldn’t be Prowl without having a few contingency plans in place for when things don’t go his way, and he makes a call to his inside guys to “load the cargo.”

That’s not ominous in the slightest.

Six million years prior to all this nonsense, a tiny little dude fell in a hole and broke his legs trying to get to work.

This is Tailgate, and he’s seen better days. Not many, mind you, but at least a couple. He was making his way to the launch of the original Ark, when he decided to take a shortcut that would change the course of his life forever. Hence the whole “stuck in a hole” thing. Still, he’s got to get out of here, because without him, the entire expedition is doomed!

For being an idiot, Tailgate’s pretty smart- he figures that if he sets off his energon rations, it’ll blast up through the roof of the cavern he’s in and someone will be able to find him. Good thing energon’s so incredibly volatile.

Speaking of volatile, let’s jump back to the present and check on our buddy Whirl.

It looks like Whirl also got a makeover between series, because he’s now sporting a much sleeker, angular frame, complete with long, tapered head.

Whirl’s currently busy thanking his new friends for spending so much time with him. It really meant a lot to him, their patience. Not many folks have been patient with him before.

Of course, it probably helps that all these guys are dead as hell.

It’s time for another Roberts’ staple- the suicide attempt. We won’t be using the robot-equivalent to Multiple Sclerosis though. This go around, we’ll be using a classic: self immolation!

Title drop! Bet you weren’t expecting it to have such a dark connotation, huh?

Cyclonus interrupts Whirl’s monologue and suicide attempt. He thought he’d seen his best buddy, Scourge, on his tracker, and his immediate response is to lurk in the shadows looking like a night demon wearing a party hat.

Fun fact: a group of Sweeps is called a Spring Cleaning.

Scourge isn’t here, and he won’t ever be. Scourge most likely died off-panel, never to be seen again, assumedly because nobody wanted to write for him. I think it’s the nails, puts people off.

Whirl doesn’t take kindly to the intrusion, and responds the only way he knows how.

It’s always embarrassing when your self-immolation gets interrupted, but maybe try taking a first deep breaths before committing to more war crimes, Whirlybird.

While these two morons fill the post-Bay movie explosion quota, Red Alert’s hard at work screening the passengers on the Lost Light. Currently, he’s checking Brainstorm, who’s making it as difficult as possible, both legally and emotionally. Red Alert waves him on with a grumble, without even getting a peek at what’s inside his mysterious briefcase.

Up next is Swerve.

His legs are so jacked, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Glad to see Swerve’s body reformat went swimmingly- seems he went for the classic “tires in the shoulders and ankles” model.

Oh hey, it’s Rung! Hi Rung!

This series will not be kind to Rung.

While Cyclonus and Whirl terrorize the folks just trying to get on board the dang ship, Rodimus is feeling rather pleased with himself with the turnout. Drift strokes his ego a bit, because they support each other, but things are still weird because Drift doesn’t know who he is as a person anymore, and Rodimus has a guilty conscience mixed with being the Matrix’s golden child, which really fucks with a guy’s head.

Ultra Magnus goes through the list of the folks joining their quest, and starts running through all their demerits and crimes like it’s his job, because it is. We get a little peek into Magnus’ world view and then it’s back to the Whirl and Cyclonus show.

Also, Drift doens’t have a nose right now. He’ll get it back in time for the next issue, don’t worry.

Over with the flyboys, Cyclonus has decided to land and attempt to reason with Whirl. Not that he couldn’t totally kill Whirl if he wanted to.

He just doesn’t want to.

No, Cyclonus is far more concerned with his meeting with Rodimus, the one that he’s already friggin’ late for thanks to the detour he took checking that life signature. Whirl doesn’t care, far more worried about the fact that Cyclonus saw him talking to desecrated corpses and, far more importantly, vulnerable.

Look at this jackass’ ensemble- demon helmet, a crop top, a skirt and bellbottom pants. What an icon. He and Eugenesis Wheeljack should trade fashion tips.

Whirl still isn’t done with him, even after scraping him across the side of a mountain. Feeling especially artsy, he scoops Cyclonus up and jumps into the air, since he apparently has a hundred-foot vertical leap.

Back in the past, things aren’t going so well for Tailgate.

More cool panel stuff going on here- every time the panels have had rounded corners, it’s been when the scene takes place in the past. Now that the last panel has proper right angles to it, Tailgate’s in the present with everyone else. That middle panel probably covers a couple million years, at least. Poor guy.

Up on the surface, Ratchet’s met up with Chromedome and Rewind, and they’re all walking over to the launch site, Chromedome bitching all the while about how they’ve got to use their legs since Rewind’s alt-mode isn’t a vehicle, but a USB.

Chromedome seems to have forgotten that his tiny husband is small enough to probably just ride on top of his alt-mode, if not directly inside, most likely due to his larger-than-life personality.

Whirl and Cyclonus fall out of the sky before Chromedome can say something that’ll get his ass divorced. Cyclonus gets knocked out cold, having taken the brunt of the impact. Unfortunate, seeing as Whirl’s taking the time to make up lies about him.

You thought I was kidding when I said the armor was skimpy, but here we are, with a shot of Whirl’s battle thong.

Ratchet, who knows Whirl, because he knows everybody, tries to talk him out of straight up murdering Cyclonus. Whirl doesn’t like it when people try to talk him down, and is about to turn on the good doctor, when Tailgate enters the scene, by way of explosion.

Whirl doesn’t handle explosions terribly well. Probably why he was going to use one to kill himself.

With Whirl knocked out, Ratchet and the power couple pull Tailgate out of his hole, where he manages to ask about the launch before freaking the fuck out and fainting at the sight of a rather dead-looking Whirl. To be fair, I can’t think of a whole lot of folks who’d survive getting their tits blown off with enough force to clear a tunnel in solid rock.

You said it, Rewind.

Ratchet grabs Tailgate and Whirl and brings them onboard the ship, seeing as Tailgate seems to want to be there, and Whirl’s too dangerous to be out of sight. They just kinda leave Cyclonus on the ground. I doubt the two guys who were on Kimia last month really want to deal with him.

Rewind breaks off from the group to see his dealer. This dealer isn’t selling the good kush though. He’s got something far more incriminating to offer.

But we don’t get to find out what the fuck Rewind just bought from Swindle for a few more issues. Rest assured, it’s nothing good.

On the bridge, Rodimus is in his captain’s chair, ready to captain it up. The Lost Light raises into the air, as Bumblebee and Prowl watch on, about to exit the atmosphere and begin a adventure filled with hijinks and mild peril.

And that’s a series wrap on everyone! I hope you enjoyed this wonderful one-shot written by James Roberts.

What do you mean there’s 56 more issues?

Alright, let’s see where this goes.

Back on the bridge, there’s alarms and sirens out the wazoo, as things have pretty much immediately gone to shit. The quantum engine the Lost Light’s outfitted with apparently went off prematurely, rocketing them into a completely random quadrant of space.

Also, there’s a hole in the ship, and vacuum physics are doing their thing.

This series will not be kind to Rodimus.

The Lost Light touches down on the planet they popped back into existence over to start looking for all the guys who got sucked out of the ship. They don’t have to look long, seeing as they’re all burning up in the atmosphere.

Welcome to the Lost Light. It’s a friggin’ mess.

Back on Cybertron, the aftermath of the explosion is seen, as Bumblebee and Prowl listen to a message that seems to imply a lot more heartache in the future.

Prowl, you could at least pretend to give a shit.

That’s the end of the story, but not the end of the issue. In the back of the book, we get a welcome letter from James Roberts himself, thanking the reader for taking the time to read the beginning of MTMTE, and holy shit does he really try to sell it to you. This is a guy who wants you to be excited about the story that’s coming your way, because he’s excited about it. He’s a big dork who loves Transformers, and he gets to write about them for the next six years! That’s awesome.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #liars A-to-D #issue 1 #incoming analysis #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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fujianvenator · 3 years

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tcm 1 and 2 r literally unbeatable like the first is a literally legendary film the second is a super memorable cult classic full of personality and soul and u can tell the ppl who made it were super hyped for it but 3 was incredibly mediocre n forgettable with some bad shit in it n 4 was. Wale . a fuckin mess.

the remake timeline is so painfully 2000s with the dingy gritty fucking color correction the 2000s female celebrities in wet tank tops and the shitty dumb badly implemented jumpscares. the gore was pretty cool the gore fx dude said verbatim "cgi can go fuck itself" and did like EVERYTHING with practical fx, but the 2003 one just felt inferior in every way to the original for me and the 2006 one was just 2003 A Second Time.

it was practically the same fuckin movie they were like ooh its the leatherface backstory but he was barely in the fucking movie most of it was just drama with the draft dodging dude n his brother. they had Some hints of commentary on the vietnam war coz they mention the one dude having ptsd from the war n they mention the atrocities committed but they dont do shit with it. i hate that they made the old men creepy and pervy like theyre already murderous cannibals bro u dont have 2 add sexual assault to it. it was so unnecessary.

i hate texas chainsaw 3d for very obvious chop top retconning related reasons but i do appreciate that it got bill moseley john dugan marilyn burns n gunnar hansen back. feels like some nice full circle shit especially with bill moseley playing drayton with his excellent jim siedow impression. unfortunately the movie is very dogshit why the hell is 27 yr old alexandra daddario playing someone who was a baby in 1973 n WHY does the script treat her like a 20 something yr old too. wadda hell.

i dont rlly like that they tried to make the sawyers more sympathetic like while i find the original sawyer family super memorable n fun i dont like them as people theyre LITERALLY CANNIBAL MURDERERS??? why did they try to make them the victims in theis movie??? the townspeople raiding their home was framed as oh noo so sad rip but like they literally ate people bro JFKAJSDLKHJKLHASJKLHSDJHSD theyre not the victims here ?!?!?!?!?!?*(@*@(*%@*(@*%(%@&)(@% AND I HATE THAT FUCKING "do ur thing cous!" line its SO CORNY FDAJSKJHKDHS AND ALSO HE KILLED HER FRIENDS? HE KILLED HER FRIENDS AND BOYFRIEND JFKASDMKNDHSK WHY WOULD SHE SUDDENYL JUST . FORGET THAT JUST COZ SHE FOUND OUT THEYRE COUSINS I 7*@(&%@*@(@()@ thank you screenwriters very cool and smart /s

leatherface 2017 is just a fucking mess theres just s omuch bullshit i dont even wanna get into it my god !

#sorry for the damn near fucking essay i have hyperfixation brainrot #long post #rape mention #vic.txt

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cavprime · 4 years

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bro,,, what if you were banished from your home for accidently killing someone so you got sent to my kingdom and one day i found you hiding while you were supposed to be training and so i brought you along to my lyre lesson and we became really good friends like to the point where you slept in my room with me every night and we climbed trees together but then i had to leave to go train to become a great warrior and you followed me like i hoped you would and we train together for years and in that time we realize that we love each other but then a war breaks out and we have to return to my kingdom and in an attempt to dodge the draft, my mother dresses me up and sends me off to some island for maidens but you found me because you are half of my soul and we plan to stay there until we can avoid going to war but then i found out that you signed this pact when you were younger because your dad sucks so i promise to go with you and then this buff dude comes and takes us off to war anyway all because i couldn’t stay in character , so i wore a dress for no reason but that’s beside the point, and then we spend a lot of years at war avoiding my inevitable death, but while we’re at war some douche steals the wife you persuaded me to take in an attempt to take my honor so i refuse to fight and because you’re a better person than me, you take my armor and fight in my place but because of your hubris you take it too far and apollo ends up screwing you over so you die and i mourn your body for an unhealthy amount of time until i decide to go on a killing rampage that eventually ends in my death but it’s cool because i ordered my soldiers to mix our ashes together....jk...unless?????

#tsoa #the song of achilles #achilles #patrochilles #patroclus #please #this is all i want

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janiedean · 5 years

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how are his other works anti calvinist if i may ask?

okay in order (the ones I read in full anyway):

SPOILERS FOR WILD CARDS, DYING OF THE LIGHT, ARMAGEDDON RAG AND FEVRE DREAM

dying of the light is basically the rebellion in space but most characters in it are given the chance to get better/move past their issues/make their choices/address their previous toxic behavior and do better/forgive people who hurt them

the armageddon rag is all about anti-vietnam people who longed to be in a better world/opposed the war/were part of the counterculture in the 70s coming together in the 80s to stop the apocalypse (yeah yeah I know) and on top of having a fairly positive conclusion, the guy who tried to dodge the draft and got denounced by his own father and got trauma for it eventually got his ass saved by all his friends/former friends pooling in together to help him and the protagonist was all I AM A CYNICAL ASS BUT NOW I REGAINED MY IDEALISM

fevre dream is all about... a dude helping out a vampire who wants to live in between humans without killing them and they eventually succeed? and the vampire is full-on I WANT TO BE A GOOD PERSON BECAUSE MY PEOPLE ARE TERRIBLE TO YOURS AND WE SHOULD ALL LIVE IN PEACE AND I WANT TO MAKE UP FOR ANY OF MY WRONGDOINGS, and he actually gets to do that (with a lot of suffering but without dying) with the help of his a+ human friend who learns to respect him deeply

wild cards as a whole (it’s not just him obv. but he edits the entire thing and I’m counting his characters too) doesn’t really have many major deaths period - there’s been I think four or five over... almost thirty books and maybe one of them had the redemptive flavor to it but it wasn’t grrm’s character and it actually made sense, most of the characters who start in a bad place get to grow and do better, even when someone gets the unhappy moment they still get something nice to go on in their lives for, most of the characters have had their issues but at the end they usually do better or get to be happy, all of grrm’s characters specifically right now are doing great and have fulfilling relationships after having suffered a lot, one of the mains from the old books whose superpower was basically turning into seven different people with different abilities at some point evoked one that summed all of those powers at the same time and got into a huge af power trip and it took three damned books to do away with him and stop him from turning into a supervillain... and when he got back to his normal self instead of killing him for ATONEMENT or whatever he got to take a spaceship to the planet the wild card virus started from where he can reunite with a character who hasn’t been around for ages, get to rest and enjoy time with his daughter because he wasn’t a bad person to begin with, the alien character in question had done fucked up a lot and got the happy ending/redemption anyway, the most sympathetic character in the book set in the UK was a former thatcherite who turned into a mutant rights terrorist and no one could have begrudged him the choice and so on. like, wild cards has a lot of characters and statistically I’ve never read a series with so many of them who actually get to be happy in the end???

there’s more/short stories etc. but I mean........ guys if you read them it’s obvious he doesnt’ have a calvinist bone in his body X°D

#grrm #Anonymous #ask post

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gazellefamily · 3 years

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MASTER AND COMMANDER (2003) “Why did I see this alone in the theatre one day in NYC at age 26? Maybe I had a couple hours to kill between a meeting and someone’s birthday party? But anyway, rewatched it and still pretty good. These Brits are pretty badass. 11 year-olds getting arms cut off with a ‘stiff upper lip’. But I’d rather be a wuss who doesn’t spend years of his life in a floating prison of reeking men. I’d rather be a coward who hangs out with women, eats produce, takes showers, and doesn’t get mutilated by cannonballs. I guess I’m gonna dodge the draft for the Napoleanic wars. Why don’t these guys just dock in Brazil and eat some mangos and relax?” -Sonny Gazelle

“I have recently learned that I am a huge fan of nautical adventure. Particularly the Napoleonic Wars. We learn things about ourselves over time. And this is a particularly good version of it - - Bettany is now encased in red paint sessing the Scarlet Witch but around this time I was like, ‘That dude is the next awesome character actor’. And Crowe, with a gross blonde ponytail, looking suspiciously like teen headbanger Tim Horton I went to high school with, is perfect. Yeah I mean I think about how dehydrated these guys must have been literally all the time while sailing and it makes me uncomfortable, and I’m terrified of drowning, but I still can’t get enough seafaring.” -Tommy Gazelle

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rai-knightshade · 6 years

Note

You are right except it's selective service not special service. Special service is the president's detail.

Yeah I knew that wasn't quite the right word but I couldn't remember what the right word actually was so I figured I'd go with something close and explain the concept to get the point across. Thank you for correcting me though!

(for context I reblogged a post awhile back about the draft and whether guys gals and non-binary pals should all be required to serve if we reinstate the draft; my reblog and/or comment on the post explained the misconception of whether we have a draft or not. The answer is: sort of? Our draft is not in effect at the moment, but the selective service anon's talking about here that I incorrectly stated as special service is what we have instead, where each American male* is required to sign in with the government in case the draft is reinstated, in which case the government will pull from that roster to get soldiers. It's federal law that guys have to sign up, and if you don't it's essentially draft dodging and the government will find you. Which sucks. Also gals like me don't have to sign in, which is also kinda bs. My personal opinion is that it shouldn't exist period, but there is definitely an argument to be made that the draft, if reinstated, would prevent the rich from forcing only lower-income people to serve and never coming down to help, a bit like we have now but even more exasperated in a full-scale war, as one commenter on that post said. It's complicated my dudes.)

*I'm not sure how this intersects with trans people but for now I'm gonna say the gov is transphobic and goes with anyone amab unless otherwise stated, even though it should really be only cis guys and trans guys with no trans gals if we're going to be even, regardless of whether you think gals should be required for it or if you think no one should be. And I don't know where non-binary pals fall under this so. Food for thought/research though!

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moodboardinthecloud · 3 years

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How to Tell a Story to Save the World 2

Toby Litt

13th May 2021

This time, I’m looking at two hugely influential screenwriting manuals – Syd Field’s Screenplay and Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey.

Through the gap between them, we see the idea of heroism emerge and start to dominate the very idea of ‘a good story’.

Like all film producers say, ‘The audience needs to knows who to root for.’

(If you haven’t read part 1 of the book, which explains what I’m up to, it’s here.)

SCREENPLAY:

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SCREENWRITING

SYD FIELD

1979

We’re going back now – back to before the resurrection of the Hero. I hate to say it, but it is a more innocent age. It was an age when very few people knew very much about the business of film-making. And it was certainly an age when almost no-one would have expected to take life-advice from the person who wrote the lines for the actors on the TV.

It’s easy to see why Syd Field’s Screenplay was so influential – perhaps “formative” would be more accurate – in its time, and just as easy to see why it has been so completely superseded.

The screenwriting manuals that have followed seem to say a lot more, and they say it more get-atably, often more schematically. (Field is, in retrospect, almost comically light on diagrams, and his diagrams are comically simple.)

John Yorke’s Into the Woods contains the gist of Screenplay, but it doesn’t capture the attitude. Field’s approach to writing a film is relaxed, unneurotic; you’re not going to come away from Screenplay angsting over having missed this mythological beat or not having inserted this emotional hook in the viewer. Field’s view of writing is one of sincere application to the basic craft, rather than wily manipulation of the available means.

I like Field. Not as much as I like Robert McKee – Field’s a much more limited teacher than McKee – but I like him. He’s an affable, slightly grouchy zen uncle-type – great uncle, now.

Field was a pioneer, an explorer of the territory, and shouldn’t be sneered at by people who arrived in the landscape when it had paths and public conveniences. Even so, as a founding father, he had his limits. His eyesight was clear, but he was only interested in certain outstanding features. It’s not that he got lost, or needed to be rescued, more that the map he brought back was fairly sketchy.

Syd Field Mini-biog

Syd Field was born in 1935, in Hollywood, California. He took a B.A. in English Literature at University of California, Berkeley, in 1960. It was at the suggestion of the director Jean Renoir (Grand Illusion, Le Regle du jour), that he entered film school, also at the University of California. Here, he hung out with Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek of The Doors. His early work in the film industry was for David Wolper Productions, the company later responsible for Roots, The Thorn Birds and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). Field became, in his own words, a jack-of-all trades. He published Screenplay in 1979 – introducing the ideas of “three act structure” and “plot points”.

If you were cynical, you might say that Field profited a great deal from of saying that stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. It shouldn’t be ignored, though, that lots of wannabe screenwriters had and still have no idea what a screenplay looks like, what it should and shouldn’t do. Field gave away that mystery of the craft. He let people see what the producers were arguing over when they were deciding whether or not to greenlight the project, what the actors had in their hands when they were learning their lines, and what the cinematographer and the gaffer were consulting while they were figuring out where to place the key light.

Syd Field’s book covers basics, and does them very well. You just always feel – at every juncture – that there is more to be said.

Some of Field’s virtues are negative. He’s laid back rather than pushy; he’s the Dude, not a Little Lebowski Urban Achiever. Screenplay is pragmatic where Save the Cat! is dogmatic.

Screenplay observes:

When you are writing your screenplay, the plot points become signposts, holding the story together and moving it forward.[1]

Save the Cat! gives you a direct order:

Page 12 – Catalyst. Do it.[2]

And:

The B story begins on page 30.[3]

It’s noticeable that Field isn’t ideologically pushy, either. Screenplay wasn’t written in Mao’s China, but it’s no a hymn to unfettered individualism – as are The Writer’s Journey and Save the Cat!

Field gives practical advice about the writing life:

If you’re a housewife and have a family, you may want to write when everyone’s gone for the day, either midmorning or midafternoon.[4]

And collaboration:

If you’re married and want to collaborate with your spouse, other factors are involved. When things get difficult, for example, you can’t simply walk away from the collaboration. It’s part of the marriage. If the marriage is in trouble, your collaboration will only magnify what’s wrong with it.[5]

He’s wry:

Many of my married women students tell me their husbands threaten to leave them unless they stop writing; their children turn into “animals”.[6]

But, as far as pushing the viewer towards individualism, Field isn’t a culprit. Field doesn’t deal in Heroes and Heroines. In the whole book, the word “Hero” isn’t used. Instead, Field writes about “main characters”.

What does your main character want? What is his or her need?[7]

He writes declaratively:

Without conflict there is no drama. Without need, there is no character. Without character, there is no action. “Action is character.” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Last Tycoon. What a person does is what he is, not what he says.[8]

However, Screenplay is still mostly about writing films with a single strong main character. Field doesn’t really deal with ensemble pictures – or he dodges dealing with them. Even so, his examples are better than those of Vogler and Snyder:

What about Nashville? Is that an exception? Let’s take a look. First, who’s the main character of the film? Lily Tomlin? Ronee Blakley? Ned Beatty? Keith Carradine?… Joan Tewkesbury… the screenwriter… realised the main character of the film – that is, who the movie is about – is the city of Nashville. It is the main character.[9]

Then he says:

There are several main characters in the film and they all move the action forward.[10]

He says the same of Network (1976).

The “network” is the main character. It feeds everything, like a system; the people are parts of the whole, replaceable parts, at that. Network continues on, indestructible; people come and go. Just like life.[11]

Although he doesn’t require Heroes, Field does want main characters who make stuff happen. The world, at least in his cinematic version of it, moves forwards because of individual dilemmas and decisions:

Many new or inexperienced writers have things happening to their characters, and they are always reacting to their situation, rather than acting in terms of dramatic need. The essence of character is action; your character must act, not react.[12]

Screenplay doesn’t seem anything like a get rich quick manual. The sale is important, but it contains nothing about pitching. Field’s engagement with money is more from the moviegoer’s perspective:

After the lights fade, and the movie begins, how long does it take you to make a decision, either consciously or unconsciously, about whether the movie was worth the price of admission?[13]

Field includes some pages from one of his own screenplays, for an unmade film “The Run”. It is sadly expository and uninspiring. I expect it encouraged some writers by being obviously out-doable.

Nearing the end of the book, I felt that Field had held it together. Although he hadn’t written a manual for writing pluralistic stories, he hadn’t ruled them out. He was handing out the tools like a benign foreman. It was all going so well. If not anticapitalist then not rabidly pro-.

And then, at the very end of the book, quite bizarrely, Field quotes a poster produced by the McDonald’s Corporation entitled “Press On”:

Nothing in the world can take the place

Of persistence.

Talent will not, nothing is more common

Thank unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius

Is almost a proverb.

Education will not;

The world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone

Are omnipotence.[14]

WTF?

In one leap, we go from humble craftsperson to divine being – simply by not losing heart between the seventh and eighth drafts?

Even in his wildest moments of mythologizing, Vogler doesn’t suggest the screenwriter will become a god.

But, as we’ll see in the next chapter, Vogler has a pretty high idea of himself.

THE WRITER’S JOURNEY:

MYTHIC STRUCTURE FOR STORYTELLERS AND SCREENWRITERS

CHRISTOPHER VOGLER

1992

but also:

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO JOSEPH CAMPBELL’S

THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES

CHRISTOPHER VOGLER

1985

Re-enter the Hero.

The theme of the hero myth is universal, occurring in every culture, in every time…[15]

In 1985, Vogler resurrected Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. He did this in a famous seven-page memo.

Vogler tells the story in a pdf he shared on his website:

It was written in the mid-1980s when I was working as a story consultant for Walt Disney Pictures, but I had discovered the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell a few years earlier while studying cinema at the University of Southern California. I was sure I saw Campbell’s ideas being put to work in the first of the Star Wars movies and wrote a term paper for a class in which I attempted to identify the mythic patterns that made that film such a huge success. The research and writing for that paper inflamed my imagination and later, when I started working as a story analyst at Fox and other Hollywood studios, I showed the paper to a few colleagues, writers and executives to stimulate some discussion of Campbell’s ideas which I found to be of unlimited value for creating mass entertainment. I was certainly making profitable use of them, applying them to every script and novel I considered in my job.

The language here is that of the mid-eighties – “unlimited value” and “profitable”.

In 1992, Vogler expanded his memo into what is probably the single most influential screenwriting manual, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters. Since then it has gone through three distinct editions, and has just been published in a fourth – the 25th Anniversary Edition. Each new iteration looked more authoritative, and chi-chi, and more like a guide to tarot reading, than its predecessor. Each has also made greater claims for itself as a work not just for writers but for everyone seeking meaning in their life.

The 2nd edition contains a Preface that walks back a number of claims made by the 1st edition. Here you can find Vogler’s answers to some of the world’s questions (and mine). He directly takes on the charges of ‘Cultural Imperialism’ and ‘Gender Problems’ (Sexism). But he does so in a spirit of deflect or assimilate.

However, it was the 1st edition, and the 7-page memo that birthed it, that were the most influential versions of the Hero’s Journey – and they are unrepentant in their championing of individualism. (Rugged American optional.)

Here is where Syd Field’s “main character” is replaced by “the Hero” capital H. Vogler doesn’t write anything about ensemble pictures. The films Field chose – Nashville, Network – to talk about collective stories don’t appear in Vogler’s world-view. The implication must be that these kind of movies are outliers – a minority interest. The closest he gets to dealing with non-Heroic movies is to talk about “Group-Oriented” Heroes.

They are part of a society at the beginning of the story, and their journey takes them to an unknown land far from home. When we first meet them, they are part of a clan, tribe, village, town, or family. Their story is one of separation from that group (Act One); lone adventure in the wilderness away from the group (Act Two); and usually, eventual reintegration with the group (Act Three).[16]

The clear implication here is this – no separation, no story; no aloneness, no adventure.

Vogler is consistently helpful, and useful, but he is always pointing you down the same narrow track: the Hero’s Journey.[17]

Christopher Vogler mini-biog

A self-described ‘farm boy from Missouri,’ Vogler was born in 1949. He studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, the alma mater of George Lucas. It was here he encountered Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. ‘There it was – the answer to what I was looking for: the unwritten rules, the super-outline that all stories appear to be connected by.’ Vogler turned this into his famous memo. Since then, he has worked for Disney studios, Fox 2000 pictures, and Warner Bros. He has a moustache and looks like a weather-beaten walrus.

As with most gurus, the biggest trouble is with the followers, not the guru themselves. Many movies since Vogler’s seven-page memo have been a reduction of what was already a reduction.

Though Vogler is a sincere evangelist for Campbell’s ideas, he seems more widely open. He wants to ask all the right questions:

Where do stories come from? How do they work? What do they tell us about ourselves? What do they mean? Why do we need them? How can we use them to improve the world?[18]

He wants to help the wannabe writer – more than that, he wants to give them the means to self-help.

The Hero’s Journey, I discovered, is more than just a description of the hidden patterns of mythology. It is a useful guide to life, especially the writer’s life.[19]

Vogler goes quite a long way with this. He doesn’t always resist the urge to present The Hero’s Journey as a panacea, a cure-all. He also has an imperial urge to assimilation. This is illustrated by an anecdote he tells in the Preface to the 2nd edition.

At the time Vogler’s memo was becoming a force in Hollywood, “two articles appeared in the Los Angeles Herald-Observer”. In these, an unnamed critic claimed the memo:

had deeply influenced and corrupted Hollywood storytellers. According to him, lazy, illiterate studio executives, eager to find a quick-bucks formula, had seized upon the “Practical Guide” as a cure-all, and were busily stuffing it down the throats of writers…[20]

Vogler’s initial reaction was to be “flattered” but “devastated”.

I had thought about challenging the critic to a duel (laptops at twenty paces) but now reconsidered. With a slight change in attitude I could turn his hostility to my benefit. I contacted the critic and invited him to talk over our differences…[21]

Taking this into Campbell’s Heroic language:

Instead of fighting my Threshold Guardian, I had absorbed him into my adventure.[22]

Vogler never claims to take Campbell on his own terms. The Writer’s Journey is a work of applied mythology; one in which mythological/psychological insights are put to practical use (to help make movie scripts better so they please more people so they earn more money). For there to be a wider moral behind this would be, for Vogler, ludicrous. But the moral is there anyway:

All must be assimilated.

There is one story, and the one story is the story of one man.

The clan, tribe, village, town, or family is in need of the cure[23] which the Hero goes off to seek. The tribe cannot cure itself, with its own means; the tribe cannot send off a scouting party, or travel en masse (as nomads would) in order to be healed. It is only the lone Hero who can succeed – according to Campbell, according to Vogler, according to Hollywood.

When this is put together with the basic Hollywood screenwriting advice to improve the scene by reinforcing the conflict[24], it is easy to see how the depiction of any group will tend to show them as dysfunctional. If there are more than three characters on-screen, two of them must disagree – often violently. If there six or seven, they must start bickering and fighting while time runs down. If there are a hundred or two hundred, they are likely to be a panorama of sleepwalking drones, an applauding crowd, an army of obedient slaves or a rampaging mob. The Hero, meanwhile, detaches from them to sort things out. If he didn’t detach, things wouldn’t be sorted out.

It’s not difficult to see how ideological this is. In a profitably individualistic age, we are given stories of individuals. Instead of “The meek shall inherit the earth” or “Workers of the World Unite” we are told “Just Do It” and “Because You’re Worth It”.

For Vogler, the Hero’s Journey is secular. Where it inevitably tends is towards self-realisation not self-annihilation, not ‘at-one-ment’. There is no mention of the void. The cure brought back to the ailing community is not a spiritual boon, but the solution to a social problem (even if that problem is so total as to become existential).

At the moment, with the Coronavirus, COVID-19, the world – collectively – is seeking a cure. There are Heroic individuals everywhere. They are not going off on individual journeys. Instead, they are working together to save as many lives as possible, to preserve the tribe, to manifest from their collective knowledge (rather than just head off and steal) the cure.

Next month, we’ll be looking at how two more screenwriting manuals have changed our ideas of what it is to be an individual, to be a hero – and how that involves doing anything but really saving the world.

Footnotes

[1] Screenplay, p 122. Which doesn’t work at all, as a metaphor, because signposts hold nothing together, except themselves, and move nothing forward – only point the direction something else should move or be moved. Screenplay is a slackly written book.

[2] Save the Cat!, p 77.

[3] Save the Cat!, p 79.

[4] Screenplay, p 169.

[5] Screenplay, p 238.

[6] Screenplay, p 170.

[7] Screenplay, p 11.

[8] Screenplay, p 25.

[9] Screenplay, p 122-3.

[10] Screenplay, p 123.

[11] Screenplay, p 124.

[12] Screenplay, p 161.

[13] Screenplay, p 71.

[14] Screenplay, p 256.

[15] “A Practical Guide to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Christopher Vogler, pdf download, p 3.

[16] The Writer’s Journey, p 46.

[17] ‘Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.’ Raymond Chandler.

[18] The Writer’s Journey, p 3.

[19] The Writer’s Journey, p 3.

[20] The Writer’s Guide, p 4.

[21] The Writer’s Guide, p 4.

[22] The Writer’s Guide, p 5.

[23] Later on, we’re going to be looking closely at World War Z, as both book and movie. One of the reasons I chose it is because the cure in it is literal. At the climax of the film, the Hero (Gerry Lane) Brad Pitt returns with the cure. It’s a lump-in-throat moment.

[24] “Just as in every story a protagonist battles an antagonist in pursuit of a goal, so scenes replicate that structure… For drama to occur, a protagonist must be confronted with an equal and opposite desire. The goals of protagonist and antagonist in every scene are in direct conflict…” Into the Woods, p 91.

Toby Litt has published novels, short story collections and comics. His most recent book is Patience, a novel. He runs the Creative Writing MFA at Birkbeck College, and blogs at www.tobylitt.com. He is a member of English Pen. When he is not writing, he likes sitting doing nothing.

https://writersrebel.com/how-to-tell-a-story-to-save-the-world-2/

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