#Principle of Paranoia Comic

[dreadnotau]

Happy three years everybody! As always, there’s a lot to say on the occasion, so pop in at the end of the post for the tl;dr if you don’t have time for my detailed diatribes, haha

Boy, time flies, huh? Feels like the second anniversary was just yesterday, but maybe that’s just the several long hiatuses getting to me. I’ve been scarce on uploading anything anywhere for a while now, even though I promised I’d actually pick up the slack this time around. What gives? Well…

For one, college hell, and for two, a lot of unfounded anxiety about putting my art out there. Allow me some theatrics for a moment and I’ll actually get back to the comic at hand… I’ve never had an exceptionally supportive environment for making art. It wasn’t suppressive, not in the slightest, but it also wasn’t… encouraging. It was always treated as a hobby or a distraction rather than something I was allowed to be fully proud of, especially because a lot of my art focused on more cartoon-y and fantasy ideas, rather than still life studies and painting (which people generally outside of the art sphere tend to value more, arbitrarily). Couple that with a childhood full of being bullied over minute shit you hadn’t even considered could be an issue before, and you get a teenager hellbent on never sharing his interests or ideas with anyone, mostly due to the fear of rejection.

I’ve grown, thankfully, but that paranoia and fear doesn’t go away overnight. As I’m sure you all know, Meowchela was the one who originally encouraged me to post this comic, and the only reason she succeeded was because she was the first person in a long time who listened and engaged with my interests and my art in a meaningful way. It’s kind of obvious her friendship had a profound impact on me, and I’d cite her as one of the reasons I was even hopeful enough to apply to an art college in the first place! This comic, and that bond with another person, proved that maybe these things I’m so passionate about weren’t duds, and weren’t something I had to keep to myself.

So, fast forward a few years. About three years, in fact.

During one of my classes, right before this hellish two weeks of exams started, one of the class assistants talked me into showing my comic pages to one of my professors. He’s generally a pretty open guy when it comes to new mediums, but I’m always… apprehensive about showing my less “traditional art”-y things to professors, but, he ended up being genuinely proud of it. Specifically, I showed him pages 85-87 (because they’re my favourites) and, he didn’t read the text, just the visuals were enough for him to say “good job, keep it up” (which is HIGH praise from that guy). When I mentioned I’ve been meaning to simplify the visuals because I didn’t have time to work on the comic very often because of college and classes, he dismissed it on principle. I was honestly caught off guard. Heavily paraphrasing, he suggested that worsening the visuals for an arbitrary deadline was counterproductive to making something that’s Good™.

That’s kinda stuck with me. For a good few years now I was more focused on optimisation rather than visual improvement for the comic, and though it HAS contributed to better visuals in some ways (cutting corners sometimes makes for a less pointy and jagged end result), it’s kind of weird I’m treating an art project that way, isn’t it? I set a lot of… arbitrary deadlines and standards for myself, in the form of expectations and what I “should” or “shouldn’t” be doing at certain stages in my life. I’ve thought of Dread Not as a passion project second and a stepping stone first, if I’m being honest. As if it was too… fandom-y and derivative to be treated with more gravity than that, like it’s an immature project because I was still a child when I came up with it. As if it was something I’m making to Build Up to Something Else, something Bigger and Cooler and More Important, and… the more I think about the future of Dread Not, and even my future career options, the more I realised that’s, ironically, a really immature way to think about it.

If there’s one thing going to this art college has taught me, is that there’s no “right” way to make art, and there’s no “right” way to success as an artist. There’s no clear-cut paths, just more commonly treaded roads, but even those are heavily overgrown. Why should I try to box myself into thinking I have to make things from complete scratch to be taken seriously? What’s so bad about Dread Not as a story and as a comic that’s caused me to vaguely keep it under wraps when conversing with people in my day-to-day life? Why wouldn’t I put all these skills I’ve acquired to improve and expand this project that’s Right There, WAITING for me to finally get off my ass and get pages out there again?

I wish I could say I’ve used all this time away in a particularly clever way, but I really haven’t - at least, it feels like I haven’t. My art has undoubtedly improved over time (though admittedly the art for this post was Very rushed, fuckin exams), and while I’ve been working on projects in the background, chipping away at them in a VERY disorganised way, I haven’t been posting that progress anywhere, and I haven’t made any good progress on my biggest project, Dread Not, because of the other ones. And, honestly? Admitting that kinda stings. This comic means a lot to me, and I wish I actually gave it the time and attention it deserves instead of letting it sit out hiatus after hiatus because I keep failing at structuring my time.

So, my new plan is a little more abstract: find a way to work Dread Not into my school schedule, and slowly build a habit of working on it more often. No clue how long that’ll take, but I think it’ll be worth it to consider it as an option, and hopefully finally end these long, drawn out hiatuses with short bursts of uploads in-between. HOPEFULLY. Building habits was never my strong suit, so please bear with me while I figure this out in what will probably be the most hectic upload schedule in this comics history, which is: no schedule at all.

From now on (until the end of Act 1), I’ll upload pages when they’re ready, and depending on how the weeks go and how complex the page is, they could be weeks or days apart from one another. Hell, some might even take a month to finish if school stuff gets REALLY hectic (god knows Hellish Exam Week number 1 and number 2 won’t be giving me much time to work on the comic), but I’m determined to do this. I want to be able to put my all into this project again!!

(And hopefully finish Act 1 by the end of this semester…)

TL;DR: College is giving me life lessons I didn’t expect, and because of them I’ve decided to give myself a non-existent upload schedule for Dread Not: Pages will be posted when they’re ready, and the spacing between pages could wildly vary depending on circumstances and the actual complexity of the page itself.

As always, thank you for being here, thank you for reading, and thank you for being patient!

If all goes well, there will be new content very, very soon.

#dread not #dreadnot #dread not au #dreadnotau #not comic #kris #schedule update #again #apparently i was calling this last hiatus a pseudo hiatus? #oh silly past me. this was a full blown hiatus jesus fucking christ #but yeah no i love being at this college dont get me wrong #its just that i have like 3 exams to prepare for the next two days ALONE #so like!!!! wish me luck!!!!! for christs sake #yknow i was planning on actually Dedicating Time to the art for this post #but uhh. haha. a little thing called the consequences to my actions caught up to me #fuckin psychology exam today that i had to cram for last night #i think it went ok? who the fuck knows at this point #but for tomorrow and the day after that i have digital shit to finish some theory to cram AND an ENTIRE PAINTING #that i didnt even START YET #and its an autoportrait. as if i wasnt suffering enough i have to stare at my ugly mug for hours #AGAIN. BECAUSE I HAD A DIFF AUTOPORTRAIT TO FINISH FOR LAST WEEK #im in spain without the s yall pray for me

[distort-opia]

I have always asked myself why do you ship batjokes? What is the appeal for you with this ship? You like bruce a lot, so why ship him with joker? I am just very, very curious.

Hi! From your question it seems like you associate having a favorite character solely with wanting them to be happy or wanting them to have nice things, which... yes, but also you have to keep in mind that half of Tumblr means this when they say they like a character:

Which I very much relate to, personally. Bruce Wayne is my favorite character of all time, but I specifically like to read/write about him going through the Horrors.

Shipping Bruce with Joker... well. Perhaps you're familiar with Hannibal NBC, and Hannigram? Death Note, and Lawlight? Or more recently, Interview with the Vampire and Loustat? I could list some more enemies-to-lovers, but it's the same principle. Two bastards who deserve each other and should not inflict themselves on anyone else, hand in unlovable hand.

Still, I appreciate that you're asking me this in good faith, so I'll try to explain in more detail. I got long, so I'll put my answer under the cut. Just a heads-up: there's mention of abuse, depression and some discussion of suicidality (stuff that tends to come up with more in-depth talk of Batjokes in comics), so take care.

While the ships I mentioned also have a portion of fandom going "But A is the good guy! Why would he care about B, who kills people and only seems to make them suffer?", that portion is larger when it comes to Batjokes. Bruce Wayne is Batman-- he's supposed to be a hero, the father figure of a large family, a symbol of hope. And there's a lot to be said about a more idealized or fanon version of Bruce, and the gap between it and the one depicted in comics. But I'm mentioning this gap because it tends to be connected with an unwilligness to deal with, or even acknowledge, Bruce's dark side.

Bruce struggles with violent tendencies, with an unbelievable amount of anger, with control issues, with paranoia and self-hatred and issues with intimacy. He's terrifyingly intelligent and also incredibly manipulative when he wants to be. He's canonically been abusive to his adopted children and he's canonically been shown to have quite the sadistic streak. And while I understand why some fans see this as bad writing (to be fair, sometimes it just is), reinterpret parts of it or pretend it doesn't exist... it is there, and it is a pattern. Many of these darker aspects of Bruce's personality are a result of how he's processed his trauma-- refusing to heal is literally the fuel for being Batman. But refusing to face his grief has consequences, and some of them inevitably end up ricocheting off his loved ones; though I am saying this as an explanation, not an excuse.

The way he's been written seems to have spawned two larger attitudes in Tumblr fandom, varying in degree and nuance: either refusing to deal with Bruce's dark side, or only seeing his dark side and hating his character entirely. And obviously, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and preference, as long as they respect others'. But to me personally, it's never been black-and-white. One of the best parts about Bruce's character is the very conflict at the heart of him... because despite everything I mentioned, Bruce always tries to do better. He's also empathetic and compassionate; he hungers for love and for connection, and he constantly tries to help people and do good. In my eyes, that's what Batman is about: never giving up. You fail, but you get back up and you try again. You might be struggling with so many things threatening to drag you under, but you make the effort to do good. To me that's deeply inspirational, specifically because it's not second nature to Bruce.

If you prefer a version of Bruce that doesn't have much of a dark side, Batjokes is likely not something you'll enjoy. Bruce caring about Joker is very much connected to it. He deeply relates to Joker because their identities are both born out of their traumas. They could have become the other, and that's a level of closeness and intertwining that cannot be understated. In the face of their loved ones being taken away, Bruce and whoever Joker used to be made choices in the opposite direction. Bruce chose to force meaning onto the world and be defined by his past. He chose to channel his anger into ensuring no one else goes through what he went through. Joker had the same anger, but he chose to erase his own past and burn the world down instead. He chose to ensure everyone else goes through the same horror he went through, to prove nothing has meaning.

And this is, at the end of the day, the reason why Batman never lets Joker die, even when it doesn't make sense. Joker's existence makes Bruce feel less alone-- and yes, it is very selfish of him to choose this over the lives of others and despite what Joker has done, but it is what it is. I've seen people discredit this notion of Joker being Batman's friend as stupid, because Bruce already has so many allies and such an extensive Family; how could he feel alone? He already has so many relationships, people he cares about and who care about him. But... that's never how it works, is it? You don't choose to feel the way you feel. Bruce loves the people around him, and those relationships ground him in very meaningful ways, but that doesn't make the darkness disappear. He wishes it did. But his choice to be Batman is a choice to keep hurting, like I just described. It sets him apart. And the line it puts him on, the things he's balancing, are things Joker intimately understands. Joker is his shadow and his creation, his negative. Bruce's anger and his sadistic violence get channeled in his relationship with Joker, and the worse Joker gets the better Batman has to become, and viceversa. I see it a bit like magic (and Bruce does too, when he talks about how he's afraid that if Joker disappeared, Gotham would send him someone worse). You cannot perform magic without it exacting a price, and the price for Bruce's good is Joker's evil. Lives are saved, but then lives are taken away.

What I am describing here is the appeal of the ship to me. In many ways, romantic is not nearly enough to describe it; I'm just fascinated by their dynamic, any form it takes. Batman and Joker have been opposites and narrative foils for almost a century, and I'll probably never run out of stuff to analyze (yay!). There's so many stories with them, so many different incarnations of them, so many layers and complications that their dynamic has accumulated, simply by virtue of how old and mythical they have become.

The more accurate description for them is probably soulmates, but the most painful kind-- destined to always meet but to always be at war, never able to kill the other or let the other go, because they are two sides of the same coin. And there's an attraction to not being able to let go, no matter how high the bodies pile up. Bruce can't kill Joker without losing himself, and he can't let Joker die. Joker can't kill Batman or let him die without losing his life's meaning. No matter what, the other is always there. They hate and resent this connection plenty, but at the end of the day, the other's existence is an essential comfort they can't run away from.

And thing is, Bruce sacrifices so much for his crusade as Batman. He sacrifices his very childhood and self, his potential happiness; he distances himself from his loved ones and he pushes them away. He represses as much as he is able to so he can go on, so he can save as many people as possible, so he can rewrite the trauma that broke him. But he chases Joker. He obsesses over Joker like over no one else. He chooses to keep Joker alive, even when it hurts his Family and even when it leads to more and more death.

Joker is a connection he selfishly chooses, and doesn't run away from, especially because it hurts. Both Bruce and Joker are self-hating and suicidal, so they allow themselves this one thing precisely because it's destroying them both. Yet, no matter what, part of Bruce sees in Joker someone who suffers, someone who understands, and he keeps trying to reach out to him because of it. It's not just the worst parts of Bruce that resonate with Joker. It's also his hope. Somewhere deep down he can't let go of the idea that maybe, Joker could be better, and if Joker could be better, maybe he could be better too.

...I guess I ship them because I want Bruce to get what he wants. Whether it's dying alongside Joker in a cave, or them helping each other heal, in spite of everything (both of these are plots for stories Scott Snyder has written, hah). Because the thing about Batjokes is that they're perhaps the only people on Earth who could get the other to stop. The easiest way is the way they've already chosen-- by being the one to kill the other. They both see death as the ultimate form of peace, a laying down of arms. But there's also the reverse; the possibility of a world in which neither of them has to die. A world in which they're not each other's preferred method of suicide, but in which they actually learn to live again, helped by the other.

I tend to oscillate between the two. I like Batjokes as an unmitigated tragedy with a course that cannot be diverted, and I like Batjokes as the most unlikely path to a form of peace. Both can provide catharsis in different ways. On a symbolic level, Joker is fighting for meaninglessness and Batman is fighting for meaning; Joker asks, "What is the point?" and Batman answers, "The fight is the point." On an individual level, they're both depressed and suffering from PTSD and always a hairbreadth away from self-destruction, but they keep each other alive, no matter how much it hurts. You can probably imagine how this ship can be a comfort, for people with similar struggles.

I do hope this satisfied your curiosity, Anon. Batjokes might still not be your cup of tea and that's okay, but as someone who likes to read about other ships and the psychology behind them, I hope this was at least a fun read. You seem like you're familiar with my blog already, but just in case you want to seek out canonical instances of what I am describing, I can point you to this compilation of Bruce's side of things that mentions part of what I say here, but also delves into comics. And my Batjokes meta tag is full of similar stuff, some detailing Joker's side too.

#I could've probably just said 'well you see. Bruce Wayne is a freak [affectionate]' #but here's the extended version! #asks #personal #batman #bruce wayne #joker #batjokes #batjokes meta #my meta

[hawkeyeslaughter]

i think the really interesting thing about frank burns is that he isn’t all bad . he’s insufferable and annoying and most of the things that happen to him he brings upon himself but deep down , really , he isn’t a bad person . in germ warfare when they get the korean p.o.w and frank’s all snotty about it , but at the end he’s playing cards or something ( ? ) with him . in chief surgeon , who ? he humbles himself enough to ask hawkeye for help at the end . in sticky wicket he concedes that “ anyone could have missed that “ . in carry on , hawkeye , he comes with henry and margaret to check on flu - stricken hawkeye and says “ good work , buddy “ ( in a genuine fashion it seems to me ) . so like , it’s not like frank is above a lesson learned . i think the worst thing about him is his ignorance , in which hawkeye and trapper ( and at times , margaret ) have to help him with . and while he may be resistant at first , he never rejects a lesson learned .

i think the other thing is that frank is very much of the “ if you can’t be liked be feared “ mindset . from what we know of his home life and his past it wasn’t like he was treated nicely a lot of the time and it doesn’t seem like a whole lot of people like him there , either . being feared / respected is the next best thing , so frank goes about that except he’s not very good at that , either . but it’s not like he doesn’t want to be liked ! i think a big thing is that he does want hawkeye and trapper ( and later bj ) to like him because they’re so effortlessly likable . and he’s jealous that they are because they shouldn’t be by every rule in the book . see , in frank’s eyes they do nothing but break rules and they’re beloved for it , while he follows the rules and is hated . it’s unfair . so i think that just adds to his struggle with them because , like i said , he wants to be liked by the it girls of camp but at the same time they go against every single one of his own principles .

hawkeye and trapper ( and again , later bj ) sort of do like him in a frenemies sort of way . like , there are instances of hawkeye and trapper sort of looking out for him and noticing when something’s wrong with him and margaret ( even if they tease him for it ) and even at times , though very rarely , acknowledging his medical skills . i think they regard him as someone mostly harmless and someone easy to pick on but at the end of the day they’ll have his back if they need to . and honestly they’re not even really that mean to him , they just point out when he’s being ridiculous and the pranks aren’t even really that bad ( with a few exceptions even i can admit were crossing a line or two ) .

hawkeye/trapper/bj’s begrudging bit of fondness , however little they ( and we ) have have for him , circles back to the fact that he does have at least some good in him . frank’s values , however misguided , are overall well - intentioned . he believes to be good he must be a good officer and serve his country , he must be a good christian ( although his interpretation of being a good christian is somewhat skewed as well ) . but i have to believe , because frank genuinely does have his moments as aforementioned , that his skewed ideology is very much a product of his time and place .

for their time and place hawkeye and trapper and bj are pretty progressively written ( not perfect , mind you ) , and next to them frank is ridiculous . why ? well , think of colonel flagg . colonel flagg is so ridiculous he makes even frank look normal , but colonel flagg is very obviously a comical and satirical interpretation of people’s paranoia over communism and foreign affairs etc etc . he’s frank if you multiplied his frank - ness by ten . so we have flagg as a comical interpretation compared to frank and we have frank as a comical interpretation compared to hawkeye and co .

yet the audience can’t help but feel a little sorry for frank … have a little soft spot for him … because , like i mentioned before . the reason we have sympathy for frank and not flagg is ( 1 ) flagg is very obviously just there for comedic purposes and ( 2 ) i think it just boils down to the fact that frank is a product of a much less progressive place and time and because of his desire to fit in , like i talked about before , he doesn’t go out of his way to adopt progressive ideologies . why ? because he just doesn’t interact with anyone who has them until he meets hawkeye and trapper , and like i talked about before he already has a whole other problem with them and even if he didn’t he’s too set in his ways . i don’t know . it’s just really interesting to think about frank because i genuinely think he’s a lot more complicated of a character than we give him credit for

anyways idk thanks for listening to my frank burns character analysis and i’m sorry

#the film major and four - year theater kid REALLY came out with this one you guys #i don’t think i could break down hawkeye the way i just broke down frank #actually i probably could it would just take half an hour to scroll through #be grateful mashblr . be grateful . #m*a*s*h #mash #mashposting #mashblr #mash 4077 #frank burns #major burns #lgbt #lgbtq

[sytokun]

If you could indulge me in this little rewrite of Blake's V4-5 arc? What if after Beacon fell Ironwood sent Cordovin to occupy Menagerie to sus out any in-hidding WF, catalysing his paranoia for later volumes and depicting Cordo as an actual scary person. Ghira wants to keep the peace but Blake becomes restless as tensions between Atlas soldiers and the locals grow, and the arc accumulates with a more courageous Blake taking down Cordovin's mech with Sun and Ilia's help.

Tumblr's editor crashed just as I finished typing this and I am willing myself to write it all again from scratch, lmao. This site needs an auto recovery option.

Well this is an AU. I say AU and not rewrite because by definition, it's not following the same plot or the same rules as RWBY, and doesn't pretend to (which makes it even funnier when people complain about it being something it's not pretending to be). Calling it a rewrite implies a strict adherence to canon, which this doesn't have.

But still, I'll add the rewrite tag to this and other future posts simply because a lot of the kind of thing I'm writing overlaps with rewrites and their general philosophy when handling canon.

When you're writing something like this, you're basically asking a question and answering it. Each question shifts the story's divergence from canon by a degree, and when you start moving, the deviation will be enough that even if it travels in a straight line from there, it will never be the same as canon events.

For example, say I ask the question: "What if Team RWBY spent a longer time in Beacon?"

From this, I know that I have to delay the Fall of Beacon, or change its circumstances entirely. What would change about the Fall if Ruby was in her second, third or even last year at Beacon? Would Pyrrha still die if we spend more time exploring her as a character? Where would Cinder be during all this time?

By asking one simple question about RWBY's world, ten other smaller ones pop up that you need to answer, but then you find out those questions lead to entire character arcs, and creating timelines, and making sure the Kingdoms make sense, and now you're reconstructing an entire universe from scratch and hating yourself. /s

So back to your query. I can't answer this meaningfully because if it were up to me, I'd likely just… not have Cordovin at all. Or even Ghira for that matter. Let's look into why.

First, Cordovin. I have to ask myself first, "What does Cordovin contribute to RWBY's story?" Like really? We have to go backwards, from "How do I fit this character in" all the way back to "Do I even need this character?" What is Cordovin's actual role in the story? She's a minor villain - a comical, incompetent one at that - whose only purpose is to be a one-off obstacle in Team RWBY's airship-stealing plan. A plan that was already poorly conceived from the start when better, more sound plans existed but were unexplored by the plot.

So that's multiple strikes against Cordovin. Her impact on the story is low; she has no important relationships with any characters; and her existence is tied to a weak plot point which actually detracts from the story. If she adds little, then the story loses little from removing her, too. We know RWBY has a cast bloat problem, and if someone wants to earnestly solve that problem, that means they have to combine characters or even remove them entirely if the benefit they bring to the story far outweighs the effort to put them in.

The same principle applies to Ghira. This is part of a longer post I wish to write about Blake after this, but how important is Ghira, and by extension Kali, to RWBY's story? How much do they add or take away? Now, depending on your story and preferences, they would indeed be very important. But not to my story, at least not as they are now. And it's not exactly an easy decision to make either - it takes a lot of thought and deliberation, weighing multiple pros and cons against each other.

The fact that compared to Cordovin, Ghira and Kali are more well-liked in the fandom should, ideally, not affect your decision or desire to have a clean house to work from. Put yourself in CRWBY's shoes: when they made these characters, they aren't thinking about if fans will like them or not, they just put them in. I would say they were thinking about how these additional characters would benefit the story they're trying to write, but that implies... thought.

As they say, "Kill your darlings". Fans wouldn't be stuck with half the migraines and heartache writing fanfiction and cleaning after someone else's messy house if CRWBY exercised this for their own story.

#remnants #rwby au #rwby #rwby rewrite

[marmaladesparrows]

Hyello It me

Realised this is my primary form of social media and wanted to vaguely attempt to lurk a little bit less (whilst still primarily lurking because this is tumblr what else would I do) so thought I’d make a brief about-me style pinned post.

I go by Sparrow online and I’m a big fan of Art, Games and just storytelling and media in general. 

I have an art blog over at https://msparrowscribbles.tumblr.com/ and I’d really appreciate it if folks would give that a follow as Art is one of my favourite Creative outlets.

I’m vaguely socially anxious so I am unlikely to reach out to anyone to talk to you first but if any folks want to message that’s entirely chill and I'd love to chat - tho my responses may be slow :D

I study Computer Science at a quite intensive institution which means that atm I’m increasingly struggling to do any of my hobbies but we’re pushing through it -  outside of that though I really want to in future program and design video games and at the moment am trying to work on a comic called “The Principle of Paranoia” when I have free time between doing my degree or lighting theatres.

But yeah, if you ever want me to tag stuff (spoilers or trigger warnings) feel free to message - I try my best but I don’t really know the ettiquette all of the time.

#i yell into the void

[msparrowscribbles]

A redraw of a comic page I did last year!

August 2021 vs April 2020

For the like 3 people who follow me for comic related reasons, I am still working on it! I have the plot planned out and am about a quarter of the way through the script and it’s going well I think! Hoping to have the script finished and maybe begin posting the proper thing before the end of the year - fingers crossed.

#comic #original comic #comic art #redraw #redraw challenge #original characters #my art #Principle of Paranoia #Principle of Paranoia Comic #oc art #casper clarke

[fallout-lou-begas]

A lot of people have accused yjj of being racist, particarily in regards to one of their comics involving Joshua graham, and in general saying that they glorify colonization. I mainly understand the other things they’ve done, but the racism seems inexusable. A lot of people have also been saying that yjj and their followers have harassed people. I want to get both sides of the story on this, so basically I’m asking what the deal with all this is?

Hi, anon. I'll provide my thoughts since you asked politely.

This post is quite long and can be considered an extension of my previous post on the matter.

Besides the infamous and self-admittedly ill-informed chancla comic, for which they've apologized, essentially all of the claims that Yesjejunus is racist stem from their depiction of the Dead Horses and Sorrows relative to their depiction of Joshua Graham and their original character Joan in their fanfic No Light (and to a lesser extent Learnin’ the Blues), which is heavily grounded in the setting of Honest Hearts. I think it's unambiguous that the depiction of vaguely defined "tribals" in Honest Hearts, assembled through a mishmash of disparate signifiers and recycled stereotypes and named like Warrior Cats and completely helpless without Joshua Graham's guidance, is indeed thoroughly racist, even if it was intended to be more nuanced and came from a place of self-admitted ignorance on the part of the developers. What I struggle to understand is that the developers and writers of Honest Hearts—and of Fallout: New Vegas as a whole since the entire game is rife with such mishandled, insufficient depictions of "tribals" with no explicit inclusion at all of any specific Indigenous people or presence—are given miles and miles more sympathy and leeway for their poor handling of these characters in the source material than a fanfic writer is for using the tools and setting that they were given by that source material, including the "lore" and naming conventions of the Dead Horses and Sorrows, to tell a story that means a lot to them personally, inspired by their own deepest fears and experiences with abuse, and ignited by their charismatic yet deeply and blatantly monstrous interpretation of Joshua Graham. Given that it uses the setting of Honest Hearts as a backdrop, there aren't any living characters in Honest Hearts who aren't "tribals" besides Joshua Graham and Daniel, and post-canon, Daniel wouldn’t be there. When Yesjejunus is accused of sidelining the Native characters or relegating them to the background, it's because they're just not writing a fanfic about Follows-Chalk or Waking Cloud as main characters: they're writing a specifically intentioned story about the Courier and Joshua Graham, a story that for better or worse remains faithful to the source material’s depiction of Joshua Graham’s unilateral authority over the tribes in Zion, a baked-in element of Honest Hearts and a critical narrative component of No Light. To accuse Yesjejunus of being racist on this principle in and of itself would be like accusing me of being lesbophobic if I wrote a Dead Money-set fanfic with Father Elijah as the main character instead of Christine. If you want something that centers these other characters then you'd just have to read a different story, or write it yourself.

As a final note, I do think that Yesjejunus is a skilled writer. This thought exists simultaneously with the acknowledgement that like everyone else in fandom, they're writing as a hobby and do not have the oversight of an editor on the work that they produce personally and for free. It's not lost on them that there's things about their story that they could have handled differently or more sensitively, such as the oft-cited example of the death of the pregnant Dead Horse character in No Light, with more forethought or planning at the time—even if they were bound by the constraints of Honest Heart's own setting (such as the dearth of non-tribal characters who could have possibly been in the scene instead) while writing the story. Everyone is free to critique this aspect of the story as much as they are to critique any other aspect, or to be discomforted by the whole thing (given it's a very intentionally uncomfortable story throughout), but the suggestion of so many of these "callouts" that Yesjejunus must have been cackling maniacally about the plight of poor access to medical care among real Indigenous people is a suggestion made entirely in bad faith, and one that I simply don't care to entertain.

As for the point about harassing people: if anyone's only evidence of being "harassed" by a single, specific person is anonymous messages on tumblr dot com, then I don't believe the evidence. If people are accusing Yesjejunus' "supporters" or "associates" of harassing people, then if the accusation is that this harassment is occurring either on Yesjejunus’ behalf or otherwise with their approval, then it is also going to require more evidence than the mere existence of the mean anonymous messages themselves. This goes for the rumor that they have "spies" in fandom Discord servers or whatever, too, which is a rumor that I think has only manifested among its spreaders by either self-appointed individuals speaking on no one's behalf but their own, and by the metaphorical snake eating its own tail in paranoia. Yesjejunus, and I, and all of our mutual friends have been nothing but annoyed at best and horrified at worst by the efforts of some self-appointed individuals to "defend" them with such excess vitriol. Speaking plainly, we generally avoid literally any kind of anonymous or public interaction with anyone who's vocally opposed to us as a rule, specifically to avoid this kind of debacle, and when I say "we" and "us" I'm not referring to some sort of shadowy cabal of conspirators scheming to advance the nefarious YJJ agenda, but to a group of friends. I don't know how to explain to some people who question why we praise their work or share their art sometimes how normal friendships work online.

I also take severe umbrage with the validity of the breadth of these anonymous harassment accusations because of how patently fraudulent several other claims are. Yesjejunus has recently been accused of "grooming,” for example, an accusation only even worth considering if one temporarily forgets what grooming actually is and pretends that grooming is when someone older interacts in literally any capacity with someone younger. Some will say that they’re not accusing them of grooming per se, or not of grooming by that name, but in any case, the meaning is that Yesjejunus has interacted with minors and this on its own is intended to scare and upset you. I have seen only two users actually named as "victims" of these “interactions,’ however, sas-afras and comrade-shrimp, but both users have publicly refuted this accusation because neither of them were minors when they first interacted with Yesjejunus. Frustratingly, though, these literal refutations from the literal so-called "victims" are either dismissed out of hand or muddied by hand-wringing mutterings of "well, I could have sworn they were actually minors, though" and "well they claim that they weren't actually groomed, but who really knows." The spreading and trust in completely anonymous accusations, combined with the total rejection of statements from the only people named in these accusations when their statements contradict the accusations, suggests to me that the existence of these actual interactions (and assuming these interactions occurred both intentionally and with Yesjejunus’ being fully aware of the other person being a minor) is not nearly as important as pushing the narrative that "Yesjejunus is a groomer" or “preying on minors” onto the fandom, and ensuring that anyone who doesn't take this claim completely at face value appears complicit in something horrible. As for anyone who still feels "uncomfortable" at how sas-afras or comrade-shrimp or me or anyone who is very much an adult but just so happens to be younger than Yesjejunus could ever become endeared to them, I reiterate that sometimes I don't know how to explain to people how normal friendships work online.

I want to conclude by saying something that I've said many times before: you don't have to like Yesjejunus (or me, or everybody, or literally anyone else) and no one is holding a gun to your head to befriend them or read their work or look at their art. The block and filter and unfollow buttons are very conveniently located on your dashboard and are totally free to use. Everything I've written here is not intended as some argument as to why everyone on the planet needs to be following their blog and leaving kudos on Learnin' the Blues. Still, while I think everybody has the right to curate their own dashboard and remove the content that they don't want to see, I also think it's reasonable for me to not want my friend to get their name dragged through the mud by the exaggerated and misinformed claims of petty, grudge-bearing brigadiers and self-aggrandizing fandom security guards when they'd like to just dump funny shitposts about the Burned Man's chode in peace.

#asks #anon #yesjejunus #discourse

[abysslarchived]

kaeya’s relationship with the corrupt generation of ordo in his teen years. cw / tw for mentions of racism, and grooming.

         early headcanons that i've written on kaeya frequently touch upon the fact that kaeya has an interestingly disdainful relationship with his job, both in comic and in his voicelines, commenting that reaching the position of cavalry captain was not a big deal. a son of crepus, he was raised to respect, and trust the knights to the same degree that crepus did, even if his instinctive paranoia about keeping people close didn't lead him to be quite as ambitious as diluc when it came to advancing in rank. as said before, with my kaeya, ascending to cavalry captain wasn't only a pre - planned move ( not on his part ) but also an act done in spite ( although that part was mostly kaeya’s spite. )

         the temptation to quit the knights on the same day as diluc was obviously there, but kaeya's natural inclination for strategy recognised staying with the corrupt ordo to gather information on the investigations was more advantageous. eroch, who had already been preparing kaeya to induct him into the kreuzlied ( which meant a higher position of power, ie. cavalry captain ), would be far easier to manipulate if he thought that kaeya was naive to his ploys ... and kaeya knew how the corruption of that ordo generation worked because he was already a victim of it. shifting the system to expose many of the corrupted knights who not only kept the secret of crepus' murder investigation from the public, but tried to damn his reputation would be a fitting recompense for what they'd done.

          despite the ordo favonius being founded on the grounds of freedom from the corrupt aristocracy put in place by gross, old, white men — then found to be corrupted once again by gross, old, white men — it's plain to see that any given institution can be fallible despite the principles that it was built on. kaeya's experience with the ordo wasn't pleasant by any means, and it has noticeably made him disinterested in much of the work involved besides hunting down criminals. kaeya was paid special interest to by the upper echelon of the ordo from as young as sixteen, which is around the time they start recruiting members. not all of the reasons were because of natural talent with a sword or his immense wunderkind - level of intellect. early on, kaeya’s propensity for attracting trouble as well as keeping secrets was preyed upon by eroch, deeming kaeya suitable for higher positions of power where he could perpetuate the next generation of toxic ordo members.

         by the last generation of ordo, kaeya has frequently been described as " exotic. " both sides of the nepotism when it came to kaeya's ranking were traumatising experiences ; one of them being that any of kaeya's achievements when progressing among the knights was primarily due to his father's wealth and influence, and the second being that if kaeya tried to report the come-ons and harassment it wouldn't only reflect negatively on him but his family. rumours ran rampant amongst that generation of the ordo, poisoning the new one, and it was frequently made apparent that because of kaeya's status, he was not considered a "true ragnvindr" and because of it, less important. inappropriate comments about kaeya's person, from his appearance, to the way he talked was often sexualised inappropriately, both because of kaeya's nature as an attractive foreigner lacking traditionally stark masculine traits, and that he was in more of a position to remain quiet, seeing as kaeya did, canonically, stand in diluc's shadow for most matters.

         up until this point, kaeya merely excused the treatment, justifying it by the fact that no one had tried any physical advances on him, in which case it would be acceptable for kaeya to use violence as a means of self defence. but kaeya was seventeen when one of the casual crushes he had on one of the previous captains was taken advantage of. four years older than kaeya, handsome previous cavalry captain before diluc, charming, descendant of one of the less notable mond clans, romancing kaeya and gently coercing him into being intimate started a slew of rumours that perpetuated the idea that he was easy, that he was attempting to sleep his way up the ranks, meanwhile kaeya was nursing feelings of betrayal over being used for bragging rights.

         the rumours at this point were harsh, but, they'd been more intense sentiments that had already been echoed before. kaeya's already adaptable personality decided to not necessarily perpetuate the rumours, but not debunk them. this was the beginning of kaeya's tendency to smile when he is both sad and furious, smiling when uncomfortable became a habit he finds difficult to break. his charming and easygoing image, with often flirtatious wording is now used to put people at ease and give up their secrets. this, as well as kaeya’s adeptness at lying, was the reason eroch eventually provided enough evidence for kaeya to expose his deeds to better knights, varka, and the mondstadt public. he utilises the idea from old or particular gossip - mongering citizens about kaeya's bedding habits to his advantage, losing count of the so - many times that he's been underestimated because many fail to believe that kaeya is completely capable of keeping a professional relationship, or intelligent enough to understand what they’re doing to him. his induction into the kreuzlied secret society / intelligence network as a result of exposing eroch has only made him more dangerous.

         tldr: kaeya absolutely uses the rumours about his unprofessionalism, his personal life, the nepotism, and whatever might be at his disposal to his advantage. he absolutely loves to be underestimated, because proving people wrong is something that he's very good at.

         as a separate, but not entirely unrelated note, both the church and the main governing body of mondstadt being so closely related is problematic to say the least. the concept of freedom is often taken too far, acts of insidiousness excused as expression. kaeya is often one of the knights notified to break up barbara's rowdy fanclub when he is available not only because their families were, at one point, close but because he asked them to notify him, to keep tabs, as he always does on figures of note, on certain members. the unapologetically creepy behaviour of many adults in barbara's fanclub is inexcusable to him, but he doesn't particularly know what to do except temporarily keep them at bay because he feels as if he's been in similar circumstances, oppressed by adults meant to care and guide you instead of make you so uncomfortable. kaeya feels the most protective of klee and barbara out of all mondstadt kids, primarily because of their association to favonius.

#headcanons. ✧ #this one is related to the headcanon on kaeya's reputation within favonius #and how there's a visible fracture between the elder generations and the new ones #ask to tag / #racism / #grooming /

[autumnblogs]

Day 74: The Ultimate Weapon and the Ultimate Self

https://homestuck.com/story/7786

The Dramatic Irony is so thick you could cut it with a fucking knife. Her Heroism, and need to be the one who defeats the most powerful enemy there is is pretty much exactly the same here as it was when she was going to go off and fight Jack - her perception of herself as having grown is almost nakedly false.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/7788

There’s something poetic about the fact that the final emotional confrontation in the comic is between Vriska and Vriska. The center of attention, Homestuck’s Model Hero - for (Vriska)’s arc to be complete, she has to be confronted not just with someone like Aranea - she has to understand what it’s like to be on the receiving end of her own wrath to be able to really empathize completely with the people that she’s hurt.

And for Vriska, renouncing this version of her - a version of her who could conceivably happy - so viciously tearing into her - means renouncing the possibility of actually living for the people she loves, instead of going off to die for them.

Someone has to go defeat Lord English, I suppose; that’s his curse. Couldn’t have happened to be a nicer person.

https://homestuck.com/story/7795

Meenah is too restless a person to spend her life in peace and satisfaction, and I think it’s something she’s aware of. She’s just not that kind of person. I think it gives us a lot of insight in the Condesce to view her as the kind of person who has spent enough time with herself to make that recognition and internalize it completely to the point that it probably doesn’t bother her any more.

She’s the kind of person who wants to get shit done, and fuck shit up, and as much as she might have all kinds of sentimental feelings for people like Jane and the Psionic, at the end of the day, she doesn’t have the wherewithal to stop being who she is right now. She isn’t prepared to do what it takes to change, and she never was.

What Meenah and Vriska have largely always had in common is that they are committed to a vision of themselves, living up to a kind of Heroic possible version of themselves - not Heroic necessarily in a moral sense, again - and they’re not willing to compromise that for anyone else.

https://homestuck.com/story/7810

deep, seconds-long inhale

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

https://homestuck.com/story/7836

This really helps to solidify that, for however much she has been pointed at the right enemies, Vriska is as cruel and evil as she’s ever been, at least in temperament if not necessarily in terms of principle.

https://homestuck.com/story/7857

While I enjoy this whole sequence in theory, in practice, I’ve always felt like Tavros is still very much the butt of this whole joke; particularly because of how rapidly he just ends up handing off the huge ghost army he built to Vriska and Meenah.

I do think that for what it’s worth, it’s probably the actual follow-up on the bit of foreshadowing with Casey and their dead army.

https://homestuck.com/story/7870

They deserve each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/7895

Jasprose - Rose Lalonde, really - manages to finally put on the table this sense of alienation that has plagued her throughout the entire story - sums up the paranoia and pessimism, slowly replaced as they are by a desire to have someone to hold.

Rose is estranged.

https://homestuck.com/story/7898

The absolute pile of ways that Lord English can be defeated by the end of Homestuck really makes me feel like a lot of them are ultimately rendered silly and moot - y’know like, there’s just so much excess, any of them alone, or even a handful of them probably could have done the trick - but why all of them?

It makes many of the sacrifices feel unnecessary; and I have a secret impression that ultimately, just by his very nature, English could have been destroyed without assistance - the Dead Cherub seems perfectly capable of doing him in on her own.

https://homestuck.com/story/7917

I think one of Dirk’s biggest problems in general is that he always feels compelled to push the envelope to the actual fucking limit; he’s not willing to start small and work upward. It would do him a lot of good to just have some minor easy projects, a way to accumulate experience, and with time, maybe wisdom.

Taking care of a little flock of pigeons would be good for him.

https://homestuck.com/story/7922

Becoming comfortable with your own body and your own needs is one of the most basic things you can understand about yourself, but for Dave - as with a lot of us - that understanding is another casualty of his general estrangement not only from other people, but from himself.

https://homestuck.com/story/7923

For these two cool dudes, the past is in the past as surely as it can be. Whatever ill vibes were between the two of them because of their past selves are gone now - they’re new people, and they can move forward and create something new as a result.

That’s forgiveness for you.

https://homestuck.com/story/7941

Poor Terezi. She’s so...

Afraid. So afraid of everyone. She can’t bear to be loved.

https://homestuck.com/story/7947

Not even really by herself.

https://homestuck.com/story/7959

Each and every one of these losers - losers of Paradox Space, those who didn’t make it to the end because of unlucky happenstance - they all count. They all matter. Each and every one of them contributes to the whole picture of who they are as a person.

And gracefully, it’s never too late for them to reconcile with each other - and to reconcile with themselves.

As long as you exist, it is not too late for reconciliation. But that’s no excuse to put it off to the end of all time.

If you’ll allow me a moment to moralize, if there’s someone you’re estranged from, who you want to be able to be around again, maybe don’t wait. If there’s a chance to make things right with them, it’s usually worth it.

https://homestuck.com/story/7975

Good old Spades Slick, lived as he died - futilely making a stand against someone invincible.

https://homestuck.com/story/8006

Davepetasprite gives us as close as possible to a full statement of the theme that Homestuck explores through all of its alternate self shenanigans.

https://homestuck.com/story/8032

This is a little parallel I missed before, between Aradia and Jade.

Now that she’s had a little pep talk from Davepetasprite, Jade’s conquest over sleep is parallel to Aradia’s conquest over death, and I think they both form a nice metaphor for surviving depression.

https://homestuck.com/story/8112

After action patch-up.

Everyone gets a chance to see the ones they love most at last, no more stakes.

https://homestuck.com/story/8126

The Prospitian Monarch can beat her swords to ploughshares at last.

https://homestuck.com/story/8127

As the kids enter their new universe, their entrance is as one with the defeat of Lord English.

As Vriska destroys Lord English, her destruction is as one with his destruction.

The end of Paradox Space is as one with a new beginning for all sentient beings.

And the end of Homestuck is as one with the beginning of a life for these kids where they are not confined by the solidified line of the narrative, and numerous possibilities are open to them.

Let’s hope they pick good ones.

I’ll see you tomorrow for some final words, and some previews of my next projects.

For now, Cam signing off, alive, and not alone.

#liveblogging #commentary

[davidmann95]

Might as well get this out of the way... RWBY is Disappointing and Here’s Why: thoughts?

No interest. I guess I’ve mostly heard that hbomberguy is good, but I don’t care to listen to 2+ hours about how a thing I like is bad actually; I’ve gotta exceptionally despise something to care to listen to that about something I hate. Plus from what I’ve heard he spends most of it talking about the first two seasons not working, and that along with the Faunus allegory ultimately spinning into extremely dicey respectability politics are my main issues with the series anyway, so why spend the time going “I already know this and agree with it, but it brings me no pleasure to hear it reiterated”? Pretty much every complaint I’ve seen about it from assorted corners of the internet in the last year or so that I started paying attention falls anyway into either those categories, or anime nerd nitpicking about power scaling/disagreeing with plot decisions or character motivations/not seeing for the forest for the trees regarding character development, so I just don’t really care. This is something where I’m mostly content to just enjoy the thing on my own rather than taking up the banner of defending it from all comers.

everythingsucksbutthatsokay said: I want to like RWBY, but it just has not grabbed me any of the times I’ve tried to start it. The character designs and fight choreography are awesome, but the characters and storyline just don’t hook me. What is it about the show that made you keep watching?

I’m not surprised it hasn’t grabbed you, because I’m gonna hit you with what’s apparently considered a Hot Take among the longtime RWBY fan community: those first two seasons ain’t very good, which is a situation only tenable because they’re only a couple hours apiece and still breezy enough fun. I only started watching it because I heard “Hey, Marguerite Bennett, who I quite like, is doing a miniseries for DC based on that internet kinda-anime I’ve seen references to and a couple cool fights from on Youtube. Well, it’s free online, what the hell”,* and it was exactly good enough to occupy my attention on the treadmill watching it on my phone without caring enough yet to switch to my laptop. It isn’t until season 3 that the plot seeds and character threads start to come together into something really engaging (and not until season 4 that they switch from the original extremely dated visuals to the current graphics system, even if the choreography from the early parts still holds up), but once it did I unexpectedly found myself profoundly taken with it.

* And then of course the last physical issue of that was cancelled due to the cornoavirus comics industry hiatus; I, a dope, will get the trade, because I liked it and I want it all in one format.

It is when it comes fully into its own a story about pain - abandonment, disaster, political terror and paranoia, endless generational war, oppression, inadequacy, abuse, displacement, long-term emotional trauma, unfair responsibility, and the losses of every stripe of loved one - and how people live with theirs and work to do the right thing and care for one another with that weight bearing on their shoulders, or fail to with monstrous consequences. It actually strikes a very similar chord to me as Kingdom Hearts even if it’s the slightly more ‘grown-up’ take, with its archetypal character templates and old-school fantasy worlds (even if it’s an old-school fantasy world in this case that’s progressed into flying cars and cellphone territory ala latter-day Final Fantasy) and unabashed emotional sincerity. It’s just that for the most part instead of struggling with relatively abstract notions of personhood or literal inner darkness, the people here are outright dealing with death and shame and resentment and uncertainty, even if it’s just as earnest as its counterpart in its belief that those challenges can be overcome, in this case through the power of love or friendship or pride or principles or simple respect for your fellow man or punching a fool with a shotgun blast. Also there are gauntlets that make punches shotgun blasts, and dogs are occasionally fastball specialed at robots, and there’re rock-pop tracks about food fights and fucking up fascists.

So I’d recommend either watching those first two seasons as basically background noise TV or make a marathon night of it, and then give season 3 a real chance to win you over. It’s far from flawless by any metric, but it becomes something really special given time to grow. And don’t forget the little character shorts that go before some of the seasons, they’re not super-important but they do flesh things out.

#RWBY #Opinion

[animeman08]

Hulk

The Hulk is a fictional superhero appearing in publications by the American publisher Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of The Incredible Hulk (May 1962). In his comic book appearances, the character is both the Hulk, a green-skinned, hulking and muscular humanoid possessing a vast degree of physical strength, and his alter ego Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a physically weak, socially withdrawn, and emotionally reserved physicist. The two exist as independent dissociative personalities, and resent each other.

Following his accidental exposure to gamma rays saving the life of Rick Jones during the detonation of an experimental bomb, Banner is physically transformed into the Hulk when subjected to emotional stress, at or against his will, often leading to destructive rampages and conflicts that complicate Banner's civilian life. The Hulk's level of strength is normally conveyed as proportionate to his level of anger. Commonly portrayed as a raging savage, the Hulk has been represented with other personalities based on Banner's fractured psyche, from a mindless, destructive force, to a brilliant warrior, or genius scientist in his own right. Despite both Hulk and Banner's desire for solitude, the character has a large supporting cast. This includes Banner's lover Betty Ross, his best friend Rick Jones, his cousin She-Hulk, and therapist and ally Doc Samson. In addition, the Hulk alter ego has many key supporting characters like his co-founders of the superhero team the Avengers, his queen Caiera, fellow warriors Korg and Miek, and sons Skaar and Hiro-Kala. However, his uncontrollable power has brought him into conflict with his fellow heroes and others. Despite this he tries his best to do what's right while battling villains such as Leader, Abomination, Absorbing Man and more.

Lee stated that the Hulk's creation was inspired by a combination of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Although the Hulk's coloration has varied throughout the character's publication history, the most usual color is green.

One of the most iconic characters in popular culture, the character has appeared on a variety of merchandise, such as clothing and collectable items, inspired real-world structures (such as theme park attractions), and been referenced in a number of media. Banner and the Hulk have been adapted in live-action, animated, and video game incarnations. The character was first played in a live-action feature film by Eric Bana. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the character was portrayed by Edward Norton in the film The Incredible Hulk (2008) and by Mark Ruffalo in the films The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013) in a cameo, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019) in a cameo, and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Ruffalo will reprise the role in the upcoming Disney+ series What If...? (2021) and She-Hulk (2022).

> Personality

Bruce Banner During his decades of publication, Banner has been portrayed differently, but common themes persist. Banner, a physicist, is sarcastic and seemingly very self-assured when he first appears in Incredible Hulk #1, but is also emotionally withdrawn. Banner designed the gamma bomb which caused his affliction, and the ironic twist of his self-inflicted fate has been one of the most persistent common themes. Arie Kaplan describes the character thus: "Robert Bruce Banner lives in a constant state of panic, always wary that the monster inside him will erupt, and therefore he can't form meaningful bonds with anyone." As a child, Banner's father Brian often got mad and physically abused both Banner and his mother, creating the psychological complex of fear, anger, and the fear of anger and the destruction it can cause that underlies the character. Banner has been shown to be emotionally repressed, but capable of deep love for Betty Ross, and for solving problems posed to him. Under the writing of Paul Jenkins, Banner was shown to be a capable fugitive, applying deductive reasoning and observation to figure out the events transpiring around him. On the occasions that Banner has controlled the Hulk's body, he has applied principles of physics to problems and challenges and used deductive reasoning. It was shown after his ability to turn into the Hulk was taken away by the Red Hulk that Banner has been extremely versatile as well as cunning when dealing with the many situations that followed. When he was briefly separated from the Hulk by Doom, Banner became criminally insane, driven by his desire to regain the power of the Hulk, but once the two recombined he came to accept that he was a better person with the Hulk to provide something for him to focus on controlling rather than allowing his intellect to run without restraint against the world.

Hulk The original Hulk was shown as grey and average in intelligence who roamed aimlessly and became annoyed at "puny" humans who took him for a dangerous monster. Shortly after becoming the Hulk, his transformation continued turning him green, coinciding with him beginning to display primitive speech, and by Incredible Hulk #4 radiation treatments gave Banner's mind complete control of the Hulk's body. While Banner relished his indestructibility and power, he was quick to anger and more aggressive in his Hulk form, and, while he became known as a hero alongside the Avengers, his increasing paranoia caused him to leave the group, believing he would never be trusted.

Originally, the Hulk was shown as simple minded and quick to anger. The Hulk generally divorces his identity from Banner's, decrying Banner as "puny Banner." From his earliest stories, the Hulk has been concerned with finding sanctuary and quiet and often is shown reacting emotionally to situations quickly. Grest and Weinberg call Hulk the "dark, primordial side of Banner's psyche." Even in the earliest appearances, Hulk spoke in the third person. Hulk retains a modest intelligence, thinking and talking in full sentences, and Lee even gives the Hulk expository dialogue in issue six, allowing readers to learn just what capabilities Hulk has, when the Hulk says, "But these muscles ain't just for show! All I gotta do is spring up and just keep goin'!" In the 1970s, Hulk was shown as more prone to anger and rage, and less talkative. Writers played with the nature of his transformations, briefly giving Banner control over the change, and the ability to maintain control of his Hulk form. Artistically and conceptually, the character has become progressively more muscular and powerful in the years since his debut.

Originally, Stan Lee wanted the Hulk to be grey, but, due to ink problems, Hulk's color was changed to green. This was later changed in the story to indicate that the Grey Hulk and the Savage Hulk are separate personalities or entities fighting for control in Bruce's subconscious. The Grey Hulk incarnation can do the more unscrupulous things that Banner could not bring himself to do, with many sources comparing the Grey Hulk to the moody teenager that Banner never allowed himself to be. While the Grey Hulk still had the "madder he gets, the stronger he gets" part that is similar to the Savage Hulk, it is on a much slower rate. It is said by Leader that the Grey Hulk is stronger on nights of the new moon and weaker on nights of the full moon. Originally, the night is when Bruce Banner becomes the Grey Hulk and changes back by dawn. In later comics, willpower or stress would have Banner turn into the Grey Hulk. During one storyline where he was placed under a spell to prevent him turning back into Bruce Banner and publicly presumed dead when he was teleported away from a gamma bomb explosion that destroyed an entire town, the Grey Hulk adopted a specific name as Joe Fixit, a security guard for a Las Vegas casino owner, with the Grey Hulk often being referred to as Joe after these events.

The Gravage Hulk is the result of Banner using the Gamma Projector on himself which merged his Savage Hulk and Grey Hulk personas. This form possesses the raw power of the Savage Hulk and the cunning intellect of the Grey Hulk. While he doesn't draw on anger to empower him, the Gravage Hulk persona draws on dimensional nexus energies to increase his strength.

The Dark Hulk persona is the result of Hulk being possessed by Shanzar. This form has black skin and is viciously strong.

The Guilt Hulk is a malevolent representation of Banner's abusive father, Brian Banner, that manifests itself in Banner's childhood memories.

The Devil Hulk or Immortal Hulk is the result of Hulk needing a father figure. While the character's physical appearance varies, he is always depicted as having glowing red eyes, and reptilian traits. The new form of Devil Hulk is the result of Banner and Hulk having been through different deaths and rebirths. This incarnation is articulate, smart, and cunning, and does merciless attacks on those who do harm. Unlike the other Hulk incarnations, Devil Hulk is content with waiting inside Bruce. If Bruce is injured by sunset, the Devil Hulk will emerge with his transformation being limited to night-time. Thanks to the Devil Hulk side and Banner working together, Devil Hulk can maintain his form in sunlight.

The Green Scar persona is unleashed on Sakaar and is an enraged version of Gravage Hulk. In addition, he is an expert in armed combat like the use of swords and shields. Green Scar is also a capable leader and an expert strategist.

Doc Green is a variation of the Merged Hulk persona that is the result of Extremis fixing Hulk's brain. This persona is powerful enough to destroy Tony Stark's mansion with one thunderclap.

> Powers and Abilities

Banner is considered one of the greatest scientific minds on Earth, possessing "a mind so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test." Norman Osborn estimates that he is the fourth most-intelligent person on Earth. Banner holds expertise in biology, chemistry, engineering, medicine, physiology, and nuclear physics. Using this knowledge, he creates advanced technology dubbed "Bannertech", which is on par with technological development from Tony Stark or Doctor Doom. Some of these technologies include a force field that can protect him from the attacks of Hulk-level entities, and a teleporter.

The Hulk possesses the potential for seemingly limitless physical strength which is influenced by his emotional state, particularly his anger. This has been reflected in the repeated comment, "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets." The cosmically-powerful entity known as the Beyonder once analyzed the Hulk's physiology, and claimed that the Hulk's potential strength had "no finite element inside." Hulk's strength has been depicted as sometimes limited by Banner's subconscious influence; when Jean Grey psionically "shut Banner off", Hulk became strong enough to overpower and destroy the physical form of the villain Onslaught. Writer Greg Pak described the Worldbreaker Hulk shown during World War Hulk as having a level of physical power where "Hulk was stronger than any mortal—and most immortals—who ever walked the Earth", and depicted the character as powerful enough to completely destroy entire planets. His strength allows him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents, and he has displayed superhuman speed. Exposure to radiation has also been shown to make the Hulk stronger. It is unknown how he gains biomass during transformation but it may be linked to One-Below-All.

His durability, regeneration, and endurance also increase in proportion to his temper. Hulk is resistant to injury or damage, though the degree to which varies between interpretations, but he has withstood the equivalent of solar temperatures, nuclear explosions, and planet-shattering impacts. Despite his remarkable resiliency, continuous barrages of high-caliber gunfire can hinder his movement to some degree while he can be temporarily subdued by intense attacks with chemical weapons such as anesthetic gases, although any interruption of such dosages will allow him to quickly recover. He has been shown to have both regenerative and adaptive healing abilities, including growing tissues to allow him to breathe underwater, surviving unprotected in space for extended periods, and when injured, healing from most wounds within seconds, including, on one occasion, the complete destruction of most of his body mass. His future self, "Maestro", was even eventually able to recover from being blown to pieces. As an effect, he has an extremely prolonged lifespan.

He also possesses less commonly described powers, including abilities allowing him to "home in" to his place of origin in New Mexico; resist psychic control, or unwilling transformation; grow stronger from radiation or dark magic; punch his way between separate temporal or spatial dimensions; and to see and interact with astral forms. Some of these abilities were in later years explained as being related; his ability to home in on the New Mexico bomb site was due to his latent ability to sense astral forms and spirits, since the bomb site was also the place where the Maestro's skeleton was and Maestro's spirit was calling out to him in order to absorb his radiation.

In the first Hulk comic series, "massive" doses of gamma rays would cause the Hulk to transform back to Banner, although this ability was written out of the character by the 1970s.

#marvel #avengers

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #7- Just in Case You Forgot Decepticons Were a Thing

While the Lost Light gets all of Rung’s appointments in order, our narrative is going to take a little shift, so we can get to know some pretty neat dudes.

And by “neat dudes” I mean completely morally and ethically reprehensible bastards.

But first, here’s a brief history of the Phase-Sixer known as Black Shadow.

Very limber, Mr. Shadow. Also, note the abstract sort of Decepticon insignia shape going on with the panel. That’s just neat.

Now, Black Shadow’s kicked a lot of keister in his long, storied career as a ‘Con, which makes his current situation all the more bleak, as he’s in the final throes of a visit with the Decepticon Justice Division.

The guy with the arm-mounted cannon that’s clearly compensating for something is Tarn, the leader of the DJD. His main character trait is he’s sapiosexual, but only for Megatron. He’s so devoted to the Decepticause and its rhetoric, he wears a mask of the insignia at all times.

Behind him are Helex and Tesaurus, who turn into a fondue pot and industrial-sized blender, respectively, and Vos, who turns into a sniper rifle, and was once fired by Megatron himself. I assume he’s only part of the DJD for the clout.

And then there’s Kaon, who turns into a wheelie chair.

Black Shadow’s looking pretty rough, but the boys haven’t killed him yet, and there’s a reason for that; the DJD’s sole reason for existing is to punish any Decepticon who stalls the glory of Megatron’s vision of a better tomorrow coming to fruition, no matter how slight the infraction, and simply killing their victims doesn’t exactly drive the point home, now does it? They’ve got to make an example, you know?

But really it’s so Tarn can pontificate. See, he considers himself a bit of an intellectual, as shown in his quoting of Megatron’s autobiography, Towards Peace.

Ugh, He’s a fanboy. It’s enough to make you want to puke. Which Black Shadow does. It’s mostly blood. Or is it? Hard to tell, energon is everything for these guys.

The DJD have had their fun, so now it’s time for them to say goodbye to Black Shadow. This is where Tarn’s special talent comes into play, and it’s a nasty one.

Tarn has a unique voice, one that, when matching the timbre and frequency of another ‘bot’s spark, can be used to affect said spark, even making it give up the ghost. This is exactly what he does to Black Shadow, but not before making him apologize for selling out the Decepticons for a butt-ton of money.

Speaking of unique voices, Tarn’s characterization is almost completely in his. It makes sense, given his power, that he have a way of speaking that stands out from everyone else. It’s smooth, and cool, and seems well-rehearsed; this is not a guy who stumbles on his words. He sounds like a Bond villain.

Roberts has admitted that he wrote these characters with English accents, and while I can’t say that I buy it for everyone in MTMTE, I certainly do for Tarn.

But maybe that’s just because I’m American, and a lot of the media I consumed growing up had the whole “the villain sounds British/camp gay” thing going on.

Anyway.

Black Shadow explodes, because we haven’t had one of those in a while.

With another tick put on their List, the DJD get ready to move on to their next target. We don’t get any names, but whoever they are, they’re about to have a very bad day.

Then we take a quick jump back to the Lost Light, since things were kind of a massive mess when we last saw everyone.

Rung’s not dead, by the way. I guess Swerve really is just that bad of a shot. Still, he’s not much more than a brain on a rope, and that means that Rung’ll be out of commission for a good while.

Poor Swerve. He feels so awful about this whole thing, even brought Rung one of his little ships to keep him company. The worst part is, now that Swerve’s shot the therapist, who will he talk to so he can work through having shot the therapist?

Speaking of guys who need therapy, Red Alert comes visiting in the dead of night, after visiting hours and in cover of darkness. He tells Rung about the little surprise he found in the basement, and bids him farewell, as he will surely be killed now that he knows about Overlord.

Who the hell programmed that drone to be so menacing?

Red Alert, again showing that this ain’t his first paranoia rodeo, slips a data slug full of Overlord bondage footage into the hole where Rung’s thumb should be- guess it got lost in the helter-skelter when he got shot- then walks out of the medibay, presumably to die.

Anywho, that’s enough of the Autobots for a little while. Let’s see what the Decepticons are up to.

On a planet far from wherever the Lost Light is faffing about, a Decepticon wakes up to a bunch of dudes hovering over him, insulting his looks, and stealing his organs. He reacts accordingly.

This is Fulcrum. No, not the Decepticon medic from Eugenesis, different guy. This Fulcrum’s primary function is probably about as removed from healing as it gets.

The guys trying to harvest him are the Scavengers, and they’re pretty surprised that he’s not dead, because, well…

Yeah.

Misfire- the dude who got kicked in the face a second ago- does both Fulcrum and the reader a solid by introducing all the members of this merry band of assholes, starting with the surliest of their ranks.

Crankcase was first introduced into the IDW run in Stormbringer #3, where he shot at Thunderwing and spouted off a couple lines ripped straight from a porno.

Stormbringer is really just… something else.

Spinister, who can and will shoot anything that meets his unpredictable criteria of being a threat, is the only other Scavenger who isn’t debuting in the comics with this issue. He was in Stormbringer #4, not that he really did anything of note there.

There’s Flywheels, who can’t tell a lie without transforming, and is a born-again evangelical. His character is a removal from his previous iterations, as he’s a triple-changer instead of a Duocon, a robot that only exists if two separate sentient vehicles combine. So, in his case, tank + plane = giant robot. Transformers is weird.

Then there’s the leader of this group, the ever-stressed, glorified babysitter, Krok.

Krok takes the opportunity to save Fulcrum from the verbal barrage, explaining that the Scavengers are expropriation specialists, meaning that they take people’s shit for their own benefit, and that includes bodily fluids. Misfire was supposed to be siphoning energon from the corpses in the area, but accidentally got high on another dude’s supply in the process. Misfire may be hopped up on drugs at the moment, but he’s only a bit more put-together sober, so this really is roughly par for the course with him.

Back on the Lost Light, Chromedome pays a visit to Brainstorm, who is currently hanging from the ceiling. Not in a suicidey way, mind you, just in a Brainstorm way.

He wants to be noticed so badly.

Chromedome’s here because he managed to steal Skid’s weirdly forgettable gun back in issue #4, while Skids was busy harassing that bar drone. He handed it off to Brainstorm to try and figure out what the deal was. Problem is, the gun blew up the moment Brainstorm cracked it open, only allowing him to get a quick look at the internals thanks to his super-futuristic robot eyes. All he can really say is that it looks like something that came from The Institute. Back at it again with the ominous proper nouns.

Getting back to the Scavengers, it looks like the boys have set up a little campfire for the evening. It’s a gorgeous night.

In love with the colors this issue.

We get a very brief history lesson that shows us why reducing your workforce to a spreadsheet instead of living, free-thinking creatures isn’t a super great idea, and then Krok drops the bomb on Fulcrum about the war being over. This is pretty wild to Fulcrum, probably because after 4 million years of that nonsense, you don’t really expect it to ever actually end.

Of course, when the impossible turns out to be possible after all, there’s only one question to really ask: who won?

Now, none of the guys really know how everything ended, only going off of the pulse wave that Vector Sigma shot off during the reformatting of Cybertron. They figure it was probably the Autobots, because they’re at least a little genre savvy. Bummer for them, considering they’re technically part of the bad guys. Just ask the campfire.

You know, I don’t think this is what President Roosevelt had in mind when he started doing fireside chats.

And so our location is finally revealed to us- this is the planet known as Clemency. Hey, wasn’t that the place Tarn said their next target was? Man, that really sucks for these guys. Hope they’ve got their wills in order.

Meanwhile, in the medibay of the Lost Light, Rung has another late-night visitor. This guy takes the data slug from inside his thumb hole, thus removing any hope of Red Alert’s fate being found out. Well dang.

Back on Clemency, the boys have made it through the night, and are using the light of daybreak to start scrounging up parts for their super sweet ship, the Weak Anthropic Principle.

Hold on to your butts, because this one’s a doozy.

The Anthropic Principle is based in the school of philosophy, and states that any and all observations about the universe- or any universe, really- have to be fed through the filter of realizing that said universe is only observable because it allows for sapient life to exist and observe it. There are two flavors of this principle; the strong anthropic principle states that the universe has some sort of compelling force which dictates it be able to house life which can observe it, while the weak anthropic principle basically says that the only reason we’re even considering the strong anthropic principle is because we live in a universe where we can.

Now, why exactly Roberts decided to bring this philosophical idea into the fold completely escapes me, unless he decided to, in a roundabout way, poke fun at the fact that we are currently observing a universe we don’t exist in through the magic of fiction- that theory doesn’t hold water, though, because there are still sapient creatures populating the universe of the IDW comics, and even humans at that. I’m curious where he even learned about this. What an odd, confounding tidbit of information this is.

But enough about that, because Misfire’s just seen a cryptid.

He transforms and blasts past Fulcrum and Krok, interrupting Krok’s explanation of what the device he keeps hidden in his fist is for, trying to catch up to the Necrobot.

The very same, Fulcrum, thank you.

Misfire is a firm believer in the Necrobot, while Krok is firmly not. Misfire’s tried chasing down this guy several times now, but he’s not caught him. The Necrobot is kind of like Bigfoot, if he were also a Catholic priest. This go doesn’t prove any different for poor Misfire, though it’s not all bad.

Flywheels’ only purpose as a character is so that Roberts had a stand-in for the word “fuck” for this issue.

Misfire’s found something very exciting, and he immediately calls Krok to bring everyone over.

Everyone’s super jazzed about finding this thing, and they break out the flashlights and break in to see all the fun stuff that’s inside this obnoxiously large ship.

Of course, this is a Roberts story, and we haven’t yet had any sort of scientifically experimental horrors yet, so we’re honestly a little overdue at this point.

But wait, there’s more!

Aww, it’s nice that Fulcrum and Krok already have each other’s contact info.

Everyone regroups and they weigh their options. Misfire fucking hates this ship, and wants nothing to do with it. Fulcrum however, isn’t so quick to throw this entire nightmare bus off the cliff. Fulcrum’s a little weird, and not just because he looks like he’s got a military pack on and no shirt.

Oh honey, you got a storm coming.

As if on cue, Krok starts hearing music, and asks around for a phone. He picks up a transmission from a familiar masked face. Tarn lets the fellas know that one of them has done a big no-no, and if the others hand the transgressor over, he’ll let them watch, because Tarn assumes that that’s something other people are into. Tarn is bad at people. The transmission ends, leaving the boys to panic, and also wonder where the leader of the DJD learned to count, until they find a very special friend deep within the bowels of the ship. The extra life signal, and the only other living thing on the Worldsweeper- Grimlock.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 7 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #incoming analysis #comic script writing

[countingwithturkeys]

Blurb: Tiny Whispers

Because I promised you all something fluffy after last night!

Whenever anyone, be they civilian or royal, friend or stranger, mortal or Cosmic Entity, discovers that Bonnibel Bubblegum is the love of my eternal life, that I willingly chose to forsake any and all others in favor of her, the response is always the same: Why? This is always asked with disbelief, bafflement comically apparent as they look from me to her, as they realize the depths of my devotion. Exactly how far I’m willing to go not just to keep her safe, but to make her happy.

Look, I get it. I really do. If you don’t think about it I can see how it doesn’t really make any sense. She’s the brainiest of the brainlords, a woman who considers morality to be an interesting theory but not a guiding principle in life. Even if the rest of Ooo isn’t exactly privy to how Bonnie is behind the scenes - which is probably a good thing, given how hard I had to convince her that mind controlling her citizens and fellow royalty just isn’t cool - everyone knows she’s done messed up junk. I’ve heard what they call her, what you all call her. Cold. Heartless. Sociopathic. Okay, that last one might be true, but she’s not cold or heartless.

They might not know the half of what she’s done in her almost nine centuries of life, but they do know about Goliad. And her freak-out when the King of Ooo took her throne. They watched her disregard emotions as trivial when she tried to separate Phoebe and Finn, and don’t even get me started on how willing she was to use the guy’s crush on her to her favor. She might have made memory-tampering illegal after what Ash did to me, but that didn’t really stop her from messing with Lemongrab’s mindmeats, and I’m quoting her here, ‘for his own good.’

Then they look at me. Yeah, I know, walking super weapon, heir to the Nightosphere, last of the vampires, blah blah blah. They see all that, yeah, but they also know I’ve dedicated concerts to Bonnie, that I’ve stuck by her and been sticking by her longer than anyone else has even been alive like twenty times over. A handful of peeps even know I was right there, helping her build the Candy Kingdom in the good ol’ days. They see how we are together, and when we’re not fighting I’ve heard them snicker at how wrapped around her finger I am. It’s fine. I know it, too.

But here’s the thing: life happens when you aren’t looking. The thing is that everyone’s different. Some people, like me, we shout our love from mountaintops as loudly as we can. I’ll write her songs and keep her paranoia in check and make sure everyone knows that if they have a problem with Bonnie, they have a problem with me. Trust me on this, you do not want to have a problem with me, okay? I drink blood and eat souls. Think about it.

Anyway, like I was saying, some people wear their hearts on their sleeves and aren’t shy about showing affection, and I may not show it to a lot of peeps but I’m happy to show it to her. Don’t care who sees. All that matters is that I can make her laugh and help her feel safe, because what none of you tranches know is that she had a messed up childhood and has had to be responsible since like the literal minute she was born. She’s never had the freedom to express emotions, to just chill. It was never okay for her to trust and show what everyone always considers ‘normal’ gestures of affection, like hugging. She still has trouble saying ‘I love you’.

But that’s the point, you know? Some people can show all of that loud and proud. But other people? They show their love very quietly, so you have to stop and listen. Sometimes the language they speak isn’t your native one, so you gotta learn to translate, because here’s the thing about language and take it from a musician: you can’t feel or express stuff you don’t have the words for. Language is weird like that. If something doesn’t exist in how you learned to communicate and express yourself you have to substitute it.

And that’s what Bon does, but none of you get it. You don’t see how she patiently listens to every single stupid annoying story her citizens tell her, nodding patiently and asking follow up questions even though with her brainy-ness it’s gotta be so stupid it physically hurts her. You don’t see how when someone she cares about has a problem she might not want to hear about it, but that’s just ‘cause she’s too busy looking for a solution. You aren’t there when I have a nightmare and you don’t know about how she’ll cancel a meeting so she can hold me through the day until I can get back to sleep, then just pretend her schedule just happened to be clear all coincidentally. You don’t know about the earbud things she made me when she realized I freak out when it’s too silent, so that I never have to be alone with my thoughts.

Bon might not be the sappy romance movie type, or the kind of person who can just accept a bouquet of flowers without scrutinizing what kind they are in weird science language. She might forget important dates because she’s too engrossed in some experiment. But you know what? I trust her more than anyone. She’s always there when I need her. She’s never judged me. She never abandoned me. When I’m scared she doesn’t say nice words, she finds the threat and she takes it out for me. When I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do she won’t mark the trail for me, but she’ll hold my hand so I don’t get lost on the path. She’s never tried to hurt me, and when you all thought I went feral she was the only person to look at me without any fear in her eyes. Just trust.

You’re all too busy looking at Bon and trying to understand her using your language, but take it from someone who speaks both: some people might love loudly and freely, but others, like her, love so quietly that you have to stop and listen. And when you do, there are mountains built of those tiny whispers.

#bubbline #fan fiction #adventure time

[tomeandflickcorner]

Umbrella Academy Rewatch 1x08

1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07

The race is now on, as Allison attempts to find Vanya, in order to warn her that her boyfriend, Leonard, is actually Harold Jenkins, a convicted murderer who is believed to be the man who will bring about the apocalypse. 

As Allison drives out to the cabin that had belonged to Harold Jenkins’ grandmother in the hopes that she can find Vanya there, she remembers an event that had happened a year ago. She had been putting her daughter, Claire to bed and had just finished telling her a bedtime story about some of the exploits of herself and her brothers when they were still involved with their superhero stuff with the Umbrella Academy.  Particularly a time when they stopped a bank robbery.  When the story is over, Claire kept insisting on hearing another story, but Allison insisted it was time for her to go to sleep.  When Claire started to get demanding, Allison ended up using her power on her, by saying ‘I heard a rumor that you’re really tired, and what to go to sleep.’  This ended up getting Claire to back down and go to bed without a fuss.  Unfortunately, Allison’s now-ex-husband, Patrick, had witnessed this, and is clearly not happy.

Okay, so... is this the incident that resulted in the courts stripping Allison of her custody to her daughter, mandating that she had to take court-ordered therapy sessions before she could get visitation rights?  If so, that’s really stupid.  It’s possible I’m just not getting it, but why exactly was this such a big deal?  I don’t get if.  It’s not as if she was using her powers to force Claire to get her beer while she sat in front of the TV all day instead of taking care of her kid, or anything neglectful like that.  She was getting her kid to go to sleep.  I think we can all agree that kids that age need a consistent sleep schedule.  I’m fairly certain any mother in the land would have done the same thing if they were in Allison’s shoes.  Was there more to this story?  Was their some sort of concern that Allison using her power on Claire would have caused her permanent brain damage?  Was it a case of X-Men-esque paranoia?  I believe, in the X-Men comics, a lot of people feared the mutants on principle simply because they had out-of-the-ordinary abilities and therefore persecuted the mutants.  Did the courts have similar prejudice against Allison going on?  I don’t understand!

Regardless, this incident has ended up being traumatic to Allison, as she’s now sworn off using her powers ever again. And this is driven home when we hear Allison’s memories of other times she used her power on others.  Some seem pretty innocent.  Case in point one moment when she used her power to get someone (probably Claire) to like broccoli.  Eating vegetables is important, after all.  But with others, I can see why Allison is feeling like she was abusing her powers.  For instance, there were apparently times she used her power to force someone to be her friend, land an acting role, or even got someone to love her.  Yeah, I can agree those examples are pretty bad.  Eventually, Allison makes it to the cabin,  But when she gets there, nobody is home.  Which makes sense, since Vanya and Harold/Leonard are still at the hospital following the incident the night before.  

Speaking of which, we then switch over to them.  Harold/Leonard wakes up Vanya, who had been sleeping in the chair next to his hospital bed.  Vanya is surprised to see he’s already dressed, and even more so when Harold/Leonard announces he’s leaving.  After all, he probably still needs to be observed one more time before being officially discharged.  But Harold/Leonard states that’s not necessary, as the hospital just wants him to come back tomorrow so he can be fitted with a prosthetic eye.  Vanya, upon being reminded that he lost an eye, starts to apologize, but he waves her apology off.  They then head off.  But on the way, they’re stopped by a nurse, reminding Harold/Leonard that the doctor hadn’t discharged him yet.  Vanya is momentarily confused by this, as that statement has contradicted what he’d told her, but Harold/Leonard insists that he’s ready to leave, so he simply signs the voluntary discharge papers.  Before they leave, Vanya asks about the three other men that had attacked them, who were also brought into the hospital after being injured by Vanya’s power explosion. The nurse informs her that two of the men were DOA, but the third man was still alive, though in critical condition.

Back at the Umbrella Academy mansion, Luther wakes up with a massive hangover from his night of drinking at the rave.  He is shocked to find that a naked woman is lying in bed next to him, indicating that he brought someone back from the rave for sex.  Klaus then swings by Luther’s room and proceeds to simply be a typical brother, good-naturally teasing the flustered Luther for it, especially when he realizes this was Luther’s first time with a woman.  Klaus then gets serious, telling Luther that they’re having a family meeting downstairs.  

When Luther makes it down to the kitchen, Klaus pours him a cup of coffee, which Number 5 (who is clearly feeling better) promptly steals.  Ghost Ben is also there, but of course, only Klaus is aware of that.  While Klaus voices his awareness that Diego and Allison are absent, he nevertheless begins the meeting, informing his brothers that he managed to make contact with Reginald last night.  Luther is confused, reminding Klaus that he claimed he hadn’t been able to conjure up anyone in years.  Klaus admits this is true, but states that he’s now completely sober.  He goes on to inform Luther and Number 5 that Reginald wasn’t murdered but that he committed suicide in order to trick them into getting together again.  Luther, however, refuses to believe it, accusing Klaus of playing games again.  Until Pogo enters the room and confirms Klaus’ statement, also admitting he and Grace had assisted with the suicide, with Grace’s programming being altered so she wouldn’t be able to administer first aid on that fateful night.  Reginald had believed that, if the Hargreeves Siblings had banded together to try and solve the murder mystery, it might inspire them to want to be a team again, so they could save the world. Luther is incensed over this bombshell, especially since he was still feeling hurt over the revelation that his mission on the moon had been meaningless all along.  He berates Pogo for not saying anything sooner, despite watching him search for answers.  Pogo is visibly remorseful, but tells Luther that he had only been honoring Reginald’s dying wishes and that he had no choice.  This isn’t good enough for Luther, though, and he storms off, telling Pogo that there’s always a choice.  Number 5 also teleports off to think, leaving Klaus alone with Ghost Ben.

Sometime later, Vanya and Harold/Leonard return to the cabin.  Harold/Leonard attempts to reassure Vanya that what happened to the three toughs wasn’t her fault, and that she had acted in self-defense. Vanya is still shaken up, though, stating that she shouldn’t be able to do something like that.  It’s clear that, while she is starting to accept the fact that she does have powers, she’s upset that she can’t control them, with them only exploding out of her when she’s not trying to use them.  Harold/Leonard consoles her, stating he’ll help her learn to control it.

While all this is going on, we also get the subplot with Hazel and Agnes.  They did indeed run away together, but are now stuck in a traffic jam. Hazel grows morose when he sees that Agnes’ road trip has three years worth of sights in store, with her happily stating they have time to see them all.  After all, she doesn't realize the apocalypse is supposed to happen in just two days.

In a curious coincidence, Allison is also stuck in the same traffic jam.  Why she didn’t stick around at the cabin is anyone’s guess.  She ends up driving past the same restaurant where Vanya’s powers went haywire, seeing the police are there investigating the incident.  As Allison glances over at the crime scene, she notices Vanya’s scarf hanging from the restaurant's sign, making her realize that Vanya had been there.  So she gets out of the car and ducks under the police tape to investigate.  Allison is immediately stopped by a cop, Sergeant Cheddar, who is investigating the scene.  She tries to question him about what happened, but he insists that she simply read about it in the paper tomorrow.  Although, Sergeant Cheddar’s tune completely changes when he recognizes her.  It turns out Sergeant Cheddar and his wife are huge fans of Allison’s movies.  (Remember, Allison is a big movie star.)  Taking advantage of this fact, Allison tells him that she’s actually going to portray a cop in her next movie and is looking to do some research on law enforcement.  She asks if she can shadow him for the day, as it could help her develop her character if she could witness him in action for the day.  Sergeant Cheddar, being a huge Allison Hargeeves fanboy, agrees to this almost instantly.

Meanwhile, Diego is still in his jail cell.  He is visited by Detective Beeman, who informs him that they’re transferring him to upstate that afternoon.  He also states that he does believe in Diego’s innocence, knowing that he wasn’t the one who murdered Detective Patch.  However, that’s not enough to get the suspicion against him thrown out, since Diego was placed at the scene of the murder, and people on the force had witnessed the two arguing on more than one occasion.  Detective Beeman then reaches out to shake Diego’s hand, wishing him luck.  After they shake hands, Detective Beeman walks off, leaving Diego alone with the key he stealthily slipped him.

Back at the cabin, Vanya is practicing her violin, getting ready for her big concert.  As she’s practicing, Harold/Leonard secretly consults Reginald’s journal, which includes Reginald’s notes on Vanya’s powers.  The notes reveal that sound can help activate Vanya’s abilities.  This is further illustrated in a flashback, where Reginald, during a training session, managed to get Vanya to shatter a wine glass simply with the sound of a tuning fork.  Taking advice from this, Harold/Leonard takes Vanya deeper into the woods and instructs her to try and recreate the scene last night.  Vanya then thinks back, remembering the men laughing, the sound of them kicking Harold/Leonard and the rumbling of the car engine and a dog barking nearby.  Instantly, Vanya realizes that it was the sound of the car engine that did it, as that sound ended resonating in her mind to the point where it was the only thing she could hear before her power unleashed itself.  She finds the whole thing terrifying, but Harold/Leonard insists that its extraordinary.  He then convinces Vanya to try and tap into her powers again, getting her to focus on the sounds of nature around them.  Such as the wind chimes hanging from the cabin nearby, a squirrel in a nearby tree and the water rushing along a creek.  Harold/Leonard tells Vanya to focus on one sound in particular, with Vanya zeroing in on the sound of the water in the creak.  This results in Vanya’s power manifesting again. Harold/Leonard is ecstatic, but he sees Vanya is starting to panic, so he calms her down, informing her that her ability is tied to her emotions.  Vanya is confused how he knows this, as she doesn’t know about Reginald’s journal.  Harold/Leonard is able to cover up his slip up by claiming he made a lucky guess, going on to ‘theorize’ that Vanya can convert the sounds around her into energy when she is feeling strong emotions.  Vanya accepts this explanation and kisses him.  Though she has to push him out of the way when a tree branch falls towards them,

Of course we also get a reminder of how dangerous Vanya’s power can be.  In another flashback to her training sessions with Reginald, Young Vanya not only shattered all of the wine glasses, she also ended up cracking Reginald’s monocle.  Which also apparently left a cut along his cheek.  Reginald seemed almost fearful of the raw power she possessed, as he announced their training sessions were over for the time being.

We then cut back to the Umbrella Academy mansion.  Klaus is in his room knitting something when Number 5 walks in, trying to wrap his head around things.  He starts to discuss with Klaus his confusion about something that he can’t figure out.  He only learned about the approaching apocalypse by travelling to the future.  But Reginald, who can’t travel in time, clearly knew enough about it to know to kill himself a week before it happened.  Number 5′s musings are interrupted when Diego rushes in, having just escaped from jail with the key he got from Detective Beeman.  He informs them that Allison may be in danger, as he knows she went off to track down Harold/Leonard alone.  They search for Luther, locating him at a bar, still drowning his sorrows.  Diego tries to offer him some comfort, telling him that their father lied to all of them.  But Luther just wants to be miserable, stating he’s done with all if it- with Reginald, his brother and the whole family.  He states that if if the others want to save the world, they’re welcome to try, but he’s going to stay put and keep feeling sorry for himself.  Until Diego tells him that Allison headed off on her own to find Vanya, as Vanya’s boyfriend is a convicted murderer.  The knowledge that Allison was in danger pushes Luther into action, with him telling Diego he should have led with that detail.

Elsewhere, we see that Cha-Cha has managed to get free from her handcuffs.  She heads right over to Griddy’s Donuts, but finds the place is closed, with a sign from Agnes on the door informing customers that she’d decided to close the doughnut shop.  Angered, Cha-Cha breaks in to search for clues on where Agnes and Hazel were going.  In doing so, she finds a brochure for some bird sanctuary.  And then, for good measure, she blows up the building by turning on the gas burners and leaving a lit candle behind.

We then cut back to Allison and Sergeant Cheddar.  The latter is questioning Mr. Luntz, the guy who survived the incident with Vanya’s powers the night before.  Mr. Luntz reveals that it was all a setup. Turns out, Harold/Leonard had actually paid them to pick a fight with him, saying he wanted to impress his girlfriend.  But they had gotten drunk and got a bit carried away.  Allison cuts in, asking Mr. Luntz about the description of the guy who paid him, also showing him the picture of Vanya on the back of her copy of Vanya’s autobiography and asking if that was the girlfriend.  Instantly, Sergeant Cheddar realizes that Allison had lied to him and confronts her over it.  Allison apologizes for lying but explains that it was the only way she could get answers, and that she’s trying to find her sister, who might be in trouble.  While Sergeant Cheddar still isn’t happy, he seems to understand Allison’s reasons.  But before they could question Mr. Luntz further, the nurse stepped in, stating they’d have to come back later so they could run more tests on the injured man.

Returning to the cabin, Vanya announces that her concert is tomorrow, and she wants to practice her violin a bit more.  Upon hearing this, Harold/Leonard gets a bit petulant. He tries to coax Vanya to practice mastering her powers some more, as they already had a breakthrough and Vanya mastering her powers is important.  Vanya counters this by stating her music is also important.  Harold/Leonard instantly backs down, but he doesn’t seem to happy as Vanya steps out to practice her violin.  While she’s occupied, he quietly steps out.  So, when Vanya is done with her practice session and comes back inside, she finds that Harold/Leonard is gone.  Immediately, she starts to panic, searching the cabin for him frantically.  In her panic, she has a flashback to a point in her past, most likely after Reginald started to grow fearful of the magnitude of Vanya’s powers.  One evening, Reginald had brought Young Vanya down to a chamber deep beneath the mansion and placed her into a soundproof cell, telling her she needed to stay in a controlled environment.  Once she was sealed in, he left her down there for an undetermined amount of time.  To try and settle her nerves after that flashback, Vanya starts to practice her violin, simply focusing on the sound of the violin.

Meanwhile, Hazel and Agnes have arrived at the bird sanctuary.  Hazel, still mulling things over, asks Agnes what she would do if she knew she only had two days left to live.  Agnes replies she’d choose to be anywhere Hazel was.  Which is just too sweet!  I can’t with these two!  Anyway, Agnes notices that Hazel seems distracted about something and she asks him what’s going on.  Hazel tells her he can’t really explain at the moment, but there’s something he has to take care of before he can join her.  He tells her to go enjoy the bird sanctuary and that he’ll come back for her as soon as he can.  So, after sharing a kiss, Hazel drives off, with Agnes watching him go.  Of course, Hazel may have made the wrong call in leaving Agnes alone, as we see Cha-Cha is already on her way to the bird sanctuary.

Back at the hospital, Allison and Sergeant Cheddar are waiting to question Mr. Luntz some more, but the nurse comes out to inform them that he’s gone missing.  She had taken him out to for x-rays, but he disappeared.  Sergeant Cheddar states he’ll call it in, in case anyone spots him.  Allison then asks the nurse if she’d seen Vanya and the nurse confirms she had been there that morning.  Allison realizes that Vanya and Harold/Leonard had been there when she’d stopped by the cabin earlier and decides to try going back.  Sergeant Cheddar instructs her to not go anywhere, as Harold/Leonard might be dangerous, and they have a missing person to boot.  But Allison chooses to not listen to his instructions and heads off anyway.  

She arrives back at the cabin while Vanya is still playing her violin.  And Allison immediately notices the lights and rocking chairs out on the porch. are swinging from side to side, as they’re being manipulated by Vanya’s powers.  Allison quickly heads inside and finds Vanya, who is surprised to see her sister.  Allison is equally surprised when Vanya tells her of her newly discovered powers, but she pushes her amazement aside to focus on the more important task of getting Vanya to safety.  She tries to break the news to Vanya about who her boyfriend really is, telling her that Leonard Peabody doesn’t exist and that he’s really Harold Jenkins, who murdered his father when he was 13 and spent 12 years in jail as a result.  Vanya, of course, doesn’t believe her.  Allison tells her that the proof is all in the police file, which is waiting in the car, also telling her of the whole murder shrine of the mangled and defaced Umbrella Academy memorabilia they found in Harold/Leonard’s house.  She goes on to try and reassure her sister, saying that she can understand how it must be a lot for her to take in, but that she loves her and wants to be there for her sister.

Understandably, Vanya has an emotional breakdown.  She’d fallen in love with Harold/Leonard and can’t believe any of this stuff about him could be true.  Not to mention the revelation that she’s had this power all her life and never even knew it.  At that moment, Allison remembers an old childhood memory of hers.  One that never really made sense to her, but now that she’s learned of Vanya’s powers, she’s able to look at it again with fresh understanding.  It turns out that, while Vanya was being kept in that soundproof room when they were all 4-years-old, Reginald had told the other Hargreeves Siblings that Vanya was sick and had to be isolated.  But then he brought Allison down there and instructed her to tell Vanya ‘I heard a rumor you think you’re just ordinary,‘  (It was at this time that Reginald also started putting Vanya on that medication, which we now can see was meant to nullify her powers.)

So obviously, Reginald had been so fearful of Vanya’s raw abilities, he chose to simply keep them hidden from everyone rather than continue to train her to control them, and had even manipulated Young Allison to assist him in his goal.  And it kind of makes sense how nobody remembered that Vanya used to have powers when they were very young.  After all this all went down when they were 4. Not many people can have clear memories of their life that far back.  Anyway, When Vanya learns of this, she is understandably furious.  But in her anger, she ends up blaming Allison, accusing her of knowing she had powers the whole time and choosing to keep them a secret because she didn’t want Vanya outranking her.  Vanya continues her rant, declaring she plans on staying with Leonard, who was the only one who ever really loved her.  As Vanya’s rage builds, the light fixtures around the house start to go haywire and eventually explode, and Allison’s attempts to calm her down only enrage her further.  In sheer desperation, Allison elects to use her powers to calm Vanya down. But before she can complete her statement, Vanya lashes out with her bowstring, which ends up slicing through Allison’s throat.  

The moment this happens, Vanya’s rage vanishes, being replaced by horror over what she’d just done.  She dashes forward to catch Allison as she falls to the ground, clutching her heavily bleeding throat.   As Vanya cries out her apologies for hurting her sister, Harold/Leonard returns to the cabin.  He takes one look at the scene before him and seems to figure out what just happened.  So he grabs Vanya and physically drags her away, telling her that they have to get out of there, during a deaf ear to Vanya’s cries and sheer reluctance to leave Allison bleeding on the floor.  In the end, however, Harold/Leonard manages to drag her away and he drives them away from the cabin, driving right past the body of Mr. Luntz, who he must have killed to keep him from blabbing.  By the time, Luther, Diego, Klaus, Number 5 and Ghost Ben make it to the cabin, Allison has lost consciousness and appears dead.  And so the episode ends on that cliffhanger.

Final Observations/Questions:

Is Allison going to live?

What’s going to happen to Vanya?  Will she get away from Harold/Leonard?

While I do understand Vanya’s fury, it wasn’t fair of her to blame Allison for what happened.  Allison was just as much a victim as Vanya had been.  Thy were toddlers at the time.  Of course they wouldn’t question what Reginald was telling them.  And I believe Allison was telling the truth when she said she didn’t understand what happened that night until now.  And the fact that they all forgot that Vanya had powers at the age of four is also believable, since they were still very little back then.

What exactly did Reginald do to get Pogo to go along with everything he did.  It was clear from his facial expressions that he wasn’t happy with what he was doing to Vanya, but he still went along with it.  So what kind of psychological hold did Reginald have on him?

#umbrella acedmy #umbrella academy 1x08

[chiseler]

THE MYSTERY OF SUNN CLASSIC PICTURES

It was like the positive, life-affirming New Age mysticism of the hippies took a sudden turn for the dark and very strange. In the mid-Seventies, as the country was overwhelmed by a creeping atmosphere of impotent anger, paranoia and existential despair in response to Vietnam, Watergate, race riots, Kent State, the Tate-LaBianca murders, bomb-tossing student radicals, pollution, high-profile assassinations, the oil crisis and the emergence of disco, Americans sought solace in some form by plunging headlong into a collective national obsession with all things Mysterious and Unexplained. Suddenly Bigfoot was all the rage, as was The Loch Ness Monster, The Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, psychic phenomena, near-death experiences, apocalyptic Biblical prophecies, and ancient astronauts. People were desperate to hold onto something, anything, no matter how ridiculous and fanciful, as the whole world seemed to be crumbling and burning around them. If something pointed toward an unseen world, a world outside this stinking mess we were stuck with, or better still promised the complete obliteration of this stinking mess, then at least there was a glimmer of hope. Almost overnight, a cottage industry cropped up, flooding the market with cheap paperbacks, magazines, movies and TV shows—even comic books and board games—devoted to unexplained phenomena of all sorts. Personally I didn’t give a Toss about the state of the world, but I still subscribed to UFO Reporter magazine, had a shelf full of cheap paperbacks with titles like The Search for Bigfoot and From Outer Space, and never missed In Search Of…, the half-hour syndicated series narrated by Leonard Nimoy that  delved into one mystery or another every week. For god sakes, I even had the Bermuda Triangle board game.

But in what may have been the strangest phenomenon of all, far more bizarre than the legends surrounding Area 51 or the Philadelphia Experiment, in 1971 Schick teamed up with the Church of Latter Day Saints to launch a low-budget movie studio that aimed to become the epicenter of High Strangeness culture.

Yes, a razor blade company and the Mormons decided to make movies together. How could the results be anything but unfathomable?

(It’s worth noting before we get too far that in my research into the history of Sunn Classic Pictures, it became clear the indie studio, which still exists in some vague form today, seems to have gone to some great lengths to fog their early history, never once mentioning the Mormons, and in some cases denying there even was a Sunn Classic Pictures prior to 1980. With only a few  rare exceptions, the reasonably small Sunn Classic catalog, now owned by Paramount, never received any kind of home video release, which only adds to the mystery.)

As the official story goes, in 1971, the employees of Schick—a subsidiary if the pharmaceutical company Warner-Lambert—approached Rayland Jensen and asked him to launch a new movie studio. Appalled by all the filth and violence and sex and cursing that infested American movie screens, as well as the so-called “intellectuals” who thought these movies were “good,” they felt real Americans needed a family-friendly alternative. Those Schick employees concluded Jensen was just the man for the job, as a few years earlier he’d handled distribution for a nature picture released by the Utah-based American National Enterprises. The picture had done very well.

Okay, let me stop there. As I said, that’s the official story, as far as it goes and as little sense as it makes. The real story goes more like this.

In 1971, a renegade group of American National Enterprises employees, led by Jensen and inspired by that same disgust with what American movies had become, broke away to form a new production company to release family-friendly, G-rated pictures. Patrick Frawley, the ultraconservative, paranoid, anti-communist conspiracy theorist who also happen to run the Schick razor blade company invested a bundle in the new venture, ensuring he would have some say in the kinds of movies the new company would release.

With headquarters divided between Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah, the newly-christened Sunn Classic Pictures (aka Sunn international, aka Schick Sunn Classic Pictures) set out to Make family-friendly features and documentaries aimed at working class, conservative, God-fearing Americans who didn’t go out to movies very often, likely because of all the above-mentioned filth and sex and violence and cuss words. Moreover, they wanted to make certain these warm-hearted films turned a healthy profit. This involved two basic techniques.

The first was four-walling, a distribution method American National Enterprises helped pioneer. Instead of spending a fortune on all those prints necessary for a massive nationwide theatrical release, Sunn instead rented theaters serving the target demographic, inundated the market with ads and gimmicks, then screened their new film at the selected theater for no more than a week. After that extremely limited run, they packed up and moved the print to another theater far away. It was a tricky ploy. On the upside four-walling a picture allowed the production company to keep all the box office receipts without having to divide them among various middlemen.

If they knew the film was a stinker, it also allowed them to skip town before the bad reviews could do them any damage. On the downside, those limited runs also meant the picture would be there and gone before any positive word of mouth could work its magic. Sunn would try four-walling a new movie for a few months, and if it was making money, they might consider a nationwide release. If not, then they’d start trying to sell it to TV for syndication. It wasn’t a tack that worked all the time, but often enough to make it worthwhile, and it left them more of an escape route than a national release ever would.

So. “Family friendly.” Yes. If you want to make Disney-style pictures but don’t have Disney-style budgets to work with, animated features are out. So are live action films with any kind of special effects. Basically what you’re left with are nature films, right? No expensive sets, very few actors, and as a result very cheap to make. So Sunn began producing wilderness adventure stories.

In those very early days, you can definitely smell Patrick Frawley’s hand in the development process. Films like 1971’s Toklat, in which a man is forced to track down and kill a beloved pet bear after the bear kills a local rancher’s livestock, is a prime example. (As it happens, Toklat was the first Sunn picture I ever saw, Green Bay being a conservative working-class town, and so on Sunn’s demographic map. ) There was something decidedly Nietzschean about those earliest releases. Most of them featured lone individualusts with strong principles who flee the corruption of modern civilization to face the harsh realities of nature alone.

Now, think back and ask yourself honestly” what kid in his right mind has ever liked nature films, Nietzschean or otherwise? Maybe Mormon kids did, but certainly not normal kids. Nature movies are dull as dust, all those endless shots of trees and rivers and shit. Even if it’s supposed to be a true adventure story about some historical frontiersman, so what? Where are the explosions and car chases and monkeys doing funny things? You know who liked nature films? Grandparents! Grandparents loved them because they were wholesome and taught valuable lessons. They insisted on dragging their grandkids to them because they didn’t have to worry about being embarrassed or having to define certain words on the trip home.

The handful of films Sunn Classic released in their first three years—most all of them wilderness adventures about solitary manly sorts learning to dominate nature in one way or another—did okay. They didn’t lose money, but they also didn’t become runaway hits.

In 1974, even after several rewrites, no one at Sunn Classic Pictures had high hopes for the next film on the docket, something called The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. Sure, it was loosely based on an historical figure who again fled the corruption of the modern world to live in the wilderness, befriending a grizzly bear along the way. But the character was not some stalwart and steely-eyed Ubermensch—he was gentle and kind-hearted. What the hell were they going to do with that?

Enter Charles Sellier, and the second technique that would be central to Sunn Classic’s success. Sellier, today considered one of Sunn’s true founders together with Rayland Jensen, was a recently-converted Mormon in his thirties, as well as the author of the 1972 novel upon which Grizzly Adams was based. As Sunn’s new executive producer, he had a different—and eventually hugely influential—approach to marketing films.

Sellier set aside an estimated $85,000 for market research before a new film went into production. This involved targeting the desired demographic with door-to-door and telephone interviews asking housewives and construction workers what kind of movies they would like to see. This also involved screening early rushes from films currently in production for hand-picked test audiences in order to get their reactions and advice. This is, of course, standard operating procedure now, but it was radical back then, and something that mortified directors and screenwriters. In some cases Sellier even had members of the test audience wired to biometric scanners to measure their reactions to the scenes they were being shown, and use those reactions to have a script rewritten more to the test audience liking. If audience pulse rates went up whenever a certain character was on screen, well, they’d build up that role. If a certain animal warmed their hearts, well, maybe they’d make a whole movie about that particular animal.

Sellier’s method of crowd-sourced filmmaking was first tried on The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and sure enough, the film, starring former viker movie regular Dan Haggerty, became Sunn’s first bona fide international hit, bringing in over $20 million. The film was such a smash among grandparents it quickly spawned a Sunn-produced TV series, which was also a big hit among grandparents. To date, the Grizzly Adams franchise remains Sunn’s biggest cash cow.

But something else happened in 1974 that would help make that iconic Sunn Classic logo as familiar and comforting as the Toho, American International, Shaw Brothers and Troma logos. To some of us, anyway.

In 1968, Erich Von Daniken published Chariots of the Gods?, a book which argued, through some mighty suspect and loosely interpreted archaeological evidence, that aliens had visited Earth thousands of years ago, and among other things helped build the Egyptian and Mexican Pyramids, Stonehenge and the statues on Easter island. It was one of the first major hallmarks of the High Strangeness Culture to come.  Originally published in Germany, the book became an International sensation among those with a very high tolerance for pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and bullshit in general..

In 1970, German director Harald Reinl made a documentary based on von Daniken’s book, and it, too, became a big hit across Europe. As sillyassed as the whole thing was, I’d argue the film was even more effective than the book thanks to the visual presentation of all the supposed evidence.

Well, after seeing how much money Chariots of the Gods? Was pulling in overseas, and interested in such topics himself, American TV producer Alan Landsburg acquired the U.S. rights, re-edited the filmn, brought in Rod Serling to narrate, and broadcast it in 1973 as In Search of Ancient Astronauts. It would be the first of a trilogy of TV documentaries about ancient astronauts produced by Landsburg and narrated by Serling.

Noting the ratings that Landsburg doc brought in, as well as that European box office, Sunn obtained the US theatrical rights to In Search of Ancient Astronauts, changed the title back to Chariots of the Gods? And began four-walling it around the country in 1974. It didn’t matter that by that time countless articles and books had completely debunked all of von Daniken’s claims, nor that critics had savaged the film, in some cases even calling it racist for purporting indigenous people in Mexico, Africa an elsewhere could never have created these wonders by themselves. The picture made money. It may not have been Grizzly Adams money, but enough to leave Sellier and Jensen convinced they might be onto something with these documentaries about weird shit. Documentaries were even cheaper to make than nature films, and the demographic they were aiming at seemed eager to believe in monsters and aliens and conspiracies, so there you go. For the next five years, along with the wilderness adventures and wholesome TV adaptations of Huck Finn and Gulliver’s Travels,  Sunn gave the half-wits like me what we wanted.

In 1975, Sunn picked up the theatrical distrobution rights To The Outer Space Connection, the last of Landsburg’s ancient astronaut trilogy (as well as one of the last things Rod Serling worked on before he died). This final entry argued not only that aliens had visited earth thousands of years ago, but had planted humans here in the first place and had been guiding our evolution ever since. This wasn’t exactly a new idea, and could be traced back, so far as I’m aware, at least to Nigel Kneale’s 1958 BBC miniseries Quatermass and The Pit. But the film, directed by Fred Warshofsky, went several crazy steps beyond Kneale, claiming we know exactly where the aliens came from and why, that the Mayans were themselves aliens, and that these same aliens would return to Earth on Christmas Eve, 2011.

The TV documentaries made enough of a splash for Landsburg that he parlayed them into the above-mentioned weekly In Search Of… series, which began airing in 1977, right around the same time Grizzly Adams hit the airwaves.

Both Chariots of the Gods? And The Outer Space Connection helped cement the template that would define the rest of the Sunn-produced High Strangeness documentaries that would follow, making them so effective on the young, the susceptible, and the merely desperate. The real key, it seems, far beyomd the film’s actual content, was conscripting an authoritative host/narrator who can present the most insane pseudoscientific theories and shaky evidence with a straight face while repeatedly using terms like “indisputable,” “Proven beyond a doubt,” and “scientists agree.”: “It’s an incontrovertible fact these ancient carvings prove alien visitors walked on Earth over five hundred centuries ago.” It was the simplest of carnival sideshow techniques, but one that kept drawing suckers to the theaters.

The same year they released The Outer Space Connection, Sunn also released The Mysterious Monsters, which was less a documentary than a series of vignettes about Bigfoot, the Yeti, and The Loch Ness Monster. Director Robert Guenette had been making what you might call speculative Sunn-style documentaries long before Sunn even existed, so he was in familiar territory. In fact, The Mysterious Monsters includes scenes borrowed from Guenette’s 1974 TV movie, Monsters: Mysteries or Myths?, which coincidentally had been narrated by Rod Serling. The (mostly) new and expanded Sunn production was hosted by Peter Graves, who was as straight-faced as they come. In between shots of Graves and ten other men in cowboy hats wandering the forest on horseback looking for Bigfoot, we get eyewitness accounts from those who claim to have actually seen Bigfoot, Nessie, or the Yeti. Unlike most Bigfoot films of the era (and there were a bunch), The Mysterious Monsters infers a decided fearlessness and hostility on Bigfoot’s part, claiming he not only terrorized innocent victims, but wandered into the suburbs to terrorize them. The recreated Bigfoot encounters here are kind of fun, and in fact the film contains two solid scares, at least if you’re nine. Nessie and the Yeti get short shrift, and those scenes of Graves riding through the forest with that hopeless hunting party are interminable, but the picture was another big hit,arriving at precisely the right time given 1975 was a banner year for Bigfoot cinema. In the end, and where he got his information who the hell knows, Graves announces there is a community of some two hundred Bigfeet living in Northern California, though Graves and the hunting party find none of them.

Another hallmark of Sunn’s documentaries was that most inevitably ended with an outlandish, shocking, unexpected, and wholly unsubstantiated claim. The influence of mondo films—Mondo Cane, Africa ama and the like—on Sunn’s documentaries is undeniable. But while mondo films aimed to shock grindhouse audiences with footage (whether real or created) of bizarre and extreme human behavior, Sunn aimed to leave family audiences womderstruck at the possibilities of a mysterious world of magic and monsters just beyond our perceptions.

In 1976, Sunn followed up The Mysterious Monsters with The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena, also directed by Guenette, this time narrated by Raymond Burr. The film is less a cohesive documentary than another shaggy dog series of vignettes exploring extrasensory perception, astral projection, and telekinesis as well as ghosts and spiritualism, featuring an all-star cast of celebrity psychics including Jeanne Dixon and Uri Geller. Not surprisingly, Burr, who doesn’t seem terribly convinced himself, informs us that there is irrefutable scientific evidence that all these powers are absolutely real and for true.

That same year also saw the release of one of Sunn’s more patently ridiculous outings, In Search of Noah’s ARk, a film which, in many ways, proved a turning point. The film was the first to be hosted/narrated by character actor Brad Crandall, who would go on to narrate most of the remaining Sunn Classic documentaries, as well as appearing in a few of their TV shows. It was directed by James L. Conway, who quickly established himself as Sunn’s go-to in-house director, churning out five or six features and TV movies a year.

Apart from turning to mostly in-house staffers to make their films instead of bringing in outside directors and celebrity hosts, In Search of Noah’s ARk also marked the point at which Sunn further fed their demographic by adding a decidedly fundamentalist Christian focus to many of their films, from Noah’s Ark to their TV series Greatest Heroes of the Bible to two documentaries about near-death experiences to 1979’s (and grammar be damned) In search of Historic Jesus.

In business terms it was a savvy move. To this day, films aimed at a fundamentalist audience, especially if they support a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, can bring in more money than most Hollywood films. They certainly bring in more than most Mormon themed films, and apparently the more patently ridiculous the involved claims, the better.

The supposed “scientists” who lay out the evidence that the remains of Noah’s honest-to-God ark are still sitting up there on top of Mt. Ararat (should anyone care to take a look) aren’t, um, scientists at all. One, a supposed physics professor, argues there’s a mountain of geological evidence proving the world was deluged by an all-consuming flood, um, five thousand years ago. Another claims the ark was first discovered by a Russian expedition sent by Tsar Nicholas II in 1916, but all the reports and evidence were destroyed by dirty communist revolutionaries, um, two days after the expedition returned. It all goes downhill from there, and you have to feel some pity for the poor gullible fools who believed all this nonsense.

I saw nearly all of Sunn’s documentaries in the theater when I was a kid, and now feel sorry for my mom, dad, and older sister, who I suspect drew straws to see who had to take me whenever a new Sunn picture hit town. When I was ten I bought every last nutty claim. Going back and watching them again four decades later, I find myself blurting, “Wait, what?” Aloud after nearly every scene. They do, however, remain fascinating artifacts and a mirror of a certain psychological makeup. They’re also still fun as hell for all their crazy dumbness, if you keep your critical thinking skills at the ready.

Sunn found themselves in the middle of a shitstorm in 1977 with the release of The Lincoln Conspiracy, also directed by Conway. Historians, critics and the media at large attacked the film for presenting as fact a convoluted conspiracy claiming the assassination of President Lincoln was an inside job, closing, as Oliver Stone’s JFK would years later, with a demand the investigation be reopened. Conway would later claim the film was just a silly speculative docudrama based on a couple recent books, but even the authors of the books denounced the film. Still, a little controversy has never been known to hurt the box office.

Over the next few years Sunn continued to release two or three pseudoscientific documentaries  a year, including Beyond and Back, Beyond Death’s Door, and The Bermuda Triangle, the latter of which claimed all those ships and planes vanished after being zapped by a malfunctioning Atlantean particle bean that was lost somewhere on the ocean floor near Bimini. Bimini? Well, I gotta say, as explanations go, it makes about as much sense as any other.

A personal favorite from the late Sunn era for its sheer nihilistic simplicity was 1979’s Encounter With Disaster, this time directed by Charles Sellier himself. Using his patented market research techniques, he brought a test audience into a theater and showed them dozens of newsreel clips of fires, earthquakes, The Hindenberg, race car crashes and the like, measuring responses to see which were considered the most exciting. He then strung all the most popular disaster footage together and released it as a feature.

Encounter With Disaster was perhaps the one true mondo film Sunn released during their brief heyday, and a definite anomaly. Toward the end, instead of documentary footage, talking heads and manipulative narration, films like The Bermuda Triangle, Beyond Death’s Door and In Search of Historic Jesus cane to rely more on speculative recreations with actors, sets and scripted dialogue. Although a narrator does pop up occasionally to say, in essence, “Yup, this really, really happened!,” the films come off more like splintered docudramas than documentaries, which somehow makes their assorted theses seem even less plausible.

It’s worth pointing out here that In Search of Historic Jesus, as delightfully awful as it is, does, without saying as much, offer a clear case study of the effect Sellier’s marketing machinations could have on a film.

Directed by Sunn’s in-house cinematographer Henning Schellerup (who prior to Sunn had worked on everything from softcore porn to Corman productions) and again narrated by Brad Crandall, Historic Jesus clearly began life as a documentary aiming to present all the independent historical evidence proving the Biblical account of Jesus’ life was accurate. Given there was precious little of that to be found, it became a documentary about the Shroud of Turin. Given there wasn’t really ninety minutes worth of material about the Shroud of Turin, they shot an interview with a fake scientist offering some, um, plausible scientific explanations for the Star of Bethlehem, then plundered some footage from the Noah’s Ark movie (though oddly the data offered in the latter somehow changed between 1976 and 1979). All this left them with a film that was about twenty minutes long.

The film was saved when Sellier gathered a test audience of fundamentalist Christians. After showing them a few scenes, he quickly learned they didn’t need any scientific or historical proof that Jesus really existed. They just wanted to hear more Jesus stories.

Taking their advice, the bulk of the film became a  string of recreations of Jesus’ Greatest Hits acted out by amateur actors playing Jesus, Mary, Herid, Pontius Pilate and assorted disciples. No effort whatsoever is made to prove these recreated scenes actually happened. So instead of a pseudoscientific, pseudohistorical account of the, um, historical figure known as Jesus of Nazareth, it became another Sunday School-ready Jesus movie, all primed and ready to be rented to church groups across the country. In short, then, calling the film In Search of Historic Jesus actually makes sense.

By 1979, Sunn’s documentaries seemed to be running out of gas. They were still turning a profit (especially that Historic Jesus thing), but the profits weren’t what they once were, and the films were costing more to make. Also, other production houses had picked up on the Sunn Classic formula and began releasing High Strangeness docs of their own. In 1978, for instance, Amran Films and RCR released The Late Great Planet Earth, based on “Biblical scholar” Hal Lindsey’s massive bestseller which claimed all the prophecies in the Book of Revelation were coming true, and the long-promised Apocalypse would arrive any day now. If I remember correctly, the world was supposed to end in 1986. The film was hosted and narrated by Orson Wells, who had once been asked to narrate a Sunn film, but was so horrified by their marketing practices he turned down the job.

(A few years later in 1981, Welles would also narrate a documentary about Nostradamus’ prophecies, which was directed, coincidentally enough, by Sunn Classic alumnus Robert Guenette. Just to illustrate how influential Sunn’s experiment had been, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow was distributed by goddamn WARNER BROTHERS, of all places.)

What struck the real death knell to Sunn’s hugely successful string of pseudoscientific and pseudo historical extravaganzas was a changing culture. We were own the brink of Morning in America and the Reagan Era. Interest in silly monsters and psychic phenomena was waning as everyone put the ’70s behind them, focusing instead on the stock market, the threat of nuclear war, cocaine, designer clothes and other tangible real world issues.

Charles Sellier

In 1980 Sunn Classic Pictures was bought out by Taft Enterprises, a Cincinnatti-based conglomerate.  The suits in Taft’s entertainment division had a few ideas of their own about what American moviegoers wanted. When they correctly saw that the days of four-walling were about over as the business ties between the major studios and national theater Chains grew stronger, Charles Sellier walked away to continue writing, producing, directing and marketing films on his own terms. In 1984 he directed the notorious holiday slasher film, Silent Night, Deadly Night, a picture remembered more for its ad campaign than anything in the picture itself. Sellier also later converted from Mormonism to evangelical Christianity.

When Taft likewise decided family friendly entertainment was a dead end, that the market for G-rated wilderness adventures simply wasn’t there anymore, that a film had to be rated PG or R if it hoped to make any money, Jensen and a few other original American National Enterprises refugees quit in disgust, and once again formed their own production company to offer honest American families wholesome entertainment options. Their first film was 1981’s Private Lessons, a teen sex comedy starring Sylvia Kristel. It made a lot of money.

Director James Conway stayed with Taft for awhile, helming several pictures, including the monster movie The Boogens . Interestingly, the very first Taft/Sunn release, perhaps formulated to attract Sunn’s core audience, was the Conway-directed Hangar 18, starring Darren McGavin, Robert Vaughn and Gary Collins. It was the perfect transitional picture, a sci-fi conspiracy thriller loosely based on what might well have been the subject of the next Sunn Classic documentary: Roswell and Area 51. Conway later went on to become an executive at Spelling Entertainment, overseeing a mountain of wildly successful crap.

Over the subsequent decades there were more sales and acquisitions, with the various companies overseeing the Sunn Classic brand themselves being gobbled up by even larger faceless corporate entities. Sunn vanished, then reappeared, then vanished again. Today there are vague, mysterious hints that Sunn Classics Pictures has been re-launched after Rayland Jensen teamed up with Lang Elliott, original founder of Tri-Star Pictures. But if Sunn really has risen from the grave, would it matter?

For good or ill, over the course of that five-year stretch between 1974 and 1979, Sunn Classic Pictures illuminated one strange facet of a very strange era, warped millions of impressionable minds (like mine), fully capitalized on a nation’s despair and collective neuroses, and left an indelible mark on the culture. Take even a cursory glance at what’s airing on the History and Discovery Channels, or at how the marketing departments of any movie studio large or small operates today. They simply wouldn’t be what they are In the second decade of the twenty-first century had it not been for Sunn Classic Pictures., and fore that we can thank the Mormons, a right-wing kook, and Bigfoot.

by Jim Knipfel

[timeclonemike]

The War of the Words, Part 4: Mind Games

In the book Anatomy of a Spy by Stephen Parrish, Mr. Parrish documents and analyzes his experience in the US Army serving under Clyde Lee Conrad, an officer convicted of espionage during the Cold War era. Mr. Parrish spends some time discussing the motivation for various agents and actors to be “turned” by enemy intelligence and spy rings, and what they all had in common. Some were only turned after being coerced, threatened, or blackmailed in some way - an affair, evidence of homosexual activity, or simple monetary or gambling debts could all be used as leverage - but Parrish was specifically talking about those who decided, on their own volition, to betray their cause or country without being prompted.

His key insight was that they all had decided that their cause or country had betrayed them first.

This has specific bearing on both the white nationalist “Secret Agent Strategy” and the social isolation aspects of recruitment and radicalization. The spies that Mr. Parrish discussed all disagreed to some extent with the decisions of the people above them in the chain of command. They no longer felt that the risks they were expected to take on behalf of the organization were being appreciated or respected, and what sacrifices they were being asked to make on behalf of that organization would be for nothing.

The social isolation aspect refers to the recruitment strategy mentioned previously in this essay where bigoted ideals are partially camouflaged by dog whistles and the justification of “edgy” humor; those who end up repeating the dog whistles or jokes have a serious risk of being confronted by those who can see past the camouflage, and catching a large amount of social flack for violating a taboo that they did not know existed, including from people who were once friends or family. The resulting sense of isolation, paranoia, anxiety, and shame can feed a sense of persecution that is the perfect fuel for this kind of radicalization; from the perspective of the person caught repeating the dog whistles and jokes, everyone else turned on them.

This sense of persecution or betrayal is a common thread for most Us Versus Thems, the idea that They struck the first blow and any reprisals are an act of justice. Not everyone who promotes this type of mentality truly believes it, though; some are opportunists seeking to gather people to their banner, whatever that banner may be. Even for those who do believe it, heart and soul, it’s basically a symptom of the same underlying psychological condition: Fear and anxiety, mixed with internalized shame at being afraid that causes them to lash out. Ironically, this was portrayed almost like a textbook diagnosis in an MS Paint rage comic posted on the infamous 4chan image board over a decade ago; the comic itself portrays a white man and black man casually meeting in the street or other public place, having a short but reasonably friendly interaction, and going their separate ways... after which, the socially anxious and awkward white man character goes home and begins typing up a storm of epithets and slurs on his computer.

Having said all that, it’s important to know that this mentality alone is not enough to produce a racist, a nazi, or a terf; there has to be another, “co-morbid” factor at work that causes somebody to draw a line down the world to divide it into Us and Them. In the previously discussed “recruitment trap” those who have already bought into the dogma provide the only sense of community that the recruit has after being socially isolated, but that doesn’t always work. As a rule of thumb, people seek out fellow members of a community because humans are social animals and a community equals safety, but if the recruit hasn’t been completely isolated - or the new community cannot fulfill their social needs - then the group can’t close the deal. Likewise, people also seek out a community to validate their feelings, especially when it comes to traumatic experiences, but not everyone responds to trauma in the same way. If those feelings don’t match up, then the recruitment process fails again.

It is also worth pointing out that simple exposure to racist propaganda and stereotypes is not enough on its own. That there are hidden and not so hidden biases in the social order and judicial system and economy, no learned person would try to dispute, just as they wouldn’t try to dispute that water is wet, but that’s not what this refers to. Rather, it refers to the idea that the human mind is basically a computer that runs whatever program is fed into it through sense data; this is where the “you are not immune to propaganda” meme comes from. This premise falls apart by the fact that you can’t just debate the racism out of a racist, because logic is not the foundation of their worldview: Emotion is. (That door swings both ways; Nazis can’t make more Nazis just by quoting Adolf Hitler like some sort of spell in Dungeons and Dragons.) Stereotypes and slogans and epithets are not the cause, merely an effect.

Returning again to the subject of community, at least one reporter found his way into a modern day Nazi meeting, which was apparently quite difficult to find a venue for because so few people wanted to be associated with them in an official or financial sense. That’s good news by itself, but more importantly was the insight it provided into the psychology of the people attending it; they were constantly undermining each other based on all-too-human, all-too-ordinary flaws that anyone can have. The group itself, despite its rhetoric and claimed common goals, has no real uniting principle; they just attack each other less than they attack people outside the group. This definitely correlates with the firsthand accounts of ex-fascists and ex-cryptofascists who leave the organization; being angry all the time takes a lot out of you, and sooner or later you run out of steam.

It might be worth exploring the link between racism, bigotry, and egocentrism in more detail, but that subject is so complex it arguably requires its own essay. As it stands, it looks like all of the dog whistles and coded messages and stolen symbols in the world can’t halt the decline of this kind of mentality, only slow it down. The world is too interconnected for somebody’s personal biases to escape notice.

#the war of the worlds #on the shoulders of windmills