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the-far-bright-center · 6 years

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eventually, even stars burn out

“Sometimes there are things no one can fix.”

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve become increasingly concerned that my days in the SW fandom (or at least, the tumblr side of it) may be numbered.

I very much hope I’m wrong about this. So, on the slight chance that it might help somehow, I’ll try to explain why I feel this way right now.

As most of you know, I have an extremely fraught and complicated relationship with Disney’s so-called ‘new canon’ material, which all began when TFA left me so heartbroken that I’ve been unable to trust anyone at all with Star Wars ever since. I struggle to believe that the Skywalker saga will ever be treated with the adequate respect and care that it requires, and I fear that new material will only attempt to further erode its original mythic meaning....just so the ‘story’ can be continued on indefinitely. It is therefore difficult if not impossible for me to be excited about ‘new canon’ content, because ever since TFA I view every single piece of SW media released by Disney with (imo warranted) mistrust and skepticism.

After a certain SW animated series ended earlier this year, I had thought I would finally be free from the strain of constantly worrying about ‘new’ content. My blacklists covered most of the major things I didn’t want to see, and tumblr’s filter feature seemed to take care of the rest. It still took some careful navigating not to run into sequels-related crap and other random shit, but it was not impossible. I’d breathed a sigh of relief, and carried on minding my own business, living in my SW happy place where the things that distressed me didn’t exist.

But then some news broke, and suddenly, my hard-won calm was shattered. It felt like someone had kicked the heart right out of me. My carefully constructed safe space felt safe no longer. I’d thought the PT and TCW era would be safe from Disney, at least for a while. But I was wrong. It was like all the faint hope I had left for my ability to withstand the current Disney!SW onslaught fled from me in a single instant, and have been in a state of anxiety, depression, and despair ever since.

I’ve been so scared, because the last time I felt this despondent was after TFA, when I honestly thought I would never feel anything warm and light and beautiful about Star Wars ever again. And it ended up taking me YEARS to move beyond that, and to reclaim my feels and to get into the headspace I needed to be in to truly enjoy it again.

And I just... don’t know if I have that kind of energy anymore. The last three years have taken a huge toll (in RL I mean, not just in fandom). On top of my seemingly never-ending mental health struggles, I’ve had some physical ailments that went un-diagnosed for a long time and for which I’m only just starting to receive treatment. I’m always tired, mentally, physically, and emotionally. All of this makes the prospect of going through that same process all over again seem daunting, if not completely impossible.

Because back then, after TFA, when I felt that I’d ‘lost’ the Original Trilogy, I still had other places to turn. I was able to go back in time, and re-ignite my passion for SW again by re-watching the PT and TCW. But now? will those be taken from me too? have they already? is too late ?

(Have I just been delaying the inevitable, all this time?)

Horrible thoughts like this keep coming into my mind. Despite this, I haven’t given up totally...not yet. I’m still hanging on, or at least ...trying to. But in the midst of all this, I’ve been attempting to figure out what exactly is going on here. Why do these things upset me so badly that it causes me such intense emotional reactions? To the point that I can hardly converse with friends online anymore, without fear what they will say? To the point that I can’t even talk to my (very supportive) husband about Star Wars anymore without freaking out about spoilers?? To the point that I even end up feeling suicidal at times? Why does it feel like my whole world is collapsing?

Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that, when I was growing up, ‘Star Wars’ was always, from as long as I can remember, something that was ‘finished’. Complete. It was over. And its completeness was a source of comfort to me from the start. Here was a story that contained darkness and struggle, but which had an ending. And an uplifting, mythic, and spiritual one, at that. And even later, when I was a teen and in my early 20s during the release of the Prequels, it was still something that had an end in sight. From the beginning of the PT, we knew that once those three episodes were over, the saga would be complete.

And that’s just the thing. With Disney’s Star Wars, there is no end in sight. It is something that, for all intents and purposes, could be dragged on indefinitely. And that thought is terrifying enough to make me start feeling panicky all over again. Years and years of feeling like this, all the time?? Dear Force, make it stop. D:

It’s becoming clear to me that it’s not just about one particular piece of media that I want to avoid. It’s not just the fact that something so close to my heart has at times been treated disrespectfully or even threatened with annihilation, and that I’ve felt helpless to prevent it. It’s not about my various and sundry issues with Disney’s version of SW. It’s not even that I believe that all of Disney’s SW output is inherently ‘bad’ or bound to be terrible just because it’s under the brand of Disney. I mean, I’ve been willing and able to ignore the aspects of ‘new canon’ that I loathe, and pick and choose from the bits that I do enjoy (which are few and far between, but do, occasionally, still exist). And law of averages would suggest there would have to be some decent or even, gasp, quality content at times (see: Rogue One, for instance).

So what, then, is *really* causing me so much pain and anguish on an almost daily basis? What is making my continued attempts to be part of the ‘fandom’ feel so incredibly futile?? It’s not the additions to canon themselves, but rather the frequency and sheer number of them, along with the fandom reception of these potentially infinite ‘additions’ that are causing me so much turmoil.

In the years since TFA, I’ve attempted to deal with this by viewing Disney’s ‘new canon’ as just another version of an Expanded Universe—in other words, as something optional that is not required in order to understand and appreciate the original, and that only needs to ‘exist’ in my mind and as a part of my headcanon if I wish it to. So, despite how much some of this material hurts me on a personal level, and despite the fact that the sheer amount of it makes it difficult to navigate around, up til now I’ve been able to continue as at least a semi-functional SW fan in its wake.

But lately, I’m beginning to be concerned that this method is not an adequate way of dealing with this. Because, even though *I’m* perfectly capable of ignoring the ‘new canon’ material that I don’t want to see, my need to ignore it makes it almost impossible for me to interact with 99% of the rest of the fandom.

And without interaction, a major component of fandom itself is missing. And it’s that sense of isolation and alienation that is killing me.

While tumblr as a platform has changed the face of online fandom for many (and made it unrecognizable to me in so many ways), I am still very old school in that I believe that the main purpose of fandom is to a) enjoy what we love to the nth degree, b) share what we love with each other, and c) through discussion about our shared fictional passions, create transformative fanworks, such as fanfiction, fan art, edits, fan vids, metas, etc.

This may seem like I’m stating the obvious, but unfortunately for a vast majority on tumblr, “fandom” has become less about the above, and far moreso about keeping up with actors’ and creators’ social media accounts, using fiction as a platform for ‘performative’ social justice in which people show off how ‘woke’ they are, and, worst of all (for me), constantly fixating on announcements, trailers, and news about ‘the next big thing’. It seems like, for many fans, speculation about upcoming releases is more important than enjoying the content that already exists. It’s what they LIVE for. And the minute those new pieces of media appear, everything else that came before is just... forgotten, or cast aside, in favour of it. This leaves me feeling like I’ve been left in the dust. Because, for me, the mere idea of ‘the next big thing’ fills me with nothing but extreme anxiety, depression, panic, as though I have a giant black hole in the pit of of my stomach. I live in utter DREAD of SW news. So my ability to relate to other fans and to interact with them on any meaningful level has greatly diminished due to this factor alone.

In a smaller fandom, where announcements maybe happen once or twice a year at most, I can often weather it. For example, several years ago, I left a fandom for a certain popular tv series, but remained semi-active just for the sake of one particular ship from it that I still loved. I was able to avoid most news and spoilers because it was just one show with one season per year, and that was it. But with SW in its current form, with Disney’s need to pump out new content on what seems like an almost weekly or even daily basis, it’s becoming too much for me to bear.

As I said in a previous post,

“.....one of my many problems with Disney’s current treatment of Star Wars is that there is such a thing as ‘too much canon’. In the days of the EU, it didn’t matter how much of that was released, because any and all of it could be dismissed at a given time, because it was never official canon. But nowadays, EVERY DAMN THING has a film, book, show, comic series, animated short, video game, etc. about it. And this actually angers and distresses me, because it begins to leave less and less room for headcanons and for fans’ imaginations to run free. When there is SO much ‘official’ canon that it covers all the backstories and little ‘in between moments’, where is the freedom for writing fic and just…imagining things? Star Wars is not Marvel-verse, and should not be treated as such. Not all canon is (or even SHOULD BE) considered ‘equal’, and this is something that, in pre-Disney times, was understood and respected. The main saga films were canon. That was it. The rest of it fell into various gradations of ‘sub’-canon. And imo, that is how it should, ideally, still be.”

To have constant ‘additions’ to a canon that is as long-established as Star Wars feels completely disingenuous to me. So each time something new is announced, it feels like a breaking of the fourth wall. A chipping away at my ability to continue *believing* in Star Wars. It feels like someone keeps bursting into a completed story to try to mansplain it to me, saying, ‘ha, just kidding!! it’s been 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, 5 years (etc) that you’ve loved this and believed in this, but ACTUALLY the story is not REALLY over! look over here, we want to make money off you so we’re pretending the story is continuing even though it’s fake and forced!! haha!!!’

Most of my Star Wars ‘feels’ are predicated upon a very simple premise, and that is the fact that the Skywalker saga (aka the PT and OT), AS IT EXISTS IN ITS ORIGINAL STATE, is the story of Anakin Skywalker, and that it is a complete and coherent myth, and an ultimately uplifting and redemptive tale. Everything I love about Star Wars comes back to Anakin Skywalker, his cosmic role as the Chosen One, and his eventual redemption. The fact that he, through the power of his son’s unconditional love, returns to his True Self, breaks free of his chains and sacrifices himself for his loved one, setting himself and the galaxy free. Everything depends on it, and revolves around it. My love of Anakin and Padme, my love of Obi-Wan and Anakin. My love of Snips and Skyguy, my love of Luke and Vader. My love of the Skywalker family, and their entire PT and OT storyline. And of course, my love of Anakin himself.

And what is more, all of the above is likewise dependent on the fact that the OT generations’ tale is an unequivocally heroic one, and that its heroism is complete and lasting, on both familial and galactic scale. It is not something left unfinished for the subsequent generation(s) to ‘complete’. The original saga as *I* know it does not require the ‘next generation’ in order to make it truly heroic. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the tragedy of the Prequels is completely redeemed by the end of Return of the Jedi. It is NOT carried forward as some kind of ‘curse’ onto the next generation. The Skywalkers are representative of the state of the galaxy, and, through Anakin and Luke’s story in the OT, both they and the galaxy itself are reconciled and made whole again once and for all. That is the entire point of the Chosen One prophecy, and of the metaphysical, galaxy-freeing role that redemptive love plays in the (original) Skywalker saga. If that seems ‘unrealistic’ to contemporary audiences, well, you know what?? Too freaking bad!! Star Wars is not supposed to be ‘realistic’, it’s supposed to be a MYTH.

Take that away, and there IS no Star Wars for me.

And yet, that is exactly what TFA attempted to do. It attempted destroy this basic long-held truth, and with it my ability to love and feel even anything remotely positive about Star Wars, its story, and its characters. And so it is understandable, I would hope, that ever since then I would greet new ‘additions’ to the original canon with extreme mistrust, skepticism, and even outright despair.

But despite my (imo) perfectly legitimate and justifiable reasons for feeling this way, I still realize that having such, erm, extreme reactions to even the mere prospect of new or additional content is not ‘normal’. ‘Normal’ fans are happy when they get new ‘canonical’ content right?? Unfortunately, I am not and will likely never be able to be a ‘normal’ fan in this way. When it comes to Star Wars, I will never be able to feel even the remotest bit of excitement for any such new canon content. (Which, in this case, more often than not simply means ‘officially sanctioned by a giant corporation, created under a set of confusing, disjointed, and entirely arbitrary standards, and deemed permissible for you to consume and ‘believe in’ as a real version of characters and events’, but I digress...).

Everything I love and understand about Star Wars existed before Disney ‘did’ anything to it, and everything that I still value about Star Wars to this day is likewise not dependent on whatever Disney might try do to it in the present or future. But even though I know this on an intellectual level, whenever there is new content coming out, it nonetheless still feels like a mortal threat, looming on the horizon. It feels like it’s going to try to take away everything I love all over again. And I fall into despair because I honestly lack the strength to fight it.

(Or at least, I lack the strength to fight it alone.)

And so unfortunately, from my perspective (even though I know that of course people don’t intend it to come across this way), when other fans get so excited about the new stuff, and when it seems like they so readily just accept it without question, it ends up leaving me feeling as though I’ve been left behind. As though what *I* love is, in their eyes, not enough. That somehow, the original Skywalker saga is not enough. That loving Lucas-era canon, but not Disney’s, is just me limiting myself or ‘missing out’ somehow. Whereas, from my perspective, the original material IS ‘enough’. It feels complete. It IS complete. Believing it’s not complete seems to me to be exactly what Disney wants people to think, so they can justify all of their never-ending additions, re-writes, retcons, and continuations.

And thus every time Disney churns out more content, and I see people around me acting like this content is not just a fun (and entirely optional) addition, but is rather something essential that all fans ‘deserve’ and need (despite having been perfectly fine without it for years, if not decades), just makes me feel even more alienated than I already do. Again, it’s not merely the existence of the constant stream of ‘new’ content that is killing me, but rather the fact that this content is greeted with elation by what seems to be the majority of fans these days. Yeah I know this makes me sound like I’m just resentful and bitter that other people are happy. Please know I don’t begrudge others’ happiness. Rather, I’m just struggling with the fact that while others are excited, I cannot be, thus leading me to feel isolated and left out.

But since the last thing I want is to rain on anyone’s parade, I try to be sensitive to this. Other than my various early anti-TFA rants (which I got out of my system years ago), for the most part (with the occasional exception), I’ve been keeping mum on these matters. But more often than not, in order not to be a source of negativity to others, I just end up hiding away, not talking to anyone, retreating further and further within myself to the point that I wonder what I’m even doing here anymore.

The level of pain and anxiety and stress that all of this—from the constant stream of new content, to fans’ reception of it, to my own desperate attempts to avoid and ignore it—causes me cannot be adequately summed up in just a few words. I struggle to convey how I feel to most people because I honestly don’t know how to explain it. I feel ridiculous for even writing it down. It sounds so silly when I type it out, even though in my heart and mind, this is a very real and debilitating issue. Every time something new is announced, I become sick to my stomach, I can’t eat or sleep, I have intrusive, racing thoughts, and I feel that I have to hide out for days, weeks, or even months. I have to limit who I can talk to, and WHAT subjects I can talk to them about. And each time, it begins to feel more and more futile to even bother trying to avoid everything. Like trying to swim upstream, or to remain upright in a tidal wave. It is a constant onslaught, and I’m not sure how much longer I can weather it.

(Yes, there are some underlying mental health issues going on here that no doubt contribute to things on some level. However, it’s a complicated situation, because for many years I have been turning to fandom as a sort of therapy for myself. My most beloved fictional universes, characters, relationships, and stories are a safe-space for me, a refuge I can retreat into when my existence becomes unbearable. A coping mechanism. I don’t use that term lightly either... some days, it literally keeps me alive. And so when that coping mechanism feels like it’s being ripped away, my downward spiral into the abyss is terrifyingly swift indeed. But this is an extremely personal matter, which I won’t go into any further here, because I don’t want to diminish the topic at hand, which is a legitimate and very real struggle of mine, and is something that affects me regardless of the state of my mental health at a given time.)

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to worry anyone. I’m not planning on going anywhere just yet, and hopefully not for a while. This blog is too important to me. The people I’ve met here are too important to me. Star Wars, such as it exists in my heart, is too important to me. Despite the fact that I’m struggling emotionally, and despite the fact that it’s increasingly difficult for me to find content for this blog, I have been determined not to abandon it, and have made sure that I have a queue ready for the days when I don’t feel up to posting.

That being said, I do feel the need to be honest here about just how much of a struggle it has been to hold on, and just how alienated I have felt from so much of what is considered the normal fandom experience. And to express my anguish and despair over the fact that I can never, ever be innocently excited about new content being released in this Disney era. Doesn’t matter what it is, or who makes it. Ever since TFA, I am simply unable to ever feel happy that it even exists in same world that I inhabit. And this makes me fear for my longevity in a fandom that seems to thrive on the very thing that I abhor most and that fills me with constant dread.

While I’m uncertain these days as to whether ‘happiness’ is even possible for me in this physical existence, I do feel that my fandom experience ought to be, at the very least, a source of comfort. But as more and more of my SW safe-spaces are eroded, as more and more words must be blacklisted, as more and more tags become ‘off limits’ to me, I have fewer and fewer corners of this fandom to which I can turn.

I wish things were not like this. I wish *I* were not like this. It would be so much easier if I could just be happy like everyone else. But sadly, it seems that when it comes to being able to participate in and enjoy SW fandom in its current form, something in me is fundamentally, irreparably, broken.

What I hope to accomplish by writing and posting this, I’m not entirely sure. Obviously, I am not trying to make anyone feel bad for enjoying what they enjoy. Nor am I even seeking ‘validation’ on this matter. Because, while there are no doubt others out there who feel similarly (and *big hugs* to them if they do), I am not actually looking for commiseration or to ‘wallow’ in misery at this time. For some reason that just makes things a hundred times worse. Because...I’m still trying to hold out hope that even someone as damaged as myself can nonetheless continue to love Star Wars and even be part of an active online community.

So for now, I just needed to get this off my chest in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, by doing so, I can find a way back from this.

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hopeymchope · 6 years

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The Levels and Types of Internet “Shipper” Content

In this, the year of our lord 2018, this is how ships and shippers break down. No, it wasn’t always like this in the past, and it may not always be like this in the future... but this is what I see right now.

Level 1: The ship is irrefutably canon and has a happy ending.

A wasteland. Some art, sure, but not a lot. Little to no fanfic. If the couple went so far as to have sex in canon? Oh god, you’ll never find much existence after that happens - the shipper community withers instantly. And you can especially not find any dirty stuff about them if they’ve already gotten down in the canon. Not gonna happen.

Level 2: The ship is heavily supported by the canon but never 100% confirmed or denied.

Loads of art everywhere. A decent amount of fanfic, but not a metric ton or anything. A strong contingent of angry haters who latch onto the semi-plausible deniability left to them. Passion remains high among the dedicated fans, too.

Level 3: Regardless of whether this ship was ever verified for any period or just left in the realm of a crush for one/both, the ship was ultimately sunk by other parties/inaction/character death.

OMG TEH AAAAANGST. So much fanfic, much of it going on for TONS OF chapters written across YEARS of dedication. Sites and blogs and discord servers will be dedicated to their love. Art is all over the place on every possible site.

Level 4: These two characters had a couple of flirty/cute scenes but really didn’t spend enough time with each other to be a central ship. Whether they were alive, dead, or with other S.O.s at the end of the story is irrelevant at this level.

A small but passionate community occasionally produces content for this and/or cries out for more. Any post about the best ships for this fandom is invaded by these intense fans demanding more respect for their ship. They are small but mighty; few, but they make their presence known. Welcome to Rarepair Hell. This is the shipper “donut hole” where suddenly, content dips even as our level goes deeper.

Level 5: These characters don’t really have much going on between them... but they DID appear together in a piece of promo art that had the two of them standing together or maybe even as the only people on it, for some reason.

This ship will enjoy the exact same level of success as Level 2. See, Internet fandoms treat “we were on some promo art together this one time before the story ever released” and “we held hands, spoke of each other adoringly, gazed at each other lovingly for a long time, but somehow never kissed on-screen” as PRECISELY EQUAL levels of shipping merit.

Level 6: These characters either hate either other for the duration of the story or are in an overtly antagonistic relationship for the majority, even if there are occasional moments of uneasy respite. At its peak, this is a hero/villain ship; at the very least, it’s a protagonist/antagonist ship.

This is the maximum level of ship. No one is more intense. Fanfic and art are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Sometimes it seems like no other ship is getting any new content for days, but these shippers will pump out multiple pieces every goddamn day. Look at AO3. Look at FF.net. If you ship one of these couples? Expect new content TODAY, RIGHT NOW. Including holidays. Fics are in the thousands. Art is impossible to wade through, because the Earth is flooded with it. Porn? You’re soaking in it - in fact, the real problem is finding the SOFT stuff amidst all the dirty. NSFW art and hardcore erotic fic rule the majority of the content. Hatefucking is everywhere.

And finally:

THE GREAT MULTIPLIER: If your ship is gay (a.k.a. “slash”), your level of content automatically multiplies! Expect double the content for any femslash pair and triple the content for m/m slash ships.

#shipping #fandom #fan art #fanfic

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ballastmcgee · 7 years

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The Party's First Member

The instructor looked at the overfilled room. For how little it had been advertised he was pleasantly surprised to have such a great turnout. The problem lie in that his planned icebreaker wouldn't mesh with such a large group.

"Alright, everyone think of a number 1 to 5. When I call your number of choice come up. Find someone in the group with you and start a scene. Remember 'Yes, and' to whatever occurs."

Continuing his instructions he said, "Once you feel like you've done something good your team of two is allowed to go. This way you can get a feel for the person you'll be working with at these meetings."

In patches the large mass became five smaller sections, which then shrunk into duos.

A handsome blonde young man was approached by multiple people hoping to get to know him a bit...better, all to be turned down. He saw no spark in them.

Markus kept going through the rest of the fours looking for anyone with a decent creative capacity.

No, nope, close but not relaxed enough. Everyone he inspected didn't matching his standards. Either they slouched a bit, dressed too well, or were just to eager to match Markus's style.

Thog, on the other hand, was being avoided like the plague. Coming here pissed off probably wasn't the best idea. Even when nothing was wrong people had a hard time approaching him. So one ready to throw down at the drop of a hat? Yeah, he was having difficulty finding a partner.

After getting avoided yet again, he started to head for the door, quitting while he still had an ounce of dignity.

Then he was nearly tackled by the one getting all the offers.

"W-wait."Markus said between gasps for breath. "Let's be partners."

Thog stared at him. While entertaining this guy wasn't on the top of his list of things he'd enjoy, he was giving Thog a shot where nobody else was.

"You're, whew I did not expect to be running give me a sec." Markus held his hand up while he took slow, deep inhales and exhales.

"I'm what?" Thog prompted through gritted teeth.

"You're perfect." He said standing straight up. "Dressed semi-casual, like me, you obviously like the Arts or you wouldn't be here, and the aura you're projecting! You must have a really deep and brash personality to go with all that angst."

Thog's brow twitched.

"Let's just set the goddamn scene." he resigned.

Markus pumped his fist in the air, "Alright, I'm a Doctor and you shall be....?"

"...A loved one of the patient. The place is a hospital."

"A hospital...On The Moon!" Markus lowered his face and took on a somber look.

"I don't know how to tell you this but I'm afraid the operation. Well, it didn't fail but..." He trailed off to let Thog interject.

"W-what's wrong? I-is my son alright?"Thog asked in-character, extremely concerned. "Let me see him! Take me to my little boy right now!" he demanded furiously.

Markus raised his hands in defense. "Sir, your kid's fine, it's just that he's been up here in Space so long that his bones are much too brittle. He'll never be able to walk on Earth again."

Thog looked devastated under the weight of the "news". If someone had never met him and heard his son would become a cripple and only had his reaction to gauge it, they'd be sending their condolences.

Thog fell to his knees, "My son won't be able to walk ever again."

Markus stepped in with a look of regret, "Sir, I assure you his legs work. If you were to stay in a location with artificial gravity he'd be fine. Just not Earth or any system close to its strength."

On command, tears began to stream down Thog's face and we're accompanied by convincing sobs.

Markus was thrilled with how great Thog was and that he'd been able to single him out.

"That was great. My name's Markus." He said reaching his hand out as Thog got back up.

"Thog." he replied, accepting the shake with a firm grip.

Markus winced a little but endured it. "Well Thog, I, for one, believe that our scene was great." he beamed. "And according to the rules that means we've done all we need to."

"Well that was a complete waste of time. That only took five fucking minutes."Thog's natural sneer came back. "This was supposed to be half an hour."

"Well when you have someone that can cry on command and a natural liar the deck is stacked in your favor." Markus responded. "Speaking of. You did great! How long have you been acting?"

Thog mulled it over. "Lying is closer to what I do as well. And for quite some time I guess."

"Well I would love to play a tabletop with you sometime. You seem like you'd be pretty good at it."

Thog frowned. "Isn't that nerd shit? Dungeons and Dragons and whatnot?"

Markus looked extremely offended. "Tabletop Roleplaying games are storytelling adventures, not 'Nerd Shit'.

At storytelling, Thog's eyes lit up. "So I could use them as a creative outlet is what you're saying?"

Markus shrugged, "Well yeah, that's what they're for when it comes down to it."

Not even listening anymore, Thog was already heading to the door. "Let's discuss while we go get some coffee."

End of Chapter Two.

Chapter One

#thrilling intent #Markus Velafi #Gm'ing intent au #Gm'ing intent #Thog

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callistochan87 · 7 years

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So…some stuff I've been working on? ‘Working’, I suppose. I don't know what's the matter with me. I get home at night and don't feel like doing anything, and on the weekends I don't feel like sitting down and doing anything. Once, or if, I do, I can pump out something stupid like these without much issue, but I don't feel like taking it to the next level? Not that some of these doodles really deserve to go farther than this but some seem decent enough, even if you can see my lack of commitment to Sparkle Motion in some of them.

I thought it was because, sometime this week, I'd have paid writing projects to do (editing one thing, writing another), and probably not enough time to sit down and work just on art, but I don't know if that's it. This year feels a bit like a struggle to keep motivation and effort going anyway, with some times better than others. Although the freelance stuff can't help, either.

The CitM stuff was a bit out of left field, and I'm not sure what prompted it - either applying for full time jobs and remembering I wanted to work in a library after I graduated (which didn't happen because you kind of have to start working while you're in school, which would have made for an extremely demanding schedule for me between that and full-time schooling), and just sort of getting painfully nostalgic; or the fact that I backed this book on Kickstarter, and after several prominent updates about shipping issues and whatnot semi-recently, it seems like the books will finally ship out to international backers. And dragons are usually pretty cool.

Also it could have been because I'm playing this silly game, MergeDragons, which is your basic match three puzzle game except you can match basically all the things. And the dragons…well, you can make them harvest things and whatnot, and they occasionally “talk” (have a speech bubble), so I started thinking about dragon society in CitM, because it seems likely they would have full fledged civilizations (tool use, housing, possibly animal husbandry for food since they're smart enough), but when humanoids outnumber you ten to one/are the dominant species, if you don't communicate in a way they understand than you might as well be an animal to them and it's not slavery when they're animals, so they pretty much decimated some of the major civilizations. The “wild” dragons that remain are more along the lines of small tribes/enclaves that don't interact much with humanoids if they can. Most dragons that bond with people are the children of shunned members, who lack the social support to defend themselves from people just taking their eggs; alternately they're bred in captivity and so seem strange to wild dragons.

It might have been the book first and the nostalgia second, but that's beside the point. It started out with dragons. Usually Anna because she's the easiest to draw for me. Then I doodled Kauai, because CitM was written during library school and there isn't that much art, so literally the only picture I have of him is some big-eyed chibi. Of course I am lazy so why bother referencing stuff when I already know what he looks like? A big rhino horn is easy enough to draw, but then I messed up the placement of his ears and his horns so there you go.

Anna…is Anna? I wind up drawing them with big old noodle necks but her design is distinct and I’ve gotten better at it. So she shows up a lot. I remember she was considered the runt of the litter/probably her egg was abandoned (dragons have societies but they don't always conform to what humans would find acceptable) and so she didn't quite look like a “full” member of her breed. Just as deadly but physically stunted. I wonder if I should draw a “full” Red Death – remembering right they had large exaggerated fangs that Anna lacked, but I don't remember much else.

(I found an outline on my phone of a revised second book, which would be something - the first time I tried to write it, that was the month my one grandfather died, so between his illness and funeral and having to shift things around since Mom was gone most of the month and the next one, I fell behind and stopped writing. I'd like to pick it up again. CitM was one of the rare first drafts I was actually pleased with, and even though I would change a bit (clarify some of the rebels’ motivations, make the dragons more actual characters rather than props), I'm still pretty happy with it, which is amazing because that never happens, usually.)

I have an idea of what Scarlett and Imperator look like (in my head somewhat like Dragon from Shrek, and Smaug from The Hobbit, respectively) but I've never drawn either one of those so I suppose they're worth a stab at too. It's difficult since my tendency is to draw human characters; when there’s a distinct size difference, like between the massive Kauhi and a human, it really makes it difficult to draw them together without the humans being so small as to be barely recognizable.

The other sheet is mostly me doodling characters to make up for it, and becoming a little bit distressed when I realized I'd forgotten how to draw them. Sure, it's been over three years since I first drew their design sheets, and I'd hope my style has changed enough since then that they wouldn't look identical, but it's still weird nonetheless. Jodi was literally me toying with a hairstyle I'd originally contemplated for her (I think that style looks super cute on little girls) so her looking ‘off’ doesn’t bother me as much, but Portia seems even weirder.

Flint looks okay - he's supposed to look chiselled on account of him only being half-elf - and the other guy up there is Hinano’s grandfather (he had a bigger role in the start of the second book) - but aside from the long braid I couldn't remember exactly how he looks. Also toyed with the idea of a sumo-esque topknot, since the culture is Polynesian, but also takes a little from the Japanese, so a topknot would be appropriate for an elder, and I think I've mentioned that the island elf tribes don't follow mainland customs at all. So braids might not be ‘in’ for them (whereas short hair for boys and long hair for men is pretty universal).

I still see him with a braid but I don't feel bad messing with minor/irrelevant character designs.

Did I mention Portia looks weird? She has a super round face as she did in the original, but with me trying to play around more with different face shapes and facial features she doesn't look the same to me, and I have no idea if that's a good or bad thing. And Ila...well, it was born mostly because I realized I’d been trying to describe Ila’s hair when all I needed to say was “undercut”, and wondered what it might look like with her hair slicked back...or as much as you can slick curly hair. I don’t think that’s possible, but I have pin-straight hair so I don’t know.

The last one is…not CitM, but Essence in the Heart, because it's 14 years old this month and since I'm reviving dead stories (ha ha ha) why not? Mom likes watching shows like A Haunting and Paranormal Investigators so that's always fuel for the fire. The ghosts are usually a good choice because their characters are pretty consistent from version to version, more or less, whereas I feel like I could change a lot about the living characters. I've considered making it more of a YA book, since it's probably the lightest and fluffiest of all my stories, and this is a story containing ghosts and murder and all that fun stuff. But there's little swearing and the misery is kind of implied so it could work. It might be a slightly scarier book but not inappropriate.

Truth be told EitH is just one of those stories that I don't know what to do with. It's fairly standalone so it always seemed ideal for a first book, length wise it's on par for a first book rather than the massive bloated novels I’ve written since then (the NaNo version anyway, which in itself is 8 years old this year), and its ~*~Canadian~*~ which is apparent a bonus, because we’re basically desperate to make ourselves seem distinct from America. Except it's not really, because most Canadiana books are about actual towns and not made up ones, and the whole thing reflects a lot of deeply personal things to me - namely growing up with French ancestry in a very WASP town.

I wasn't the only one with a French surname in elementary school (I went with both a Reaume and a Lauzon), but mine was distinct, and as far as I knew I was the only one who ever called their grandparents Meme and Pepe (Oma/Opa and Nana seemed to be common ones), and since I was teased semi-aggressively then I basically learned just to use the generic ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’ in conversation because I was desperate to fit in. Most people parents (so it seemed) had attended the same high school as their kids would, and wound up going to school with people who were now teaching there. I didn't have that history, not that it mattered, but it didn't help me feel like I'd fit in. Then we'd go to see Meme and Pepe (my mom’s side) and Mom would wind up talking with my cousin, who went to the same high school as Mom (about teachers who were still there, or had retired, etc) and again it reinforced that I didn't have that kind of history, and because I was prone to emotion back then it stung more than it should, particularly since I idolized that cousin. (Hindsight being what it was, I really am the lucky one all things considered - I find her a little intolerable these days.)

I mean there were other things, but I was a weird kid in elementary school and didn't have many friends. High school it got a little better, because I could make friends with the other weird kids, but we weren't exactly popular. But a long story short I felt very much…out of place, shall we say, and I think that came out in the stories throughout its various versions. And then finally we hit NaNo and I write something where the main character sort of does fit in with her town, even if the town itself is odd, where she doesn't seem entirely out of place there, and then has some cool stuff happen and it's all good.

I can't really put things into words any clearer than that right now, but the whole French influence was a big thing in my life, even if it was something I sort of claimed to myself - I doubt anyone on Dad’s side speaks French, they just have the surname; Mom’s parents used to speak French but gradually shifted to English more and more (for many reasons), so we’re really not bilingual, but it was there in some form.

The whole small town thing was something I could relate to as well, even if where I'm living isn't really small in the “everybody knows everybody’s business,” kind of way. But when you have to go an hour to do something remotely fun, because there's jack except a movie theatre, it feels small. It's not, not compared to the much more rural areas around you (or even the places where my cousins grew up), but it still feels small, and sometimes a bit stifling. I don't think that really comes through in the story but it might if I ever chose to rewrite.

But to get back to EitH specifically and not my neuroses, the problem is that I don't know what to do with it.

Location wise, I could keep the fictitious Ganadagowa setting but make it a dupe for an existing city, or I could set it in the city I'm in now, whose history I'm reasonably familiar with (the only reason), but adding fictional characters in would just seem weird compared to a big city like Toronto. There’s less wiggle room because there are less people coming in, if that makes sense.

Character wise I could make it YA or a standard novel, although I feel like YA might be better tolerated.

Plot-wise, I could choose to focus more on paranormal encounters with the ghosts (paranormal attacks, odd things happening around the house, spooky, dramatic), or I could have the ghosts be there but less prominent, and focus more on the research and discovering their personalities/histories on their own, because that is basically my job now and I would be super good about writing about research.

Length-wise I'd probably have to keep it about the same, maybe shorter, which is fine with me since writing long chapters sometimes feels like a chore, if I could set a timer and wrote for an hour and have the day’s chapter be done (as I did for NaNo), that would be fantastic. Language-wise, I don't know - I don't think it's difficult to read now, but I have obscene love for alliteration and entirely too poetic terms because I like to be Neil Gaiman, word-wise, but I'm not and won't ever be so I might have to tone those down.

So as you can see there are two, if not more, completely different books there and I can never decide which one I want to write. I suppose that's good, from a creative standpoint, since I'm not stuck with what I had before if I don't like it - EitH is one of those stories I sort of wrote, finished, celebrated because I'd been struggling to finish it for years now, and promptly forgot about because it wasn't a series. MBS suffered the same fate until I rewrote it, too. So I don't have a lot of emotional attachment or baggage to earlier versions - so long as the same characters are there, it’s still the same story to me.

Writing descriptions is so much easier than writing stories, because I can expand on ideas in my head alongside the actual description; that's why we have 2000 words so far and it doesn't really merit that many words. But basically on to the actual characters here - César Branchard (I named him after Cesario from Twelfth Night originally and then had to retroactively work with it), Annabelle Gordon, and Mark DuPont.

César is the oldest of the three (1790s-1810 originally), and went originally from being something of a sadsack desperate for attention to an arrogant prick, which doesn't really seem warranted in the later versions because he comes from a small community and sure, he's literate/a teacher, but how much of an asshole do you have to be to give you that much of a superiority complex?

I had the idea to make him a priest. That way he'd actually have a reason to feel superior, and he gets to be self-righteous, too! (I know, I know…) They were basically princes back then; joining the Seminary would have meant he would have gotten the hell out of his jerkwater burg and - I'd have to double check the dates but I'm pretty sure it was around - gone all the way to Montreal to the Seminary there (the one in my diocese wasn't built until the 1910s, afaik). Becoming a priest would have let him see other places, get to lecture people on spiritual matters, and travel - he's early enough that depending on where I set it, we could very well be talking early frontier times/going into lands that have just been settled, possibly dealing with local Native tribes as well.

This idea sounds pretty swell but I'd have to check the dates - he was originally 19 when he died, and while this is the century where you could, say, work in a law firm at 15 or whatever, given the amount of education priests have now it might be a smidge too young. I know the Seminary here is basically a university program in terms of length and given how the Church is slow to change I can't see that changing too much. I’d have to check dates on 19th century priests (although I really doubt I’d find ones that far back) just to get an idea of how old priests would be when they were ordained.

I feel like this works for me, because I know Church history... fairly well, enough that I'd be semi-confident writing about it. I feel like it works for him because…well, see above. Bonus, he could still technically be a teacher, depending.

You can see I did not want to fully commit to this just yet because I didn't outline it. Cassocks have been fairly standard for centuries, but I still kind of picture him in his rural 18th century dress. If he is a priest, he'd be more likely to wear the cassock, because Catholics, man.

I had an idea that sort of relates to the whole “out of place” theme from before, where he is not native to the area. He's probably the most aggressive ghost and it's because he's not ‘supposed’ to be there - I floated an initial idea of him travelling with local Natives (unsure what tribe, depends on where he is geographically, probably? Huron?), ostensibly so he can ‘convert’ them, but maybe that’s just a convenient excuse to get out of the town, because the bishop refuses to assign him to a new parish and this is literally the time when a priest could be in the same parish until he died, but that sort of power doesn’t really appeal to him if it means having to deal with them week after week.

Or possibly he’s just travelling on his own to minister to Catholics outside the town proper, as you did in those days (could go either way), where he's either attacked, or gets sick, but either way he dies en route and they just bury him there, ‘there’ being wherever the story is set in modern day, except it's not there yet. They only start building settlements there later, and basically the house where the main characters live happens to be built on top of his grave, because things shift over time and he probably got buried enough that they didn't uncover his grave when they were excavating for the foundation. (It's plausible enough, lets go with it.)

He knows he's dead and is absolutely furious about it because he's stuck there, doesn't belong there, doesn't want to be there, and on top of that he should technically be asleep in his grave, as Judgement Day has not happened yet and the righteous and unrighteous dead are supposed to be asleep until then (and then put in Heaven or Hell). What's the point of being self-righteous and moralizing if you're not actually right? By that logic he's been wrong this entire time, and by God, he hates being wrong. Worse still, he's stuck in another jerkwater burg that he tried so damn hard to get away from, and if there's anything like Hell, that's it for him. Better take his frustrations out on absolutely everyone and everything around him, all the time.

Annabelle and her husband probably wind up building the beginnings of the house as it stands now, demolishing whatever cabin or whatnot was there before, probably c. 1850s, or maybe the late 40s, when the town is established enough to be considered one. Settled primarily by Protestants of English and Scottish stock, it's still pretty rural, so there's work to be done on the land. Originally Annabelle came over from England; I don't know if I want to make her the daughter of English settlers in York (money to be made I guess) or still be in England.

Her husband is still an ass since I figure you have to be pretty miserable to be a ghost, but I'm not sure what kind of an ass. I had a thought that he was something of a conman/scam artist, presenting himself as much more noble/dignified than he actually is, convinces both Annabelle and her father that he's a good match/she'd be marrying up, marries her to get that sweet sweet dowry, and then kinda figures she’ll be cool with joining him in his crazy start-up/attempt to bilk more cash from these people in this rural little township, except she's not, and shes not used to the sort of hard labour being a pioneer woman would require, and for some reason their neighbours seem to take pity on her so she's useful to keep around for sympathy points, but he's really starting to regret this whole thing and he's pretty much stuck with her.

I don't know what he'd be trying to bilk them for - possibly claims he’ll raise money for some sort of needed structure (church, mill, what have you) - and then “travel” to “consult” with an architect or something but probably will just leave with the money.

It seems a bit ‘out there’, so I don't know. If I want to keep the pioneer angle it'd be easier just to have her marry some run of the mill jerk who’s barely tolerated by his neighbours. Or scratch the pioneer angle since I imagine the township might be established enough for her to build a modestly-sized house and go from there. Rural, but not quite as frontier as before.

Anyway he's still a jerk and responsible for her death - I’m not sure how. Since Mark clearly shows how he died on him it would make sense for hers to be bloodless. I had the idea of her dying in a house fire that would demolish most of the house, either deliberately set by him or started from his negligence. That'd be rather graphic though, unless you say she died of smoke inhalation before the fire actually burned her, which is how it commonly happens. Then I suppose she wouldn't look burned, just…you know, oxygen-deprived, because she was already dead before the fire. I'm aware I'm splitting hairs here.

Annabelle’s whole thing was that she doesn't realize she's dead and projects memories of people she knew onto whoever owns the house, so I don't know how that would play out; possibly she thinks the fire was a dream. All of this depends heavily on what angle I do, if the ghosts talk for themselves or if the characters piece together their history on their own.

Mark is…I think Annabelle’s grandson? Doesn’t have to be but I think that’s what I went with originally. At any rate he winds up living in the house (which has been rebuilt/expanded from Annabelle’s time) after he marries, winds up going to war (he's not old enough to be exempt from the draft), and comes back somewhat traumatized and probably with some nice physical reminders (I'm thinking something to do with trench foot/walking with a limp).

(Random thought that post-war he was probably traumatized enough to “see”/sense ghosts; Annabelle thinks he's her husband and treats him accordingly; and he can't understand César, just knows that he's mad, so that's some cheerful company for you.)

Mark probably gets it the worst; the house is already somewhat notorious for having people leave very quickly, even by then, but that just meant he got it for a steal, and he had quite a few kids so the space is needed. He isn't miserable in the sense that César and Annabelle are, but enough weird things happen that's incredibly stressful on him - and mostly him, since his wife doesn't believe him/finds excuses for anything odd happening, and the kids only really ‘interacted’ with Annabelle, who is good to kids so they don't really associate this ‘thing’ with anything bad, just kind of a quirk of the house. He's very very sure something is there, but summoning the pastor to bless the house mostly pisses off César (you want to get into a Bible fight with a priest, he will bring it), and Annabelle is indifferent. And this being the 20s/30s I imagine there weren't a lot of options otherwise, not that he might know of anyway.

And then he dies. Violently. As in someone obviously murdered him. I'm not saying the ghosts’s negative attitudes were what did him in, but something happened and he's pretty…upset? Truth be told if I weren't fixed on his injuries being to the back of his head, I'd say having Mark commit suicide would work, but there isn't really any way to make back injuries be anything less than inflicted by someone else. Here's where it gets shaky because I gave some BS excuse the last time or whatever as to why he was killed but there's less reason for that now. Mostly because I don't know. A murder in a place like that would be a huge deal, possibly the only homicide of the year, so I imagine it would be very shocking and locally known, even decades later.

On one hand, knowing that someone was killed there would be a good way to spark the search for information about him; on the other hand, I can't figure out what the reason for killing him would be, and if I can't think of a decent reason it's not an idea worth doing. I mean yes, people kill other people for absolutely stupid reasons, but this is a story. Everything has to fit together nicely or else it doesn't work, and murdering a dude just ‘cause wouldn't fit.

This is all assuming they play a part at all - if I go with the history hunting method a lots going to be discovered without input from the ghosts. This is all just idle speculation.

In terms of the actual drawing I've been trying to vary my facial features somewhat, since a lot of my art has the terrible curse of sameface. Not great - Annabelle looks like generic woman compared to some of my other stuff - but…better? I always picture César with a thin sort of rat face, kinda scrawny, and I didn't quite get it but close. Mark is the physically oldest out of all of them, and I think I used him too much, but if looking at older family pictures is any indication, people aged quicker back then (or perhaps they don't take care of themselves the way we do now, that too) so I figure it's plausible for a middle-aged man.

Mark’s outfit is a touch inaccurate (a belt seems more likely than suspenders) but it's not world-breakingly inaccurate. Annabelle’s was supposed to be more like this before I changed it to something a bit simpler - picture something like a plaid or check pattern and an apron in gingham or something that hides stains well. César is…well it's a cassock, the design hasn't changed much in centuries. I don't know if the modern collar, as it exists now, existed in the turn of the 19th century, so I didn't fully commit to that either, but it wouldn't shock me if it was either very similar or fundamentally the same. I didn't feel like doing extensive research just for a doodle. If I actually do something with the story, maybe I will, to be accurate, but for this it seems not worth it. (I did a cursory Google search and came up empty handed).

I don't know if I'll do anything with this story (not that I’ll have time to do it, I don't think), but it's nice to mull over ideas, particularly for a story that might as well be a blank slate.

#wip #digital art #my art #my stories #My characters #cog in the machine #essence in the heart

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fisherfly · 6 years

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So is this gunna be a blog now ?

Hey there fellow fishes , [yip that’s my intro i’m going with]

So I’ve been thinking during my hiatus [if one could call posting art semi regularly to not at all a hiatus] but if you didn’t know its been a while since anything big has came out of my art spots since i have college and need to finish my bachelors so life gets in the way a little when trying to perfect somewhat decent content. [ bit off topic intro to whats happened ]

[so why am I back?] well I’m back because its that time of year again in which exams are happening and i need a few minutes to destress here and there when you are trying to psycho analyse your lecturers to figure out what question they want to put on an exam this year . So during this time, one day my girlfriend [love you hun] mentioned going in to town to buy supplies in one of the two craft shops in cork . Unknown to me this place had art supplies. I bought a few bits and pieces and it has got me pumped again and I recommend anyone feeling uninspired to just take a trip and take in all that artistic potential. Recently as per my usual awakening from internet death as fisherfly i was getting in contact with old friend and kinda realised that for the most part people don’t really see whats behind my life and such since my art doesn’t really give that away. So I’ve finally mustered to courage to do blogs on various opinions I have and soon might even do videos.

My main reason for doing the blogs is sometimes i can feel very disconnected from art and just wanna talk and talk and talk and i have so many random thoughts that i’d just like to get out of my system and old things that happened that id like to shed light on. Hence the idea of submitting blogs. While for the most part this will be random stories with some venting here and there , i promise I am going to avoid more murky topics like politics as i feel in my personal blog it doesn’t really belong as politics while i adore ranting about them. I personally do tend to be too much prone to debating and that isn’t what this spot is about , I’m not a politics or controversy channel so i will be avoiding those topics [ So no talking about the politics] [So what’s the plan ?] Well as of now I’m gunna be honest and i am queitly making art in order to have a backlog as I am a bit of a over cautious person so there’s that . All my blogs will not be a substitute for art but rather the two go hand in hand since it would be a nice filler . If i do go as far as videos they will mostly be short opinions that are extended blogs , at least for the beginning[ I tend to feel awkward recording , talking to myself]

For the blogs i’m thinking like a few paragraphs at most since i have some half witted points and also I will tend to keep rants short and avoid major profanity in my language . And of course like the art they will come off a little half baked as i prefer and off the cuff improv style to these blogs.

#blog #fisherfly #artist #art blog

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justinmoviereviews · 7 years

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The Class of 2016

This will be updated, and reviews are subject to be totally meaningless. Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing about a movie, ya know?

Free State of Jones - Gary Ross

This movie looks amazing. I’ll be honest, I didn’t pay a lot of attention. It’s really long. Matthew McConaughey frees the slaves, or something. It looks and sounds great. It made me want to live in the south. Anyway, with this I’m done obsessively watching movies from 2016. I don’t think there were any masterpieces from last year, but it definitely popped out a couple really solid movies. I'm not so into rankings, but here are my top six, and they are truly in no order at all. These are just the six movies from last year that I would hang on my wall:

The Lobster Manchester By The Sea Everybody Wants Some! Green Room Hell or High Water Moonlight

Hacksaw Ridge - Mel Gibson

You can skip the first hour of this--we probably don’t need another movie where a guy falls in love with a girl and then holds firm to his convictions, especially when it’s done in a way as hackneyed as this one is--but the second half is awesome. The ultra-bloody war movie you’d expect from the guy who made a snuff film about Jesus.

Hidden Figures - Theodore Melfi

Say this for these kinds of movies: they’re getting better. The black characters have more agency, the white characters are less benevolent. At the very least, this movie seems like it was edited by someone with a good handle on why inspirational Hollywood stories about black people so often feel like they’re designed to make white people feel good about themselves. In this movie a black character flips out at her unfair treatment in a room full of white people, the titular figures solve their own problems without the help of benevolent crackers, and Kevin Costner’s colorblindness stems less from some future anachronistic moral code than from his being too obsessed with his project to notice anything else. This is a perfectly adequate crowd pleaser, and it’s not offensive. Take your girlfriend.

Suicide Squad - David Ayer

Comic book origin stories are so stupid. In the real world, government agents don’t pitch presentations on recruiting super heroes, because in the real world there aren’t super heroes. I might like these movies better if they didn’t try to take place in the same planet where people file w-4s. Maybe it’s Christopher Nolan’s fault for doing it semi-plausibly. Whatever. I’m not a comic book guy. At all. An airplane is the only setting in which I will ever watch this movie from beginning to end. But I like Will Smith a lot, and I like Margot Robbie.

The Accountant - Gavin O’Connor

Ignore the haters. This movie rocks.

Ghostbusters - Paul Feig

Ignore Milos Yiannopoulos’s pedophile ass. This movie rocks.

Florence Foster Jenkins - Stephen Frears

Eh, they’ve made worse. Stephen Frears really seems to like old ladies.

The Magnificent Seven - Antoine Fuqua

Any movie that has Chris Pratt avoid death by performing card tricks is not going to be as cool as it wants to be, but this is a fun movie to watch. I’m always gonna go with the half-assed western over the half-assed comic book movie. And Denzel Washington can still do this shit better than anyone even when it’s in between takes of Fences.

Hell or High Water - David Mackenzie

Killing Them Softly is a movie about a bunch of underworld criminals tightening their belts and pumping their auditor to save money in a down economy. It’s soundtracked by political speeches from the 2008 Presidential election. It’s one of my favorite movies in recent memory. I’m a sucker for flicks that foreground the sociopathic nature of the banking industry as a regular feature in American life. I’m also a sucker for westerns, and for manly movies where everyone is an alcoholic. This is so much smarter and more controlled than it needed to be. It’s a minor masterpiece.

The Founder - John Lee Hancock

Nobody is better at playing a regular-ass uncharismatic scrub than Michael Keaton. Not Matt Damon in the Informant! Definitely not George Clooney in the Descendants. This might be the first straight biopic I’ve ever actually liked. A middle class striver opportunes himself into a goldmine, and eventually becomes successful enough that he can start acting like a shithead.

Nocturnal Animals - Tom Ford

This movie starts to fall apart about 20 minutes after you finish watching it--a dark thriller about a guy standing up his ex-wife on a dinner date? But in the world where style trumps substance, this is a masterpiece. Dark, foreboding, atmospheric, with a great cast and a killer score. Was a strong contender for trailer of the year. Michael Shannon should be in every movie.

Everybody Wants Some!! - Richard Linklater

Linklater splits the difference between his love of the pseudo-intellectual conversation and his unparalleled ability to show young adults hanging out. The baseball team’s voluntary summer practice is easily the best scene of the year. His best movie since Dazed and Confused.

The Lobster - Yorgos Lanthimos

The dialogue--and the movie--is like someone breathed life into stick figures and forced them to fuck or face unspeakable consequences. There’s a lot of “do you like the beach? I like the beach because I like looking at the ocean. I’m glad you also like the beach,” like these characters aren’t human but are desperately trying to fake it. Too weird and too singular to be the movie of the year, but I had a huge grin on my face during every batshit second of this.

Sausage Party - Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

Let’s be honest, no one gets a freer pass than Seth Rogen. Once upon a time studios considered the big budget comedy a viable genre, and gave careers to people like Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell and Mike Judge, all joke-writers who, at their laziest, were pound-for-pound funnier than Rogen is (except for Sandler, who for the past 20 years has been less funny than the average Geico commercial). For better or worse I spent my teenage years quoting movies like Super Troopers and Detroit Rock City. Does anyone quote Superbad? Or This Is The End? The funny thing about my back is...I guess.

Having Judd Apatow’s affection didn’t used to be enough to monopolize a genre, is what I’m saying. And yet, there’s a pretty huge but coming. Because I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Seth Rogen has a gift for premises that none of those other joke-writers did. At heart he’s a very smart art nerd. He’s not really that funny. He relies way too much on dick jokes and swearing. But he’s figured out how to lean on his funny friends. And with Sausage Party, he’s figured out how to emulate the topsy-turvy cleverness of Pixar, and turn it into something as watchable as any of the movies they make.

The Birth of a Nation - Nate Parker

There are better movies, but it’s never gonna get old to watch slaves murder slave owners in the antebellum south.

20th Century Women - Mike Mills

A movie of tiny moments that point to a specific moment in the lives of five people and the intricacy of their relationships. It identifies the profundity of little moments better than Boyhood, and the characters are as well sketched as any others in any other movie I can think of. So Jesus, why do I feel so cold about it? Is it because there’s a political sourness I can’t shake away? Because it feels kinda like Mike Mills wants points for being a real feminist? When this movie feels like a coming of age story, or a story about five people bouncing off each other in well-meaning but not-entirely-beneficial ways, it’s as good as it gets. When it feels like the next step in men writing deep female characters so the Huffington Post genuflects to them, I’m out. Or maybe I just don’t always give a shit about coming of age stories anymore. It’s one or the other.

Sully - Clint Eastood

Sooner or later, after he’s alienated the last living millennial by campaigning for President Trump in 2020, Clint Eastwood is going to shuffle off this mortal coil into whatever Valhalla awaits his generation of stoic American men, and we’re really going to miss him. He tells unfussy stories about uncomplicated heroes living in a decent world with clear cut moral guidelines. Here he turns a high-stakes true event into a medium-stakes story about a guy doing his job well. This is his best late-period movie.

Love and Friendship - Whit Stillman

Fans of Comedy Central may be familiar with a show called Another Period, where comedian Natasha Legerro plays a comically horrible social climbing society woman from some manored century, in a send up of Jane Austen costume dramas that nonetheless carries a feminist streak because of how put upon the women are. I occasionally have it on while I do other things, and I don’t dislike it. Like many late-night alt-comedy shows, it could be great with a bigger budget and more ambition attached to it. As I was first typing this review up, I accidentally wrote Another Period at the top instead of Love and Friendship.

Cafe Society - Woody Allen

Woody Allen has so mastered the epiphany that life doesn’t exist on a moral plane that even when he is on the autoest of autopilots he still handles the observation with profundity (Hannah and her Sisters is his philosophical masterpiece, and I would say unquestionably his best movie). This movie is very much on the autoest of autopilots, and Allen still is a writer first and a director second, but this is good territory for him. On the acting: Steve Carrell is funny and charming and seems like a great guy, but he’s not always a good actor, and he’s miscast here. Jesse Eisenberg is ehhh as the moderately more handsome young Woody Allen character (he kills the movie’s comic highlight, where he meets a first-time hooker). Kristen Stewart is the best actor here, handling second-rate Woody dialogue not as an Annie Hall or as a Kristen Stewart, but as a character of her own creation.

The Neon Demon - Nicolas Winding Refn

Refn wants to make sound and light shows. He doesn’t want characters, he wants mannequins. He doesn’t want plot, he wants to set up perfect shots. I ultimately came out high on Drive, but made fun of it for being Eurotrash. Now I realize it was more like his version of a studio compromise. This is the kind of movie Refn wants to make--the kind of movie so devoid of external input that Keanu Reeves showing up as a pedophile murderer qualifies as fan service. I can see Refn thinking this is his masterpiece. I can’t imagine a single other person on earth actually riding for it.

The Witch - Robert Eggers

Religion is more fun to ponder than to hate on, which is why Silence is a more interesting movie than the Witch. This movie can and should be weirder and scarier than it is, but it spends too much time showing it’s family devolve into superstitious madness and not enough time bringing home that fucked up bacon. It needs more bleeding goats, is what I’m saying. But stay for that ending, because it’s a good one.

Silence - Martin Scorsese

There are times, during some of Andrew Garfield’s narration, or when the camera flashes to a photo of a suffering Jesus, when this movie starts to veer into Bergman territory--Silence is the most Bergmanish movie title since Shame--but Scorsese doesn’t really make art films in that way. His movies are more literal, more grounded in plot, their darkness is violent and visceral. One could argue that a movie like this is more subtle than anything made by the Swedish depressive. One could also argue that it just has less going on. It’s a tough one, not that it’s hard to watch, but it’s hard to comprehend. As for the easy stuff--it looks great, the acting’s great, the writing is smart as hell (and I can’t emphasize that enough. There’s a character who serves as both a figurative mind-fuck and as goofy comic relief). Still kickin’ around at 74, nobody is better at making these things than Marty is. The question the movie asks, I think, is that it’s easy to die on the cross for God, but letting other people die for him? That’s a whole lot harder. And if he isn’t even there? Well then, you’re a terrorist.

La La Land - Damian Chazelle

If this weren’t the runaway Oscar favorite, I wouldn’t have seen it. The question is, would anyone have? If something is getting raves from smart people I assume it’s good, and if it doesn’t look good than I assume it’s subversive somehow. So what is this? A throwback. Damian Chazelle is the only guy right now making movies inspired by “Singin’ in the Rain.” I mean, see this one a theater and yeah, it’s a good time. But don’t buy it or call it the best movie of the year or anything. That’s crazy.

Moonlight - Barry Jenkins

If we weren’t starved for movies about black people, would this movie be so canonized? And if it wasn’t so canonized, would anyone have seen it? Kind of this year’s boyhood, where seemingly random moments in a person’s childhood may or may not be key life-shaping events. What’s most impressive is how the moments depicted are both good and bad. This isn’t Precious. It isn’t some poverty-life horror show. Here’s a kid burdened by vulnerabilities living a sort-of normal life told in vignettes. Poignant. Kinda boring though.

Fences - Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington reading the phone book would be a good movie, which is good, because this movie is basically him reading a phone book. Just kidding! The first hour is perfect--immaculate acting, phenomenal writing, compelling story-telling. The second hour lost me. This is a movie (or play) where the main character tells his wife that he’s impregnated his mistress and that he plans on staying with her. Okay. Then, after his mistress gives birth she dies on the operating table. The main character is devastated, but truthfully, for both him and the story, what incredible good luck!

Allied - Robert Zemeckis

This is a bad movie for two reasons: the plot and the acting. The plot--what if my wife’s a spy? Oh no! She is!--is surprising, but not in a good way. The acting is a bigger problem. Brad Pitt is the coolest guy in Hollywood, probably one of my five favorite actors, and capable of really good stuff, but when you give him traditional leading man roles and don’t figure out how to make him be interesting in them, he’s incredibly dull. Benjamin Button had this problem. Allied has it even more.

Manchester by the Sea - Kenneth Lonergan

I don’t think a single person reads this blog but I still don’t want to spoil this movie so I won’t talk about the ending. But holy fuck. The definition of a slow burn, as in you’re gonna fall apart in the car halfway home from the theater. Best Oscar bait movie of the year for sure. Maybe best movie of the year.

Inferno - Ron Howard

I have never read a Dan Brown book, but the Da Vinci Code is my favorite TBS movie, and Angels and Demons is probably my second, so it gives me no pleasure to tell the truth here, which is that this movie sucks.

The Girl on the Train - Tate Taylor

I am still baffled by Gone Girl the movie, mostly because it isn’t good, so give this one credit for being the pulpy garbage Gone Girl pretends it isn’t. But the more I thought about this movie, which I very much enjoyed at the time, the more sour I got. It’s pulpy garbage, redeemed in part by Emily Blunt who pulls a Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler and crushes this role like Steve Smith crushed the Panthers after they cut him.

Arrival - Denis Villeneuve

Oh no, I’m already getting bored of writing these. The New Yorker’s review of this movie is perfect and I wouldn’t disagree with any of it. This is a movie that sets its premise up perfectly and then yada yadas over the entire substance of its plot. I still score it very high though, because the twist is borrowed from my favorite Kurt Vonnegut novel, and because I love the way the aliens look.

Midnight Special - Jeff Nichols

Jeff Nichols hasn’t made his masterpiece yet, but he’s in danger of becoming my favorite director. If he turns Michael Shannon and Joel Edgerton--two guys great at exploring the decency of masculinity--into his regular acting troupe the danger gets even greater. I watched this one on a plane, which is the worst setting possible to watch a movie with a substantial portion of its budget devoted to its special effects, and the ending rings a little underwhelming (would be better on a normal-sized TV) but nobody does male characters as well as Nichols. Also, and look for this refrain whenever he shows up in a movie, nobody in Hollywood right now is more interesting or exciting than Adam Driver, even in this role, which kinda short-changes him.

10 Cloverfield Lane - Dan Trachtenberg

Another airplane watch, and another movie I come to praise for its acting and then complain that the special effect ending didn’t work on me. There are questions without answers in this movie which bugs the hell out of me, but I’m glad to see my man from the Newsroom and the girl from Scott Pilgrim getting work. Mostly, I’m glad to see one of our finest actors, John Goodman, play someone other than a dad. Let me explain to you something the Coen brothers already know: It is long, long past time for the Goodmanaissance. He should have five Oscars for his performance in the Gambler alone.

The BFG - Stephen Spielberg

Classic kid’s book becomes movie kids will like.

Our Kind of Traitor - Susanna White

Dud Le Carre novel becomes forgettable, poorly directed movie. High point: Stellan Skarsgard, and you get to see his penis.

The Shallows - Jaume Collet-Serra

Hollywood is as snobby and irrationally biased as anyone, but take away the budget and the spectacle and this movie isn’t that different than the Revenant. I mean that is a compliment, I liked both movies a lot. But while the Revenant won Leo his Oscar--something not even Scorsese could do--this one is never going to escape its proximity to Sharknado and its T&A qualities. Blake Lithely, last seen trying to score Oxy from Jon Hamm, equips herself very well.

Sing Street - John Carney

Irish mise-en-scene is great, music’s even better, the older brother relationship is fun and sweet and might even choke you up. There are plot issues you’re a dick for bringing up, but they’re there. Apologies. Also, if you haven’t, go see the Commitments.

The Nice Guys - Shane Black

Ryan Gosling was the revalation here which is weird to me because he’d already showed off all these tricks in the Big Short. He’s better there, in my opinion, and Russell Crowe as the pudgy decent badass is who really carries the day. Hannibal Burress shows up as a bumblebee in the greatest cameo since whenever the last time Tom Waits showed up in a movie. This one starts with a ton of promise, and gets increasingly rote until by the end the heroes are in the same shoot out Shane Black’s been making for 30 years. Funny though, and if they make a sequel I’ll see it.

The Forest - Jason Zada

I briefly belonged to a gym with a big dark room where a bunch of treadmills pointed towards a giant screen TV, and they’d show movies. Sometimes they’d show real movies like A Force Awakens and Concussion (which I never caught all of so I won’t review here but the parts I saw were surprisingly damn good), and sometimes they’d show cheap direct to video horror movies, like a movie about a house break-in that I’m positive was financed by a home security company, and this one. I actually liked this one, purely because it looks real good and it takes place in the Aokigahara Forest in Japan, which I’d never heard of before but got really interested in.

Green Room - Jeremy Saulnier

A grindhouse flick with Patrick Stewart nicely underplaying a psycho neo-nazi, this isn’t as good as Blue Ruin--one of the best movies of the past five years--but it’s pretty damn good.

The Jungle Book - Jon Favreau

There’s a scene in this movie where Scarlett Johansson plays a snake that alone is worth the price of admission, even at the bumped up 3D price. The movie doesn’t ever get that dark again, but the fact that someone had the idea to Dark Knight up the Jungle Book, and it worked as well as it did, is flabbergasting.

Hail, Caesar! - Joel and Ethan Coen

I don’t know how people who aren’t inclined to like every Coen brothers movie feel about this one--my mom and sister hated it--but I loved it. Weird, goony, centered around a bizarre communist subversion subplot that ultimately means nothing, this is the Coens at their not-giving-a-fuck best. In fact, skip La La Land and watch this subversive throwback to Hollywood’s gilded age instead. It’s way more fun and way more evil, and stars the god Josh Brolin.

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