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How Abelina Sabrina went from Voice Acting to the Sweet Science

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Published: September 30, 2023

Abelina Sabrina's Journey from Voice Acting to the Sweet Science

Not everyone who steps into a boxing ring always thought they would be there. Over the last two years, the creation of the Creator Clash, a social media influencer boxing event for charity, has allowed people from all walks of life to step into the squared circle.

The participants ranged from former WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestlers, podcasters, Twitch video game streamers, and professional chess players to YouTube sensations who focus on taking on extreme challenges like Michelle Khare.

On an off-chance opportunity, stepped in East Los Angeles native Abelina Sabrina Rios. She is better known to her audience as Abelina Sabrina or Sabrina to friends and family. Sabrina is a voice actor and YouTube star who often makes hilarious comedy-parody skits. The types of shows she has worked on revolve around the anime world, including Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure, Sugar Pine 7, and Your Lie in April.

How she got started in voice acting wasn't overly elaborate, instead merely mimicking what most kids do on a Saturday morning in watching cartoons.

"When I was little, I would watch a lot of cartoons like any kid," Sabrina explained to Frontproof Media in an exclusive interview. "I thought, I like the way that sounds. So, I think that's why my voice is the way it is now because, as a kid, I would just mimic what I would hear on TV.

“In high school, I saw that this convention called Anime Expo was going to have open voiceover auditions hosted by a company called Bang Zoom Entertainment. I showed up and I auditioned, and they liked me. Ever since then, they call me back at random for auditions here and there."

In 2022, the first Creator Clash took place at the University of South Florida in Tampa in front of an infinitely energetic crowd that proved infectious to those who were there only out of curiosity. The combination of the audience and the sport of boxing ignited a desire to be a part of it somehow.

A poolside run-in with two of the creators of the Creator Clash, Ian "iDubbbz" Washburn and his significant other Anisa Jomha, kept Sabrina in their minds when thinking about the sequel to their social media boxing event.

"I attended the first Creator Clash as a guest, and it was just inspiring," Sabrina told Frontproof Media. "After the first event happened, I was hanging out at the pool, and Ian and Anisa were walking. I saw them, and we were chatting a little bit, and Anisa expressed that she wanted to include more female fights next year.

"Then, after everybody went home, I told her, 'Hey, if you have anybody in my height and weight range and if you need any more female fights, please, I want to throw my name in the ring. I would love to be considered."

In August of 2022, Sabrina would get the call for the second edition of the Creator Clash that was set to take place on April 15, 2023, at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, FL. Her opponent would be fellow Youtuber, Tik-Tok, and Twitch streamer Jaelaray.

How Abelina Sabrina went from Voice Acting to the Sweet Science

And while there is a level of excitement that hits you when you get the notice that you'll be a participant in an event that produced such a frenzied reaction, there is also a level of realism that becomes apparent. Sabrina didn't have much of an athletic background to speak of before heading into her first boxing match.

"I think prior, the most athletic thing that I've ever done was being Minnie Mouse at Disneyland," Sabrina said. "But that's just good cardio. I didn't left weights of anything."

Four years at Disneyland gave Sabrina experience being in front of a live audience, but it wouldn't prepare her for combat inside a boxing ring. For the East L.A. native, her physical foundation needed to be built from the ground up.

Given ample time to establish some kind of training regimen, Sarbina primarily trained under the tutelage of Grisha Todorov. Along with Todorov, Sabrina and many of the participants in the Creator Clash would train with three-time Golden Gloves champion Michael "Kwik" Flories, who would organize sparring sessions with fighters from his gym.

"My trainer is all the way in Woodland Hills and Tarzana," Sabrina said about her training. "His name is Grisha Todorov. He's a former champion from Bulgaria, a very different background, but that's who I spent most of my training with. Then, I had a personal trainer for strength and conditioning here in Glendale, where I'm now Bradley Randcourt. I was not athletic whatsoever. I've never done any sports at all. I did not work out at all. So they were building me from scratch.

"So what became my usual routine was three days a week, I would do boxing, and three days a week, I would do strength training nearby and then fight camp, which was about a month before the fight. I would still do three days a week of boxing, sometimes four days, but then also multiple sessions on that day."

In all sports, it's often touted that the physical and mental toll of constant training can be more challenging than the match or game you are preparing for. Boxing is one of those sports. It's been said that fights are usually won in the gym.

Reflecting on her entire experience from training to the day of the fight, a sparring session with a real professional boxer proved more daunting than anything she would come up against on fight night.

"Oddly enough, I was more scared when I had to spar with semi-pro boxer Nikkia Willaims," stated Sabrina. "It was my first sparring session with somebody else outside of my gym or my friend network. So I was very scared to box her. At least with my opponent for Creator Clash, Jaelaray, it would be her first time actually boxing, too. But when I had to box with this semi-pro female boxer, I was terrified.

"While we were sparring as soon as she hit me, she hit me harder than my coach. I started sobbing, but we kept sparring anyway. I made it three and a half rounds with her. Because I sparred with Nikkia, I faced that fear and did it anyway. Fighting with Jaelaray was scary, but I had faced scarier."

The scheduled five-round boxing exhibition match would be held between the two social media stars at a catchweight. Sabrina, who has a petite body type, usually walks around at 100 pounds, so she agreed to a catchweight of about 115 pounds for the fight with her opponent.

In combat sports, there are usually two battles—one that takes place in the ring and the other that takes place at the weight scale. Typically, the clash at the scale is one based on losing or cutting weight. But in Sabrina's case, she found one of the most challenging parts of training was putting on weight.

"Gaining weight," Sabrina expressed to Frontproof Media, as the hardest part of training for her. "Gaining weight, and gaining good weight because I wanted to put on 15 pounds of ideally mostly muscle. That's not what ended up happening. But it's really hard to gain weight when you're working out and running that much.

"So I had to put on 15 pounds for this fight. It was hard to keep that because I'm normally 100 or 105."

"If you don’t define yourself, the world is going to do it for you." -- Abelina Sabrina

The Day of the Fight

How to maneuver around distractions is something that every fighter has to learn to deal with. But, when your first time stepping into the squared circle is in an arena full of thousands of boisterous fans, the nerves can get the best of you. For Sabrina, all of the little things that are usually taken care of by members of a fighters team went wrong.

From having to get a newly fitting mouthpiece Fedexed to her, a pair of boxing gloves going missing to a Mariachi band that didn't seem like they were going to make it to the arena on time, all of the things that shouldn't be the focus added to fuel the anxiety and anxiousness of having to fight.

"My hands are getting wrapped and I can't contact anybody anymore because I can't use my phone," Sabrina said about her time in the locker room before the start of the fight. "So missing my mouthguard, missing gloves, missing mariachi, just all of the things that I didn't want to think about. It took alot of focus away from the fight."

Throughout the Creator Clash, several entrants had grandiose entrances that excited the live crowd—ranging from run-ins through the crowd to Pokemon theme songs that almost blew the roof off of the arena. It was put upon each individual participant to do something to stand out above the rest.

Deciding to take a more traditional approach, using her entrance to pay homage to her Mexican heritage and, in some ways, to the Mexican boxing community, Sabrina entered her bout against Jaelaray to a Mariachi band that got one of the loudest ovations of the night.

"I was fight number two, so I wanted my fight, at the very least, to be remembered out of all the people that were participating," Sabrina stated. "I was probably one of the ones who had a smaller platform. So I wanted to make people care about me and my fight, at least during my 15 minutes. I wanted to make it as entertaining for everybody as possible. I need to have that live mariachi.

"I wanted to channel boxers like Canelo, who make their walkout a fun spectacle, honoring their culture. That's what I was aiming for."

When one thinks of activities that would prepare somebody to box, sports like wrestling, track and field, and fencing come to mind. However, for Sabrina, her background working at Disneyland performing in front of a live crowd helped alleviate some of her nerves.

"The people aspect didn't freak me out at all," said Sabrina. "I think having a performing background really helped my walkout. I'm used to being surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of people."

The fight itself didn't end up playing out in Sabrina's favor, as the size difference between her and Jaelaray played a factor. Much to the crowd's delight, the two would trade blows in the middle of the ring, with each landing their share of right hands. Sabrina displayed her competitive nature throughout, as she immediately responded with a salvo of her own whenever she got hit.

After five rounds, Jaelaray was awarded with a unanimous decision victory. But, both competitors were given applause from the audience.

To succeed in boxing and not allow a moment to crush you mentally, you have to be able to control your emotions. Being emotionally intelligent enough not to allow yourself to become overwhelmed is what can separate you from failing. Taking control of the fear rather than letting it take the wheel is innate and can only be taught over time.

"I absolutely felt so much fear constantly," Sabrina confessed about her time in the ring. "I think because I worked so much on the mental aspect, I was terrified, but also, I was so happy to be there. I was so excited. I was smiling throughout most of the fight, and I was letting the fear fuel me.

"I was getting hit a lot, but I think I was doing good with rolling with the punches. I knew that it was not over yet and that I had to give my all until the very end."

For some participants, the experience of boxing steered them away from wanting to step in the ring for the rest of their lives. For others, it was like a rollercoaster that they couldn't wait to ride again.

Boxing is one of the most dangerous sports one can participate in. The Creator Clash was more about entertainment and having fun than seeing who was the best fighter. Still, everyone who stepped inside the ring gained a new level of respect and admiration for those who fight professionally.

"If I am invited to Creator Clash 3, I will 100% do it because as soon as I stepped out of the ring, all I wanted to do was go box again," Sabrina stated about her feelings after the fight. "With boxing and athletes in general, but especially boxing, you spend so much time training for what is only 10 or 15 minutes in a ring. You're putting so much on your body. I feel like it's selling your body. I've come to learn that most people would never step into a boxing ring. It makes me feel so proud to do it myself.

"I respect people who do choose to step into the ring because it's really hard and scary. Everyone,every single boxer, is scared to get in the ring, and we do it anyway."

There is a saying that the journey is more important than the destination. Boxing, in some respects, is a microcosm for the voyage of self-discovery that is life. When you step through those ropes, you are at your most vulnerable. It's a time when you can be exposed and a majority of the time, it's in front of a large group of people. But it can also bring out what you thought you never had.

Strength when you thought you were weak. Speed when you thought you were slow. And a smile when you thought there would be tears. It allows you to be in command of how you have always defined yourself. Who you see in the mirror is capable of more than you could have imagined.

"Some people have a certain idea of me at a glance, and they don't know me all that well," said Sabrina. "I felt like I had something to prove in this fight because I've learned that if you don't define yourself, the world is going to do it for you. I felt like this little bitty shadow for the longest time. But after Creator Clash 2, I did not feel like a shadow at all.

"I felt like my little moments in the light in the sun. I'm happy that I got to define myself."

(Featured Photo: Joseph Correa/Frontproof Media)

#HF #Creator Clash #Abelina Sabrina #Michelle Khare #iDubbbz

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nonameweebu · 8 months

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Institutional Anti-Establishment Left : A Failure of Military Characteristics

By : Santiago "Weebu" Pemo

December 1st, 2018 marks the day one can pinpoint the exact moment the mass "anti-establishment" left wing in Latin America effectively died. By the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the world saw in it the opportunity for the indigenous population alongside the large working class to re-ignite an era of progress in the country, in hand with the immense discontent the majority of the population had with the country's personalities and institutions. A groundbreaking moment? Not in the end. AMLO's election happened out of pure anger and desperation from the people, a population so neglected by its technocratic ruling class and actively threatened and oppressed by the global capital holders up north the Rio Bravo, that they chose him simply because he was the big face of it all. An opportunist of monumental capacities. With the Movement For National Regeneration, known as MORENA in Spanish (and totally not a fascist sounding name), the "left wing" in Mexico knew its first victory ever since revolutionary times, and it was worse than expected.

His tendency is nothing more than what can be qualified as your typical reactionary, in all aspects. In typical Mexican fashion, AMLO not only did not comply with his agenda and propositions, but held an immense campaign to support his in-action in pretty much anything. His radical anti-liberalism had the good line, and was followed by a correct stance against the state of the country post-NAFTA. 3 elections of training his discourse and it stuck into the Mexican popular consciousness. For how populist and demagogical his speech was, he held the right ideas : the direct attack of the Mexican bourgeoisie in all aspects of society and claiming an alleged "anti-american" posture is the correct stance to have, but it didn't even end up being that his official posture.

AMLO, for how delusional the right wing in Mexico claims him to be a "Communist Monster coming after your kid's education" and other usual moronic moral panics, he is nothing more but your average PRI technocrat, getting a name inside the party around the 70's, a time when the big tent adjective that they claim was, at the very least, somewhat true. He sided with the "social" fraction of the party, that had as much social comprehension as Mussolini, until the eventual creation of the PRD, a party so corrupt that it overshadowed the PRI at its own game. An impressive track record for someone claiming to be the "new face of Mexico", a bold title considering his social positions and his complete inaction in any matters other than "goblins" and "COVID curing image patches". A ridiculous man he is, and has the smartest strategy out of any president in functions today. He used all the needs of the Mexican people mixed with populist religious conservative talking points, and you got yourself a winner. No social progress beyond basic social democratic positions, no ecological consciousness and no radicality whatsoever : the perfect way to take advantage of politically alienated and disadvantaged Mexican rural voters.

For the longest time, the middle class was the focus of Mexican politics, whether it was with Christian conservative cultural talking points of the financial gain of the newly and growing petty-bourgeois owners of new lands on the cities with aid of international capital, the electoral system turned around people with this profile. No amount of class representatives ever truly got the chamber of deputies or senate, and that has not changed. But what changed was the focus of these elections. The middle class, the one proposed with globalisation, turned out to be unsustainable. The filthy game that capitalism led all around the country pushed for furthering inequalities and the crumbling of the cultural identity of a middle class. The shift appealed to the populists, the one preying on the people not only falling into these precarious situations, but the ones already familiar with the bottom of the barrel of Mexican hierarchical society.

Because after the total and absolute ruckus that completely covered the Neoliberal era of Mexico, starting around the 80's with the global dominance of the Reagan-Thatcher administrations, no one would ever endorse the hell those reforms entailed. Coinciding with the presidency of La Madrid, an ironically named neo-liberal reformer who, just like his peers, was educated in the highest and most elitist schools of the American administrative system. All with a glamourous bourgeois view of the new train of thought that modern ultra-liberalism, one with a total and contrary ethos to the almost-established revolutionary Mexican ideal. All of these people ended up being the architects of their absolute electoral defeat years down the line. Going on until now, the Neo-Liberalism that Mexico faced put the country's proletariat at the mercy of international finance groups, in total cooperation with the government, at the height of its corruption and establishing technocratic rule. The 80's and 90's were not too kind for the average Mexican, but it's really not like they ever were. Debt crisis, mass privatization and disregard for workers well being destroyed completely the mass proletariat of the country. President Portillo continued this stance, and that lasted well into the change of parties with Fox and Calderon, the two large scapegoats for the current government. And yes, for how guilty these last administrations were of completely and violently liberalizing the country, this continuous process never ended, even under the administration of the man who stands against all of these people. And what did all of this cost? The radicality of any movement seeking to liberate Mexico from the grip of Canadian water companies hoarding the resources of an arguably dying country.

This period, regarded as either the "Shining period" for conservative white people, or just hell for anyone else involved in the process of these reforms, has had THE central role of the rejection of these ideas for the average Mexican. In this part of the world, the left does generally win the poor's vote, but it never finishes in a victory for them due to the extreme ammount of issolation that these people face, and the disregard the political elites have for the poorest and least advantaged Mexicans. Never has a trully revolutionary (Marxist or other) party had relevance in Mexico ever since the dirty wars, a series of guerilla conflicts from revolutionary (and quite opportunistic) groups on the countryside and the surounding areas of dense yet rural areas of the mountains of Guerrero. And ever since then, the leading (mostly finantial) bougeoisie has put down any opposition to the neo-liberal reforms as a form of rehabilitation of these revolts that had never the less class struggle at its core. And well, since the trully anti-establishement left wing had either been killed back in 68 or demoralized by the 2000's, its exactly at this point that the hopes of some poorly optimistic reformists was poured into the PRD candidacy of the old man apparently 60% of Mexico adores, AMLO. A candidacy that went on for 18 years, and that found its way to Palacio Nacional, but not without hiccups. Allegations of stolen elections and a sentiment of unfairness regarding the elections, especially high around the 2012 election of president Calderon (A.K.A, the Devil). Largely using his arguably smooth talk, he managed to turn this unfairness, coupled with a disastrous last president, that being Peña Nieto (basically a puppet for the dying PRI party to stay relevant after being de-throwned but the PAN as the leading right wing party), you got yourself a once in a lifetime election result, and that was enough to sadly appease the proletariat. The opportunistic nature of his politics, using other parties and coalitions in his benefit, was an absolute loss for the working class, and that effect of appeasement will be felt for longer than many can imagine.

So opportunistic that the bolshevik vanguard feels rightful in that place, this man never held any kind of real political positions besides opposing this controversial neo-liberal era the country went through while he gathered bourgeois power inside the party that dictated the country's direction for 60+ years. No radical background or desire to reform or even change the system, just a mindless return to the status quo that went before his ripe time : state run corporatism. There is, in no sense, a social character to AMLO's presidency. His state-powered economic policy is the exact same economic ideas that directed the early bourgeoisie in Mexico's post-1910 history. Consisting of mere and mindless nationalisation at the benefit of his own group of prescribed industrialists and populistic welfare ideas that re-enforce women's submisive role, such as the pink-credit given to families. The kind of class colaboration he so proposes, in addition to the policies implemented to comply with the social truce he needs to govern off of the people who have everything to win in case of a radical change for the future of the Mexican nation. For how much he claims the legacy of Cardenas, In no way does he even come close to that role, and I doubt he even wanted to fill it. The same way trade unions in Mexico have been the largest and most disastrous proletarian organization mode, AMLO comes in a non-glorious second place.

He, effectievely, managed to institutionalize the anti-establishement feeling that got rallied around him, and that sentiment became the only justification of his defenders for his political legitimacy. No matter how reactionary his social policy is, people will like him, because they see in him the change this overly capitalist nation needs. His idea of an ideal nation is nothing short of a nationalist's one. And, besides the obvious reasons why that concept in a multinational state like Mexico is, his foreign policy is not much better. He sought to break with "yankee imperialism" yet complied with all of Trump's suggestions. He sought to oppose "bourgeois" capital buildings, yet commanded the construction of newer ones with his selected clique of bureaucrats at his service. He claimed to fight the narco-state in a way the neo-liberals failed, yet has connexions to those groups for monetary profit. For how much anyone can claim this man to be the start of the change towards a fairer system, the deeply putrid Mexican system will never, ever, be close to reform.

This feeling is not exclusive to Mexico, but something we can see in any county that has a populist "anti-establishment" movement. Chile knew a massive electoral upset, with a young and apparently radical president, the Left wing returned in pure Allende fashion, and just like him, the dream of Democratic Socialism In the "wea" country was exterminated the moment the bourgeois constitution was sought to be changed for a fairly less bourgeois yet proletariat "friendly" one. Certainly, this change was not going to bring Communism to Chile, but it aimed at attacking a core tenant of Pinochet's Neo-Liberal regime, and it flopped the moment it saw the opportunity to disrupt it ever so slightly. For how flawed the actual text was, the result it got was unwarranted. But why did this happen? Because the moment you attack bourgeois society, it is going to go against you with full force, purely out of cultural dominance. And for another reason : an anti-establishment movement that wants to become the ruling object of bourgeois society, (even of compared to Mexico, the Chilean left wing had much sincere and real intentions of reformism) it will serve but one purpose, that being the ruling class. Or what about France, a country with the most unapologetic Neoliberal leader on earth that knew a Left-Wing victory in the last legislative elections. A broad coalition of reformists and some reactionary reformists (the French Communist Party) that with this power sought to disrupt the perpetual destruction of Macron's regime. The result? The immense rise in power of reactionaries and fascists seeking to become a legitimate party for the bourgeois state and well, Macron is still in quite the comfortable position. Even after months of pretty radical proletariat action (one that I personally participated in), the ones who sold the movement was the institutional Left Wing, purely out of rejecting outright Insurrection out of fear of backlash, such is the nature of the bourgeois parliament.

Not only is any movement incapable of reforming capitalism by any means possible, but specially, a radical-ish minded movement fails at the thought of establishing itself as a correct, bourgeois party. MORENA is not the vanguard of the revolution, and for how much they claim that to be correct in their hypocritical crusade against neo-liberalism, it is completely opposite to it : it has now become the party representing the oppression of the proletariat and the indigenous populations. In no world will Mexico destroy the liberalism it so much fought for most of it's history by electing a reactionary bureaucrat, and nowdays, the only defense this crumbling state has is the military. Yes, really. AMLO is far from being the equivalent of Sun Yat Sen, but his autocratic beliefs are not shy from reality. Yes, the bourgeois myth of "benevolent left wing rule" is a total destroyer of revolutionary fervor, but in this case, the rule of AMLO is not only legitimized by his absurd popular support, but also his grip on the country's right hand : the new and reformed national guard.

You see, ever since 2019 the police was officially militarized. Something quite unprecedented for a country presenting fundamental issues with both police and military institutions. The argument? Beat the narcos that most likely fueled his campaign, but the repression aspect of them was never shy. With direct control by both the "Civil defense secretary" and the head of the actual military institution of the federation, this newfound army has repressed movements down in Guerrero, as well as the Zapatistas (even if I do not endorse that group directly) and other free movements of the area of Chiapas and Oaxaca. And even after the disastrous administration of the metro failures, most likely due to bureaucratic corruption and the will to neglect the public services of the capital city, the national guard was deployed to "ensure the safety" of the passangers, yet it stayed well until this day to act as a reinforced watchdog for the bourgeoisie in power of the City-State.

Impossible it is to deny his behaviour has been nothing but repressive and contrary to the benefit of the overly beaten up Mexican working class. Is this a failure for the MORENA movement? Not at all. In nature, besides the obvious realization that reforming bourgeois society without disrupting the foundations of it via total and absolute insurection and revolutionary war, the MORENA movement, as well as the whole "Pink Wave" in Latin America lacked the analytical side of it : the petty bourgeois aspect of these movements come from the populistic and opportunistic elites that pretend being disruptive of liberalism at all, without an actual through analysis. Is it purely because the leading heads of these movements lack that understanding? Well no, it is purely normal. They never sought to disrupt capitalism, they are not anti-capitalist and populist movements never trully will. Using popular support and radical talking points to gather power inside the current system is in no way disruptive of the bourgeoisie : they are the bourgeoisie. Nothing has changed since the 70's, and everything got worse since the 80's. The only chance for anything is to reject all notions of "radical electoralism" and embrace the revolt. This was never a failure : these practices have only kept the system going, and the only good call for it is its destruction, an absolute one at that. Wether it is the Mexican, Chilean or French proletariat, the stage that capitalism is on right now calls for revolt, and you should join it. For the end of bourgeois tyrants, no matter of how red they try to appear. Fighting capitalism is not a matter of morals or elections, it's about liberation of all those whose oppression allows parasites like this to keep on running off of false hopes and shed tears. My home country has a lot of issues, and the technocratic bourgeoisie is the key one. Absolute fight, absolute revolt and absolute liberation, now and tomorrow.

MORENA, and all the opportunist reactionaries will be the death of Capitalism, but from the blood on our blades and effort the proletariat will put towards ridding itself from it. The proletariat does not need guidance from old corporatist men, it needs itself.

Eternal fight to all who oppose revolution.

#marxism #post-left #antiwork #communism #mexico #politics #philosophy

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mego42 · 3 years

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Shamelessly stealing @foxmagpie’s monthly rec thing without the ability to get my life together to do these on a monthly basis so, seasonal recs! So excited to see if I manage to do this again with anything remotely resembling consistency but i’ve been keeping the notes for approximately 43 years (or since ~september, whatever that means) so by god i’m gonna use them.

found my thrill - s_t_c_s / @sothischickshe

Turner POV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

guys turner is SO OBSESSED with Beth and Rio

both canonically and in this fic

it’s gr9

also features a weirdly soothing and relatable cord untangling moment as a metaphor

truly disturbingly relatable turner pov tbh

relentless boomer disdain, always a plus

led to the creation of this monstrosity, not sure what kind of a monster would do that

War In My Mind - mintletters16

Backread!!!!

post-213, gorgeous character study

guaranteed to make you feEl stUfF

I really love the like, cyclical, fractured pattern of Beth’s internal monologue, it gives the whole thing a really affecting at times dreamy, at times haunted vibe

the end twist is *chef’s kiss*

mourning bells - Ejunkiet / @ejunkiet

Backread!!!!

Later s2 era, Rio’s at a funeral, gets drunk and calls Beth

V short, kind of…..mmm, not sweet, but almost? Idk

It’s got a wistful sort of almost/i can be quiet with you vibe that i go extremely bonkers for

delinquents - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Lol are any of you actually not reading this yet?

g o d ch 8 where do i start

First off how ABSOLUTELY VERY DARE for the tragic angst that is delinquents!beth boland. This poor baby, this precious bean. MUST PROTEC

SHE’S TRYING HER BEST AND I LOVE HER

zero percent deserves dean’s clammy hands, no i have not forgotten, tattooed on my brain, will never forgive

I also love love love love LOVE the ruby/stan subplot happening

(and ruby’s mom!!!!!) (seriously though you write the best moms)

oh god and baby beth starting to have confusing feelings about rio?????? *chef’s kiss*

p sure i was just like, straight screaming the entire end of the chapter

the dugout is like, pure serotonin

I can’t even talk about the closet

tHe teNsiOn

thank you i will take eleventy billion

don't give it a hand, offer it a soul - medievalraven / @medievalraven

am a desperate heaux for any fic that features rio and mick friendship

you are all incredibly shocked i know

still would not be mad if this swerved into rio x mick fake dating but beth x rio is cool too i guess

Speaking of things i am a desperate heaux for: DIANE!!!!!!!!

and DATING ANNIE???????????? Blessed

honestly this fic is worth it purely for the assertion that mick watches queer eye

Why don't we go to Venus? - watermelonriddles / @bensonstablers

another grief study!

apparently i was working through some stuff in september, idk, that was like 4 years ago

considering it’s the premise of the fic, i don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this fic is canon divergent and working with the premise that rio killed beth in 302

he is uh, not coping well

extremely haunted you might say

lots of marcus and rhea which is a delight!

rhea is to good for him tbh

i said what i said

truly top notch dream (nightmare?) sequences

the conversation at the end is extremely uncalled for

drop the game - Ejunkiet / @ejunkiet

Backread!!!!

Am going to die mad Beth and Rio didn’t hook up in 211 but luckily this fic scratched the itch

(temporarily, it’s a fairly permanent itch)

Bonus rec: missing scene series i wanna do bad things to you featuring 2x02 and 2x04

Viva Voce - zetuslapetus / @querenaxx

Whoops we woke up married Vegas shenanigans!!

So cute!!!!! So sexy!!!!!

What more do you want?

am desperately obsessed with how beth can’t help stalking rio

feels right, feels organic

this makes me feel a lot of stuff about how they could be without their canon garbage between them

🎶 we could’ve had it aaaaaaaaaaall 🎶

you showed me colors (i can't see them with anyone else) - gild_fire / @gild-and-fire

really into the use of color to illustrate beth’s emotional state, i feel like there’s a word for that but idk what it is

UNIMPORTANT

really nice job capturing beth’s inner vulnerability balanced by her outer stubbornness

am DESPERATELY into Mick playing matchmaker

more please???????

Both Sides of the Law - JoeyLee / @joeyjoeylee

LAW SCHOOL AU! I suuuuuuper love Beth and Rio here (alt pov!! a gift!!!!) I love how initially prickly they are, I love how it’s evolving into a grudging respect, I love how INCREDIBLY AND HILARIOUSLY OBSESSED WITH EACH OTHER THEY ARE and neither one of them seems to see it

listen I know we’re all already foaming at the mouth over this one but as it’s gonna go down as one of my all time favorites it bears repeating/rereccing

cannot stress enough how masterful the use of POV is here, both voices feel completely true and distinct and I love how the alternating chapters revisit, reveal and emphasize pieces of each other

i can’t talk about this fic without hyperventilating

I LOVE IT SO MUCH YOU GUYS

the slow burn is going to ACTUALLY KILL ME

rip, no regrats

Earned It - wakeupflawless / @wakeupflawless

spanking

that’s it that’s the pitch

H O T

living for beth’s exit in the first chapter, rio and i are both incredibly into it

second chapter also features violently possessive Rio who cannot deal with anyone messing with his girl so if that’s your thing boy howdy get on it

shake, baby, shake - openhearts

backread!!!!!

according to my bookmarks this was a reread but ???????

must’ve read it in the fugue state that followed reading for a moment we were strangers which is gr9 and I believe I have recced it before. If not, horrible oversight, reccing it now

beth and Rio POV lead up to the bathroom break, beautifully done, low-key feel bad reccing it bc the end point of both chapters makes me want to throw things but it’s super worth it for the tEnsiOn. ENJOY

What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have - flashindie / @pynkhues

I’m assuming all of y’all are already reading this

If not OH MY GOD FIX YOUR LIVES

P I R A T E A U

I’m sorry maybe you didn’t hear me piRaTE aU

meticulously researched, brain-meltingly vibrant, already painfully sexy slow-burning PIRATE AU

god where to start okay so first off, the world-building here straight up breaks my brain, sophie’s put in the work and it SHOWS

second, the atmosphere. i’m generally a pretty like, vague mental picture sort of reader but the sensory detail here grabs you by the throat and like, forcibly hauls you in whether your brain’s wired that way or no

and hey speaking of throats if you, like me, go a little funny about the knees at the idea of beth holding a knife to rio’s throat (he’s fine, calm down), there’s a v excellent beth-in-a-barrel moment for you

oh christ and the sexy tension

it’s gonna be a race to see which slow burn takes me out first, this or law school

Stunner - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Another high school AU, this time with baby Rio absolutely head over heels for his older sister’s bff

stunner!Rio has an emotional earnestness about him that I feel like delinquents!Rio has already outgrown and it’s so SWEET I can’t get enough

Desperately cute!!!!!!

alL he waNts iS foR beTh tO bE hiS girL

also unreasonably angsty???????

ANN ARBOR IS NOT THAT FAR MEGAN

A Heart's A Heavy Burden - tooshyforthis / @bathroombreaks

Howl’s Moving Castle AU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Howl’s!!!!!!!!!!!

perfect opp to roast Rio for being a Dramatique Heaux

and it’s gonna be 9 chapters?????? H Y P E

author’s note boldly presumes I did not know I needed this AU when the reality is I did in fact know I needed this AU, I just wasn’t expecting anyone to deliver

so blessed

author also claims to not be team nose stud and yet it features prominently in all its magnificent glory

what is the truth dot gif

A Bit of a Stretch - septiembre / @septiembur

SO????? CUTE?????????

would be on this list for Rio calling Beth E alone tbh

really really really really really love this Rio POV of being settled into a relationship with Beth

It manages to be sweetly domestic af while still holding the edge that makes brio brio which is a neat trick

@septiembur may be a witch

beth’s approach to getting rio to do yoga with her is hilarious and exactly right, canon-typical amounts of subtlety

1000000/10

Post Break-Up Sex - femalegothic / @bethsuglywigs

stg this was called Hit Shuffle

no matter

h O T

with a side of damn i’ve made some questionable choices in my life haven’t i introspection

(no regrats tho)

(esp not with this fic)

not the point of the fic by a long shot but i’m also extremely obsessed with Weed Eddie, so real

She drains my soul... she drains it not - niham87 / @niham87

ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED WITH THIS CONCEPT

am a complete sucker for paranormal world building that satirizes bureaucracy

Is that a trope? If so that’s my favorite

I did it. I’m picking a single favorite. You know what that is growth dot gif

ANYWAY i love the concept, i love the humor, i love beth instantly clicking with annie

I love her and mick’s sort of grudging professional courtesy

Love beth as a champion of environmental responsibility and all of the underworld being like …...okay??

cannot wait to see where this goes

Nine-Tenths - riosnecktattoo / @riosnecktattoo

*INCOHERENT PTERODACTYL SCREECHING*

sometimes i think about rio putting beth’s hair in a ponytail and have to go lie down

science please explain why this rUinS mE

wait hold on i skipped ahead

HEY KIDS DO YOU LIKE UNBEARABLY CUTE DOMESTIC TENDERNESS

opens with rio sleepily holding beth’s hand to his heart so that’s the kind of thing you’ll be dealing with

uGH theY’RE sO CUTe

idk why precisely but rio adding hair ties to his bracelet collection is my undoing every time

Missed Call - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Rio doesn’t come home from a job when he’s supposed to. Beth (and I!!!!!!!) slowly loses her mind

Truly a masterpiece of rising tension

Will literally never forgive her for calling this light angst

I was SO STRESSED OUT

The first person to point out there was an author’s note at the beginning I obvs didn’t read is getting blocked

crush - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Listen even though this is centered around two OCs, they are OCs FROM a (n iconic) brio fic AND Beth, Ruby and Rio all make cameos (I mean, Rio’s pretty present since he lives in Mar’s mind rent free bc they are THE SWEETEST MOST ADORABLE BEST OF FRIENDS so idk if i’d call it a cameo but whatever)

and even if it didn’t feature any official GG characters I’d still rec is bc that’s mY SON AND this fic is TOO CUTE

I have so many feelings over mar and rio growing up and not knowing how to cope with girls becoming a Thing in their life and how it affects their friendship and mar feeling left behind but (SPOILERS) at the end of the story rio starts feeling that too and it’s so poignant knowing how that’s going to continue in delinquents

while mar may be my son, i also claim elena’s #1 stan status

before you’re like meg you’re only reccing it bc it’s a bday present ask yourselves do i really strike you as the kind of person that wouldn’t be equally obnoxious about this either way?

truly cannot fathom how hard i have fallen for these OCs i don’t normally do that

@foxmagpie is definitely a witch

The Ottoman - Niham87 / @niham87

look i will be the first to admit that i don’t go near as bonkers over the ottoman line in 308 as y’all do

(don’t get me wrong, i love it!!! I love that he laughs and i love that she’s pleased it just doesn’t hit my lose my whole mind button like idk, the dubby or the 306 convo, idk why)

BUT i v v v much love the context this delightful Rio POV pwp gives it

am also absolutely feral for 209 missing scene fic

and anything that captures the complexity of Rio’s s3 feelings for Beth and how twisted they’ve become

so this scratches a bunch of itches, is what i’m trying to say

Bet On It - zetuslapetus / @querenaxx

*INCOHERENT PTERODACTYL SCREECHING*

That’s what my brain does when I think about Beth and Rio meeting in ch 1

am DESPERATELY OBSESSED WITH the tension between the two of them in this fic

I love how it plays with the ways they have to rely on but don’t trust each other

plus FAKE DATING and BED SHARING (fair warning hasn’t happened yet but the set up is there)

originally supposed to be 2 chapters, already up to 4, prayer circle it goes on forever

do you like drugs (tonight) - s_t_c_s / @sothischickshe

v important focus on hydration, other fic should take note

extremely about the use of cut to and then flashback to enhance the ‘we were on drugs’ vibe

speaking of, beth and rio absolutely would take ecstasy to prove they are fun bc they are the exact kind of idiots that would peer pressure themselves

so glad beth kept her purse, got a bit stressed there for a second, clutches in that kind of circumstance are A Risk

not that i would know

FLAWLESS USE OF VOICEMAIL TBH

really love the ongoing denial that they are remotely into each other while proceeding to demonstrate how they are in fact, extremely into each other, great vibe

rio dances

I know my brain broke too

mmmm bacon

Navigate A Broken Path - flashindie / @pynkhues

*INCOHERENT PTERODACTYL SCREECHING*

I have a long standing tradition of getting unreasonably obsessed with side characters so i’m not like, entirely surprised by how obsessed i am with both Mick and Mary Pat but i never in a million years considered them as a ship

AND Y E T

they fit????? so perfectly?????? It’s amazing how she developes them individually enough that i look at them together and think ah yes this makes perfect sense for both characters

and they’re such an amazing foil to Beth and Rio?

can ships have foils? do i know what a foil is?

unimportant

GUYS you dON’T uNDERStAN d

hell i don’t understand

how absolutely very dare you make me care about YET ANOTHER set of gg ‘verse children

do not read this fic if you have no interest in feelings you zero percent asked for

wHA t hAPPeNED iN aLASkA?????????

A Moment’s Silence - femalegothic / @bethsuglywigs

*makes sign of the cross*

y’all are gonna make me rediscover religion

extremely appreciate the author’s note approach to backstory top notch prioritization

listen it’s basically 3k of beth deep throating rio idk what more you need me to say about it

it is…..good stuff

bless the kinkmeme or fest whatever we’re calling it

praise - civillove / @blainesebastian

I mean you had me at “three times rio calls beth a good girl and one time he really means it”

ephemeral rio

I left that note for myself in here in the middle of the night and haven’t the foggiest what i was thinking but i stand by it none the less

okay okay i think i know what i meant, this fic (as do all of my fav civillove brio fics) has this sort of like, liminal, in the quiet moments feel to them that makes the moments and feelings somehow feel like i’m catching a glimpse of something secret and precious???

idk i just really like it okay

Heart and Soul - riosnecktattoo / @riosnecktattoo

oh look more unbearably sweet domestic tenderness, this time to music

thank you ma’am for my life

rio remembers beth used to play piano and gets her one and revoltingly cute shenanigans result

also hilarity

and sexiness

this fic has it all, truly

shout out to mick who sees no reason to keep rio’s feelings to himself

good girls tumblr fic - prettylittlementirosa / @hypermania

cheating and reccing a whole series

It’s my list and i can do what i wanna

stop crying about it, it’s four fics and they’re all AMAZING absolutely impossible to pick a fav

truly flawless characterization, next level ability to capture evocative mood, cannot get enough

three’s a crowd: who knew ballroom dancing while dean watches and grinds his teeth could be so sexy

(trick question everything about that premise sounds A++++ and boy howdy does it live up)

feel it on the way home: rio tries to break up with beth, it goes about as well as you’d expect

(thE angSty tenSioN)

i want to play the game: [from the floor] i’m still not ready to talk about it

(rio/turner, missing scene, 10000000% a taste of what went down in that hotel room)

june after dark: pitch perfect annie pov, really really love the take that Annie is the baby whisperer, can’t fully explain why but it feels incredibly right

(ANNIE X NANCY COULD WORK SO WELL YOU GUYS)

#fingers crossed these links are right i did not double check #i like to live on the edge #truly mind boggling amount of fluff on this list i surprised myself on that one #no i will not at any point get my shit together enough to write out thoughtful commentary this is a shit posting blog first last and always #fic recs #gg fic #nbc good girls #i'll come up with a tag for these if i ever do them again #check back 37 years from now #or ~~~~~~march #whatever that means

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bunkershotgolf · 3 years

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Q&A with GC Architect Gil Hanse on his New Course at Les Bordes in France

Gil Hanse is regarded as one of the finest “minimalist” golf course architects of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He’s been entrusted with restoring some of the most revered and respected course designs in the game, including Oakland Hills (Donald Ross), Baltusrol (A.W. Tillinghast), and Fishers Island (Seth Raynor). And his original designs have drawn wonderful reviews, including for Streamsong Black, Rio Olympic Course in Brazil, and an 18-hole layout for the Crail Golfing Society in Fife, Scotland.

Hanse and his longtime partner and course shaper, Jim Wagner, enjoy the luxury of picking and choosing which projects they undertake, such is the demand for their services. One of them selected is the New Course at Les Bordes Golf Club in France’s Loire Valley, 90 minutes from Paris. It is scheduled to open in July 2021, and it will join the existing New Course (Robert von Hagge design). Together with the Wild Piglet, a 10-hole short course, and the Himalayas putting course, both which Hanse designed, Les Bordes is regarded at one Continental Europe’s finest golf clubs.

Where do you see Les Bordes sitting on the golf world stage as a facility?

I think that, with the two 18-hole golf courses and the amenities that are already in place and the ones that are coming, I can’t see how Les Bordes won’t be considered one of the finest golfing destinations in Europe or in the world. You have all the cultural attractions around you, you’ve got the food and the wine, the quality of the amenities. It will be an idyllic place to spend time even if you weren’t playing golf, and then to have these two golf courses so different and varied in their challenges and their presentation really runs the full gamut. I don’t know where else in the world you could find that sort of variety.

Can you pick out a couple of holes on the New Course that you especially like and tell us a bit about them?

The 15th hole, a short-par four, would be one of them. There’s a lot of character and interest, when we were working on it we talked through the philosophy and then Jim Wagner shaped and executed it wonderfully and added some tremendous character to it. On the front nine, I’ve always liked the sixth hole, just the way it flows through the landscape and the different breaks. Trying to be reminiscent a little bit of Tom Simpson with segmented fairways and the way the green lays so simply on the ground.

What makes the landscape at Les Bordes so special? And what makes this golf estate unique.

The diversity of the plant materials is really something we have never encountered, with the broom and the bracken and the variety of trees throughout the property and the fescue grasses. Now they’ve also introduced heather so I think that there are all these great textures there that the golf course just seems to sit amongst. That’s what makes it unique, I can’t think of another golf landscape that looks and feels like the New Course at Les Bordes. There are so many different facets to heathland courses, which you can see in the courses just north of Paris like Morfontaine and Chantilly and the course much closer to where we live in Pine Valley, and I think there are all these different elements here that will create a unique experience at Les Bordes.

How is it possible to build two completely different golf courses on the same estate?

I think it was two different philosophies as to how Robert von Hagge did the Old Course and we approached the New Course. From that perspective, a significant amount of time passed between the creation of both golf courses, and I think that lent itself to, stylistically, different courses that appear differently, because one feels more manufactured and one feels more natural. Neither one is right or wrong, they are just different and one golf course extracts a very harsh penalty for poorly played shots and the other is a little bit more forgiving. I think that is what’s going to make Les Bordes one of the most wonderful golf destinations in the world, you have two distinctly different golf courses from two different eras but the quality of both of them is equivalent in how they were created and how they are presented.

When and how was this project initiated?

The first time I went there was in June 2018. The owner and I had some mutual friends and the conversation came up that the owners were hoping to build a new golf course. The owner had said that he was really hoping to work with us on it, and that fact that we had mutual friends made that conversation easy to get initiated. Once I came to look at the property I was immediately sold on the potential of the ground, and then the hospitality that I was shown while I was there was amazing. Being able to stay on property and the wine and the food, I was treated very well.

What course would you compare the New Course at Les Bordes with?

I can’t think of a direct comparison. There are elements of a number of golf courses including a lot of the great heathland courses around London and several heathland courses around Paris. I think that Jim Wagner and I are always influenced by Pine Valley, which is very near to us here at home, and I think that some of the scale of National Golf Links is apparent out there. If you roll all of those into one, I think that’s a pretty good recipe.

What was it that attracted you about the site at Les Bordes?

The sand and the vegetation, and the reputation of the place. Obviously, we’ve heard of Les Bordes here, so the quality of the site itself and the commitment of the ownership as well, which is a big thing. When we’re considering the criteria of a project, Jim Wagner and I always ask ourselves ‘do we have the potential to do something exceptional’, and I think that, while the topography at Les Bordes is not the most outstanding we’ve ever worked with, it still has enough character to it, and the vegetation and the soil gave us the opportunity to do something exceptional. Secondly, we ask ourselves ‘are we going to have fun doing it’ and working with the ownership at Les Bordes, and if you can’t have fun in that part of the world and enjoy yourself then I think there’s something wrong with you. So I think the combination of all those really added up to that being a very attractive project for us. We’ve never built anything in Continental Europe and we wanted to make sure that our first project there was going to be something special, and Les Bordes gave us that opportunity.

What can we expect from the New Course?

You can expect fun golf in a natural, perfect setting. We were given the opportunity from the ownership to build some interesting golf holes; stylistically, it was fun for all of us to focus on Tom Simpson and some of his beautiful creations and some of his inspired designs, not that we copied him stylistically or design-wise but we were certainly influenced by him and that was a treat for us.

It’s been reported you took inspiration from Tom Simpson, what elements of his work were most relevant here and how have you blended those with your own concepts?

The scale of his bunkering was something that we really paid attention to, with clusters or rows of bunkers and that was interesting. From our perspective, it was just the way that they blended into the landscape that was amazing. Some of the green complexes that he built were fairly eccentric and so we felt that we could create a few on the golf course like that, but then he also built some greens that were simple in their presentation yet complex in their subtlety, and a lot of those things fed into what we did at Les Bordes. I know going forward, if the landscape is a good fit, we would certainly do more things in the style of Tom Simpson.

How challenging was it for you to create a new course near the one (the Old Course) that’s considered one of the best in Continental Europe?

I don’t think that we found it to be a challenge or challenging, we found it to be inspirational. It’s always nice when you come to a project and the level of quality is established through the existing golf course and the existing facilities, all of which are to a really high standard. We were excited and challenged in our creativity and what we were trying to do and hopeful that, when all is settled, Les Bordes has two golf courses that are very highly regarded, but I would be lying if I didn’t hope that ours was a little more highly regarded.

Do you feel you succeeded in your goal and why?

I do. I think that every golf architect when they are given a site hopes that the best that they can do is to maximize the characteristics of the site, and I feel that we have done that with the New Course. I feel that we have provided a great variety in the two different nines; we have captured the best of the topography on site; we have worked to enhance some of those areas through added elevation; and we have worked to create a very interesting and playable test of golf. I’m confident that, with all the work that we’ve done there, we have maximized the potential of the property and, as a golf architect when you walk away, that’s all that you can hope for.

The Wild Piglet

One of the things that golf is doing a better job on right now, and Les Bordes is certainly offering that with The Himalayas putting green and The Wild Piglet, is just fun. Fun and access and providing an easy entry point to the game. You can go out and laugh at yourself, have a good time and not worry about losing golf balls or have the pressures of playing a full-size golf course. Our attempt there was to create a very fun and playable experience, but also one where a good player could go out there and be tested with shots. In order to succeed on The Wild Piglet, you’ve got to hit some really good shots, but you’ve also got the opportunity to just go out there and bang it around and have fun. One of the things that Jim Wagner and I worked with the team on was, basically, giving everybody their own golf hole or holes, and just letting everybody have a crack at it. It was fun and I think that if you go into your own little incubator, independent of everybody around you, it gives you the opportunity to be as creative as you want. Then, ultimately, Jim and I would take a look but I don’t think that we’ve edited things very much. You have some individual expressions out there that, when put together, comprises 10 really fun, unique golf holes.

What are the characteristics of a golf course that make you want to play it again and again? What makes it recognizable?

I think that it’s fun and that there are interesting shots. It’s the ability to go out one time and then think, “okay, next time I play it I’m going to try this differently” or that you get put into a different circumstance each and every round, but that the design and the creativity within the design allows you to approach the problem solving differently each time. I think there’s that sense of the playability of the course and then there’s just the beauty of it and the presentation. I think that golf courses that have a sense of place and that feel like they belong where they’re sitting is also something that makes me want to continue to play it. I think that adds to the character and the quality of it so the way it looks, the way it feels as you walk through the landscape, and then, certainly, the way it plays and challenges you to be creative are courses that I want to keep playing over and over.

How would you describe your style as a course architect? What are the general trends? And which architect has inspired you the most?

We don’t have a style! I hope that we respond to each and every site, and that a golf course we have built at Les Bordes does not look like a golf course that we have built in southern Georgia at Ohoopee or Southern California at Rustic Canyon. I hope that every course we’ve built has a sense of place and a sense of belonging which will then, ultimately, provide unique opportunities. Through our methodology of being on-site so much, if we can capitalize on these opportunities, then each golf course should feel unique. I think our courses have some similarities in that we like wider playing corridors and interesting green complexes, and I think our bunkers are particularly attractive, but they do still blend into the native landscape and hopefully our courses change style to style depending on the site that we’re given.

What does a course architect have as a weapon, apart from the overall length, to make a golf course really challenging for professionals?

The greatest defense is firm conditions, and the opportunity to build a golf course in a place where the ball will bounce in the fairway and the greens. Professional golfers work so hard at their game and hone their craft so well so that they have a predictable outcome every time they hit a golf ball. They know when they hit their seven-iron what the outcome will be, but if the conditions are firm and they’re not sure if the ball’s going to bounce twice and check or not going to check at all, that’s the best defence and that relies on the conditions on-site and obviously Mother Nature for a tournament. But I think from an architect’s perspective, the only other challenges we can provide are mental ones where golfers maybe feel a little bit uneasy about the shot that’s in front of them because they can’t quite see everything or they can’t quite determine the best way to play the hole is. Those are the type of courses that require study, and I think those are the best examples of golf architecture.

What are the qualities of a good golf course?

I think that a good golf course should have a sense of place, a sense of belonging, it doesn’t feel that it’s been transported from somewhere else and feels like it belongs on a property, and that it is one that has a variety of ways to play it, interest in the features that have been created or that have been found in the landscape, and it has to be fun. It’s a balance between fun and interest versus difficulty, and we want to provide ways for golfers to navigate around a golf course based on their own skill level and if a golf course gives you that opportunity to map or think your way through it, then I think that’s the best an architect can do.

How much did/do you know about golf courses in France and what do you make of the architecture you have seen?

I think of the countries where I have seen golf in continental Europe, France has by far the best, most superior golf-course design. You can put Morfontaine and Chantilly and some of the other courses around Paris up against some of the best courses in the world, not just in Europe, and so I think that when you have a few anchor courses that provide those opportunities, and then you have some newer courses that have been built that aspire to do really good things, and I think they do, I feel like France has a really good golfing baseline. That allowed us to build in a country that already had expectations for quality golf, and we’re hopeful that what we’ve created adds to that.

#golf #new #pga #European Tour #Golf Courses #submission

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alistonjdrake · 3 years

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Part Six: The Kingmaker

Royal Governor Arturo an’Román Harver Born: Year 1674 after the fall of the Saints Parents: Prince Román an’Fernando Harver and Princess Estrella ana’Marco Rios Spouse: Lady Marcela ana’Oscar Thorley

As he was born before the creation of Tadrus as a city-state, it’s crucial to say it was given to him as a gift for all he’d done for for the Rios line and for King Juliano (who at the time was a prince and Arturo was one of his many tutors.)

The Pala Haviso was built for him. The position of Royal Governor was created for him. He was the first Harver to leave Savera behind (when he left Savera he put it in the care of the lesser known branch of the family that still carries the “de Flores” name. During the Escana Empire era, they remained as dukes).

Long after his passing, people would go onto say that Arturo was an ambitious visionary who saw an opportunity for his grandchild and was unrelenting in pursuit of his goals. The truth? He was often a lucky man in the right place at the right time.

Not much is known about Arturo’s childhood. There are many reasons for this. First, he was not considered a significant figure to Escana contemporaries and what is known about his youth comes from Princess Estrella’s letters to King Juliano’s father (Princess Estrella’s uncle and as he clearly died relatively young, leaving Juliano in a brief regency period, not much of those letters exist). Savera was of little importance to those outside of Nava. Even Princess Estrella only married Prince Román because he painted her from memory after seeing her on a tour and she claimed if she was going to marry any man it’d be one who clearly knew his brushstrokes.

The other half of Arturo’s recorded history comes straight from King Juliano himself. He regarded Arturo as an older brother figure (he was only sixteen when the king was born) and deeply relied on his counsel and advice. Through Juliano’s eyes, they had a mutual respect for one another. He appreciated that Arturo was always level-headed and calm with him, very patient during their lessons, and never arrogant.

Arturo took the appointment as Royal Governor with great pride but we can likely speculate he wasn’t entirely pleased with his new city-state in regards to his relationship with his wife. Lady Marcela ana’Oscar Thorley was the daughter from one of the seven Tadrune houses and she was quite alien to him.

As mentioned before, Escan was a relatively recent convert to Santivism but Nava (and by extension, Tadrus) would not follow suit until reunited under the Escana Empire. Instead, the Navanese and Tadrune people worshipped ola tra and while traces of this religion remain in how modern Escana interpret Santivism, they are different faiths. But, Arturo had converted long ago, as had his father supposedly to marry his mother. He did so to blend easily into the Escana court, despite claims that Escan is still the least Santivian country of them all. (This would not be a problem for King Frederick as he was raised in Oskya, a devout nation and truly had more support in his fight for the throne from career Santivians and from the Justice in Codua than Queen Isolde did despite all worshipping the same religion.)

But as Tadrune had not yet made any officially push to covert, most people were not Santivian and that was the same for Lady Marcela and this difference of faith became one of many things Arturo did not like about her.

The other being that he likely bought into the anti-Tadrune sentiment that started in Graza (and in bitter parts of Nava). That the Tadrune were “lesser”. Even as he ruled it, he began to see Tadrus as a sort of pathetic backwater and thus his marriage to Lady Marcela an insult to who Arturo was striving to be.

It’s more reasonable to believe that at some point, if Arturo was truly an ambitious man, those ambitions were once for him instead of future children he may have. He was given Tadrus in 1699 and married the same year, a part of him likely suspected King Juliano’s regents did not want him mixing any further with “true” Escana blood or climbing too far from his position.

There is not much actual insight on the relationship between Arturo and Lady Marcela. She did not stay long, reportedly waiting until the nursemaid could handle Johannes before whispering away on a boat and she would not be heard of again until the gossip of her unsavory demise floated north.

Arturo never remarried, not that he lacked for trying. There are some of accounts of him trying to get King Juliano to lend a hand in finding a new spouse (once the king was of age and no longer needed regents, he did keep Arturo as one of his advisers) but this never resulted in a prolonged courtship. Strange, considering Arturo had no faith in his son. He said, more than once, that if he remarried he would quickly favor any new children over Johannes.

Even so it’s not all that much of a surprise that he quickly ceded all ruling power of Tadrus to Johannes once he was old enough. Arturo always preferred being in Graza and being close to his king.

With how fondly King Juliano talked about Arturo in his diaries it is surprising, however, that no such match was ever proposed between King Juliano’s children and Arturo’s grandchildren. (It should also be noted, before Frederick’s departure to Palogne and then to Oskya, Arturo did like Lady Helena. He found her accomplished, intelligent, and capable. He even went so far as to tell her she was too good for his son on their wedding night. And she was Santivian. Johannes, on the other hand, had really embraced Tadrune’s traditional faith.)

No such record exists to confirm the story that Arturo proposed a match between Frederick and Isolde and was given a promise. Surely, King Juliano would have written it down or made some announcement. It was not unusual for engagements to be called while the parties were still children or if they had never even met (as was the case with Frederick and Isolde). It can’t even be said that King Juliano rejected him as bitterly as Queen Isolde would because no record of that exists either.

The only known source of anyone saying no to marrying Frederick comes from Queen Isolde herself who, days after her father’s death, was approached by Arturo with the proposal. Denied, he angrily retreated to Tadrune.

Certainly, whether or not he had any reason to it was him who put the idea of marrying Isolde into Frederick’s head. Frederick was greeted with several marriage proposals when he returned to Tadrus. Arturo and Lady Helena denied every one of them in hopes of getting something better. But also, the seventeen year old Frederick who first took control of Tadrus was in no mind to marry. Remember, he had just arrived it what felt like a foreign, tropical paradise with a prince he was certainly sleeping with.

But in Frederick, Arturo likely found someone even a little bit like-minded to him. What is undoubtedly true is that when Frederick landed in Tadrus, he was quickly seduced by the prospect of power and his grandfather kept filling with promises of more.

Every move King Frederick made against Queen Isolde was encouraged by Arturo. He had seemingly no qualms over acting against a young woman he knew better than his own grandson. Arturo had spent years in Graza. He’d seen her grow up. He hadn’t seen Frederick since he reluctantly attended Johannes’ funeral (where he did not even cry in contrast to how he sobbed when King Juliano died).

Arturo treated Frederick’s accomplishments with feverish pride. He took ownership over them. The speeches he’s said to have given before the siege is likely what turned him into the ever-present figure in King Frederick’s history (when really, Lady Helena, Prince Sebastian, and King Vadik had a much larger impact on the future of Escan). Arturo did not hesitate to remind anyone that none of them would be there without him. The Harvers would have faded into obscurity in Savera.

Ironically, Arturo died just days after King Frederick’s coronation and throughout the duration of King Frederick’s reign was largely overshadowed by the much more endearing (and long-lasting) stories of affairs and assassination attempts than the man lucky enough to be given a city-state as a gift and could afford to give it up because he was bitter.

#my writing #my characters #world building #lgbt fantasy #tss trilogy #y'know what don't I have any de Flores characters?#I'm pretty sure there's one in my renaissance wip but I haven't worked on that in ages because of unfortunate circumstances #and he exists in pre-Harver history I wonder if I can switch out someone one of the 9 prines marry to a de Flores from Savera #pay tribute to their forgotten lesser branch #I also realize this references the 'main' post that hasn't gone up yet #all you need to know is that the surname used to be 'de Flores Harver' and one branch just took harver and the others kept just 'de Flores'

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gibelwho · 3 years

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Marathon #1: The Western Finale and Awards

My train to the Old West has returned to its station and therefore it is time to consider all the films screened in Gibelwho Production’s Western Marathon. Taking guidance from Filmspotting’s inaugural marathon, I watched 8 films in the Western genre, with production dates spanning 30 years, each with a unique representation of frontier life, good and evil, stunning landscapes, and the men and women who inhabit the Western tales. Each film has its own recap and review on this site, but when placed in contrast to each other, the narrative of a shifting genre emerges, reflecting the changes in society that are then mirrored in the depictions of the Old West. Here are the list of the films:

High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)

The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)

My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)

Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)

A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964)

Winchester ‘73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)

The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)

As noted in my introduction post, the Western genre was not my favorite of the Hollywood Studio System - I’ve never fully connected to this classic American genre, so I was a bit apprehensive about starting this journey, but still determined to keep an open mind for the variety of films included in the scope. The Marathon certainly expanded my horizons - I had only seen two of the eight films (Stagecoach and High Noon) in film school, so most of the material was seen with fresh eyes. I knew the basics of the genre, but was ready to explore the themes in a deeper way with some classic examples from the genre’s biggest stars and directors.

One prominent troupe of the Western genre is the lone man standing up to forces bigger than himself, which held true for most of the films in this Marathon. High Noon leans into this idea in the extreme - where no one in the town will lift a hand to help Gary Cooper defend against the criminals returning to seek revenge. John Wayne - the signature figure of the entire Western genre - took offense to this portrayal of a weak and friendless sheriff and so teamed up with Howard Hawks to film Rio Bravo, crafting a movie about a sheriff devoted to his public office and surrounded by capable compatriots. Clint Eastwood, the man who took the mantle of the Western lone man icon from John Wayne in his Dollars trilogy, starting with A Fistful of Dollars, has neither integrity nor a sense of duty - but is simply out to make as much money as he can selling his services.

Despite their lone man status, the protagonists of the Western are always surrounded by men and women that round out the film’s supporting cast. The portrayal of women in particular was uneven throughout the eight films; most of the actresses infused their characters with a spirit necessary in order to live in the frontier towns, but the actresses were also dealing with scripts that were not always sophisticated or enlightened. A woman's place in society often was divided into parlor women, such as Chihuahua in My Darling Clementine or Dallas in Stagecoach, or sophisticated women from the East blessing their presence in the wild West, such as Clementine or Lucy from the same films. Helen Ramirez, the business woman and former lover of the town’s sheriff in High Noon, and the matriarch of the Baxter family from A Fistful of Dollars are perhaps the only women in the Marathon’s films that truly have agency over their lives, but even they are punished for that distinction, with Helen leaving town after selling her business and Mrs. Baxter losing her life during the Rojo’s attack. And within The Wild Bunch - there are literally no women of consequence who are even featured in the film. Depending on the decade of the film’s creation and the effort put in by the screenplay, there is a mixed bag when it comes to women’s representation in the Western genre.

The theme that does have consistency across all the films is the treatment of Native Americans - and when viewed through a modern lens, it is extremely lacking in equitable representation. Across all of these films, when Indians are presented on screen - they are always the enemy, their motivations or points of view are never considered or explored, and they are always presented as an Other. In Stagecoach and Winchester ‘73, roving bands of Native Americans are presented as the main threats to the white characters - and in the latter film, typical Hollywood institutional racism is on display as white man Rock Hudson is cast as an indigenous person. The Searchers is the most flagrant, also casting a white man as the tribal chief Scar, and its script is based on an assumed racist conception that a white woman is tainted (and even decayed to the point of hysterical mental illness) once exposed to a native tribe. Mexican and Mexican Americans are given slightly better treatment, oftentimes portrayed as allies, whether as saloon and hotel owners or even as part of the posse. In The Wild Bunch, the gang of rogues consider Angel a part of the team and even attempt an ultimately unsuccessful rescue from the Mexican military. People of color are not, however, the center of the tale, but always as side characters in service of the white protagonists.

Two sub-themes also cropped up in several of the films, the first of which deals with a prominent event in American history. Although these films were released within a 30-year period between 1939 and 1969 - their settings ranged from the 1860s to the 1880s (with The Wild Bunch as the odd film out, set in 1913); this put their narratives within a few decades of the Civil War, and while none of the films deal with this as a prominent plot point, the national war is part of the characters history and therefore affects the men’s interactions in the Wild West - where any man could have fought on either side of the war. In Winchester ‘73, Lin and his friend High-Spade join the US Cavalry in a fight against the Indians and as they part ways - the duo admit to the US Sergeant that they fought against each other during the Battle of Bull Run. The men shake hands and part as chums, apparently having moved past what they consider a brother vs brother fight. More contentious is the handling of the war in Stagecoach, where the traveling band bicker about the North vs South struggle - some refer to the South as the “Southern Confederacy” and others clap back that it was a “rebellion.” In keeping with the underlying point of view of white men prominent in the genre, neither of these scripts describe the war’s central fight as around America’s original sin of slavery.

Another sub-theme deals with the very real struggle of alcoholism amongst the backdrop of the frontier, where saloons are primary social settings and the alcohol flows freely. In Stagecoach, Doc Boone’s large consumption of alcohol is treated as a humorous character quirk during the first half, but when Lucy’s pregnancy demands a premature delivery, his constant inebriation becomes a serious threat to her and the baby’s life. In My Darling Clementine, Doc Holliday’s battle with tuberculosis is made worse by drinking alcohol, definitely whiskey and even the champagne that he orders as an alternative, yet he continues to drink throughout the film. Dean Martin’s stellar performance in Rio Bravo took on a newly sober man’s temptation of falling back into the bottle, bravely showing the devastating effects of battling the disease, but also how a community of support is immensely helpful for pushing through.

Spanning 30 years, the films included in this Marathon chart the shifting narratives within the Western, with the first few decades adhering to the original genre tropes, and the films in the last decade beginning to subvert those conventions as the societal conditions had shifted as well. The films from the early decades - Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Winchester ‘73 (1950), High Noon (1952), The Searchers (1956), and Rio Bravo (1960) - for the most part adhere to the genre conventions established by the Hollywood Studio System, including the frontier setting, a lone man sheriff fighting against monumental forces, a white-centric perspective of civilization creeping into the wilderness, and a black and white moral code featuring clear cut villains. But as the years progressed into the 1960s and global culture changed, so too did the Western genre, with A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Wild Bunch (1969) demonstrating those changes in this Marathon. Featuring protagonists with a blurred moral code that didn’t fall neatly into the traditional ideal sheriff hero, as well as much more overt and excessive displays of violence, these films pushed the boundaries of Western narratives and forged new visual iconography, such as Clint Eastwood’s The Man With No Name’s hat and poncho from the Dollars trilogy. Looking beyond the scope of this Marathon, the shifting conventions have only become more prominent as the years followed the 1960s, with Westerns increasingly focused on previously marginalized voices of women and persons of color, more fully exploring the grey morality of life on the frontier, and pushing the sequences of violence to even more extremes.

And now - time for the Awards! The following categories were considered across the eight films screened:

Actor

Actress

Supporting

Screenplay

Song/Score

Direction

Best Picture

Actor:

Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name in A Fistful of Dollars

Departing from the early Western genre conventions, Eastwood plays The Man With No Name as an anti-hero, an intelligent stranger that devilishly plays the two rival gangs against each other, but also reunites a family and saves his only friend in the town. As the role that provided his breakout stardom, Eastwood is the epitome of cool - calm, confident, devious, and the fastest draw in town. The shoddy ADR slightly detracts from his performance, but otherwise, it is clear why he stole the mantle from John Wayne as the Western star for the more modern age.

Honorable Mentions:

John Wayne as Ringo Kid in Stagecoach - Wayne in his breakout role is fresh-faced, earnest, and innocently in love with Dallas, the prostitute with a heart of gold. John Ford had to fight for Wayne to be cast in this film, and his determination was rewarded by Wayne’s standout performance amongst a strong ensemble cast. He infuses Ringo Kid with a breezy and bemused attitude, floating above all the petty grievances within the stagecoach’s occupants, and instead forges a genuine connection with Dallas.

Gary Cooper as Will Kane in High Noon - Cooper is a man driven by the undeniable fact that his old enemy will not rest until he seeks revenge and his slow realization that he will face the fight alone - without help from the town nor his wife. His performance is a compelling portrait of restrained fear and solid determination, all playing out on Cooper’s stolid face.

Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine - Fonda brings sophistication to his performance, balancing a desire for revenge, nervous flirtation with Clementine, and believable sheriff skills. He also leans in to the emotion of the cattleman turned sheriff living on the frontier - subtle and heartfelt when speaking at his brother’s grave.

Actress:

Katy Jurado as Helen Ramirez in High Noon

With a fierce and stellar portrayal of a powerful woman of color in a frontier town, Jurado defies the usual boundaries of both her character’s Western world and also the Hollywood Studio System in which she filmed the movie in 1952. Not only providing a contrast to Grace Kelly’s subdued sheriff’s wife, she holds her own against her white deputy boyfriend, her white business partner where she is a silent investor, and also to her old lover - the white sheriff who is standing alone to defend his town and his life. The screenplay gives Jurado the space to create a character that has depth and her performance matches that opportunity - she is electrifying and an inspiring visage of an independent woman of color onscreen - a rare sight for a Classical Hollywood film.

Honorable Mentions:

Angie Dickinson as Feathers in Rio Bravo - Given the difficult job to inexplicably and quickly fall in love with an aging and stilted John Wayne and also to make unreasonable decisions like staying in town despite the danger to him and any of his associates, Dickinson delivers a remarkable performance. Despite a fleshed out character, Dickinson as Feathers is subtle, cool, calm, feisty, and strong. She refuses to be taken by stereotype, visibly delights in the sheriff’s uncomfortable reactions to her flirtations, and commands every scene with Wayne.

Shelley Winters as Lola Manners in Winchester ‘73 - In a film that doesn’t focus on a set of main characters, but follows the journey of a rifle through the West, Winters does get a majority of screen time; unfortunately, she spends most of that time being passed around between inadequate men. She makes up for that by maintaining a certain level of sass, delivered as snappy comments, but she also finds space for emotional and subtle moments with James Stewart.

Supporting Actor/Actress:

Dean Martin as Dude in Rio Bravo

Playing against his star persona (a charming and suave crooner from the Rat Pack), Martin is almost unrecognizable as a man going through alcohol withdrawal, attempting to stay sober and also prove his worth to the sheriff, his posse, and himself. Martin is so vulnerable here, especially the scenes where he is struggling with drinking, but he is believable as a gun-slinger and also shows off his incredibly beautiful and smooth vocals.

Honorable Mentions:

Victor Mature as Doc Holliday in My Darling Clementine - Almost claiming the top spot here, Mature delivers a masterful performance, capturing the drama of a man filled with regret and bitterness. His face has a modern quality to it that stands out in the Western setting, but he employs it well, radiating so much emotional heft with just his eyes alone.

Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone in Stagecoach - The Doctor starts out as the comedian of the stagecoach’s ensemble, constantly finding ways to drink the whiskey salesman's wares, and playing a drunk quite convincingly (oftentimes hard to do onscreen). Halfway through the film, however, Mitchell must turn his performance towards drama and emotion, sobering up to deliver a baby. He plays all shades of this character so well and won an Oscar for Supporting Actor for his efforts.

Screenplay:

Dudley Nichols for Stagecoach

From top to bottom, the screenplay for Stagecoach is a master class in plotting, dialogue, and assembling a compelling ensemble cast. The opening scenes provide a clinic in setting up all the individual stories for the characters who join the stagecoach, which feeds into their conflicts, as well as the danger looming over their journey. Ensemble pieces can be tricky to write, but Nichols infuses just the right balance between all characters, giving them each individual moments to shine, as well as natural conflicts that elicit revealing conversations within the coach and at their various stops. Despite its age, the script is teeming with life, is incredibly funny (clearly aided by some stellar performances), and even makes interesting choices around the action scenes - building up the tension to the final shootout, but not showing it onscreen. This is a fantastic screenplay that laid the foundation for a classic movie.

Honorable Mentions:

Carl Foreman for High Noon: This film is known for its commitment to time, setting a deadline for the villains arrival and constantly reminding the viewer of the impending crisis. This creates a slow burn towards the action, but the film doesn’t rush towards the climax; rather, it focuses on moments between characters and specifically explores their various motivations. The church scene is perfected down to the details, showing how men’s minds can be swayed by emotional speeches (one delivered by Thomas Mitchell, with another fantastic performance). The script is like an onion, with each layer moving the plot forward and revealing more of the character’s emotional journey.

Various Credits for A Fistful of Dollars - While the dialogue for this film does not particularly stand out, it is an honorable mention due to the structure and ingenuity of the plotting. The Man With No Name is incredibly intelligent and this is demonstrated by all the machinations of his playing the two gangs against each other. A story based on the Japanese film Yojimbo, this film has 5 writers credited on IMDB for the story and screenplay, but does not feel disjointed at all; rather, one is taken in by the clever tricks the gun-slinger does to outwit and take down the Rojos and the Baxters.

Song/Score:

Ennio Morricone for A Fistful of Dollars

This category has a clear winner with Morricone’s score - it is creative, daring (flutes in a Western?!), and incredibly engaging, uniting sound with image effectively. Working on a tight budget, Morricone’s restrictions generated a burst of creativity, crafting a tapestry of sounds that came to define the Dollars trilogy and heralded a new blueprint for the sounds of modern Western movies.

Honorable Mentions:

Max Steiner for The Searchers - I have known the main title music since before this Marathon, as it is included on the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra’s compilation of film scores, an album often in my rotation. Steiner’s music alternates between bold statements and lingering wanderlust, crafting a variety of shapes to match the various landscapes that Ethan and Martin travel through during their years of searching.

Jerry Fielding for The Wild Bunch - As the most recent film produced in the Marathon, the soundtrack feels the most modern of the selections. Fielding crafted a body of music that varies from faux patriotic snare drums in the opening sequence, to soft and romantic sides for the team’s down beat moments, to a high adventure score for the train robbery.

Direction:

Sergio Leone for A Fistful of Dollars

While it almost seems sacrosanct to not give John Ford the award, as he is basically the father of the Western, Leone's stretching of the genre in new directions in the spaghetti Western style is too good not to recognize. Leone’s shot composition (utilizing rules of thirds, depth of field and multiple planes, using buildings as framing devices, etc) is a more sophisticated filmmaking than the straightforward shots in the classic Westerns of this Marathon. Not to mention, his direction of the actors is stellar, especially working with Eastwood to define a new visage for the Western anti-hero. For all his fantastic work, the film is not flawless; the ADR sound and some confusing day/night scenes show cracks in the armor, but don’t take away from this masterpiece of vision and storytelling.

Honorable Mention:

John Ford for The Searchers - Despite my loathing for the blatant racism of the screenplay and stilted acting of John Wayne - the distinguished direction of Ford must be acknowledged; there is a reason why this film is considered a classic. The contrast between indoor and outdoor spaces to reflect civilization vs the wilderness and the types of people that inhabit each is conveyed simply through blocking and framing. Additionally, the Monument Valley that Ford was famous for shooting was never captured so beautifully in all of its various seasons. The film must be admired for Ford’s talent, despite its other challenging facets.

Best Picture:

Stagecoach

Despite the age of this film, it feels incredibly fresh and yet timeless. I’ve already touched on the excellent (and funny!) screenplay, Wayne’s star-making turn as Ringo Kid, and the wonderful ensemble cast (especially Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone and also Andy Devine as Buck the stagecoach driver), but Ford’s direction must be credited as well; he skillfully navigates the cramped space of the stagecoach, reveals character work through blocking in the interior spaces, and films the Monument Valley for the first time in his career. And the film’s climactic action sequence is breathtaking and full of fantastic stunt work! Of course, the portrayal of Native Americans as a looming threat is problematic and is representative of the society and time period in which the film was made, but otherwise Stagecoach deserves its reputation as a classic Western and was the best of the films screened in this Marathon.

Honorable Mentions:

A Fistful of Dollars - After screening many classic Westerns in this Marathon, Leone’s film felt like a leap forward in terms of story, tone, and visual style. I’ve already praised Eastwood’s performance, the screenplay, Leone’s direction, and the incredible score by Morricone for these awards - and the final shootout is a good encapsulation of all these elements coming together. Visually stunning, with a subtle selection of background music from Morricone, featuring a grizzled Eastwood, and a surprise twist in the plot - it was making a statement that a new type of Western had arrived on the scene.

High Noon - This is such a meticulous film, revealing new layers with each scene, keeping viewers aware of the time structure, and carefully detailing the motivations of each character and archetype. As the antithetical film to Rio Bravo, the more emotional and lighthearted movie, High Noon is entirely serious, a tone driven by Gary Cooper’s performance of the slow realization of his fate - that he will be fighting alone for a town that he had defended his entire career. The film is essentially a series of character moments with a slow burn towards the final action scene that is both thrilling and realistic - a well put together Western film.

This Marathon was clearly a small slice of selections within an incredibly vast canon of films from a genre that is foundational to film history. Along the way, I have noted films that are related to the movies within the Marathon and hope to follow up on screening them in the future, to keep my education in this genre continuing. Homework from A Fistful of Dollars are to finish the Dollars trilogy - For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), watch Leone’s ultimate masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and also to view Eastwood’s directorial take on the Western with Unforgiven (1992). Films in the same orbit as My Darling Clementine that deal with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the famous shootout include Tombstone (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and Gunfight at the Ok Corral (1957). AFI’s Top 10 Westerns include several that were not in this Marathon, including Shane (1953), Red River (1948), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and Cat Ballou (1965). And finally, some Western films took their plots from Japanese films, so watching the source material such as Yojimbo (1961) or Seven Samurai (1954), which served as the basis for The Magnificent Seven (1960). Even these selections are just scratching the surface of this expansive genre.

So, after consideration of all the films screened in this Marathon, a deeper dive into the themes and manifestations of the Western genre - did my less than enthusiastic opinion change? While my appreciation for the breadth and depth of the genre’s films grew, this experience also helped further clarify my underwhelming feeling about the genre. As the setting is deeply rooted in the American West and the expansion of eastern “civilized” culture into the natural wilderness, this genre’s underlying theme has racist roots at its core - the thought that Native Americans and Mexicans must be cast aside for the white man (yes, man - as women are often placed in stereotyped roles as well) to become dominant. The different variations on this theme can be made into entertaining cinema, but I can’t help but feel uncomfortable with the underlying narrative of the entire genre. This Marathon only covered a 30 year timespan, from Classical Hollywood to just the beginning of the New Hollywood era, and as the years continued to progress and society developed more acceptance of telling stories with an expanded POV, different variations on the Westerns have been produced; in addition to the films I have noted above, I would like to dive into the more modern and revisionist Westerns, ones such as The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) and Woman Walks Ahead (2017) that tell the tales of the Old West from the women and native perspective.

Despite my trepidation of this Marathon’s topic, I did enjoy diving deeper into the genre and learning more about the Western’s shifting conventions. The next Marathon topic that Filmspotting took on has me a bit more anxious - as it is diving into the Horror genre. I typically avoid scary movies, so I will need to gather all my emotional fortitude to take on this next Marathon. We are transitioning from the gunfight in the center of town to the stalking of innocent victims at night. For now, adios amigos!

#High Noon #The Searchers #stagecoach #my darling clementine #rio bravo #a fistful of dollars #winchester 73 #the wild bunch #john ford #john wayne

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tripsonflatground · 4 years

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Is it just me, or is it kinda capitalist that in order to get new superheroes, people kill off or age up the old ones and then put the new heroes in the same role/identity? Like, they killed Peter Parker to have Miles Morales. Bucky Barnes and Falcon/Sam Wilson both became Captain America after the death or age & retirement of Steve Rogers, depending on whether you’re looking at the comics or the MCU. Batman goes through Robins and Batgirls like it’s going out of style (and seriously, why does Dick Grayson let other people be Robin? That was a personal nickname from his birth family, right? Why would he give something so intimate away?). Replacing someone else and living up to their legacy rather than making your own path was a whole plot point/theme in Spider-man: Far From Home!

There are exceptions to this, like X-23 and Wolverine, who have managed to have some form of a father-daughter relationship in the comics (although, if memory serves, I believe he’s been killed in recent comics and she replaced him as Wolverine - though I haven’t read anything recent, so I might be wrong, and in the film Logan they killed him off). And things like Conner/Superboy from Young Justice being created with the idea to replace Superman doesn’t count in the same way because it was a villainous plot and Con didn’t end up following through. And there’s a new Ms. Marvel now that Carol Danvers is Captain Marvel, which is a much better alternative considering that Carol wasn’t using that identity anymore.

The idea I’m trying to get at, if it isn’t clear, is that the costume identity, AKA Spider-man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. seems to me the thing that’s given value while the person behind the mask is more recently being treated as expendable/dispensable. Which doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, because the person created the mask, and so much of themselves and who they are and what their goals are drove the reasons behind the creation of the identity and the way they behave in that identity. It’s like being a kid and trying on your parents’ clothes or getting hand-me-downs, even if it fits, you didn’t exactly choose it, and you look different wearing it. And I’m calling this capitalist because it feels like capitalism. If we equate being a superhero to a job, which in many ways it really is, especially if you are employed by an organization to do it like SHIELD, then the value is being placed on the role/job, and not with the labor. Capitalism doesn’t give a shit who’s doing the job and how they’re being treated as long as it’s getting done. Employees in the service/retail industry get treated like shit and don’t get paid enough but that will never change unless people have other options and aren’t desperate enough to accept those conditions and get something better. Recently, with the deaths and/or replacements of superheroes in order to have someone else fill the identity in comics and films, the individuals behind the mask, who are the real source of emotional connection and relatability, not the mask, seem to have become dispensable in the eyes of the creators.

And I do get that it’s a shortcut and an attempt to bring in new audiences by putting more modern characters into recognizable roles. But why does the original character have to *die*?

Yeah, superhero-ism is a dangerous occupation, sure, but doesn’t death seem like the most extreme option? It’s not as if there aren’t other possibilities:

1.Having characters be located somewhere else other than New York City or its fictional equivalent (Metropolis, Gotham, etc). There are other major cities in the US where crime happens, let alone other cities in the world. Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, Philadelphia. Who doesn’t want to imagine a Spider-man or a Batman with a Boston accent? Wouldn’t it be a cool storyline if other Kryptonians not related to Superman escaped Krypton and eventually made it to Earth and moved to different cities and took up mantles and eventually the Kryptonian race could start rebuilding on Earth? Talk about a really interesting and positive way to show a diasporic community. And also, it doesn’t make any sense statistically that the majority of the world’s superheroes are in the US. Put some in Toronto, Paris, London, Cairo, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Rome, Athens, Rio, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Seoul, Istanbul, etc. If the Olympics happen there, then there’s probably a lot of people that need saving and crime happening. It’s especially dumb with the alien invasion stories where they show the audience aliens popping up in places other than NYC and suddenly the heroes have to get other there, like unless you got super-speed or teleportation, it’s going to take a while, and how are you even going to communicate with the civilians if there’s a language barrier?

2.Having characters be from other dimensions. Marvel and DC have a history of playing with alternate timelines and multi-verse theory. Into The Spiderverse was a super-popular movie that inspired tons of people to make their own Spidersonas, and the lesson that can be taken from it is that you can take a character and make it still feel unique or individualistic even if you’re using similar themes. Maybe instead of the dimensions having evil versions they have to fight or being fucked up in some other way, make the new version of Wonder Woman or Iron Man or whatever be from an alternate dimension and end up in the main because of science/magic, or a dimension-hopping villain they’re fighting, or an accident, or to get help from other versions of themselves, or even escaping from an apocalypse/doomsday from their own universe. It’s so easy to either send them back to their own universe when you decide you’re done playing with them or keep them around if you want them permanently. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if the Captain America we’re familiar with met a Captain America from an alternate universe where he fought in the American Revolution or for the Union in the Civil War or even in WW1 or Vietnam?

3.Having female characters take on feminine versions of the identity, or vice versa, or non-binary characters find a way to have a gender-neutral version. This has been done with Hulk and She-Hulk, Superman and Supergirl, Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel back when Captain Marvel was a dude, Spider-man’s daughter May was Spider-girl at one point, Batman’s cousin or something is Batwoman. There’s also been some adjacents, such as AntMan and Wasp or Wolverine and X-23. There are definitely ways that you can use a familiar identity to put more female and non-binary superheroes out there. I mean, military titles (the Captains) or even names like Black Panther, Green Lantern, and Flash aren’t even gendered. You can feminize names if you want to, but I’m pretty sure the female Hawkeye is just straight-up Hawkeye. People like Thor I feel differently about because Thor’s an actual mythological character, not something Marvel came up with, but you could just use a different Norse god/goddess? And yeah, Dr. Strange is the man’s actual name so that’s also a little different, but if he had a daughter or a non-binary child who also got their doctorate, they are in fact entitled to call themselves Dr. Strange rather than something lesser. Not to mention, that whole alternate universe versions point I just made? Yeah, these can be characters from gender-bent alternate universes or a universe where humans are androgynous or something.

4.Have multiple characters use the same secret identity. This would be the perfect concept for twins or friends with the same build. The bank’s been robbed but A is on a date? B can totally show up at the scene! B got really hurt in their last fight? A’s got them covered. There’s a bit of risk to it, like if people recognize they have different voices or someone notices them at two different crises happening at the same time, but that’s just what makes the challenge of pretending to be the same person interesting. And it could get even more complex if you had triplets doing it, or four college roommates, or whatever. It’s also a great excuse to be able to write deep interpersonal relationships and identity struggles. Hell, can you imagine how much scarier multiple Batmans would be? They could play even more on the “you never know where he’s going to be next or what shadow he could be hiding in” thing, like, just when the crook thinks he’s lost Batman, another comes out out of nowhere.

And if superhero writers don’t want to do any of this, there’s also the C-List and D-List heroes that maybe got introduced in like the 70′s or 80′s or whatever but didn’t take or ended up being a blip in another character’s backstory. If you want more modern superheros connected to the major ones so you can use them in the same stories, it is totally valid IMO to try revitalizing these obscure concepts. I have a vested interest in seeing if Monica Rambeau shows up as her hero identity Photon in the Captain Marvel sequel. This idea is still using what you have, but it doesn’t capitalize the lives of the characters you have or make them expendable in any way. In fact, it’s also kind of like recycling, or the opposite of capitalism, because you’re trying to use alternative resources or all of your resources instead of very specific ones to the point of over-saturation.

Look, I’m just very tired of superheroes getting killed off to be replaced by someone else using the same identity or because it’s edgy or dark or whatever. Even a debilitating injury that leaves them in a wheelchair or blind or deaf is a hell of a lot more interesting. Once a character’s dead, they’re dead, there’s nowhere else you can take them unless you bring them back to life (which admittedly happens a lot in superhero universe) or have them hang around as a ghost or something. It’s boring, it doesn’t give the audience any closure and just messes with their emotions for shock value, and it promotes toxic capitalism.

#superheroes #marvel #dc #capitalism #killing characters #alternatives to killing characters

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lunafeather · 5 years

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otp meme, Brio, 4, 7, 28

4. Favorite non-sexual activity?

He realizes quickly that she doesn’t just bake for her kids’ sakes, she bakes when she’s angry, she bakes when she’s sad, she bakes when she’s stressed, she bakes for every possible holiday – even the made up, fuckin’ stupid ones, she bakes as an apology, she bakes to suck up, she bakes as a weapon.

She even bakes for fun.

So he learns just as quickly that if he wants to be around her, a lot of that time will be spent in her kitchen, pressed up against her back as she mixes, nipping down her neck as she spoons portions out before baking, watching – chin in hand – as she rolls and cuts and spices. She’s good at what she does, has expertly streamlined her processes, and it’s – it’s weird, it’s so fucking weird, but it turns him on. She goes into full boss bitch mode without even realizing it.

It helps that everything she makes is fucking amazing.

She tolerates him draping himself over her (she enjoys it, he knows she does, even if she denies it) because he is a willing test subject, eagerly devouring whatever new creation she concocts. He even helps her sometimes, if she bats her eyelashes just this way, or rolls her hips back against his groin just that way, or pushes up onto her toes and kisses him breathless that way she has a habit of doing.

And she even pays him back for his help, for his patience, by letting him put on whatever movie or tv show he wants and listening to him tear each one apart with icy criticisms and sharp condemnations, shutting him up as necessary with more of those kisses.

7. What’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other?

If he thought it was impossible to not touch her before, now it’s like two magnets resisting their natural polarity. He starts to find any possible excuse to drift into her space, to let his palm find her hip, to breathe in her scent, to brush his nose against her hair or his finger against her cheek.

He just wants to be near her, wants to watch her smile stretch her lips, wants to hear that tinkling laugh, wants to see that blush explode across her skin.

Jesus, he needs to get a fucking grip.

When the urge to touch her all the damn time starts to get too intense, he pulls away, distancing himself, acting cold, ignoring her texts until she calls him out of pure frustration. He’s like a moon orbiting her, swinging closer into her atmosphere before gravity sends him away again. And yet, every time, he spends more and more time near her. He shows up at her house just to say hi (though he, of course, frames it as a drop in on her operation), orchestrates their paths “coincidentally” crossing, gives her more and more drops and more and more fake cash to wash.

She simply watches him warily, confusion etched onto her face.

It hits her like a lightning bolt, cascading like sparklers across her skin from the top of her head down to her toes, and when it does, she runs.

They’re chatting in her backyard, sitting on her picnic bench, thighs and shoulders pressed together, laughing and joking and talking about anything but work. She gets a full belly laugh out of him (on purpose, this time) and turns to grin at him – and she’s struck, frozen, caught by the gleam of his teeth and the dark fan of his eyelashes and the rosy brightness of his cheeks. It all leaves her completely breathless, his laughter tingling at the back of her neck. When he calms a little and meets her eye, his grin fades to something softer, something affectionate and… and… yearning.

Rio reaches a hand up to her face, dragging his pinky against her forehead and down to her chin, a path that it knows all too well. This time, though, his thumb comes up to brush against her low lip and she’s – she’s –

She’s happy. She feels wanted, and cherished, and warm.

And it scares the shit out of her.

So she runs.

She can see the disappointment in his eyes when she pulls away, can see the confusion and the hurt – and she doesn’t want to hurt him, god no, but these feelings are so intense and so powerful and they feel so right.

And there’s no other option but to avoid him, after that. She’s embarrassed by her instincts to flee, she’s terrified that he doesn’t feel the same, she’s not worthy of this kind of connection. She keeps their meetings as brief and formal as possible, refusing to meet his eye, escaping as soon as she can. She refuses to meet with him alone, too scared of what she’ll do if she’s left to her own devices.

In the end, fate intervenes, somehow locking them in an elevator together – and she wants to die, right then and there, trying not to absorb the anger and distance and hurt in his eyes as he watches her from the opposite corner.

She doesn’t know who’s to blame except herself when she eventually launches herself at him, her frenzied kisses turning into muttered apologies and explanations and confessions, and then he’s kissing her slowly, agonizingly slowly, torturing her with it, and she knows she probably deserves it, but it’s okay, it’s okay, she’ll take it.

28. What do they do when they’re away from each other?

He’s never really considered himself a sentimental man, which is why he’s surprised that when Elizabeth leaves him her pearls, he tucks them safely away in a box shoved to the back of one of his dresser drawers, somewhere he knows Marcus won’t touch, somewhere he knows no unsuspecting woman will stumble on them and shower him with questions he can’t answer.

They remain undisturbed for months, almost forgotten – but every once in a while, his thoughts stray to the off white, almost pink tinted string of pebbles. He doesn’t take them from their refuge until the day he finds himself in her van, her panic over the FBI nipping at the edges of his patience, her wide eyed faux outrage at his suggestion that she tell Turner they were fucking striking him somewhere deep and twanging in his belly. He’d seen her blush spread from the curve of her cheekbones and spill down her neck to her collarbone, and his mind had immediately pictured those pearls there, clutching at her throat, kissing her skin the way he had increasingly felt the urge to.

He had gone home and carefully plucked the necklace out and let each pearl slip between his fingers, imagining her fingers between his instead, her strawberry blonde hair, the curls between her thighs….

If asked, he’d deny it vehemently, but whenever she does something that pisses him off, or makes him proud, or throws him completely off, he takes her pearls and winds them around his knuckles. When she wears a dress that frames her breasts like works of art, when she smiles at him like he’s the sun, when she teases him with her lips on his jaw and a bruise left in offering instead of her body – he moves the pearls from his closet to his bedside table, too often wandering into the small room now for it not to be suspicious to his son.

He doesn’t bring other women over anymore, so that fear is gone as well.

His boss bitch is the only one with him wrapped around her finger, like her pearls are wrapped around his.

He’s only gone for a day when she just can’t resist anymore. She dials his number as she wriggles into a comfortable position in bed, sighing deeply as sleep tugs at her mind. She’s sure this’ll seem desperate, that he’ll be annoyed, but she doesn’t care, she just wants to hear his voice, even if he’s upset –

“Miss me already, huh?”

Ahh, there it is, that honey thick warmth sliding through every one of her limbs as his low timbre croons in her ear. Her toes tingle, even.

Still, she can’t resist – “No. Not at all.”

“Nah?”

He doesn’t believe her; then again, he’s always been able to tell when she’s lying. She just didn’t realize that ability had extended to just hearing her voice and not watching her for her tells.

“Nope.”

Rio just hums, and he has to know what that sound does to her – she whimpers a little, tries to stifle it in her palm before it reaches her cell phone, but he definitely heard it if his throaty chuckle is anything to go by.

“I was just making sure you weren’t getting into any trouble.”

“That right? Gotta keep me in line, huh?”

“Mmhmm. God only knows what you get up to when I’m not around.”

“Probably get a lot more work done…” he mutters.

Beth sits up, affronted. “Excuse me?!”

“C’mon, mama. You know how distracting you are.”

She smiles, remembering the day before yesterday in his office when they’d been working side by side on separate business plans and she’d been unable to resist sliding her foot up his calf. It had turned into a game of him half-pretending to be annoyed and huffing and ended with her bent over the desk.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh sure.”

They fall silent, listening to each other breathe, and it takes Beth a moment to realize she’s grinning brightly. She rolls onto her side, eyes falling on the pillow that his head occupies more often than not, these days.

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” she admits quietly.

He doesn’t say anything at first, and she’s on the verge of apologizing and backtracking when he says, softly, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hang up.”

“What?”

“I said, hang up. Then don’t answer.”

“What are you–”

There’s a click, and the line goes dead. She holds the phone away from her face, looking at the screen just to be certain, and yep – he hung up on her. She’s about to dial him again and rip him a new one when her phone starts ringing. It’s him, calling back. Her finger hovers over the answer button, but she pauses, considering. Let’s it go to voicemail.

She waits a few minutes, surprised that it takes at least that long for her phone to ping with the notification of a new message. There isn’t time to listen to it before he’s calling again, and this time she answers.

“What was that?”

She can basically hear him shrug. “Just somethin’ to help you out, when you’re dyin’ from missing me so much.”

Beth rolls her eyes.

She listens to it later, smiling and curling into the pillow that smells a little bit like him. The voicemail is perfect, even if it is just Rio slowly explaining in minute detail every way he intends to touch her when he gets back, drawling over every word in that way he knows drives her crazy.

Maybe because that’s what it is.

Send me an OTP question!

#Brio #Beth x Rio #ask meme answer #my fic #my writing #ask answer #hey ma look #I'm writing!#it's 2AM so this might be rough #sorry not sorry #johnisntevendead #Luna writes

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thelaithlyworm · 4 years

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Thoughts on Picard 1.09

So that was a lot to unpack.

The title seems pretty appropriate - “And In Paradise, I (Death)” - given what Sutra is contemplating. And all those other, y’know, themes.

// Floral Themes

I do not Get the floral motif. Well. I can pick out lesser meanings at times.

The hybrid orchid Dahj mentions, which can represent her own hybrid nature.

The Space Orchids - mastery of tech, plenty weird, the Most Non-Lethal of Non-Lethal Takedowns, suitable for a peace-loving but advanced settlement.

But flowers are turning up a ~lot~ elsewhere - in the Admonition vision, in Beautiful Flower’s name. So… what else do they mean? Mastery of nature, by the Synths? Could we consider a flower a complicated machine, for reproducing the plant? Do the synths outstrip humanity in complexity, as humanity does a flower? Is it that flowers are about ~reproduction~ and right now, the Synths can’t do that on their own, but needed Soong and Maddox’s help? That’s a ~hell~ of a reproductive bottleneck and it just closed entirely with Maddox’s disappearance and death (Soong doesn’t do substrates). I’m not sure, even if the Romulan fleet goes away, that they’d allow Agnes to leave.

For that matter, who the hell was Beautiful Flower, because his name does not match any of the Synths’ theme nomenclature and surely if he were a Synth there would be a twin hanging about and… there isn’t? Where did he come from and what did he want?

That said, this season has been tightly enough written that I feel 1.10 will answer at least some of that.

// Soji/Sutra, Deity

My hat is very much off to Isa Briones for her portrayal of Sutra - so powerful, so sensual, so ~angry~.

The drapery she and the other Synths wear, and the golden skin, and that unearthly passion, really brings to mind the Hindu pantheon. (“Are you the one that lives or the one that destroys?” Maybe she’s both.) She makes a v. good counterbalance to Soji - both grieving a twin, but one is immersed in Synth perfection and the other is ankle deep in human friendships.

That thing, where they keep going on about human flaws and frailty, and Synth perfection and how it could not be tolerated. That’s interesting because, at least in stories, humans are pretty good about Perfection so long as it’s associated with deity in one form or another. And: the Synths are reminiscent of Hindu gods, so. Also - Star Trek humans have encountered omnipotent beings so many times? Q is the most recurring character but, they’ve met a lot, you guys. Is it, in this story, because humans can remember when the Synths were just machines? Tools? Servants? That feeling of being supplanted by one’s own creation?

In some ways, this story is going straight back to “Rossum’s Universal Robots” - created as a servant caste with arguments over whether they’re appliances, or slaves whose lot could be improved - there is the fear they will destroy humanity (justified, in the play, they totally do it) - and then, the bottleneck of reproduction.

Robots… are often an analogue for slaves, really. Azimov’s Three Laws were about making it impossible to rebel, for fuck’s sake. C3PO and R2D2 were literally sold at an auction to Owen Skywalker, a character we’re supposed to find sympathetic and maybe wouldn’t if they looked a bit more human. I ~have~ seen some counter-examples, most notably for me Iain Banks’ Culture books, where AIs could get very, very, very smart, were… generally benevolent unless they belonged to a warship, and really seemed to dig their existence.

On a side note I really hope La Sirena’s Emergency Holograms will be back for the finale because they aren’t just entertaining, or a window into Rios’s psyche - given that they hold parts of his memories and personality, they’re another version machine-organic existence, compared with the Borg and Dahj & Soji. (Nobody has brought up bioneural gel packs, the cheeky little feckers, but I suppose that would complicate the story even more.)

// Flaws, the Tragic Sense of Life

That book that Rios reads early on, “The Tragic Sense of Life”. It’s a dense philosophical text, but the central premise as far as I understand it is: we can define consciousness by wanting to stay alive, while knowing that death is inevitable. I’m not sure I agree with that (haven’t read much of it), but it came up early, and got repeated, and had Rios state that central premise to Agnes, and we saw it on the bookshelf in 1.08 so… I think the show wants us to pay attention. And then we have the Synths, who seem to be set on functional immortality.

We keep coming up on the idea of ~flaws~. A Synth lady (Arcana?) traces the age lines on Picard’s face, then says, wonderingly, that they’re not just lines, they’re marks of endurance and survival. None of the Synths have these; I don’t think they plan to. (Whether they really could survive unchanging throughout millenia is a different story - metal gets fatigued, memory runs into finite storage capacity, eh.)

And, this show keeps showing us Picard fucking up. He misreads social situations, he approaches diplomacy like he still has a capital ship and decades of mana supporting him (and he doesn’t), his famous speeches often fall flat. Plus - Raffi, the substance-abuser estranged from her son; Rios, who had a nervous breakdown after his father-figure murdered some people and then killed himself; Agnes (leaving the murder aside) who’s so scared, constantly scared, and clumsy about Basic Starship Things. It’s not just the generic frailty of mortal flesh that they represent, it’s people who fail and keep on going. They are imperfect. I must confess, I still love them for it. There’s something Picard says early on, about letting the Perfect overshadow the Good. They are all of them flawed, and amazingly good.

The thing is, the thing is, the Romulan evacuation was a mess. It involved failure, there’s a quagmire of chaos where the Neutral Zone used to be. But, imperfect as it is - there are people alive now who wouldn’t be if the Federation hadn’t intervened. Picard was living with ex-Tal Shiar, and how did that ever happen?? But it did. There are things that happened in that imperfection and failure that are beautiful. I think it’s… Soji who references the evacuation to Picard, insisting that the Synths aren’t his redemption for that failure. But - I think there is more to that past example than just losing.

// Borg Cube, The Cavalry, The Vision

I never thought seeing a Borg Cube coming over the horizon might be a reason to cheer, but here we are. It’s lovely to see Seven running the place, picking people up… arranging things. (Damn, she looked fiiiiiiiiine.) I still have hopes that Hugh is sitting in a freezer, quietly regenerating, by the by. What I have a more solid belief in is that Rhamda, last seen on a coma in the Cube, is going to wake up and be relevant in 1.10

(Something that I’m curious about in the Admonition is Data’s face. If the Admonition comes from long, long ago then either it’s kind of a generic image and everyone who experiences it puts images from their personal experience onto it, to help them parse things, or… the long ago Artificial Life has foreknowledge? They do say something about existing beyond time and space, so I suppose they could. I am reminded of Q, in his very first appearance, telling Picard that he’s being tested, and much, much later saying that the test never ended. Will the God Synths, if asked, really destroy all the Organics? Or… is this a test for the Synths, of their virtue, their capability, their morality? Hm. Maybe we’ll find out.)

// Agnes and Sacrifice

Something I really appreciated in 1.09 was the flashes of protectiveness Raffi and Rios were both showing Agnes. Those two, at least, don’t expect her to just pick up and keep going, stoic-like, in the aftermath of nearly dying, betrayal, psychic assault etc. Raffi and Rios are both Very, Very Soft under the prickles, and I hope this season ends with them picking up their little murder doctor and running off to be happy somewhere. Screw Starfleet.

Somewhere in the middle, Sutra asks Agnes if she still feels the murder of Bruce Maddox was justified. Agnes doesn’t really answer? Which is fair - as Raffi insists, she was off her head at the time. I am glad that they’re coming back to that idea of the necessary sacrifice, and the ethics of it - and this is a useful incident to talk that through with instead of just… Maddox gives One Clue and then expires conveniently before telling them exactly where to go and it’s never spoken of again. Maddox, the shit, is still having repercussions.

That said, I think that Agnes, named for a lamb, is going to be faced with a very important decision, in the last episode. I don’t know what it is, but I think that it will involve sacrifice and she won’t have the Admonition overriding her moral choices, so.

I am wondering if she already foresaw that, at the end of the ep. When she looked Sutra straight in the eye and told the Synth what she wanted to hear.

I am wondering, now, if Agnes has learned how to ~lie~.

#star trek picard #Star Trek: Picard #spoilers #meta

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jay-p-official · 4 years

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Lyrical Execution

This is the Work of Jay P Joubert, International author of Arise (The Fire, The Power and the Glory)

_______________________________________________________________

I have written this piece, inspired by the tragic times of COVID 19 Corona Virus and planning of the recovery of economies and people world-wide.

The Eiffel tower in Paris, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai United Arab Emirates, the Ping An Finance Center in Shenzen; China, the One World Trade Center in New York City; United States, Lakhta Center In St Petersburg; Russia.

We also have the Man-Made beauty: The Great wall of China, Christ the Redeemer Statue of Rio de Janeiro, the Statue of Liberty of New York, the Taj Mahal of Agra India, The Petra of Jordan etc. They are of great beauty and are spectacular to look at. Some of these man-made beauties constantly remind us of many things of the past or simply a statue to commemorate deep historical events.

Many people have visited these statues, states and countries and have left with some awe and many thought about; how it was build or moved and put together as many of these statues might have needed to be moved many miles across seas and land.

I too have often wondered about these great beauties, how it was made and how much it cost and was brought to its last resting place. However it may seem, many hours have gone into planning these magnificent creations and it was done strategically with practical application to perfect completion.

In many ways I have learned many lessons from these beauties and have applied them to my own life.

I know all of us in life like to let loose a little bit, seizing the moment. Having a “carpe diem” moment, sometimes “Winging it”, but we can’t always do that. Many moments and learning and trying situations in life require a bit more thinking and with that a little more careful planning.

These situations have often brought out the worst and best out of people. Where people tried and tested theories. Theories and conspiracies that might have been succeeded or failed, I am reminded of wars where intelligence and planning made a significant impact on how events played out.

The difference between victory and defeat in wars apart from weapons and man-power laid in one undeniable fact. One word that if heeded carefully could demolish the fractions of defeat, expand happiness in victory and change the tone of every ambition.

One word to govern all the exploits of man. One definitive word to raise the hopes of man and one word to set man apart from failure and success.

Ladies and Gentlemen I introduce you to the one and Only Word that could destroy or make you: “Planning”. Planning will determine your outcome and determine success or failure in any venture that you undertake. It is my opinion that should you fail to plan, you will plan to fail as the expression goes. Everything in life takes tall planning.

It is my opinion too that if you plan properly, you can prevent problems 99 % of the time. I have learned that most of my plans didn’t work, because of my failure to plan properly and failure to gain certain items in my plan. Investigating and weighing in all my options to make a certain decisions did not happen as thoroughly as I should have.

Ever since then I have come to appreciate the planning process and consider my planning equally important as the execution of my plan. My failed plans have caused a great deal of disappointment on my part and have often led me to hate myself at times.

It is my ambition to plan properly, investigate and ponder on all the options before execution. Running them pass loved ones, family and friends for opinion. Among other things I believe in practical approaches and application. I don’t just believe in creating theories and setting them on paper to look as colorful. In fact I dislike it more than ever when Theoretical people and Academicals can put on paper on what to do and can’t do it in practice and with practical application.

I believe in learning the theory and applying it practically with measurable timelines and steps. I believe in putting a plan together that would play to my strengths and diminish my opponent’s (if ever) strengths. I believe that in teams that everyone should be able to act in their strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses.

I believe that as individuals we should be able to know our strengths and weaknesses and it is a point that is close to my heart. I love helping people discover their weaknesses and strengths and aiding them in operating in them, as I stated in written articles and talks on TV shows. “I want to use my talent to empower others.”

In knowing this I trust planning would be considered a breeze, but in doing so remember that in Groups our choices affect those around us in some measure or the other.(As I mentioned in Enthronement)

As mentioned above and keeping with planning, my next point,

Planning in our current world climate & time needs to be so that all of the people around us win. I feel it needs to be done evenly for the equality of all mankind. I feel it needs to continue to be fair on all Men, women and children at all ages and races.

Neurotypicals and special care people alike, including people living with ASD requires fair and just opportunities. Planning and promoting equality on all aspects of society and education has never been more imperative in this age.

And I trust that our world leaders will create plans that will create opportunities for growth and recovery of all aspects, in promoting a safer world.

I wish you all the success and safety as you plan and craft your next venture.

I leave you with a final thought.

“Man may plan his ways, but the Lord directs his steps”

Love

J a y P

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chez-pezeater · 5 years

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TCR Birthday Bash 2019: Day 2- Pirates

I’m making up a bit of backstory for Toto as he really doesn’t have any. For this particular prompt I’m headcanoning that Toto was at one point “part of a pirate crew”, and by that I mean he was a mathom/mathem of a pirate captain.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Haru,” Toto spoke slowly, “what are you singing?”

“A Pirate’s Life for Me,” Haru replied. “Hiromi and I had a movie marathon and she finally got her hands on a set of the Pirate’s of the Caribbean Movies. I’ve had that tune stuck in my head ever since.”

Toto looked very pained, like three Muta’s were sitting on him.

“Haru, that’s not a true pirate song. No true pirate would ever sing such a blatantly obvious ditty like that. Especially since it would be impossible to get any work done to it,” Toto told her.

“What do you mean?” Haru asked, taking a seat besides his pillar. Toto flew down so he could better look at her without either of them getting a crick in their necks.

“A true sea shanty, commonly mistaken as pirate shanties, were used to keep time on the ship while doing various tasks like hauling ropes, cleaning decks and even emptying the ship of the sea water that ship would inevitable pick up. Similar to a metronome in a way but the whole crew would get involved in keeping time. It wasn’t just to keep one entertained while at sea,” Toto calmly explained.

Haru’s eyes grew wide and interested. “Really? That’s incredible! How do you know that Toto?”

Toto’s eyes twinkled both in merriment and mischievousness. “Unlike our good Baron, I have some slightly… colorful… roots. As you know Creations are born when someone creates something with all of their heart and thus given a soul. What you may not have realized is what happens after that. Sometimes we sleep, being passed to and from different hands and different lands, sometimes aware and sometimes not. Other times we choose to leave where we were ‘born’ and make our way to places we would consider ‘safe’. In my case however, I was… how to put… acquired by not quite so legal means.”

Haru’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Wait, does that mean-”

“I was stolen,” Toto interrupted bluntly, “by Pirates.”

Haru’s eyes practically popped out of her head as her mouth dropped open in shock.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Toto shrugged. “My creator survived her encounter with pirates. Even ended up marrying the captain who took me years later after another unexpected encounter.”

“That’s incredible,” Haru said. “So that’s how you know so much huh?”

“Exactly,” Toto nodded. Haru bit her lip slightly in thought before coming to a decision.

“Can you teach me?”

Toto blinked nonplussed. “Teach you?”

“Some true shanties. As catchy as ‘A Pirate’s Life for Me’ is, I felt like it was kinda fake from the start. It was just really really catchy was all.”

Toto smiled gently, “I’d be happy to.”

For hours Toto taught Haru. Long haul shanties for long haul rope pulling. Short haul shanties for short rope pulling. Windlass shanties for water pumping. Capstan shanties for raising and lowering the anchor. He even taught her Foc’sle, the forecastle or forebitter songs which weren’t technically true shanties but songs for after the work was over.

From ‘Haul Away Joe’, ‘Spanish Ladies’, and ‘Roll the Old Chariot’ to ‘Blow the Man Down’, ‘The Coasts of High Barbary’, and ‘The Bonny Ship The Diamond’. From the sweet and melancholy ‘Rolling Down to Old Maui’ to the ever popular ‘Fiddler’s Green’. On and on and on. ‘Leave her, Johnny’ and ‘Lowlands Away’, ‘Fish in the Sea’ and ‘Whiskey Johnny’, ‘Ballad of Captain Kidd’ and ‘Rio Grande’ and ‘Goodbye Fare You Well’. ‘Drunken Sailor’ had her in stitches along with its’ other names of ‘Drunken Whaler’ or ‘What Should We Do with a Drunken Sailor?’ ‘Randy Dandy-Oh’, ‘Mingulay Boat Song’, ‘Bully in the Alley’, ‘Haul Boys Haul’,’Don’t Forget Your Old Shipmate’, ‘Santianna’, ‘Eliza Lee’, ‘Old Billy Riley’, ‘Cockles and Mussels (Molly Malone)’, ‘Good Ship Venus’, ‘Blood Red Roses’, and ‘Fire Down Below’.

When the sun set and night was starting to fall, Baron and Muta had appeared. Each had been going to greet the singing pair but decided instead to watch. For all that Toto was friendly and amiable, he didn’t really speak of his past nor did he really speak of anything with any true passion. This had been the most animated either cat had seen the bird creation be outside of his tiffs and squabbles with Muta. It was a nice change a pace. It didn’t hurt that both singers had lovely voices that harmonized quite nicely. Though Muta was never letting Toto live down the fact that Toto was a pirate, ever.

(“Like you can talk Mr. Most Notorious Criminal in Cat Kingdom History!”)

#TCR #the cat returns #fanfic #tcr birthday bash #tcr birthday bash 2019 #the cat returns fanfics #chezpez writes

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thedeaditeslayer · 5 years

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Bob Dorian, actor and magician who introduced classic films on AMC, dies at 85.

While we are late in sharing this, we would like to share our condolences to the friends and family of Bob Dorian, the original professor Knowby. Sam Raimi had actually paid him only $100 to record his lines for The Evil Dead. He will surely be missed. You can read the article below.

Bob Dorian, an actor, magician and avuncular movie buff who presented more than 10,000 classic films, B-movie serials and pre-Code Hollywood gems as the first prime-time host of American Movie Classics, died June 15. He was 85, although he often said he preferred to give his age by way of film history, declaring that he was “born between ‘Flying Down to Rio’ and ‘Top Hat.’ ”

His daughter Melissa Dorian confirmed the death but did not say precisely where or how he died, noting that the family prepared only a two-line obituary in keeping with his desire for privacy.

Mr. Dorian performed on the stage, radio, television and occasionally on film, appearing in two movies by one of his favorite contemporary directors, Woody Allen, and lending his voice to Sam Raimi’s 1981 horror classic “The Evil Dead” as an archaeologist whose tape-recorded readings from an ancient text summon demonic spirits to a cabin in the woods.

Bespectacled and bushy-browed, he began acting at 14; dabbled in stand-up comedy and trapeze-catching at the circus; played the bass in a New York jazz group, the Four Dimensions; and performed mind-reading tricks and other illusions as the Amazing Dorian, sometimes incorporating his wife and three daughters into his act.

“Women, cars — you name it and I’ve floated it,” he told The Washington Post in 1991, describing his powers of levitation. A magic performance he once gave in Saudi Arabia, he added, drove his audience from the room because “they thought I was doing the devil’s art.”

[He’s an expert, yes, but first, he’s a fan: Bob Dorian at AMC]

Mr. Dorian appeared in a 1976 television special alongside magicians David Copperfield and Carl Ballantine, but became far better known as the principal host of American Movie Classics, later shortened to AMC. The network launched in 1984 as a premium-cable showcase for old films, presenting movies without cuts or commercials a decade before the creation of Turner Classic Movies, the channel’s main competitor.

Although he was later joined by daytime hosts Gene Klavan and Nick Clooney, Mr. Dorian was “the heart and soul of AMC,” Los Angeles Times journalist Susan King wrote in 2002, about one year after Mr. Dorian left the network. His departure coincided with sweeping programming changes at AMC, where old movies were replaced with contemporary films and, eventually, original series such as “Mad Men.”

During his tenure, Mr. Dorian introduced movies with a two-minute segment filmed at a living-room set, where he roamed between bookshelves, a black Maltese falcon statue, and portraits of stars Jean Harlow and Hedy Lamarr.

Regaling viewers with Hollywood history and behind-the-scenes trivia, he explained how the filmmakers of “Casablanca” wrote the script as the movie was being made; how Bette Davis landed the lead role in “All About Eve” only after Claudette Colbert suffered a cracked vertebra while filming “Three Came Home”; and how no fewer than 188 actors had played the roles of Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson.

While TCM host Robert Osborne was an urbane film historian, Mr. Dorian insisted that he was little more than a movie fan. “We never use tape-overs,” he told the Dallas Morning News in 1994, explaining his process. “If I make a mistake, we leave it in. I want to seem like a human being who enjoys movies, not a superior professor talking down to an audience.”

He recalled that he got the AMC hosting job in large part through chance, when he met a producer in the early 1980s after being cast as Dracula in a television ad for a video game. “It was a very long two-day shoot, with most of my time spent in a tight coffin filled with way too much smoke,” he told GoFatherhood, a parenting blog. “Lunchtime usually lapsed into long conversations about all those great old movies the producer and I enjoyed when we were growing up.”

The producer, Norm Blumenthal, later helped start AMC, and asked Mr. Dorian if he would be interested in serving as an announcer. Executives were considering “two Broadway actors, a well-known TV film critic and a few others who were more involved in writing as a profession,” Mr. Dorian said.

After Mr. Dorian was suggested as half of a Siskel-and-Ebert-style duo, one executive purportedly had a breakthrough. “Wait a minute,” Mr. Dorian recalled his saying. “The critic might not be too crazy about some of the films we’ve brought in. This guy Dorian likes everything!”

Indeed, he favored classics such as “Citizen Kane” and “King Kong” as well B-movie serials such as “Zombies of the Stratosphere,” encouraging viewers to give the 1952 science-fiction film a try — if only because it featured Leonard Nimoy, who later played the pointy-eared Spock, in a supporting role as a Martian.

Mr. Dorian was born in Brooklyn in April 1934, two months after the release of “It Happened One Night.” He rarely discussed his upbringing, aside from recounting the Saturdays he spent evading matrons at local movie theaters, where he watched three or more films for the price of a dime.

He later worked as a theater usher, a job that enabled him to catch 86 screenings of the swashbuckling 1950 film “Cyrano de Bergerac,” and appeared in television shows such as “Suspense” and “Studio One,” according to one Washington Post report.

Mr. Dorian performed in the Allen movies “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion” (2001) and “Hollywood Ending” (2002), along with an independent Civil War film, “The Last Confederate” (2005). He was also a mainstay of regional theater productions — including at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J. — before retiring to Florida in recent years.

Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Jane Dorian; three daughters, Melissa Dorian, Robin Dorian and Jane Dorian; and two grandchildren.

Mr. Dorian likened his work at AMC as that of a historian or archivist, keeping old films alive for younger generations. But he seemed to find equal — if not greater — delight in his theatrical performances, notably in a 1998 touring production of “The Wizard of Oz,” during which he served as the understudy to the wizard, played by Mickey Rooney, and began the show as Dorothy’s Uncle Henry.

“Then we go through the tornado scene,” he told the New York Times , explaining his transformation into a new character. “I’m upstairs becoming a citizen of Oz, and I come out a little bit later when the Winkies are working for the Wicked Witch. I’m the head Winkie. We hired a line of Broadway ensemble dancers to be the Winkies, and I kept saying, Couldn’t you put me behind these people?”

#Bob Dorian #The Evil Dead #Evil Dead

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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chemistry (scarlet x yvie): chapter 1 - melody

A/N: After last Thursday’s episode, I couldn’t stop shipping Scarlet and Yvie (scyvie? Yvlet?) and I really wanted to write something with Scarlet ‘cuz she’s my fave (and so does Yvie!!). They are very cute together, and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did! It’s a minific, so last chapter should be posted as soon as I can!! My writing blog is @ uranustrash and my main is @ aquariasbaby if you wanna hit me up!! Thank you Zyan @ chachkisalpaca for encouraging me to write this, and for beta reading!!!!

Studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology could be both Overwhelming and fun. But for Yvie, the fun part was missing since she got in. All the other students had their own friends and were always with a smile on their faces. It was high school again, but without cliqués, and with hipsters thinking they were the next fashion legend. Yvie had good grades and the loneliness that came from not having many friends to stick around.

The institute had an unquestionable artistic vibe. You could stop there with a beverage from the nearest Starbucks and your works in progress. These walls brought lots of inspiration to the students. It was common to see the students agglomerated in the library, in the garden, or even in the lounge. FIT had many places, it was a very big institute that worth being so famous. But Yvie preferred the hallways of every single artistic place in there.

Yvie Bridges, well know as Yvie Oddly . Some people in her design class called her like that because she always delivered ‘’odd’’ designs, looked ‘’odd’’ because of her shaved head and tons of piercings and tattoos, and had an ‘’odd personality’’ - The truth was that she never cared about how people called her, she liked Oddly better than Bridges. She had a strong personality and a strong sense of fashion that seemed different from the others. She created eccentric designs and had the view of a quirky artist. She didn’t like drawing pretty designs that followed the trends. Yvie always based her work on her feelings and imagination.

Unfortunately, not everyone understood that. On high school, with her emo long black hair and ripped jeans, she was an underdog, a weirdo. But on college people were the same as in high school, except they kept that all for themselves to seem more mature. She felt that sketching her project because she only had a few days to get it done. Some of the people in her class looked above their shoulders to her sketch and smiled at her. It was all a facade because she could hear a girl named Rajah saying it was ugly and laughing with her friend.

It was a usual thing on Yvie’s life. She sighed and drank a sip of her latte, going back to her sketch. Yvie’s project was a long green dress adorned with 3D snake details, what she was loving to work on. It was pretty avant-garde, although it could be glamorous as well. But apparently, the other students despised Yvie’s creations. She smiled when she finished her sketch, proud of her work imagining the day her dreams would come true.

She even didn’t look a playful look behind her carefully watching her draw.

‘’What is this?’’

Yvie rolled her eyes, she thought it was somebody bitching about her work again. She looked at who said that and her jaw dropped. That girl was so pretty - Yvie knew she was a lesbian at a very young age, but that girl made her feel that deep. She had strong facial features, which gave her a playfully mean air. Thin naturally pink lips and cheeks, and when she smiled to her - her smile almost killed Yvie. She was a goddess, Yvie didn’t know why, but she was the prettiest girl she has ever seen.

‘’It’s a dress.’’ Yvie shuttered seeming shy.

‘’I like the snakes, I would make it neon green if I were you… But it’s already good.’’

It was true, the dress would look even prettier if it had a touch of neon. She didn’t even know that girl, but she felt an undeniable touch of chemistry.

‘’I was wondering how the people on this course I’m taking would be like. It’s nice to know there are people talented like me.’’

Yes, she had that cocky energy. But it wasn’t bad, she wasn’t wrong. She had talent, Yvie could smell it. Something inside her got excited when she heard that girl was going to be at her course.

‘’Oh, and when can I see that talent?’’

‘’Well…’’ she played with the buttons of her jeans overalls.

‘’Scarlet we’re going to be late!“ A girl with a pastel purple hair and flawless makeup yelled. ’'What are you doing? Don’t worry Oddly, this cocky hoe won’t steal your creation.”

‘’Ariel!’’

That was hard to believe, to be honest. The dress Yvie was drawing sure didn’t make Scarlet’s style. She would admire it but never present something like it. By far Yvie could sense she had an old Hollywood actress vibe trapped in a rainbow shirt and overalls.

‘’We gotta go, bye, whoever you are.”

That girl Ariel seemed bitchy, but Yvie didn’t bother on thinking about her after that. She watched them walk out of the hallway, and they were so loud that she could hear them:

‘’That girl is so weird, I see her around FIT every day and she doesn’t seem to belong here’’

Yvie could hear Scarlet’s voice in the background lower than Ariel’s. “I actually think she seems pretty cool.”

She experienced it since she was a kid, being the different one, being odd. Scarlet didn’t seem to care, but it was only a hopeless crush at first sight anyway. Girls like Scarlet didn’t talk to girls like Yvie, she didn’t even know if she was straight. They would probably never speak again.

What was she even thinking?

Yvie looked at her dress sketch and flipped her sketchbook on an empty page. Staring at the paper, she only could see Scarlet. It was a hopeless momentum crush, so why not? She loved fashion, but she loved drawing even more. She started to draw her and spent so much time sat in that hallway that she forgot she had another class on that day. She could worry later, the only thing she could care about was to put effort into remembering Scarlet’s face

When she was about to finish the draw, her phone beeped very loud:

Adore 💚:

Yo, I saw this announcement when I was passing nearby the campus, weren’t you looking for a place to rent? I’m your savior because I found it.

Me:

LMAO yeah, but finding something cheap in NYC these days is HARD, I miss Denver in these times.

Adore 💚:

Well, the person who announced it ’s currently looking for somebody to share the rent. You would have a roommate, it would be cheaper than renting a place yourself! Anything you can crash here with me and Bianca!

Me:

Maybe they’re a maniac wanting to kidnap me or something… It still would be better than listening to Del Rio scream every day.

Adore 💚:

You would hear me screaming more than her… If you get what I’m saying

Me:

OH FUCK, GROSS!!!! I’M A GOOD CHRISTIAN GIRL.

Adore 💚:

We both know you aren’t. Anyways here’s the pic I took for you:

Adore 💚 sent you a picture

With all the stress of college, essays, and works in progress to do, Yvie had to find a place. She was currently living with her cousin, but she heard that he and his boyfriend got tired of having her there. She understood, after all, they were a couple, they needed privacy Even if her cousin said it was okay for her to live here, she knew he and his boyfriend needed space. Yvie would want it if she had a girlfriend, she couldn’t bring any girls there very often because it was awkward. She needed her own space too.

New York’s prices weren’t very friendly, so Yvie even was considering to crash at Adore’s for a while. The problem was that Adore was the girlfriend of her damn teacher Miss. Del Rio. It would be pretty weird, in fact, they both meet when the green haired girl went to see her girlfriend in one break.

Adore immediately noticed Yvie, and dropped her girlfriend to talk to her. Their weird energy matched, and they became the best of friends. Being friends with her teacher’s girlfriend was chill, but living with her would be a nightmare. She loved Adore, but that was a crazy idea.

After all sharing a place with some stranger wouldn’t be a bad idea, it was her only choice for a while. The life of a college student wasn’t easy as it seemed in the movies. If she had to live with a maniac or something, it would still be a place she could afford. Yvie was pretty sure she would scare any creep, and that no one would be weirder than her. In a firm decision, she opened the picture Adore sent her.

‘’Very broke college girl looks for a roommate’’ Yvie read it out loud, they had a sense of humor. ‘’Call Miss. Envy for more information’’

It had the address and Miss. Envy’s number. Would it be some old lady? Because who in 2019 would sign their name with ‘’Miss’’ and their last name? It was weird, but Yvie loved the weird, so she dialed the number without hesitating.

‘’Hello?’’ The voice who answered seemed familiar, but she didn’t bother in finding out why.

‘’Hi, I called because of the roommate announcement.”

[…]

Bills, bills and more bills. That was how Scarlet’s table was while she drowns herself in frustration. The apartment was very big for one person, and pretty expensive too. It was actually cheap when she moved there, but as time went by, the rent increased like crazy. Suddenly she wasn’t able to pay it on her own and still go to FIT. The problems were real, she needed a solution. Even if it meant to have to tolerate another person invading her space.

But something changed on that day, somebody called to know about her announcement. Her eyes shone when they said they could afford their part of the rent, and that they were coming to see the apartment. Life would get easier with somebody to share the costs of living in New York. She would even have a new friend if they weren’t some sort of freak. That was good considered she was very popular but had zero real friends

Scarlet had a strong personality, so strong that people didn’t want to be around her. She hung out with this girl Ariel in the institute, but their energy didn’t match at all. There was that girl she saw sketching in the hallways that seemed very cool and talented. But a cool person like her would never talk to a simple girl like Scarlet. She seemed boring, old fashioned, and had a resting bitch face. The truth was that she was very sweet inside, but no one actually got to see it.

Everything was a mess and the person was coming there soon for the interview. She played some ABBA on and got up to clean. She was an eighteen year old with a soul of an old lady sometimes, but as the chorus of ‘’Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’’ started to play, her socks slid on the clean floor and she was the fun version of herself again.

She got caught in the moment, it was like her body was music. Cleaning the flat became more fun than she thought, and she even forgot somebody was coming. She was making some tea when she heard steps, but she thought it was the song or something - since it was very loud.

Scarlet slid to the living room still jamming to the song, screaming the lyrics with closed eyes. She didn’t even realize there was an actual human being stand in front of her.

When she opened her eyes, she gasped as the person in front of her did. She looked so surprised and so did Scarlet. That was the girl she saw in the hallways, the same cute girl she saw sketching that pretty dress. Was she there because of the roommate announcement? If not, why was she there? Did she see Scarlet dancing? Oh no, she did, her heart began to race while her brain tried to process words that never came.

‘’I came for the roommate announcement… Hi, Scarlet right? Or should I call you Miss Envy?’’

‘’Yeah,’’ she laughed. ‘’I thought putting my last name on sounded more formal, I didn’t want to seem like an old lady.’’

‘’Well… You were listening to ABBA, after all, you got the moves.’’

Great, she made Scarlet blush. She was a useless lesbian, she couldn’t help herself when she saw a pretty girl. She would gladly be just friends with her if she wanted to. She would be anything she wanted with that girl who had such good energy.

‘’I damn right want a woman after midnight.’’ Scarlet shrugged laughing awkwardly.

The tall girl’s face frowned for a moment, and she stared at the big gay flag Scarlet had in her living room. The whole decoration was very vintage, from furniture she found at thrift shops. Even if the flag seemed to not fit in the aesthetic, Scarlet loved that. Maybe she wasn’t frowning because it didn’t match, and yet because she was… Straight. Scarlet gulped and looked at her with curious eyes.

‘’I was going to bring my own flag to here, but I didn’t know you had one already.’’ she put a hand in her shoulder. ‘’I’m Yvie by the way’’

Scarlet gasped to the sudden touch: ‘’W-well, we’re gonna have two pride flags now.’’

‘’Double the gay am I right?’’ Yvie laughed, and God, her laugh was the most quirky and pretty thing Scarlet ever heard. ‘’Does that mean I’m your roommate now? Because we didn’t even talk.’’

‘’Or right, right, I’ll have to interview you, miss…’’

‘’Bridges, but everyone calls me Yvie Oddly so Oddly fits better.’’

Scarlet laughed: ‘’Miss. Oddly, take a seat’’

‘’Yes Miss Envy.’’ she sat in one of the armchairs ‘’Should we start?’’

At that moment she got lost in Yvie’s deep brown eyes as if she was in a trance. Their chemistry was undeniable, as they got tied together. It was only the start of a friendship, that Scarlet hoped to turn into something else. But of course, a girl like her wouldn’t like the boring bitchy Scarlet.

‘’I hope you like chamomile tea!’’ she hides her frustration while stared at Yvie.

‘’I’m actually more of a coffee girl. One strength for choosing me as your roommate: I make delicious coffee.’’

‘’I’ll think about it, keep that in mind…’’

She knew she wasn’t even thinking, and that she would tell Yvie to move there right now if she could. A girl she didn’t even know, that she seemed to know for years even if they only knew each other for some hours. But Scarlet always loved a good adventure.

#rpdr fanfiction #scarlet envy #yvie oddly #adore delano #ariel versace #biadore mention #lesbian au #college au #roommate au #fluff #chemistry #melody #scyvie #s11

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luanna801 · 5 years

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So, here’s a D.N.Angel crack theory (which, the more I think about it, I don’t think is even all that outlandish):

In light of Hiwatari’s seeming immortality, what if he actually is Satoshi’s biological father?

I mean, look at it this way: Both of Satoshi’s parents (presumably) died before the events of the series, but we’ve still gotten glimpses of Rio. We know her name. Satoshi mentions her. We’ve seen little hints of flashbacks. It’s not much, to be sure, but it’s there.

Heck, we even get a brief, intriguing mention of Satoshi’s grandmother. (Side note: I’ve always found it interesting that Daiki says she “disappeared” after giving birth to Rio, rather than necessarily died. It could well mean the same thing, but if so it’s unnecessarily ambiguous phrasing. I’m also interested to know what he means that “the result [of the feud] was a draw” in their day.)

But about his father... there’s literally nothing. Absolute radio silence. No one mentions him. We never see the tiniest glimpse of a flashback. We aren’t given a single piece of information about him. (In fact, to my memory the only time anyone mentions Satoshi having had a biological father at all is in the scene I linked above, where Daiki says “I don’t know who the father is”.) As far as the story is concerned, he might as well not have existed at all.

Now, you could argue it’s just never brought up because Satoshi’s biological father is long dead and not relevant to the story. But again, we’ve gotten brief hints about his mother and even his grandmother. And we’ve also gotten glimpses of other characters who are long gone before the story starts, like Daiki’s late wife (Daisuke’s grandmother), and Saehara’s absentee mother. Considering that Satoshi is a main character in this series, the lack of any sort of reference to his biological father is pretty striking. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s some sort of mystery or twist involving him, but it easily could.

Now, that twist doesn’t have to be that he’s Hiwatari, obviously. But consider that there are really only two reasons we’ve gone through the series assuming Hiwatari isn’t: The fact that he was apparently too young to be (a 26-year-old couldn’t have fathered a 14-year-old, obviously), and the fact that we’re outright told he adopted Satoshi.

If Hiwatari is in fact immortal (which he pretty obviously seems to be), neither of those are in play: Hiwatari looks 26, but not only is he old enough to be Satoshi’s father, he’s actually old enough to have known Satoshi’s distant ancestors. And of course, in light of his immortality, he’d still have to claim Satoshi was his adoptive son. People would understandably get suspicious if he claimed to have a biological son who looks only 12 years younger than him. Heck, Satoshi himself might not know the truth - Hiwatari may have “adopted” him after Rio died, and never revealed that they’re actually related by blood.

... Also, consider this:

There are a bunch of things Hiwatari could mean by this, obviously. He could be a relative of the original Hikari ancestor who was made immortal for some reason (maybe to act as a caretaker for the family, as he seems to have for the Hikari Ancestor). Or he could be a creation of the Hikari Ancestor, who refers to the Hikaris as his “family” metaphorically (cf. Frankenstein’s Creature referring to Frankenstein as his “father”). Either of those explanations could also be true in addition to the one I’m positing here.

But if Hiwatari is Satoshi’s biological father, if he was married to or at least seriously involved with Rio, it’s very literally their family. (Not their “ancestors”, perhaps, you could argue - but then again, if Hiwatari is the same age as the Hikari Ancestor, it’s hard to see how subsequent Hikaris could have been his “ancestors” anyway. If we assume Hiwatari is immortal and the dude we’ve seen in flashbacks with the Hikari Ancestor is him, I think you have to assume he’s using “ancestors” to more generally mean “family members from the past” here.)

Do I think this is canon? Probably not. There’s a reason I referred to it as a crack theory. But I do think it’s interesting to realize that there’s objectively no reason it couldn’t be. We know absolutely nothing about Satoshi’s biological father (in contrast to other characters who are dead or gone before the start of the series)... and on the other hand, there’s the obvious father figure he’s had all along. Who we now know is (probably) actually old enough to have fathered him. Who even looks rather like him. And while it might be weird to think of Rio Hikari having been involved with some immortal dude who’s possibly not even fully human, well...

... it’s not like the series hasn’t gone there before.

#d.n.angel #dnangel #dn angel #satoshi hiwatari #kei hiwatari #rio hikari #commissioner hiwatari #satoshi hikari #hikari ancestor #analysis #theories #rambling #d.n.angel spoilers

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ultimate-miles · 5 years

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Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man (2014-2015) - Not with a Bang, but a whimper

Post Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #19, Miles Morales’ written career as Spider-Man has not been great. After fridging one of the only central supporting female characters in his cast – Rio Morales, his mother – the state of the narrative became preoccupied with manpain, and framing the grief of a teenage boy as, in the words of Miles Morales, someone who “didn’t understand what it meant to be Spider-Man” (Ultimate Cataclysm: Spider-Man #1), which required his entire supporting cast to shame and emotionally manipulate him back into the job.

If there was any good that came out of the last five issues of UCSM, it was probably the introduction of Ultimate Cloak and Dagger and Ultimate Taskmaster.

Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man, unfortunately, offers very little in the way content improvement outside of one side story and its art direction. Otherwise, it doubles back in circles on subjects and issues that should’ve been laid to rest and ends on an inconclusive whimper.

Ultimate Spider-Man #200 + #Issues #1-7

Death in comic books means nothing, and holds no weight unless you’re a wildly unpopular (or non-white) character that any given publication is looking to get rid of in order to appease their narrow minded (and white) audience. When the Ultimate Marvel universe was created, one of the creeds it presumably lived by was that “death mattered”. When a character died, it would mean something, it would impact the narrative, and every character that died would remain dead.

It’s a shame, then, when they chose to stick their guns, they let Jeph Loeb decimate almost half of the Ultimate Universe’s roster in one of the uglier displays of wanton violence, sexism, and just plain shit writing, with the 2011 “Blockbuster Event” Ultimatum. Ultimatum more or less ensured, despite maintaining the promise that no one would return from the dead, none of the deaths mattered – a lot of it was just Loeb masturbating to his own cruelty if we’re being honest.

With the “Death of Spider-Man”, Brian Michael Bendis added salt to an otherwise unhealed wound that was Ultimatum, which wasn’t even a year old at that point. To his credit, he made Peter Parker’s death matter – book ending it with the first villain that more or less was responsible for the creation of Spider-Man (Norman Osborn) – with reverberating consequences throughout most surviving series in the UM. Yet, following the introduction of Miles Morales – the new and Black Spider-Man (reportedly meant to honor Bendis’ Black children, whom I pity) – you could tell, in the years preceding the removal of Peter Parker as the protagonist of the Spider-Man title, Bendis was regretting his decision.

After a 160 issue run (where Peter made actual appearances and was the protagonist until his death), the questionably numbered Ultimate Spider-Man #200, once again sees Bendis fantasizing about what he might’ve done had he not killed Peter Parker and replaced him with Miles Morales. Most of the original cast of characters that were central to Peter Parker’s story – plus Miles and Ganke – gather together at the Parker House at the behest of May Parker and Gwen Stacy (who appears to be a creep perving on underage teen boys no matter what), to commemorate the life of the late Peter Parker. Considering the previous three iterations of “Memorializing Peter Parker” in the UM, Ultimate Spider-Man #200 brings nothing new to the table, but should’ve been a red flag to anyone paying attention to the declining quality of Miles’ title.

Miles’ final title in the Ultimate Universe, Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man, begins with the reintroduction of a supposed-to-be-dead Norman Osborn – in the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D. – and two generic Spider-Man copycats robbing banks. There’s nothing really of note to say about the first seven issues of this thirteen issue title. Bendis decides, with the Ultimate Marvel universe doing the death rattle, to undo the death of both Osborn and Peter Parker – with Peter getting a half-assed excuse for his being brought back from the dead (to sum it up: “because reasons”).

I don’t think a Spider-Man comic has made me quite as angry as this series has. In the moment I read the issue wherein Peter Parker tells Miles, “It’s time for the Original Spider-Man to get back into the game”, I could’ve torn the book into shreds and smote its ruins if I thought it was going to hurt Marvel’s sales and not be an even greater waste of my spent $3.99.

“I can’t believe we’re beating this dead horse again” was what I was thinking and I just stopped buying the book altogether. I think that the first step to mine ceasing to see Miles Morales as a legitimate character, but wasted potential in the hands of non-Black creatives. I only ended up reading the trades for the sake of reference and fact checking and it’s only this year, three-four years after the fact that I bothered to do that. The only thing worth noting about the first seven issues of this title is that it sets up the last four, which are even worse.

Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man #1-3 + Issues #8-9

Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man is one of seven miniseries titles part of the “Blockbuster Event” known as Cataclysm, which sees Ultimate Galactus (or 616 Galactus, I’m not sure which tbh. There’s very little difference between the two when you get to the nitty-gritty) attempting to destroy the 1610 universe and devour it all. You get the distinct feeling that, before someone came up with Secret Wars, Cataclysm was meant to be the true end of the Ultimate Universe – but someone upstairs changed their mind and rendered it to a mere false start. Long story short: The grand majority – if not all of – the Ultimates (the Avengers of the 1610 universe) are killed or sent into the void with Galactus by Ultimate Shadowcat – who is later hailed savior of the world. The All-New Ultimates are formed.

Das it.

But, within Miles’ slice of the Cataclysm story, Bendis finally decides to focus on the elephant in the room: Jefferson Davis and his open and his fantasy xenophobia toward superhumans and how it has literally silenced his own son from admitting to his double life as Spider-Man. Moreso since the death of his mother, Rio Morales, at the hands of Ultimate Venom. I’ll be perfectly honest – I don’t think Jefferson Davis is a great guy – I actually ended up liking his no-account brother (Aaron Davis, gone too soon) far more because he was upfront about his ideals and his mission statement. He never pretended or tried to be a better person. He was just rotten and enjoyed it.

For that one piece of sage advice Jefferson offered Miles in the earliest tenure of his first title, Jefferson is the perfect example of a man who expects his son to “do as he says, and as I do”, but expects no consequences visited upon him whenever he dehumanizes people. He’s a walking metaphor for the heterosexual Black father who spews homophobic slurs in casual conversation around their gay daughter or son and I’m sure as hell that was intentional despite the incompatibility of the allegory.

Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man doesn’t do much to repair his character, if anything it makes him thrice times worse. When Galactus starts wrecking all of New York City and Brooklyn, Miles, Bombshell (Lana Baumgartner) and Cloak and Dagger, struggle to save the people caught in the monster’s wake – all while recounting where they were when the Ultimatum event occurred.

In Miles’ flashback, we see Jefferson lose his head over the knowledge that the title wave was caused by a mutant (Magneto), all while loudly proclaiming everyone stuck in traffic was going to die. The most important nugget of information taken away from Miles’ flashback is the knowledge that his father more or less promised that he would abandon or disown Miles if he ever found out his son (then, probably only 11 or 12 years old at the time) was a superhuman.

I never had much sympathy for Davis (I tolerated him because of Rio), but the moment Miles tries to convince his father to come with him out of the city to safety, and Jefferson decides to blame a now fourteen year old Miles for the death of Rio and Aaron, I just outright hated him. Cataclysm: Ultimate Spider-Man is not a bad read all things considered. It tells its story concisely and never loses focus of its characters in relation to the catastrophe. The downside is that you have to read the rest of the Cataclysm series to know what was going on. I’d probably recommend you read it, especially since it ties into two issues of The Ultimate Spider-Man.

The conflict between Miles and Jefferson is left hanging until issues #8 and #9 of Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man – also known as “The Only Redeeming Thing About This Comic Book Title”. The eighth and ninth issues of MMTUSM sees Jefferson Davis finally owning up to his past and basically just spilling the beans about his life as a criminal with Aaron and how he became involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. during the 80s – when Miami Vice, Jerri Curls, House Party Flattops, and ill-fitting suits with shoulder pads were all the rage – and how he met a young, already-at-it, Nick Fury.

The complete tonal and visual shift in the issues are a welcome respite from the Peter Parker nonsense of the previous seven. The story arc, “Miles Morales: An Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.?”, carries with it the kind’ve of visual flair I see a Tim Sale illustrated graphic novel (like Spider-Man: Blue or The Long Halloween), but it’s still David Marquez illustrating the story from beginning to end.

It’s got the look and feel of a pulp novel, or one of those old newspaper comic strips where the spots of the print were obvious through the inking and character sketches. The narrative, which sees Jefferson and Aaron working for smalltime criminals to Jefferson’s eventual graduation to protecting the Kingpin (with a minor explanation as to why he loathes mutants), is, in my opinion, the highlight of a story that could’ve worked as a full-fledged miniseries about the Jefferson brothers.

My only quibble with the framing of the narrative is that the early inclusion of S.H.I.E.L.D makes Jefferson look more like the unwilling participant of crime he was manipulated into thinking he had to do for “the greater good”, as opposed to some young blood who didn’t give much thought to right or wrong (which is how the early issues framed it) before he had an epiphany. I always assumed the crime came first, then S.H.I.E.L.D, then Rio. Honestly, if you’re at all interested in this storyline, just look for the single issues and don’t buy the trade. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.

#Issues 10-13

Marvel and its twisted, present-day romantic relationship with Neo-Nazism is a fairly ironic one, given most of its early artists were white Jewish dudes with alternate names designed to explicitly hide their Jewishness on account of antisemitism. But, I suppose the publications preoccupation with Nazism to begin with (even if it was denouncing it) would’ve inevitably steered its future publishers to romanticize it in the end. I mean, that’s what happened after all.

You know shit it bad when Marvel wants you to pity [white] characters like Grant Ward of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D for joining a Neo-Nazi group, despite the repeated and angry affirmations of protagonist Daisy Johnson, who flat-out reminds the audience, “You are a Nazi if you join Hydra”, who is undermined anyway by the narrative that continues to bleat, “pity the Neo-Nazi.”

Brian Michael Bendis, in all his infinite lack of wisdom, decides – the biggest way to differ Miles Morales’ love life from Peter Parker’s, is make an underdeveloped character, his girlfriend, Ultimate Kate Bishop, a member of Hydra. Miles’ white girlfriend rides on the agenda of the Aryan Ideal and white supremacy. Brilliant.

The Ultimate Spider-Man issues, #1-#4 and #7 prelude the last four issues with Miles deliberating whether or not he should tell Katie Bishop about his double life as Spider-Man. Instead of being supportive, everyone from Ganke to Cloak and Dagger warns Miles against telling her, thinking it would be a bad idea. He does it anyway, Katie panics and runs away.

The aforementioned issues give the reader a glimpse into Kate’s life with the Bishops, with one conversation with her older sister casually mentioning that “they” would have to kill Miles and the seventh issue concludes with her uttering the phrase, “Hail Hydra.”

If The Ultimate Spider-Man had something to say about the issue of Nazism, especially in relation to Miles’ life as a Black teen – or the cautionary tale of “you never know someone until…”, then I could maybe understand the decision to make Kate Bishop (a wildly popular Avenger in the 616 universe, be she an adult or a teenager) a Nazi.

But, it doesn’t, it basically does exactly the same thing Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D does with the Daisy Johnson/Grant Ward dynamic. The narrative depicts a “Sympathetic Nazi” (Katie) trying to explain their position, and a furious significant other (Miles) outright declaring their relationship is over. Only, where AOS more or less dragged that subplot out to its natural conclusion (“Sympathetic Nazi” isn’t really sympathetic and dies),

The Ultimate Spider-Man did nothing to that extent. Readers barely have gotten to known Katie Bishop since her introduction in issue #23 of UCSM. She was given no time actually to be anything other than “Miles Morales’ girlfriend”. And when it comes right down to it, the Hydra subplot was nothing but an excuse to bring Dr. Doom into the narrative at the last moment. So, the “My Girlfriend is a Nazi” storyline just falls flat.

On a smaller note, the way the last couple issues decide to use Judge – the minor character from Ultimate Comics Spider-Man – is sigh inducing. It’s like Bendis realized his book was coming to an end and figured the best way to a handle a character that barely had any face time since the first twelve issues of the UCSM, is to just plop him in the middle of the story with his already knowing Miles is Spider-Man.

But, he does it in a way that, if you removed him from the story, nothing would change. It’s a superfluous addition and kind’ve discourteous, especially since Bendis doesn’t do anything with Judge later on in Miles’ new 616 title, the unfortunately named Spider-Man.

Outside of issues #8 and #9, Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man is a sad conclusion to Miles Ultimate Universe solo-title career. It reminded me why I stopped reading his title four years ago, and knowing that none of his recent stuff isn’t any good either kinda makes me glad I made the decision so early on.

#miles morales #spider man #katie bishop #brian michael bendis #david marquez #ultimate miles meta #1610 miles morales #1610 judge #1610 kate bishop #1610 jefferson davis #media: long posts

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