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maxerikson · 3 years

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The Character Development of Sonic the Hedgehog: A Character Analysis

The Sonic the Hedgehog video game series is one that does not require very deep or complicated stories to go with their games. Due to the simplistic nature of the franchise, its characters are probably best described as two-dimensional, which would be fine, because they don’t require that third dimension of depth. The main character himself, Sonic the Hedgehog, doesn’t even have much character development throughout the series; at least at first glance that would seem to be the case, but I am here to tell you all that Sonic the Hedgehog has gone through a lot of character development throughout his adventures, making him very three-dimensional. There are four key character arcs that Sonic has gone through over the course of the main series, and I’m going to go over all of them while examining Sonic’s development in the major installments.

From Loner to Team Player

I believe at the very start of the series, Sonic the Hedgehog was a loner, who had trouble making friends and might have even closed himself off to others. In Sonic the Hedgehog 1, Sonic was the only playable character, and the only other character in the whole game was the villain, Dr. Eggman. More characters appeared in later titles, many more, but none of them are people Sonic knew before Sonic 1. They were all strangers to Sonic when they first appeared. Another piece of evidence comes from Amy Rose. Several years ago now, Sega did a mock Q&A with Sonic, and one of the questions asked of him was why he wasn’t interested in Amy. His answer was because he was too busy with his adventures to have a relationship (although there’s also an inappropriate age difference between the two, with Sonic being 15 years old, and Amy being 12).

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that this makes it hard to form any relationship, whether romantic or platonic. Being able to move as fast as he can, the world around Sonic is just too slow for him, and the people that were in his life before Tails and Amy likely just couldn’t keep up. Not only that, but his powers and his status as a hero likely make him a target, which would make him dangerous to be around, as if his super speed didn’t make him dangerous enough already. However, Amy would force her way into Sonic’s life, not minding the danger, and in the Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic met Tails, who was able to keep up with him thanks to his propeller-like twin tails, and tagged along on his adventure to stop Eggman from destroying West Island in his search for the Chaos Emeralds. Tails may have been Sonic’s first real friend in who knows how long, maybe even ever.

That being said, Sonic still saw Tails and Amy as people he had to protect, and he had trouble getting along with people like Knuckles, who was also quite the loner, although much more so than Sonic. Then Sonic Adventure 1 took place, and it seemed like Sonic’s fears were coming true. When the Tornado 1 was shot down during the first attack on the Egg Carrier, Sonic and Tails were separated. Sonic had no idea if Tails was OK, so he needed to find him quickly, but Amy just had to show up asking for him to help a lost birdie. Sonic never agreed to this, but when Zero arrived to capture Amy and the bird, Sonic was determined to rescue them, but Zero escaped with them. Sonic had failed to protect his friends, and he wouldn’t have needed to if he was their friend in the first place.

Sonic didn’t have long to dwell on this failure, however, because Tails almost immediately appeared in his Tornado 2, which he and Sonic used to attack the Egg Carrier, and this time successfully made on board, where they find out that Amy had already escaped custody...with help from an Eggman robot, no less! In this moment, Sonic has learned that his friends can take care of themselves, meaning he can have friends without putting them in danger.

The story for Sonic Adventure 1 had a central theme that was used as the inspiration for the main song, Open Your Heart. The story was all about how you need to open your heart to others, because closing yourself off will create a cycle of pain and hatred. This lesson was put into words when Sonic gave his speech to Tikal before the final boss battle, telling her why they shouldn’t just seal Chaos back into the Master Emerald. I believe Sonic wouldn’t have been able to make this speech at the beginning of the game, because it’s a lesson he’s been learning since the beginning of the series, and it had just sunk in. That speech is the climax of Sonic letting his friends be part of his life, but it isn’t the finale.

In Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic found himself framed for a crime he didn’t commit and thrown in Prison Island. How did he escape? He didn’t—at least not by himself. It was actually Amy who released Sonic from his cell while Tails was keeping Dr. Eggman busy. Not only could Sonic’s friends take care of themselves, but they can even be relied on to save the day when Sonic can’t. Sonic is shown to have learned this lesson when he gets trapped on the ARK, and about to be jettisoned to his apparent death; during that scene he tells Tails to take care of Amy, letting him know that Sonic has full faith in him to be a hero in Sonic’s absence. By Sonic Heroes, Sonic has become a true team player, treating Tails and Knuckles as equals as they worked together to stop Eggman.

A lot of this is intertwined with the next area of development I’m about to talk about, which is….

Sonic’s Confidence

Sonic the Character is well known for his confidence. A lot of people view him as cocky, but I’ve never seen him as such. However, I believe that’s because by Sonic Adventure 1, he’s already lost a good chunk of that cockiness (all games before SA1 had what I like to call ‘video game stories’, with little-to-no dialogue or cutscenes). One way a person can combat loneliness is by convincing themselves that they don’t need other people in their lives—they’re awesome enough by themselves! Sonic in particular wouldn’t need to try that hard to convince himself of this. He was able to defeat Eggman and destroy his base in Sonic 1 all by himself, and no-one even died. He got some help from Tails in Sonic 2 and 3, but he was basically support. Speaking of Sonic 3, this game basically started with Sonic, as Super Sonic, getting the super knocked out of him when Knuckles caught him by surprise. That definitely would have been a blow to Sonic’s ego. First Metal Sonic and now this gullible Knucklehead? Sonic keeps finding opponents who can actually go toe-to-toe with him.

Still, as far as Sonic was concerned, he needed to be as unstoppable as he believed himself to be. No-one else can do what he can, which means saving the world was his responsibility alone. Now I would like to point out something I said in the previous section: “Sonic had failed to protect his friends” in Sonic Adventure 1. Sonic experienced his first real failure, and what happened? Tails and Amy turned up OK without Sonic saving them. Sonic doesn’t always need to protect them, something that is further proven in Sonic Adventure 2, which also featured more of Sonic’s failure. First, he’s captured by G.U.N. after being framed by theft, then he meets Shadow—the guy who framed him—and learns that this lookalike can outclass him. First Knuckles, now this faker? Sonic keeps meeting people who can make dents in his ego. Speaking of which, he’s immediately captured by G.U.N. again, and needs Tails and Amy to rescue him. Then there’s the final boss battle, during which Shadow—who was fighting alongside Sonic—apparently dies, and although the two of them saved the planet from destruction, Sonic couldn’t save Shadow.

Sonic has realized that he’s not invincible, but he also doesn’t need to carry the whole weight of the world on his shoulders, because his friends can help. We know Sonic has learned this lesson, because at the end of Team Sonic’s story in Sonic Heroes, Sonic admits to Knuckles that he wouldn’t have been able succeed in this journey without him and Tails, and thanks him; and you know this is a big deal because Knuckles responds with an expression of utter shock! Does this mean Sonic Heroes is the end of this particularly character arc for Sonic? No, because now Sonic was underconfident. Once someone realizes they’re not as amazing as they believed themselves to be, they begin feeling inadequate. This is best illustrated in Sonic Unleashed. At the beginning of this game, Sonic is at his lowest point. Eggman not only defeated Sonic’s super form, but used the power from it to split the planet apart. As a result of this failure, Sonic was turned into a beastly werehog, and he accidentally gave someone amnesia (or so he believes).

Later in the game, Sonic is found by Amy, but she thinks she’s confused a stranger for Sonic, so she apologizes and runs off to find her crush. Considering how much Sonic finds Amy’s crush on him annoying, you’d think Sonic would be delighted by this, but nope! He’s clearly saddened by this, and we get a mopey werehog. That’s because his werehog form is a reminder of his failure, and of his self-perceived inadequacy; but then Chip regains his memories and reveals he’s actually Light Gaia. Sonic theorizes that this is why he’s still himself on the inside when he turns into a werehog, because Chip was with him that whole time, but Chip tells Sonic that it was all Sonic. It was Sonic’s own willpower that kept him sane. I would also like to point out that this is the first main series game in a long time in which Sonic is the only playable character. That’s why I think it’s very important that the main theme of this game’s story is about Sonic realizing the power he had inside himself all along, regaining his confidence and becoming Super Sonic once more to defeat Dark Gaia.

In short, Sonic went from being overconfident to underconfident to confident. However, he’s still very impulsive.

Chaos Impulse Control

It only makes sense that someone with super speed would lack patience, and while Sonic has always been shown to be pretty impatient, it wasn’t until Sonic Lost World that it came to be an important part of a game’s story, at least explicitly. I feel like there are examples throughout the main series where Sonic’s impulsiveness was reflected in gameplay and level design. The only examples I can think of from the top of my head though are two from Sonic Adventure 1. Perhaps one of the reasons that orca attacked was because it was startled by Sonic running through its enclosure at such high speeds? Maybe Sonic was the one who accidentally caused that avalanche he had to snowboard away from? Who knows? All I do know, is that Sonic Lost World was the first game that really made full use of Sonic’s impulsiveness.

In SLW, Sonic recklessly got rid of the conch Eggman was using to control the Deadly Six, which made things worse. Sonic’s impulsiveness then got Tails captured and almost roboticized. In the end, Sonic acknowledged his mistakes and apologized to Tail; so does that mean Sonic has learned his lesson? Well, yes, but I believe this will continue to happen. Allow me to repeat myself: Sonic has super speed. Living life with such a power is definitely going to be like living with attention deficiency and hyperactivity. The world is always going to feel too slow for Sonic, which means he’s always going to be in a rush to make things faster. It’s something he’s probably going to live with for most of his remaining life, even if he’s aware of it. Luckily, he has friends who can support him by helping him reign himself in, or by helping him fix his mistakes when he is unable to.

Before I move on to the fourth and final area of Sonic’s character development, you may have noticed that there are three major Sonic games I haven’t mentioned so far. That’s because Sonic doesn’t go through any development in Sonic Colors or Sonic Forces. On the surface, that seems to be the same for Sonic Generations, but just think about it for a few seconds: Sonic is traveling through his past during this game. He is seeing a lot of reminders of his past, which could make him think back and reflect on the lessons he’s learned since beginning his adventures on South Island, reaffirming those lessons onto himself; and don’t forget, there are two of him in this game. While Modern Sonic is reflecting on his past, Classic Sonic is getting a glimpse of his future; of the person he could eventually become and the lessons he’ll need to learn to reach that point.

Still, that’s mostly headcanon. It would have been nice if it were more explicit though, and Sonic actually talked about this stuff at least a little. At least we got Sonic telling his past self that his future “is going to be great,” clarifying that Sonic is happy with where he is in life, and that he doesn’t hold any regrets. Which begs the question: What else is there left for Sonic? Well, there is one more part of himself that Sonic is still learning about….

Sonic’s Powers

How is Sonic able to move so fast? So far, fans haven’t been given an answer, and Sonic doesn’t appear to know either. Remember when I said Sega did a mock Q&A with Sonic? Well, in that Q&A, Sonic revealed that he was able to run at super speed for as long as he could remember, with no idea how or why he has this power. Although we have yet to be given an answer in these games, we have gotten at least one game where Sonic was shown to be thinking about it, and one where he might have been.

When Sonic and Shadow were working together during the final boss battle in Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow exclaimed that he figured out that Sonic is the ultimate lifeform, not Shadow. How...is this possible? Shadow was supposed to have been created by Prof. Robotnik to be the ultimate lifeform. There are hints in the game that Robotnik took inspiration from Angel Island’s hieroglyphs, which we know from Sonic & Knuckles depict Sonic, but I want to focus more on the game’s final scene, which shows Sonic thinking about what Shadow said, and how Prof. Robotnik was trying to create the ultimate lifeform.

“Am I really the ultimate lifeform? What does that mean exactly? Does it have anything to do with my speed?” These are likely the questions going through Sonic’s head after these events. That scene hinted at Sonic having questions about his own origins, and he might have been given his first real clue; but has this come up again at all during the series? Perhaps it did, in Sonic Unleashed.

Remember how Chip said Sonic was still Sonic even when he was a werehog because of the power inside of him? Is that just Sonic’s inner strength and willpower, or could it also have something to do with him being the ultimate lifeform? That’s probably what Sonic’s thinking at this time, but who knows?

Conclusion

Sonic began his adventures as an arrogant loner with impulse control issues, but over time he has grown into a humble team player with impulse control issues. It doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but I think it’s pretty important. The next, logical thing to do with Sonic as a character is to explore the origins of his powers, at least if we want to see more character development, but it isn’t the only option. Another path writers could take is relapse, and I think Sonic Forces has created an opportunity for this route, despite its awful story. At the beginning of this game, Sonic gets defeated and imprisoned for six months. During that time, Eggman conquered most of the world, all because Sonic was there, basically proving Sonic’s former belief that he needs to be the one to save everyone as correct.

If I had to choose though, I’d rather see more about Sonic’s powers. Still, what should Sega do if Sonic’s character becomes fully developed? Is it time for a reboot? No, not necessarily. There’s nothing wrong with a flat character arc, after all. Instead of having Sonic improve himself, future stories could exclusively portray the characters around them going through character arcs as a result of Sonic’s actions and his relationships with them. That’s technically already something we see in most Sonic games, but that’s while Sonic is going through his own character arcs, at least in the major installments. In minor main series Sonic games, like Sonic Rush, it doesn’t seem like Sonic goes through any development, but the characters around him do. That could become the norm if Sonic completes his development, and that’s OK.

Here’s the big question though: Was any of this character development intentional? Probably not. At the very least, I doubt it was planned by Sega’s higher-ups, and more like the result of individual writers each trying to create the best stories they can, and then all of that work put together created a happy accident. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Sonic lived and learned to open his heart, and to work with his friends to become stronger together, while also acknowledging the endless possibility of what’s inside of him. Sonic the Hedgehog is my favorite video game character, and realizing all of this just makes him even better in my point of view. With this analysis, I hope I’ll get people to appreciate his character as much as I do.

#sonic #hedgehog #sega #character #development #analysis #story #video games

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

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Michael After Midnight: Heavy Metal

Sometimes it’s fun to revisit old movies you watched when you were younger and find out, hey, this is better than you remembered! Sometimes your young mind just wasn’t ready to accept how awesome something was, and you needed time to fully understand what you look for and like about cinema to truly appreciate it. But then, sometimes, you watch something you liked when you were younger, and you realize… wow, this is absolute dog shit!

Such is the case with Heavy Metal. This is a movie I have frequently cited as a low-ranking entry on lists of the finest animated films of all time, and to be entirely fair to the film, it is important in a historical sense, being a cult classic that was passed around through bootlegs because music rights kept it from getting a home video release, and it came out around the dawn of the 80s and kind of destroyed what you would think an animated film was capable of. This film is full of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and it entirely, unabashedly unashamed of this, for better or for worse.

Now, while I do think the overall film is a bit lacking, it is an anthology film divided into segments, and there are some pretty good ones I will make note of; this is not a film with absolutely no merit. But before that, let me point out the one thing everyone can agree is amazing about this film: the soundtrack. You’ve got Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Stevie Nicks, Devo, Cheap Trick… if nothing else, the kickass soundtrack is worth a listen, though Blue Oyster Cult’s song inclusion irritates me to a great degree. The movie went with “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” for the soundtrack, despite the fact Blue Oyster Cult had a song ready to go that is literally about the final entry in the anthology, called “Vengeance (The Pact).” Why the people compiling the soundtrack made this choice baffles me; it reminds me of how they didn’t use “Jennifer’s Body” in, well, Jennifer’s Body, instead opting for a different Hole song from the same album.

But I digress. Let’s go one by one and touch on the segments:

The framing device is about an entity known as the Loc-Nar, who claims to be the sum of all evil, detailing to a little girl how it has influenced chaos and carnage across time and space. The thing is, though, the Loc-Nar doesn’t come out on top in any of the segments, and its schemes are often thwarted. So the entire movie is basically this supreme evil being detailing to a little girl how much it sucks ass at its one job.

The first segment is Harry Canyon, a story about the eponymous futuristic New York taxi driver. In some regards it reminds me of The Fifth Element, what with a scruffy, slummy, futuristic taxi driver trying to help a smoking hot babe find out the truth and all, but unlike that film, this short is a lot bleaker and gritty. You kinda know what you’re in for when Harry vaporizes a dude who tries to mug him, and if that’s not enough, the female lead of this short literally throws herslef at him, and yes, he gets to take a dive into her Harry Canyon – and you get to see it.

This is a running theme throughout these shorts – almost every female character has huge titties and is sexually promiscuous, throwing themselves at the first penis they see as if it was their job. It’s so incredibly juvenile and tacky as to be laughable, but I guess this comes with the territory considering the magazine this film adapted.

Anyway, the segment is harmless and unremarkable. It’s exactly what you’d expect from this sort of story, without much in the way of twists or turns.

The second segment, Den, is arguably the best segment in the entire film. We have a nerdy kid named Dan who gets transported across space and becomes the musclebound warrior with a huge cock known as Den. Every woman throws herself at him, every villain in his way gets pummeled, and no task is too impossible for this man! And did I mention that he is voiced by John Candy? Really, Candy’s comedic touch is what makes this entire thing feel fun and palatable; it’s a cheesy swords and sorcery romp through and through. Honestly, I don’t have much bad to say about this one, it’s just very silly fun.

Unfortunately we are back to being not great with Captain Sternn. Sternn, played by Eugene Levy (of The Wacky World of Mini Golf fame), is basically an intergalactic war criminal on trial, and when his paid witness Hanover Fiste (played by Rodger “Squidward Tentacles” Bumpass) comes up to the stand, the Loc-Nar influences him to the most evil act possible… betraying this war criminal in front of the judge and jury! GASP! I’m not sure what the Loc-Nar is really trying to do here; you’d think it would maybe want Sternn free to continue spreading wicked influence across the galaxy, but nah, it just makes Squidward hulk out and tries to kill him, only for the tables to be turned and Squidward to be dropped out an airlock, further cementing how utterly useless the Loc-Nar is.

Thankfully, once that’s over, we have yet another very strong segment, another contender for best in show: B-17. This is a genuinely creepy zombie short film, and the zombies are utterly horrifying and grotesque. This is regarded as the most nightmarish part of the film, and for good reason; this shit is certainly worthy of being called “heavy metal.” Honestly, there isn’t much bad to say about this one either, except perhaps that it is over far too soon.

Then we get to what is probably the worst segment: So Beautiful, So Dangerous. The entire segment is sort of meant to be a lighthearted comedic breather between The last segment and the final one, but it just comes off as combining every problem the movie has into one segment: the uselessness of the Loc-Nar, copious and ridiculous sex, drugs, and so on. Really all that’s missing from this is gratuitous violence, but hey, guess you can’t have everything all the time, right? It just comes off as really dull and pointless, and there’s not really anything particularly funny about anything that happens in it, unless of course you’re a thirteen year old who thinks “big boob woman having sex with robot while aliens snort cocaine” is the funniest shit on Earth.

Thankfully, we end on a strong note with Taarna, which is about a proud warrior woman dressed in horrifically impractical armor (and this actually effects the plot, I’m not kidding, somehow there was some self-awareness here) and a cool alien pteradactly flying off to fulfill a vengeful pact after the slaughter of a peaceful race by barbarians mutated by the Loc-Nar, in what may be the Loc-Nar’s sole impressive feat. Taarna is the ultimate hero, giving us the trifecta of qualities a heroine in this movie should have – boobs, butt, and bush... Er, I mean, sword, cool mount, and ass-kicking prowess. This one is not quite as good as “Den” or “B-17,” but I still think it’s a solid finale that has enough action and awesome music to make up for its tackier elements.

The movie ends with Taarna’s defeat of the Loc-Nar echoing through time and killing it which… makes absolutely zero sense, but whatever, the Loc-Nar is an absolutely atrocious villain and perhaps one of the most useless in cinematic history, he gets a 1/10 on Psycho Analysis. Then the girl gets her own kickass space dragon thing and becoming the new Taarna or something and, honestly, it’s the exact sort of batshit ending you should expect from the film.

So, is this really an awful film? In some places, no. It’s a love letter to cheesy, trashy sci-fi fantasy from the 70s, with all that comes with it, and in that regard it does succeed. But still, a lot of the film feels like the utterly juvenile fantasies of same sad high schooler, or perhaps even middle schooler, who has never had and who likely never will have sex. It’s a tashy little time capsule to a bygone era where this sort of storytelling was okay so long as there was enough blood and titties on display, so if that appeals to you, by all means, check this film out. It’s certainly not the worst thing in the world to watch, but animation has come so far and adult animation in particular is capable of so much more than adolescent masturbatory fantasies that this film has little value beyond a few solid segments and a damn good soundtrack.

Hell, just go listen to the soundtrack. I think you’d have a better time doing that.

#Michael After Midnight #Review #Movie review #Heavy Metal #animation #animated movie #sex drugs and rock and roll

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Thoughts Part 3 a.k.a. Iron Man Junior: Far From Spider-Man

This will be the final part of this essay series and here I’m going to go through how this film holds up as an adaptation of the source material.

Shockingly the answer will be that it’s fucking awful.

I’ve already made what must be over a dozen posts about how terrible Far From Home is as an adaptation and representation of Spider-Man but screw it let’s go over it more!

Before I start to rant let me qualify something.

When you are adapting a character as famous, iconic and beloved as Spider-Man you don’t have to be a 1:1 translation of the source material. But you 100% do have to respect the spirit of the source material as much as practicality will allow. You have to respect the essential ideas, original intention and core themes and concepts underpinning the character and his world.

That is the root of my objections in this post and so many others.

Homecoming and Far From Home misunderstand Spider-Man on a fundamental level. Or worse they do understand him and actively chose to ignore what he’s about, what he represents.

He’s all about great power and great responsibility within the context of being a relatively relatable Average Joe.

This isn’t making him an everyman the way Bilbo Baggins or Luke Skywalker are. For Spider-Man he has to much more accurately reflect the average person and the world the average person lives in. He has to live in a real city, he has to worry about bills, laundry, studies, getting a job, holding a job, maintaining friendships and romantic relationships. He just has to be Spider-Man ON TOP of that and that must clash with his normal life. Being Spider-Man is one more additional responsibility he must juggle.

Before I rip this film to shreds for so aggressively NOT doing that let me get a few scant positives out of the way.

First of all the action scenes were not just generally improved from Homecoming, but honestly felt more like Spider-Man. I could easily see the way Peter and Mysterio attacked, defended, countered, etc, being something from the comics. Particular praise must go to the Berlin action sequence.

For many years Spider-Man fans have understandably claimed that Mysterio would be the perfect villain for the big screen due to his skill set being about generating great visuals. And we were right because we get not just a classic Mysterio action sequence in Berlin but outright one of the all time best ones from any version of Spider-Man. The film even drops us some appreciated fan service, firstly by putting Peter in his red and blue costume so it feels like the comic come to life and secondly via the giant Mysterio hand ripped straight out of ASM #66-67. The snow globe sequence in particular, if it wasn’t from a comic (and off the top of my head I can’t recall it being so) was simply inspired.

Equally Mysterio’s look was a different yet ultimately brilliant realization of the comic book. To an extent Mysterio is also a spiritually faithful rendition of the comic book character. In the comics he was a special effects master, stuntman and failed actor who craved fame and was frustrated by the lack of recognition he got.

In the movie he created highly realistic holographic technology, was frustrated by it’s small scale use, the lack of recognition he got for it and with a whole crew of helpers fabricated his Mysterio identity in the hopes of becoming the most famous superhero in the world, although he was himself rarely in the costume.

Traditionally Mysterio is a practical effects guy and this makes the most sense given how he physically fights Spider-Man, but the updating of that to holographic technology is fine and dandy because CGI has, for better or worse, supplanted practical effects. Even in the 1994 cartoon when that wasn’t the case the showmakers gave Mysterio holographic tech.

Him not being a stuntman is more of a mixed bag. On the one hand being a stuntman is what enables him to sort of fight Spider-Man himself, but on the other hand outside of his debut Mysterio’s usually been more effective when not physically fighting people but rather tricking them and manipulating them. So if you are focussing more on that aspect of the character dropping the stuntman angle is fine.

In fact one of the two things (and we will talk more about the other later) which does spiritually undermine this version of Mysterio is his lack of explicit connection to Hollywood. However he is still an actor just not a professional actor in the film or TV industry. And a great actor at that as he is so capable of fooling everyone.

We might also argue that having a crew of helpers undermined Mysterio’s independence and intelligence, but I think it works for the movie fro 2 reasons. First of all in a movie for general audiences suspension of disbelief doesn’t stretch as far so savant characters are less acceptable. Mysterio is 100% a savant. He’s a skilled actor, stuntman, manipulator and technician who knows holographic technology, robotics and all manner of things like that. In the movies you could maybe buy someone having a grasp of the purely technical side of things, but even Tony Stark wasn’t an expert on biology or chemistry, maybe he knew enough to get by but remember he needed to read up on stuff in Avengers 2012.

By giving Mysterio a group supporting him it makes it more believable that this villain is capable of all these things. More poignantly, and you can see this especially when they were ‘rehearsing’ for the London attack, it renders Beck something of a director, thus subtextually giving him yet more connection to the world of film. Again it’s just a shame this was not more explicit and instead his abilities and motives stem from...well we will get there.

On a final note Mysterio can in truth be one of the creepier Spider-Man villains and you don’t really get that vibe outside of the Berlin fight scene (and even then only a little bit). I think that’s fine as he was still manipulative which is one of Mysterio’s better skills in the comics.

So there is a lot this version of Mysterio has going for him, he’s faithful in the idea but not in certain details. Unfortunately those details sink this take.

Other positives include the set up of Chameleon as the stoic and silent agent Dmitri within SHIELD. This will not only pay off in MCU Spider-Man 3 but will is also a great example of irony and foreshadowing. Chameleon was introduced as a saboteur and enemy agent so him being a mole within SHIELD lends itself well to his character and the fact that he is an imposter amidst imposters (the Skrulls) is deliciously ironic.

Also this movie gave us the best version of Ned and Betty’s relationship ever because no one died or got cheated on. Finally I liked Aunt May running a homeless shelter. It gives her something to do and is a very fitting role for her.

I want to go back to Mysterio for a moment though as this isn’t really a positive or a negative of his character.

He’s a very tricky character to adapt. In his debut he is pretends to be a powerful new superhero who wants to bring down Spider-Man whom he’s obviously framed.

In a movie I can understand how framing Spider-Man might not sustain a 2+ hour movie.* However the bigger question to ask is whether or not you bother with having Mysterio framed as a hero or not.

In the 90s it was easier as Spider-Man and his mythos wasn’t so prevalent so people simply know a lot of stuff via osmosis, and in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon the showmakers simply present him as a criminal off the bat.

If you do go with him pretending to be a hero it’s tricky to pull off without feeling like you are going through the motions.

All of which is me saying the movie is faithful to the comics in presenting Mysterio as initially pretending t be a hero but I don’t know how good of an idea that is. I don’t know anyone who walked into the movie not knowing he was the bad guy.

That’s about it for positives.

So...FUCK THIS MOVIE!

Once again in this Spider-Man movie everything revolves around Iron Man.

I’ve written in posts past how this undermines Spider-Man’s agency simply as a character in a movie but as far as adaptations go this is beyond insulting.

Spider-Man was in part created to be an independent superhero. In part created to literally NOT have the kind of relationship he has with Iron Man in this movie.

I cannot describe how much of a fundamental misunderstanding of Spider-Man’s character it is to have Iron Man be utterly integral to who everything about him.

He’s so goddam integral that Peter’s alleged character arc in this movie is about becoming him (in the most obnoxious of ways too, see Part 2) and he is the wellspring from which 99% of this movie springs from even though he’s fucking dead. I mean my god the plot device everyone is after is Tony Stark’s glasses!

Spider-Man doesn’t get to be his own man even when Iron Man is literally not alive!

Shit even Mysterio is motivated and built to be a dark reflection of Iron Man. And this kills his character not just because it denies him independence because it makes his ambitions entirely too big scale to work as a Spider-Man villain. His motivation is to gain access to Tony’s magic glasses. At least Vulture with a tweak could have worked as a regular Spider-Man villain. He had the working class down to Earth and relatable ambitions and lifestyle down. Mysterio is doing everything to both spite Tony and become him.

Jesus, even Iron Man’s dead weight and most irrelevant supporting character Happy Hogan is not just in this movie but plot relevant...for the second movie in a row! He’s even dating Spider-Man’ aunt. At this point given how she’s never even mentioned him is Uncle Ben even dead in this universe or did he just run off with a somehow even sexier 50 year old?

Oh...and let’s talk about Uncle Ben, whom I was naive enough to think was going to be referenced when that gravestone appeared but noooooope, fucking Iron Man again.

From Endgame onwards disgusting posts and articles were written about how Iron Man’s death now truly makes him MCU’s Uncle Ben. Because you see he was Peter’s father figure and he died...so that’s the same thing. Nevermind that he didn’t die because Peter was inactive and selfish, or the fact that his death didn’t widow his aunt, or anything like that. Shit Peter doesn’t even seem that upset about it beyond 1 or 2 scenes. And yet that’s one or two scenes more than we’ve ever seen Uncle Ben get referenced. Think about that we’ve seen Iron Man mourned more than Uncle Ben in a SPIDER-MAN movie!

We see that more than we see Aunt May even. Aunt May is just there in the MCU movies which is not just a waste of Tomei as a talented actress but it is again insulting as an adaptation. Even in Spider-Man 3 and ASM2 she had more to do and delivered a good scene or two. In these movies she’s eye candy and nothing more. She is more relevant as a punch line about how men are attracted to her than as her own character.

And now that we are on the subject of supporting characters, I talk about this more in other posts, but Michelle is so bad. The romance comes out of nowhere there is no justification given for their respective feelings for one another and to say she’s not Mary Jane would be redundant.

She fails to be anything like Mary Jane on any level beyond her nickname. This is not okay for several reasons. Among them is the fact that the Spider-man movies have had a problematic habit of treating the love interests as interchangeable characters as opposed to being their own distinct characters. Worse we’re screwing up Mary Jane not only a second time on film but worse than before. This is the Lois Lane of the Spider-Man mythos, she’s an iconic beloved character integral to the over all story of Spider-Man. And we’re treating her as so insignificant as to able to present an OC with her initials and claim that’s good enough.

As for the other supporting characters they continue to be broken. Like how the fuck did Betty Brant wind up the relatively most faithful character? Ned is just a repurposed Ganke except now they’re writing him as a lame Disney Channel sidekick character so he’s not even got the depth of comic book Ganke and Flash...oh Flash. He’s not just irrelevant to the movie, he’s not even really a bully in this film. He’s just a preppy docuchebag no one takes seriously and in fact gets treated as the butt monkey on more than one occasion. The only redeemable moments for his character were when he sang Spider-Man’s praises and was stoked that Spidey follows his social media channel.

All the characters feel like shallow attempts to make Spider-Man ‘about youth’ which as I’ve said countless times in the past, he provably isn’t about and never was. But this film not only continues to lean on that misinterpretation but lean harder on it. Like the premise of this movie is literally about Spider-Man trying to enjoy his summer vacation and school field trip.

But the film fucks up Spider-Man’s defining values in so many other ways.

Of course there is the blip.

People were so hype for Spider-Man to be in the MCU but hindsight is painful because that fact just hurt Spider-Man movies on a fundamental level.

In Marvel comics, we never know for sure if any of Spider-Man’s friends or family died in the Infinity Gauntlet and no one remembered it happening anyway. It also didn’t happen in a Spider-Man story so it could be safely ignored as is the nature of a shared universe.

But in the movies Far From Home acting as MCU Chapter 23 creates an ongoing problem for these Spider-Man movies. The fact that Spider-Man and everyone he knows died and came back but also there were some people who are five years older than him now creates a fundamental dissonance undermining the more grounded, relatable angle of his character. The only solution of which is to simply wilfully ignore the elephant in the room that represents that dissonance. In short these Spider-Man movies would’ve been better off not being connected to the MCU or at least being on it’s fringes.

This applies to even the post credits scene of the movie as now in our movies that are supposed to be about the grounded and relatable hero we have fucking aliens! And they were there the whole time. The movie even gleefully plants its flag in rejection of the idea of having a more grounded Spider-Man by saying Spider-Man ISN’T a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man by virtue of having gone to space. I was okay with that in Infinity War as that was not a Spider-Man movie but by actively rejecting that idea in this movie it showcases how the film makers treat Spider-Man as a more generic hero who can be anything and everything...and therefore nothing. There are no definitions to the type of things he will get involved with.

You might counter outside of the opening school scenes and post-credit sequence the alien involvement isn’t that much of a problem because all the interdimensional and alien stuff wasn’t real in the movie.

But that leads us to the next problem. Spider-Man as a globetrotting super spy agent. Again...this is not Spider-Man. Spider-Man is more domestic, more down to Earth and sans space travel there is nothing less grounded and down to Earth that globetrotting and secret agents. There is a reason James Bond is indulgent escapism!

Worse the spy stuff essentially hijacks the movie, it’s not even something that flows out from Peter’s character or world, it comes out of nowhere to appropriate his story.

Speaking of which...SHIELD have to hijack Spider-Man because...Spider-Man doesn’t want to get involved...

...what?...

I will repeat that.

Spider-Man, the character defined by a low level burglar he chose not to stop who then killed his uncle thus teaching him that having super powers gives him a responsibility to use it to help others...chooses to not help out against giant elemental monsters threatening all life on Earth...because he wants to enjoy his vacation...

...words simply cannot do justice to how beyond broken that is as an interpretation of Spider-Man.

This isn’t even a case of he quits because being a hero has taken such a toll on him and he’s had a wobble.

This is him still deciding to be Spider-Man but actively tries to avoid it because he wants to have fun for an extended period of time. MAYBE that’s okay. MAYBE him deciding to not take his suit along on vacation could be justified and in character.

But when presented the means to be Spider-Man and a major crisis that requires his help (it isn’t like there is a small group of equally or more powerful heroes to cover for him) for him to simply reject it, to have to be forced into helping and when he reluctantly does only doing the bare minimum until he realizes people he cares about are in danger...no.

Just no, whoever was responsible for that characterization you should not be allowed to write for Spider-Man.

It’s not even consistent with Homecoming’s already misinterpreted version of Peter Parker. In Homecoming Peter was screwed up because his intervention made everything worse near 100% of the time but even that’s better than presenting Peter as choosing to not intervene at all for purely selfish and unsympathetic reasons. And to rub it in our faces when he does choose to intervene he does it with more high tech Stark crap. No him making the suit himself doesn’t make it okay, Spider-Man shouldn’t be using technology from other people like that nor consistently having access to such high-tech. It goes against the idea of him being independent and of being grounded.

The Stark tech crap is also relevant to what is a major contender for the single worst scene of any Spider-Man film to date. The drone strike on a bus.

In this movie about the superhero who’s supposed to be relatable and like us, Joe Average, we have a scene where he uses a pair of high tech bequeathed to him by his dead superhero father figure accidentally to launch an orbital drone strike on a fellow school student on his bus because he’s about to ruin his chances with hooking up with a girl. Then he has to engage in wacky hijinks to save the kid and everyone else.

Do I need to say more about that scene? To call it jumping a shark would be an insult to other shark jumping moments. It shatters the verisimilitude of the movie maybe even more than the blip.

Let’s switch back to Peter’s personality in this movie. I’ve already talked a lot about it in prior posts but I do have two more things to point out.

The first of these is that we have less quips than in prior Spider-Man movies. And I don’t just mean the most recent ones I mean of any of the movies going back to 2002. And by less I mean 0. Spider-Man NEVER quips or jokes in this movie. Ever. It’s like they’ve grown to understand Spider-Man even less than in the last movie!

The second and more significant is how stupid Peter is when it comes to his secret identity. In the comics Spider-Man is famously secretive about his identity, to the point where it’s almost paranoid.

Here though he isn’t concerned about SHIELD or random SHEILD agents knowing who he is, or Mysterio, or everyone in a bar or anyone looking at the bridge in London where he unmaskes makes out (awkwardly) with Michelle.

The movie pretends like it cares about this aspect of his character by having Peter point out if he goes out as Spider-Man abroad people will deduce it’s him.

Not only is this an attempt by him to weasel out of hero duties but it’s moot because Betty immediately figures it out (leading to the cringe Night Monkey gag which doesn’t even make sense since monkeys don’t crawl on walls or shoot webs!), Michelle figures it out and Peter was cavalier with his identity before and after that scene.

All culminating in just everyone knowing his identity which like in the comics fundamentally fucks up the idea of him as the everyman even more. Forget space aliens and spy shit now he’s a celebrity. Celebrities are the exact opposite of the everyman, that’s why they’re friggin celebrities!

Big take away from this movie as an adaptation?

It was fucking insulting for it to have been dedicated to Lee and Ditko.

Fuck this movie. Fuck this direction for Spider-Man. Fuck Marvel for ruining Spider-Man again.

*That being said I did once hear a brilliant pitch for Spider-Man 4 wherein Mysterio frames Spider-Man and the police call in aid from Kraven the Hunter to catch him.

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buddha-in-disguise · 5 years

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That Ultimates question!

I’ve seen numerous posts about the question asked of Chyler in regards to social media at Starfury Ultimates, May 2019. (Link will be at the end for her full answer if you haven’t read it or wish to refresh your memory).

The amount of disinformation as to who asked the question or what the question actually entailed is quite startling.

I’ve seen people say it was inappropriate, that the question should never have been asked. But before I get into this too much, I need to say the question was reviewed by a number of Starfury staff after the event and all agreed that it was a well worded question. These are neutral staff, who run these events for a living, so are perfectly placed on to what is or isn’t appropriate.

So my first point is this: one person asked the question, entirely on their own initiative. Let’s not blame someone just because you believe it to be true. It isn’t.

It was also talked about to others before Ultimates, seeing if it should be asked - and the driving force behind that question was truly about social media and hate. Not how it should be worded or to attack a group or people in particular.

So look, here it is. The photo of the handwritten question (that is accurate & not a mock up). This is posted with full permission.

So yes, Sanvers is mentioned, but in truth, we can easily say it was way beyond Sanvers on this question. Remember the way Chris Woods was attacked? Or how about Floriana. Both got horrific amounts of hate and that in turn led to some awful fights going on between sections of fans and it can and does still go on.

However, we can also say that once Azie was announced it became another horrible situation, and that was in part why this question was asked. I saw fans being attacked for supporting Azie, or for still supporting Chyler in her role as Alex, or still supporting the show and much more.

Let alone the hate that was spewed by fans towards the person posing the question was that was almost immediate on Twitter. Hate that could’ve had police involvement in some cases it was so bad. Yes possible police involvement was mentioned. That hate trickled down to anyone associated with the person who asked the question, the severity depending on the perceived closeness of that friendship. So I and my husband got some hate as well, albeit not to that level.

I personally got attacked by numerous fans over comments I made on my own timeline, that wasn’t directed at anyone beyond my own thoughts & opinions before Ultimates. I didn’t @ anyone or hashtag anyone or a fandom. Yet I got horrific almost immediate hate the moment I posted things. So did my husband. Both of us had posts completely misrepresented. In several instances people completely misread them and even when this was pointed out, we still got attacked.

I got DM’s telling me who I should or shouldn’t follow for months in advance of May from people I barely knew, or had never interacted with. All trying to sway my opinion on someone or something. Even when I politely asked these posters not do that, that I was getting dragged into something that had nothing to do with me, and that I really didn’t appreciate it - I’d get the replies of ‘yeah fine, we get it’ - only for them to carry on with more reasons why I should listen to them & agree with them.

Let’s just turn this around - If someone comes into your timeline or your DM’s & told you to stop posting about someone or something, or who you can & can't interact with, you’d be rightly annoyed.

I know we can’t always agree on things, but if there is one thing I am sure of it’s we should all use our own critical thinking on how we interact on social media. I absolutely do not agree with telling anyone how they should be around other users if I don’t like their friendship and especially wouldn’t say anything if I wouldn’t interact with them normally, or how they should post on your own timeline (unless it is outright bullying or racist, bigotry etc). That becomes authoritarian and in part egotistical if you turn around and say you can only listen to my opinion.

We can’t all like the same people or agree on the same things, yet too often this is taken as being an automatic attack on someone or a fandom, or group. The reality is, that is real life; we are all different, not robots to be commanded about how we think or act. That sort of expectation becomes more like a cult than fandom (and for goodness sake before anyone accuses me about making that comment specific to a fandom, I’m not).

So let me say from a personal standpoint; I was glad that question was asked, because I had seen my husband have aspects of himself attacked (especially being transgender and referred to ‘it’ more than once), or how I was pushed on how to behave, what to say or who to interact with, or just attacked especially behind the scenes. This was going too far. And yes - this was all from Sanvers fans in our instance. Not anons or alt accounts, but known active Sanvers fans. This is when I do mention a fandom, but it applies to more than one group. This doesn’t mean I’m dismissing others' experiences, but merely mentioning my own. If attacks were so bad after the question, that police involvement was a distinct possibility, that is what is not acceptable. These again were Sanvers fans and we can’t shy away from that.

Also I think it’s important we remember Chyler’s opening & closing lines on her reply, as it helps show how important it was for her to answer the question:

The start of her answer.

“So, so, I’ll be very honest with you, I’m very glad that you asked me that question, and this is a very big discussion amid our crew, in this season in particular, as far as our gaggle of gals has expanded. It includes Melissa, and it includes Azie, and it includes ah, Katie, and we’ve had multiple conversations about you know, about the fandom….”

The end.

“I love you all. And I really want to thank you for giving me this opportunity. I’m surprised I said so much.”

As for it put Chyler on the spot and she felt uncomfortable answering or it made her cry. If you go to enough conventions over the years, you know if Chyler didn’t want to answer I’m pretty sure she she wouldn’t have given the length or depth of answer she did. Reminder of her words: I’m very glad that you asked me that question.

I’ve seen guests plenty of times either politely decline to answer something (usually with; ‘this really isn’t a question I feel is right to ask or relevant to the panel’ or a variant of that, to answers that are brief & fairly basic). Chyler’s was neither of those.

Yes, Chyler did get emotional towards the end, but if you took the time to read what she said, it isn’t surprising. This was obviously something that was emotive for her, not because of the question per se, but because of what it meant as a whole. It was also asked at the Supergirl panel, not the Sanvers panel as that seems to be going around.

Plus refer to my earlier point, neutral Starfury staff had no issue over the question & thought it well worded.

I also have to ask: if this question had come from anyone else in the audience, would these kind of things be said? I truly doubt it would. For some maybe it wouldn’t change their opinion, but I really think that a lot of what has happened is not because of the question itself, but because of who asked it.

I say that in part because I saw Tweets flying around well before the question was even asked talking about who was in line to ask something, and variants of the theme of that it was bound to have a go at Sanvers fans, and how dare the bullies be given a platform to speak. So without even knowing what was going to be asked, people were placing their own opinion as fact out there on Twitter.

Another thing I should mention is that people are saying the question meant the Sanvers panel the following day became a moderated panel.

No. It didn’t. That moderation was announced by Sean before the Supergirl panel began, long before the question was asked or known. Again, don’t put your own bias on this. Why it was moderated had nothing to do with it, and placing that sort of accusation on people is not right.

Also when people say it wasn’t the right arena for the question to be asked. Why not? It’s a fandom event and the question was about fandom. This comes back to something I’ve mentioned before; if you don't like an answer to any question, it doesn't automatically make it that the question is wrong. In fact, if you simply say a question is wrong, even before an answer is given, it holds as well - it doesn’t automatically mean the question is wrong. Just as difference of opinion, no matter how unsavoury to you, doesn't mean it is bullying.

It’s also been said the question should never have been asked as it made attendees cry & get upset.

As much as I’m empathetic that some were upset, we can’t not ask questions purely because we feel it might not be well received by everyone there. We can’t know it will upset people to the point of crying, anymore than you can say it shouldn’t be asked. As I say, we have to genuinely ask, was it the person asking the question that caused that reaction, or the question itself?

If it was the question itself, what part exactly? Because as a question overall, without cherry picking out words to take them out of context, I personally feel it was valid and seeing Chyler answer as she did shows me it had merit.

Last but by no means least: It's obvious some people object to me and my opinion and that's fine. I accept people can't always agree on things. I just ask people don’t continue to come onto my account or my timeline to carry on discussions knowing we’ll never agree on something. That serves no purpose other than to browbeat someone and honestly, I don’t have the time or energy to keep repeating the same thing ad-infinitum. I post on my timeline, and don’t ask anyone to read it or retweet it. I don’t do it with any agenda beyond trying to spread kindness or awareness. If you don’t want to see my posts, by all means please block me. I don’t have issue with that, but if you or others continue to stalk my account, then you and you alone have that responsibility.

Link for Chyler’s answer:

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leonajasmin-writeblr · 5 years

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20 Questions

@gremla-hemlock and @westywrites have both tagged me back in the 10 Questions game, so I’ve decided to put them into one post and then add 10 new questions back at the end. I’ll tag you both back as well as @ruledbyserenity, @theflowofink and @bookbrd! Ignore this if you don’t want to take part :)

@gremla-hemlock‘s questions:

How many chapters do you expect to have? Are they short chapters that only last a couple pages or large chapters spanning 20+ pages?

In the first draft of Parts 1 - 3 of my series, there are 130 chapters. That’d average each chapter as 2415 words. Some of my chapters are as short as a sentence whereas others are 6/7K words based on whether it’s a backstory or amidst the action.

What is/would be your main character’s favorite type of vehicle to drive? (Go as crazy as you want – tank, helicopter, drone, robot armor)

There aren’t many vehicles in my series! But given the choice (I’m not that crazy haha):

Alex: Train. His family have worked in producing train tracks in the past, so he’d like to test out what they made.

Miriam: Miriam would be all or nothing. She’d either walk or have some crazy over the top tank.

Sebastian: Skateboard. Motorised if he needs to be anywhere soon.

Aiden: Why drive when you're capable of flying?

Noah: Train. Something simple in concept but complex to drive.

Roman: Roman’s late grandfather was a famous airship driver. He’ll be nervous about it, but he’ll try flying it himself later in the series and love it!

Cyrus: He makes his own motorbikes canonically, so I think he’d stick to those.

Which true crime story is your plot most like, even if it’s a stretch?

I have no idea, to be honest! True crime isn’t really my thing haha

Who would be the first in your main characters to punch a Nazi?

Probably Sebastian

If your book were to become a smash hit with a fandom, what word or phrase could you say that would make the masses break into mass hysteria?

Rather than a word or phrase, it would be a name: ROMAN

In cleaning a house or apartment as a punishment, which room would your character(s) least likely want to clean and why? No doubling up rooms.

Alex: Kitchen. He and kitchens aren’t compatible whatever the scenario.

Miriam: The library because she knows she’ll just get distracted.

Sebastian: Hallways. Hallways are just boring, he can’t snoop much there (that’s a lie though, he snoops in a hallway in Book 3).

Aiden: Aiden actually likes cleaning (weirdo). But if he’d have to pick one, it’d be the attic/basement. No particular reason.

Noah: Bathroom. Ew body hair.

Roman: Any bedroom that isn’t his. He never goes into other bedrooms so it’d make him uncomfortable.

Cyrus: Any hobby rooms (shed, study, art room etc.). He’s usually clean but hates having to tidy up his hobby stuff each time he has to take a break.

On a scale of 1-10 how are evil are you to your characters and writing your books?

Alex: He starts pretty low then it shoots up as of Book 3. Like a 3 to an 8/9.

Miriam: 8. One bad thing is sorted out and then another one happens.

Sebastian: 4. Mostly he just sulks because nobody has considered him in issues, although there are only really three major things that affect him. It’d be higher if it wasn’t in comparison to the others.

Aiden: 1. Aiden is put on a pedestal so he gets a good life.

Noah: 4. Aiden is put on a pedestal so he gets a not so good life.

Roman: 8. The same reason as Miriam.

Cyrus: 7. His is mostly emotional, he doesn’t get into so many physical problems unlike Alex, Miriam and Roman, hence the slightly lower score.

Writing: 11 ofc.

In the world of Avatar, which element would your characters be?

Air: Aiden

Water: Roman, Cyrus,

Fire: Miriam, Alex

Earth: Noah, Sebastian

If you have a villain, could the plot progress without them? What would that look like?

A lot of people are ambiguous anti-heroes/anti-villains, but I do have a few villains! Namely Dr A, Luka and the Highest Empress.

In the beginning, it is namely Miriam vs. Alex even though neither of them are really villains. It couldn’t progress without either of them. But I think it could go on without the Highest Empress. She just adds another scale to the guy's villainy and was a late addition anyway.

What would your sequel be about? If you don’t intend to have a sequel but were forced to write one, what would the plot be?

I’m working on a series right now and I’m three parts in. Part 4 involves Miriam going on a tour of the nine Empire’s to establish her political connections between the Grand Master’s since it seems likely that Grand Master Ivanov may not be in his role for much longer.

Alex is on the tour and is dealing with a lot of issues from a revelation made in Book 3.

@westywrites‘ questions:

Do your mcs like cats or dogs more?

Cats: Cyrus (he got attacked by a dog when he was a little boy so it’s he doesn’t like dogs rather than he’s a cat fan), Noah

Dogs: MIRIAM AND ROMAN, Aiden (is a doggo in human form), Sebastian, Alex

Do they prefer to be hot or cold?

Hot: Aiden, Alex, Sebastian, Cyrus

Cold: Miriam (she rules the Empire of Ice), Roman, Noah

Do they prefer action movies or rom-coms?

Action: Sebastian, Alex, Miriam

Rom-com: Aiden, Cyrus, Noah (don’t tell Aiden pls), Roman

Choose one character and tell me what flavour of ice cream they’d be. Why?

There is a running gag between Aiden and Miriam about salted caramel ice cream. In Aid’s first appearance, he literally bans her from eating it because she’s salty enough as it is.

What was the plot of the best short story you’ve ever read?

I’m personally not a huge fan of short stories! I love series so much that I tend to wait until they’re finished (if they’re near the end) so I can binge in one go rather than wait.

If you write short stories, what’s the plot of your favourite one you’ve ever written?

Despite what I just said, I actually came in the top 5% for a national short story writing competition once (the only one I’ve entered). It’s prompt was an era in historical fiction that isn’t as well known about. The interwar period qualified, so my work was about Kristallnacht. I originally wrote it for my GCSE English Literature course. The prompt was ‘use a theme presented in Shakespeare’ (so almost write whatever you want to be honest, it was both a great and cruddy prompt), so I used the theme of conflict.

What is the meanest thing you’ve ever done to a character?

A character in my side project goes through Chinese Water Torture.

What was the kindest thing you’ve ever done to a character?

Two characters who are desperate for a child have a surrogate offer to carry a child for them :)

Was writing something you always wanted to do or something you stumbled into?

I started when I was six so I don’t remember not writing to be honest! When I was little, I won just enough writing awards to keep my flitty self motivated to stick at it. When I was in Junior school (7-10), a few school projects that I got praised for were:

- An adventure story. All I remember is the villain was named Candy and that we got to sit outside to write them.

- Webcomic promoting saving water: Wacky Wayne the water drop.

- A rendition of Little Red Riding Hood where Red Riding Hood (Bossy Blue Stomping Hoodie or something like that) was rude af and the grandma injured herself in an international gymnastics tournament.

Do you have any quotes from your own writing that mean a lot to you?

“Tears do not mean fear, they mean you hold your true self dear.” - Noah and Aiden’s mother.

She taught it to them to let them know that boys allowed to cry rather and shouldn’t feel fearful of judgement, but that applies to everyone!

DON’T BOTTLE UP YOUR EMOTIONS!

My questions:

Do you have birthdays assigned for your characters? What zodiac signs do they fall under? (If not, then which zodiac stereotype are they most like?)

What are your MC’s thoughts on hugs?

Are any of your characters abnormally tall or short?

Did your MC’s have any other names before you settled on their current ones?

If you had to compare your MC(s) to an animal, which would you pick?

Do any characters have unique physical features (from birth or acquired)?

How do/would your MC’s take their coffee/tea?

If your MC’s were in this universe, which country do you think they’d like to visit?

How many children does your MC have? Or how many do you think they’ll have/would like to have?

Which of your MC’s would be the best in a physical fight?

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fantroll-purgatory · 5 years

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first submission here!

First troll I’m sending in here I’m EXCITED AND NERVOUS about how this is gonna go down! AaaaaH!

This is a really solid troll! You’ve really though these things out. I’m probably going to have minimal recommendations for changes! World: AU Alternia! Many of this AU’s differences don’t effect this first fantroll I’m sending for review here though; and I feel as if it would be more applicable to put the AU differences with characters that are heavily influenced in that regard. Name: Dipala Venmor - Dipala comes from the scientific name of a species of bee-flies. She’s quite the “busy bee” and has a love of gossip or being like a ‘fly on the wall’, hence the connection. And bee flies are a species of insect that invade actual bee hives to lay their eggs and raise their young. So with goldbloods having an association with bees; I figured that Dipala’s theme being that of a “fake bee” and being a caste below them would make for a weird joke in context. - Venmor comes from the vena amorus, or the vein of love. It’s supposedly a vein located in the ring finger that is connected to the heart directly. Which is why we put wedding rings on our ring fingers and whatnot. She’s looking for love, pity, hate, and rivalry in all the wrong places. ((more on that later, ha ha.))

These are both great names for her! One comment I have is that bees aren’t so much associated with golds as they are associated with Sollux in particular. Remember that on Alternia, bees are probably most associated with technology because of the power of Apiculture Networking. I think Bee Fly is still a great themeatic tie for her, though. She is both interested in technology through webdesigning and leeches off of other people. Very Bee Fly.

Age: 7 sweeps ((approximately around 15 years old))

Story: ((Don’t worry I included info for her theme after the goals section; as I felt that understanding my goals for this would make the theme troubles make sense in context!!)) Onto Dip’s story synopsis real quick: Dipala Venmor is one of my fantroll session’s premier troublemakers. She’s a HUGE gossip loving, rumor mongering, wannabe information broker for the Alternian Fleet…… although because of her blood color she’ll most likely get stuck moving cargo around a ship than deal with any sort of secret spilling and collecting job that would be more in-line for olives and up. And that she’s also still a kid so no ship will be picking her up anytime soon. But hey; she can still have a hobby, right? There have to be other trolls interested in the scandalous happenings in the world besides herself…… right? Unfortunately for us and whatever troll catches Dipala’s eyes… she’s not exactly wrong about her fellow trolls across the hemospectrum wanting to know this sort of shit. So for now she mostly runs a couple of blogs and social media accounts dealing with all kinds of Alternian gossip around celebrities of all kinds and highblood shenanigans. Especially highbloods though because she adores all the drama they get into and start up 24/7 given their more aggressive natures and whatnot. To her it’s just like watching reality TV! However she’s also keen to spread falsehoods too, just to see what would happen. She’d also probably be deader than a doornail at this point if it weren’t for a lot of her innate talents and being REALLY FRIGGIN’ GOOD AT BEING DISHONEST AND SNEAKY. When she isn’t causing trouble and gathering facts and half-truths to keep herself safe and sound or her and her followers sick amusement; she works as a kind of job that’s a mix between a medical assistant and a tech support gal for other trolls in her humble suburb/subgrub area; and accepting supplies of mind honey as payment so she can satisfy one preferred half of her lusus’ diet. She knows her way around all sorts of troll biotech due to her more pervasive hobbies and her own psychic powers; so by extension Dipala is quite knowledgeable on how things work and how the tech interacts with the rust/bronze/gold and limebloods it can inevitably involve. So some of the trolls in her hivestem/apartment complex view her as exceptionally important and helpful despite her many, MANY secrets. Why she doesn’t pursue this as a main hobby instead of her other far more invasive ones is beyond me. Other than that she interacts and befriends/becomes enemies with/flirts with the other trolls in her eventual Sgrub session. And will hopefully become a better person after that shiny new universe pops into existence. I hope. I’m still very much scripting out how I want her, her session, and my fankids’ stories work out. So I hope I managed to be concise about what I have for her story thus far!!

One thing you should definitely ask about this background is how a bronzeblood like her got access to the medical equipment necessary to take care of medical assistant stuff. I know she has the psychic powers that you discuss later down the line, but there’s still a bit of technical particularity to be accounted for and we’ve seen that lowblood access to medical care is questionable (they don’t get prescription glasses but they do get wheelchairs if they need) (who knows what Alternia is doing).

Does she home-grow the materials she needs for biomedical implants. Does she work Under another, richer troll who has more resources and can thus provide this service? Did she USED to work under another, richer troll and then steal their shit/kill them/usurp them/blackmail them/etc?

Oh oh oh another fun thing you could do is try to play like. The Doctor-Barber sort of angle. She’s the local medical helped and ALSO the local hairdresser for all the other lowbloods in the hivestem. And you know what hairdressers do? Gossip. What a busy bee (;

Another question is why she doesn’t just grow the apiculture network to produce mind honey herself? Silicomb Beehouses sound like exactly the kind of biotechnological material she might be able to impact with her psychic powers. Bronzes love Creature Comforts, so her making her own lususfood and using payment to buy herself nice things would be more in line with Bronze Tendencies. Chase that highblood luxury from the comfort of your shitty apartment.

Goals: Hooo boy how am I gonna put all of my billions of questions here?? I want to make sure my girl Dipala here isn’t a Vriska ripoff. As well as making sure that she’s an okay character and not overpowered in general.

She’s definitely not a Vriska ripoff! She has a totally different character and set of interests to Vriska. Was Vriska a biomedical gossip girl? Is Dipala an ancestor-obsessed pirate? No to both of those? You’re good. You’re un-Vriska. For further clarification, I had a LOT of fantrolls and kids. I now downsized the trolls back down to 12 to fit a “session theme” like the canon ones did with the zodiac. However; all my trolls still have a lot of remnants of their older themes mixed with the new, so I’m also kind of paranoid that wouldn’t work or be concise and concrete enough for them if that makes any sense? My trolls were also all created before Hiveswap and the Friendsim; so many of the psychic powers I gave my fantrolls then wouldn’t technically be canon. But at the same time I also feel like straight up changing their powers to the more canon ones kind of messes with their themes and who they are as characters.

Characters in homestuck always have multiple things going on that make them more well-rounded and interesting! Equius was into archery and horses because he was Sagittarius themed, but he also liked Robotics, and that didn’t take away from the cohesion of his character. More interests and themeatic building can sometimes take away from a theme if it doesn’t make sense, but generally speaking, additional layers of complexity are a good thing.

As for powers, there’s usually ways to keep them similar while also tightening them up into EZ Standards anyways! I also feel as if my characters or parts of them are “too quirky”. Seeing as Homestuck has a lot of weird stuff going on in it that make it what it is, I’ve been trying to sort of channel that into all my ocs. And whether or not I’m successful with that, I legitimately have no idea. Sometimes I feel as if I may have went over the top to a ridiculous degree or am making a character way too bland and uninteresting.

Listen, writing characters (especially HS characters) is all about having fun. So long as you’re having a good time, Quirk It Up. Homestuck is all about batshit characterization. I should also add that I’m the anon from WAAAAAAY back who youth rolled into your ask box asking about character interests and their voice, and how to differentiate them. And other than than that the only thing I can think of that I’d be remotely confused about would be the dream moon and classpect! Because when you got 12 trolls who can’t share the aspects/classes etc; things can get a tad difficult figuring which aspect goes well with which character. In conclusion: I’m actually very nervous and could use all the help I can get!

Well, we’ll help you sort it all out! Theme: My overarching theme for my 12 trolls are all the lyrics to the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Each troll represents one of the gifts given to the singer in that song. However the order of the gifts given isn’t the hemospectrum order; but the order in which the trolls enter their game’s Medium. Dipala here is the fifth gift! The five gold rings! However she also has a bit of a spy and “fly on the wall” theme going on that’s a remnant of her being a Musca constellation themed troll. But I thought the old theme could work and mix well with the new theme. I mean there is that old saying “like flies to honey”; as in trapping things by seeming “””nice”””. Honey is gold and sweet. And since she’s so tricky; she’s not even an actual goldblood. She’s basically a trickery sandwich with layers of lies. And if you REALLY want to get crazy, the mineral Pyrite can come in colors similar the to the color of bronze used in the hemospectrum. Pyrite is called fool’s gold. Dipala is deceptive and isn’t actually goldblooded despite her psychic powers.

What you’re doing here is what I call “overjustifying.” You don’t have to do backflips of logic to explain two concurrent themes. To go back to Vriska- she’s obviously spider/scorpio themed, but she also is themed around pirates, and it’s not because (what I’m about to say is made up) Pirates Used To Use Scorpio To Guide Themselves While At Sea And– no, she just likes pirates. She just has fun doing pirate things. You don’t have to stress yourself out trying to make these kinds of connections, because they can ultimately cheapen things and make them feel one-note. She is 5-gold-ring themed and also likes to gossip and spy on people. Don’t stress about it too much, that’s all you gotta say. Also she’s bronze because the symbol language is big on circles. The shape of rings. And seeing as I already have had my trolls with an established blood color for so long; Dipala to me looks really off to be and does not fit the personality parameters that the gold signs seem to have in the extended zodiac. And to me making the goldblood the “five gold rings” character felt too obvious, and her design with the goldblood color pallet didn’t look right to me either and I wanted to try subverting expectations. Whether this does or does not work well with Dipala, I’ll leave that for you rad blog mods to help me with this if you feel I might have picked the wrong color and whatnot.

I think she works well for a bronze! You’ll just have to do the legwork to make her fit that bronzeblood coloration, but I definitely think she suits it well. I also think you need to stop leaning on the goldblood association so much. Don’t worry about it. No one is going to connect her to goldbloods if you don’t draw that connection yourself. Hopefully that makes her name meaning and my goals for the review here a bit more clear!

Strife Specibus: Taserkind. She’s bug themed kinda so it makes her a bug zapper. I will not apologize for this shocking pun. Gold is also a metal that conducts electricity pretty well. She’s the five gold rings. S T E A L T H P U N S .

Fetch Modus: Password Journal. You ever see those shitty password journal toys that were voice activated? And how you had to be super clear when saying your password to get it open again? And how nine times out of ten it was just a shitty piece of technology that just never worked when you needed it to? That’s Dipala’s modus. And unlike the biotech she works with; this is that same shitty hunk of plastic. She thought it would be cool to use a modus that’s so mysterious and eccentric. But now she just regrets putting her mitts on the thing and now has to deal with a piece of tech she has no frame of reference for how it works. Buuuut she’s also too stubborn to give up on figuring out on how it works now! Any day she’ll figure it out!! As for how she came across a modus unlike the rest of her world’s tech? Her modus was sent with her on her respective Sgrub meteor as a wiggler.

Okay I love this.

Blood Color: Bronze

Symbol and Meaning: It’s a combination of multiple symbols to fit the bronzeblood alphabet and her theme. Said mix includes five empty circles to represent the five gold rings. But it also combines the alchemical sign for honey and the astronomical sign for the sun. The sun has ties to gold symbolically; and the honey alchemy symbol is actually in reference to her lusus! The positioning of the sign was also done to slightly reflect for the symbol used for the Musca ((or fly)) constellation. And for the record, I have a headcanon that IS canon in my AU Alternia that each sign in the extended zodiac as a HUGE variety of alternate signs for each sign. In Dipala’s case, her symbol would be one of the many, MANY variants for the Taurittanius sign. Or, if you think Void or Prospit shouldn’t be Dipala’s respective aspect and dream moon; it would then be a variant for whatever the name of her “new” zodiac sign she’d get upon revision.

I think that’s a good way to look at things, and it works well for the sign language!

Handle: gadflysFalderal [GF] Gadfly refers to a person who antagonizes or pokes fun at another person just for the heck of it. It’s also a pun because of her “fly on the wall” theming here. Falderal is a synonym for nonsense and can also mean a showy but useless item, fussing over things and can also refer to a “meaningless refrain in a song”. Also her trolltag’s acronym is GF. Her dream of some sort of future quadrant romance is right out there in the open. ((I should also give a quick heads up that my kids’ and trolls’ handles go by a different four letter username pattern. The canon gang all had the GCAT to choose from because it’s tied to DNA and how they have all participated in creating a new life/universe. But here the go-to acronym is GIFT. Because the troll’s overarching theme is of the aforementioned obnoxious Christmas carol.))

Quirk: All uses of s become two z’s. Z’s also double. When excited or expressive she quintuples all of her o’s. Also uses a TON of heart emojis that look like little bugs; and will every once in a while make a few bug puns. Like “Do I have your antennation??” or “if you would listen I wouldn’t have to bug you all the time!” and even asking at times for “hive fives!”. She uses these puns very rarely though; and more often than not the shitty jokes are just utilized to annoy the ever-loving fuck out of people for the heck of it. Her online disposition is basically an unholy slurry combination of an overly and almost sickeningly sweet attitude with a somewhat subverted “”valley girl”” or “popular and prissy popular middle school girl”” archetype. Be very afraid. Here have some quirk examples real quick: The quick, brown fox jumpzz over the lazzy dooooog! 03 03 03

This is great.

Special Abilities: Dipala can “commune” psychically with troll biotechnology. Since troll tech seems to be a weirdass unknown husk thing; and living tendrils can connect to psiionic trolls to power friggin’ SPACESHIPS… I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for a troll to have superpowers to talk/slightly control the stuff through thoughts alone. If bronzebloods talking or controlling animals is a very common psychic ability for them, why not their biotech? However; since her old eye got stabbed and replaced with a robot one by a friend of hers after an accident… her ability feels “muffled” to her; as she can accidentally mess with her own eye inadvertently if she isn’t paying attention or experiencing stress or frustration with communing with these kinds of computers. So it works, but she has to really put her all in it to figure out what’s going on with it. use it. However; after she turned 6 sweeps, she started to develop a second psychic power.

Biotech IS a living organism that isn’t a troll, so I definitely think it falls under the dominion of what bronzes would be able to communicate with. But we have seen through Vriska and Equius that Robotics and Biotechnology are definitely two differentiated things on Alternia. She would need a biotech eye specifically if it was going to be a problem. And even then you could argue that maybe her eye could Advance her powers in that instance? Maybe that could even be the initiation for the second psychic power (; This “newer” psychic power is she can read troll’s minds. She’s unsure of how exactly she developed it in the first place; but she hypothesizes it might be tied to how often she’d interact with the occasional troll tied into all sorts of gadgets. It takes a LOT of concentration on her part to get it to work. If she gets extremely angry, frustrated, flustered, or upset it might not work at all; or even succeed but giving her the wrong thought or piece of information that she intended to use or want to find out. And even then, since she’s only been practicing with it for one sweep thus far; it still can get very bad or unwanted information. She could intend to pull out a secret she wants to know deep in her target’s brain; but end up receiving and experiencing the target’s daydream or find out what they’re going to get at the grocery store that day.This power works on all trolls, but Dipala’s power is also in danger of being useless if the one specific troll in question is experiencing forgetfulness, confusion, or other kinds of memory or knowledge issues her target might be experiencing. The thoughts she could get back from these instances are either incredibly jumbled or incomprehensible to varying degrees, or she might not get back or find anything at all!

Remember that lowblood psychic powers don’t work as well against highbloods and that ceruleans in particular have a very strong psychic fortitude. If you don’t want her to be overpowered, keep this thing in mind. Her abilities would probably be least effective against Ceruleans, Blues, and Indigos, with Ceruleans and Indigos probably giving her some type of consequence for trying to jack into their brains. Get chucklevoodoo’d, motherfucker. Her robot eye offers her psychic powers very little in the way of improving them. She can access a sort of lock-on like targeting system to help her with focusing and honing in on the thoughts she wants to extract from troll’s heads… but since her eye has a built-in tech that gives her 24/7 access to the internet……. She often gets social media updates at the worst times possible and break her focus. It’s kind of hard to see things when a random ad pops up in her field of vision. She can scroll through troll’s version of twitter even while she’s sleeping and unconscious, but at what cost? And yes, she is often exposed to pro-empire popup ads and subliminal messages like Jane Crocker was exposed to on her computer in canon, too. I also like the idea that when she is using her powers or in deep thought about something, her little robotic pupil turns into the swirly loading circle ring-like cursor. Or use emojis or emoticons in real life inadvertently. For one example, if someone gave her a wonderful surprise gift her pupil would look like her quirk’s hearts emoticons: 03 03 03. I’d give more ridiculous examples, but there’s waaaaay more important things I gotta put in this wall of text submission still! Lusus/Guardian: A bugbear. Just imagine a very large bear with fly or bug-like eyes and antennae. Yeah it’s kinda freaky. Its main diet consists of mind honey and all sorts of raw meats. And due to her confined living space in a hivestem apartment complex, Dipala often has to take her mom for walks to keep it healthy, fit, and regulated. The last thing you want is an angry bear with cabin fever in your home! Her lusus also accompanies her and is utilized in her current field of work/psychic help day job. And the younger trolls Dipala helps LOVE her lusus, as it isn’t too aggressive in regards to younger and fairly harmless young trolls and their respective animal parents. But like most bears, you don’t mess with it and it won’t mess with you. And because of this lusus; you can see that Dipala’s symbol has the alchemy honey sign incorporated into it is a reference to bear paws, like her bearmom!

Interests: Gossip, stalking ((although she would never refer to it as such)), social media, blogging, trolling online, investigative journalism, writing diary entries ((and reading other diaries that do not belong to her)), web design, quite a few other computer or technology related activities, people watching and lurking on other’s social media pages, homemade remedies and first aid, social events ((like nights out with her friends, parties, dates, tutoring younger trolls with tech stuff, just hanging out in general)), TV crime dramas like Alternia’s equivalent to Law and Order and whatnot, romance shows, any sort of big star-studded movie, anything in media related to secret agents or spies ((she has crushes on the many different Troll James Bonds)), and is slightly involved in online fandom’s shipping and fanart culture for her respective shows and movies. She would also enjoy shopping; but given how the Alternia’s retail businesses and delivering or selling things to lowbloods being late and whatnot……. Yeah she has a bit of a love/hate relationship with the activity.

Okay… you know how sometimes people online will create social media accounts posing as celebrities. What if she does that sometimes. Engaging passionately in RPF really ups the Creepy Factor. Also:

[Dipala voice] Tell me Kenneth, has a cheesy tabloid journalist ever won the Pulitzer?

(Don’t mind me I have terminal referencing Scream (1996) disease)

Personality: Dipala is an exceptionally cheery and bubbly gal. She loves socializing and interacting with other people not only a socialite level; but a sociological one as well. As I’ve stated prior in the submission here; she’s really good at keeping things under wraps despite her jabberjaw tendency and preference to be overly affectionate and predominantly open with most people who come into contact with her. Despite hiding a lot of various kinds of info or secrets isn’t using a facade to hide things as a distraction; she really is this energetic and socially indulgent with others. Which might be worse, now that I think about it.

In contrast to most teens in her age group; she’s surprisingly confident in herself and actually has a healthy level self-esteem that doesn’t trail off into outright arrogance. And combing this confidence with her sugary-sweet demeanor, she can be quite the effective manipulator if the need arises. Making Dipala equally likely to be a suck up and kiss-ass when in trouble, or make someone feel really bad about themselves if they do something bad to her. She’s also outgoing in the sense that she has a lot in common with the stereotypical romance-obsessed, drama queen teen girl trope. Think Mabel from Gravity Falls and her search for romance, being flirty, and dreaming about “typical” things for this age group like swooning over teen stars and whatever cute stuff she can get her hands on despite her economic place in the hemospectrum; and then you’ll have a good start with understanding how Dipala acts. And all parties involved with her for an extended period of time, whether at an acquaintance level or an actual friend/platonic enemy should expect to eventually receive an embarrassing nickname and teasing to a certain varying degree. But heaven help anyone who she could potentially get romantically involved with… because they’ll be getting more than one of those. And if one isn’t cool with that? Yeah, with Dipala that ain’t happening. She is exceptionally persistent and stubborn not only with her treatment with others; but with her pursuit of her hobbies, or trying multiple times to improve her psychic powers. Much like her trollhandle implies, you could probably look up the word “gadfly” in a dictionary and see her face right next to the definition. And if she wasn’t under gadfly, your second best bet would be to look under “hypocrite”. She may find the idea of knowing a ton of damaging or private information; but loathes people snooping around her stuff. Like if you wanted to know the answer you’re looking for why didn’t you just ask her, dear? Snooping around behind her back is so rude! She worked really hard to figure these things out, you jerk! Dipala is as excited to help people as she is equally excited to maybe screw someone over socially….. or just be incredibly apathetic for the sake of figuring out why someone acts the way they do or what’s going on with their lives. If they’re a lowblood they can deal with the hate because others around her own caste deal with this all the time! And highbloods are just rich, bloodthirsty, sometimes well dressed and dreamy, drama-filled sources for intrigue or for a few shits and giggles that she objectifies to a degree. She can make a few exceptions in regards to the people she is closest to, or if the person in question is bribing or making some sort of deal with her. But other than that it is all secrets and info is on the table. I’d describe her take on the hemospectrum as a really odd mix between everyone’s least favorite Hiveswap shitlord Zebruh and Daraya Jonjet. She glorifies the violent culture highbloods propagate because she finds it to be really entertaining to learn about and pry into. Kind of like how we would or others would watch petty reality TV shows and controversial government scandals for. Highbloods also tend to be more “attractive” due to their easy access to material goods and whatnot to do so in the first place. But like Daraya, she is a little frustrated that despite all she does she can’t really do too much. So Dipala takes it upon herself emotionally to make the life she wants and to have fun while she can. But she would suppose and sometimes feel that being so low isn’t too bad. As the possibility that highbloods never really expect any low ranking troll to be this conniving. Like most every normal living thing, of course she doesn’t want to die a terrible death. But life is technically short for every Alternian to some degree. If she’s culled for having a grand old time that’s your problem. Your loss for killing a potentially good informant or loyal adherent of the empire!

There’s so much going on here that it’s hard to comment on any one particular part, but you’ve definitely put a lot of love and thought into her personality and it shows! She’s a really well-rounded character and I love that.

Lunar Sway: Prospit! Even though she has what could be considered a rebellious personality. She’s more of a sneaky “adapt to the environment” kinda gal given her interests and how she goes about her life. Hopefully I’m interpreting the moons correctly?

I think she’s definitely a prospitan. Prospit folks can rebel just as well as dersites, they just tend to, as you say, do it adaptively instead of destructively. She’s also reactive and prone to being somewhat capricious and she’s intuitive, emotional. The one prospitan thing she doesn’t have so much of is the ‘openness,’ but even then she’s also not like a Hides Herself Wholly kind of gal. Prospit all the way.

Title: Witch of Void. Witches “rebel” their aspect from what I understand from a couple of classpect blogs. So Dipala “rebels” in a sense to the idea that things should be secrets or mystery and is just. In everyone’s beeswax whether they allowed her to or not. ALSO since Equius in canon had trouble being detected and created a void around him ((which was why scratch couldn’t find his cue ball, as Vriska was his neighbor)); I thought it fit that Dipala has the Void aspect given her shadiness and inability to be found by those who would probably really want to find or suspect her. I also thought Void worked because it is connected to the Furthest Ring in the medium. More ring-theme references aplenty!

I also like the idea of her messing with the void and the horrorterrors beyond for information; only to be knocked down a shit-ton of pegs because her mind wouldn’t be able to process the “truths” or information they would potentially tell her about Sgrub goings-on, her planet’s quest or things that a 15 year old would never be able to comprehend like most people who encounter incomprehensible things. And eventually it would help her understand that somethings are not meant to be known before one is ready; and that spilling secrets is not only a bad thing for Dipala to do; but it could put those she learns or cares about into trouble they might not want to partake in. Given her mischievous personality, really fucking creepy behavior, and Alternian upbringing it’d be quite a while for the classpect to stamp it out entirely but… hope springs eternal. However I could very well be completely wrong and inaccurate with giving her this classpect too!

I dunno where the “rebel” thing came from. I think most people read too much into Rose’s inversion and imagine that this means something grander about Witches than it really does. Does Jade “rebel” space? Does Feferi “rebel” life? Does Damara “rebel” time? Nope! (And really I’m not even sure what that would mean in the context of any of these). They all just have an intimate understanding of their opposite aspect that they use to inform their decisions wrt their Own aspect. Witches are (at least in this blog’s common interpretation) the active Changers.

They twist and shape and change things to fit their needs and their understanding. Just like Jade changes the size of planets and bends space around her and Feferi used her in with the horrorterrors to change the nature of life itself by creating the dreambubbles.

So a Witch of Void is going to change what is and isn’t hidden, which I DO still think fits Dipala here decently well. But I almost think she could be a… Thief of Void? Not to accidentally call upon that old Vriska worry, because the motive is wholly different. It’s just that her digging is in fact self-serving and she steals secrecy away from everyone else to hide herself. Of course, this COULD hurt her by encouraging her already bad traits, so maybe Rogue of Void might be the way to go if you want to encourage her to be more considerate of others. That Passive Player Life.

Land: Land of Pits and Golems or LOPAG. Dipala has to use her void-y powers to make sure her consorts and denizen don’t learn any of the secrets of these giant dangerous golem super weapons that lurk in ancient pits and ruins across her planet. Since I’m unsure if Dipala will still remain a Void player after this review; I’m keeping the description of the land short and sweet on purpose.

Sounds good to me!

Design corner: At first glance I was worried that her design read too… I don’t know, Trying To Be Teal, but honestly the more I’ve looked at it the more I think it works for her. That bronze Creature Comfort thing shines through and it fits well with her kind of romanticization of high blood life. This could be one of those things where she saved up a ton of money for a long time just to buy a particular cute jean jacket just because an influencer advertised it to her. Or she bought it on Troll Wish. it’s fine. But yeah I like her look! I’d rethink the yellow eye since it dos call to mind the goldblood thing, but otherwise no changes.

Thanks in advance for my reviewing my fantroll! I look forward to seeing your verdict whenever that may be! 👍

Thank you for your submission, I had a great time with this one!

-CD

#brownblood #bronzeblood #submission #review #cd review #spritefright #dipala venmor #dipala #venmor

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slifers-executive-writer · 5 years

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A Overall Discussion About Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019.

It has been awhile since I wrote an original piece on my blog, and while I’ve stated this is mostly for my writing and anime fandom, I cannot help but include one of my other passions. That is of course the movies. One topic that has been going around the internet lately is the potential flop that is Godzilla:KOTM 2019. I will put it out there right now, that while this movie isn’t doing as good as I would like, I’m sure it will make its money back and I certainly don’t think it is a flop. But my main reason for writing this particular discussion is to clear the air about where this film stands. I’ve been hearing a lot of reviews both top critical and various Youtubers complain about this thing and my overall observation is a lot of them claim to ‘like’ Godzilla and yet clearly don’t understand a goddamn thing.

A very similar thing happened with Detective Pikachu. Both movies not scoring that great on Rotten Tomatoes and overall critic/Youtuber reception being very mixed, yet the general audience seemed to enjoy both summer blockbusters. Both films suffered from a lot of ‘reviewers’ not doing even the smallest amount of research on source material before opening their big angry mouths and complaining why certain characters or concepts weren’t included.

And example complaint on these films were:

Detective Pikachu: wHeRe Is TeAm RoCkeT?

Godzilla KOTM: wHy ArEn’T tHeRe OtHeR tOhO mOnStErS?

Yes these were real complaints.

Now in all honesty, I know neither of these movies are masterpieces as in terms of depth of plot or character arcs. If I had to choose one, I would definitely say it terms of the human elements, Detective Pikachu was a much better film. So I am fully aware that these flicks are complete nostalgia pandering hunks of cheese.

And yet I still found myself enjoying both films to the point where I clapped at the end. The same way almost everyone and their grandmother did for the Avengers. So what is it about this hot garbage making so many people flock to the theaters multiple times to see them?

It’s the simple fact that we have had these Japanese properties in our lives for several decades. Pokemon (1998) & Godzilla (1954). If anyone grew up on either of these or both (such as myself) then we know that as long as these Americanized films are a loads of fun, we can forgive the lazy messy plots. But perhaps that is why these movies aren’t what we all wish they could be...because they are created on American soil.

You see unfortunately, Hollywood has been in one of the most non-creative/reboot mayhem crisis I’ve ever witnessed. Big corporate studios have to pump out as many safe reboot/non original IPs as possible and it seems to have lost most it’s writing talent as well. If certain directors and producers aren’t behind a project, then the adapted movie (such those inspired by anime and other foreign film franchises) probably won’t have much substance. Not to mention Western filmmakers and our critics don’t seem to fully understand the culture shock of the growing popularity in these Japanese properties. Nor do they understand the appeal of these features, hence all the negative/angry reviews. We have seen this time and time again. And it is nothing new.

Now let’s get back to Godzilla: KOTM. It was a fun ride no doubt. The CGI was incredible, and with certain recent Marvel and DC films, this is a mark a lot of those films miss. So thank Godzilla that our beloved kaijus and other effects looked gorgeous. The cinematography for the monsters was also done very well. There are plenty of moments where we truly understand the grand size of these creatures. Overall the fights were awesome and mind numbing. And the music, oh my god the scoring was incredible. Done by Bear McCreary, who did the recent God of War installation did our Kaiju King a great service. Paying homage to classic Godzilla themes was the perfect icing on the cake. So what was the big complaint?

Lol These dumbasses. The people in any robot/kaiju/creature feature seem to be the hardest thing directors cannot figure out no matter how hard they try. But let us admit that we as viewers are pretty hypocritical in this argument. On one hand we ask for a shit ton of monster brawls and on the other hand, we complain their are too many explosions and that the effect wears off after a while. We want human stories and then we complain that they are in the movie at all. Godzilla KOTM by no means has a good human story. Some moments with the military and Ken Watanabe were fine, but the idiots in the images above this movie did not need...like at all. I especially hated the father and mother figures. Like yeah Eleven (Milly Bobby Brown), I would run the fuck away too. I’m not excusing the writers for the shitty human plot, I’m just explaining as to why we still suffer from this problem. However, if you are a fan of the Godzilla franchise, you know for a majority of the films, the human plot is not much better than what we see here. Maybe that was Michael Dougherty’s point. He claimed that this was the ultimate film for Godzilla fans and quite frankly, maybe he is right.

Aside from the very first film (Gojira 1954), the human elements of these films were always lack luster, silly, and even forced. Yet so many people are quick to judge our American filmmakers for ruining what ‘only the Japanese can do right’ and in all honesty I’ve never heard such a false statement. The image above is from one of my favorites, Godzilla 2000. Japan’s fuck you to the terrible 1998 film. But when watching this, did you really care about this guy, his daughter, and his dumbass girlfriend. Or the scientists and their anime-esque villain. The answer is probably no. In any of these kaiju films, very rarely do we ‘really’ care about the people. We just want to see the action. The plots are always, cliche, predictable, and stuffing in some bullshit environmental awareness message. Nukes are bad and people suck. But we love Godzilla (practically a walking nuke) anyway.

Godzilla KOTM, is the same shit we’ve seen before only with American styled editing and tropes. So lots of quick cuts and a focus on the family unit. But hey the special effects are so much better than anything we have seen previously. I don’t have to laugh when I see wires and crappy green screen, or using the same footage from a previous movie. Nope. All our favorite kaijus are in beautiful IMAX quality and are ready to wreck cities worldwide. This is the film fans asked for and we got it. Oh and before the next person complains that the Japanese can only do it better, here is what was done before this.

We got Evangelion Goji with AIDs and CG Tree Goji with Ramen Noddles Ghidorah. While Shin Godzilla was a masterpiece over seas, if you didn’t understand the political subtext, then this film was an angsty destructive ride by a guy who can’t even finish his own art thesis of an anime. (I totally don’t have mixed feelings over Evangelion lol). I didn’t hate Shin Godzilla. It had its moments, but I didn’t think it held the same power of the film it was trying to emulate. Not to mention the CGI and sound design at points were just dreadful. As for the Netflix anime Godzilla trilogy...just wow. Aside from loving the physical design of this new Goji and his new powers, this story was worse than awful, it was downright boring. Even hardcore Godzilla fans had a hard time defending this mess of bad CG. With a promise of multiple featured kaiju and Mecha Godzilla, we get a hunk of nano metal and the only other kaiju actually featured looking like a pack of Maruchan coming down to like ...basically have a staring contest with Godzilla and then evaporate. What a fight for the ages...

In conclusion, I’m not sure if and when either Japan or American will ever truly get it right. We may like certain aspects of one film but hate the rest of it and the cycle will continue on and on. But as far as KOTM goes, I’m happy it exists and hope it does well enough for Legendary to renew its licenses with Toho. I and many others just want Godzilla in the roster and to continue the legacy. Something for future generations of children and adults to enjoy the romping monsters and hear their iconic roars. We can’t let this current toxic and hating Internet culture bitch and complain about concepts and niche cultures it doesn’t fully understand. Like the anime community, the Godzilla fandom is a unique one and has a niche audience. But perhaps like what the Marvel movies have done for comic book fans, the exclusion will lessen over time and become more mainstream. But for now, Godzilla KOTM is meant for a particular group of people and it seems for that bunch, it has made them plenty happy. Myself included.

So what are your thoughts on this movie and others like?

Feel free to share your comments, reblogs, and however else you would like to respond down below.

#godzilla #godzilla king of the monsters #godzilla kotm 2019 #legendary pictures #detective pikachu #rant #discussion #movies #american film #japanese film #gojira #kaiju #kaiju flicks #fuck the critics

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revchainsaw · 3 years

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Judge Dredd (1995)

I must confess that I have never read a single Judge Dredd comic book. I did own one issue of Batman vs Judge Dredd when I was a little kid, but I mostly just flipped through the panels and enjoyed the edgy art work. I can't speak to how faithful and adaptation that Judge Dredd is, but I think that may just be the best way to review a film. I may not have said this before on this blog, but I do not believe that being a faithful adaptation is the same thing as being a good movie, nor vice versa. I love the later adaptation, but this is a fascist super cop of a completely different breed. Let us see if Sylvester Stallone's crack at a 90s Super Hero flick will make a suitable sacrifice at the altar of the cult film God's.

The Message

1995's Judge Dredd is a Science Fiction Comic Book Adaptation starring Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider and it took me 3 attempt to finally get past the first few scenes before I could actually not feel like I was wasting my life watching it. The first thing a viewer will notice about this film is exactly how expensive everything looks. Oh God, how glorious and how massive these set pieces, costumes, and effects must have been, and I can't lie. I LOVED it. Unfortunately all that good will is lost when the plot tries to kick in. For all the force and action a title like Judge Dredd promises, it's story kicks in with a whimper and dialogue and lore that feels as if it was written by an angry 14 year old in his free time after he got detention for using a racial slur.

The film revolves around Judge Dredd, a super cop with a black and white perspective on the law so unrelenting that he has become a legend. He is seen in the early parts of the film teaching at a Judge Academy, single handedly ending anarchic riots, enforcing traffic citations. It makes you wonder exactly what the Judges council think they are doing, like they can't seem to figure out what to do with this guy.

It is revealed that Judge Dredd was a mutant experiment created by the fascist world leaders but the program only produced violent psychopaths (of which Dredd is one). The other Janus project reject is Rico, who builds awesome puppet robots who look like they belong in Return to Oz, and makes oopy goopy Judge Dredd brother babies. He also frames Judge Dredd for murder.

Once framed Judge Dredd's years of service buy him good graces with the totalitarian regime he works for and he is simply banished to the wastelands where he runs into Rob Schneider, and the movie just gets worse from there. The only saving grace here is more very expensive set pieces and crazy cyborg practical effect cannibal rednecks. It's so sad that this movie isn't more awesome. Judge Dredd does kick some ass though and his Daddy Boss shows up just to be immediately murdered.

Rob Schneider and Judge Dredd break back into Mega City One to defeat Rico, recruit Dredds coworker Hershey, and save the fascist dystopia they all live in from any significant social change. Hooray!!!!

The Benediction

Best Feature: Looks like 90 Million Bucks

The Movie is great to look at. The only gripe I have with anything in the costumes, effects, or set pieces is that the judges helmets in particular look like cheap plastic, but in the era of the Tim Burton Batman movies, this is actually not a huge kicker. It's honestly amazing that the movie was given this much to work with, a 90 Million dollar budget in 95 for a Superhero flick. If only it were enough to save the film. It honestly hurts it a little. We are supposed to believe that the world is lawless and dismal but the technology is so sleek and beautiful and the sets are emaculate when they aren't occasionally shooting out sparks. Honestly, it seems like a utopia with occasional riots. Nothing seems lived in but everything seems new.

Best Effect: ABC, That's How Easy Love Can Be

Ricos Robot, the ABC Warrior, was just eye candy, and it wasn't without competition. I also really loved the Goopy Janus Judges and the Egg Timer Cannibal Cyborg. If this movie leaned more into it's insanity it would probably have a better reputation. It's a shame that most people will skip this film on reputation alone. The plot is mind numbing, inconsistent, and dumb, but the effects like the ABC Warrior I could watch by themselves for hours. It's a cartoon, but damn if it's not a great looking cartoon.

Best Character: Officer Her-She (cuz she's a girl duh!)

In a movie that doesn't realize it's trying to get us to sympathize for a bunch of fascist totalitarians, or is trying hard to get us to ignore that fact, a villain like Rico is actually hard to hate. He has a line that says "you gave up your life to embrace the law, I gave up the law to embrace life". It really seems like I'm Team Rico here. But he didn't want freedom, he just wanted to be a different kind of monster. For that reason, I think Hershey is really the stand out character here. She's the only competent Judge, she makes reasonable decisions, and even though she seems to be Stallone's love interest, this movie does very little to diminish her to that role, or to exploit the actress. For a movie like this that is saying a lot. The only time this film doesn't suck is when Hershey is on screen or a cool practical effect is happening.

Best Kill: Tis But A Flesh Wound

I wish someone would have killed Rob Schneider, but unfortunately that didn't happen. There is a pretty cool kill where the ABC Warrior picks apart a corrupt Judge like a troubled kid does to a random bug. I guess since that had some blood and stuff we'll call it even.

Best Set Piece: Jailhouse Rocks

There are many vast and impressive sets throughout this film, but the one that really stuck out to me was Rico's cell. The wall mounted turrets getting featured instead of just being static objects stuck to the wall was one of those extra little steps that makes all the difference.

Worst Character: Rob Schneider is a Stapler? a Carrot? Annoying.

I didn't even learn Rob Schneider's characters name. But he's obnoxious. I learned that while filming Demolition Man, Stallone met Schneider and insisted he be in this film. It wouldn't have been all that bad had he done his piece and been left behind, but he clings to Dredd for most of the film. It's especially unbearable because several more likeable characters come back onto the scene to help Dredd but they are either killed or written away so that we can get more of Rob.

Worst Feature: It's a Dumb Movie for Kids

Judge Dredd is a case study in why we don't get cool effects heavy films anymore. Looking at Judge Dredd makes the Marvel Films look like cheap dookie. What I wouldn't give for some of these kinds of effects in an Iron Man or a Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Hopefully we will get some kind of compromise. But the writers, producers, and studio were not willing to take the property seriously enough to do their high budget justice. The plot of Judge Dredd is so stupid and the themes are so mismanaged that of course this movie is remembered as a piece of shit. It's reasons like this that no one will take chances on a big budget practical effects film anymore.

Summary

Judge Dredd is confused. There are ways that writers can make an audience root for a hero like Dredd even though he is absolutely representative of oppression, the way to do that is not to preach about how great the law is and how bad the poor people who are suffering under the boots of the judges are. You can't make the bad guys motive that he values freedom and individuality. Judge Dredd looks great, has backwards ass messaging, a very stupid script, and keeps insisting things via exposition rather than showing us in it's world building. It is a frustratingly difficult movie to buy into, but it's good qualities buy it enough good will to keep it out of the dumpster fire.

Overall Grade: D

#Grade D #D #Grade: D #Judge Dredd #Action #90s #1995 #Scifi #super hero #superhero #cop #science fiction #comic book #comic art #sylvester stallone #(D)

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bb-bigbang-org · 4 years

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EPISODE 1: “This house offers no cute people, and I hate it�� - DREW

CODY

I am playing up a character so I’m acting kinda cold to a lot of people saying short simple answers to DM’s mostly.

MANDI

aaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. i think im actually really going to love this cast.

DREW

Alright ladies and gentlemen. I'm gonna make the first text confessional and I think its gonna be very simple.

This house offers no cute people, and I hate it. I usually flirt with one man and woman in this house, and there is NO ONE cute in this cast. But I guess, this being the inaugural season of this ORG- I can't fault them because... it was probably hard for the production to find a solid group of people! That being said, the person coming closest to /cute/ is Andrew... but we'll see how it goes it from there.

DESIREE

Here are my first impressions based on the videos!

I want to be Katrina's friend. She seems like a super cool chick.

Austin seems like a good guy but it's hard to judge without a video and without chatting.

Mandi seems really distracted in her video and I worry that she will not have enough time for this game if she has so many other responsibilities.

Drew seems like a pretty chill guy, but for some reason I suspect that there will be some drama with him later on...

Pennino's a cutie. Voting him most likely to self evict. But he seems like a good kid.

Lukas is funny, I feel like he's going to be popular from the start... Not sure which way I should go with that but I should keep an eye on him.

Sooo I guess Frosby knows a bunch of people in this ORG which is certainly concerning. But he seems like a good guy.

Brooke seems like a lost sheep which may make her a good person to keep around for the numbers.

Kayla seems cool! Seems like she is knowledgeable about BBORGS but also seems pretty levelheaded. Also, she's pregnant! How sweet! As I mentioned in my video, I want to work in medicine with pregnant women so I love that.

Joe is cohosting another ORG I'm in and I feel like the other host doesn't like me so I wonder if he doesn't like me either.

Ashley seems great. She seems like someone I would hang out with.

Love Andy! I played in The Circle Online with him!

Sammy seems cool! He also mentioned time issues, but I feel like he would be active enough. He has respects for the hosts so I imagine he won't be missing too much, just might not be as active in the house chats. Probably a good person to keep around, though.

Cody hasn't provided much info except being Australian, which is pretty cool. lol

omg Chloe's video... She seems fun, seems like the kind of drunk to give a stranger a pep talk in a bar bathroom.

KAYLA

First day in the Big Brother house and I'm already part of two alliances. One I know was made by Cody the other...I'm not sure. Cody really wants this HOH which seems risky but, that's his choice, I guess. I really don't want to win HOH at all. Like...bruh lol so if somehow my guess was accurate...I'm gonna yeet myself into oblivion. Like, I want Cody to take the fall. Let him make the bloody first moves haha

FROSBY

Frosby is back in the saddle and I already have no idea what im doing... yet again. But ya know what im here to have fun god damiit and fun is what im going to have. First off im glad to see joe made this season bc BOOM instant ally gotta love the guy. 2nd Im already making some fast friends, what can I say I love talking to people. PRetty soon im going to have so many allies I wont know what to do. This season my main goal is to try and make a little more friends with more of the ladies. I realized in my last season of BB I didn't have a single girl for an ally and I feel like I sold myself short on some good quality allies. SO im going to try my best and talk to everyone and make allies with as many people as I can so I can safely make it through the early evictions. Also my plan is play it cool with challenges until post jury time and then I step up my challenge game! That is all I got for tonight ill probably come back tomorrow with a view on big players in the game. FROSBY OUT

CODY

TO sum up my first day of this game I am playing it hard and fast! I am ensuring that I have a majority alliance and it’s awesome because I was quite lucky to have a few pre game connections going into this so I’ve utilised all of them. And it helped that Brooke wanted to make an alliance with me and a few other people from it

I pitched to everyone that the game of Big Brother is a difficult one to navigate through which is the reason why I created this majority alliance. Now my goal is to win this HOH and start the game from the top. When I am at the top is when my aggressive nature will truly start to kick in. First of all when I decide who I nominate I am going to request an alliance chat with them and tell them that I’m on top they are on the bottom and they both have 0 chance of winning the game. Then proceed to put them on the block

Now hopefully me being so aggressive it will actually be a weird way of showing how loyal I am to my alliance. This could easily backfire of course but the idea is for them to perceive me as a goat. When in reality that’s what I want them to think and I will do everything I can to aggressively get things my way in this game. And if I find out that any of my allies are going against me and the alliance I’m going to be aggressive about how I call them out for it. And hopefully the perception will still be “yeah this guy might be mean but he’s also very loyal to his people let’s take someone else out over him”

PENNINO

So i'm here! I'm really happy to be here. But I see some faces like Joe, Kayla, and Brooke, which I know, and I'm kinda scared about playing with them, but I really need to start talking to people.

MANDI

So, the first day Cody made a nine person alliance. which is fine and all because i am in it but he is literally running the alliance and im not sure i really trust him at all yet.. so we will see how fast this will blow up.

KATRINA

Oh boy. I’m in over my head. There’s so many new people and I have no clue how to play this game. It’s so hard keeping track of people and who they are. I think a lot of these people know each other and have played with each other before which scares me. That means I have a disadvantage. I am an outsider and they won’t see me the same as those people that they’ve already played with. I’m going to try and stay under the radar but be very friendly since that’s what worked for me in the last org that I played in. I’ve met some really nice People so far. I really like Andrew and Austin. I hope the people that I’m talking to and making friends with her trustworthy. I would really hate if I started becoming really good friends with somebody and they turned out to go behind my back. That would really suck if I was one of the first people to leave.

DESIREE

For the record, I do not want to win the first HOH. Its too early for that power and I don't want to make a splash yet. I would rather just watch from the sidelines this week.

As my theme song said - "Take one step at a time, there's no need to rush."

JOE

I feel like I’ve made some solid bonds with the people around me. Came in knowing a lot of people, and they seem like they’re all willing to work with me. I think Mandi and frosby will be my go to’s. Surprised frosby still wants to work with me after last game but I feel like I can trust him. I think I’m in a good spot for at least these first few weeks.

BROOKE

Watching Lukas blow up unde9able is great. Especially since I was the one that ratted it out to him. He came to me and said Cody has a nine person alliance and since he’s HoH, I didn’t want to lie to him. He promised me safety in return of telling him who’s in it. I’m just gonna kick back and relax and hope he doesn’t nominate Kayla.

DREW

Unde9nable got leaked already? I wonder who told the HoH... not I, but I did tell Chloe- and girl its a MESS. I gotta act like I'm in some sort of trouble with Lukas, but after speaking with him earlier, he knows that its a front. I literally am just not feeling Cody, and his ass needs to GO. Glad to see that I have some people agreeing with me that he's fake, he sounds robotic, and that he's disingenuous! LOVE THAT FOR ME!!!

ASHLEY

Hey hey it’s already day 2 feeling okay. I kinda wish that the one on ones weren’t in my private messages but it’s okay. I am getting to know people and it’s cool. Pretty good so far. I like Lukas and Sammy. And I’m glad I didn’t win HOH I don’t want to be first and have a target.

CODY

So I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen moving forward with my game. Obviously the HOH plan and alliance failed and I made the decision to stir the pot a little and made a particular comment which got reported. And it made me realise it’s best to stop the crazy persona.

I do feel like I do have some legit relationships in this game, people such as Joe and Kayla I’ve talked to a lot. I’m not entirely sure that they will want to play with me moving forward through. Thankfully I do have an alliance with Brooke which she started and like I said I do feel like I got a good bond with Joe and Kayla. However it’s probably not gonna be enough. I just spent some time chilling in voice chat with a few people and we had a good time. We talked essentially 0 game though which was absolutely fine, the only thing we did talk about was just me apologising for my actions however I feel like I’m definitely a dead man walking but I can try to use that to my advantage and say that I am an open number. I just hope that does not make me perceived as a wildcard

DESIREE

Daily Thoughts for Day 2:

HOH Competition: I was really trying not to win the first HOH competition, but I didn't throw it necessarily, I just didn't try at all. I didn't want to obviously throw, but I figured not trying would be enough not to win. WELL turns out I tied for 2nd out of 16 houseguests. WHOOPS. That was close. Anyway, Lukas won! I feel okay with Lukas as HOH. We have talked a bit and he consults with me game decisions, so I feel pretty safe. We don't have an explicit alliance, but we have said we'll have each other's back this week at least.

9 person alliance: So, apparently there was a majority alliance created in the first 24 hours of the game. Even worse, it seems that Cody created the alliance and just added random people in without consulting them first. That seems messy af. Lukas blew up the alliance in the house after someone leaked it to him. I mean, are you surprised it got leaked if people didn't even want to be in it? I would have leaked it too! Lukas may have created a target on his back by blowing that up, but it seems like most people in the house are on his side because most people weren't committed to that alliance anyway.

House Meeting: After the alliance was exposed, Cody decided to call a house meeting. He explained that he came in here and decided to play a "drill sergeant" character. He quickly realized that he was rubbing people the wrong way after he got reported for threatening physical violence. He will play as himself from now on. He was trying to save his own ass, but I think it's too late for him.

Houseguest Connections:

The person I'm the closest with in the house so far is Frosby. We got to chatting on the first night about board games and the conversation just flowed really easily. He was a part of that 9 person "alliance" but that doesn't really concern me because I believe that he was just added willy nilly and didn't have any stake in it. Other than that, I've talked game with Lukas the most. I don't have any solid alliances formed, but I wanted to wait until week 2 to really start solidifying things. I prefer to take the time to get to know people before committing to alliances.

MANDI

well first nomination ceremony went good!! i totally forgot pennino was in the game.😳 i feel bad because he is in such a different time zone then all of us buuuuut. i was nominated so thats good. i am trying my best to just be social with everyone. i have talked to ash and desiree on vc but other than that i havent talked to them at all. i have yet to talk to pennino at all. but other than that i have mostly talked to everyone either through dm or in the house chat. i am honestly scared this game.😂 i have no idea what ANYONE is thinking. im worried about brooke and kayla because they are so close and know about me and joe. i know they are eventually going to try and break me and him up. joe will always be my number one and i will always protect my little brother.😎

PENNINO

So this is a bad situation. But I want to work with Lukas. Keep your enemies REALLY close

ANDREW

My thought on my housemates so far.

(They will be rank 1-15 purposely, it’s just a first impression rank, not everything in written in stone)

1. Lukas (we’ve had a good connection, very fluid conversation, nice dude, TOP ally rn, he wasn’t part of the 9 person alliance)

2. Frosby (he contacted me, and he was very nice, very cool, he was part of the 9 person alliance, and we were both a bit Wary about it too.)

3. Mandi (my twinsie)

4. Sammy (he’s very nice, a bit busy, but when he has a break, he talks and it’s very fluid)

5. Desiree (i know her from another org, and she maybe an ally, like be a huge threat because she knows I play a good social game)

6. Katrina (i respect her for her career choice, also she said I was funny, and well now I love her lol)

7. Chloe (party girl, fun to talk to her, that character can also be an act, but benefit of the doubt)

8. Drew (he’s Zen, cool, i like him)

9. Ashley (she’s cute, i like her for now)

10. Kayla (i got no solid opinion of Kayla rn)

11. Brooke (she’s very active, i like that, but she has already a social game going on, and obviously I’m not part of it, but that can benefit me, for now)

12. Joe (who?)

13. Austin (weed bro, doesn’t talk much)

14. Cody (catfish)

15. Pennino (he’s very young, and has a very weird time difference, I’ve played a previous org with him, and he didn’t talk at all, i bet he bites more than he can chew)

That’s is my initial ranking of my houseguests.

My strategy for this game is “smile and wave”, this is 80 days, and the dying star will be mainly based on vengeance on another houseguest or if they think it’s a threat. Keep it cute, this game is basically called the “long con”. I’m ready to play.

DESIREE

Daily Thoughts for Day 3:

Lukas nominated Cody & Pennino today, and then Sammi, Chloe, & Frosby were picked. I feel good with the nominees, Cody already blew up his game and I haven't really talked to Pennino at all. I am happy to not be picked for POV as well, because I want to lay low in the game for now. I am happy that Frosby got picked though, because he is my ally so if he wins I can at least feel involved from the sidelines.

CODY

Alright so according to a few people I might actually be safe...it’s hard to believe anything that you are told in this game. But if I’m safe then fuck yessss I’m back in it.

It seems as though people’s views and thoughts on me have changed mostly and the votes actually might not all be coming my way. However I’m still not expecting to be kept safe because they could just be trying to make me feel comfortable!

If I do survive I am going to try and lay low for a bit. I’m probably going to throw the next HOH, still undecided. I don’t wanna draw too much attention onto myself because if I’m in a position of nominating people straight away after surviving then people might change how they feel about me yet again especially if they’re on the receiving end of a nomination

I am also probably not going to set up any alliances either unless I feel I absolutely need to. I think instead I’m going to try and be looked upon as kind of a floating free agent. I might only try to win vetos if I get picked for them

DESIREE

Daily Thoughts for Day 4:

Sammy won POV and didn't use it. I think that was the right decision. Final nominees are Cody & Pennino. Lukas told me he doesn't care who goes home and that it's up the house, but it seems like Pennino is a pawn here. I think if there is someone in the group who is so obviously making waves, they should go for the first week. In the coming weeks, we can worry about bigger threats, but first week, I'm more in favor of evicting the person who is the most controversial.

ASHLEY

Trust ratings so far (1 most & 15 least)

1. Sammy

2. Joe

3. Brooke

4. Kayla

5. Drew

6. Mandi

7. Lukas

8. Chloe

9. Katrina

10. Frosby

11. Desiree

12. Austin

13. Andy

14. pennino

15. Cody

MANDI

UGH. i dont know who to vote for.😭 everyone is so back and forth. everyone wants cody out because he rubbed them the wrong way, and pennino. people want him gone because he isnt very active, but he is sooo nice. but also i love drama and cody is a good drama started. WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO.😭😭 no one is giving me answers on who is going or who is staying.

ANDREW

Trust Ranking:

1. Lukas

2. Frosby

3. Mandi

4. Sammy

5. Desiree

6. Austin

7. Brooke

8. Katrina

9. Drew

10. Chloe

11. Cody

12. Ashley

13. Kaya

14. Joe

15. Pennino

From 5-to 13. It can totally change during time.

DREW

Absolutely gaggin.

Like this is how the first week is gonna end? People are gonna claim that CODY is the least threatening player than a 14 year-old. Absolutely bonkers man. Did I sign up to play Big Brother or Hopscotch? Like my god- the way that Ashley and Brooke are going around trying to PERSUADE the other houseguests that Cody is the one to keep. AND it doesn't help matters when I'm supposed to be aligned with Joe/Mandi/Katrina, and they're all like- yeah Cody isn't a competition threat and a vote shield!?

AND WHAT OF THE DAMN 14 YEAR OLD? HUH? WHAT DOES THAT MAKE HIM?!?

Like I understand that Pennino isn't the most active, but why are we gonna be wasting a WEEK on him when he's probably gonna strike out for inactivity or something down the line?!? LIKE I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Everyone here is thinking on the short term, and I honestly hate it. I really do.

Bollocks. I'm just so over everything that has transpired in the last 24 hours. And if this is any indication on how the rest of the game will be- then I'm gonna make it my damn mission to make sure that I get Ashley, Brooke, Frosby, Joe, and Andrew out of here. Trust and believe.

MANDI

soooo. kayla and sammy came to me and said they wanted to flip the votes and evict cody. i told them if they had the votes i would go wherever the house went. well my alliance with joe, drew, and katrina said we had the votes to keep cody. we have frosby, brooke, joe, drew, katrina, ashley, desiree, and maybe chloe?? i dont know and then me. i told sammy that they didnt have the votes to flip and that cody would be a good vote shield if we were ever on the block with him. so i finally convinced sammy to keep cody. sorry kayla and austin! i am just going where the house goes. i honestly dont care who goes home but i think keeping cody is our best option going forward in the game. plus pennino hasnt talked to me at all and i think i can trust cody.

BROOKE

Kayla really wants Cody gone but I think he should stay.. I really don’t want to go against her or lie to her but if I have to, I will.

WEEK 1 CAST ASSESSMENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKxuIySz2d8

#EPISODES

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ncfan-1 · 7 years

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Jack and Ashi: Violence as Self-Annihilation

As anyone who has been reading my blog lately can probably guess, I’ve been loving the new season of Samurai Jack. In a media culture saturated with mediocre and/or outright bad reboots and remakes, Season Five of Samurai Jack retains everything fans loved about the first four seasons, while the TV-14 rating allows for storytelling opportunities that weren’t available when it was a Y-7 show, and yet feel like a natural extension of the original.

The emotional touchstones of the new season have thus far been Jack, as is only fitting, and Ashi, one of the Daughters of Aku, and by Episode XCV, the only surviving daughter of Aku. The Daughters, Ashi especially, have been set up as parallels and foils for Jack in terms of their upbringing and their ‘purpose’ in life. In particular, the show explores a running theme through the both of them: violence as the annihilation of the self.

[CN/TW: Discussions of abuse and indoctrination]

With Jack, it’s a very specific type of violence. Throughout the show, all five seasons, his ‘purpose’ in life has been to return to the past and defeat Aku, presumably by killing him, and set right what once went so horribly wrong. To do so, Jack was given a magic sword that has been blessed in such a way as to make it incapable of ever harming an innocent. In the ‘present’ day, Seasons One through Four, Jack’s modus operandi is that of a wandering protector to all the people who suffer under Aku’s tyranny. Wherever he sees evil, he fights it; wherever he sees good people in need of help, he helps them.

Come Season Five, there has been a shift. At some point in the fifty years between Seasons Four and Five, Jack lost his sword, that symbol of his quest, that symbol of his ‘purpose.’ The sword was itself a symbol of Jack’s righteousness, its inability to harm an innocent a symbol of his status as a protector of the downtrodden. In Episode XCII, we do still see Jack protecting innocent people, but we also see something very new from him, something decidedly discouraging. In Episode XCII, we see Jack observe a village being attacked from a distance, and simply not do anything.

When he does this, when he allows harm to fall upon others, Jack begins to hallucinate. When he goes to drink from a river, he sees visions of bodies floating in the water, people screaming for help. He hallucinates his father screaming “You’ve forgotten your purpose!” In letting apathy rule him in this instance, in letting violence be done upon others with no intervention from him, Jack denies an integral part of himself, and guilt holds him fast. When finally he does go to the village, he finds no survivors—only the culprit, and he hallucinates the victims during the fight.

Later, during Jack’s first engagement with the Daughters of Aku, he seems to have a sense, if only subconscious, that he may not be fighting robots, that he may in fact be fighting flesh-and-blood people. This is another significant problem for Jack, because he has only ever killed robots; he has never actually killed a flesh-and-blood human being. Jack seems to associate robots with Aku’s tyranny, which would make sense. He is a transplant from pre-modern Japan, after all; you won’t find any robots in pre-modern Japan, and if such technology only exists in the future, he might well associate it with Aku. Ultimately, Jack is able to steel himself to fight the Daughters by convincing himself that they’re only “nuts and bolts.”

The immediate aftermath of Jack discovering the truth about that is quite telling. When he sees blood fly from the throat of the first Daughter he kills instead of oil, his eyes widen and his mouth drops open in horror. He freezes as he watches her fall to the ground, grits his teeth as her mask falls away and he sees not the face of a robot, but of a young woman, now dead. He freezes, even though the danger to himself has not passed.

In the immediate aftermath of Jack’s first time killing a human being, he almost dies himself. True, this is down to his physical injuries, to his stab wound, to his fall from the temple into the river, to his exposure to the elements. But Jack’s identity is tied up in his role as a protector; not helping a village under attack triggers a massive attack of guilt. He seems to define himself by his role as a protector to Aku’s victims, to those flesh-and-blood people. To kill a human being flies in the face of everything he is, rocks the very core of his identity. As Jack’s sense of self is put into doubt by that act of violence, so too is his survival put in question.

Jack steels himself to fight the remaining Daughters by telling himself that they chose this path willingly, by offering them a choice to walk away before leaping over the abyss. He does not know that they did not choose this path, not willingly; he does not know that they honestly lack the capacity to make a meaningful choice as to whether they wish to kill him or not. This belief, however mistaken, is sufficient to get him through the next fight, but while he is able to temporarily control his guilt, he cannot banish it completely. After the fight is over and he finds one of the Daughters’ corpses in the forest, he hallucinates the crows in the trees around him screaming “Murderer!” over and over again.

When Jack manages to defeat Ashi without killing her, tying her up in the chain of her own kusarigama, he refuses point-blank to kill her. When they are both swallowed by the giant creature in XCV, he goes out of his way to protect her, and never harms her or allows harm to come to harm, no matter how much Ashi’s hatred for him and veneration of Aku angers him. He goes above and beyond this minimum, actually; when they both wind up covered in needles, Jack takes the time to pull every last needle out of Ashi’s body so that she won’t come to any further harm by potentially having them sink further into her body as she’s jostled around. Even after they’ve escaped from the creature and end up in the ocean, Jack saves Ashi from drowning. When the hallucination of a younger Jack tries to persuade Jack to just leave Ashi to die in the belly of the beast, it’s presented to us as a temptation that would strip Jack of any claims to being a hero if he succumbed to it—even if Ashi is still hostile towards him, is still actively trying to kill him every chance she gets, Jack won’t hurt her and he won’t let her be hurt, because that goes against his nature on a fundamental level.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that XCV is the episode where we start to see Jack acting like his old self again, that we start to see his mild-mannered geniality and his sense of humor return to him. When Jack is protecting someone, he isn’t quite his old self again, because those fifty years of discouragement, bitter defeat and crushing guilt are still with him. But when we see Jack protect someone, he is as close to being his old self as he has been for the whole season, because he’s finally being himself again. This is who Jack is, without violence.

With Ashi, the theme of violence as self-annihilation goes even deeper, and starts much, much earlier in her life.

XCII presents us with the Daughters’ backstory. They are very much foils to Jack in this; like Jack, they were raised from a very young age with the purpose of becoming the ultimate warriors, so that once they are grown they will be capable of killing their target. Jack’s target is Aku; the Daughters’ target is Jack himself. But where Jack is treated with love and compassion by his various caretakers, where Jack is allowed to form friendships with the children in the many places where he is sent to live, the Daughters are allowed no such thing. All their lives, their mother, the High Priestess of the cult into which they were born, and the other adult cult members show them no love, no compassion. Jack was allowed to be a child. Jack was allowed to be human. The Daughters are not.

From the moment they are old enough to be trained to fight, the Daughters are brutally conditioned to be not human beings, but living weapons. Nothing matters but killing Jack, and that is absolutely the only thing they should care about. The Daughters are indoctrinated into believing Aku a benevolent deity, and Jack an evil being. They are taught not to care for one another, actively punished for caring for one another. They are taught to see themselves as tools, and so totally denied knowledge of the outside world that they have no idea what deer are—this, in a region where venison would likely be a major food source. Their mother and the other adult cult members treated them not as children, not as human beings to be raised, but as weapons to be forged, and stripped them of any real ability to have a life.

A thread running through the Daughters’ raising is Ashi’s fascination with the outside world. It first manifests in Ashi sneaking away from a typically violent training session to peer at the outside world through a crack in the wall—her first glimpse of the outside world, and Ashi the only Daughter to ever see the outside world before being sent out to kill Jack. When her mother catches her, she both reinforces Ashi’s indoctrination by telling her Aku created the beautiful world she saw outside and that Jack is the one who threatens it, and punishes Ashi by having her brutally beaten by another cult member. Later, during another sparring session, Ashi is fascinated by a ladybug that has made its way into the cave in which she lives, letting it light on her hand. Her mother chastises her by saying that such distractions, i.e. a child showing natural curiosity towards the world, is not part of Aku’s order, and punishes Ashi by taking the ladybug from her and killing it by squashing it between her fingers. A casual act of violence, a ‘casual’ act of abuse, probably little more than background noise in the constant abuse and violence that dominated Ashi’s life growing up, but one that we see had a profound impact on her. Ashi’s wonder at the natural world is the only thing we know about her outside of the abuse and brainwashing, and her mother does all she can to quash it.

By the time they are grown, the Daughters have been shaped by violence and abuse into weapons that their mother hopes will be able to put an end to Jack. You get no sense of their individual personalities; literally all you see from them is their veneration of Aku and their hatred of Jack. Their love for one another has either been literally beaten out of them, or it has been so severely mangled that it no longer functions normally. When they find the corpse of the first of their sisters to die, they do nothing but drag it out of the temple and leave it to rot under the open sky, with one of them muttering “Death is failure.” When, during the second engagement with Jack, Jack starts picking them off, the survivors exhibit absolutely no emotional reaction to seeing their sisters cut down. Though they are physically flesh and blood, it’s not exactly surprising that Jack can convince himself that they’re robots the first time he fights them; through the brutal conditioning the Daughters were subjected to, they don’t really function as human beings anymore.

Throughout most of XCV, we see Ashi consumed with hatred for Jack. She tries to kill him every chance she gets, both outside of the creature’s belly and within. When she is tied up, she falls back on the dogma she was raised on, screaming it out like a broken record repeating the same line over and over again—the last resort of someone who was never taught to think for herself, who was taught not to think for herself. We see that the abuse and indoctrination Ashi suffered has left her capacity for empathy either broken or very deeply buried—not once do we see her show even a moment’s grief for her dead sisters; it’s like it hasn’t even registered with her. We see that it has left her immature and emotionally stunted—her ranting sounds much more like that of a child than that of an adult. We see that it has left her with no sense of self-preservation (and implicitly, no sense of self-worth)—Ashi literally does not care if she dies in the belly of the beast, if only Jack dies as well. The violence in which Ashi was raised could very well have led her to murder-suicide had Jack not been more alert.

Even at the end, when they have escaped the belly of the beast and washed up on a small island in the middle of the ocean, even after Jack has saved Ashi’s life multiple times, Ashi still intends to kill him, at least at first. As all of XCV has illustrated, a lifetime of brainwashing is not something that can be overcome simply by having someone on the outside say ‘That’s wrong.’ But something happens that stops Ashi dead in her tracks.

Another ladybug appears, first flying around Ashi, then around Jack. Jack opens his hand and lets the ladybug light upon it, allowing it to rest there without harming it. It is at this point that we are shown the flashback of a younger Ashi with the other ladybug, just to hammer in the contrast between Jack’s treatment of the ladybug, and Ashi’s mother’s. Ironically, as violence has led Ashi to view herself a tool whose only purpose is to kill Jack, her mother’s casual act of violence by killing the ladybug in the flashback leads her to drop her weapon, apparently giving up on her ‘quest.’ The only link Ashi has to the world outside of the violence that has all but snuffed out her sense of self is her wonder at the natural world. Jack’s random act of kindness, something that links the two of them, allows doubt to enter Ashi’s mind. Violence snuffed out Ashi’s sense of self. Kindness allowed her to start to feel it again.

Does this mean the end of Ashi’s worship of Aku? Likely not; again, a lifetime of brainwashing isn’t something that can be overcome by someone saying ‘That’s not right.’ Does it mean the end of her hostility towards Jack? Given that XCV is as far as the show’s gotten so far, who can say, but somehow, I doubt it. While she may no longer wish to kill Jack, I somehow doubt that everything’s just going to be hunky-dory between the two of them, at least not for a while yet. But if someone is trying to overcome a lifetime of indoctrination, allowing yourself to doubt is where healing begins. And it was kindness that awakened doubt in Ashi. Violence only ever snuffed it out.

#Samurai Jack #Samurai Jack 2017 #Meta #Jack the Samurai #Ashi #This got long #But I regret nothing #I actually really love this theme as the show is executing it #TW abuse #TW indoctrination

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raygoodwinbaphotographyjournal3 · 4 years

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PHOT303 - Mileage May Vary - 5-9/4/2020

The adjustment to shooting digitally is well underway. I am only really used to this process when I am shooting for payed work, whether that is for the PCA:SU events or working for AYCH. It seems to strange to me that I am working on a personal project, and I can see those images instantly. Yet it is freeing to know that this is my only digital camera with only one lens to use, which is creatively limiting but with the knowledge of how to use that equipment.

The settings are pretty much on lockdown (pun intended), with the ISO being as low as possible (100) with an aperture of F8, with alternating shutter speeds depending on how the light is. At F8, most things are in focus with the distances I am working at, with the 50mm F1.8 STM being tack sharp before being effected by diffraction, which would start to set in with an extra stop at F11. The 5D also has a custom colour profile with the least amount of contrast to add to the faux-analogue look and feel, with the contrast and highlights being reduced in post production in LR.

All of the images are taken when I am on my daily allotted exercise around the village, which has a wide range of modern suburbia and quaint village life. A lot of Colerne is made up from fairly newly built houses from around the 1960′s, with the addition of the fairly typical Wiltshire houses built in the 1800′s. Both of these juxtapose each other, and look like their from different locations, but only are they really a stones throw away.

A Citroen ZX lies dormant in somebody’s driveway, surrounded by a bulk bag and a wheelie bin. This particular ZX has been sat for a while, and according to google earth it hasn’t moved all too much since 2013. This is most likely one of the 2041 recorded SORN ZXs according to howmanyleft.co.uk.

It seems a shame that a car which was seen extremely often, with at their peak in 1998 being 138,187 on the road, with the last quarter of 2019 seeing only 905 still driving our roads. Somehow almost double the amount of ZXs are SORN and off the road, just like this one. It might see the road again, but it could also be scrapped and then recycled.

A Toyota Celica and a Ford Fusion are parked next to a crossroads towards an entrance to Colerne. What piqued my interest was the black Celica which looks rather tattered and battered. This particular flavour of Celica was made from 1993-2000, also known as a T200. Something to note is that is has the wheels from the T230 which came a generation after this, made from 1999-2006. Without a registration plate, it is hard to define what model this is, as there were a few models with some being exclusive to North America and or Japan. This is most likely the AT200 verison, with the ST/ST Limited level trim. Places like these often give off an air of affluence and high standards, and seeing this Japanese sports car in a state of disrepair is almost like I am roaming around partially derelict estate. The surroundings however don’t reflect this, and contrast it with nicely presented houses and clean pathways.

5/4/2020

9/4/2020

I spotted this rather special Land Rover Discovery parked in a driveway, and I knew I had to capture it. The Discovery is usually a car reserved for the high flyers of the car world, with them normally lumbered with high prices and quality. Yet vehicles like that depreciate massively and become cheap to buy once they’re 10-20 years old. This is a Series 1 ‘Disco’, made between 1989-1998 with 2.0L petrol to 4.0L V8 engine options. This particular Disco has had a lift kit installed, with more aggressive tyres, bash bars and a winch. This means that this Disco has been converted to an offroader, which by the looks of its condition is used fairly regularly. Being in a fairly rural part of the country, there are plenty of areas that this can be utilised. This area isn’t as affluent as the rest of Colerne, with these houses looking like pre-fabricated post war or Council House offerings.

Thickwood is just over a mile away from Colerne, being a large estate made up with large house bristling with suburbia. The houses are nicely presenting with impeccable gardens and the cars sitting proudly on the driveway. They act as safe bubbles for the residents and are the key goal for many: to work hard, get a mortgage and own a house with disinfected counter tops and a nice car placed on the drive. These areas always remind me of OK Computer, as the themes of chasing a certain lifestyle and being a slave to capitalist ideals and expectations - which is a good link as OK Computer was recorded only a stones throw away from Colerne in St. Catherines Court. I also find it odd as I am acting as one of these suburbanites in a nice house and a clean car on the drive. Is this something I want? Is this expected of me? Do I need this? These suburban areas always remind me of Meeting People is Easy when No Surprises is shown on Sky News.

There is a certain cynicism within my work that reflects the lyrics of No Surprises. Whilst my work is documenting these cars that escaped the VSS and stood the test of time, it is also a commentary on our society and capitalistic tendencies to keep on spending, to own houses and cars all paid for by a job that we don’t like and slowly kills us. The elements of alienation from this lifestyle still lingers from previous projects as it is still felt by myself, and I think it will never leave me. It is interesting to me that I can manifest these feelings of alienation and estrangement in different ways, and it usually makes its way into what I do.

A Vauxhall Zafira found in its natural habitat of the suburban neighbourhood. For me, scenes like these heighten these alienated feelings, as these people have a house and a family. Vehicles like these warrant multiple children, as they were designed as MPVs (Multi Purpose Vehicles). These people have done what is potentially expected of them in life: they have worked hard enough to purchase a house, obtain a mortgage, work throughout the week and produce multiple children - Is that living? Do they enjoy it? Do they want this? These are hard to answer questions, and completely theoretical. But these are questions that I ask myself when in these settings. We live to certain expectations that is perceived within society and let technology rule what we do. The technology we use can be dangerous, with social media and mobile phones being constantly glued to our hands and our eyes. Some of OK Computer thematics is the rise in technology on the brink of the 21st century and it taking over our lives, become more and more robotic and it is becoming more real than ever. Who is serving who? Do we run this technology, or do we let it run is? These questions somehow run deep within a project that is inherently about the banal vehicles that escaped a scheme over a decade ago, yet they’re intrinsically linked to our society and its demons.

Whilst living in a suburban setting in the countryside is good to escape the encompassing pandemic, as well a offers some interesting photographic subjects, it also places some questions within me about how we live and what is expected of us. Do we really need to aspire to family living? Do I need to buy these things to make me happy? Why am I staring into this slab of glass with smooth animations and flashing lights? This could be the quarantine lockdown house arrest speaking, but I am questioning what life is and how we all live it. Despite the everyday mundanity going on, it manages to bring up questions to me that I can’t quite answer.

Despite being locked into a small village, there are a surprising amount of vehicles to photograph with some new ones appearing each day. I would have thought that shooting in such a small area once a day would severely limit what I could shoot, yet I am managing to capture much more than I expected. Even though I cannot shoot how I want to be shooting, I am enjoying the digital process more that I was anticipating. I can see the results near enough instantly and see any changes I make within that time. It is a lot cheaper, as I don’t spend anything to get my photographs - I just have to have space on my CF card and a charged battery.

#PHOT303

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fantroll-purgatory · 5 years

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World: honestly not sure yet; i’m thinking either alternia or some sort of alternate universe that follows pretty much all of the same rules but with a different history, whatever my friends decide on. (i’m considering the latter due to my friends having limeblooded characters based off of their extended zodiac. pfft who knows.) Name: Diezzi Cafein (truly i wish i had some sort of interesting and witty explanation for this name, but nope, all I can say is this is a cheap bastardization of my league of legends user haha: dizzyoncaffeine)

Hey, the name has meaning, then. It means Dizzy on Caffeine! You just gotta pull that characterization through. Make sure Diezzi is caffeinated. Age: 7.5 sweeps

Theme/Story: Diezzi fears becoming just like their ancestor, The Betrayer (personal hitman for the ruler at the time who killed some close friends and/or the ruler before killing themselves), doing their best to avoid a fate like theirs though subconsciously failing to escape the inevitable as their personality, interests, and morale paralleling that of the former assassin. though i’m not set yet on wether or not i make this next bit canon, i think they might directly follow in those footsteps by killing some friends for *time*, considering their classpect. Goals: I’m looking for a general overview! I really want to have a second opinion on both general and visual design so that I can fix all the flaws I may be unable to fully see. I didn’t have any thematic or vision at all when I first made this character, most of it just being random fun, so there’s probably a lot of issues thanks to that haha Strife Specibus: scissorkind, 1/2scissorkind (their main weapon consists of a *rather* large pair of scissors, white + glowy blades with bright red tips. i have yet to name these scissors mostly due to my laziness. though it’d typically be able to be weaponized in a variety of different ways unique to the scissor form, Diezzi’s dumbass managed to find a way to accidentally break it resulting in them pretty much just being two weird swords. oh well.) Particular weapons don’t really need names until you hop into Sburb anyways! Now something important to consider here is that weapons for Trolls usually tend to be related to a character’s interests or ambitions. (See: Karkat using a sickle because of career ambitions, Nepeta using claws because She’s Cat, and Vriska using dice because she loves luck and pirates). So what is the utility for Diezzi? Why do they use the scissors? Create an interest or ambition that leads to this. Fetch Modus: honestly not quite sure what to make it yet. suggestions are welcome!

Fetch Moduses are also usually interest-based. Since your character likes bones, how about a Skeletal Chart? Each object is placed in a bone on a fake troll skeleton and in order to get the item, you’ve gotta Name That Bone!

Blood Color: indigo Symbol and Meaning: sagiries (this was actually the answer i originally obtained from the extended zodiac quiz haha) Handle: grievousCollections (the name simply alludes to Diezzi’s skull collection. don’t worry, they’re not troll skulls! … yet?) Quirk: - types in all lowercase, except for the last letter of every sentencE. - (uses parenthesis when whispering or saying something somewhat offtopic) - sometimes spams the semicolon ;;;;; to emphasize disbelief or confusion. - r-plac-s all ‘e’s with a hyp-n, -, unless the last l-tt-r of the s-nt-nc- is an e, in that cas- it is replac-d with a plus sign + - doubles all ‘i’s, even in proper names or words that already have double consecutiive ‘ii’s. - question and exclamation marks are always separated from the sentence by a space ! but not periods.

Special Abilities: n/a

Don’t forget that Blues usually have Big Strength. Not Equius level, but still pretty strong. Lusus/Guardian: a large quadraped with a graceful yet very canine-like build, a slight bit bigger than a deer. their front feet have paws but their back have hooflike ends. no visible eyes or ears whatsoever but have horns just like Diezzi’s. long, furless, and slick tentacle-like tail that you hopeful won’t get slapped in the face by. haven’t thought of a personality/relationship yet whoops!

This is nicely creative. AND the descrip vaguely reminds me of Horsaroni, which is fun. Interests: Diezzi collects the skulls of different lusii and boasts a rather impressive collection too. while it may seem to be something for intimidating other trolls, it’s really just a bit of morbid curiosity and they *tend* to get their skulls for already dead lusii. on the topic of, Diezzi likes milk (haha get it cause like calcium and stuff). wait no, they *love* it. their moirail pokes fun at them for this odd fixation on the liquid but they don’t care anymore. they would live exclusively off it if given the chance. no cap. aside from that, they’re honestly a bit of a dork and like to play whatever troll the troll version of league is although they honestly aren’t all that good at it.

This is a good start, but I think for a more well-rounded character you might want to throw two of three more things into the mix. To bring in the example of another blueblooded milk fan, Equius likes Milk, but he also likes fine art of hoofbeasts, and archery, and robotics. Tavros liked obvious theme stuff like Peter Pan/Fairies/General Fantasy, but he also liked jousting and Fiduspawn and FLARPing and slam poetry. Try to bring in a few more broad fascinations and then narrow down the particulars and you’ll have a stronger character.

Appearance: + + +

Personality: they like to think of themself as the more sane one between them and their palemate but honestly? not really. they’re a bit stressed + anxious at any given time but cover it up with a chill and reasonable demeanor. though this might make them a generally cool and sensible troll to be around, sometimes the unspoken inner turmoil can lead to poor mental health if it’s bad enough. for some reason time’s never on their side, though that’s partly because of their *shit* sense of time. they have a bad tendency to stay up late (sometimes to the point they’re well into daytime until they realize they should probably get some sleep) and usually over/under estimate how long something will take. they suffer from this ever-constant sense of running out time, even when there’s nothing to do. they’re surprisingly open to different ideas and don’t really dwell too much on blood color for a member of a cooler caste, though Diezzi probably won’t stand for any specific cause if it could potentially lead to pissing off higherbloods, for several reasons. however, if something directly affects a lowblood pal, this is tempted to change. sometimes you gotta prove yourself better than your shitty ancestor… but hopefully something like that won’t happen cause being loyal and self sacrificing is fucking scary dude. Lunar Sway: Derse

The personality you describe is honestly more in line with a Prospitan. The fear of becoming like their ancestor thing especially- remember that Prospit players believe more in fate/destiny and are more likely to believe that the ancestor thing holds any weight. Most trolls don’t know or care much about their ancestor, who usually died well before their time.

Vriska knows about Mindfang because she discovered her journal, but most trolls aren’t going to have that kind of knowledge or connection unless they’re deeply invested in the narrative of the ancestors-- It’s kind of like the human idea of the Zodiac in that way. While some people are really diehard believers that it’s some kind of predetermination of personality, other people don’t know or care about it at all.

Which isn’t to say dersites can’t know about it, they’re just probably not going to actually BELIEVE it as much. So if Diezzi is the type to believe in ancestors Thoroughly and Passionately and to worry about their inevitable fate, they might make a better prospit character.

If you wanna make them more derse, you’ll need to pull back on the predetermination idea and give them a little more of that dersite “something to fight for” spirit. That doesn’t mean they have to want to fight for anything Big, they could just like... want to start a Got Milk? campaign in their local neighborhood. Title: Thief of Time

Thieves and Princes/Bards are up there as the most Selfish classes. That’s something you have to think about with this title. How do you want this character to develop? Do they need to learn to be selfish and take time for themself instead of sharing it with others? Or will Thief of Time play on their worst habits and make them into a terrible person? Is that what’s necessary for the course of the story? Those kinds of things are hard to consider, but necessary.

Now, the EZ can get a little Time and Space happy (since those are the two necessary aspects and so they come up more often), and I think that’s what happened here. Which isn’t to say I don’t think Diezzi (or you) wouldn’t make a good time player. I think you just need to emphasize the fact that Diezzi needs to Learn to rail against something. Because Time is about Fighting The Flows Of Time, and making them your own, ESPECIALLY as a thief. Land: Land of Embers and Constellations (LOEAC), inhabited by crocodile consorts and the denizen Hephaestus.

I don’t have any design notes, I think this design is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing and I hope this helped.

-CD

#blueblood #submission #review #cd review #711parkinglot #diezzi cafein #diezzi #cafein

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curdinway-blog · 4 years

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Top 102 Movies of the 2010’s, According to a Crackpot

I’ve decided to try the impossible.

The seed for this idea came from Polygon. The site ran an article by which various staff members ranked their top ten movies for the decade. Naturally, that got me thinking about MY top ten films for the decade. Then I realized I hadn’t seen most Oscar winners, let alone enough movies to qualify to make a list. Then I realized I would have much, MUCH more than ten movies in my list.

Thus, I embarked on a madman’s dream. It involved crunching movie after movie after movie, then trying to hopelessly rank it on my list if I thought it was good enough. I missed my own deadline of New Year’s. Now, I am releasing this on my next deadline: The Oscars. Literally now, when they are already underway.

I hope you will read this list with some forgiveness in your hearts. Biting off more than you can chew doesn’t describe it. There are a whole host of movies I wanted to see before I made this list I haven’t gotten to and probably never will. There are many movies on this list I saw close to a decade ago and am trying to place in a ranking against pieces I just saw a few days ago. Oh, and I’m comparing across genres and types. What I’m trying to say is, this list is probably going to suck in a lot of ways.

With that being said, I really did try to rank the following to the very best of my ability. I racked my brains, racked them, and racked them again. Ultimately, I made my decisions from a whole host of criteria, ranging from everything from pacing, to various aspects of entertainment value, to complexity/themes, to cinematography. I tried to be objective as much as possible, but I also think that how much you like a movie should be considered a piece of criteria as well. After all, that’s primarily why we go to the movies; we want to have a good time. As such, expect to see a lot of science-fiction and animation of this list. In my defense, it was a great decade for each.

And now…without further ado…let me introduce…The Top 102 Films of the 2010’s, According to a Crackpot!

102. Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow

Starship Troopers meets Groundhog Day, Live Die Repeat is a well-executed mecha-battle movie with a wrinkle of time-travel tossed in for good measure.

101. Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet

It may not be as good as the original, but Wreck-It Ralph 2 makes the grade with some cunning swipes at internet culture, the world’s best worst Disney Princess song, and bittersweet revelations about what it means to be a true friend.

100. Mirai

Few films truly approach their story from a child’s perspective; but in tone, structuring, and imagination, Mirai lets us see again through young eyes. Director Mamoru Hosoda uses time travel as a vehicle for exploration of deeply personal familial relationships, and how they shape us into the people we become.

99. The Last Gold

The Last Gold is an unheralded little gem about a quartet of female US Olympic swimmers who found themselves competing in an impossibly frustrating and unfair situation; the 1976 Olympics. As East German swimmers swept podium after podium (with the aid of a systematic doping program), the US Women’s team faced intense public criticism, especially phenom Shirley Babashoff, who could have been the female Mark Spitz if not for the rampant cheating going on. Largely forgotten and regarded as a disappointment by the American public, The Last Gold illustrates the team as one worth remembering and dignifying; in particular, for their final, desperate effort at gold in the 4 x 100 m freestyle relay.

98. Mad Max: Fury Road

Pretty much nonstop surreal nutty action, Mad Max surely has some of the most creative and tricky stunts done in the past decade.

97. The Amazing Spiderman

Utterly forgotten in the wake of its more successful follow-ups (and predecessors, for that matter), The Amazing Spiderman is nonetheless a solid reboot of some well-worn material. The concept behind Spidey’s origin is well-thought out and original, and ties directly to an interesting villain who is more the victim of his own genius than the archetype evil megalomaniac.

96. Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange marks itself as unique among the various Marvel offerings by pondering nothing less than the meaning of life… and overloading us with psychedelic, Inception-esque imagery.

95. Concussion

Featuring a terrific and vocally unrecognizable Will Smith, Concussion asks not only some difficult questions about the country’s (and my own) favorite sport, but also some difficult questions about what it means to be an American.

94. The Big Sick

I’m not a big rom-com guy, but The Big Sick won me over by creating romantic tensions from realistic scenarios; in particular, the difficulties that arise from differences in race and religion. The film’s awkward sense of humor is well-incorporated, making this a funny movie as well as an intelligent one.

93. Bridesmaids

A funny movie about friendships and change (anchored by an excellently tragicomic Kristen Wiig), Bridesmaids showed the Judd Apatow formula could work on equal terms for the female sex.

92. 50/50

50/50 tackled the cancer movie with an unusual slant of good humor, and chased it down with heartfelt drama and good performances.

91. Hanna

In which a supergirl Saoirse Ronan (pre-fame and accolades) is honed into an assassin by her father so that she can kill a wicked, hammy CIA operative Cate Blanchett before the agency gets to her first. If you ever wanted to see a small girl beating thugs to death with her bare fists in the style of Jason Bourne, this one’s for you. Loads of fun, totally bananas, and dripping with cool.

90. Hunger Games

More or less a faithful adaptation of a literary bestseller, Hunger Games nonetheless deserves credit for doing the job right. The cinematics and ideas here are very nice for a teen blockbuster, and Jennifer Lawrence rightfully turned into a star for BEING Katniss Everdeen.

89. What We Do in the Shadows

Quirky, subversive, hilarious, and utterly “New Zealand”, What We Do in the Shadows made vampires and werewolves funny again…in a good way.

88. Icarus

An accidental documentary seemingly spurred on by fate, Icarus is about the creep of misinformation and deception into every aspect of our lives, even sports, by the unscrupulous and powerful.

87. Prometheus

A film I absolutely adored the first time around, but toned down my enthusiasm for with a more critical eye to detail. Nevertheless, Prometheus should be appreciated for its immense scale of ambition and huge open-ended philosophical questions; it should also be appreciated for throwing a veritable kitchen sink of full of campy horrors at its viewers, including a crazy autosurgery scene.

86. 10 Cloverfield Lane

10 Cloverfield Lane flies high on its simplicity. Three main actors, one small doomsday shelter, and loads of palm-sweating, stomach-clenching, double-guessing suspense. John Goodman, you so craaaaazy.

85. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Give J.K. Rowling credit for not making this a cynical cash grab; the writing in Fantastic Beasts is actually delightful. There is a strong balance here between the sweet magical whimsy going on and some dark, brooding commentaries on American society. A strong cast of endearing characters rounds out a very robust entry in the Harry Potter series.

84. How to Train Your Dragon II

A very good sequel to a classic, HTTYD II still provides the acrobatic, dragon-flying goods, even as it steers us into a troubling, thought-provoking battle between might and right, fixed circumstances and free will.

83. The Big Short

While Inside Job will always remain the definitive work on the maddening 2008 financial collapse, The Big Short is a strong effort featuring intimate inside perspectives of the actual people who did the dynamiting. A slick sense of humor and a celebrity all-star team intent on ripping Wall Street a new one makes this film a winner.

82. Captain America: Civil War

Cap: Civil War is noteworthy in that it makes civilian collateral damage the primary fulcrum and conflict of a superhero movie. It is also a bit of a “mini-Avengers” that successfully incorporates some slam dunk additions to the team; then pits them against each other.

81. Get Out

One of the decade’s cleverest and most ambitious horror flicks, Get Out shows how the sum of a million little microaggressions equates to something very ugly indeed.

80. The Hateful Eight

A slow-burner as far as Tarantino films go, The Hateful Eight is an interesting social play interspersed with exaggerated violence and profanity; a commentary on how our nation was forged in the fires of overcoming racial and societal differences.

79. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Catching Fire does what all good sequels aim to do; take the appealing constructs of the original film and pump them up on steroids. Everything the Hunger Games did, Catching Fire does bigger, badder, and better.

78. Big Hero 6

A weeaboo’s dream, a great superhero flick, and a gentle meditation upon loss and healthy grieving, Big Hero 6 is a very entertaining film with a big heart and a wonderfully plush-looking buddy robot.

77. Mary and the Witch’s Flower

Mary and the Witch’s Flower is a Studio Ghibli flick, helmed by Studio Ghibli animators…under a non- Ghibli studio. Here are all the familiar beats we love as viewers; the weird, wonderful setting (a school of sorcery for talented children), abuses on the natural world wrought by technology and ambition, and a delightfully ordinary red-headed girl who must think on her feet and grow if she is to survive. Harry Potter crossed with Miyazaki…who could ever resist that?

76. Avengers: Infinity War

The key to Infinity War’s successes is Thanos. The Mad Titan had been waiting in the shadows for most of MCU’s run during the past decade; in Infinity War, we finally see him in the formidable flesh. At once terrifying and tragic, Thanos is the most iconic villain of the 2010’s; a villain finally worth pitting an entire squad of heroes against, and perhaps, more than a match for all of them. The film’s shocking ending and willingness to go to darker places makes this movie MCU’s The Empire Strikes Back.

75. Alien: Covenant

Man, did Covenant get a bad rap. Audience members branded its characters stupid, its monsters unscary, and its premise a letdown from Prometheus. They were wrong on every count. The characters of Covenant act as normal explorers should; not as we, in all of our omniscient wisdom, should advise them to. The monsters are absolutely bloodcurdling; truly nasty, unrelenting creatures which are content to flay their victims alive if they cannot kill them outright. And the story did not answer many of Prometheus’s big questions because it was simply better and more interesting than that. I posit the reason Covenant was such a flop is not any failure on its part, but rather a failure of audiences’ openmindedness and tolerance for the macabre. Alien: Covenant is the best Alien movie since at least Aliens; a pitch-black, bordering on nihilistic tale of bad things happening to good people. It is also a successful conglomeration of the various qualities of Alien, Aliens, and Prometheus, and a fascinating cross-examination of an android who is too human for his own (or anybody’s) good.

74. The Shape of Water

Amélie meets The Swamp Thing, The Shape of Water is an odd, intriguing romantic Cold War thriller that celebrates those members of society who are ostracized, marginalized, or cast aside.

73. ParaNorman

Funny, scary, and important, Paranorman is a spooky, kid-friendly take on tolerance and the price of ignorance.

72. Gasland

By all practical accounts, Gasland is horrifying. This is a film that shows the surreal consequences of free-for-all fracking; water that can be set on fire, air pollution that exceeds 100x the safe limit for some toxins around fracking wells, and literal poisoning of wildlife and residents via breathing, drinking, and skin absorption. While all of this content would make for a great documentary, it is banjo-pickin’, easy-going filmmaker Josh Fox who makes this film even better. His heartfelt personal accounts and willingness to stand aside and let the victims speak for themselves gives this documentary a warmth and decency usually missing from such explosive exposés.

71. Wreck-It Ralph

A hilarious mash-up of video games and memorable arcade characters, Wreck-It Ralph manages to stay clever, hip, and inventive the whole way, even as it plays expertly off audience nostalgia.

70. Green Book

Thanks in large part to its pair of terrific leads, Green Book manages to be an uproariously entertaining road trip buddy movie; even as it brings to light the racial problems which existed (and continue to exist) in America.

69. Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Possibly the most Millennial film ever made, Scott Pilgrim is a busy, delicious barrage of video games, garage bands, pop culture references, and comics. Intricately detailed and gut-bustingly funny, Scott Pilgrim’s supply of visual gags and uber-referential one-liners is practically (turns 8 sideways on fridge) infinite.

68. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Winter Soldier is high-tier MCU. The electric superhero proceedings benefit from a deliciously twisty plot, and a surprising injection of sharp political commentary.

67. Dunkirk

One of the most viscerally intense PG-13 movies ever, Christopher Nolan’s war epic is a nightmarish tour-de-force that places viewers directly in enemy crosshairs. In typical Nolanian fashion, however, this is also high-brow, intellectually stimulating fare. There is not only the logistical puzzle at play of how to successfully evacuate 300,000 plus English soldiers from the French coast; Dunkirk understands warfare as a product of two extreme and opposite polarities of human nature. War cannot be waged without nasty, selfish streaks of human survival, as there will simply be no one left to fight it; neither can it be won without remarkable acts of courage and willing sacrifice.

66. Blackfish

Deeply troubling and disturbing, Blackfish shows what happens when you take the most intelligent and sensitive animals in the world besides us and confine them in a bathtub for their entire lives. A stirring call for respect for nature, and a long-running tally of SeaWorld’s sins, Blackfish is a must-see documentary.

65. Contagion

Contagion is one of the decade’s scariest films. After all, murdering mask-wearing lunatics and supernatural bumps in the night can be discounted as a trick behind the camera; but the boogeyman in Contagion almost assuredly exists, a nuke buried somewhere in the bosom of Mother Nature. If we blunder into it, God help us all. The film’s chilly, distant demeanor and scientific accuracy (Contagion gets bonus points for being the most scientifically accurate movie of all time) makes its depiction of a modern plague frighteningly plausible; its fixations on points of transfer are enough to convince anyone to wash their hands twice.

64. How to Train Your Dragon

One of the best movies to ever exit out the Dreamworks pipeline, HTTYD is an excellent parable about hate and jingoism, wrapped up in an exhilarating thrill ride that made us all want a Toothless of our own.

63. Restrepo

Restrepo is such a hard film to gauge. It doesn’t take aim at politics, or delve too deeply into the lives of its subjects; American soldiers in the Korangal Valley, Afghanistan. Restrepo is content to simply put us in their boots. Never has combat been so realistically brought to the American doorstep. In Restrepo, one can see the terror of death, the adrenaline hit of downing an enemy, the tomfoolery of kids messing around with one another in between bouts of fighting for their lives. This is the pure essence of modern war; in its DNA, one can see what so many directors of fiction have been trying to recapture in their work. Restrepo is a remarkable and dangerous accomplishment; an accomplishment that would eventually cost co-director Tim Hetherington his life while shooting a subsequent film in Libya.

62. Abominable

Dreamworks has been a rather lackluster studio in comparison to the rest of the industry. With that being said, it is more than capable of making great movies; and Abominable is right up there with the best the studio has ever made. This gorgeously made Asian-flavored film explores China as a meeting grounds of various philosophies; wealth and privilege versus working class, urban versus agrarian, East versus West, and how exploitation and cultural diffusion have reshaped life there. It is also simply a wonderful tale of an introverted girl who must travel to the Himalayas to deliver a magical yeti back to nature; and how that journey unlocks her ability to grieve and connect with others.

61. Winter’s Bone

Winter’s Bone is the movie that announced to the world that this Jennifer Lawrence person could act, I tell you h’what. This menacing coming-of-age journey through the Ozark drugscape shows the importance of family in such poor, isolated communities as something more than a cliché of hillbilly pride; it is actually a means to survival and redemption.

60. The Boy and the Beast

The Boy and the Beast can certainly be appreciated simply as a fantastical, colorful training/battle movie about an orphaned human boy and his cantankerous bear master. But it is as it dives deep into the complexity of the male mind that the film fascinates thematically and generates stirring emotional resonance. In particular, the film has something to say about the anger that can spur young men to violence, and the stabilizing force a mature male presence can have (but does not always have) on that anger. The benefits of fatherhood extend to father-figures as well, who become more emotionally aware and sensitive, and gain deeper meaning and fulfillment in their lives. Hosoda is truly one of the best directors working in animation today, and The Boy in the Beast is typically intelligent, thematically dense work from him.

59. The King’s Speech

A feel-good film done with classical style, The King’s Speech is an elegant, touching tale of friendship that will surely play well among lovers of The Royal Family.

58. The Artist

Thanks to rich visual storytelling and fantastic performances, this pre-talkie throwback hardly needs words to delight.

57. The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Isao Takahata’s final film The Tale of Princess Kaguya feels like a beautiful pastel picture book brought to life. At once a fable of ruinous greed, classism, and sexism, it is also a haunting soliloquy of love, nature, freedom, beauty, and death…all that makes life precious.

56. Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings makes me mad. Not because it is a bad film; far from it. I am angry because Kubo had everything going for it. It had big-name actors, it had effects which pushed stop-motion to its limits, it had a big marketing push in theaters to push viewership, it had great critical reviews. It was supposed to be Studio Laika’s crown jewel; the film that would win big at the box office and thrust the studio of perennial indie hits like Coraline and Paranorman into well-deserved limelight. And it was good. Like, really good!

Unfortunately, Kubo and the Two Strings flopped at the box office, for reasons I cannot imagine nor articulate in polite company. But it will get its due here; Kubo is a stop-motion masterpiece with rich, resonant themes and ground-breaking visual effects. It also has a rendition of “My Guitar Gently Weeps” on a Japanese samisen. So go see the damn thing.

55. The Wind Rises

We might be getting another Miyazaki film after all, but The Wind Rises was a fantastic send-off piece for anime’s most legendary director. This is a truly complex, mature film about the relation of beauty and art to woe and suffering, and a critical examination of the tunnel vision that often grips great artists.

54. Knives Out

A classic whodunit tweaked for the modern era, Knives Out balances its twisty mystery proceedings with some well-timed black humor and more than a few pokes at the wealthy elite.

53. Inside Job

A carefully researched and scathingly delivered incrimination of the greed that ruined a nation, Inside Job is one of the best documentaries of the era.

52. Hugo

A wondrous, Dickensian-tale of an orphan who lives in a Paris train station and discovers the secret of a mysterious automaton, Hugo is an intelligent, sensitive family picture and a touching love letter to early cinema.

51. Moonlight

Being different is hard, as I can say from firsthand experience. While I can hardly imagine what it is to be African-American or gay, let alone both at once, Moonlight offers some glimpse into that difficult reality. The film’s touching love story is a journey of self-acceptance and courage that is well worth seeing.

50. Tangled

Tangled was Disney’s announcement to the rest of the field that it was back, baby. After a period of shaky and poorly thought-out 3-D projects in the early 2000’s, Disney took a long, hard look at itself and identified what it did best, then brought out the best of those qualities in its witty, triumphant take on Rapunzel. Here are the songs, guffaws, villains, and magic we all love as fans, delivered perfectly into the next dimension.

49. Source Code

Groundhog Day via sci-fi thriller, Source Code is a clever, action-packed take on time travel, but also an emotionally investing take on what it means to live each day-and life-to the fullest.

48. Toy Story 4

Rarely has a sequel piece ever seemed as risky as Toy Story 4. The studio had its closing piece in Toy Story 3; a film I thought was respectable but not particularly interesting. But rather than let sleeping dogs lie, Pixar opted to throw that ending in the garbage…and pulled something far more bizarre and wonderful from the trash. Toy Story 4 is a wacky, existential riff that acknowledges the importance of family and responsibility in our lives, while simultaneously declaring that it is okay to value ourselves outside those traditional parameters.

47. Arrival

Arrival is hard science-fiction done exceedingly right. Depicting an extraterrestrial visitation across the globe, Arrival seems truly tangible in a way most alien films do not, down to the very form of its decidedly non-humanoid creatures. In vein of Contact or Interstellar, Arrival picks the brain and heartstrings with equal acumen, making it a lasting and valuable commodity to anyone’s sci-fi library.

46. Spiderman: Homecoming

Spiderman: Homecoming is the geekiest of Spiderpieces. This is the Spiderman where Spiderman is Go-Pro-ing himself before a big battle, or joining a quiz bowl team, or building a Lego Death Star with his nerdy confidante, complete with miniature Lego Palpatine. Light, refreshing, and utterly hilarious, Homecoming gets a lot of mileage out of Tom Holland’s awesome portrayal, and tells a simple, uncomplicated story that doesn’t impede the shenanigans.

45. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2

Audiences were expecting a fireworks show for Deathly Hallows: Part II, and boy did they get one. A terrifically exciting heist sequence and a grand final battle made this the most epic and exciting entry in the Harry Potter canon. The culmination of carefully laid character arcs and sentimental links back to the series’ early days had fans smiling through their tears and punching their tickets to Platform 9 ¾ again and again. A splendidly satisfying sendoff.

44. Skyfall

Apparently, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Skyfall brought Bond into the new decade in style, modernizing and sharpening all its facets while remaining, yes, Bond. James Bond.

43. Argo

Argo is a rock-solid retelling of a tense CIA extraction op, hitched to the allure and wonder of good old-fashioned movie making.

42. Free Solo

Free Solo is a marvelous documentary, and I mean that quite literally. Marvel at the jaw-dropping heights depicted, marvel at the logistical challenges of filming a free climber without killing or distracting them (which would mean the same thing). But most of all, marvel at the huge cojones of subject Alex Honnold, as he attempts to climb the world’s largest rock wall; without the life-saving grace of a rope. As a thrill act, Free Solo is visceral and terrifying. But as a character study, it is equally fascinating. The same things which make Honnold such a one in a billion talent are the same things which cripple him emotionally and socially. Watching Honnold slowly start to conquer these own personal obstacles-even as he prepares for the physical obstacle of his life-is a truly satisfying experience.

41. The Lego Movie

Endlessly imaginative and hilariously subversive, The Lego Movie is not only a worthy standard-bearer of its iconic toy brand, but also a glorious celebration of creativity and free expression.

40. Snowpiercer

I’m gonna describe Snowpiercer using single word describers. Okay? Hilarious. Bloody. Ambitious. Tragic. Exhilarating. Revolutionary. F***ing insane. Okay, that last one was two words. How about amazing? Yeah. Amazing works. This dystopian satirical piece is a mad thrill ride on a runaway train through an environmentally wrecked world, and it is one of the craziest things I’ve ever loved in my life.

39. Moneyball

This movie is a sports genre gamechanger about a sports genre gamechanger; that is, the “Moneyball” strategy that forever changed the world of baseball evaluation. Watched purely on the terms of its baseball X’s and O’s, Moneyball succeeds. However, it is the tale of lovable loser Billy Beane, and the film’s assertion that winning comes second to loving yourself, that really turns this hit into a home run.

38. The Social Network

As eccentric and brilliant as its central genius, The Social Network depicts the synthesis of Facebook as an unflattering mirror for the site itself; that it is often driven by negative emotions of inadequacy, jealousy, and loneliness, and serves as a proxy for the real social interactions we require for fulfillment and happiness. Slickly edited, funny, and smart, this is one of the most iconic and generational films of the decade.

37. Gravity

The opening few minutes of Gravity is one of the most intense movie scenes not only of this decade, but of all time. From there, the tension just barely relents. Suspenseful and tightly-spun as a space survival story, Gravity is also a technical marvel which redefined zero-G cinema forever; and made us eternally thankful we are safely on the ground.

36. Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a ground-level view of poverty and climate change in the Mississippi River Delta region, seen through the eyes of a child. Quvenzhané Wallis brings her role to life with an incredible child performance, and lends this work a sense of deep intimacy and emotional resonance, even as it grasps at themes which are national to global in scale.

35. Incredibles 2

Incredibles 2 is one of Pixar’s best ever sequels. Here are the same witty, relatable family dynamics we fell in love with in Incredibles 1; but the superhero shenanigans have been one-upped and then some. In fact, Incredibles 2 has the best action sequences I have ever seen in a 3-D animated film. Add in a smart ideological battle between the current age’s (perhaps correct) cold cynicism and yesterday’s quixotic beliefs, and you have one of the best superhero movies ever, as well as a film that arguably beats out its OG.

34. Guardians of the Galaxy

I admit that from the film’s opening credits, where Chris Pratt canters across an alien planet to “Come and Get Your Love” and utilizes a scurrying lizard creature as his own personal microphone, that I was sold on Guardians of the Galaxy. This is one of those rare works like Shrek or Princess Bride that simultaneously skewers and elevates its genre; in this case, the old-timey B-movie science-fiction flick. A riotously funny movie that just doesn’t give a (expletive), Guardians of the Galaxy is also surprisingly poignant when it chooses to draw its eclectic bunch of outlaws into an impromptu family. This is absolutely one of the best films in the MCU.

33. Coco

A gorgeous, vibrant love letter to Mexico full of zesty music, Coco has some big things to say about art and its link to memory, and how exploitation can tarnish its beauty. Pixar has once again illustrated a remarkable ability to craft a world utterly original and believable in its own rich details and machinations; a world which sets a grand stage for its intimate story. It has also once again illustrated an ability to make us all cry our eyes out. Curse you, Pixar!

32. Her

The film that made a romance between an artificial intelligence and Joaquin Phoenix work somehow, Her is a thoughtful and sensitive film that expands our definition of love to encompass all levels of intimacy and circumstance. It is also, to my knowledge, the most gentle and hopeful AI movie ever made, and it deserves commendation for that.

31. Spotlight

Spotlight is a black hole. This film about the Boston Globe’s reporting on the Catholic Church’s coverup of child molestations by priests starts off slowly, then sucks you in more and more, gathering its mass until you are crushed under all the weight of deception, apathy, pain, and despair. I suppose this is also a strong allegory for the value of reporting or something like that, but frankly, I was too upset for most of the film’s duration to notice. As a lifelong Catholic, Spotlight made me feel utterly betrayed and angry; not only at the Church, but also at myself for sleeping at the wheel. This simply cannot happen again.

30. Citizenfour

Citizenfour qualifies as arguably the most important film of the decade. Laura Poitras’s documentary on government informant Edward Snowden is an intellectual horror flick; full of deserved paranoia, stunning overreaches of executive power, and spooky mirrors to the Orwellian nightmare of 1984. Citizenfour reveals how the alluring promise of the internet has betrayed us, and provided a means to the exponential surveillance of everyone in our supposedly free Western society.

29. Marvel’s The Avengers

Avengers seemed like a fantasy project when it was announced. How could anybody hope to make a movie about not one superhero, not two superheroes, but a whole team of them, without sacrificing narrative coherence, without losing sight of the big personalities at play? Joss Whedon proved such an all-star game could be possible, and somehow, work synergistically. This is one of the biggest popcorn movies ever, and it changed the expectations for superhero flicks towards bigger, grander, better. The success of Avengers also established MCU as the defining franchise of the 2010’s; and perhaps, beyond.

28. Inception

Inception’s script took Christopher Nolan 10 years to tweak, and watching the film you can believe it. This is a 3-D maze of a caper/heist movie, in which dreams form the substance of worlds stacked atop one another. It is a devilishly tricky exercise, but one that is done with the greatest precision and execution. Featuring impressive and trippy set-pieces, one of the generation’s best femme fatales, massively cerebral ideas, eerie atmosphere, and an insidious sense of ambiguity, Inception kept me awake for quite some time after I watched it at two in the morning.

27. Room

Focusing on a kidnapped mother and her young son Jack, who has only known captivity, Room could have been a very dark movie. Instead, it chooses to tack a different route; how do we survive trauma, both its initial effects and its aftermath, and triumph over it?

The film is sold by Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. Larson deservingly won an Oscar for her role; Tremblay’s performance is the best child performance I have ever seen. Together, they create a mother-son relationship that is utterly real and compelling. The film is also noteworthy for its camerawork, which is used very effectively to suggest changes in Jack’s worldview as he grows older.

26. Django Unchained

Brash, bold, and unapologetic, Django Unchained is a gloriously socially-conscious revenge fantasy. Featuring buckets of blood and Wild West shoot ‘em up gunfights against Klansmen and slave-holders, the film charts the course of a former slave on his way to rescue his sweetheart from the clutches of a diabolical slave owner.

25. Lincoln

Thanks to yet another star turn from acting legend Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln is a witty and warm biopic of one of our greatest presidents. It is also a glimmer of encouragement during the political gridlock and dysfunction of the early 2010’s. Rather than proving democracy does not work, Lincoln seems to argue, such issues are actually a sign of a functioning and healthy democracy. Our ability to disagree strongly with one another and come to imperfect compromises in order to solve our problems is our country’s greatest legacy. It was also the means to the passing of our noblest and most overdue piece of legislation: The 13th Amendment.

24. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor is, for me, the best documentary of the decade. Focusing on the extraordinary Mr. Fred Rogers, the film does a great job of humanizing Mr. Rogers; revealing his insecurities, relentless drive, and sly sense of humor (often through dream-like Daniel Tiger animated sequences) while demonstrating that yes, he really was that good of a person. As it progresses, the film grows increasingly melancholic and encompassing. The qualities Mr. Rogers stood for-namely, understanding, love, honesty, and respect-seem sorely lacking in today’s society. Even more distressingly, it would seem the saintly Rogers was beginning to have his own doubts about his life’s work as the cruelty and hate of the 21st century emerged in full on 9/11. Won’t You Be My Neighbor expresses human goodness as something fragile which must be fostered and prioritized by all of us if Mr. Rogers’ message is to mean something in our modern world.

23. Moana

Moana’s audiovisuals are off the charts amazing. The lush tropical landscapes and utterly lifelike oceans make this the most graphically impressive 3-D animated work I’ve ever seen. The soundtrack, partially composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, stands as one of Disney’s best all time. But it is Moana herself, the titular princess, who stands as the film’s greatest game-changer. Realistically proportional, of Pacific Islander descent, and strong enough to carry a story without a love interest, Moana is a refreshingly modern character utterly in command of her own destiny. Add in a rich story steeped in Polynesian culture and veined with environmental undertones, and you get the new high bar for the Disney Princess Movie.

22. The Breadwinner

The Breadwinner is a testament that must be heard. Adapted by Cartoon Saloon from Deborah Ellis’s excellent book of the same name, the movie is a street-level account of Parvana, a young girl who goes undercover as a boy to feed her family in Taliban-era Afghanistan. The conditions portrayed are nearly unimaginable; imagine being a prisoner in your own home, only let out for reprieve under the supervision of a male guardian. Such was the reality of thousands of women and girls in Kabul as late as 2001. Cartoon Saloon drenches this film in a constant, lingering fear; at the same time, normalcy is depicted and triumphed. Siblings still squabble. Clothes are still washed, meals are still cooked and eaten, water is still fetched. Stories are still told. The Breadwinner is not just Parvana’s tale; it is the voice of the thousands who live in war-torn or oppressive societies worldwide, and yet still make their own brand of normalcy, still form expression and find joy. Their daily survival is an inspiration to us all; their story is to glimpse the resiliency and spark of the human spirit.

21. A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place is one of the most auspicious debuts I can remember. First time director John Krasinki makes his creature feature a masterwork of tension and clever sound editing, and crafts an indelible world where so much as a pin dropping puts everyone on pins and needles.

20. Inside Out

Pixar’s peek inside a child’s mind is a work of the utmost intelligence and sensitivity. Intuitive enough for even the youngest viewers to understand, yet nuanced enough to describe the transition of a human consciousness from child to adult with painful clarity, Inside Out is one of the studio’s very best features, and a strong defense of mental health and self-expression.

19. Your Name

For so long, director Makoto Shinkai was an exercise in frustration. 5 Centimeters Per Second was gorgeous. Garden of Words was the most visually stunning 2-D animation I had ever seen. And yet the writing was pedantic. The plot was tepid, the characters flat. I would watch these films, eye candy at its most pure and non-nutritional, and seethe that they were not better, that all that glorious potential was yet unrealized. And yet, I never stopped believing in the potential of Makoto Shinkai. One day, I reasoned, this guy was going to piece a story together with some semblance of care as he did his illustrations, and on that day something special would be born.

I saw Your Name just a short time ago. Of course it’s jaw-droppingly beautiful, that goes without saying. But here’s what else it is, folks: it’s funny. It’s heartwrenching. It’s suspenseful. It’s got plot twists. It’s got a story. And not just a good story, but a GREAT one.

I imagine watching this movie must be like watching your kid graduate high school. You forget all the mouthing off and dirty socks left all over the place and that fender bender with your new car, and just soak in the glow of that special moment you always believed would come. You couldn’t be happier. You couldn’t be prouder. And you know this is the beginning of something truly wonderful.

Congratulations, Mr. Shinkai. You did it, man.

18. Interstellar

The knock on Christopher Nolan was always that he had the heart of a robot and didn’t have strong female characters. Debate whether that is true of his other films, if you must; but not this one, because Interstellar is possibly the biggest tear-jerker in sci-fi history, and Jessica Chastain’s Murph is a bitter, brilliant centerpiece to it all. Interstellar stands tall as one of the best science-fiction films of the decade. It has strong, ambitious science wrapped in glorious visual effects, and is very quietly a solid piece of Americana, lovingly arrayed amidst America’s cornfields and dusty roads in a tribute to The Great Depression. Most of all, however, Interstellar is a wondrous joining of heart and intellect, a working theoretical thought experiment that demonstrates love is a force greater than gravity, space, time, or any other cosmic entity the universe may foist upon us.

17. The Force Awakens

While it is not number one on my list, perhaps no film brought me greater joy this decade than watching The Force Awakens during its Thursday night premiere. It was nothing less than the very Star Wars movie I had hoped and dreamed for as a kid. As a massively entertaining blockbuster surpassing huge expectations, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is terrific. As a perfect passing of torch from beloved old to promising new, it is an utter triumph.

16. Rogue One

Okay, is my bias showing yet?

Perhaps this is a bit steep for some people, but heck, when you are dealing with the second-best movie in one of Hollywood’s most beloved franchises, you have to give props where props are due. Rogue One is such a gamechanger for Star Wars. Its gritty, pulpy sense of realism seems peeled straight from a Star Wars comic book; its characters immediately strike as memorable, particularly K-2SO, who is like C-3PO if C-3PO got sent to prison and came back jacked. Rogue One also is important for its many departures from tradition. Many of the innovations credited to Episode VIII were done first-and done better-in this film. Rogue One is not afraid to show the rebellion in terms of moral gray; a shocking act shortly after the film’s opening establishes this and destroys the previous model of basic black and white good vs. evil. If Luke, Leia, and Han got to play the part of hero in A New Hope, then it was because there were elements in the Rebellion doing the dirty and morally-questionable grunt work shown here; Rogue One shows how the war was won.

Rogue One also introduces a few other themes riffed heavily by Episode VIII, including the idea that the Rebellion/Resistance is not a neat, idealistic counter to oppression but an uneasy conglomerate ravaged by internal conflict, and that force-sensitive people are not necessarily the product of hereditary chains of Jedi and Sith, but often sporadic and independent products of the Force. It is, on top of what it initiated, simply a well-paced and superbly-crafted piece of space opera. Rogue One has the best romance (besides Han and Leia) in Star Wars history, has hands-down THE BEST Vader scene ever filmed and another that is a classic in its own right, and has one heck of a villain in Director Krennic. Krennic is one of those mid-level bureaucrats that must have always existed for the Empire but which never received such deserved attention before; his position of weakness, coupled with burning ambition, makes him a hilariously pathetic figure, one you might begin to feel bad for were he not such a nasty piece of work. Even the soundtrack is great. Rogue One is a war film, and Michael Giacchino of Medal of Honor fame makes this sound like a war film, even though it also sounds very much like Star Wars. Ultimately, that’s what Rogue One is. It is a Star Wars film that manages to be a war film and everything else it wants to be terrifically well. To hell with it. I’m putting it this high. If you have a problem with Rogue One being the #16 movie on my list, you can go kiss a wampa’s backside.

15. Roma

Like its protagonist-a nanny to a wealthy family in 1970’s era Mexico-Roma is a film of marvelous patience and understated strength. Alfonso Cuarón’s otherworldly composition and autobiographical authenticity makes this movie a deeply complex take on class and gender, as well as a heartbreaking meditation on what it means to love and be part of a family.

14. Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

Spiderverse was such a brilliant reimagination of what the superhero genre could be. Not only did it break convention by featuring an African-Hispanic-American kid as its protagonist; it prismed a classic Marvel character in danger of going stale into a delightful and zany spectrum. At once funny as hell and a poignant portrait of growing up as a minority in America, Spiderverse isn’t just the great animated Spiderman movie that nobody saw coming; it’s one of the best superhero movies ever made.

13. Baby Driver

Baby Driver is the coolest movie of the decade. The film centers around Baby, a gentle young getaway driver locked up in bad deals with bad hombres, motoring through traffic and criminal plots in an attempt to just get out and get his girl; but it is so much more than that. This is Tarantino, juiced up on Bullitt, playing in time to a nonstop eclectic jukebox. The dialogue is sharp and hilarious, the characters are all immediately memorable and lovable (even the baddies), and it should go without saying that the car chases are PHENOMENAL. This is entertainment on nitrous oxide.

12. Lady Bird

I did not go into Lady Bird expecting great things. Lady Bird is a family drama. I, for the record, do not like family dramas. But I liked this one. I liked this one a heck of a lot.

Lady Bird is told with so much humor and honesty about the mistakes we make as kids and parents. Struggles for independence and control, respectively, fuel furious arguments and alienation during the difficult period of adolescence. It is not until later that we gain the wisdom to understand why we fought and gain a richer understanding and appreciation of one another’s feelings. In Lady Bird, there is a key revelation regarding the girl and her mother that seems to unfold at the film’s close. It is a profound and emotionally resonant moment that brings the film around to a highly satisfying conclusion.

This movie is also one of the first “time capsule” pieces on the early 2000’s. As we grow older, I would expect more of these films to emerge, but as of right now Lady Bird is the only one that comes to mind. The film absolutely nails the sense of growing up in a troubled time; the Iraq War blares constantly on the news, full-time employment becomes a tenuous prospect no matter how qualified you are, and gay rights are still something very much in infancy. Lady Bird plays out its teenage struggles against this backdrop, showing how such crises were navigated, albeit painfully sometimes, and overcome. Few films have been so well-rounded, nuanced, and well-crafted this decade.

11. Song of the Sea

If you are unaware of the name Tomm Moore, it may be time to become acquainted, as the guy has been killing animation since he first stepped onto the scene with Secret of Kells in 2009. It is no exaggeration to call him the Irish Miyazaki; and Song of the Sea his Spirited Away. Like that film, there is a deeply human story to be told, but it is all dressed up in fantastical trappings. In Spirited Away, a girl struggling to grow up found herself working in a spirit bathhouse. Song of the Sea uses Irish mythology as a gateway to understand the deep and complicated love between siblings, and the necessity of expressing and sharing loss.

This is one of the most beautiful animated pictures this decade. Were the framed stills not hundreds of dollars on Cartoon Saloon’s website (yes, I’ve looked at them), I would probably own at least a few by now. The animation style is so distinctive and innately appealing, with gentle watercolors that soothe and invite the mind. The Celtic musical arrangements are similarly intricate, wonderful, and soothing. Together, story, art, and music come together, and work some deep and affecting magic on the soul. Song of the Sea should be regarded as one of the best animated films this decade.

10. Sicario

Sicario is an utterly bleak, magnificent film that truly depicts the drug war as it is; a chaotic maelstrom of murder, torture, and corruption, spinning and spinning with no end in sight. In such a storm, there is no moral high ground to claim, let alone hold. There is only power to control which direction the storm is heading next, whom it will chew up and devour in its path. And as for the powerless, the best they can hope for is to stay out of its way. Sicario is a sharp critique of American drug policy and a stark glimpse into the grim reality of cartels, packaged perfectly as an ultra-violent thriller.

9. Looper

It is hard to do a time travel story well. Managing plot threads makes plots a nightmare; it is a difficult juggling act merely to keep one’s head above water. That is what makes Looper so special. It is not only a cool-looking, cyberpunk-flavored noir that manages its logic very well; it also features great characters, and larger overarching themes of fate and redemption it advances via those same logistical acrobatics. Looper blew my mind the first time I saw it. It is easily one of the best time travel stories ever, and a sci-fi classic to boot.

8. Blade Runner 2049

It is going to ruffle some feathers to say this, but I think Blade Runner 2049 is even better than the original Blade Runner. While Ridley Scott’s dark, smoggy Los Angeles will always be iconic, Blade Runner 2049 had Roger Deakins behind the camera, and he took us to sections of our nightmarish future we had never been before. Patterns of solar farms set up outside of town to feed swathes of humanity. A post-apocalyptic landfill outside of town for the city’s forsaken. Best of all, a neon-orange radioactive Las Vegas. That seems to be the common theme of 2049. It has taken all the best features of Ridley’s classic and expanded them while trimming down the less successful elements. The defining theme of Blade Runner-what makes us human-is here expounded upon and taken to even deeper levels. And the film’s beautiful ending brings the franchise to a truly satisfying conclusion.

7. Zootopia

Zootopia feels like Disney’s final evolution. The cute critters from its primordial past have fully anthropomorphized, to the point that they must contend with some of the same societal ills as us; chief among them prejudice. Visually gorgeous, full of top-notch tongue-in-cheek gags, and the slickest, most concise cartoon buddy cop riff since at least Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Zootopia counts as one of the most finely crafted animated features I’ve ever seen. Its timely message, coupled with its fantastic quality and outreach potential to the young, makes it one of those rare movies that can change the world.

6. Ex Machina

Ex Machina is one of the most finely-tuned and lean films science-fiction has to offer. In the age of growing research into artificial intelligence, it is also vastly important. Many films have explored the issues associated with artificial intelligence, but few have so fully delved into the ethical quagmires which might arise. Creating new minds means accepting responsibility for the lives of welfare of other beings. Are we prepared to do such a thing? We, who are constantly waging war and victimizing one another? Also, if we are so morally limited, how can we avoid passing on negative traits to our digital children, who will be vastly more powerful and intelligent than us? What if they think differently than us? The possibility of misunderstandings would be catastrophic for both parties.

Ex Machina explores all of these issues with deep intelligence and building tension. This film is one of those beautifully ambiguous works I love so much that require you to pay attention and come to your own conclusions. The primary question in the film asked of the characters is the same one the film asks you: is Ava, the artificial intelligence in question, essentially human? For me, the question was left unanswered until the final, remarkable, tragic shot.

5. The Revenant

Bloody as hell and absolutely gorgeous, The Revenant is a deep plunge into our primal hearts, into the remarkable human invention of identity. At the most fundamental level, we are all the same species; we share the same roots, the same trunk. Yet by means of our human experiences, our courses of life and interactions with other humans, we draw deep fundamental lines between one another. These lines are powerful things. They are what we see ourselves as. We draw lines of genetic heritage; lines of cultures born into, or adopted. Lines brand certain people as friends, while others remain strange or alien. Sometimes, lines can even define people as something hostile; a new species which may destroy us if it is not destroyed in turn. And there are lines which describe the people we call our families; those whom we love and protect at the most fundamental level of our being.

The Revenant draws attention to the lines we draw as human beings; how they are as deeply ingrained to us as breathing or bleeding, for better, and for worse. Aided by director Alejandro Iñárritu’s magnificent direction, and anchored by Leonardo DiCaprio, who has never been better in his storied career, The Revenant is a deep, uncompromising gaze into our personal and national Heart of Darkness.

4. Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty became the unfortunate victim of warring politics. Right-wingers decried the portrayal of torture in the movie, while leftists criticized the movie’s account of torture supposedly supplying the correct information (Director Kathryn Bigelow acknowledged to Stephen Colbert her lead, being from the CIA, might be untrustworthy on that particular facet but she was operating with accuracy to her source). That is all a shame, because such criticism misses the point of the movie entirely. Zero Dark Thirty is made in the spirit of true and utter neutrality. There is no political axe to grind. There is no glorification in the act of Bin Laden’s death; in fact, the face of America’s most notorious terrorist is never shown. Zero Dark Thirty is a work of national recollection. It begins with a deeply painful call to authorities on 9/11, and does not end until Bin Laden’s assassination over 9 years later. In between, there is torture, bombings, false leads and frustrations, hours upon hours of poring over data and entries, and finally, that fateful, dangerous foray into Pakistan. We are reintroduced to each of our own actions through the eyes of Maya, the CIA agent who supposedly made the case that it was in fact Bin Laden hiding in Abbottabad. At the end of Zero Dark Thirty, the movie adds up that long tally of what we sacrificed in order to defeat our greatest enemy and posits a simple question: was it worth it? Each will have their own answer to that difficult and important question. This is one of those rare films that forces us to review our path as a nation, examine what we did right and what we did wrong, and adjust our trajectory accordingly. Zero Dark Thirty is an essential American masterpiece, crafted by a true and powerful auteur at the top of her game.

3. The Raid 2: Berandal

The Raid: Redemption was a revelation in what could be attempted in a martial arts movie. Its creators decided that wasn’t enough and upped the ante. What ensued was the madness of Berandal.

The stuntwork of Berandal has to be seen to be believed. Some participants were knocked out cold; it is amazing nobody was killed. It is doubtful something like this will ever (or should ever) be attempted again, so we may as well enjoy it. There are car chases, assassins affectionately known as “Bat Boy” and “Hammer Girl”, simply loads and loads of fantastic martial arts combat, and more. But in between all this ruckus, there is a compelling gangster story to be told, populated with fascinating characters. A son looking to take over and dangerously expand his father’s influence; a creepy rival leader who cheerfully pulls out razors for throat-slitting; a sad, old-timer assassin who confesses to his daughter that killing was the only way to provide for her; an informant, caught in the middle of the maelstrom and sweating out the possibility that he will be discovered and never make it back to his young family; and of course, Hammer Girl. She’s my favorite.

In The Raid: Redemption, character Mad Dog talked about the pulse. Berandal is that pulse, fully transposed into brutal, symbolic symphony, in which the façade of civilization and negotiations between thugs break down into savage, unbridled violence. This is the best action movie ever, and the Indonesian Godfather, all rolled into one.

2. Avengers: Endgame

No list of top films of the decade would be complete without Avengers: Endgame. It’s the biggest blockbuster in history; and for once, that title is deserved. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before; indeed, it may be hard to do ever again. Facing 1 in 14 million odds, the Russo brothers pulled off a miracle, wasting not a moment in a three hour movie that never feels long and completing the arcs of over a dozen beloved characters, en route to a final and wholly satisfying conclusion to the most ambitious film project ever attempted. If that wasn’t enough, there are more than enough in-jokes, clever riffs on past movies, and sensational action pieces to please even the most critical fan. Avengers: Endgame is the closest to pure catharsis you can feel, and without a doubt the best superhero movie ever made. I confess that I moved it back and forth between #1 and #2 on my list at least a few times; ultimately I left it at #2, with the compromise that even if it cannot be called the best movie of the decade, it will forever be known as THE film of the decade.

1. Wolf Children

Wolf Children is one of those movies you come across that can only be described as magical. As a simple tale of motherhood, it succeeds. As a complex allegory for race and adolescence, it works equally well. It can be shown to the young. It can be shown to the old. It can be shown to all in between. It is sublimely beautiful, patient, and paced. It is excellently scored. It has some of the most fully-realized characters ever depicted in animation. It is warm. It is gentle. It is funny. It is sad. It is life; in all its unpredictability, twists and turns, and wonder.

But I think the reason I truly love Wolf Children is because it engages with the two most difficult and important aspects of being a good, healthy, happy human; how do I love others, and how do I love myself? Wolf Children shows us a truly rapturous example. For being the most beautiful movie, both inside and out, I have seen this past decade, and for a whole host of other reasons, Wolf Children deserves to top this list. Truly, it is Alpha Wolf.

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