#infinity train marcel

[mmikmmik2]

Book Two of Infinity Train constructs the passenger-denizen relationship as a metaphor for gender essentialism, in a form that especially reminded me of complementarianism.

To briefly explain my layperson's understanding of complementarianism: this is a theological/spiritual belief (I'm only familiar with it existing in fundamentalist Christianity, though it could exist in other religions) that men and women were created with fundamentally different natures because they are intended for different divine purposes. You see, it is the feminists who are truly anti-woman, because they think it is demeaning for a woman to be owned like property by her father or husband for her entire life, when actually that is God's sacred purpose for all women.

Although this exact formulation of gender relations is pretty extreme, and I think the actual beliefs are more specific and elaborate than I'm describing them here, a lot of the basic premises of complementarianism are widespread. Ideas like: At birth, everyone is assigned one of two genders, which corresponds to a fundamental existential difference in who they are and which traits are the most admirable/aspirational for them. In a romantic and/or marital partnership, there is a certain role for the man and a certain role for the woman. Men exist to do things and women exist to help them.

From The Black Market Car:

One-One: But always remember there are lots of denizens along the way to help you on your journey.

From The Mall Car:

Simon: You two are only as good as you are useful.

From The Number Car:

One-One: You're exactly where you're supposed to be. [...] No, you'll stay and keep helping. You're so good at it.

Can you see it? It's the idea that denizens, and Lake specifically, are supposed to be helpful to passengers. It keeps coming up over and over. Something that didn't even exist for Lake until they befriended Jesse - like because the two have a relationship with each other, Lake is suddenly defined in terms of relation to him, in a way that is deeply dehumanizing and opposed to the actual real bond the two of them share that exists outside of the passenger/denizen false dichotomy.

From The Map Car:

Marcel: One person guides. One person follows. It's a system. It's great.

This is the part that reads the strongest to me as about complementarianism specifically rather than just gender essentialism in general.

From The Lucky Cat Car:

Randall: Passengers get preferential treatment because they have a greater need to exit the car.

Jesse and Grace automatically getting more points than Lake at the fair is a super obvious reference to the wage gap, especially since One-One specifically brings up the wage gap later. I think Randall's comment here is a reference to the idea of the breadwinner - the conceptualization of the husband as needing to earn a wage that can support their entire household while the wife takes care of the kids.

I think it's pretty obvious how the gender essentialism interpretation of the passenger/denizen stuff lends itself to queer readings of Lake's character arc, and especially a trans/nonbinary reading. I mean, this season isn't about Lake being like "I hate the expectations that are put on me as a denizen", it's about them literally not being a denizen and literally escaping from the denizen/passenger relationship forever.

#infinity train #lake it #this is one of the reasons 'the mirror world is a train construct and isn't real' has fallen out of my favor #even though i love how existentially terrible that would be

[artbyblastweave]

A Theory about the Docent (infinity train book 4 spoilers

I want to talk about this guy.

(Image ID: A picture of the Docent, from book 4 of infinity train- a tripedal ape-like monster made of knitted-together severed human arms, lurking in an art gallery.)

The Docent was the standout villian of book 4, on all levels. Best design, best dramatic scene, knocked it out of the park in terms of sheer what-the-fuckery.

 But I've seen a lot of speculation about what the hell it actually is- what its intended role on the train is, whether it's native to that car at all, whether it's something Amelia created or something One made. I've been kicking it around a lot, and I've come to the conclusion that the Docent may have been intended to explore an aspect of the train that previous seasons touched on with Lake's story in particular, but didn't develop in full.

Long, Long analysis under the cut. Largely without pictures! Book 4 is too new for there to be a wealth of screencaps. Sorry about that

So the first big question surrounds the legitimacy of the Docent- whether it even belongs to the art gallery or if it's a foreign element like when a Ghom sneaks onto a car.

The main thing indicating something's wrong with it is the sheer violence implied by the fact it's made up with hands with numbers- but when you move beyond that grotesquery, it does seem to be native to the gallery car. There's a sign acknowledging its presence, and it follows an ironic logic; if you touch the art, it comes out of the art, touches you back, robs you of what you used to interfere with the art. On paper, it tracks as the sort of concept One would come up with.

But many of the specific details of it's behavior don't quite mesh with the car it's in, or the overall "rules" of the train.

For a car that's themed around taking your time and exploring all the angles, The Docent introduces a weird time pressure. Ryan trying to use the paintings as a portal is intuitive, and very in line with the kind of thinking the car is trying to encourage. Just touching the paintings is something most passengers are gonna do in the course of investigating the room. Once it's bearing down on you, you probably aren't gonna figure out the door puzzle unless you happen to be right next to it, like Min was, and it's a pretty big gallery. Most people who go up against this thing are gonna die; the only reason it took so long to attack Min-gi is that, either by preference or as another rule of engagement, it wanted to wait till he was alone. Most passengers enter alone- Ryan and Min-gi are remarked on as unusual situation, they present more work than usual.

The second incongruous element is the emotion control thing. That's a weird power for this thing to have, given how the train works and how passengers work. I think the Docent is the only thing on the train that we've seen supernaturally inhibit or influence the judgement of a passenger. In every other situation there might be a physical threat, but the minds of the Passengers are left unclouded so that they can apply what they're learning. Min and Ryan weren't going to learn anything from what the Docent was doing to them. The only goal seemed to be to split them off so it could kill them.

Then there's the hand thing. It isn't made of arms - there's a couple shots where you can see a sort of shadowy material inside it that's acting like the glue holding the arms together. The arms are presumably trophies that it took of dead passengers and arraigned on it's own body.  You know, like the abstract art it's spent it's whole existence surrounded with.

Lastly, you get to the meta level- in a season where every single antagonist is a denizen, it's got a noticeably more involved concept and design, and it was introduced in the seventh episode. Everything introduced in the seventh episode becomes important down the line- Lake in Season one, The Apex in Season 2, Amelia as a springboard for Hazel's future in season 3. This thing was slated to be important.

So at this point I'm going to back off and discuss the themes of the show as a whole as I see them.

As a whole, Infinity Train is an examination and deconstruction of stories like The Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, and Over the Garden Wall. Each book has dug into a specific failure of the train's premise, and a broader way that stories in this subgenre could potentially go off the rails.

Season One is a fairly straightforward adventure in the subgenre, but it still goes out of its way to demonstrate that the Train's judgement isn't infallible. Tulip’s anger at being manipulated by an unseen judge is validated by the narrative, and, more broadly, the train onboards a passenger who's smart enough and dangerous enough to buck the system and overthrow the conductor. It's about what would happen if Dorothy got sick of taking arbitrary marching orders from the Wizard and usurped him, to become the man behind the curtain.

Season Two follows a supporting party member- a tin man, a scarecrow, a NPC who was created off-the-cuff to give a passenger a one-and-done opportunity to be kind to something. The season is about what would happen if such a character decides to assert their own personhood, when they meet a "protagonist" who bucks genre convention and becomes so invested in their success that it nearly destroys the narrative logic the train is running on.

Season 3 is about how it's not a given that the "protagonists" are going to realize what sort of adventure they're supposed to be on. It's very possible for passengers to misinterpret how the system works, and when you put literal children in a "Phantom Tollbooth" situation, they're going to be incredibly vulnerable to emotional manipulation and predation. (The Oz comparison sort of writes itself here; there's only one witch alive at the end of that movie for a reason. Wicked milked a whole musical out of this concept.)

Season Four has the deconstruction less front and center, but it touched on a general assumption made by stories like The Wizard of Oz- that the supporting cast is going to be fine and dandy when the protagonist completes their journey and heads home. Kez and Morgan aren't fine. They haven't moved on from Jeremy's adventure, and they can't take it as a flat victory that they were able to get him home; by design, they didn't have much in their lives besides him. The "life-affirming-adventure" model has psychologically broken Morgan because this has just happened again and again, even to people who would have stayed with her given the choice.

( I say stories like the Wizard of Oz because Oz proper actually addressed in the sequels that there were a lot of political problems caused by Dorothy's abrupt departure, and it's treated as a triumph when she's able to make her way back and settle in for the long haul to help fix things. This is a digression. I love Oz.)

There were other takes on this narrative kicked around during the AMA. Dennis mentioned they were working on a book about a passenger who refused to leave when the adventure was over, and a book about an elderly passenger who couldn't engage with the train in the intended way due to Alzheimer's inhibiting his memory retention. But the pattern is clear; each season is a deep-dive into a specific assumption or convention present in stories like these.

 Something they never did a deep dive into is the plight of the Talking Trees.

(A picture of Marcel, a minor antagonist from book 2 of Infinity train.)

There are weird ethics underpinning the designated antagonistic setpieces like Marcel, Perry, and Lake - all sentient beings who exist to only to hurt passengers in a way that teaches them something. Are they evil, or just filling the role in the story they were created to fill? Can they be evil towards their own benefit- mapping the room with friends, finding a new body- or are they always doomed to, essentially, be a sentient puzzle?

 We've never seen a denizen deliberately and maliciously try to become a a threat to the entire train because it doesn’t like its lot in life. Lake got close, but that wasn't her actual goal, just collateral damage she inflicted by accident.

So here's the theory: In a future season, The Docent would have been the main antagonist. They would have presented an unexplored angle of the denizen situation; an initially antagonistic setpiece denizen who, like Lake, decided to buck their role in the train and express their agency. Unlike Lake,  they choose to do this not by asserting their own rights and humanity and opting out of the train system, but by killing every single passenger they can get their many, many hands on.

I'm speculating that the The Docent starts its career, essentially, as a funhouse threat; it's a vaguely-ghost shaped shadow-thing that's supposed to spook passengers, send a chill up their spine, introduce a mild pressure to clear the gallery car in good time. In keeping with the theme, it's only allowed to engage passengers once they start handling the art; maybe it gets more and more obvious the more they tamper, so that they have a chance to recognize the pattern, but you'd have to go out of your way to actually get killed by this thing. Okay, cool.

Except maybe, like Lake, the Docent starts to get frustrated with the fact it was created solely to encourage passengers to move on with their lives. It starts to get frustrated that it's surrounded by all these forms of expression, but it's limited to being a vaguely defined blob. And it starts to get pissy about all these passengers Constantly. Touching. The Paintings. It is, after all, designed from the ground up to be a Docent. It cares about such things.

Unlike Lake, this thing was never designed with a drive to escape; the Docent’s base function is retaliatory. So it it starts pushing the envelope to see what it can get away with. It starts hurting passengers who touch the paintings. It starts killing them. It starts killing them the first chance it gets, instead of gradually ramping up. It starts killing 99 percent of the people who enter the car. It starts experimenting, artistically, with the corpses. It becomes less about guarding the art and more about making its own art.

And eventually, it realizes that One doesn't care. After all, it's still technically possible for passengers to escape alive if they don't touch the art. There is a sign about it; that's fair warning, right? And anyway most passengers don't make it to this car in the first place. The ones the Docent murders are a drop in the bucket. When we see it, it only has maybe twenty people’s worth of arms.

What One does care about is that the Docent stays in its assigned car. It's a setpiece, not a potential companion; bodycount aside, it only makes aesthetic sense in the context of its puzzle. And that irks the Docent, well down the path of artistic experimentation, more than anything. It doesn't want to be someone else’s art. It wants to make art.

And then, Amelia hijacks the train.

We see that in her initial bout of incompetence, she accidently self-destructed many of the stewards that One would have used to stop the Docent had it tried to leave. And we see that she cared even less than One did about maintaining order in the cars; all she cared about was Alrick.

That leaves a thirty year window for the Docent to realize that nothing is physically stopping it from leaving the gallery car anymore.

According to the AMA, the theme of Book 6, summed up in one word, would have been "Guilt." I think that Book Six would have involved One-one tasking Amelia with hunting down and destroying the Docent, who, as a result of her take-over, has had thirty years to rampage through the train with impunity, ambushing solo passengers and building an increasingly lovecraftian body for itself out of stolen parts.

It would be a dark mirror of several previous antagonists and anti-heroes.

Like Amelia, it feels like the train dealt it a crappy hand, and it's exploiting the resources the train presents it with to continuously tinker with a masterpiece that's never quite right.

Like Lake, it would be a bitter Denizen fighting tooth and nail to reify itself, willing to break the system for its own self-satisfaction, obsessed with collecting passenger numbers to prove a point to the powers that be.

And like the Apex, it would treat the train as an endless buffet of potential victims that it's entitled to, by dint of its raw power in comparison to everything else.

All of this would be layered under the ethical question of whose fault this perfect storm of evil is. Is One at fault for creating something relatively harmless but then letting it go malignant by neglecting its personal needs? Is Amelia at fault, for not using her thirty year stint as conductor to stop it? Is it the train's fault, for constantly putting new people in its path? Can it all be pinned on The Docent, for continuing to be evil even after better opportunities opened up to it?

Or is it all on the Passengers, because they couldn't keep their hands off the fuckin' paintings?

Finally, I want to elaborate why I think this would be a perfect antagonist for Amelia specifically.

(Image ID: Amelia, from Infinity train, halfway through her breakdown in the final episode.)

I have a very specific read of Amelia's breakdown at the end of Book One. Amelia doesn't care that she hurt One-one, and she's arguably right not to; Season 4 shows that prior to the overthrow, One was a bit of a callous prick. Amelia is upset for practical reasons; she's finally admitted to herself that she picked an untenable goal, and nearly personally killed a child to further a plan that wasn't going to work. 

She does care if people get hurt! She gave all the passengers their stuff back and she stepped in to save Grace on two separate occasions; she does care on some level for the other passengers, as long as they don't get in her way. She isn't upset about her number because she agrees that it's a valid measure of her moral worth; she's upset because she's going to be stuck on the train forever, without Alrick, now that One-One is back in charge.

All of this is to say that Amelia doesn't care at all about the damage she did to the train proper; she cares that she wasted her life and nearly killed a kid, but she doesn't care about the damage she did to Corginia or what she did to the Cat. She's repairing the train because One-One told her to, not because she cares if it functions as a therapy tool. She gives about as much of a shit about the denizens as the Apex did, as One-One does. Even when she takes Hazel, it's as a test subject, not out of concern.

The Docent as extrapolated here, though, presents Amelia with a different story. It presents a real human body-count racked up as a result of her takeover. It represents an affirmation that by becoming Conductor, Amelia took on specific duties to the passengers that One wasn't meeting, but that she also failed to meet by not stopping the Docent and other things like it. 

She's travelling with Hazel. Hazel, who's the other side of the coin in terms of sentient fallout of Amelia's myopia. Hazel, who's in a perfect position and mindset to interrogate Amelia on her shortcomings, to put a human face on the carnage the Docent causes to the Denizens who have interesting parts for it to collect.

And through this whole process, Amelia is, at least at first, chasing the Docent as an extension of her desire to work her way off the train. One-one didn't necessarily send her after it because it's killing people so much as because it's not playing by the rules. For One-One, a “win” would be getting the Docent back to its original car, or creating a whole new Docent and starting the cycle over. At least at first, neither of them would be trying to fix their mistake for the right reasons. And that would feed into an extremely important question that the series could handle fantastically;

Does it matter why you want to solve a problem, or why you want to fix your mistakes, so long as you do?

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk; I hoped you enjoyed my attempt to weasel out of working on my finals as much as I did.

#infinity train #infinity train theory #infinity train book 4 #infinity train docent #infinity train hand monster #infinity train amelia #amelia hughes #one-one #infinity train one one #it #infinity train meta #infinity train analysis #infinity train lake #infinity train morgan #infinity train marcel #infinity train book 1 #infinity train book 2 #infinity train book 3 #infinity train duet #infinity train Ryan #infinity train min-gi #docent #infinity train kez #thoughts

[joemerl]

The whole concept of Denizens is strange if you think about it. On the other hand, we’re supposed to disagree with the Apex for thinking of them as things to be used...but on the other, the Train literally exists just to help/challenge Passengers. Sure, plenty of Denizens are living their own lives, but how many of them realize that their worlds only exist as window dressing for the humans’ adventures? 

But not all of them do. Marcel was a villain for trying to keep Jesse and MT in his car forever, but think about it: once they leave, his car presumably resets for the next Passenger, so he has nothing to do until someone else comes. Can he just leave? Terrence escaped from the Toad Car, so good for him, but is it just empty now? Morgan can’t go anywhere, and she’s clearly unhappy with her role. Et cetera.

#Infinity Train #Denizens #IT Morgan #IT Marcel #The Apex #Terrence the Toad

[jonliveblogs]

As ever, someone who has to begin by saying “I’M NICE!” probably isn’t.

#marcel #the map car #train203 #infinity train liveblog #infinity train #jon liveblogs #everything

[a-pureevil]

Marcel's true colors are revealed

#Infinity Train #Infinity Train Book 2 #Marcel #MT #Jesse Cosay #Jesse

[justeatingyourpizza]

2022 Crunchyroll Anime Awards

✨ANIME OF THE YEAR✨

Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 1 [Studio: MAPPA]

BEST ANIMATION

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc [Studio: ufotable]

BEST OPENING SEQUENCE

Boku no Sensou from Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 1

BEST ENDING SEQUENCE

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc

BEST BOY

Bojji from Ranking of Kings

BEST GIRL

Nobara Kugisaki from Jujutsu Kaisen

BEST SCORE

Yuki Kajiura and ‎Go Shiina from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc

BEST DIRECTOR

Baku Kinnoshita [ODDTAXI]

BEST CHARACTER DESIGN

Tadashi Hiramatsu [Jujutsu Kaisen]

BEST PROTAGONIST

Odokawa from ODDTAXI

BEST ANTAGONIST

Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan

BEST FIGHT SCENE

Yuji Itadori and Aoi Todo vs Hanami [Jujutsu Kaisen]

BEST ROMANCE

Horimiya [Studio: CloverWorks]

BEST DRAMA

To Your Eternity [Studio: Brain's Base]

BEST ACTION

Jujutsu Kaisen [Studio: MAPPA]

BEST FANTASY

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Season 2) [Studio:8-Bit]

BEST COMEDY

Komi Can't Communicate [Studio: OLM]

BEST FILM

Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train [Studio: ufotable]

BEST VA PERFORMANCE (JAPANESE)

Yuki Kaji [Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan Final Season Part 1]

BEST VA PERFORMANCE (ENGLISH)

David Wald [Ainosuke Shindo/'ADAM' from Sk8 the Infinity]

BEST VA PERFORMANCE (SPANISH)

Irwin Daayán [Rengoku from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc]

BEST VA PERFORMANCE (CASTILIAN)

Marcel Navarro [Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train]

BEST VA PERFORMACE (FRENCH)

Enzo Ratsito [Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc]

BEST VA PERFORMANCE (PORTUGESE)

Léo Rabelo [Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen]

BEST VA PERFORMANCE (GERMAN)

René Dawn-Claude [Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen]

BEST VA PERFORMANCE (RUSSIAN)

Islam Gandzhaev [Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train]

That's it for 2022! Hear me rant in the tags lmao

For the nominations: https://www.crunchyroll.com/animeawards/en-gb/winners/index.html

#attack on titan #crunchyroll #aot #crunchyroll anime awards #anime awards 2022 #cruchyroll awards 2022 #attack on titan the final season part 1 #snk #shingeki no kyojin #jujutsu kaisen #odd taxi #kugisaki nobara #that time i got reincarnated as a slime #demon slayer #kny #kimetsu no yaiba #mugen train #mugen train arc #gojo satoru #jjk #animation #anime #rengoku senjurou #okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay #LETS FUCKING GO AOT AND JJK #MAPPA KILLIN IT #YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS #DEMON SLAYER ALSO RIGHT UP THERE #AND NOBARA LETS GO MY GIRL #this is everything

[twh-news]

Loki’s production designer on the Modernist inspiration behind the show’s stunning visuals | The Art Newspaper

By Helen Stoilas

Kasra Farahani explains why the Time Variance Authority waiting room looks so much like the Breuer building, and how the inside of a Fabergé egg became an alien train carriage.

Fans of Modernist design can find a lot to appreciate in Loki, the television series starring Tom Hiddleston recently released by Marvel Studios on the streaming channel Disney+. The stunning production is clearly influenced by Brutalist and Neo-Futurist architecture, as well as Soviet Socialist art and sculpture. Visual references can be seen from the very first episode, in which the magic-wielding god of mischief is apprehended by a universe-spanning police force known as the Time Variance Authority for “crimes against the Sacred Timeline” (stay with us).

One early scene, for example, was filmed on a custom-built set that bears a striking resemblance to the lobby of the Marcel Breuer building in New York which once housed the Whitney Museum—and now houses the Frick—while another was shot on location in the Neo-Futurist Atlanta Marriott Marquis hotel, designed by the architect John C. Portman, Jr (with some monumental statues later edited into the soaring atrium). The Art Newspaper spoke to the series’ production designer, Kasra Farahani, about his inspirations for the look of the show.

The Art Newspaper: Loki's director, Kate Herron has called this series a love letter to sci-fi and you see a lot of visual homages to films like Brazil, A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner. But there's also a clear influence of Modernist design on the look of the series overall. You studied industrial design early in your career. Were there specific examples of Modernist architecture and design that you were looking at when you started working on the series?

Kasra Farahani: So many, everyone from Frank Lloyd Wright to Breuer, to Mies van der Rohe to Paul Rudolph—you have a shot in the John Portman building—to Oscar Niemeyer. And then a lot of Eastern European, Soviet-influenced Modernism played a big part in it as well. I can honestly tell you that my first and foremost inspiration was Modernism. Part of that is because the TVA (Time Variance Authority) is a bureaucracy and I think, archetypically, so much of what we know a bureaucracy to be is that post-war, highly funded institutional look. And there's a lot of different versions of that, whether it's the Washington, DC version, like the Hoover building, or whether it's what we had in Los Angeles, where I grew up, where there's a huge amount of post-war architecture built for the population boom. Like the elementary school, middle school and high school that I went to were all mid-century Modernist.

I was also looking a lot at Brutalism and the Modernism in former Soviet states, that are heavily influenced by Socialism and Soviet architecture, and where scale is such a big driving force of the design.

The size of some of the buildings in the show are kind of overwhelming. I know that some filming was done in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, with that huge soaring atrium. You just completely get dwarfed by that kind of architecture.

Yeah, that's right. That one we used for the TVA archives because we couldn't justify building a big set, but once I scouted it, I saw that we could bring in these massive Time-Keeper sculptures at the scale you would typically only see in an exterior, which is a fantastical thing. The TVA sets themselves, which were almost entirely full 360-degree sets, were very much designed as an intentional paradox between the stoic, large-scale Brutalism form language, and the surfacing and palette and whimsical patterning, which is very much taken from American mid-century Modern. Those two things create these spaces that feel at once super intimidating and then uncomfortably inviting and warm at the same time.

That’s kind of the irony of a lot of Modernism, Brutalism especially, it had these utopian ideals of creating affordable social housing, but then a lot of the people found it really oppressive to live in.

Yeah. Modernism has been that way the whole time—it was designed to be super cheap and utilitarian and routinely it ends up being the most expensive kind of architecture. Another thing readers may be curious to know about is the TBA expanse, which is essentially the view outside some windows.

That futuristic cityscape you can see….

Yeah. They had very strange and unique parameters to try to design that. The TVA exists outside of the physical world—so there's no weather, there's no roofs, there's no difference between interior and exterior, there's not necessarily even gravity in the way that we know it. But there are these meandering colonnades that we took a lot of inspiration from Brasilia—and obviously a lot of the super cities that were drawn in comics. But also there's some really beautiful conceptual sketches that Frank Lloyd Wright did of a version Los Angeles in the early 20th century that had Roman-like colonnades and plazas and a lot of that fed into what the TVA expanse is.

You mentioned all the sets you built for Loki, especially for the TVA. There's two that where used a lot. The Time Theater, where so much of kind of Loki’s personal story gets told, and looks like its straight out of the Barbican in London, with these huge colour-coded directional numbers on the walls. And then there's the Miss Minutes waiting room with those circular lights that looks almost exactly like the lobby of the Breuer building in New York—to the point where I reached out to the museum to ask if you’d filmed there. You even got the silver-tipped light bulbs right.

We were very inspired by that, but it's different in some very subtle, but for me, very important ways. Number one, the size of the bulbs is much smaller, they were manipulated to create eyeballs, basically. Another important difference is that in the Breuer building, they have these dishes hanging in space, whereas in ours, they're negative space, there's a solid ceiling. It creates a matrix of eyeballs peering down, like the always-watching Time-Keepers. And maybe the most important difference is that the ceiling is slammed down—you know the cheapest apartment you can go into has an eight-foot ceiling, this is six inches shorter than that, and our actor is about six-foot-three. The idea was to create a sort of trash compactor feeling in this claustrophobic space with this matrix of eyes, watching as all of this is happening.

The time theater was for me very inspired by Pier Luigi Nervi.

I liked that waffle coffered ceiling you have in that room.

Thanks. We were very happy with it, and it created this kind of forest of light columns which helps set the neo-noirish, interrogative nature of the space. And the unnecessarily large super graphics that you mentioned are a very Paul Rudolph sort of a thing, he did that in his building too, and I love that.

For me, it’s very important not to reference a set design from other films, that why I reference architecture, painting, photography, these other art forms, more than anything else, because inevitably when you’re working in archetypes, there’s a lot of overlap.

And as Loki goes into different times and locations, you get a completely different design environment in those places. There’s a scene on a train car, that has a very Art Deco look.

That was inspired by the inside of a Fabergé egg, Art Deco meets Alien.

And when you finally meet the Time-Keepers in the most recent episode, it’s like they're in a pre-Colombian pyramid or a ziggurat.

I was looking at Indian stepwells, this almost fractal quality with these descending stairs going into one another—but we imagined them going out every direction, with an Escher-like quality, like they are tessellating themselves to infinity.

I read on Twitter that you literally bought a bowling alley from Omaha and brought it to Atlanta to create Loki's Palace in the Void in the last episode, which is this crazy, surreal, amusement park, junk yard-like place.

We bought the floor of a bowling alley, everything else we built. That was a lot of fun because the script gave us a lot of runway. The proposal was to do this bowling alley because essentially everything in the Void has been discarded from time, and more things fall into it and accumulate and so you end up with these strata. I liked the idea of like a bowling alley that's been smashed over your knee or something. The net effect is when you first enter, you have all these lane lines pointing down at this throne, which was supposed to be stolen from a mall Santa. And then there's these crazy alien plants that are growing through it that have taken parasitic hold of the place. In many ways, I think its a narrative microcosm of the Void itself, which is like a salad bar of these disparate aberrations slammed together. Things like the bowling alley all have these micro-narratives that we in the art department have come up with to help flush out the design and make them specific. For example, there's portraits on the wall of like bowler of the month, and they’re not quite human. It's not in the episode, but those things are important for us in the art department.

At the very end of the most recent episode, we get a glimpse into this city that Loki and Sylvie (played by Sophia Di Martino) are walking into. Can tell us anything about what inspired those scenes, what we're about to see?

You can call me back in a week. All I can say is that the TVA is definitely the visual and narrative anchor of the story, but there's a lot of great worlds to see. And I think what people are responding to is the breadth of the visual variety of the show. And episode six won't be any different. It's really cool, and maybe some of my favorite stuff.

#loki #loki series #production design #set design #tom hiddleston #Kasra Farahani #article #the art newspaper

[argentdandelion]

How to Speedrun the Infinity Train

How to Speedrun the Infinity Train: Part 1

1. Can you exit the Infinity Train without ever fixing your problems?/Summary of the “Expected Course”.

“Every passenger is important. Their well-being and progress is what the train is all about. All aboard the growth train! Toot-toot!” (One-One’s note to Amelia)

The Infinity Train’s purpose seems to be quantifying the severity or complexity of Passengers’ problems via numbers on their hands and sending them to a train car so they can progress through cars’ scenarios, which will eventually lead to emotional growth. Commonalities in Passengers’ character arcs suggest one gets one’s number to zero and therefore leaves by a combination of right thought and right action, to the end of giving up, letting go, moving on, or otherwise no longer caring about the particular issue that got them aboard the Train. It seems people are intended to deal with their problems by emotional growth through self-understanding or introspection, not, say, gaining emotional skills in unrelated fields and suddenly no longer caring about an issue for reasons one can’t explain.

In a way, the Infinity Train is like a video game in which the end goal is going home after achieving sufficient emotional growth to deal with one’s “boarding problem”. But is it possible to “speedrun” this game, without ever taking the expected course of going through cars, introspection on one’s problems, and conscious personal improvement?

Absolutely. And the methods to do so can get really weird.

2. Can You Ignore the Infinity Train’s Resources?

“The Train is filled with all sorts of things that can help you learn about yourself and grow as a person!” One-One, in an informational video

Judging by what One-One says and the commonalities of different passenger arcs, it seems it’s expected Passengers will travel through cars, have a denizen companion, interact substantially with Denizens, and know that their numbers exist and their function. However, it is possible to ignore or bypass these expectations and still get one’s number down to zero. Indeed, it's likely: if One-One's description of how people are assigned numbers ("numerical algorithmic judgment") also applies to how they lower. After all, algorithms can be tricked.

Skipped: Going Through Cars

It seems Simon stayed with The Cat for months in just one car and his number got very low. It may be that just being in one car for the entire time can lower one’s number to zero if just one car can provide sufficient opportunities and incentive to deal with one’s problems. For example, if Simon’s initial problem was something simple, like some low-level manifestation of “fear of abandonment”, it could be treated by having a dependable parental figure who always came back. In such a case, it seems plausible that living in Le Chat Chalet and waiting for The Cat to come back after her lengthy trips outside would gradually lower his number. (Since little of Simon’s backstory is shown, it’s unclear whether he boarded with a small number, his number gradually went down just by being in one car, or his number went down rapidly after a short time period of traveling through cars)

Skipped: A Denizen Companion, or Any Denizen Interaction

"Always remember - there are lots of denizens along the way to help you on your journey! Don't be afraid to reach out!" One-One, in an informational video

Judging by One-One, the Flec Mace, and observing the episodes, Denizens and especially “companions” (friendly denizens who travel with Passengers), seem to exist to help passengers with their emotional growth in some way. They can help by being friendly, presenting challenges, or even being outright antagonistic or threatening: Marcel of The Map Car could have been designed to give people the courage to stand up to harmful people or dangerous situations, for example.

However, in Tulip’s case, one of her companions was One-One, who’s surely not a denizen as the Train’s Conductor, and some of her number-dropping can be attributed to interactions with him (e.g., in “The Unfinished Car”). It’s also probable Grace’s number dropped prior to “Le Chat Chalet” because of the time she spent being friendly with Hazel, a denizen, despite not knowing Hazel was a denizen at the time.

Most convincingly, interactions between passengers can lower numbers. Amelia’s number drops when she thanks Grace for her help, Grace’s number drops when she confronts Simon in “The New Apex” and when talking with the Apex kids, and the Apex kids’ numbers change (likely dropping) when Grace tells them they can’t be Apex anymore in the aforementioned episode. Given how quickly a number can increase within seconds (e.g., Tulip walking away from Ghom-Atticus), Grace’s rate of number increase between meeting Simon and the memory flashback in her memory tape is actually very low, and it only progresses past her palm and later to her elbow some time after founding the Apex.

Keep in mind numbers can go down just for doing basic nice things (e.g., Amelia thanking Grace for help), though numbers going down for basic nice things isn’t guaranteed. (At age 10, Grace’s number is 148 both before and after comforting Simon.) It’s worth mentioning they would still have to deal with their problems, not just live a comfortable and stable life: if just having a dependable friend would have been sufficient for Simon to deal with his (probable) abandonment issues, Simon’s number would have gotten to zero long before he was 18.

Skipped: Knowing the Numbers Exist, and Their Function

Tulip’s number was 89 during the first DolphWorld flashback in The Cat’s Car. It’s last seen in that episode at either 45 or 15, depending on the length of the vertical line in the first number, which isn’t fully seen. By the time she checks on it by the end of The Chrome Car, it goes down only briefly, and ends at 3. Judging by how the number flickers only briefly by the end of The Chrome Car, it’s probable Tulip’s number lowered during The Unfinished Car and The Chrome Car, strongly suggesting passengers don’t need to know their number values for them to lower. The fact Simon’s, Grace’s, and Amelia’s numbers are so incredibly large would make it difficult to recall the exact numbers, anyway, and yet Grace and Amelia did get number drops.

Jesse's number doesn't increase when he supports the “new Alan Dracula” or orders Alan Dracula to laser away the vines (not expecting him to actually do it).

This would suggest not every instance of behaviors or attitudes away from emotional growth or fixing problems causes numbers to go up. That might explain the very slow pace of Simon’s and Grace’s number-raising, despite being on the Train for years.

#Text Post #Infinity Train #Meta #Analysis #Tulip (Infinity Train) #Tulip Olsen #Jesse (Infinity Train) #Jesse Cosay

[sepublic]

Really, that whole speech by Mace is so horrifically existential, because...

It really brings up the question of how much is intended by the Infinity Train? Is there more to it? How much does it do and control? Is it secretly manufacturing fate itself by making passengers and inhabitants meet up and so forth?

That whole suggestion that MT only got her freedom because that was her role in Tulip’s story to become a better person is terrifying... And likewise, with the invisible force dragging her and Dracula back to the train, it makes you wonder if it’s the will of the train itself for MT to be sanded by the Mirror Police.

People like Marcel the Map dude, Perry the Parasite, or that one Concessions Booth that eats people... They’re BAD people, yeah, but are they only bad because the Train intended it that way? Were they made with the purpose of having passengers ‘overcome’ them? Was Perry made as a remorseless parasite who takes over other peoples’ bodies, all so Jesse could learn from dealing with him? Did the train make him specifically with Jesse in mind, giving him memories of an entire life beforehand (or more scarily, did it create Perry and his car years before Jesse’s actual arrival, because the Train might be able to see into the future)? Did it make Perry with people like Jesse’s issues in mind as a whole? Or did it... just MAKE Perry and a bunch of other inhabitants, with the idea that somebody is going to learn from dealing with him? Did it just create him and a bunch of other beings and set them up so that if it needed a specific situation to teach someone a lesson, the Train would just scoop them up and carry their car to the passenger?

Come to think of it, could the Infinity Train be controlling entire journeys down to the minute detail? Is every car a passenger goes through deliberately placed based on what they need to progress? While Tulip or Jesse or anyone is inside a car, does the Train analyze their development and then place a car they ‘need’ in front of them? Or is the wide selection of cars in such variety that inevitably, passengers will come across something that will help them learn?

For all we know, EVERYTHING that happens on the Infinity Train is meant to happen. It’s all part of the train’s plan for someone to ‘learn’... Even the Apex, even Amelia deposing One-One as the conductor (keep in mind that even the true conductor doesn’t appear to know everything about the train if the minisodes are any indication. Although it IS also possible that most of the stuff is also scripted as well...?) Is it ALL part of an over-arching, in-the-long-run journey the Infinity Train has set up, and does that mean that no matter how terrifying a journey someone may have, it was ultimately the fastest way for them to recover? (Meaning if I am right about Amelia’s whole arc being planned out by the train... That means her doing ALL THAT was actually the quickest possible way to teach her to move past Alrick’s death. Yeesh.)

As for the inhabitants, what does that mean for them? If it really IS all completely planned, can someone like Perry be blamed for being a jerk, if he really WAS made to be a jerk? It’s also possible that not everything everything is planned- The Concessions Booth’s dancing slaves say “Add one to our number”, indicating it has eaten actual passengers before, assuming they aren’t referring to just inhabitants. But if THAT was planned as well, does that mean that those who were eaten or died were deemed impossible to save by the Train?!?

Like, a part of me does want to step back and say, NO, it can’t go that deeply... After all, MT will probably get a happy ending of freedom. But on the other hand, maybe it DOES go that deep, and the Train simply lets anything happen to its creations after they serve their purpose, good or bad. Who knows? All I know is that episode is genuinely messing me up in a way even the Ball Pit Car didn’t.

(Also, anyone else appreciate how when Jesse was offered candy by Grace, he ate it and tried to lie about it tasting good to not hurt her feelings or whatnot... But then he realizes that, NO, that’s stupid, just tell the truth about it tasting like old pennies and he just does. Just a light-hearted, out-of-place observation I wanted to make amidst all of this heavy talk.)

#infinity train #infinity train season 2 #infinity train book two #infinity train spoilers #infinity train mt #one-one #speculation #existential horror #existential dread

[mmikmmik2]

Thoughts on Marcel?

Marcel's car super sucks. Of course he wants a passenger buddy to hang out with him! There's nothing to look at or do until visitors get there, and then when they arrive it's a countdown to them finding the final map piece and turning him into the wind. (I vaguely recall seeing a claim online that the writers intended that to be permanent? Like in one of Owen Dennis's AMA's or on the Book Two DVD commentary or somethin, someone on the crew said the map car would stay transformed permanently, meaning Marcel was like dead? Jeez, I mean, if you choose to go with that interpretation then that's DARK dark. Jesslake need to calm down with the body count. I've been assuming the map car would just automatically reset after a while and he'd be stuck waiting around for the next visitor.)

I think it's super interesting that like... if you think about it... the solution is pretty obvious. Leave! Real winners quit!!! Marcel could just bail. Take the map piece with him so no one can finish it in his absence and be on his way. I dunno if the writers intended that, but I like the idea that that would have worked if he'd tried it - I think it works well with the themes of Book Two and the argument that the role of denizens, and truly applying the idea that denizens exist to help passengers, isn't good for denizens and creates tension between denizen needs and passenger needs. I mean, if Marcel bailed and his car became an impassable obstacle, that would be. not great for any passengers trying to head that way.

#REAL WINNERS QUIT #infinity train #i love denizens #marcel IT

[uncivilizedelk]

Abandon the butterfly stroke, Jesse! "The Map Car" was fantastic from a characterization perspective. The episode is Jesse-centric and primarily serves to get his character arc into gear, but touches upon many themes of Book Two of Infinity Train, even those pertaining to Lake. Also, Marcel's refusal to follow the intended purpose of the train car by attempting to keep passengers exploring indefinitely indirectly facilitates Jesse’s growth as a person, and I’m sure Agent Mace would have a few choice words about that coincidence.

#Infinity Train #The Map Car #Infinity Train Book 2 #Infinity Train Cracked Reflection #Jesse #MT #Lake

[dorics]

infinity train headcanon time: grace & simon both have really shit parents and were like ‘if we just. stay on the train. we never have to go back and deal with our parents’ and they originally met and formed a group w/ another older companion who eventually got their number down. during this time, i think they also had a negative experience with a null — think marcel from the map car, or perry the parasite — and grace was the one who was primarily harmed by this null, which is why simon is so aggressive towards nulls. watching grace be hurt was bad enough for him then, and he wants to protect her. anyway, after a while of traveling together, they witness the other passenger ‘disappearing’ and bc they’re KIDS, they think that if ur number goes down you die. so between the threat of ‘death’ & the fact that they honestly they never really wanted to go home in the first place they're like ‘hmmm we're never fucking leaving the train then’ and so they don’t. 

#grace infinity train #simon infinity train #infinity train tag #do not come for me this is my OPINION #also pls do not bring simon hate at me #i think. he's a kid. and he's messed up. but ultimately he's a child. and it's obvious he cares v deeply for grace. #anyway can't wait to watch them be married on my screen in two weeks #text post tag

[jonliveblogs]

i don’t know exactly what you did to your eyes but if you can undo it pronto, that’d be swell

#marcel #the map car #train203 #infinity train liveblog #infinity train #jon liveblogs #everything

[fallenregent-a]

DAVINA ALICE CLAIRE ( bio will be bullet points bc i’m a lazy mun )

Davinas canon is still in tact up until Kol kills her & gets her revived again .

At 18 years old Davina loses Kol to Marcels bite and the loss causes her to spiral and move to New York City to lead a new life away from those who she had lost. And to also rediscover herself.

While in New York City she works hard to find a place where she had fit and belonged , but being a witch in a city of humans seemed to do nothing but make her feel even more out of place . 

She had heard of an internship with SHIELD , or what was left of it and decided to apply for the spot , having been given the opportunity do the magic that ran through her blood and had been told that if she could prove herself that she could join the team.

She’s a little weak at the moment , unable to really produce any magic but it’s mostly her being afraid to hurt anyone , having caused so many deaths already . She is scared to use her magic and not in the Wanda way , but in a way that if she does something wrong again that her ancestors are going to kill her . 

Davina sits on the sidelines for the most part , watching everyone train and battle , get stronger while she sits in the fear that if she does something wrong she’ll be in the ground again.

When it comes to infinity war and the decimation , most of the verses for Marvel , she does disappear . She is gone for five years and comes back when the Hulk snaps everyone back into existence . 

She fights alongside the Avengers when Thanos Army takes over , not running for a moment and no longer scared of what her magic can do . 

#✧*。marvel au » are we magic or science ? #more to add later #davina verse

[omegaplus]

# 2,400

Cold Cave / Black Marble / Choir Boy @ Warsaw, N.Y.C.; June 14, 2018.

Hello, Warsaw. We meet again. It’s been seven months since I first visited the Polish powerhouse on Driggs Avenue in Greenpoint, one of my all-time favorite places to visit. That was when I attended Hospital Productions 20th Anniversary showcase and it became an unforgettable experience. This time, it’s a shorter affair featuring only three acts: Choir Boy, Black Marble, and headliner Cold Cave. The ritual is the same as last time and every time. Wait on the platform, take the train, hop on the subway line, and arrive in the neighborhood none more blacker where you stand against the venue’s wall. It was all clear out. Thursday’s warm air and blue skies was not symbolic of the night’s wicked-black climax. I called my sis- to tell her how euphoric I was feeling, experiencing these days and moments I normally don’t but should more often. For every time I waited entry at Warsaw, there was always someone from Stony Brook who I would randomly spot. Last time it was WUSB’s Cornflower zipping past on his bike. Now it’s Marcel, my queer friend from The Stony Brook Press whom I took a quick two seconds to be sure it was him. I was right. We hugged each other and then my anxiety shot up because I haven’t seen him since The Press’ 35th and the venue was ready to open its’ doors. He had to leave anyway for Ru Paul’s Drag Race, the diet of queer champions, but promised him we’d resume catching up down the road.

The line now entered Warsaw. Unlike Hospital’s instant get-go, we waited almost an hour for the opening act to go. Salt Lake City’s Choir Boy was first up, self-proclaimed Mormons (kidding or not) currently signed to Dais Records. They’re a spot-on bullseye of Eighties-aesthetic synthpop, new wave, and light goth-rock that was pleasing and lush. Never abrasive but gentle, breezy, and aurally sentimental. Adam Klopp’s vocals make the outfit’s namesake (he has sung in church choirs), hitting high notes just floating above the collective’s perfect dream world. Their synths, guitars, beats, and riffs and basslines fall right into my current Eighties kick, keeping the vibe alive. And note Kyle Hooper’s dangling earring when he’s right behind synths…

Black Marble was one of two reasons why I chose to be there. WUSB’s Nightmare Aquarium is responsible for making me a fan of theirs during a summer’s transition to Lindenhurst. Their output has been nothing but good to me. To this day, their sound is one I have yet to figure out and that’s a great thing. Chris Stewart / Black Marble got a great standing ovation revisiting his Brooklyn hometown as a new Los Angeles resident. It didn’t change the total mood or quality of his music if ever the slightest. Still a two-man two-guitar outfit without Ty Kube and a drum machine, Black Marble got right to it filling the vastness with said guitars and drum machines upfront as Stewart’s vocals receded far away and above into the open space. Even if there’s a cold, distant, low-fidelity quality in Black Marble, things somehow sound upbeat for its rays of sunshine. A clean perfect set all the way through.

Cold Cave finally take the stage. It can be said (and said again many times here) that they were one of the essential summer sparks igniting my personal revitalization of sorts during the post-economic crash. From then on, their songs continuously watermarked some of the better key moments in my life without fail, so it’s why I paid a visit to see them live as a thank-you. Wes Eisold made his entrance along with wife Amy Lee (guitars, synths), Ryan McMahon (drums), and Nils Blue (guitars) to open the set with songs from You & Me & Infinity. The New Order-inspired “Glory” really got the crowd going. Soon, New York City got a special treat only for themselves: an appearance by Genesis P-Orridge to perform “Comprehension”, her 2015 collaboration with Cold Cave and Black Rain. It’s her residency, so why not have Cold Cave make the most of their visit? Then the blinding “Heaven Was Full” and later on their marquee hit “Confetti”, which to me was the entire night.

Then, flashing solid colors went wild as Cold Cave went into “Rainbow Girls” mode, the only time the show went color. What did we win? A visit by author Max G. Morton of Eisold’s Heartworm Press, who came on-stage to deliver "Heavenly Metals” before Cold Cave’s ultimate closeout. Morton was decked in all black just like their set, standing tall and no doubt couldn’t be fucked with as he spewed his brand of cold despotic mean testimony. A few more songs and the night was history. Cold Cave delivered one of the most powerful performances I ever felt. McMahon’s drums hit hard, loud and clear through Eisold, Lee, and Blue’s blasting synths and guitars. Most of their setlist and songs I hoped they’d play was more I could ever ask for. “Confetti” was the start of a new era for me when all was almost lost. “Comprehension” has become one of my all-time favorite songs of this decade, if not, ever. “Glory” followed suit to become a new memorable winter favorite of mine. The string of favorables still keeps coming from them. With a new American Nightmare record out, it’s Eisold’s winning year. No bullshit, no moshing, no shoving; save for the guy standing next to me (and it had to be him) who was furiously stomping the venue floor to the point of near-collapse, and almost tearing the venue’s front rail off. Someone was a little into himself at the show, no?

My second visit to Warsaw in as many months was just like the first. Randomly encounters with friends from Stony Brook, amazing line-ups in an amazing venue, and another day in Greenpoint where the fever pitch comes from being in a great place in a great time and having the right ties with specific people. It’s not every day I experience it, but when I do, I feel like with all the motherfuckers and fishnet-wearing witches around me in Boy Harsher, Joy Division, Cat Power, and D.S.-13 shirts, I hit the jackpot.

#omega #WUSB #music #mixtapes #reviews #playlists #Warsaw #NYC #New York City #Cold Cave #Choir Boy #Black Marble #live #Greenpoint #personal #Brooklyn #Genesis P. Orridge #Throbbing Gristle #Black Rain

[thelowercasesurrealist]

Joseph Cornell was born on Christmas Eve of the year 1902, in New York state. He had three other siblings, and when he was thirteen years old, his father died of leukemia. After the death of his father, Cornell attended Phillip’s Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Here he was influenced by the Christian faith, which he embraced because of a deeply rooted fear of infinity. Cornell never attended college or had any formal art training. He worked as a textile designer for Traphagen Studios. In his free time, Cornell immersed himself in the arts. He would regularly attend ballets and other productions, and would frequently visit museums and small galleries. His hobby of searching through junk stores began to develop as he was exposed to more art objects. His urge to collect stemmed from the curiosities of childhood. 

His practice began with collage, sourcing from scientific textbooks and old Victorian fiction. Cornell spent much time at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, where he was exposed to many Surrealist poets and artists. It was here that Cornell gained his understanding of Surrealist practice and developed a deep fascination with the idea of art objects. Cornell befriended Marcel Duchamp on the grounds of shared interest in science, language and theater. Cornell’s work was first shown in the 1936 MoMA exhibition, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism. His work, Soap Bubble Set was on exhibit. From 1936 onward, Cornell continued to make, exhibit, and sell artwork until he was widely recognized for his shadow boxes by the 1940s. 

Cornell worked entirely from his own home, creating artwork in his basement. Later into the 1950s and 60s, he slowed down his production in order to take care of aging family members. He eventually died in New York, 1972.

#joseph cornell #bio