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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years

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Capraa ??????

@persephoneanmystery

(I know we discussed this troll over IM but I am still filled with misery thinking about him. Get ready for some sadtroll times.)

I was prepared for him, I have already read him, and yet reading him again has filled me with new DESPAIR….

Universe: Beforus!

Name: Capraa ??????

“Capraa” is just “Capra” with an A tacked on. The goat, Capra aegagrus, was one of the first domesticated animals, linking to the Bronze affinity with animals and also his… unfortunate association with them. [Also a very… very minor reference to Dark Soul’s Capra Demon, of which I based a little visual inspiration off of] When asked for a surname he gives “Castan”, but that’s because he can no longer remember his own.

Age: Roughly 7 Sweeps

Theme/Story: Capraa is a troll who’s in so over his head that he’s drowned and floated back to the surface. Originally a bright, intelligent troll, and a master of animal behavior and study, his talents were taken advantage of by his superior, whom he blindly followed. She took all of his connections and spun them into something that played by her rules. She took his name, his memory, and any way of contacting the outside world. Now, he’s some kind of lusus-troll hybrid, and he can’t seem to tear himself away.

Strife Specibus: Clawkind, Hoofkind

Capraa was never much of a fighter in the first place, but after his transformations, he can’t really wield conventional weapons anyways, so he uses his new natural weapons to defend himself from training drones and angry mobs alike.

Don’t forget hornkind. That’s one of the main tools of the goat, after all.

Fetch Modus: Lycanthropy

Capraa originally had some other kind of Modus, but he doesn’t remember what it was. In fact, he has a hard time remember ANYTHING about what he had before having this one. His superior designed it and gave it to him as a gift. Each item has a lunar phase it starts in, and he can only pull them out when they’ve turned on the Full Moon. Too early or too late and, nothing.

Blood color: Bronze

Capraa is the definition of a Bronzeblood who craves stability. He craves it to the point where he’ll settle for a ground filled with glass as long as it doesn’t move. Back before everything fell atop of him, he was very much a classic Bronzeblood- he keeps little trinkets of his previous life all around him, but he cannot remember anymore what they mean, only that he must protect them with his life.

God… him surrounded by all these literal connections to the past that he quite literally is being Forced to deny because he can’t remember them… what a page of blood.

Symbol and meaning: Absolutely Ironic,

TAURCER, THE CHERISHED

Trolltag: [TT] tacitTherianthrope

“Tacit” is a word meaning “implied or unspoken” but is most often used in the phrase “tacit approval”, an ironic adjective for someone who’s been experimented on past the point of humanity. Perhaps obviously, “Therianthrope” is “someone who turns into an animal”, a catchall for all animal based shapeshifters. The connection is obvious. Crypha knew what she was doing.

Quirk: hrrrrrrrrrrrr…. It’s hard for Capra to communicate without vocalizing some kind of grrrr…. Growls or howls into his speech. When he gets ANGRY, he’ll BARK certain WORDS almost at random GRRRRRRR

This is so good… and I want to help him.

Special Abilities (if any): As the premier (and only surviving) experiment of Crypha’s into the nature of Lusus/Troll bonding, Capraa’s entire limbs have been replaced with those of his lusus. He possesses the claws and hooves of his former mammalian custodian. In addition, she took the horns from his lusus and grafted them onto his head, giving him two pairs of horns that weight down his head.

Capraa used to have a Bronze-related power to soothe even the most savage beasts, which he could channel through his voice. Now, even being in the same room as an animal or lusus causes them to go absolutely berserk, threatening to tear him to shreds if he draws closer. He hasn’t tried to weaponize this, mostly because it terrifies him,

In dubious terms of “ability”, Capraa’s been fitted with more of Crypha’s control spores than anyone else. Who even knows what they’re programmed to do, but will most likely kill him shortly after activating them.

Goddd I want to help him!! I want to make him happy.

Lusus: A odd wolf-goat hybrid that Capraa lovingly called “his favorite shepherd”, his lusus was murdered and experimented on, before being welded into and onto him in various horrific ways. Sometimes he thinks he can hear its voice in his pulse, warning him to run, run, run! The wolves have all fled this blasted land!

Listen to your lusus, Capraa. I love the idea that he gets a kind of Dream Jadequerelsprite protectiveness… Lesser, obviously, since the lusus is just a tiny little voice, but still… precedent!

Interests: Veterinary Science and Medicine, Animal Psychology, The Coevolution of Lusii and Trolls, Not Being A Disappointment, Really Rare Meat, New and Exciting Forms of Compartmentalization

Appearance: Capraa’s seen better days. His eyes are starting to turn into… something else. He doesn’t have a mirror to check, but he can feel them start to be uncomfortable in his skull. His hair has been shaved, giving his dead, faraway eyes some context. The four horns on his head affect his posture, causing him to lower his head at all times. He hides the limbs that are now his own but should not be beneath a giant, white hospital gown that is his uniform. The Sign of the Cherished -a symbol he cannot remember- hangs painted on a piece of wood hung loosely around his neck, as much a punishment as it is a identity.

Since he’s got some lusus in him and the capra demon has a white head, I might put some patches of white starting to form on him as well… We’ll see. He’s going to be great fun to sprite.

Personality: Capraa’s never been the type to deal with other people well. He makes awkward jokes, he doesn’t remember birthdays, he’s a hellspawn created by mad science. Even before all the trauma, Capraa had always preferred animals to people. He desperately wants friends, but animals always seemed to respond better to him. Less fiddly bits to get in the way of his raw friendliness. He’s always been a bit of a space-case, able to put disparate thoughts together in ways that didn’t make sense at first but suddenly jump out as obvious once he voices them. A genuine prodigy in his field, he’s always found it hard to communicate what he understands in ways that other people find reasonable or manageable. He’s always worked on what feels right as opposed to what is good protocol or what is legal and safe, so while he was good at what he did, nobody ever wanted to rely on him for it. Now, nobody can rely on him now.

He has a bad habit of being timid to a fault, and he doesn’t like loud noises or people getting angry, so he’s always apologizing for something. He tends to gravitate towards people with stronger personalities than him, subconsciously seeking a kind of confidence he doesn’t have. All this ever gets him is another set of insecurities.

My boy you were so set up for pain and you got the Worst imaginable dose of it.

Title: Page of Blood

Active Classes That Remain: Maid, Witch, Thief,

Passive Classes That Remain: Sylph, Page

Capraa’s a long suffering Blood player who’s had all the energy he had to make bonds absolutely obliterated. He clings to the rules presented to him under the delusion that this will make the people above him happy, and therefore will make them like him, and be his friend and equal. This will not happen. Capraa’s the kind of person to overburden himself in order to take the burden off of others- even if that burden he believes he is taking is imaginary, a kind of Breath inversion.

As a Page, Capraa just kind of… sucks at all of this. He’s unreliable, he doesn’t understand social cues very well, and he ends up having people with related Aspects go on and exploit his right out from under him! Pages end up often being the playthings of people they think are their friends, and Capraa is no exception. [In fact, he’s quite like another Bronze Page with a Cerulean troll above him….]

Perhaps some time in the future he could grow a backbone, learn some social skills, and actually use that animal magnetism for something productive for once. That, of course, would involve him being able to not scare anyone and anything just by existing, but… details.

I’m sure once he gets grounded in his session he can get himself better established and create a better web of connections… I like the idea of him advancing and developing as a page and when he finally god tiers just. Fucking Crypha up. I know we’ve discussed it, but… him exploiting his bond with Crypha in order to fool her. She’s so used to him being submissive that he just has to act the part and then take a stab at her. But also him forging new friendships with others and then passively using those bonds to give himself confidence to stand up for himself and take back control of his life…

Land: The Land of Rose Quartz and Mazes

Capraa’s hooves click as they land on a land of bleached stone. At the surface, there is nothing but the baking sun. Before him lies a crack in the rock that leads further down into darkness. He looks around, but there is nobody to tell him to move on. The sun beating down on him eventually becomes unbearable and he reluctantly moves, hoof in front of the other, down into the cool darkness of the earth.

Capraa’s land is one gigantic, planet sized maze. Dead ends hold cities filled with disparate factions, all looking to discover the secrets held at the maze’s center:The Denizen and its horde. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to take every ounce of diplomacy he can squeeze out of his personality to make it there, but he thinks -just maybe- he could do it.

The eyes of a beast were made for the dark, after all.

Your planets are always so gooood.

Dream Planet: Prospit

Capraa is a quintessential Prospit dreamer- he was energetic, emotional, and perceptive, and knew how to conform and adapt to conflicting rulesets without missing a beat. It was these traits that led him to being taken advantage of, but they are also the traits that have kept him alive. He is the perfect Igor, the perfect Henchman. If Master wills it to be so, Capraa can contort himself into whatever they demand.

Design:

Oh man, I had to play some troll anatomy jenga here. I lowered the head to emphasize the arch of the back just enough to make things look uncomfortable and slouched while also extending the body to make up for the lost length… Hope it worked, haha.

Horns: Obviously I based them on his sign and then on the wild goat’s horns.

Eyes: I tilted them and made them sharp like wolf eyes, but gave the eyes goat-like pupils. I also had the white areas I mentioned extend upwards to the head, trying to just vaguely reference the headshape of the capra demon.

Mouth: I gave him both some underbite teeth and some overbite teeth, because I wanted both wolf and goat elements in there.

Outfit: I just wanted his outfit to be relatively plain and simple, so I kept the design elements to a minimum, but I Did put some vague wood hints on the sign.

Legs: I’ve gotta admit, I referenced Aurthour here.

GOD I love this poor, unfortunate man…

-CD

#persephoneanmystery #capraa #brownblood #review #redesign #cd review #submission

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air--bag · 7 years

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I really don´t know how to start this, or it´s future implications, or if you still use Tumblr, or if you still remember me, or if you´´ll ever see this or if it´s going to be read by someone. But even if this go invisible for centuries or forever I need to put this somewhere so I can be a bit more free and maybe one day you´ll read this and finally you will know my feelings for you. (Sorry for the shity grammar and ortography or for mixing spanish words but im kinda lazy and this is really long, so ill just leave it as it its)

I was 13 years old the first time I saw you, it was the second day of school our professor came in when class had already started and in front of him there was a new student, it was indeed someone new. Since the first time I swa you, I knew you weren´t from here, you were so diffren to all of us. We were plain and common stupid suckers that only thought in when to lose virginity and to get waste for the first time in our lives; but you didn´t seem to be that kind of person. you seemed to be quite more deep. THe first time I talked you I thought you were really old and you fucking hated ll of us., it´s kinda of surprising how close you came to be for me, after that first encounter. We eventually become friends, I don´t know how but it happened and actually you turned up to be really fucking cool I mean you were the shit. .You were like really something else, i mean your overall style, and you were a talented drawer (you are still ive seen some of your shit and tis really great). and yu were a cospayer. So in conclsuion we were lightyears from beenso cool like you... From that first year I don´t remeber to much, just htat you lost someon important in your life, and I still remeber how you didn´t go to school and the night that, with a friend, i went to see you. I kept talking to you during vacations and that made so happy because I fucked it up, but about that I will talkin other part of this text Oh, and I started to listen to bands like Asking Aleexandria and some metal shit that was reallly cool and thank you for showing me those bands.. So vacations, ended January was realy cold, and for thee very firt time I started to use my hair long. Of course people laughed at me, it was really a messy hair but I kida liked... To this day my har is really important its like my force its on my hair, without my hari I wouldnt be the same. That year we started kind of apart till our firen, that in this text im going to call Jordan, was expelled from school and sso it was you and me. I know that we had other friends like the one that in here im going to call Alfonso, and many oters, but principally it was you and me. One day for some reasin our cases were changed and we had to move to ihter class that was bigger I think. And since i was lucky that Jordan expeleed (dont get me wrong, I mean, i felt bad for Jordan but deep inside of me, to have you for me in the class, was like winning an oscar, the lottery o winning nobel prize) So basically from march to october we sat next to each other, and that march was the beginning of one of the best time s of my life. I remeber how to see you in my left side, focused in whatever you were draing,, that year you started to draw with rapidografos, and actually your were improving, yowere going to more anime conventions, you were improving your cosplays to. That year I started to watch anime, just have some other things in common with you, porbably without ou I wpuld have never seen anime bugt bracause of you I did, and I lied to you saying tat I did watch anime since12 years old or something like that. So I talked to you about your drawings, or music, or anime, or movies, or conspiracy theories, or how you were dying because got varicela, about videogames, about life, about books, about your cosplas, about everthing, absolutely everinght. We laghed, we played with each.. there was a time actually that we played with water and we kinda of enede u wet, we play with our foot, with our hands ( you used to make the triforce symbol with your hands and was a fucking hell to me t do it) we aughed, with the we were becoming really close... You were becming my best friend... I reaally enjoyed to go to scholol beacuse you were going tp be by my side, the morning would end fast and will had the time of my life, and those years I felt really really fine. Prbably without you hat yer would be boring, and I dont knwow , maybe it would´ve been a more difficult year for me. I would got bullied or something like that. But nothing bad happened that year actuallly it was one of the best years. During that time w=you became really close to Dr. dooferschmitz(Im calling him like that, i hope you know who im talking about) and to Monica ( you know, the girl that was best friend of the Dr. dooferschmitz) so I kinda of felt apart, I mean were laughing and stuff but I started to feel afraid that I nothing for you and that eventually you would throw me away,( of course you didn´t do thatt, know its imposiible for me to think of you doing that) and I was afraid of losing you, and that added up with the many new emotiones that I had, my fear and so many other things, made me to epeat my mistake from thae year before, I started to treat you with coldnes, I ingnored you I treated you bad, and to this day I still regreat hat. You were the last persons that deserved that, and I took you apart from me and I don´t know, why I didn´t gave an effort to avoid to hurt you i just don´t know. I fucked it up again...But agin you kinda forgave me, and seriously thank seriously losing you and those moemnts would be a tragedy for e thank you for been so cool for being amazong an for keep beign my friend. So we kept talikng and beign friends and things become brighter for me again, going to school was my favorite thing in the world this become colorful. You know they say that when youre in love things become colorful and I agree withem, beacause hen I remember those days thers like a feeling that make it so romantic, something in the sun or in the sky or in the color of the walls make those memories really special and beatiu,, even when i was dying of boredom in the church to think that that nex t day I would be talking shit with you made me feel excitedl. My love for you was growing more and more You were there, you showed me cool music, I was hapy with that music, with the animes you recommended me , and basiclly with life itself. My happines had no end or I thought so. We came out of school , we kept talking almost everyday day as we did in the months before, we talked through skype, i remeber seeing you making some cosplays, you were wearing a dinasour pijama that to this day, I still love, you presented me thorugh skype to shini and I remeber how it hurted o not talk you, it was a hell to be without you, it was kinda of infectious beacause I came to depend on you its never good in any kind of relation, but yet all that pain was healed when I talked to you again.. But we started to talk less, you moved to another school, I moved to other school, and even though we still talked every now and then, thngs were changingand I did notice that. Things we re becoming gray, life started to be boring, but yet, somehow, my love for you still kept growing, buut that year (2014) we talked almost nothing. There was a day that I saw you, it was tests-week so I came out early and I was going to see you, I remember how my legs were shaking and the hug i gave you when i wsaw you, i threw you my jacket and you thre w it backt to me and th then whe huged like for a minute repeating ecac other how much we mieed us. God, you were so beatiful that day, actually i havent talked about how beatiful you are, I mean you are funny intelligent, bright, clever, how you ended up beign in this shitty city? fuck, youre so beatiufl, I love your light lips, your tiny nose, youre honey eyes, your snowy skin, your voice, your laugh, Iwas stupid in porpuse just to make you laug and the to go to heaven for a few seconds by the power of your laugh. God I really thought you were perfect,its curious because, I knew that there were things i didnt liked from you but at the same time i liked the beacuase those things made youyou, and fuck you were so beatiful in all the posiible ways, metaphsiclly, physcilly you were jus beaitulf, and realy fucking loved you a lo a lo t lot, i dreamed of you, of holding your hand, of kissing you, of sharing life with you, whit brojke the atmosphere and went to the space, ravelled to far away galaxies and was loving you I was just happy and in love I didnt care about anything ese but you. I enojyed to se your face every morning, how you putted your legs on the desk, all your gesture, i loved the time i holded a part of your body, i loved your smell that to this i havent forget , i remeber how the sun shined and crashed in your hair as in a trigo field. I was so lucky so so lucky, you made everything else beatiful, as if there was some kind of power inside you that transformed everythin around you, to thins day i think that you were a god, and or wanted to experience human life and so came own to the mortal war and picked anyone to be around with and for destiny reasons i was one of those lyucky basards. You were so different from this shity world. One day you invited me to your house to watch jack frost ovies ( i dont remeber its name) and at some point of that day we were ion your rooftop sitting next to each other, weather, was fresh, sky was blue as an ocean sun was warm and soft, and you were beatiufll, and i felt love and calm, everything was balanced everything, was more than ok, everything.... Life can be cruel sometimes, I think that its part of what makes all of this beaiufl, its tragical factort.... life is like that... our perfect circle ( or at least mine) broke and the only thing that i could do was accept it and move on, but i never did that, . wel till last year, 2016 was a good year for me and it mean an advance in my life. But every time I finally move on form you I crash with sometihing, I dont know what it its. Something ive been realizing is that I will never forget you, cause what you did in its sobig that i cant just ignore it, everywher i go i will see afraction of your beatiful eyes, every time I love there weill be a part of me, that eventually will thin of you. IYpu fell in love with new people, you trvelled, and I stayed here, and I decided that finaly have to let you go. even though the things you gave to me will always come with me , the beautiness you showe med will always lay in my heart as if its writeen in stone , those beatiful memories will always be inside of me. Enven if as i became older those meories start to blur I kow that in some part of me, those memories will be there, and so you will be. Actually my life can be seen as a life before and after you. Before I met you, I was sleepwalking, I woke up, ate my brakefast, came from school, doing nothing during afternoons, going to church in sundays, repeating everything that was told to me, the only human from tha pat me was my desperate effort to fit somewhwere, to be like tthe popular guys, I dressed like them, I tried to be like them bu the real me wasn´t even clse to be like that. The pepole that formed part part of my life was stupid, boring, plain and I hated them. And then theres you, you were a real human, you dressed as you wanted to dress, you llistened the music you wanted to, you didn´t care what the people said, you just were a strong powerful color in the middle of thiss that gray schooI remember how teachers wanted to make you pray, and tried to obligate you to change yourself , cause they didn´accept anthing that was different to them, and you revealed to them, you sttod up with your beliefs withyourself and ddn´t leet them to denigrate you or to destroy you, you stood p and were yourself and that inspired me. Cause you know I´ve always een a lie, to this day my parents don´t know my sexuality nor that I´m agnostic, they think that Im still that christian boy who loves god and will marry when he graduates from university. Bu actually I´m not beacause you opened my mind, o talk with you, to hear you to see howyou was exciting refreshing, an experience itself it opened my mind, it showed me that theres was world outside waiting for me to l ived it, you showed me that I have a mind and a soul and that Im someone, and that Im a fucking person, that Im a fucking person dude, it ound strange but I didn´t kew that before I met you. You know what´s funny? Thath you weren´t noticing all this things you were transfroming in me, just by been yourself you blosoomed the best of me , Dude I loved you, i really fucking loved you whit all that I had, even if was young, stupid, preteantious I loved you. I loved you I fucking fucking loved you I fucking loveeed you sooo much , My only regret in this life is to be so coward to never took the courage to tell you this and love you even more. Dude thank you for been there when life was shity, thank you for been my best friend whe I was completely alone, thank you for all the fucking great bands that you sowed me, thank you for opening my mind and been one the most influencial things in my ife and to start this fire that become me in the person I am. I know im not perfect and Im not better than anyone, but just to imagine what kind of personI I would be if I would never met you, scares me, I was full of hate and anger while I sleeped and you woke me, you gave me the srenght to move on, you gave me love, lfe, empath, forgivness. Yeah, there were bad times, there were shity things, asi in everything in this world, but there was something inside of me where to hold on. You were my big bang, you gave me a breath of life and since that i been moving on. Thank you dude, seriously. But for now I have to defintily let you go. Ive been trying to move on from you but its kind of impossible if I dont release all my feelings in some way. So I have to let you go. I don´t know what life has for me or for you but I hope its the best for both, and I hoped that you find your way if you havent, I hope that you love someone with all your heart and that someone loves you with all its heart too and that you fly acroos the atmosphere and shine like stars through space and time even after you die... Your light will still shine in this world and in aliens world and the universe will receive that light with love. If you don´t know what to do in life, do as Boukowski said: Find something you love and let it kill you. You´re talentful and intelligent and I hope that you go far in this life. Please take care of you, of your mental health ofr your physical health please, love yoursefl. Dude, always always fucking remeber how beatiful you are, how amazing you are, anhow much love you can give to people. To this day you are one of the most amazing person I met and think you will always ben in my list of the coolest persons in the worldyou will always hvae a part of my heart, and wherever I go, whatever I do, I will have you somewhere inside of my heart, that part is forever yours. I loved you a lot a lot. Im sorry for the shit i did to you, thank you for been an important parf of what saved my life.Thank you for beign yourself, for beign so real, for beign so brave, for beign amazing. Thak you for beign my first love, I couldn´thave been anymore lucky... I have to let you go, and I have to move. Keep in mind that somwhere, someone will have a part of you inside of him. I hope you the best and I remebered you that i loved you with all my fucking, heart, soul mind, thoughts, with absolutly everything I had,... Dude, all my love and best wishes for you... Goodbye...

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aaronmaurer · 4 years

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Movies I Liked in 2019

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

Despite everything else going on in the world, 2019 was a pretty good year for movies! I saw a lot of things I really enjoyed (thanks AMC A-List!) and managed to avoid all of the live action Disney remakes. While it was hard to whittle down my list to a self-imposed/arbitrary 10, these stood out as efforts I can see myself returning to again and again.

10. The Public

This low-key release from writer/director/star Emilio Estevez is a deeply humanist look at systemic failures to address homelessness in American cities. During a bitterly cold winter in Cincinnati, a group of people decide to occupy a public library overnight rather than be forced onto the life-threatening streets, and media, law enforcement and politicians all attempt to shape the narrative. With a supporting cast including Michael K Williams, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright and Alec Baldwin, this one is worth seeking out (and has some great shots of Cincy as well).

9. Toy Story 4

Did Toy Story need a fourth entry? I wouldn’t have thought so, but leave it to the magicians at Pixar to find new ways to animate (eh? eh?) these beloved characters – and introduce some great new ones. With the additions of Tony Hale’s Forky, Keanu Reeves’ Duke Caboom and Key & Peele’s Bunny & Ducky, this is easily the funniest Toy Story to date. However, it still packs an emotional wallop as well: if you can get through Gabby Gabby’s final scene with dry eyes you may not have a heart.

8. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

While not nearly as successful at the box office as its predecessor, the LEGO Movie sequel is just as funny, engaging and surprisingly moving. While the real-world metanarrative is no longer a surprise, the shift from parent-child relationship to that of siblings provides ample storytelling fodder that I related to even more than the original. And for the record, this was the first major movie released this year to feature a 5-year time jump – and time travel shenanigans (looking at you, Endgame).

7. The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Chiwetel Ejiofor adapted this true story of a boy in Malawi who devises a way to save his village from severe famine (his writing and directorial debut). The film doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of life in under-resourced areas but also embodies hope and ingenuity that know no socioeconomic or geographic bounds.

6. A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

I’ll admit I was skeptical upon hearing Tom Hanks would be playing Mr. Rogers – he’s a great actor but doesn’t bear much of a resemblance in appearance or demeanor. However, his success in the part comes from not trying to technically imitate Rogers as much as embody his spirit of decency, sincerity and kindness. The fact that this is not a Rogers biopic, but rather a story of his impact on the life of a journalist who is wrestling with cynicism, anger and unforgiveness, also helps matters (what a year for movies based on longform journalism! See also: Richard Jewell, Dark Waters). The writers and director Marielle Heller take some interesting chances including a cheeky framing device and transitions using Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood-inspired miniatures that help make this film something {ahem} special.

5. The Current War: Director’s Cut

(Note: This film was originally set for release in 2017 and an unfinished version screened at film festivals that year to critical disdain. The Weinstein scandal mired it in development hell, but it got a second life in a new, finished version this fall as the “Director’s Cut.”)

This story of the “war of the currents,” as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse raced to electrify America at the turn of the 20th century, snuck into theaters under-the-radar at the end of the summer but I am so glad I had the chance to see it on the big screen. Far from a conventional biopic or historical epic, there is a beautiful lyricism on display here with sweeping camera movements, innovative shot compositions, gorgeous use of light and color and a enveloping musical score. For a film that tracks multiple characters and locations for over a decade, there are moments of touching poignancy and intimacy that prevent it from becoming impersonal. I found it utterly compelling and transporting, though your mileage may vary.

4. Avengers: Endgame

It’s a rare Hollywood blockbuster that allows its characters time to grieve and process trauma, and even acknowledges the futility and emptiness of revenge. Endgame manages all that before launching into a time travel adventure and an ultimate showdown that pays off the 21 Marvel films that came before over the past 11 years. I’m sure it doesn’t make sense at all as a standalone, but for fans of these movies it was a satisfying conclusion to this era of the MCU, filled with humor and heart.

3. Little Women

I have no connection to the source material at all, having never read Louisa May Alcott’s book or seen any other screen adaptation, so I cannot compare it to anything that’s come before. I can say Greta Gerwig’s follow-up to Lady Bird is simply fantastic, with an engaging cast and beautiful cinematography that radiates warmth. I’ve read that the novel’s chronology is linear and this movie rearranges it with flashbacks, creating juxtapositions that reveal a great deal about characters, choices and the passage of time. It all leads to a somewhat meta finale that serves as a salute to the creative voice.

2. Ad Astra

As with the likes of Gravity and First Man in recent years, James Gray’s Ad Astra recognizes that traveling to our inner spaces is as transformative as venturing to the stars. Set in a near future where the moon is a rundown spaceport and Mars has been colonized, Brad Pitt plays an astronaut tasked with finding out what happened to his father’s missing mission to Neptune decades earlier. Atop a fascinating backdrop of space futurism, the film is a meditation on the loneliness and isolation of space and the meaningfulness of community and connection.

1. Knives Out

This relentlessly entertaining murder mystery from Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom, The Last Jedi) not only satisfies from a plot and character perspective, but delivers a level of social commentary and critique of white privilege akin to Get Out without feeling didactic about it. The cast is terrific all-around, but Daniel Craig’s starring turn as thickly drawling Detective Benoit Blanc is note-perfect, especially as he chews his way through Johnson’s hilariously meaty dialogue.

Bonus! Honorable Mentions:

Apollo 11 – Comprised of newly discovered and restored NASA footage of the first moon landing, this fresh and immediate documentary brings history to vivid life without leaning on talking heads or narration. (View alongside last year’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man for an even richer experience.)

Spider-Man: Far From Home and Captain Marvel – two more solid additions to the MCU that are honestly probably in my Top 10, but it seemed excessive to give 3 slots to Marvel and Endgame was the clear standout. That said, Gyllenhall’s performance as Mysterio was all types of fun (see also: his gleefully unhinged turn as “Mr. Music” in Netflix’s John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch special) in the former and directors Bowden and Fleck bring warmth and humanity to a great buddy comedy in the latter.

A Hidden Life – Terrance Mallick’s best work since Tree Of Life tells the true story of a rural Austrian farmer who refuses to swear a loyalty oath to Hitler and is arrested for treason. The three-hour run time could have probably been trimmed but its thought-provoking meditations on resistance and conscience get under your skin.

Klaus – A Netflix original that presents an origin story for the legend of Santa Claus sounded a bit rote to me, but its story contains surprising emotional weight (that honestly brought me to tears a few times) and it’s gorgeously animated in a style that finds a groundbreaking medium between 2D and 3D.

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