#which similarly originated as a mistake that was later worked into the story

[homestuckconfession]

the concept of the slur replacement project feels a bit like historical revisionism? especially considering how much i see people recommend it as the recommended way of reading homestuck. it's sanitizing down the more unpalatable bits of homestuck to make it seem more friendly and wholesome (which seems incredibly common among homestuck fans in general, especially among those who like to pretend the epilogues never happened, which is a whole other discussion i won't get into rn), and that just feels weird. not to mention the execution of it is very poor in general. the "future arachnids grip" joke is funny actually, and the change they made to make it "later arachnids grip" not only makes it a weaker joke (as it was initially a play on how the concept of gayness isn't really a thing to trolls), but also introduces an inconsistency in the writing, as it only does this change for vriska, drawing more attention to it. there's also a fucking... random bit where iirc for one line they replace a mention of bill cosby with... gnomeo and juliet? i think? which is not only a baffling decision that they don't, but is technically introducing an anachronism because that movie didn't come out until 2011. the writing they used to replace things in general just doesn't feel very homestuck-y, and it always feels clunky and awkward.

.

#homestuck #homestuck confession #you're right and you should say it #I like the fish puns they use to replace the slurs meenah says bc they're good puns but like #the characters gradually saying slurs less is part of their character development and removing the slurs therefore changes the characters #and late in the comic only a few characters still say them and it's part of their characterization #it's meant to tell you something about them specifically #censoring that meenah and cronus and caliborn still say slurs therefore deletes a major part of the story #was the use of slurs in the first place a good choice? maybe not #but they are ultimately just words that offend some people #I personally am not offended by fag because I am one #and hussie MADE IT PART OF THE STORY one he realized it wasn't really okay #which was a great choice honestly #he did that kind of thing a lot #removing it is like changing the beforans to all be 13 to remove the meenvris ickyness #which similarly originated as a mistake that was later worked into the story #mod commentary

[leonardalphachurch]

Why the Blues and Reds don’t work

On a fundamental level, the Blues and Reds don’t work. The conceit for these characters is that they were the original Sim troopers. These are the guys that the Reds and Blues were based off of. But if you look at what canon actually shows instead of what it says, this doesn’t hold up even slightly.

There are a few characters in the Blues and Reds that do work. I’m sure you know which ones I’m talking about. It’s Temple, Loco, and Biff. And it would be easy to say well, they have more characterization, that’s why people like them. While this is true to an extent, it is actually just a symptom of the problem, not the reason for the problem. Temple, Loco, and Biff can exist on their own without their Red and Blue counterparts. If they were in a story where Reds and Blues did not exist, they would still make sense as characters. The other Blues and Reds do not have this quality. if you were to remove them from the show, Bucky, Cronut, Surge, and Lorenzo would not make sense as characters. (Gene is a special case we’ll get to later).

The reason that Sarge is who he is, and why his name is what it is, is because he is a sergeant who has made that his entire personality. War has completely taken over his life to the point that it is his identity. This is a complete story, this is a complete character. The reason that Surge is what he is is because what he is is like Sarge. Surge’s name doesn’t mean anything outside of it being similar to Sarge. Surge doesn’t have any qualities except for the fact that he is like Sarge. If you took Sarge away, Surge wouldn’t be anything. We’re supposed to believe that Sarge he was chosen because he’s like Surge, but Surge doesn’t have any characteristics for Sarge to be chosen off of. All of his characteristics are instead just based off of Sarge.

And this problem persists with all the problem Blues and Reds. Though Donut doesn’t have an in-universe reason to have his name, he does have an out-of-universe one. Donut, as well as Caboose, had their names picked from the default names that were offered from the original Xbox live service. Cronut‘s name was chosen because it’s similar to Donut. There is no reason for his name, except for the fact that it’s like Donut. Similarly, if Donut was supposed to be chosen based off Cronut, this doesn’t make sense. Because Donut’s personality was not originally like Cronut’s; it developed over time. Cronut is written to be based off of Donut’s later season personality, rather than Donut having been chosen because he acts like Cronut.

Tucker’s name doesn’t have a reason for existing like Sarge or Donut’s do but Buckey’s name is still boring as hell. The only reason his name is Buckey is because it sounds like Tucker. It’s based on Tucker. Tucker’s catchphrase of “bow chicka bow wow” is a commonly used mimicry of the stereotypical kind of music used in porn. It’s an actual thing that makes sense both in and out of universe. Buckey’s catchphrase of “boom chicka wah wah” is nothing. That doesn’t mean anything. The only reason that it’s that is because it is based off of Tucker’s catchphrase. It doesn’t work without Tucker existing. Buckey doesn’t work without Tucker existing.

Lorenzo just doesn’t make any sense at all with established canon. It is confirmed in season six that having robots is not standard for Sim Trooper bases, and the only reason that the Reds and Blues have them is because Church was there. Further, Lopez did not originally speak Spanish. He was not originally made to speak Spanish. The reason he speaks Spanish is because Sarge made a mistake putting his speech chip. If Lopez was supposed to be based on Lorenzo, he would’ve been speaking a different language from the beginning. But Lopez wasn’t made to be based on Lorenzo, Lorenzo with written to be based on Lopez. Lorenzo just shouldn’t exist based on established canon.

And although I think Loco’s character works well, there is a problem with his design. The reason that caboose has an alternate helmet is because in season six he didn’t upgrade to Mk. VI and instead downgraded to Mk. V. There’s no reason that Loco should have the same helmet as Caboose, especially not back in Desert Gulch. The only reason Loco has that helmet is because he’s based on Caboose. If Caboose was chosen because he was similar to Lock, he would’ve had the helmet from the beginning. But he didn’t. Because he wasn’t chosen based on Loco, Loco was just written to be similar to Caboose.

And there are potential ways to explain the discrepancies, to hand wave away the problems with continuity, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the Blues and Reds were written to be knock off version of the Reds and Blues, while canon is trying to tell you that the opposite is true.

Lastly, to talk about Gene, who you would think is the worst offender of this but who I don’t actually have a problem with. Because that’s the joke. The whole point of Gene is that he’s exactly like Simmons. While the other Blues and Reds are supposed to be their own characters that just happened to be similar to the Red and Blues, the joke is that Gene and Simmons are so similar that they’re basically the same person. And this works from a comedy and a thematic perspective, which I will get to in a later post where talk about parallels and narrative foils and such. But for now I will just leave it here by saying Gene does actually work.

#rvb #red vs blue #mark temple #cronut rvb #buckey rvb #surge rvb #analysis #loco rvb #okay i don’t care to add any more tags you all get it #who the fuck is checking the surge tag anyway #this was primarily written with dictation and then edited. i’m not sure i like the wording of it? but it was definitely easier so. shrug. #look forward to more chatter about these guys in the future

[cosmicjoke]

I'm not sure if we should consider some of Isayama's interviews/sayings canon or not, but to be honest, sometimes he has great insights and interviews that I like about the story and the characters, and sometimes he has meaningless shallow insights that I don't like.

But I have to say that I don't think we should take some old interviews seriously, both because Isayama is in the middle of the story and because his views are subject to change.

For example, in one of the old interviews, he mentioned that Eren and Mikasa might go their separate ways, that Mikasa might go back to her happy childhood self. And he also said something about not making them together because he was uncomfortable with their childhood relationship.

He also said something similarly sneaky about the Ackermans in ackerbond, but it was brought up again years later in the anime and I think it was debunked by Zeke.

I honestly think that sometimes there are things that writers/producers forget in their stories and they can make some mistakes that can ruin the story a little bit, they have flaws. And that we have the right to criticize them and that we don't have to agree with them

For example, Isayama mentioned that when he was writing the story and moving it forward, he forgot the characteristics of some characters and left it to his editor instead of picking up the manga and revising it himself.

I also see people who consider guidebooks canon, which is understandable since some guidebooks are made by Isayama (or mostly by the editor). But some guidebooks are not directly by Isayama but by some production teams, so I'm not sure if I can consider it canon or not. I don't even want to talk about that weird guidebook that was published after the manga's finale…

I've already given my answer on this and frankly, I'm not interested in discussing it further. I don't even know why this is such an issue for some people, to the point that they're having a literal meltdown over me saying something as basic as the only things that can be considered canon is what's in the actual story. How is that a controversial statement to these people? What could they possibly find in that statement that's offensive? It's like saying the sky is blue, and suddenly they're frothing at the mouth with indignation, as if you've personally attacked their character or something.

Again, the finished story is all that matters. Whatever Isayama's original ideas were, whatever his outlines or early drafts, if they didn't end up in the story, it's because they didn't work with what he was trying to accomplish. So I really don't care what those early ideas or outlines were. I really don't care what answer he might have given in some interview about the direction of a certain character or plot point, because in the end, the only thing that counts is what we see on the finished page.

The guidebooks don't interest me. I've never even read them, and I don't plan to. To me, guide books are just there to serve as a refresher on various plot lines and characters and where they're at in the story if a work is juggling multiple story lines at once.

If you want to understand "Attack on Titan", read the manga or watch the anime. That's all there is to it. Nothing else is needed. It's a complete work, an extremely well crafted work, with incredible thought and attention to detail from beginning to end. Everything you need to understand the characters and the themes is THERE, IN THE STORY ITSELF. You just need to pay actual attention. I know, that's a tall order for some.

The only reason to focus so obsessively on supplemental material, including interviews with Isayama, is if your own, personal theory of what was being conveyed by the story, or of a characters role in the story, isn't supported by the actual story. If ones theories are contradicted by the actual events as they play out in the finished product, and one is so insanely egotistical and narcissistic that they find it impossible to accept that they were WRONG and instead have to come up with all manner of far-fetched theories and speculations as to why things didn't play out the way they thought they would or should, then that's their problem, and they should probably find some healthier way to work on that than clinging to supplemental material that's no longer relevant or in direct contradiction to the actual events of the story.

Again, if you want to understand and have a full, objective grasp of "Attack on Titan", you need only rely on the story itself, and have an at least competent level of reading comprehension.

But hey, maybe that's the real problem. Maybe these people are just dumb, and they can't understand the story, and so they need Isayama to hold their hand and walk them through it like a paint-by-numbers kit from a crafts store.

Of course you can criticize any work of art and say you didn't like it and would have done things differently. But it's not your work, so it doesn't matter. It doesn't make what the author did wrong. It just means you didn't like it.

You say "author mistakes", but mistakes according to what and whom? You? And why do you consider it a mistake? Because it's not how you would have done it? Because it's not what you wanted to see? What qualifies any of us to question the final products truthfulness to the artists original vision? Unless the artist comes out and says expressly that they were pressured into doing something differently than what they wanted, then there's no basis for that at all.

Not liking something and expressing that dislike isn't the same as claiming that the story didn't go the way you wanted because the author was forced by some nebulous, undefined exterior cause to change it. And that's what these people are doing. It's just egotism. It's just being unable to accept that they were wrong about where they thought the story was going, and instead trying to come up with excuses for being wrong.

Anyway, I'm done with this subject. I won't answer any more questions about it. Sorry if that seems rude, but I'm just sick to death of this.

#attack on titan #shingkei no kyojin #hajime isayama

[redrambles]

Thinkin about Team Aqua and Magma

When going over the villains and their teams in Pokémon, their actions typically range from the simple theft of Pokémon to unforgivable crimes, such as disturbing or controlling a legendary Pokémon to achieve a goal.

However, the only team leaders I’ve seen actually regret and try to fix their actions are Archie and Maxie. I don’t qualify N as he’s not the actual leader of his team, nor is he a true villain, falling more in the category of anti-hero. Guzma and Team Skull aren’t really the villains of their game either, just a gang of kids hired by Lusamine. At the end of Emerald, once the leaders realize their respective plans are destroying the world, they agree to put aside their disagreements in order to save everyone. After the game is completed, both leaders return the orbs they stole, and disband their teams of their own volition. Similarly, in ORAS, once a leader realizes his mistake, the leaders join and fight together against the game’s legendary weather Pokémon, and later reconcile. This leads to my next thought. Why did this all happen?

The reasons for the creation of both teams and hunting of Kyogre and Groudon is given in the games; Archie wants to expand the sea, and return it to the Pokémon, Maxie wants to create for land for the humans. When put out like this, these ideas are more noble, and both parties just want to help someone or something. Somehow though, we got to Archie and Maxie fighting to destroy both the world, and each other.

|| EVERYTHING FROM HERE IS PERSONAL OPINIONS AND HEADCANONS ||

Based on the fact that the two have such similar plans, and already seem to know the other well before the events of the games, I believe it’s likely that the two of them grew up together, and may have been close friends once, long before the games. They would have gone through school together, which is where they both first learned about the weather trio. I like to think that Maxie was the first to plan about helping the people, and expanding/repurposing land to do so. Watching this inspired Archie, and he focused on helping in his own way, working as a Pokemon Marine Rescuer. They continued this, and as they grew older, they grew apart, and Archie began to fight with Maxie about how his “important projects” were destroying the sea. This angered Maxie, as he believed his work to help humans was more important than the loss of some marine life. Tensions grew and their fights began to worsen, and at the end of their latest argument, Archie would leave for a distant rescue before making up with Maxie. While Archie was gone, Maxie stewed, and he began looking further into the stories of the ancient Pokémon Groudon as he worked, sowing the seeds that would lead to the weather apocalypse. Archie eventually came back to apologize to Maxie, but when he arrived, found Maxie’s latest project: the plan to awaken Groudon and use it to reduce the seas of Hoenn. Archie was furious, asking if Maxie realized how much this would hurt the Pokémon and their environment if he succeeded. Maxie responded harshly, saying that the lives of a few Pokémon were well worth the expansion and advancement of the people of Hoenn. This was the breaking point of their relationship. Archie, hurt and angry with his once-trusted friend’s decisions, steals Maxie’s plans, the only change in this being the legendary Kyogre, and it’s power to increase the seas. This betrayal then breaks Maxie’s side of their friendship. From here, both teams began to come together, and both leaders began to lose sight of their original goals: help the people, help the Pokémon.

Continuing on from here, slightly deviating and blending together the plot of the games, we follow Archie as our main villain, as Aqua attempts to steal the Devon Goods, then fights to retrieve the meteorite to slow Maxie and Magma on Mt. Chimney. Archie later sends Aqua to attack the Weather Institute to gain more information on Kyogre, as Maxie had only ever made plans around Groudon. Archie is the first to reach to reach Mt. Pyre, but takes the wrong orb, which begins to key in Maxie to the disaster on the horizon. The protagonist goes to storm the Magma Hideout, but upon reaching the end, finds Maxie refusing to fight. Maxie proposes a temporary truce to the protagonist, stating that trying to awaken Groudon with the wrong orb wasn’t likely to work, and that despite this obvious point, Archie would still use the Red Orb on Kyogre, awakening it without any control. The pair battle through the Aqua Hideout to stop Archie from boarding his stolen submarine, but arrive too late. Archie manages to make to Seafloor Cavern, and awaken Kyogre. Just as Maxie expected, Archie has no power over Kyogre, leaving it to climb to the surface, and push the weather out of balance. As the protagonist and the two leaders come to the surface, Archie states that none of this was what he wanted, that he just wanted the Pokémon and the sea he loved so much to thrive. Upon hearing this Maxie relents slightly, telling Archie he had never meant to go this far. The pair agree to work together help fix the mess they created, holding back Kyogre while the protagonist makes their way to Sootopolis to protect the Cave of Origin. From here, the story finishes out as normal, with the defeat of Kyogre, and the saving of Hoenn. Both teams are disbanded, the Orbs are returned to Mt. Pyre, and the leaders reconcile. What happens to the leaders after this is more vague, as the games have both leaders simply start anew. I want to leave their future mostly up to interpretation, though I think they’d likely face some sort of repercussions for the near-destruction of Hoenn, even if they did also help save it. It’d be nice though if Archie became a rescuer again, and Maxie became a sort of teacher, to continue his research in the earth. And this time, they don’t screw their friendship up.

Conclusion? Two friends-turned-enemies fight so hard they forget the basic science and Pokémon history classes they took together. I thought way too hard about this, but it was fun and I love these two and all of their dumb decisions.

#pokémon #pokemon emerald #pokemon oras #magma leader maxie #aqua leader archie #redrambles

[thetaekookcloset]

I know we're all tired of discussing it but I just don't understand where the photos are even coming from like?? Jennie apparently hasn't posted on her priv in the last 1-2 years and if it were an icloud hack surely more would've leaked than just photos??? And wouldn't the police have gotten involved?? This person says they're being sent photos from one of Jennie's friends but why would she send a bunch of photos of her and her bf to this person 😭 I really just can't think of a logical explanation for all of this. None of the BTS members have ever had a legitimate dating "scandal" in the nearly 10 years they've been together. So this person is implying that Tae and Jennie have been together for only a few months and have somehow managed to have like a dozen personal photos leaked and got caught together in Jeju? Seems awfully convenient

It really just doesn’t make any sense at all, for so many reasons.  You didn’t really ask, but here’s my personal theory, and the only way I’ve been able to make sense of this whole mess lol:

I think it all started with what was most likely a (relatively) innocent mistake: the original Jeju Island car pictures from May.  I think the people in those photos were not Tae and Jennie at all, but someone saw them through the window and thought it looked like them.  They took a video or a couple photos or whatever it was (which is pretty sketchy) and then shared it to the kpop Insta account that then posted the pictures.

That’s how I understand those original couple of photos got out: they were shared by a fan account, people saw them and thought it was really Tae and Jennie, and everything exploded from there.  But again, my guess is that these were just people who happened to look like Tae and Jennie -- there were always details about both faces that didn’t seem quite right.

Then the whole airline thing happened, which seemed to lend some credibility to the alleged sighting, even though the airline story never really made sense to begin with.

After that, I think GH and probably two or three other people got their idea to fabricate photos to add fuel to the then-raging fire that was the Tae/Jennie dating rumor.  Maybe they had the idea and then got their hands on the clip of Tae getting ready for his flight to Paris, or maybe they got the clip first and then had the idea, there’s no real way to know.

Similarly, there’s no way to know exactly what their motives were/are.  It’s possible that after the Jeju car photos, they simply suspected Tae/Jennie were dating and wanted confirmation from YG and/or HYBE (this would explain their initial demands after the first drop), and then they lost the plot a bit as their photos blew up and they got a ton of attention from fans but none from the companies.

I think they posted their best stuff right up front with that first photo: if it was edited, it seemed like it would have been spliced together from at least two photos, but no one could find the originals, which made that impossible to prove.

For the second photo, I think they relied a lot more on editing, creating one image from many, but because of that, there were many more visible mistakes.  After that, I think they switched to primarily body doubles, with some smaller edits to add in identifying features (which is why the edits are less obvious and apparent in later photos, but the figures look less like they’re actually Tae and Jennie -- and why they rely so much on their faces being covered up).

I think the second batch of releases, including the earlier version of the forehead kiss picture, the “facetime” screenshot, the first cat picture, and the thumbnails, were released by someone who was not GH but who had been working with them, maybe after having a falling out or getting annoyed that GH said they wouldn’t be posting any further pictures.

Whatever their motives were originally, it seems that they’ve shifted toward simply getting as much attention, creating as much chaos, or convincing as many people as possible that “Taennie is real,” probably because at a certain point it became obvious that they could trick some fans but would not be able to manipulate the companies into paying any attention to them or giving them whatever it was that they wanted.

Obviously this is just me theorizing and speculating, but I think it fits the actual evidence pretty well -- better than anything else I’ve been able to come up with anyway.  Again, this really has very little bearing on whether or not Tae and Jennie are dating, are friends, or even really know each other very well.  At this point, the GH stuff really comes down to how unreliable the whole narrative has been and how suspicious the photos themselves, as well as their origins, are.

#ask #this is currently my definitive taennie theory lmao

[titismagicalbilingual]

Educational Activities for Preschoolers

Everything is learned in early childhood. Play is learning. Painting is learning. Creating is learning. Working with your hands is learning. Looking for learning activities for toddlers and Private schools in cypress? Check out this amazing list:

Teaching Children to Draw

One of the most fun and educational activities for preschoolers is teaching children to draw. Drawing is a natural way for kids to explore the world around them and to build a foundation for math and other academic skills. It can also encourage creativity and help children work through their emotions. Drawing can also help kids improve their social and emotional development by providing them with tools for manipulation and storytelling.

The process of drawing involves several stages. Children start with random scribbles and eventually progress to more complex forms like shapes and symbols. Then, they move onto the more realistic aspects of drawing people, houses, pets, and other objects. As their skills grow, they start to take suggestions from others and learn from their mistakes.

Developing Fine Motor Skills

Developing fine motor skills is an important part of early learning. It helps children develop hand-eye coordination and opens up many doors for learning and creative expression. Preschoolers who are actively engaged in fine motor activities will develop the coordination and strength necessary to carry out academic activities in later years. Strong hands are necessary for activities such as writing and drawing. Dexterity is also important for participation in Language schools in cypress.

Developing fine motor skills is closely related to cognitive development. For example, when building a fort with blocks, children use three-dimensional thinking to create the structure. Similarly, they use their hands to draw a person's face and add features. Developing these skills is important for cognitive and social development.

Also Read About:  Is Daycare Good For Infants?

Learning Letter Sounds

There are many fun activities for preschoolers to help them learn letter sounds. One fun game is called "Monster Names." Preschoolers listen to words for the beginning sound and stamp each letter with a bingo marker when they hear that sound. Another fun activity is bingo, where children collect chips and mark the cards with a corresponding letter.

A good way to introduce letter sounds to preschoolers is to use the letter of the week jar. This will help your child associate each letter with its corresponding sound. This way, they can make the connection with a letter much more quickly. Plus, it will give them a great incentive to learn!

Developing Vocabulary

Developing vocabulary skills in young children starts with a love of reading. Parents can encourage their young child to read by reading to him or her stories about a variety of topics. This will foster the love of reading and promote good reading habits, which are essential for later success in school. Developing vocabulary skills can also be achieved through pretend play. This type of play, also known as dramatic play, is a great way to promote communication skills and vocabulary growth.

Picture-word games are another fun way to introduce vocabulary to younger children. You can create a game that requires your child to enact a word or phrase. If they do well, they will earn points. Developing vocabulary skills in preschoolers can be fun, especially if your children enjoy acting.

A bilingual Play school “Titi's Magical Spa Palace” can help your child become more confident in his or her language skills, and will help them build friendships with other children. Children will grow to love being bilingual and will gain self-confidence in the process.

Original Source: https://bit.ly/3rP7BVz

#bestactivitiesschool #childdevelopment #bestlearningschool #Bestchildcarecentre #bestpreschoolsincypress

[bobnitido]

Beyond The Indian Commerce Clause: Evaluating Robert Natelson’s “Cite Check”

Academic disagreements risk becoming reality shows. Conflict and drama are entertaining; they draw attention. Historical research, by contrast, is much less entertaining: careful parsing of complicated eighteenth-century documents makes bad television.  And so the temptation is to just fast-forward through these boring, detail-oriented bits. The drama, not the facts, become the story. But this isn’t a show; it’s a dispute with real-world consequences. Facts and scholarship should matter.

The stakes here are much more significant than the potentially wounded egos of two non-Native scholars. The argument between Mr. Natelson and me takes place in the shadow of Brackeen v. Haaland, one of the most important constitutional disputes over Indian affairs to reach the Supreme Court in decades. The outcome in this case will profoundly affect the lives of countless Native children and the rights of Native and non-Native families who seek to care for them. The decision could also call into question many other federal laws that similarly seek to support Native autonomy, profoundly affecting Native communities.

For this reason, I have taken the time to carefully go through Mr. Natelson’s critiques and respond thoroughly to each of his concerns with my 2015 Yale Law Journal article Beyond the Indian Commerce Clause. The result is necessarily lengthy—over half as long as the original article. I do this even though, given the context of this dispute, no one could mistake Mr. Natelson for a good faith critic of my work. (I will address Mr. Natelson’s additional arguments in his recent Federalist Society Review article in a subsequent publication).

Gregory Ablavsky, Professor of Law

Here’s that context: In 2007, Mr. Natelson wrote a law review article on the original understanding of the Indian Commerce Clause. Justice Thomas later cited Mr. Natelson’s article in a 2013 concurrence questioning Congress’s authority to enact the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). In 2015, while a graduate student finishing my J.D./Ph.D. in American Legal History at Penn, I published Beyond the Indian Commerce Clause in the YLJ, which revisited original understandings of the sources of federal power over Indian affairs. In the article, I argued that the Founders thought that the federal government’s authority rested not just on the Indian Commerce Clause but on the interplay between multiple constitutional provisions, including the Treaty Clause, the Territory Clause, the war powers, the law of nations, and the Constitution’s limits on state authority. The article also challenged Justice Thomas’s and Mr. Natelson’s conclusions in what Mr. Natelson later conceded was a “generally respectful” tone. Since the article, a number of subsequent articles by other scholars, some right-of-center and others disagreeing with my conclusions, have similarly challenged Mr. Natelson’s views.

Thomas’s concurrence predictably spawned a number of legal challenges to ICWA. In 2019, when the Brackeen case was before the Fifth Circuit, I submitted an amicus brief reiterating the conclusions of my 2015 article and repeating, in condensed form, my earlier critiques of Mr. Natelson’s conclusions. Earlier this year, Mr. Natelson discovered this brief. He published an explosive response accusing me of being a “shyster.”  Now, deciding the best defense is a good offense, he has taken it upon himself to “cite check,” eight years on, my 2015 Yale article.

Mr. Natelson’s accusations are dramatic.  He claims that the article had a “disturbing number of inaccurate, non-existent, and misleading citations, as well as deceptively-edited quotations.” He even suggests that the Yale Law Journal failed so egregiously in its cite-checking that the article could only have been published either to placate a faculty member or for “political reasons” due to left-wing bias.

Beyond the Indian Commerce Clause did, in fact, go through an extensive cite-checking process. I’m deeply appreciative to the Yale Law Journal’s student editors who went through the Article’s 416 footnotes and over 140 primary sources to make sure that each citation was fair and accurate. Mr. Natelson’s “cite check,” by contrast, clearly did not undergo the same rigorous scrutiny, since many of its allegations can be disproven with a simple Google search.

Nor did the Article simply confirm “left-of-center” ideological and normative priors. As anyone who has spent time in Indian country knows, the federal government has long played an at-best ambiguous role in Indian affairs, often using its authority to cause great harm to Native communities. Thus, the most vehement critiques of federal Indian law from the left, derived from critical race theory, have been attacks on federal authority. Although I do not think my historical findings support the doctrine of federal “plenary power” over tribes, the article nonetheless examined how “the first federal leaders’ narrow claims of sovereignty over Native nations became the doctrinal tools for ever more aggressive assertions of federal authority to regulate Indians.” I personally would strongly favor a constitutional interpretation that gave more space to Native independence and less to federal power, but the underlying Founding-era history that the article uncovered is complex and multivocal.[1]

If, as the Supreme Court has increasingly insisted, history will be the primary basis for determining constitutional meaning, then we need to ensure that that history rests on the best, fullest evidence. Originalists insist that originalism is not just an effort to confirm preordained conclusions that conform to ideological preferences. In this regard, the seeming imperviousness of Mr. Natelson’s views and his ceaseless attempts to find reasons to ignore substantial contrary evidence—as well as his repeated claims that I am unscholarly and my work published only because of left-wing bias–are worrying.  This, unfortunately, is not a conversation between two scholars committed to reading all the evidence and arriving at the best interpretation. It has become, I fear, about Mr. Natelson insisting that he is right. I believe that, at the very least, the history before the Court should be based on more than that. I recognize that I am hardly an impartial observer either, but I think I have the receipts for my interpretations. I invite readers to look beyond the flashy controversy, examine the sources, and decide for themselves.

I address Mr. Natelson’s critiques individually and at much more length below. I’ve done so by sorting his critiques into three broad categories. Here, I’ll briefly explain these categories as well as provide a general critique of the argumentative moves they make.

Plain Error: In these critiques, Mr. Natelson accuses me of relying on non-existant sources. Mr. Natelson’s mistakes are not subjective: sources either exist or they don’t. Every instance of a source that Mr. Natelson and his assistant were unable to locate is readily available online, and confirms my original citation. Without any instruction from me, my Research Assistants were able to locate most of them in minutes—sometimes in seconds. Readers can do the same: I’ve provided screenshots and also linked to the sources.

Claiming that Context Confirms His Conclusions in the Absence of Any Actual Evidence: Allegations of “misleading citations,” “deceptively edited quotations,” and “manipulation” reflect a more complicated disagreement, which I will discuss in more detail below. But Mr. Natelson’s basic move is consistent. When confronted with contrary evidence whose plain textual meaning seems contravene his preferred interpretation, he retrieves additional context from the original source—a useful exercise. But he then claims to discover in that context a limiting principle that he claims “proves” some alternate explanation—one that conveniently leaves his original hypothesis untroubled.

Yet the actual sources contain nothing that directly substantiates or supports Mr. Natelson’s proposed limiting principle. His conclusion rests instead on his own often-tenuous inferences about what the author must have meant.

This is best understood through concrete examples. Take President Washington’s statement that “the Executive of the United States possess[es] the only authority of regulating an intercourse with them [the Seneca Indians].”   In the original article, I cited this provision only to show that Washington asserted federal supremacy over Indian affairs; I relied on other documents to discuss the source of federal authority. Nonetheless, Mr. Natelson insists that the President here “was alluding to his duties under a specific treaty between the United States and the Six Nations (one of which was the Senecas)—not to any general power over all Indians.”

How does Mr. Natelson know? You might think, based on Natelson’s confident conclusion, that Washington’s letter explicitly said that he was relying on the treaty. If so, you’d be wrong: though he was writing about the Senecas, Washington’s letter said absolutely nothing about the treaty. Thanks, however, to Mr. Natelson’s apparent mind meld with Washington, the treaty’s mere existence “proves” that Natelson’s conclusion is definitively correct.

I think Mr. Natelson’s interpretation here is unlikely; it cuts against significant other historical evidence, which I discuss below. But, though I think my interpretation more plausible, I cannot “prove” Mr. Natelson’s view wrong any more than Mr. Natelson can “prove” my view wrong: no responsible historian would assert such certainty in the face of a silent source. The only claim here that I think can be fairly deemed objectively wrong is Mr. Natelson’s claim to definitive authority and knowledge.

This example is representative of other similar examples, which I will discuss below.

Asserting Interpretive Disagreements are Factual Errors: Though similar to the prior move, in these instances Mr. Natelson just reiterates diverging interpretations and then accuses me of error for not agreeing with his conclusions. Did Mr. Natelson or I more faithfully interpret what an author said in her book or article? Is a treaty provision an “assertion” of federal authority or an acknowledgement that it would otherwise be absent? How best to read the appearances of the word “exclusive” in the Constitution? These are all classic interpretive questions. Mr. Natelson is free to dispute my views, which he clearly does. But the idea that I committed scholarly misconduct by offering my interpretations in my article is laughable. This standard of “cite-checking” decrees as sound scholarship only the interpretations that Mr. Natelson deems correct—a standard ultimately subversive of scholarship itself.

All of these issues frame a larger disagreement between Mr. Natelson and me. He finds great certainty in his interpretations of the past and of other scholars—so much so that, when I earlier pointed out much of his argument rested on an inaccurate version of a quotation that, when corrected, directly contradicted his original interpretation, he insisted that the corrected quotation still did not trouble his original conclusion. You will find a similar attitude throughout his “cite check”: deep confidence that not only is his interpretation right and mine wrong, but that my view is so egregiously incorrect as to not warrant publication.

I don’t feel such complete certainty about the unerring correctness of my conclusions, though I sometimes wish I did. But I also think such certainty is antithetical to the virtues of a good historian and scholar: openness to the ambiguity and complexity of the past; commitment to understanding historical sources on their own terms rather than in light of predetermined conclusions; acknowledgment when incomplete evidence makes definitive answers impossible.

The only reason I felt justified in reaching the conclusions that I did in my original article was that I had looked at lots of sources, from different perspectives, that coalesced around similar points. I have not repaid Mr. Natelson’s work with the attention he has lavished on mine, though my brief digging suggests that it might not meet his own standards: my RAs, for instance, reexamined his text search on the use of the “commerce” and concluded that it does not support his claims about its invariable equivalence with “trade” (more on this below). Nonetheless, the reason I was comfortable asserting that he and Justice Thomas were sometimes wrong in their accounts of the past was because I had uncovered multiple historical sources that explicitly and directly contradicted their claims. There is, however, always the possibility of new evidence or that I missed something. In Castro-Huerta, for instance, Justice Gorsuch cited a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Knox about treaties that I had read long ago but completely forgotten about.

And so my initial thought on discovering Mr. Natelson’s cite check was that maybe I had gotten something wrong.  After all, I wrote Beyond the Indian Commerce Clause nearly a decade ago, when I was very junior, and mistakes inevitably happen. And, in fact, I did discover a factual inaccuracy, although not one “corrected” by Mr. Natelson.  In footnote 265, I said that the U.S. first asserted criminal jurisdiction over Natives in Indian country in 1834. Actually, that happened in federal statute enacted in 1817. Though nothing in my article turned on this precise date, I regret the error. (I discuss this more below).

Otherwise, I was pleasantly surprised at how well my article stood up against Mr. Natelson’s rather naked attempt to scour it for any and all flaws, no matter how minor, with which to discredit it. In the end, Mr. Natelson presented no evidence that I had not already read and considered when I wrote the original article. And I found his attempts to debunk my work and explain away unhelpful evidence either unambiguously wrong or highly unpersuasive. He did helpfully catch some stray volume numbers and dates in a couple citations. Nearly eight years after publication, though, it’s probably too late to go back and correct them.

To read the full article, go to:

[1] The “left of center” charge is also off-base because my article challenges efforts by left-leaning scholars like Akhil Amar and Jack Balkin to use the history of Indian affairs to claim a broad reading for “commerce” more generally. Indeed, Robert Pushaw, a right-leaning scholar on the Commerce Clause, recently cited my article as the “definitive work” on the Indian Commerce Clause to reject Akhil Amar’s interpretation of “commerce.”

Prof. Amar was, in fact, quite displeased with my article: before publication, he called me up to harangue me for an hour and a half about why the article was wrong. Mr. Natelson thus gets it backward: I was actually worried that a powerful YLS faculty member would encourage YLJ to rescind my publication offer. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

from Legal Aggregate – Stanford Law School https://law.stanford.edu/2022/10/11/beyond-the-indian-commerce-clause-evaluating-robert-natelsons-cite-check/

source https://bobnitido.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/beyond-the-indian-commerce-clause-evaluating-robert-natelsons-cite-check/

[pynkhues]

if you dont mind me asking, what was it about the batman that you didnt like?

I don’t mind at all, anon!

It’s an interesting movie in a lot of ways and I genuinely do appreciate parts of it. In particular, I’m enjoying this shift away from the Lucas / Spielberg / Whedon school of blockbusters at the moment with The Batman and Dune where genre-based blockbusters aren’t required to be edited at a breakneck speed or full of quippy one-liners. While I haven’t loved either film, I do appreciate that they’re bringing different tones and paces back to the genre. Diversity of voice and feel is a part of what cinema’s all about, and the fact that that’s been lost in the blockbuster genre film for a while now has been a bit of a tragedy of industry to me.

My issues with The Batman overall really stemmed from what I felt to be a failure to balance the ingredients of its own recipe, and to fall into this sort of trap which mistakes ‘dark’ for ‘good’, which…y’know. Is definitely not the case and I think is a trap a lot of for-want-of-a-better-phrase ‘edgy’ blockbusters (i.e. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, King Arthur, The Dark Tower, Hotel Artemis, etc) fall into.

I actually don’t even dislike all these movies – in fact I quite like Hotel Artemis – but I do think they suffer similar issues to The Batman in how they work the blockbuster film model, because I think that making a blockbuster is ultimately a series of checks and balances. Bigger can be better, but whatever that ‘bigger’ is, it always needs to be measured against something that’s it’s equivalent in another area.

Basically I think the bigger the explosion, the tighter the character arcs need to be.

To explain this properly, I probably need to explain my personal three ingredients of genre film. For me, genre film encompasses everything that’s not a straight drama – so it includes action, sci-fi, crime, romance – but it especially includes movies like The Batman which straddles genres like noir detective and superhero as well.

SO.

I like to call these three ingredients the Three S’ of story:

Scale

Scope; and

Stakes.

And yeah, what this looks like film-to-film is different (gosh, you’d hope it was), but I think personally that it’s in this balancing act that makes a genre movie work. Sooo, let’s break that down a bit.

Scale

I actually first really started thinking about scale because it’s something that a good friend of mine is pretty obsessed with when it comes to action movies. For her, it’s entirely what they hinge on, and while I agree with her in part, I disagree they're the crux. That said, it’s definitely a crucial ingredient.

Scale can be summed up by two pretty straight forward questions:

How big is the story? And who and what are impacted by the events that take place in it?

Your scale isn’t your emotional arcs, nor the personal stakes, which we’ll get into later, but rather the depth of the implications of the events of the story.

The original Star Wars trilogy is about Luke, Leia and Han, and they’re who the stakes are tied to, but the scale is the entire galaxy, right? The first Avengers movie is about whether this team of ragtag heroes can work together, but the scale is Loki’s planetary takeover (although it starts and ends in New York), just like The Matrix might be about Neo and Trinity, but the scale of who’s impacted by the events of the narrative is, well, everyone.

Blockbusters aren’t always big scale. One of the things I really love about Spiderman: Homecoming is that it’s actually pretty small scale – yes there’s broader implications to the weapons distribution plot, but the scale is actually only a small corner of New York – which is pretty rare for a blockbuster these days, similarly with something like Ex Machina, where you’re in a lab in the middle of nowhere, and while the robot experiment might have broader implications, the scale in the film is really tied to the characters that exist within it.

Scale itself is rarely a problem in a blockbuster (although I do wish movies would learn that the world being at stake is rarely that interesting), but it’s really important that they’re balanced because the bigger the scale, the bigger the distance between the audience, character and consequence, which does lead to problems.

But before we get into that, let’s talk about:

Scope

I tend to think about scope as what the story is actually about. In that sense, who’s the protagonist and antagonist, what are the relationships the story wants us to care about, and what does the story want the audience to take away from it?

Basically when I say scope, I’m looking for the point.

What do you want me to leave the cinema thinking about?

I think scope can be the hardest for a lot of films because it’s a pretty big question, and a lot of the time, movies are balancing a lot of ideas and can lack the throughline.

But all the best blockbusters have really clear scope: Edge of Tomorrow is very clear in this sense – it has two lead characters, one a woman who’s been fighting doomsday for a long time, the other who’s established in the first act as a coward and has to grow to be a hero. They’re the relationship the story wants us to care about, and the story knows it’s themes of time travel are about allowing the latter to grow enough to be that hero. Very simple scope for a movie that can appear quite complicated because of it’s use of a lot of extra stuff i.e. aliens and time travel.

Mad Max Fury Road is another excellent blockbuster with a clear scope – it has more characters to care about than Edge of Tomorrow, but you’re still grounded with a central two in Max and Furiousa, and while the others get strong arcs, they’re usually in relation to the two of them so we know that Max and Furiousa are who we’re meant to care the most for. Their relationship is one of traumatised people rebuilding trust and rediscovering hope, and that’s clear, and everything in the movie ultimately exists in service of that, because your scope is (or at least should) always be tied to your stakes.

Stakes

Okay, so where my friend would always scale, I would always say stakes.

Stakes to me are the difference between a good and a great movie – you can have the perfect sense of scale, incredible relationships, terrific themes, but if your audience doesn’t know what your characters have to lose, then a story’s never going to land where it should.

Stakes are what should be driving your characters, and funnily enough, I think unlike with scale and scope, they’re often best when they’re a bit messy. A character being driven by an underlying sense of heroism (Captain America: The First Avenger) is much more boring than a character being driven by an underlying sense of heroism and a friendship with someone who’s simultaneously their only connection to the past and someone who’s now a brainwashed murderer (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) because it marks a moral compromise that creates a narrative grey area driven by genuine emotional stakes.

That’s exciting, and interesting and creates texture not just in character, but in story and theme too.

Stakes are at their most compelling when they’re personal, and in that sense they should be a bullet through the meat of scale and a guiding force of scope. Stakes are what’s interesting, scale and scope are ultimately there for context and grounding.

A quick word

Just taking off my Stakes fangirl hat for a moment, haha - - look, all of these things work together narratively. None of them exist in a vacuum.

We’ve always seen this balance tip. After all, a lot of filmmakers and studios I think assume that spectacle closes the gap between these three things when they don’t, whether that be Dwayne Johnson flying a helicopter through collapsing buildings in San Andreas or Meryl Streep as an alt-right president in Don’t Look Up. Spectacle can work when it serves to underscore scale or bolster stakes, but as someone who watches a lot of movies, it’s pretty much just set dressing.

What matters is the way these three things work together because the scope of a story always informs and contextualises scale, while the stakes provide the emotional throughline. The bigger the scale, the more you need a human and emotional scope to ground you, and stakes that re-emphasise that.

Take Armageddon which might be about an asteroid hurtling towards earth, but the emotional scope the audience invests in is the Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler father-daughter dynamic, and the stakes become tied to their lives moreso than the planet’s.  

Or Iron Man, where the scale is global, but the scope is marked by three pivotal relationships that identify Tony’s past, present and future: Tony’s relationship with Obadiah as a father-figure becomes a symbol of Tony’s bad behaviour and a villain he must overcome to become a better version of himself (which, in Obadiah, is ultimately a version of himself), his present is in his relationship with Yinsen in the cave who becomes the catalyst for Tony’s growth, and the future is marked by his relationship with Pepper, who transcends his past and present and becomes a relationship he strives to be worthy of. This scope allows for the stakes to be tied directly to Tony’s character, and whether or not he’s capable of the change he says he wants to be, but without the scale, Tony never would’ve had the context of the character he is, nor the crucial narrative scenario to change in the first place.

Scale, scope and stakes need to work together because they’re pivotal to story regardless of genre, but I do think they’re the most important to blockbusters because blockbusters are usually the genres with the biggest scale, so anything out of whack - - well.

You feel it.

The Batman

Like I said at the start, there were things I liked about this movie, but ultimately I never felt it really balanced this trifecta of S’. I think we understood the scale as Gotham only because it relied on you as an audience member to know it because of it’s status in pop culture, and that made the movie lazy with exploring what that meant for the scope. I didn’t feel like I knew this Bruce’s attachment to the city, which should feel pivotal to his arc in a story like this, just like I didn’t like how the movie felt really unfocused with it’s treatments of Bruce’s relationships.

I don’t love the Christopher Nolan movies either, but I do think Nolan has a strong sense of scope, and knows how to balance out relationships which I don’t think Reeves does. I didn’t know where our primary investment should be – in Bruce’s new relationship with Selina, his old relationship with Alfred, or with Gordon, his father, The Riddler, The Penguin, Falcone or Mayor Real – it became to me a revolving door of characters the story never seemed to know how to prioritise, and as a result the movie lacked to me a solid throughline.

Bruce bounced between these characters, which is fine, but to me, what’s bad is that he often responded similarly to them. Different characters should reveal different aspects of the protagonist, and we got that a little in the way he got physical with The Penguin and intimate with Selina, but it was in such broad strokes, I didn’t really feel the emotional response they were asking for was earned.

Which is all to say, I didn’t really feel the stakes of it were there for any of the characters. We didn’t know his relationship with his father well enough to understand what the shattering of his image meant, we didn't know this Bruce's relationship with Alfred well enough to understand the hurt of Alfred's injury, we didn’t understand his relationship with Gotham well enough to understand his drive to protect the city, nor a clear sense of his celebrity to understand why the Riddler fixated on him. On top of that, we didn’t have any background understanding of him prior to his relationship with Selina to know what that actually meant, just like we never got anything to Selina and Annika’s relationship beyond vague allusions, which made that arc impersonal, and the entire situation with her Falcone felt undercooked to put it lightly.

There were interesting scenes, and some really fun fight sequences, but to me, all of it was undercooked and unfocused, creating a sprawling story that never really knew what it wanted to say. It never contextualised its scale, never was entirely sure of its scope, and didn’t really seem to understand what its stakes were, and the impact was a movie I found unbalanced and ultimately lacking in emotional authenticity.

#there were a lot of vibes~ #and relying on prior knowledge of batman to inform the narrative basically #which CAN work #but i don't think did in this case #anyway this got very long haha #just for the record i think there are a lot of marvel movies that fail in this regard too #but yes haha #the batman #the batman crit #welcome to my ama #writing advice #kinda i guess?m #i feel like that tag will be useful for me finding this post later though

[pwilzfan73]

True story behind The Conjuring 3 – inside Arne Cheyenne Johnson’s “the devil made me do it” court case

The latest instalment in The Conjuring franchise once again has its roots in a real-life case.

By Patrick Cremona, Radio Times. UK.

Published: Friday, 21st May 2021 at 2:56 pm

The Conjuring 3 takes its title from a real-life court case that dates back to the 1980s. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It takes a look at the case and the Warrens’ involvement in the case that originated the phrase “the devil made me do it”.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for the next instalment in The Conjuring horror franchise, with the new movie heading to UK cinemas on 28th May 2021.

As with the previous movies in the franchise, The Conjuring 3 is taken from a real case file with reported connections to the supernatural. Previously we’ve seen spin-off movies focused on the Annabelle doll, also inspired by the Warrens who keep it in their occult museum.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Lorraine and Ed Warren. Warner Bros Pictures.

The case in question this time around is the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, a man who was convicted of manslaughter in Connecticut in 1981 – becoming the first person to have claimed a defence of demonic possession during a murder trial.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It true story

The Conjuring 3 is inspired by the trial of 19-year-old Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who was charged with murdering his landlord Alan Bono in February 1981. During the trial, the defendant gained infamy for becoming the first person to claim a defence of demonic possession in a United States court – although perhaps unsurprisingly this version of events was not accepted by the judge.

His defence rested on testimony given by the family of his fiancée, Debbie Glatzel. Debbie’s 11-year-old brother had reportedly been the subject of demonic possession in the months prior to the murder, with his parents having grown increasingly worried by a number of unexplained and ominous events.

The story really starts in July 1980, when the 11-year-old David Glatzel was helping Johnson clean up a Connecticut rental property he was prepping to move so he could move in.

While there David claimed to have come across a “burnt and black-looking” old man who he claims pushed him into a waterbed saying he would bring them harm if they moved into the house.

When David returned home he continued to see the old man. He described him as having a white beard, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. David claimed the man’s skin was charred as if he’d been burnt too. The young boy experienced night terrors and woke up with bruises and scratches on his body. He’d wake screaming and tell his parents he’d seen the sunken features of the old man “like an animal”, with horns, pointy hears and jagged teeth (via People). (The Conjuring 3 demon appears to have gone a different route, with early photos showing a white masked man wearing a striped red long coat.)

The family said they also had heard unexplained noises coming from their attic.

In trying to get to the bottom of the issue they had called in Ed and Lorraine Warren – who by this point were already well-known paranormal experts – to diagnose and cure their son.

Ed Warren said he heard banging and growling sounds coming from their basement, and that he also say a rocking chair move on its own. Speaking to paranormal researcher Tony Spera, Ed claimed David’s toy dinosaur also walked on its own towards the family. He also said a deep voice spoke to them saying: “Beware, you’re all going to die.”

Lorraine also claimed she saw a black mist appear next to David while her husband interviewed him. “While Ed interviewed the boy, I saw a black, misty form next to him, which told me we were dealing with something of a negative nature. Soon the child was complaining that invisible hands were choking him—and there were red marks on him. He said that he had the feeling of being hit,” she told People magazine.

David’s mother Judy had previously claimed it was a ghost, but the Warrens rejected this idea saying it was an indicator of a demon.

Lorraine also claimed she saw David being choked by invisible hands and he told her “he had the feeling he was being hit”. She told People that she could see red marks afterwards and she heard him growl and hiss. Lorraine also claimed he spoke in unrecognisable voices, that he recited passages of the Bible as well as Paradise Lost. Debbie Glatzel also claimed he spit, bit, kicked and swore at her and he flopped around “head to toe like a ragdoll”.

She also told the Chippewa Herald Telegram that “he manifested. Just a face on the wall. High cheekbones. A narrow chin. A thin nose. Big black eyes hidden in dark holes. He showed his teeth.”

Ed Warren also told The Washington Post: “Right away, I knew there was something to this. I felt like a good fisherman when he knows there’s something on the line.” He added that he thought there were 43 demons inside the boy, and David named them all.

David Glatzel’s exorcism

In the movie, Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) blesses the home. The priest’s name was changed for the movie, but a Roman Catholic priest did visit the home to bless it.

After continued efforts from the Warrens, the Glatzels, and multiple priests (including Rev Francis E.Virgulak) a formal exorcism took place, with witnesses claiming that a demon fled the child’s body.

Ed Warren claimed Arne, who was present at the exorcism, shouted: “Take me on, leave my little buddy alone!”

Apparently, David showed signs of improving, but Arne started to deteriorate. TV series A Haunting covered the case in the episode Where Demons Dwell, claiming that the demon took control of Johnson’s car forcing it into a tree. While he was uninjured, he was shaken by the experience. The series also blamed a demon when Johnson fell from a tree while working.

Judy told The Washington Post she paid $75 an hour for a session with a local psychiatrist too, but it was up to church officials to set up and pay for further psychological testing (via Newsweek). David’s parents were told he was “normal” but had a “minimal learning disability”.

Alan Bono’s murder

Clearly not content with its newfound freedom, though, the story goes that the spirit then immediately took control of Johnson and it was under his control that the murder of the landlord took place several months later.

Johnson and Debbie Glatzel decided against renting the original home, and instead rented a small house near Debbie’s work. Debbie was working a dog groomer for the landlord, Alan Bono, 40, who was also the kennel manager.

Bono, who has been renamed in the movie as Bruno Sauls, lived in an apartment above the kennels.

On the day of the murder, Johnson had taken the day off work and spent the day with Debbie, 26, at the kennel. Along with some other companions, Debbie, Johnson and Bono had lunch at a local restaurant and enjoyed a few drinks, becoming drunk in the process, and when they later returned to the kennel a heated fight broke out with Bono becoming increasingly agitated.

During this argument, Bono seized Debbie’s nine-year-old cousin Mary, who had also been present, and refused to let her go – which then led Johnson to confront him and eventually stab him repeatedly with a five-inch pocket knife, all while growling like an animal. Bono suffered “four or five tremendous wounds” mainly to his chest area.

Bono died several hours later and Johnson was later arrested roughly two miles away from the murder. The murder is believed to be the first murder in Brookfield, Connecticut’s 193-year history, and the first in the 30 years since the town had police records.

The next day, Lorraine Warren immediately claimed that it was a case of demonic possession, which naturally led to much media coverage around the world.

Ed and Lorraine Warren

Ed and Lorraine Warren arrive at Danbury Superior Court - Getty

Arne Johnson’s Trial

Johnson’s trial began on 28th October 1981 at Connecticut’s Superior Court in Danbury.

Johnson’s lawyer Martin Minnella attempted to enter a plea of “not guilty” due to demonic possession stating Johnson “was possessed by a demon, and it was a demon who actually manipulated his body.” It was the first known court case in US history that had attempted this defence.

Minnella, speaking about the case and the fame that followed, said: “The courts have dealt with the existence of God. Now they’re going to have to deal with the existence of the Devil.” (via the New York Times).

However, the plea of not guilty due to demonic possession was immediately thrown out by presiding judge Robert Callahan who said that it would be “irrelative and unscientific” to allow testimony on these grounds, and so despite the ensuing media attention the jury was not legally allowed to consider demonic possession.

Johnson’s defence claimed that he hadn’t been the same after Glatzel’s exorcism, and witnesses were called upon saying they saw a demon transfer from Glatzel to Johnson. Debbie Glatzel also testified that Johnson behaved similarly to Glatzel. Ed Warren claimed Johnson had made a “fatal mistake” by taunting the alleged demon.

Debbie claimed Johnson had come to Bono’s apartment to repair a stereo for him, but that Bono had been drinking red wine and the pair got into an argument about payment for the repair. She also said Johnson was in a trance when he stabbed Bono.

According to reports, in the three months Debbie and Johnson had lived next to Bono they had been friends. The police believed that Bono and Debbie’s relationship was more than boss and employee, but Debbie denied this despite the police claiming the argument was over her rather than the stereo. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It does take this angle into the story, exploring the ‘jealous lover’ plot, which was also shown in the 1983 movie The Demon Murder Case (starring Kevin Bacon).

L-R Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Sarah Catherine Hook (Debbie Glatzel) and Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren) in New Line Cinema’s ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.

After the jury deliberated for more than three days, Johnson was convicted of first-degree manslaughter on 24th November 1981 and was sentenced to between 10 and 20 years in prison. He was released in 1986 having only served five years of his sentence.

Even though demonic possession was not actually allowed as a legitimate defence in the trial, the case became colloquially known as “the Devil made me do it case” – hence the subtitle of this film.

Where are the Glatzels and Johnson now?

Johnson married Debbie Glatzel while he was in prison. He also got his high school diploma while inside. The pair went on to have two children.

Lorraine Warren went on to write the book The Devil in Connecticut with Gerald Brittle detailing the case, and they shared the profits from the sales with the Glatzel family. David’s brother Carl Glatzel did speak out against the book when it was republished in 2006 saying it was a “complete lie” and that “the Warrens concocted a phoney story about demons in an attempt to get rich and famous at our expense.”

Carl claimed the Warrens told the family they’d be millionaires – it was later confirmed they were paid $2,000. Carl also says David was suffering with his mental health at the time, but he recovered. In 2007, David and Carl filed a lawsuit against Brittle and the Warrens for unspecified financial damages. They sued the authors and publishers for violating their privacy, libel and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

Brittle claims his book is based on fact and he interviewed the Glatzel family for more than 100 hours, which he has video of. Lorraine Warren also said the six priests who performed exorcisms on Glatzel agreed that he was possessed.

Debbie Glatzel and Arne Johnson have always backed the account of the possession, but David’s father denies his son was possessed.

How the movie tackles such a complicated case and how closely they stick to the real life events remains to be seen.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is released in cinemas on 4th June, 2021 on HBO Max and 28th May in the UK.

#radio times #arne johnson true story #the conjuring the devil made me do it #patrick wilson #patrickwilson #actor #pwilzfan73 #movies #edwarren #verafarmiga #lorrainewarren #vera farmiga #sarah catherine hook #arne johnson

[itsclydebitches]

Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

[according-to-the-laura]

StackedNatural Day 123: 6x15, 9x14

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

February 25, 2022

6x15: The French Mistake

Written by: Ben Edlund

Directed by: Charles Beeson

Original air date: February 25, 2011

Plot Synopsis:

To protect Sam and Dean from a surprise attack from Raphael, Balthazar sends them both into an alternate universe where their lives are a TV show called Supernatural.

Features:

Thee Jared and Jensen, the prediction of the J2 Fallout, Misha’s tweeting, the death of Kripke and Singer, Raphael’s new vessel.

My Thoughts:

The thing about this episode is that it walks a razor’s edge between hysterically funny and so cringey that I can’t watch it. I have a very low tolerance for secondhand embarrassment and the acting scene makes me want to die.

I like the show poking fun at itself, especially with the editing conversation and Robert Singer and Kripke being there. Misha is very funny and weirdly reminds of Casifer in that I can see him playing someone playing Cas. It’s a really fine distinction but it’s really fun to watch.

The set decoration of Jared’s house is absolutely fucking insane but I’m not willing to look up his house to see if it’s similarly garish. Why do you have those portraits of yourself everywhere, Jared? There is so much about this episode that I truly don’t even know where to begin. Insane that it predicted the J2 Fallout.

I know it’s not likely that I would do any better in the situation but so much of this episode is me watching horrified between my fingers and whispering “you are so stupid” over and over again.

Where is Virgil supposed to be buying these guns? You made a big deal about filming being in Canada, we don’t have any stores like that. Are we supposed to believe that he crossed the border, bought a gun, and crossed back without any issues all in one day? Also, there aren’t maple leafs on our caution tape.

Outside of the weird universe-traveling stuff (speaking of which, had a lot more panache in season 6 than it does later), I really love Balthazar. I’ve forgotten a lot about him because it’s been so long since I’ve seen this season but he really is fun. I like how much he uses his wings, it’s one of the most fun things about the angels and it isn’t used nearly enough. I like that he refers to Cas as being “deep underground” when in retrospect we know that he’s making deals with Crowley in Hell. The end of this episode is one of the first overtly suspicious things that Cas does in season 6, where Dean outright asks him what’s actually going on and he doesn’t give an answer.

The whole concept of this episode in retrospect is kind of delicious torture from Chuck. I wish they had more of an existential crisis about it, because it’s showing them directly that they are in someone else’s story. I wish they questioned whether or not the writers of the show were prophets and how it all worked.

I truly don’t know how to rate this one but it made me feel a lot of Something.

Notable Lines:

“Oh, crap! I'm a painted whore!

“Wow. I must be the star of this thing.”

“Ooh, "priority."what's in it?” “I bought part of a dead person.”

“What kind of douchebag names a character after himself?”

“The scary man killed the attractive crying man, and then he started to pray.”

“If I lose against Raphael, we all lose. Everything.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.4

IMdB Rating: 9.6

9x14: Captives

Written by: Robert Berens

Directed by: Jerry Wanek

Original air date: February 25, 2014

Plot Synopsis:

Kevin's spirit returns to ask Sam and Dean to find his mother. Castiel is taken to Bartholomew.

Features:

A haunted Bunker, Kevin stuck in the veil, the fate of Linda Tran, Crowley’s intern, Cas’ kill count, Cas’ rag tag army of misfit toys.

My Thoughts:

This is a better episode than I was expecting it to be. I haven’t seen most of season 9 since it first aired, so the only thing I remembered about this episode was the cold open (which is admittedly great).

Bartholomew is like Cole in that whenever I’m not actively looking at him onscreen I forget he exists and even when I am looking at him I often can’t remember what his whole deal is. I liked watching Cas kill him because I was extremely bored of his whole deal. Cas was really the only interesting thing about the angel plot in this episode and that might just be because I love Cas. Doing civil war in heaven so close to the civil war in season 6, which is much more fleshed out even with the short amount of screen time it got, was a mistake in my opinion. I would have preferred to spend more time seeing how angels were adapting to life on earth. We learn later ho rare it was for angels to walk the earth pre-season 6, so I wish more angels were experiencing their first vessels and their first brush with humanity. I want to know how many of them really do learn to feel and care when they’re outside of heaven.

This episode does a tiny little bit to soothe my absolute rage whenever I think about Kevin’s death. I see what Berens was trying to do in cleaning up the absolute disaster of a mess Buckleming made of his plotline. I would have liked to see ghost Kevin some more so that he could have an actual character arc that ended on his terms rather than coming back long enough to tell the brothers to stop feeling guilty (when they should) and go back to being codependent (when they shouldn’t). I did think the reunion between him and Linda was genuinely touching.

Notable Lines:

“That's your third unanswered voicemail. You ever think maybe he's just not that into you?”

“You've been flying solo for so long, you've forgotten that's what angels do. We follow orders.”

“Angels fighting angels has to stop somewhere. Might as well stop with me.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 7.8

IMdB Rating: 8.1

In Conclusion: More than anything I want to get completely stoned and watch The French Mistake.

<< Previous Day  |  Next Day >>

#Stackednatural #supernatural #spn #6x15 #The French Mistake #9x14 #Captives #also typically the phrase french mistake is about like. Straight guys being persuaded to have gay sex and then regretting it. #so what’s all that about. #some drowley going on in that second ep too huh

[dreamteamfanblog]

You guys might disagree with me, but I fully believe Dream’s apology was genuine.

I mean, for starters, the fact that he apologized in the first place is proof he was actually sorry. Because the truth is, this whole situation wouldn’t have had a very big impact on his career even if he dug his heels in and insisted he was in the right. All his friends would have kept on supporting him, maybe even would have told him he was right. He wouldn’t have lost many subs over the whole situation. Overall Dream would have been mostly fine if he let the whole thing just blow over. But he didn’t. Dream came out and apologized for what he did even when his reputation wouldn’t have suffered to massively otherwise. In fact, by apologizing on twitch he was probably bringing more attention to the situation than it would have gotten if it had just stayed on twitter in the first place. I mean, even throughout the stream, the chat was spammed with nothing but support. People saying Dream was right or that twitter is just toxic, etc, etc. So yeah, the fact that Dream felt the need to apologize for his actions even when he wasn’t technically required to? It shows that he does know he was in the wrong.

Not only that, but he didn’t allow dono’s. Which is honestly more than I can say for a lot of Youtubers during their own apology videos. You see Youtubers and streamers constantly monetizing apologies. Dream could have monetized the whole stream, got a little out of it. But he didn’t, and that reads as very respectful to me.

Starting from the beginning of his explanation, I see a lot of people who ‘aren’t buying’ the idea that the war cry was a Spongebob reference. Which...I don’t really understand. I mean, to be honest, there’s no reason not to think the original incident was just a mistake and nothing more. He was referencing a scene from a dumb kids cartoon. The show was wrong for including the ‘war cry’, Dream was not originally wrong for not realizing. Just the other day a friend of mine did the same thing, as a reference to Spongebob. So I honestly don’t get where the idea comes from that Dream’s story isn’t believable? Especially since, if he knew the questionable story behind the whole thing, why would he have done the ‘war cry’ on stream?

Secondly, a lot of people aren’t entirely happy that Dream cited death threats and doxxing as the cause of his angry tweets. I understand how it could be seen as shifting blame. But it wasn’t. Honestly, if Dream hadn’t explained that he was reacting to threatening messages and not polite explanations when he made that tweet, people would be demanding to know why he reacted so violently to polite criticism. It was important to know what exactly triggered that reaction from him. And he didn’t waste much time on that detail. Sure, Dream mentioned it, but the brief mentions of the awful messages he was getting were sandwitched by apologies for saying something offensive and for blowing up over twitter. Legitimate, genuine apologies where he admitted he was wrong and that he shouldn’t have done what he did. Every time Dream pushed any blame onto hate messages, he pulled it right back onto himself not long after. It wasn’t an excuse for his actions, it was an explanation for his actions. Dream wasn’t trying to absolve himself of any wrongdoing, he never tried to insinuate that it wasn’t really his fault. Telling us why he did something is fine during an apology as long as it doesn’t turn into telling us that he was right for what he did. Which it didn’t.

Then there’s the question of weather it takes away from his apology that he moved on to a different subject so quick and cracked some jokes here and there. Now, I don’t actually think this was in good taste. I feel like he should have ended the stream after the apology and made a new one if he wanted to do something more lighthearted after. However I don’t think his apology is any less genuine for it. Dream seems like the kind of person who doesn’t like to be vulnerable. He keeps most of his personal information private, rarely discusses anything serious, and didn’t even show his own best friend what he looks like until four years into their friendship. Dream clearly doesn’t like to put everything out there. So of course, discussing such a serious issue? It must have been...difficult to say the least. And some people cope with being uncomfortable with comedy. It’s not exactly a good or healthy coping mechanism, especially when you’re offering somebody an apology. Because it can make you seem less genuine. But having that negative coping mechanism doesn’t actually mean you didn’t care or weren’t genuine, it just means you’re uncomfortable being open and vulnerable. So yes, maybe he should have put more focus onto the apology. Maybe he should have made his feelings clearer. But he managed to push aside his discomfort for long enough to get the point across and I can respect that much. Because despite the more lighthearted behavior that popped up every once in a while, he was obviously guilty and kinda nervous, and that made it so obvious that he wasn’t lying when he said he was sorry.

Then there’s the content of his actual apology itself. First off he specified what he did and why he reacted so rudely on twitter, which I already talked about earlier. “I lash out, and that’s what I probably shouldn’t do” he continues. “My first reaction is to attack back, and then I step back and realize i’m being harsh. That’s something i’ve always done. So i’m sorry regarding that. I did not mean to offend anybody”. And honestly, that’s something that I understand. I think it’s natural for a lot of people to go on the offensive when they’re faced with any level of hate. It’s a completely understandable reaction. However, that doesn’t make it an okay reaction. And I think, had Dream refused to recognize that he was in the wrong for lashing out, his apology would be harder for me to side with him on. However he didn’t do that. Despite the reasons Dream gave for why he did and said what he did and said, he still admitted, plain and simple, that he shouldn’t have done it. That he was the one who was wrong. That he’s sorry. And that’s how you know he wasn’t using his explanation as an excuse. Because he was still willing to admit that ultimately it was him who was wrong. “Obviously I don’t mean that towards people who are genuinely just trying to help people that are oppressed, or help people that are actually upset- that are mad about something that i’ve said or done- so i’m genuinely sorry for saying that, I was being an asshole, and I do that sometimes, and I have to learn from that and try not to.” Multiple times, Dream acknowledges why he said what he did. That it was his initial defensive reaction when people were threatening to come to his house (shortly after he was doxxed), and his initial defensive reaction was wrong. He knows it was wrong and he wants to learn to stop. Maybe he could have worded his apology better, maybe he could have scripted it beforehand, maybe he could have dragged it out and pulled out the fake tears. Dream probably could have done a lot of things to make the apology more sympathetic or more likely to be accepted. But overall, even with the stammering and occasional poor wording he used, you can tell that Dream is trying his best and is legitimately apologetic. “i dont want people to be afraid of calling me out for being an ass. i’m sure i made the person who made that original thread feel invalidated by saying the things i said, but i wasn’t trying to, i was just getting harassed by people that weren’t that person. that person had completely good intentions by making the original thread about native americans and they had really good intentions to make sure that their culture wasn’t being appropriated and that their culture doesn’t disappear, and that is 100% good. and theyre a good person for doing that. i wasn’t saying ‘f off’ to them.i want my content to be a safe space. i hope i can learn and reflect. im not perfect, i can always learn and be a better person, and i will try.“ he says later on.

I do get the feeling that Dream isn’t completely educated on the topic at hand. Obviously. He’s from a very conservative state where he won’t have been taught all these things (I sure wasn’t where I live). He doesn’t completely know what he’s doing when it comes to how to handle minorities, but I really, truly think he’s working hard to figure it out. He’s trying his best and I can’t help being a little proud of him for that because I remember when I was in the same position he was, with some kinda gross views on things and not much clue how to change that. But I tried, and I like to think I got a lot better, and I know he can too. It seems like he wants to.

No Native Americans have any obligation to accept his apology. What he did was offensive and ignorant and if you were hurt by his actions then there’s no reason you should have to just get over it. I will never try to force anyone to accept an apology that they don’t want to accept. And it’s not my place to accept that apology for you. However, I feel like I can safely say, as someone who’s done similarly dumb things to him years ago and who grew up in an environment similar to the one in the state he lives, that I wholeheartedly believe he was being genuine, for whatever that’s worth.

#dreamwastaken #dream team #mcyt

[thevindicativevordan]

Metallo

I wanted to talk about one of my favorite DC villains, a guy who I’ve always thought was incredibly cool. A guy who I’ve thought makes a really awesome contrast for Superman. A guy who has never been in stories that have utilized his potential in my eyes:

Let’s talk about Metallo.

Metallo’s Background

He’s one of Superman’s oldest Rogues, and also one of the Rogues who has gone through the most revamps. The Golden Age Superman fought a guy called Metalo aka George Grant who created a suit of armor made out of the strongest metal on Earth (something that would resurface in the Grant Morrison revamp during the New 52) and a super strength serum that made him Superman’s physical equal. In an odd way he was an evil proto-Iron Man/Post Crisis Lex Luthor:

The John Corben take wouldn’t show up until the 1950s, created by Robert Bernstein and Al Plastino. This was the foundation for the modern conception of Metallo:

Right off the bat Corben was positioned as an Anti-Superman, predating Bizarro who wouldn’t show up until later. Corben worked as a journalist to cover up his real activities as a murderer and thief. An accident that nearly killed him and crippled his human body, forced him to accept a deal with a scientist to transfer his mind to a new artificial body. The scientist transferred his mind into an android body covered in synthetic bulletproof skin, gifting Corben with super strength. The synthetic skin idea would be used in Byrne’s revamp and the DCAU incarnation. He was initially powered by uranium, but was told he would need Kryptonite to fuel himself permanently. Corben would also act as a romantic rival for Clark via wooing Lois with his pretense of being Superman’s secret identity.

Ultimately John Corben would die in his debut issue, after mistaking a museum prop for the actual Kryptonite he needed to power himself. I often wonder if the character might have been better off if he had not been killed off in his debut, similarly to how the Joker was saved from dying in his debut by editorial. There were many intriguing ideas present in Corben’s creation: He was a romantic rival for Clark Kent, he used his journalism in a similar if villainous way as Superman did, and he was powered by the very thing that could kill Superman while still possessing enough raw strength to stand on equal terms with the Man of Steel. If they had kept him around, fleshed him out more, might Metallo have enjoyed more long term respect?

 Regardless, Corben’s death paved the way for the third Metallo: His brother Roger Corben.

Roger likewise had a lot of interesting ideas that would eventually get folded into the modern Metallo. He was not a petty thief, but had a personal vendetta with Superman over the death of his brother. Superman accidentally caused the very accident that crippled Roger, adding to the man’s feud. Roger was also a leader within the Skull organization, rather than the small time criminal his brother was. This Metallo’s design would form the basis for the Geoff Johns/Gary Frank revamp during Secret Origin, and I suspect the Johns conception of Metallo as a member of a wider organization and whose transformation was caused by Superman has it’s roots here.

Sadly the take on a more fleshed out Metallo would not last. The Roger Corben version of Metallo would meet his end with the rest of the Pre-Crisis Superman Rogues Gallery in the seminal Alan Moore story Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Enter John Byrne:

During his Post-Crisis revamp of the Supermythos, Byrne returned to the John Corben take of a petty thief injured in an accident, who is rebuilt by a mad scientist Professor Vale. Byrne added his own twist though, with the scientist believing Superman to be the first scout in a full blown Kryptonian takeover of Earth, and specifically crafted Metallo to be an Anti-Superman weapon powered by Kryptonite. Metallo was to be humanity’s defense against the threat of Superman, an idea that would be revisited in Johns’ and Morrison’s revamps. Unfortunately petty thieves don’t make for great heroes, and Metallo killed Vale, ultimately coming into conflict with Superman not over any desire to protect humanity, but to simply eliminate a thorn in his side.

This incarnation of Metallo has basically served as the basis for his appearance in outside media, with a design that blatantly draws on the popular Terminator films.

This version of Metallo would also acquire a variety of powers thanks to making a deal with Neron that included the ability to transform parts of his body into weapons, transfer his consciousness into any technological or mechanical device, and manipulate his size:

Personally I’ve always loved that powerset upgrade, and think it’s crucial it sticks. It let him kick the shit out of Superman AND Batman in Loeb Superman/Batman, which basically solidified for me that this dude was a badass you didn’t want to mess with. Shame he’s never come close to matching that initial impression since.

The DCAU mostly used the Byrne revamp’s take, but they did change a few aspects which would end up carrying over to the mainline version. Most important was the replacing of Vale with Lex Luthor as the mind behind Metallo’s creation, something that would be incorporated in both Johns and Morrison’s later revamps.

One aspect that they introduced that didn’t carry over, that was still utilized to great effectiveness in the show, was that Corbyn’s transformation had robbed him of most physical sensation. He couldn’t taste, smell, touch, all the little things that made us human, and that drove him nuts. Ultimately he would learn that Lex was responsible for what happened to him, and he would swear a grudge against both Lex and Superman. Malcom McDowell was a fantastic choice to play Metallo, and is still the guy I “hear” when I read Metallo’s dialogue.

Now we come to the guy who crafted the next big revamp of Metallo: Geoff Johns.

This version of Metallo incorporated a ton of aspects from the multiple revamps that had preceded it, in much the same way Secret Origin did to Superman as a whole, while also adding a few new twists that I consider essential to the character now.

Like the DCAU, Luthor was the one who transformed Corben into Metallo. Like the Roger Corben take, this John Corben was accidentally crippled in a fight with Superman that gave him a personal vendetta against the Man of Steel.  Similar to Byrne, this Metallo was created to be an Anti-Superman weapon. Corben and Lois had had a brief romantic relationship, similar to the original debut of Corben. Johns even incorporated some of the Golden Age Metallo by having Corben suit up in a mech suit made of “Metallo”, the strongest metal on Earth to fight Superman before the accident. Johns also added a key bit of lore that I love, that Corben served as a soldier under General Sam Lane, and became the man’s surrogate son, the child he always wanted as opposed to Lois and Lucy. Here Corben is motivated to fight Kal-El by a mix of xenophobia, need to impress his father figure, desire to impress Lois, and a simple dose of blood lust.

The last major revamp came from Grant Morrison during the New 52:

Morrison kept a lot of the Johns revamp: Corben was a soldier serving under Sam Lane, he had a brief romantic relationship with Lois, he was distrustful of Superman’s heroics, and his transformation into Metallo was connected to Lex. However Corben was a much more sympathetic figure under Morrison than under Johns, genuinely believing Superman to be a threat, he volunteered to be merged with the Metal-0 superweapon (another callback to the original Metalo) to defend humanity, but Brainiac hijacked his cybernetics and turned him into a weapon. 

While Metallo would get another visual revamp for Rebirth, posted in the first image, Corben has more or less stayed within the confines that Byrne/Johns/Morrison established.

How I would use Metallo

I said earlier that Metallo is a guy I loved that I’ve never thought has lived up to his potential. He’s a villain with a lot of cool ideas, he’s a villain who has been continuously used by a lot of my favorite writers, but he’s never lived up to the Anti-Superman characterization that’s baked into him. Too often he’s just been a glorified henchman, or a petty thug, rarely if ever challenging Superman except in the most basic physical sense. I think that’s a great disservice to the ability of the character to be a much more important Rogue. That writers so often refuse to focus on him or any of the Rogues beyond Lex also hasn’t done him any favors. Instead of creating countless new OCs that are tossed aside by the next writer, someone needs to come on board with a passion for revamping the classics.

A lot of Superman’s Rogues suck not because they aren’t cool or don’t bring any interesting ideas, but because the ideas don’t do a good job in contrasting with Superman’s attributes. Metallo is a great example of this, look at all the interesting ideas creators have crafted around him, yet none of them have really been able to push those ideas as a way to explore and contrast Superman, so we get basic “Metallo tries to kill Superman, fails, Superman sends him back to jail” stories. That’s a failure of creativity in my eyes. I think that by choosing from some of the revamps listed above, a better, cooler, more interesting Metallo can be crafted.

The basics as established by Byrne/Johns/Morrison are great! The essential ideas that should be incorporated from all of the revamps listed above are:

1. Corben needs to have a military background as in Johns/Morrison. The petty thief origin is too dull, there’s nothing really to be mined there from a characterization standpoint. As a soldier Corben can serve as an interesting critique and contrast of Superman as an icon of America. The “American Way” has always been a dicey add-on to the original “Truth and Justice” motto. Often it’s been used to cast Superman as an obedient stooge of the government, as he was in The Dark Knight Returns, a characterization that has dogged him ever since. I think Corben can serve as an interesting character to explore Superman’s relationship with the American military-industrial complex. I would have Corben be what said complex wants Superman to be, at least in the beginning: A human WMD they can aim and fire, who will always follow orders no matter how reprehensible they are, who has a firm “America First” mindset. That way you can contrast the mainline Superman, and show that Superman is not that while also establishing what “The American Way” means in his eyes. Or you can have Superman drop that aspect of his motto in-universe, out of disgust for how his government perverts it. Either option is fine with me, I didn’t mind when Superman renounced his American citizenship.

2. If Lois often has to end up working with Clark’s exes, whether it’s Lana, Diana, or whoever, I think it’s only fair that Clark has to end up facing down an ex from Lois’ past. It’s important to show that Lois had a life before Clark showed up, and I think Corben is a good way to explore some of that. He’s the possessive ex-boyfriend who doesn’t respect Lois’ personal space and is convinced he can “win her back” via sheer determination. You can also compare and contrast the way Clark courted Lois, did Clark occasionally make the same pigheaded assumptions as Corben did? Corben debuted as a romantic rival for Superman, and I think that aspect still has merit. I also like his status as Sam’s surrogate son, it adds for some nice tension with Clark’s father-in-law that the guy he actually wanted to marry Lois was transformed into a weapon to kill the guy who ended up being his son-in-law. 

3. Corben is a true believer in the threat Superman poses, and is willing to take on the transformation into Metallo to protect humanity. It’s xenophobia yes, but with all the Evil Superman stories going around, it’s hard not to sympathize at least a little bit with Corben’s viewpoint, which tie into a deeper attribute of Corben’s I think needs to be brought up: Corben should be a sympathetic villain. I wouldn’t make him a bloodthirsty psycho, Superman has plenty of those. Corben should have villainous valor, willing to tackle on whatever threats to humanity are out there, whether Superman or others. I would make Corben instead someone who has the genuine desire to protect humanity, but lacks Superman’s concern for collateral damage. In that way you could contrast the two’s brand of “heroics”, Superman’s loyalty to humanity as a whole over one nation, and concern with protecting lives first and foremost, Corben’s desire to protect humanity’s future for the “greater good” even if it costs a few lives in the here and now and loyalty to America above all else. 

4. I like the idea of Superman being inadvertently responsible for the accident that cripples Corben and mandates his transformation. It adds to his sympathy, helps justify why Superman might continue to believe Corben could find redemption (he wants Corben to change and also wants to find a way to earn Corben’s forgiveness one day), and provides a good personal reason for why Corben would hate Superman, blaming Supes for his current state. I would also have him blame Sam and Lex as well, but he would subdue those resentments for as long as he remained working for the military. Only after he finally snaps would he target those two.

5. Finally I would keep the ability to shapeshift his body into weapons, and to manipulate technology. I would have Corben emulating Adam Jensen from Deus Ex, able to “hack” tech around him for his own purpose, armed with a variety of weapons that make him a huge threat not just to Superman but to everyone. Finally I would get rid of the Kryptonite heart. I’m tired of every battle with Metallo going the same way: He shows up, blasts Superman with kryptonite radiation, Superman lies on the ground gasping in pain, Metallo stands around gloating like a moron instead of finishing Supes off, Supes beats him by tricking him or by someone else intervening. I want to see Metallo as an Anti-Superman weapon realized beyond jus the Kryptonite. How about incorporating the DCAU version’s lack of feeling, so that Metallo doesn’t feel pain from Superman’s blows or his powers? How about giving him an internal temperature controller, so he can’t be melted by heat vision or frozen by arctic breath? How about an invisibility cloak that hides him from Superman’s vision, sound mufflers that let him sneak up on Supes even with his hearing, basically go WILD with his Anti-Superman status, let us see a real fight between someone who can counter each of Superman’s powers! You have Kryptonite Man and Lex for the villains who mainly make use of Kryptonite against Superman, I think Metallo should go in a different direction. Morrison making it so that “Metal-0″ was already powerful enough to hurt Superman is all the justification you need as to why he still poses a threat in my opinion.

I’ll go over the basic arc I’d want to see him undergo and the kinds of stories I think he’s positioned to tell in another post.

#superman #metallo #Lois Lane #sam lane #lex luthor #kryptonite #revamp

[p5youllneverseeitcoming]

Persona 5 Strikers/Scramble

So! I finished the story of Persona 5 Strikers and I wanted to share my thoughts as I have soooo much to say but cannot share with my friends due to spoilers :’) I am currently playing on a New Game+ as, ya girl wants the Platinum Trophy :o

I will talk about some of the things that I really liked here (Spoiler free don’t worry) AND include spoilery things under the cut so I won’t ruin the experience for anyone else!

The Plot

Obviously this takes place after the original Persona 5 story finishes and as opposed to a whole year, you just get 1 month with the Phantom Thieves. I really liked exploring all the cities you travel to and the character interactions were so cute!! I really like the two new characters introduced (Sophia and Zenkichi Hasegawa). Both of them fit the story so well and their interactions with the other Thieves are honestly so good and pure! Also?? Their outfits? Amazing T_T It was such a nice change seeing everyone in casual outfits as opposed to their school uniforms!

I also loved the fact that you could choose to play with characters that get introduced late game like Haru for example straight away. I for one, always have her in my party as soon as she’s available so having her for the whole game was like a dream come true haha. I’ll talk about Sophia and Zenkichi a bit more under the cut but I will say that it’s so fun to play as them! I personally prefer Sophia more as she has healing skills which are always really useful and she uses yo-yo’s for her weapons which are so fun to use. Zenkichi uses a great sword which is very Final Fantasy of him and I am loving it. I love their Phantom Thief outfits! Sophia looks super cute in her floofy coat and boots and Zenkichi just looks so cool! His hat is goals, I want one T_T

The anime cutscenes in the game are also... Omg... I just can’t help but fangirl over how everyone looks... ESPECIALLY SOPHIA OML, she’s so... Bby... And of course, the dialogue options you can choose are so funny, then again what else can you expect from a game that had the option to say “you jelly?” to Ryuji.

I won’t spoil the main plot but this game works similarly to Persona 5 in the sense of, you still go into dungeons but these ones are a lot shorter and when you leave the dungeon, the days don’t actually move forward, only specific story points advance the days. So essentially if you wished, you can stay and grind for as long as you like!

The Gameplay

I won’t lie, as expected from a hack-and-slash it gets quite chaotic at first if you don’t fully know what’s going on but you get used to it pretty quickly! The game gives you tutorials whenever anything new appears and you get the hang of it pretty well by the first dungeon. You still only have 4 characters in your party and Akira must always be present but here you can actually run around as the other party members when the battles are over! Also? Morgana gets comical sound effects when he does things like jumping and running and I was LIVING for it.

The other thing that changed is, obviously it’s not turn based so if you were like me and wore the SP restoring accessories to get 7SP back each turn, you’re in for a last surprise! In this game you actually use your items quite a lot as there isn’t a limit to how much you can use as you access them mid battle by pausing. Later on you get specific skills that restore your SP after each battle or by performing All Out Attacks and 1 More’s so honestly, SP isn’t really a problem for regular battles. I mainly found it running out quickly when I was fighting some of the optional bosses but I always had SP restoring items so it was all good hehe.

You still do things like All Out Attacks and 1 More’s in this game but you also do something called ‘Showtime’ which is very similar to the ones introduced in Royal only in Strikers it’s for one character, you basically build up the showtime gauge as you battle enemies and, once activated, you deal significant damage to stronger enemies like bosses as well as all of the enemies in the area. The All Out Attacks also have their own little animation with your party posing and just looking really good!

Yusuke being so extra is honestly such a mood omg... Also Mona T_T So smol.

Every party member has their own special quirks such as Ann and Makoto applying Fire and Nuclear affinity respectively to their regular weapons, Morgana turning into the Mona car and so on. I personally always had Haru and Yusuke in my party and kept switching between the other Thieves to see what I like best. Personally, I really like having Morgana or Sophia as they’re really good healers, Morgana obviously having the more powerful skills such as Mediaharan and Salvation.

Also... The menus... Omg... If you thought the Persona 5 menu was stylish then you will LOVE the Strikers menus. They’re so stylish! And I love that all the Phantom Thieves are there too, it’s so cute T_T

The only thing I don’t like is the game doesn’t pause when your controller dies so uh... I may or may not have died during a boss battle when I was like 2 hits away from winning and then just... Stopped moving letting the boss hit me with a killing combo :)

To be honest though the party that I had pretty much all the time was:

But as I said, I liked to change Morgana and Sophia around every now and then.

The Music

Omg the music. Atlus really just said: Hey what if we made Persona 5 music again but like... More epic?

The song that plays right as soon as you have control of Joker is SO. GOOD. I legit had to pause for like 5 mins just to jam out. I don’t think it will come as much of a surprise but in my opinion, Persona 5 definitely has one of the best video game soundtracks, I absolutely love all the songs!

I will discuss some of the dungeon themes in the spoilers but I absolutely love the soundtrack for this game. Every dungeon theme is so fitting for said dungeon, I genuinely listen to them all the time, especially when doing my research for my essays!

The battle music is really energetic as opposed to the jazzy feel from the original Persona 5 soundtrack but it’s very fitting for the actual battle as you often fly all around the area instead of standing in one spot. I will say, Last Surprise made an excellent comeback despite being an already amazing song which is just, amazing, incredible, fantastic...

Other things

Well, I can’t go into detail due to spoilers but they deadass put a JoJo reference as well as a character in the game :’) The moment I saw them I was fangirling so hard!!! Also? The villain designs in this game??? Amazing. Beautiful. Very creative!

The Phantom Thieves interacting with each other is also really cute! I ESPECIALLY liked the fact that Morgana and Ryuji got along a lot better! They still had small fights here and there but they pretty much apologised to one another straight away which I really liked! Also? Ryuji protecting his friends, especially the girls? Amazing. Wonderful. Cannot help but stan.

Well, that concludes the non-spoiler section which.... Is kinda long haha, Below the cut I will talk about the spoilery things so I advise looking at it AFTER you finish the game!

The Plot

The plot of this game is really fun if you ask me. You travel around Japan defeating Monarchs in Jails AND you get to experience the joys of summer vacation with your friends and your new Persona dad. I really like the fact that you don’t advance time when you leave the Jails because this gives you the chance to grind as much as you want before tackling harder fights like some of the optional bosses. The boss designs themselves were so good! Especially Alice?! My God? She’s beautiful?? Look at her!

Persona 5 Strikers said you can be horny on main... Just this once o_o. She literally steps on Joker in the Jail which o_o Ma’am... Plz but she ALSO steps on her manager in the real world.

I really liked all the bosses in this game because they felt so... Real? Obviously I don’t agree with them for brainwashing people into worshipping them, but I really like how the game gave them backstories that showed why they strayed away from the right path. The fact that the Thieves tell them that they understand their struggles because they themselves went through the same thing (Like Ann and Yusuke) honestly made me appreciate the story that much more. I really liked Haru’s little arc in Sapporo because not only did she help Mariko Hyodo and show her that despite mistakes you can always stand up and start again, but she also got to have more screentime, like that cute fountain scene she has with Akira! ALSO? The Hee-Horde?! I was laughing for a solid 5 minutes when I saw it! It was so cute how Haru, Sophia, Ryuji and Yusuke were so into it while Futaba was just there like: ????

I think my favourite Jail out of all of them will definitely have to be the Kyoto one, a.k.a. the Jail controlled by Zenkichi’s daughter, Akane. Despite how short it is, you can learn so much about her. The overall aesthetic of the jail shows her love to the Phantom Thieves and in the actual Jail theme you can hear fragments of ‘Life Will Change’ and ‘Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There’ which I think is absolutely amazing! The boss fight for this jail honestly took me 3 tries to beat as the first time, I died due to not fully getting how Shadow Joker worked, and the second time, I was about 2 hits from beating him but then... My controller died :’) By the time it turned back on I was already c-c-c-c-comboed to death so :’) This is also the jail where Zenkichi awakens to his Persona and honestly? I found the little segment where he has to sneak around in his usual everyday attire so cute, bless him, he really did adopt 7 teenagers, their cat and an AI daughter.

ALSO?! They deadass put Dio in this game? Like when I first saw Natsume’s shadow I was like: Hm looks kinda familiar...

BUT THEN?!

Needless to say I was fangirling pretty hard.

I liked Akira Konoe, very much vibing with his Power Ranger aesthetic however, I have to say, his boss fights was surprisingly... Easy? At least it felt easy to me which was kind of... Disappointing I suppose for him supposedly being “the final boss” HOWEVER, I very much liked how his calling card was delivered, and the fact that Zenkichi could finally get his revenge was very satisfying! 

Now, let’s talk about the end game, mainly the Abyss Jail.  I did NOT see it coming (haha) that it was Ichinose all along! As I’m currently replaying the game, the fact that she doesn’t want to look at Sophia despite specialising in AI technology should have been my first clue that something is not quite right here! 

When she forces Sophia to attack the Thieves, it honestly broke my heart. The fact that she recognised Joker and Skull... And she threw herself off the ledge just so she can’t hurt them anymore... Yo, I love her so much T_T That’s why her awakening to her Persona (her true Persona) was such a satisfying scene! Her Persona (Pandora) has a really cool design, I especially like the fact that she represents the Hope Arcana (as there was hope left at the bottom of Pandora’s box) and that Pandora herself kept the box-y design from her original “Persona” Pithos. I found it quite funny that all the skills Pithos has ended with a “?”. Anyway, the scene where she tells Ichinose all the things she learnt, and that Ichinose herself has a heart despite believing that she doesn’t for so long was so touching. It showed that Sophia deeply cares for her, despite the fact that she literally said she’s the reason so many people are getting mind controlled by EMMA. The ending scene with the two of them laughing and holding hands... My heart T_T

Now then, let’s talk about EMMA.

I. Loved. The. Final. Boss. Fight.

The fact that the game makes you use ALL the characters for the final fight! As I usually switched out characters here and there, my reserve party members weren’t severely under-levelled which made the fight pretty okay! I had quite... Strange groups I would say as I had Makoto and Zenkichi being a team, Morgana, Ann and Ryuji being a team, and Akira, Haru, Yusuke and Sophia being the final team. The final boss itself, has an absolutely beautiful design. I especially loved the angel like wings because it really showed that EMMA saw herself as a saviour. The cutscene that plays after with all the Thieves dealing the final blows before watching all the desires fall around them was honestly so pretty... Man, this game series is just so aesthetic!

When the credits rolled and all the photos started appearing I couldn’t help but start crying. It really felt like you were actually there, living through all the memories and the fact that Sophia called the photo of all of them together “Treasure”... T_T

The Gameplay

I already pretty much said all I wanted for the gameplay in the non-spoiler section but I will say, the Showtimes and the Master Skills each character learns are so good! I love that once you master all of them you’re bascially unstoppable, I especially love Haru’s and Akira’s as it allows them to deal damage even if they’re a safe distance away from the enemy. The fact that you can learn Bond skills that restore SP with every All Out Attack and One More is honestly so helpful because it saves you going back and forth between the real world but then again, by this point you probably have way too many HP and SP restoring items!

I really liked that Zenkichi has no weaknesses and uses Almighty damage but I find the whole Fury/HP consumption combination a bit weird. After a while you get used to it and obviously you don’t have to activate fury at all but as I said before, I prefer playing as Sophia. Although, I will say that gun wise, I think Zenkichi’s are a lot more fun to use than Sophia’s blasters, but then again that’s just my personal opinion!

The Music

As I said, the music was so fitting for each Jail, I absolutely love it.

The first Jail, you honestly can’t help but bop your head to the beat. It really gives you the impression that you’re in some kind of twisted theme park which really fit the overall aesthetic of the Jail. I loved the vibrant neon colour scheme in such a dark looking place.

The Okinawa Jail... My God that theme was so good. I can’t really explain it but the song really made you feel like you were... Alone, like the place was truly abandoned and forgotten. As soon as the violin started playing I couldn’t help but just stop and listen to it. The overall jail was just so... Creepy. The Shadows there resemebled the shadows you would usually find in the previous Persona games, just this black mass slithering around. I think it was very fitting that they put the Reaper in this Jail. 

As I mentioned before, the Kyoto Jail theme is my absolute favourite. The fact that it has elements of other Persona 5 songs due to Akane being a big Phantom Thieves fan was such a good choice! I love how when you take a closer look, you can see the Phantom Thieves logo on the lanterns and the fact that Shadow Akane herself made a Phantom Thief outfit for herself... Big mood. I loved how all the Thieves encouraged her to try and get along with her dad better AND that they taught Zenkichi how to cook just so he can make curry for her, especially when you remember just how much curry means to someone like Futaba. 

I really liked the remix of Rivers in a Desert, then again what did I expect from a Persona game? The battle music is ALWAYS amazing. I really liked how this played when you fight Konoe as it parallels when you fight Shido in the original, supposedly the final fight, only to find out that there is something MUCH bigger than them.

Other things

This post is already way too long and if you read all of this... Thank you so much. Sadly, I cannot share this with any of my friends as it’s spoilers so I hope you guys don’t mind me sharing this here! I would love to see your opinion of this game!!!

Also? Yusuke and Akira are now canonically dating and I think that’s beautiful

And then that scene later on

Why do you think we came here with Yusuke, Morgana?

TL;DR: I love this game

#p5s #persona 5 #p5 #persona 5 strikers #persona 5 scramble #p5s spoilers #persona 5 scramble spoilers #persona 5 strikers spoilers

[blazehedgehog]

What was the honest reaction to Sonic 06 back in 2006?

It was a long time ago, so I can only really speak to my own perspective.

Sonic 2006 was the time that Sega’s marketing department really started cranking the hype train really, really hard. Sonic 2006 was announced as a fresh start. A soft reboot. Sonic Team said they were treating it like “the first Sonic game on the Sega Genesis.” You still had Tails, and Knuckles, and Shadow, but it was the start of a new era. A new type of Sonic the Hedgehog. More serious, more realistic, more “epic.”

At this point, there was no reason to necessarily distrust any of that. Yes, Sonic games had been slipping in quality, and yes, Sega was still more or less pretending that everything was “okay.” But that was always in the typical, “we’re trying to sell a video game and not go bankrupt” sense. This felt like a tacit acknowledgement that things weren’t so great and they were going to start over and refocus. Set things right.

Early gameplay footage looked rough. I distinctly remember a Gametrailers hands-on where they were demoing the Mach Speed Zone in Kingdom Valley, and the Sega representative was very clear and upfront that the game wasn’t done yet, and all of the empty space Sonic was running through would be filled in later. (It wasn’t.) There was also the typical debate over the TGS 2006 “Bringing it Home” playable demo, where people argued then, too, that the game wasn’t done yet, and not to judge things too harshly. The final version will be better.

The final version also wasn’t done yet. So, y’know.

I had effectively bought an Xbox 360 for this game. I was broke as per usual, but I’d gotten lucky and won a Gametrailers video competition, which landed me $1000 in Gamestop gift cards. I bought a PS2, a Nintendo DS, and an Xbox 360, plus more than a dozen games between the three platforms. I knew there would be more Xbox 360 games besides Sonic 2006, and I’d even originally wanted a 360 primarily for Elder Scrolls Oblivion, but the simple fact is that once the money was in my hands and I spent it, Sonic 2006 was the only actual Xbox 360 game I owned.

Or was going to own, anyway. I think I’d won the contest in September or October of 2006, when Sonic came out in November. So I bought the 360 a few weeks early with some original Xbox games, and spent the interim with Spider-man 2, Ninja Gaiden Black, and the copy of Halo 2 I borrowed from my cousin.

Sonic 2006 was the first game I’d ever pre-ordered. The second game, pre-ordered on the same day, was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Gamecube. I still have the tiny pre-order statue that came with Sonic. His gloves and socks, once white, have begun to yellow with age, and the skin tone on his face and body is turning an ashy gray.

Even 72 hours before launch, there was not a clear picture what Sonic 2006 actually was. Sega was deliberately obfuscating certain features; early in development they’d sworn up and down that there were only three playable characters in the game, something that blatantly wasn’t true. Perhaps it was miscommunication from Japan, but it meant they were now going out of their way to hide how many other playable characters were actually in the game. I naively distrusted most (if not all) professional reviewers back then, and the earliest scores for Sonic 2006 were all over the map.

As a Sonic fan, you kind of had to know how to read between the lines on the more negative reviews, because we were definitely in the era where it felt like critics were starting to dogpile on the Sonic franchise now that Sega was a third party developer. There weren’t a lot of professional reviews you could trust regarding Sonic games, or at least, that’s what it felt like. This was the rise of the podcast, and snarky hosts were taking whatever low hanging fruit they could get.

I remember waking up on launch day -- friends had gotten up early and picked theirs up in the morning, when I’d rolled out of bed somewhere closer to noon (or maybe even afternoon). I had plans to pick up my copy later that evening, after sunset. My friends did not sound happy, but again, there was always this vibe of “Wait and see.” They had only just started the game. First impressions were still too fresh to really call.

But I had this moment, this cold spot in the pit of my stomach, where I thought “Maybe I can cancel the pre-order and get Gears of War instead?” Reviews for Gears seemed pretty good. I’d probably be happy with it instead of Sonic.

I couldn’t let myself do that. I was a Sonic fan. This was the first big Sonic game of a new generation. A new start. I bought the console for this. First game I ever pre-ordered. The second Sonic game in the history of the franchise I’d bought on launch day. This was it. This was the event. No backing down. Besides, Sonic 2006 was a big 15th Anniversary celebration game. They wouldn’t make such a big deal about the anniversary without just cause, right? Sonic 2006 was going to be great. I just needed to calm down.

So we drove out to Gamestop -- and it was the sort of thing where I think we couldn’t do the pre-order at my local Gamestop for some reason, so this one was a town or two over. It was a journey. I was nervous the whole way there. Something told me I was making a mistake. But I had to do this.

I think it may have been starting to rain as we rolled up on the store. It was around 8pm, and people were starting to camp out on the sidewalk. Literally camp out, tents and all, because of the rain. Today was the launch date for Sonic 2006, but tomorrow was the launch of the Playstation 3. These guys were here for Gamestop’s “Midnight Madness” launch event. They were going to be some of the first to get a PS3. I was probably the last person to pick up a Sonic 2006 pre-order.

Sonic 2006 might have been the first Sonic game to ever make me angry. I’d had a lot of internet debates on how I felt about Sonic Adventure 2, but most of those amounted to splitting hairs about things that felt disappointing when compared to the original Sonic Adventure. I was not angry then, I was simply let down. I was similarly let down when I finally got a chance to play Sonic Heroes. But again, not angry. Baffled, maybe. A little sad. But not angry.

With Sonic 2006, I slammed head first in to all of my excitement and uncertainty at 200mph. This was a Sonic game unlike anything I’d ever played before, and in all of the worst possible ways. Enough has been said about the quality of the game that I don’t need to describe anything that’s wrong with it -- also because literally everything was wrong with it. Perhaps the first video game I’d ever played, ever, on any platform, that actually fought back against your efforts to play it. A disaster in every sense of the word. A broken nightmare. After finishing Sonic’s story, I was mad. How could they let this happen? What was wrong with them?

I was less angry after having finished Shadow’s story. Shadow had even buggier gameplay than Sonic, but it also felt more complex, more action-oriented. His story was better, too -- instead of the sappy Princess love story, Shadow’s story was about how the world was against him, and the crossroads that brought him to: rise above his past and strive to be a better person, or give in to the temptations of evil? It was still dumb as heck, but it was less dumb than Sonic’s story.

By the time the credits rolled, I had accepted the fact that this game was a mess. More of a mess than any Sonic game ever had been before. It was clearly a deeply unfinished game. Friends theorized maybe they could patch the game, because that was a thing games could get now. Sonic 2006 could still be saved. The PS3 version wouldn’t be out for another month, surely that means they’re working on a fix, right? Some were even theorizing over an achievement called “Nights of Kronos” -- it mentioned a “complete ending to the last hidden story.” Perhaps that meant there was going to be more? Maybe we got the bad ending, and a better, more finished ending was waiting for us on the disc somewhere?

There wasn’t. And no patch ever fixed the game. That was Sonic 2006 -- the kiss, the loading screens, the strange mannequin NPCs, the stiff controls, the glitchy physics, the empty overworlds, the bizarre dialog, the plotholes and time paradoxes, that’s just what the game was, and was always going to be, forever.

Before Sonic 2006, you could say that 3D Sonic games were bad, but there was always a place to defend them from. They had problems, but they were never irredeemable. Sonic Heroes may have had frustrating controls and repetitive level design, but it had great art direction, nice music, and fun concepts. They were always trying, dang it, and it was obvious to see that.

Sonic 2006 felt irredeemable. Offensively terrible. A failure on such a level that it was hard to comprehend. Beyond simply “a new low” for the franchise. This felt like rock bottom. It was the kind of bad that spread like a virus. Even good games, like Sonic 2 on the Sega Genesis, felt notably tarnished by the existence of Sonic 2006. It threatened to ruin the entire franchise by proximity alone. For some, it probably did. I definitely had a moment where I wondered if I would ever enjoy a Sonic game in the same way ever again. They were all tainted now. Infected by memories of Sonic 2006, the game that was supposed to save the franchise, but condemned it to the lowest pits of hell.

In isolation, that might have been the end for me. I might have continued to drift away, bit by bit, until I found greener hills outside of the Sonic franchise.

I’ve said this before, but what saved me was getting hired to write for TSSZ News. Now, suddenly, I was paid to play and write about Sonic games. It was a duty. And it helped that the first Sonic game I reviewed for TSSZ ended up being Sonic Unleashed, a game I continue to openly gush about to this day, more than a decade after its release.

But never forget that Sonic 2006 was such a disaster that it nearly made me give up Sonic the Hedgehog. It really was that bad.

#questions #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic 2006 #tssz news #Anonymous

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Watching Snyderverse Part 3 - Zack Snyder’s Justice League

After BvS, I was honestly not particularly looking forward to Justice League. For me, it was obvious that Snyder’s versions of these characters and his overall doom and gloom approach was not something I was particularly enjoying despite some promising elements in both MoS and BvS. Then we saw exactly how JL production went down. Despite the happy face they tried to paint, the fact that there was going to be a 2 hour mandate, the fact that Whedon basically reshot a bunch of Snyder’s film with the film being a mishmash of two directors who couldn’t be any more different in their sensibilities, and that that the actors, specifically Ben Affleck, looked like they couldn’t wait to be done with this movie and this role, made it obvious that the movie wasn’t going to turn out well. So my expectations were rock bottom for the theatrical cut. As it happens, that was a good thing. The theatrical cut of JL is a thoroughly unremarkable movie. I don’t abhor it but it is so obviously a patchwork job and a studio mandated film that there is no passion or vision in the movie at all. I mean, I didn’t like BvS much at all, but there was a vision there. Theatrical cut of JL seemed like a film that felt like WB just felt they had to put out there and then move on. And then years later, we get Zack Snyder’s full version of Justice League. I watched it in one sitting, which was maybe a mistake because it is heavy viewing for 4 hours. Without a doubt it is a better movie than the theatrical cut. Its a little tough to judge this film because this is no way a movie that would have been released theatrically. But its also impossible to judge on what it may have been if it was edited down to a 3 hour length. So best to just judge it on its own merits.

Firstly, the positives. This is definitely a more coherent and clear movie. The plot is not rushed and every sequence, be it a character moment or an action sequence, is fully realized without any weird edits. The film does have some more humor than the previous two Snyder films. Mainly courtesy of Ezra Miller and Jeremy Irons. And the humor is not awkward like in the theatrical cut. Ezra Miller in particular benefits from that because some of his cringey lines from the theatrical edition are cut. The special effects are largely impressive and definitely an improvement over the theatrical edition. On a character level, definitely Cyborg gets the most benefit out of all the characters. As we get a full and thorough backstory for him. We get insight into his relationship with both his parents. Steppenwolf also gets significantly more screen time and his motivations are definitely more clearly defined in the movie than in the theatrical. Miller and Momoa also get some more scenes to flesh out their individual characters. What does surprise me is that the film contains a lot of scenes which are essentially just alternate versions of scenes from the theatrical cut. The film isn’t radically different from the theatrical version, but the scenes included in this version feel a little more real. Like a scene with the entire League discussing Superman’s return in the theatrical cut made it obvious that the actors weren’t in the same room together, whereas the original scene in this movie has them clearly in the same physical space. The Superman scenes are also infinitely better without the CGI upper lip. Thankfully, Snyder doesn’t do what he did with the previous two movies and gives some breathing room between action sequences. Probably a bit too much time, but that’s better than no time at all. the tunnel action sequence and the climax set piece is definitely pretty cool. Flash actually having an active role in the climax was a big improvement. My favorite action sequence is still the Superman vs the League because it shows just how powerful Superman can be. Also, the color palette is a lot more consistent and better than the weird bright and red color palette that is used in the theatrical cut.

When it comes down to the performances from the cast, nobody really stands out. They are all fine, but unlike in BvS, where Affleck stood out. Everybody here is just motoring along. In the theatrical cut, Affleck looked completely checked out. I was hoping the original cut would beef up his performance. While it is slightly better, he’s still just a bit too restrained in the role and doesn’t leave the type of impression he left in BvS. Everyone is at their most dour self. Gal Gadot’s WW is more serious and therefore does not get to show her more radiant side in Patty Jenkins’ movies, Momoa is also similarly more dour and serious and not quite as fun as he was in Aquaman. Ray Fisher is decent but its a role that requires him to be very robotic for large chunks of the film. So its a little difficult to assess his performance. Cavill is in far too little of the movie to give much of a performance. He’s perfectly fine in the handful of scenes he has. Miller is probably the best of the lot, even though he’s still more Peter Parker than Barry Allen. Some of the supporting cast actually fare a little better. Irons is a delight whenever he’s on screen and Affleck is also at his best when they have scenes together. That dynamic works. Joe Morton is surprisingly affecting as Silas Stone, as is Billy Crudup in his brief scenes as Henry Allen. Its always nice to see more of Willem Dafoe, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, and JK Simmons. Simmons as Gordon was great casting and its a pity we won’t get to see more of him in that role. Amber Heard for some perplexing reason has a British accent in this film as Mera. Given Dafoe and Momoa both speak in their normal voices, that must have been a choice. It did feel a bit funny. Jared Leto and Jesse Eisenberg are back as Joker and Lex and neither of them particularly improve on their performances. I mean, they have a scene each so its no harm done, but the Joker scene particularly drags on for too long. Amy Adams has a small role and she does manage to make to get some emotion out of a handful of scenes.

The film has more than its fair share of issues. Firstly, it is just way, way too long. The pacing is glacially slow at times. And I mean that in the most literal manner. There is so much slow mo in this movie, its crazy. I swear, if you removed the slow motion, you might lose 20 minutes of the run time. Snyder is clearly in desperate need of an editor here. The film has the exact opposite problem of the theatrical cut. Whereas in the theatrical cut, it always felt that every scene was just edited a little too short, in this movie there are scenes that are going on for far too long. There are some very strange edits. Like an entire scene where women in the village are singing hyms when Arthur leaves and smelling his clothes. There is a meet cute between Iris and Barry which is completely unnecessary and is frankly slightly creepy where Barry is caressing her face while she is in the process of being thrown out of her car. Some music choices in these scenes are also a little bizarre. Everything involving the Martian Manhunter is not necessary. I mean, his involvement in a crucial Martha and Lois scene actually takes away from the emotion of that moment. And then he has a very tacked on final scene which is kind of awkward. The Knightmare scene also drags for a bit too long, especially given they are supposed to be in danger while being out in the open. We still have no more clarity as to why Bruce is having these visions. The slow pace does make things boring at times as well. While I am glad that Cyborg’s backstory gets beefed up, there is a bit too much of Cyborg being angry at his father. After a while, it gets monotonous. The film takes too long to get the team together and the first JL action sequence doesn’t happen until over 2 hours into the movie. The film should have spent a bit more time with the team interacting with one another. That’s what made the Avengers movies work and some of the best parts of this movie are also the team together. There are some Snyder tone deaf moments as per usual. While WW’s entry action sequence is very cool, I do find it funny that they have her comforting a girl and the girl wanting to be just like her after she basically obliterates the terrorist into dust. Given her abilities shown in that sequence, there is no reason she wouldn’t have been able to disable him. But instead she just obliterates him. Its all very Snyder. I do also have to wonder about that sequence. I still don’t get exactly how terrorists feel that blowing up a few city blocks will bring down the modern age. I thought this was a weird Whedon thing but it turns out to be a weird Snyder thing. Also, for all the hype about the black suit Superman, its really nothing more than an aesthetic choice for no rhyme or reason. I honestly prefer the Blue and Red if the black suit doesn’t have a point, like the restorative factor from the comics. Also, for all the blame people put on Whedon about the skimpy outfits on Amazons and the weird backside shots of WW, turns out they were all Snyder. There are a few select things that the Whedon cut did slightly better. For example, there is no real major debate or conflict within the team other than minor objections from Arthur over the implications of using the mother box to bring back Superman. Also, a sequence in the theatrical cut where Bruce admits that Clark was more human that he was, is a better version of a similar scene in this movie. Also, while not perfectly executed, the theatrical cut did acknowledge that Bruce was a human fighting amongst superpowered individuals. Also, most importantly, while Steppenwolf is an improvement over the theatrical cut, this is still a movie where the plot involves a villain trying to find three boxes. Steppenwolf is still pretty boring and the main story is not interesting at all. The Darkseid angle of this story is also overhyped since he’s barely in the film. 

In the end, it feels that there is a pretty decent 3 hour movie hidden in an ok but dragged out 4 hour film. I’m glad the Snyder fans got to see it. I have had my issues with Snyder’s vision. While I feel he has grand ambitions and a sense of scale and scope, he hasn’t really got the sense of story and script to really make it work to a degree where the audience at large would appreciate it. I have seen his old storyboards and read his recent interviews about what he was going to do. It sounds very grand and very cool, but with a big potential of being a gigantic mess. Who knows what will happen in the future but at least it right now seems that they are moving on from Snyder’s vision. For this film, I am right now landing at about a 6/10, which is the highest mark out of all the Snyder DC movies. I’ve only watched it once and watching it again is a big endeavor so I won’t do it anytime soon, but maybe revisiting it will make me either like it more or less.

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